Romulan bird-of-prey

The Romulan Bird-of-Prey is a classification of starship used by the Romulan Star Empire. They are typically small and agile classes of ships which have made up much of the Romulan fleet along side the larger Warbird classes.



T'Liss class
The T'Liss class was a small class of Bird-of-Prey used by the Romulans in the 22nd century. A number of this class were modified with telepathic remote equipment and holographic masking systems to be used as remote drones. (ENT novel: The Good That Men Do; episodes: Babel One, United & The Aenar)

22nd century Bird-of-Prey
The Romulans had another, quite differently designed Bird-of-Prey class in operation in the 22nd century. Vessels of this class were the first to make contact with Humans when the Earth ship Enterprise (NX-01) stumbled into a Romulan mine field in 2152 and was warned of by two vessels of the class. This class was used as a test bed for unsuccessful primitive cloaking devices by the Romulans. (ENT episode: Minefield; novel: The Good That Men Do)

23rd century Bird-of-Prey
A century later a descendant of the 22nd century Bird-of-Prey was used as the test bed for a new and far more successful cloaking device. This class was first encountered by James T. Kirk's Enterprise when the Romulans used it in strikes on Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone in 2266. The Bird-of-Prey was a similar size to its 22nd-century counterpart but was armed with a powerful plasma weapon and the new cloaking device. This advanced weaponry used a great deal of power making the use of warp drive in this class impossible at times. (TOS episode: Balance of Terror)


 * Several FASA RPG supplements refer to this class as the V-8 Bird of Prey-class.