- See also other ships called Talon-class and Theta-class.
The Lanora-class (often translated or otherwise referred to as Scout, Talon or Theta-class[3]) was a type of small Romulan scout vessel in service of the Romulan Star Empire's Star Navy in the late-24th century, first commissioned in 2362. (TNG episode: "The Defector"; Decipher RPG module: Starships; CCG set: Premiere, card: "Scout Vessel", CCG set: Second Edition, card: "Romulan Scout Vessel"; TNG video game: Armada)
Overview[]
Lanora-class vessels were used by the Romulan Empire for variety of missions; much like the Starfleet Danube-class runabout the Lanora-class could function both as a support vessel to larger ships (often used aboard D'deridex-class warbirds as a shuttlecraft) or independently on missions at both short and long range.
The class was originally designed primarily as a courier, for diplomatic missions within Romulan space. Upon entering service the class also saw service as a scout and on missions of scientific exploration. After its successful use by the Star Navy the Tal Shiar also began to use the class on espionage missions. (Decipher RPG module: Starships)
In their capacity as a scout vessels of this class were sometimes fitted with tachyon detection grid devices which enhanced their sensor arrays to allow them to detect other cloaked vessels. (TNG video games: Armada, Armada II)
History[]
During the Romulan-Vulcan War.
A ship of this design was active during the Vulcan-Romulan War. At one point, such a scout ship performed a strafe run on a Vulcan facility. (Last Unicorn RPG module: The Way of D'era)
Following the development of the D'deridex-class warbirds a proposal was put before the Romulan Senate for a new class of smaller vessel for use on diplomatic missions, to free up the larger vessels in the fleet for other operations. The class used a warp drive based on plans for a compact warp drive that would eventually be used in Starfleet runabouts which were obtained by the Tal Shiar from Starfleet's Advanced Starship Design Bureau. The class was first commissioned in 2362 with the first ships entering full active service in 2364.
After successful use on a variety of missions for the Romulan Star Navy the Tal Shiar also began to make use of the class, using it to ferry agents in Federation and Cardassian space, including the mission to plant the spy Selok as Vulcan ambassador T'Pel. (Decipher RPG module: Starships)
In 2366 the Federation first encountered a ship of this class when the scout ship Pi crashed on Galorndon Core, although the ship was destroyed by the Romulans after crashing to prevent the Federation accessing it. A short time later another Lanora-class vessel was used by Admiral Alidar Jarok to cross the neutral zone when he defected to the Federation, though he too set the ship's self destruct to prevent the vessel falling into Federation hands. (TNG episodes: "The Enemy", "The Defector")
By the 2370s the class was in wide use by the Empire, including service throughout the Borg incidents of 2376 and 2377. (TNG video games: Armada, Armada II)
By the 25th century, the vessel had been reclassified as a Jarok-class commander's gig. From the year 2409 onward, the Romulan Republic Navy offered commander's gigs to flag officers. (STO - Klingon War mission: "Welcome to Earth Spacedock")
Known vessels[]
| This article or subsection has an associated category. | Lanora class starships |
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Appendices[]
Background[]
- ↑ There is some discrepancy in the scale of this class. The Star Trek Encyclopedia shows the class to be about a third the length of the D7-class which would make it approximately one-hundred-and-twenty meters in length. Decipher RPG module: Starships however describes it at a similar size to a Starfleet runabout or Romulan shuttle at just under twenty-five meters long. The games Armada and Armada II scale the class to be comparable to the Federation's Venture-class, which is consistent with the runabout sizing of the Starships module, while the game Legacy has the class larger again, similar the Encyclopedia scale.
- ↑ Decipher RPG module: Starships gives the class' "standard" warp speed as warp 5, and "sustainable" warp speed as warp 8.
- ↑ The name Lanora comes from a card in the Star Trek Customizable Card Game's Second Edition. An earlier CCG card in the Premiere set identified the class as Scout-class. Theta-class is used in the Decipher RPG module: Starships, while Talon is used in the video games Armada, Armada II, and Legacy. Lanora is presumably the Romulan language designation, while Scout, Talon and Theta are Federation Standard translations or designations.
- The Decipher RPG module: Starships identifies the vessel which was destroyed with Senator Vreenak aboard, as described in the DS9 episode: "In the Pale Moonlight", as a member of this class. However the Romulan shuttle shown in the episode is clearly of a very different design. Given the senator's ship's destruction was not actually seen on screen, one possibly explanation for this apparent discrepancy is that the shuttle that was seen was a short range craft used to ferry the senator to one of these scout vessels; which was the vessel he subsequently died on.
Connections[]
External links[]
- Lanora class article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Commander's Gig article at Star Trek Online Wiki.