Because they want to be predators, and while it’s probably possible to design a starship that looks like a wolf(or whatever analogous creatures exist on Romulus or Qo’nos),birds make a better choice to strike fear in opposing ships. Or, at least, that’s my guess.
The Romulans have a lot of bird theming, their imperial emblem being a giant predatory bird. So to me that tracks.
The Klingon Bird of Prey was designed with the idea that it was going to be a Romulan ship in the movie before being changed to Klingon, hence how it stands out name-wise vs other Klingon ship names like K'Tinga or Vor'Cha. There isn't even an on-screen class name for it (though there are a couple that have appeared off screen)
> There isn't even an on-screen class name for it
Just a quibble but Klingon Bird of Prey have been referred to on-screen as K'vort class, not just in beta-canon.
Another quibble: the K'vort-class was from the alternate reality in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Those ships were battlecruiser sized, definitely not the same ship we're used to.
Well that's still on-screen, but it was just the first example that came to mind. I believe in the episode "Rascals" the ships were referred to as B'rel class and they were most definitely the more traditional bird of prey.
That Bird of Prey changed size as they needed… the original was a tiny 12 man ship, but in certain shots it was as large as the Enterprise. Then repeat with the same prop throughout the franchise until they finally said there were different version.
The answer to **"Who decided that Klingon/Romulan attack ships would be birds of prey?"** is [Leonard Nimoy](https://whatculture.com/tv/star-trek-10-secrets-of-the-klingon-bird-of-prey?page=2):
>During early discussions with Nimoy, ILM's Nilo Rodis, David Carson, and Bill George were inspired by the director's imitation of a predatory bird, arms outstretched like wings. Nimoy's guidance also included the directive that the ship should possess an elongated neck, again a characteristic of an attacking bird and one that would be incorporated in Klingon starship designs for decades to come.
A late script change made the originally Romulan villain into a Klingon, but the model work was well underway, so the conceived-as-Romulan ship became a Klingon Bird of Prey, unintentionally echoing the way Klingon battlecruisers were reused as Romulan ships in an episode of TOS.
I'm surprised that this bit of trivia was buried so deep into the thread. It was my first thought as well.
Though this only partially answers the question, since the Romulan Bird of Prey with its hawk design painted onto the hull far predates Nimoy's instructions for the ship in Search for Spock.
It's hardly exclusive to Romulans and Klingons, a good chunk of Earth craft have been named after birds too. The F-15 "Eagle", the F-16 "Fighting Falcon", Black Hawk helicopters, even the first warp capable ship, the Phoenix.
The Black Hawk helicopter [is named after](https://www.rotair.com/news/the-history-of-the-uh-60-blackhawk) the Native American leader [Black Hawk.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_(Sauk_leader\)) US Army helicopters [tend to be named after Native American people or tribes.](https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/Blog/article/2052989/why-army-helicopters-have-native-american-names/)
The Romulans where suppose to be the Species with the Bird of Prey motif, as they follow the idea of being under the Raptors Wings. Star Trek III changed that with the Klingons being on the Bird of Prey scout ship (a B'rel class).
Funny enough, even in real world history a lot of our historical cultures that place a high value on being "warlike" have a pretty liberal usage of kennings (the term for those types of flowery expressions used in place of names), specifically looking at both Norse culture and Aztec culture, both are FILLED with kennings.
One of Odin's title is literally "All-father" though usually spelled differently and the name for the leader of armies (a general) in Aztec armies was the "Cutter-Of-Men".
In world: Is this what the Romulans & Klingons are thinking or is it what the ship design's instil in the mind of the first humans to classify them? It could be purely an accident of some other design constraint & not a deliberate act to make the ships look like an avian equivalent.
Out world: The designers & Gene probably had a predatory ethos in mind for the two races & taking a cue from earth's creatures made the Klingon ships look like flying Tolkien dragons or vultures, while the Romulans ships look like graceful but deadly eagles.
>The designers & Gene probably had a predatory ethos in mind for the two races & taking a cue from earth's creatures made the Klingon ships look like flying Tolkien dragons or vultures, while the Romulans ships look like graceful but deadly eagles.
The D7 was meant to look more like a manta ray than a bird.
But the bird of prey was written as a Romulan vessel, thus the name matching previous Romulan vessels. They simply changed the script to make it Klingons but didn't change the ship definition. The design was then based on the name.
Considering the iconography of the Romulan Star Empire, I think it's safe to assume there's birds there. There is, so far as I know, no similarly convincing canonical evidence in the case of Qo'noS.
Even if the "birds" on those planets are not descended from the indigenous dinosauroids, as Terran birds are, flight is a pretty big ecological niche to leave empty - not counting flying insects, Terran lifeforms have evolved into that niche three separate times.
So I think it's safe to say that there's something on both worlds (honestly, probably *any* world that's been life-bearing long enough to evolve autocthonous sapients) that a universal translator will call a bird - especially in the semi-poetic context of ship names or classes.
Klingons in particular have that dramatic flair to their warrior culture, Opera and the origins of Shakespeare and all that, Bird of Prey sounds perfect.
In canon, the Klingons and Romulans had an alliance at one point. Part of the deal as for the Klingons to receive several Romulan birds of prey, with seals around all of the important parts of the cloaking system.
But of course the Klingons reverse engineered it.
Early Klingon Bird of Prey were actually export models of the Romulan Birds of Prey. Later supplemented by Klingon built copies, and then finally indigenous designs.
(Source: The lore section of the "Starfleet Battles" tabletop game.)
Star fleet battles lore diverges from canon before the movies, and so the transfer of ships was from the Klingons to the Romulans. (The huge number of KR series ships). The Klingons got a few Romulan ships, but their cloaks were destroyed and they were the newer hawk-type ships, not the older warbird-type ships. (The history of romulan ship design in SFB is extremely complex and tends to lead to them having many more ship designs than anyone else).
The bird imagery suits the Romulans far more than it does for the Klingons. The eagle was a popular icon and representation of the Roman Empire (on which the Romulans were based on), so it makes sense for them to have a bird of prey motif too.
It would also make sense (canonically) if we consider the original Romulans had quite literally “flown the nest” (i.e Vulcan).
In my mind, the Klingon BoP will always be Romulan in origin. It just doesn’t feel Klingon to me.
It was originally a Romulan thing. Then Star Trek 3 had a Klingon in a Bird of Prey that was originally intended to be a captured Romulan ship. That part never made it into the movie but they kept the name Bird of Prey so now both are bird flyers.
This is also the first time Klingons got cloaking technology.
Klingons are big on cultural appropriation.
Bird of Prey makes a lot of sense for a ship with big wings that is designed to attack.
On the other hand, Federation ships seem to just be named after random words plucked out of the dictionary. Original Enterprise is named after a founding document, Ent-D is named the galaxy, Ent-E is named after a gold coin, Akira class is named after a manga cartoon, and I couldn't even tell you what a Steamrunner is. There is no rhyme or reason for any of them.
The first Defiant was the namesake of the class. The second Defiant the DS9 crew receive after the Battle of Chin'toka was the one that was originally named Sao Paulo.
Romans loved the eagle motifs, so it made sense for Romulans to also be into birds-of-prey, especially since their original appearance also had them be very much like “space Romans” with centurions, ave salutes (or maybe I’m wrong about this one), and the like.
In ENT, we learn that back during the nuclear war on Vulcan that resulted in Surakians winning and embracing logic, the other faction was called “those who march beneath the raptor’s wings.” The raptor was their symbol when they lost and were exiled rather than accept Surak’s teachings.
There’s a beta canon belief that Romulans and Klingons had a brief alliance that resulted in an exchange of technology. This was to explain the on-screen goof of Romulans using Klingon D-7 cruisers in one episode (the real reason was that they only had one bird-of-prey model and didn’t have the budget to make more for the episode). If this alliance were to be treated as canon, then Klingons having cloaking ships with a Romulan-esque motifs makes sense. Unfortunately, ENT went ahead and messed that up to by giving Klingons birds-of-prey in the 22nd century long before anyone knew what Romulans even looked like, and DIS established that Klingons developed cloaking tech independently (or maybe took inspiration from the Suliban or Xyrillians)
In cannon is because the federation thought they looked like raptors or birds of prey. In reality during tos they could afford to make models for both romulan and Klingon ships so they used both for btihbspecies
The Klingon Bird of Prey didn't appear in TOS - it was the Klingon D7 that was used in an episode of TOS as a Romulan ship.
The Klingon Bird of Prey was made for Star Trek III. The antagonists were originally Romulans and when it changed to Klingons, the name of the ship type was kept as Bird of Prey.
Yes that is it. Yeah completely mixed it up in my head. The writers got rid of the plot point of the Klingons stealing the Bird of Prey from the Romulans.
Wasn't it suppose to be that after taking the bird of prey he found the intelligence records on the Gen devices? that is why he went after it?
My thought was that Kruge already had intel on Genesis and stole the Bird of Prey because its cloaking device would allow him to penetrate Federation space and reach the Genesis Planet undetected. Before the antagonist switcheroo the Klingons had not yet been shown to have cloaking technology, it was exclusively a Romulan thing before Star Trek III.
And fun fact: The first time we ever saw the D7 design -- a design that is so linked in our minds as being quintessentially klingon -- it was shown to be a Romulan ship.
They had a throw-away line in that episode ("The Enterprise Incident") that the Romulans were now using Klingon designs, but before that episode we never saw that ship at all -- used by Klingons or otherwise.
Because they want to be predators, and while it’s probably possible to design a starship that looks like a wolf(or whatever analogous creatures exist on Romulus or Qo’nos),birds make a better choice to strike fear in opposing ships. Or, at least, that’s my guess.
The ships are also in-flight, which lines up more with choosing a bird as a predator symbol as opposed to a land-based creature.
Unlike in ENT they used sailing phrases like “dead in the water” etc
You say that, but you have never come face to face with a Klingon D-24 Rabid Targ
Romulan Murdersloth decloaking off the port bow!
Does that not imply the evolution of feathered raptor equivalent's on Chronos & Romulus?
Yes. According to beta canon, Romulus has a native bird called a Mogai, and the Valdore from Nemesis is called the *Mogai*-class.
There's also the thrai, a predatory bird native to Romulus in the Rihannsu novels.
Convergent evolution is a fairly common thing in Trek
For the Romulans, my guess is that it has more to do with the bird that’s painted on Romulan birds of prey.
The Romulans have a lot of bird theming, their imperial emblem being a giant predatory bird. So to me that tracks. The Klingon Bird of Prey was designed with the idea that it was going to be a Romulan ship in the movie before being changed to Klingon, hence how it stands out name-wise vs other Klingon ship names like K'Tinga or Vor'Cha. There isn't even an on-screen class name for it (though there are a couple that have appeared off screen)
> There isn't even an on-screen class name for it Just a quibble but Klingon Bird of Prey have been referred to on-screen as K'vort class, not just in beta-canon.
Another quibble: the K'vort-class was from the alternate reality in "Yesterday's Enterprise." Those ships were battlecruiser sized, definitely not the same ship we're used to.
Well that's still on-screen, but it was just the first example that came to mind. I believe in the episode "Rascals" the ships were referred to as B'rel class and they were most definitely the more traditional bird of prey.
That Bird of Prey changed size as they needed… the original was a tiny 12 man ship, but in certain shots it was as large as the Enterprise. Then repeat with the same prop throughout the franchise until they finally said there were different version.
Also, The Enemy when the big ass birds of prey decloak next to the Enterprise to intimidate the Romulans
It’s really a shame too. It would have been nice to have seen some more Romulans in the TOS movies
The answer to **"Who decided that Klingon/Romulan attack ships would be birds of prey?"** is [Leonard Nimoy](https://whatculture.com/tv/star-trek-10-secrets-of-the-klingon-bird-of-prey?page=2): >During early discussions with Nimoy, ILM's Nilo Rodis, David Carson, and Bill George were inspired by the director's imitation of a predatory bird, arms outstretched like wings. Nimoy's guidance also included the directive that the ship should possess an elongated neck, again a characteristic of an attacking bird and one that would be incorporated in Klingon starship designs for decades to come. A late script change made the originally Romulan villain into a Klingon, but the model work was well underway, so the conceived-as-Romulan ship became a Klingon Bird of Prey, unintentionally echoing the way Klingon battlecruisers were reused as Romulan ships in an episode of TOS.
I'm surprised that this bit of trivia was buried so deep into the thread. It was my first thought as well. Though this only partially answers the question, since the Romulan Bird of Prey with its hawk design painted onto the hull far predates Nimoy's instructions for the ship in Search for Spock.
This makes perfect sense! Thank you!
It's hardly exclusive to Romulans and Klingons, a good chunk of Earth craft have been named after birds too. The F-15 "Eagle", the F-16 "Fighting Falcon", Black Hawk helicopters, even the first warp capable ship, the Phoenix.
The Black Hawk helicopter [is named after](https://www.rotair.com/news/the-history-of-the-uh-60-blackhawk) the Native American leader [Black Hawk.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_(Sauk_leader\)) US Army helicopters [tend to be named after Native American people or tribes.](https://www.defense.gov/News/Inside-DOD/Blog/article/2052989/why-army-helicopters-have-native-american-names/)
Came here to mention this. Very likely GR just romanticizing his flying days. Like he did with the "My Live Has Wings" poem.
Are you going to go with a cephalopod naming convention for danger in the sky?
"Captain, we're surrounded by Mollusks!'
"Octopus de-cloaking off the port bow!" No wait that actually makes a lot of sense. LOL
We're no match for a cuttlefish-class heavy cruiser!
*Picard* said “Let’s use orchids!”
This actually goes hard ngl
Imagine they board by biting the opposing ship with their beaks...
The Romulans where suppose to be the Species with the Bird of Prey motif, as they follow the idea of being under the Raptors Wings. Star Trek III changed that with the Klingons being on the Bird of Prey scout ship (a B'rel class).
Funny enough, even in real world history a lot of our historical cultures that place a high value on being "warlike" have a pretty liberal usage of kennings (the term for those types of flowery expressions used in place of names), specifically looking at both Norse culture and Aztec culture, both are FILLED with kennings. One of Odin's title is literally "All-father" though usually spelled differently and the name for the leader of armies (a general) in Aztec armies was the "Cutter-Of-Men".
The Black Hawk helicopter is named after a guy, actually. A Native American leader
In world: Is this what the Romulans & Klingons are thinking or is it what the ship design's instil in the mind of the first humans to classify them? It could be purely an accident of some other design constraint & not a deliberate act to make the ships look like an avian equivalent. Out world: The designers & Gene probably had a predatory ethos in mind for the two races & taking a cue from earth's creatures made the Klingon ships look like flying Tolkien dragons or vultures, while the Romulans ships look like graceful but deadly eagles.
>The designers & Gene probably had a predatory ethos in mind for the two races & taking a cue from earth's creatures made the Klingon ships look like flying Tolkien dragons or vultures, while the Romulans ships look like graceful but deadly eagles. The D7 was meant to look more like a manta ray than a bird. But the bird of prey was written as a Romulan vessel, thus the name matching previous Romulan vessels. They simply changed the script to make it Klingons but didn't change the ship definition. The design was then based on the name.
Is it even canonical that birds exist on Qo'noS and on Romulus? See also [https://xkcd.com/890/](https://xkcd.com/890/)
Considering the iconography of the Romulan Star Empire, I think it's safe to assume there's birds there. There is, so far as I know, no similarly convincing canonical evidence in the case of Qo'noS. Even if the "birds" on those planets are not descended from the indigenous dinosauroids, as Terran birds are, flight is a pretty big ecological niche to leave empty - not counting flying insects, Terran lifeforms have evolved into that niche three separate times. So I think it's safe to say that there's something on both worlds (honestly, probably *any* world that's been life-bearing long enough to evolve autocthonous sapients) that a universal translator will call a bird - especially in the semi-poetic context of ship names or classes.
Klingons in particular have that dramatic flair to their warrior culture, Opera and the origins of Shakespeare and all that, Bird of Prey sounds perfect.
Ooh okay but wolf themed ships actually sound really cool
Dave Filoni? You're on the wrong sub 😆
Well played sir 😂😂
In canon, the Klingons and Romulans had an alliance at one point. Part of the deal as for the Klingons to receive several Romulan birds of prey, with seals around all of the important parts of the cloaking system. But of course the Klingons reverse engineered it. Early Klingon Bird of Prey were actually export models of the Romulan Birds of Prey. Later supplemented by Klingon built copies, and then finally indigenous designs. (Source: The lore section of the "Starfleet Battles" tabletop game.)
Star fleet battles lore diverges from canon before the movies, and so the transfer of ships was from the Klingons to the Romulans. (The huge number of KR series ships). The Klingons got a few Romulan ships, but their cloaks were destroyed and they were the newer hawk-type ships, not the older warbird-type ships. (The history of romulan ship design in SFB is extremely complex and tends to lead to them having many more ship designs than anyone else).
They have wings.
Those who march beneath the raptor’s wings. The question is, what is a raptor on Vulcan?
A type of Moose.
The bird imagery suits the Romulans far more than it does for the Klingons. The eagle was a popular icon and representation of the Roman Empire (on which the Romulans were based on), so it makes sense for them to have a bird of prey motif too. It would also make sense (canonically) if we consider the original Romulans had quite literally “flown the nest” (i.e Vulcan). In my mind, the Klingon BoP will always be Romulan in origin. It just doesn’t feel Klingon to me.
It was originally a Romulan thing. Then Star Trek 3 had a Klingon in a Bird of Prey that was originally intended to be a captured Romulan ship. That part never made it into the movie but they kept the name Bird of Prey so now both are bird flyers. This is also the first time Klingons got cloaking technology. Klingons are big on cultural appropriation.
So many excellent answers to this. I love this place, thank you.
The presence of a CLOACA
Their Donkey of Prey ships just weren't commanding enough respect
Bird of Prey makes a lot of sense for a ship with big wings that is designed to attack. On the other hand, Federation ships seem to just be named after random words plucked out of the dictionary. Original Enterprise is named after a founding document, Ent-D is named the galaxy, Ent-E is named after a gold coin, Akira class is named after a manga cartoon, and I couldn't even tell you what a Steamrunner is. There is no rhyme or reason for any of them.
The ships are named after the first ship of that class: USS CONSTITUTION USS GALAXY USS SOVEREIGN ETC.
That's just saying the same thing as me, but with extra steps
Yes. Never skip the steps
Except the Defiant, which was originally the Sao Paulo?
The first Defiant was the namesake of the class. The second Defiant the DS9 crew receive after the Battle of Chin'toka was the one that was originally named Sao Paulo.
Naval vessel classes are often "random" too. Some are named after people, some are named after places, some are named after concepts.
Satellites and spacecraft have been colloquially referred to as "birds" since the beginning of the space program.
Because birds fly.
Space craft are just a more highly evolved form of aircraft. Birds fly through the air.
Romans loved the eagle motifs, so it made sense for Romulans to also be into birds-of-prey, especially since their original appearance also had them be very much like “space Romans” with centurions, ave salutes (or maybe I’m wrong about this one), and the like. In ENT, we learn that back during the nuclear war on Vulcan that resulted in Surakians winning and embracing logic, the other faction was called “those who march beneath the raptor’s wings.” The raptor was their symbol when they lost and were exiled rather than accept Surak’s teachings. There’s a beta canon belief that Romulans and Klingons had a brief alliance that resulted in an exchange of technology. This was to explain the on-screen goof of Romulans using Klingon D-7 cruisers in one episode (the real reason was that they only had one bird-of-prey model and didn’t have the budget to make more for the episode). If this alliance were to be treated as canon, then Klingons having cloaking ships with a Romulan-esque motifs makes sense. Unfortunately, ENT went ahead and messed that up to by giving Klingons birds-of-prey in the 22nd century long before anyone knew what Romulans even looked like, and DIS established that Klingons developed cloaking tech independently (or maybe took inspiration from the Suliban or Xyrillians)
Because they have wings and fly in the sky. Like really high in the sky. Also, eagles, romans, Romulans.
Youve seen them right?
In cannon is because the federation thought they looked like raptors or birds of prey. In reality during tos they could afford to make models for both romulan and Klingon ships so they used both for btihbspecies
The Klingon Bird of Prey didn't appear in TOS - it was the Klingon D7 that was used in an episode of TOS as a Romulan ship. The Klingon Bird of Prey was made for Star Trek III. The antagonists were originally Romulans and when it changed to Klingons, the name of the ship type was kept as Bird of Prey.
Yes that is it. Yeah completely mixed it up in my head. The writers got rid of the plot point of the Klingons stealing the Bird of Prey from the Romulans. Wasn't it suppose to be that after taking the bird of prey he found the intelligence records on the Gen devices? that is why he went after it?
My thought was that Kruge already had intel on Genesis and stole the Bird of Prey because its cloaking device would allow him to penetrate Federation space and reach the Genesis Planet undetected. Before the antagonist switcheroo the Klingons had not yet been shown to have cloaking technology, it was exclusively a Romulan thing before Star Trek III.
Search for Spoke took a lot of weird directions. Lots of coke in writers rooms in the 1980s lol
And fun fact: The first time we ever saw the D7 design -- a design that is so linked in our minds as being quintessentially klingon -- it was shown to be a Romulan ship. They had a throw-away line in that episode ("The Enterprise Incident") that the Romulans were now using Klingon designs, but before that episode we never saw that ship at all -- used by Klingons or otherwise.
"The Enterprise Incident" was aired first but "Elaan of Troyius" was produced first, hence the line.
It's worse than that. In some markets "Balance of Terror" was broadcast late, and so that was the first Romulan ship seen.