Balance of Terror flagship force sub

[sonofccn]

Fairly straightforward scenario, flagship of an intersteller power detects distress calls from asteriod outposts along the border and goes in to investigate. Only instead of the Enterprise 1701 we're instead pitting this ship from Balance of Terror against the Imperial Flagship.Commanders are the Unnamed Romulan who looks like Sarek for the Romulan side with Darth Vader in overall mission command, with whatever advantage he brings, and Admiral Piett commander of the ship itself for the Imperial. As well the Executor is allowed its full compliment of parasitical crafts for whatever good they will do.

Second scenario should this be too much of a curbstomp: the entire Death Squadron versus this one tiny ship.

[359]

Given the Enterprise was traveling something near 1,500,000c in that instance (based off the 5 min arrival time near max sensor range ~4 parsec), hyperspace is not going to be a speed advantage for the Executor even with greater estimates.

So I see it as follows:

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is either cloaked or to far away to be detected.
3) The Bird of Prey arrives safely in Romulan space.
4) Learning of the aforementioned intersteller power's weakness, war ensues.


Here is one other option:

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is cloaked.
3) The Romulans attack the Executor with their plasma weapon severly damaging if not destroying the ship. (The Enterprise escaped destruction by engaging the warp-drive in reverse, the Executor does not have this option)
4) After destroying the Executor the Bird of Prey arrives safely in Romulan space.
5) Learning of the aforementioned intersteller power's weakness, war ensues.

[sonofccn]

So I see it as follows:

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is either cloaked or to far away to be detected.
3) The Bird of Prey arrives safely in Romulan space.
4) Learning of the aforementioned intersteller power's weakness, war ensues.

Ah that isn't any fun. ;)

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is cloaked.
3) The Romulans attack the Executor with their plasma weapon severly damaging if not destroying the ship. (The Enterprise escaped destruction by engaging the warp-drive in reverse, the Executor does not have this option)
4) After destroying the Executor the Bird of Prey arrives safely in Romulan space.
5) Learning of the aforementioned intersteller power's weakness, war ensues.

Possible, completely possible.

Here's my suggestion:

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is cloaked.
3) Romulan ship decloaks and the Executor opens fire with hundreds of turbolaser bolts.
4) The aformentioned spread destroys the plasma torpedo prematurely along with the Romulan ship.
5)Imperials respond to the unprovoked attack by invading.

[Mike DiCenso]

3) Romulan ship decloaks and the Executor opens fire with hundreds of turbolaser bolts.

4) The aformentioned spread destroys the plasma torpedo prematurely along with the Romulan ship.

This isn't very likely since in TOS the ships very seldom fired at sublight and they always fired on other ships at hundreds to thousands of kilometers distance. So a mass spamming of turbolaser bolts won't necessarily hit the BoP since the it will have cloaked and moved within seconds of firing the plasma torpedo.

Furthermore, there is a presumption here that the light and medium TL bolts are sufficient to detonate something as powerful as the plasma torpedo, especially when it is being fired at it's optimal range (reaches the Executor in just a few seconds), rather than when it's at warp and consuming a lot of energy to keep up with a fast moving FTL starship.

Another factor you both are missing; the Commander won't attack the Imperial ship. He has destroyed several Imperial outposts and with his ship starting to run low on fuel, he'll opt as he did in the original story to head back to Romulan space as fast as possible, leaving the Executor and any other Imperial ships in the proverbial dust since even as slow as the BoP is while cloaked, it is still going low speed FTL, which is still much faster than any sublight Imperial vessel.

Random micro hyperspace jumps won't help much, even if they Imperials get a lucky bead on the BoP's course since the BoP never has to drop from FTL nor drop the cloak the whole entire time, and once in uncharted territory, the Imperials will have to give up the chase anyway as hyperspace becomes useless without hyperlanes.

Finally there is the Romulan cloak, which even though this particular one was a prototype, it still is equal to or better than any Star Wars cloak. Compare it to the cloak used in TCW's "Cat and Mouse", it's at least as good. Imperial sensors are unlikely as the Enterprise's were of even giving an approximate location. Hence the Imperials giving chase will be almost impossible.

Once the Commander gets his ship safely back into Romulan space and he reaches Romulus. He's won, and the Star Empire declares war on the Galactic Empire.
-Mike

[359]

Another factor you both are missing; the Commander won't attack the Imperial ship.

That was what my first analysis was, but I made a second in which something happened.

Here's my suggestion:

1) Executor receives the distress call.
2) They arrive to find the outpost destroyed and no opposing ships in the area, as the Romulan vessel is cloaked.
3) Romulan ship decloaks and the Executor opens fire with hundreds of turbolaser bolts.
4) The aformentioned spread destroys the plasma torpedo prematurely along with the Romulan ship.
5)Imperials respond to the unprovoked attack by invading.

Given the speed at which the plasma weapon traveled, some multiple of c, it is unlikely that the Executor would have time to open fire on the torpedo after detecting it. As for the fire hitting the Romulan ship, given the time it took for the plasma weapon to reach the Enterprise at warp the vessal would be to far away for turbolasers to hit.

[sonofccn]

This isn't very likely since in TOS the ships very seldom fired at sublight

With respect sir TOS did muddle the whole FTL and STL distiction at times. In the episode in question for instance the tail of a comet plays an important role. One where we get this exchange by the Romulans:

[Romulan ship]

COMMANDER: How pleasing to the eye it is. Behold a marvel in the darkness.
CENTURION: You spoke of entrapment.
COMMANDER: Its many particles will obscure their sensing device, Centurion.
ROMULAN: We enter it, Commander.
COMMANDER: Once fully obscured, we will turn suddenly back upon our adversary.
ROMULAN: At last the screen is clear, Commander.
COMMANDER: Clear?
ROMULAN: Our reflection no longer follows us.
COMMANDER: Escape manoeuvre one, quickly!

At least several seconds to pass through the width of the comet tail giving the Commander time to speak his line,who suggests it will take longer to be "fully obscured", implying either they'd dropped to sublight, which doesn't make sense in the context of the episode, or a comet tail better measured in AUs then kilometers which as far as I know equally doesn't make sense.

As well Trek in general from both the century preceding and the century following suggests a pattern of dropping to sublight to combat sublight crafts. Which is not to deny the existence of Warp Strafe but taken with the whole of the body of evidence there may be greater difficulty in its execution than TOS itself may indicate. Further I'd like to bring to the fore the case specifics of the Romulan ship in question, its sensors were notably inferior to the Enterprises most likely from the intense energy drainage of its cloaking device to the extent it could mistake the Enterprise for a "sensor echo":

SPOCK: Blip has changed its heading. And in a very leisurely manoeuvre. They may not be aware of us.
KIRK: Their invisibility screen may work both ways. With that kind of power consumption, they may not be able to see us.
SPOCK: His heading is now one eleven mark fourteen. The exact heading a Romulan would take, Jim, for the Neutral Zone and home.
KIRK: Parallel course.
STILES: Don't you mean interception course, sir?
KIRK: Negative. You and Mister Sulu will match its course and speed with the object on our sensors exactly, move for move. If he has sensors, I want him to think we're a reflection, an echo. Under no circumstances are you to cross into the Neutral Zone without my direct orders

So I raise suggestion sir if that vessel, taken with the full context of the Trek series, could reasonbly be expected to perform the needed precision to dropping the plasma torpedo within range of the Executor while doing a warp strafe.

they always fired on other ships at hundreds to thousands of kilometers distance.

When we were given distances yes sir. Without question if it becomes who can shoot farther the Executor will be phaser whipped. However, and I freely admit this is merely my speculation, due to the risk of the plasma torpedo dispersing, with a not extreme assumption it was losing cohesion and fighting strenght during the entire chase sequence, and the behavior observed with later cloaking vessels, decloaking close by likely to decrease reaction time, are we fully confident the Romulan Commander would chose to stand off? He had no way of knowing, in the original episode, that the Enterprise's phasers were out or, likely, what her top speed was.

Furthermore, there is a presumption here that the light and medium TL bolts are sufficient to detonate something as powerful as the plasma torpedo, especially when it is being fired at it's optimal range (reaches the Executor in just a few seconds)

I freely admit sir we have no clear idea on the plasma torpedoes defense one way or another, we do not even have solid evidence a phaser shot would have stopped it, I merely raise it as a possibility.

, rather than when it's at warp and consuming a lot of energy to keep up with a fast moving FTL starship.

Well sir we have no information either way on if the torpedo's defense systems, if any exist, are tied to the expendature of it's drive system. I submit the torpedo may have weakened itself in order to accelerate at the needed speed but its possible its defense systems remained unchanged, were affected far more by the distance traveled rather than speed or may not have been built with protective atributes relying solely on its high speed to ensure a kill.

Another factor you both are missing; the Commander won't attack the Imperial ship.

With respect sir, 359 did consider that possibility and I do not deny such an occurance merely that it isn't "fun" sir.

Finally there is the Romulan cloak, which even though this particular one was a prototype, it still is equal to or better than any Star Wars cloak. Compare it to the cloak used in TCW's "Cat and Mouse", it's at least as good. Imperial sensors are unlikely as the Enterprise's were of even giving an approximate location. Hence the Imperials giving chase will be almost impossible.

I would consider it quite generous to assume the Executor sensors being up to the Enterprise's sir, even imperfect motion readings seemed far better then Cat and Mouse showed, forgive me if I am misremembering,and its doubtful Vader is half as experianced in fighting cloaked vessels as the alien commander was.

Given the speed at which the plasma weapon traveled, some multiple of c, it is unlikely that the Executor would have time to open fire on the torpedo after detecting it.

The issue is we don't have any indication of distance as far as I can tell when the Romulan ship decloaks. Further the play of the episode does not convey two starships booming and zooming through the cosmos but like a sub and destroyer playing hide and seek around a fixed, that is sublight, object. Namely a comet.

SPOCK: A comet, magnitude seven, dead ahead, and the intruder changing course toward it.
KIRK: Comet Icarus four. Composition?
SPOCK: Quite ordinary. An ionised mass, a trail of frozen vapour particles.
KIRK: And when an object passes through it, even an invisible object?
SPOCK: It leaves a visible trail.
KIRK: Our chance, gentlemen. Prepare to attack. All hands, battle stations. I hope we won't need your services, Bones.
MCCOY: Amen to that. We're taking a big gamble, Jim.

[Bridge]

KIRK: Battle status?
SULU: All stations manned, Captain.
STILES: Phaser weapons energised. Set for proximity blast.
SPOCK: Intruder now bearing directly for comet's tail.
KIRK: Plot his exact point of entry, Mister Stiles.
STILES: Computed. On the board, sir.
KIRK: The moment he begins entering the comet's tail, he becomes visible. End run, gentlemen. We'll swing around the other side and catch him at that moment.
SULU: Acknowledged, Captain.
SPOCK: He's maintaining that bearing, Captain.
KIRK: Let's get him, Mister Sulu.

[Romulan ship]

COMMANDER: How pleasing to the eye it is. Behold a marvel in the darkness.
CENTURION: You spoke of entrapment.
COMMANDER: Its many particles will obscure their sensing device, Centurion.
ROMULAN: We enter it, Commander.
COMMANDER: Once fully obscured, we will turn suddenly back upon our adversary.
ROMULAN: At last the screen is clear, Commander.
COMMANDER: Clear?
ROMULAN: Our reflection no longer follows us.
COMMANDER: Escape manoeuvre one, quickly!

[Bridge]

SPOCK: We're losing sensor contact, Captain.
KIRK: Steady as she goes. Phaser crews ready?
SULU: Phaser crew signal ready, sir.
KIRK: He'll only be visible for a moment. Stand by.
SULU: Sir, nothing in
KIRK: At the last moment he must have guessed our move. Hard to starboard, helm!
SULU: Hard to starboard.
KIRK: He did exactly what I would have done. I won't underestimate him again. Now, fire blind. Lay down a pattern. STILES: Traverse pattern. All phasers fire.

As you can see Kirk plans to snap around and ambush the Romulan Commander. When that doesn't work, the vessel doesn't emerge, he orders "hard to starboard" and then fires phasers. Not an order to decelerate or to do a turnaround as I would expect if I was cruising around even at the speed of light.

All of this to simply say your assuming the plasma torpedo was fired some seconds from target at warp speed, which is supported by some of the dialoge and isn't disupported by the visuals, and I'm not so sure thats a valid assumption. At least some of the dialoge suggests they are sublight making the neccesity of the torpedo being fired at warp, as opposed to going to warp in pursuit of the fleeing Enterprise, less so. As well there is my personal speculation the Romulan Commander would want to close as close as possible in order to ensure a kill. We can reasonbly surmize he was in phaser range before he ordered energy to weapons implying he was some tens of to hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Enterprise, which should have taken a single second or less to traverse if the torpedo could do only c, why distance yourself from the target and increase his reaction time?

[359]

Given the speed at which the plasma weapon traveled, some multiple of c, it is unlikely that the Executor would have time to open fire on the torpedo after detecting it.

The issue is we don't have any indication of distance as far as I can tell when the Romulan ship decloaks. Further the play of the episode does not convey two starships booming and zooming through the cosmos but like a sub and destroyer playing hide and seek around a fixed, that is sublight, object. Namely a comet.

SPOCK: A comet, magnitude seven, dead ahead, and the intruder changing course toward it.
KIRK: Comet Icarus four. Composition?
SPOCK: Quite ordinary. An ionised mass, a trail of frozen vapour particles.
KIRK: And when an object passes through it, even an invisible object?
SPOCK: It leaves a visible trail.
KIRK: Our chance, gentlemen. Prepare to attack. All hands, battle stations. I hope we won't need your services, Bones.
MCCOY: Amen to that. We're taking a big gamble, Jim.

[Bridge]

KIRK: Battle status?
SULU: All stations manned, Captain.
STILES: Phaser weapons energised. Set for proximity blast.
SPOCK: Intruder now bearing directly for comet's tail.
KIRK: Plot his exact point of entry, Mister Stiles.
STILES: Computed. On the board, sir.
KIRK: The moment he begins entering the comet's tail, he becomes visible. End run, gentlemen. We'll swing around the other side and catch him at that moment.
SULU: Acknowledged, Captain.
SPOCK: He's maintaining that bearing, Captain.
KIRK: Let's get him, Mister Sulu.

[Romulan ship]

COMMANDER: How pleasing to the eye it is. Behold a marvel in the darkness.
CENTURION: You spoke of entrapment.
COMMANDER: Its many particles will obscure their sensing device, Centurion.
ROMULAN: We enter it, Commander.
COMMANDER: Once fully obscured, we will turn suddenly back upon our adversary.
ROMULAN: At last the screen is clear, Commander.
COMMANDER: Clear?
ROMULAN: Our reflection no longer follows us.
COMMANDER: Escape manoeuvre one, quickly!

[Bridge]

SPOCK: We're losing sensor contact, Captain.
KIRK: Steady as she goes. Phaser crews ready?
SULU: Phaser crew signal ready, sir.
KIRK: He'll only be visible for a moment. Stand by.
SULU: Sir, nothing in
KIRK: At the last moment he must have guessed our move. Hard to starboard, helm!
SULU: Hard to starboard.
KIRK: He did exactly what I would have done. I won't underestimate him again. Now, fire blind. Lay down a pattern. STILES: Traverse pattern. All phasers fire.

As you can see Kirk plans to snap around and ambush the Romulan Commander. When that doesn't work, the vessel doesn't emerge, he orders "hard to starboard" and then fires phasers. Not an order to decelerate or to do a turnaround as I would expect if I was cruising around even at the speed of light.

All of this to simply say your assuming the plasma torpedo was fired some seconds from target at warp speed, which is supported by some of the dialoge and isn't disupported by the visuals, and I'm not so sure thats a valid assumption. At least some of the dialoge suggests they are sublight making the neccesity of the torpedo being fired at warp, as opposed to going to warp in pursuit of the fleeing Enterprise, less so. As well there is my personal speculation the Romulan Commander would want to close as close as possible in order to ensure a kill. We can reasonbly surmize he was in phaser range before he ordered energy to weapons implying he was some tens of to hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Enterprise, which should have taken a single second or less to traverse if the torpedo could do only c, why distance yourself from the target and increase his reaction time?

While I do agree that the two ships spent most of their time in sub-light combat/maneuvers, directly after the Romulan ship decloaked Kirk ordered the enterprise to full reverse before the Romulans had a chance to fire at sub-light ranges.

SULU: Phaser overload. Control circuit burnout.
SPOCK: It'll take time to correct, sir.
SULU: Captain, are they surrendering?
[The Romluan vessel decloaks.]
KIRK: Full astern! Emergency warp speed!
[The Romulan vessal fires, the Enterprise is already at warp]
KIRK: Do we have emergency warp?
SULU: Full power, sir. It's still overtaking us. If we can get one phaser working, sir, one shot might detonate it.
KIRK: Navigation?
STILES: Estimate it'll overtake us in two minutes, sir.

So in this instance the weapon spent the entire time at warp, however, there is no way to know if it would attack a sub-light target in the same manner.

[Jasonb]

Given the speed at which the plasma weapon traveled, some multiple of c, it is unlikely that the Executor would have time to open fire on the torpedo after detecting it.

The issue is we don't have any indication of distance as far as I can tell when the Romulan ship decloaks. Further the play of the episode does not convey two starships booming and zooming through the cosmos but like a sub and destroyer playing hide and seek around a fixed, that is sublight, object. Namely a comet.

SPOCK: A comet, magnitude seven, dead ahead, and the intruder changing course toward it.
KIRK: Comet Icarus four. Composition?
SPOCK: Quite ordinary. An ionised mass, a trail of frozen vapour particles.
KIRK: And when an object passes through it, even an invisible object?
SPOCK: It leaves a visible trail.
KIRK: Our chance, gentlemen. Prepare to attack. All hands, battle stations. I hope we won't need your services, Bones.
MCCOY: Amen to that. We're taking a big gamble, Jim.

[Bridge]

KIRK: Battle status?
SULU: All stations manned, Captain.
STILES: Phaser weapons energised. Set for proximity blast.
SPOCK: Intruder now bearing directly for comet's tail.
KIRK: Plot his exact point of entry, Mister Stiles.
STILES: Computed. On the board, sir.
KIRK: The moment he begins entering the comet's tail, he becomes visible. End run, gentlemen. We'll swing around the other side and catch him at that moment.
SULU: Acknowledged, Captain.
SPOCK: He's maintaining that bearing, Captain.
KIRK: Let's get him, Mister Sulu.

[Romulan ship]

COMMANDER: How pleasing to the eye it is. Behold a marvel in the darkness.
CENTURION: You spoke of entrapment.
COMMANDER: Its many particles will obscure their sensing device, Centurion.
ROMULAN: We enter it, Commander.
COMMANDER: Once fully obscured, we will turn suddenly back upon our adversary.
ROMULAN: At last the screen is clear, Commander.
COMMANDER: Clear?
ROMULAN: Our reflection no longer follows us.
COMMANDER: Escape manoeuvre one, quickly!

[Bridge]

SPOCK: We're losing sensor contact, Captain.
KIRK: Steady as she goes. Phaser crews ready?
SULU: Phaser crew signal ready, sir.
KIRK: He'll only be visible for a moment. Stand by.
SULU: Sir, nothing in
KIRK: At the last moment he must have guessed our move. Hard to starboard, helm!
SULU: Hard to starboard.
KIRK: He did exactly what I would have done. I won't underestimate him again. Now, fire blind. Lay down a pattern. STILES: Traverse pattern. All phasers fire.

As you can see Kirk plans to snap around and ambush the Romulan Commander. When that doesn't work, the vessel doesn't emerge, he orders "hard to starboard" and then fires phasers. Not an order to decelerate or to do a turnaround as I would expect if I was cruising around even at the speed of light.

All of this to simply say your assuming the plasma torpedo was fired some seconds from target at warp speed, which is supported by some of the dialoge and isn't disupported by the visuals, and I'm not so sure thats a valid assumption. At least some of the dialoge suggests they are sublight making the neccesity of the torpedo being fired at warp, as opposed to going to warp in pursuit of the fleeing Enterprise, less so. As well there is my personal speculation the Romulan Commander would want to close as close as possible in order to ensure a kill. We can reasonbly surmize he was in phaser range before he ordered energy to weapons implying he was some tens of to hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Enterprise, which should have taken a single second or less to traverse if the torpedo could do only c, why distance yourself from the target and increase his reaction time?

While I do agree that the two ships spent most of their time in sub-light combat/maneuvers, directly after the Romulan ship decloaked Kirk ordered the enterprise to full reverse before the Romulans had a chance to fire at sub-light ranges.

SULU: Phaser overload. Control circuit burnout.
SPOCK: It'll take time to correct, sir.
SULU: Captain, are they surrendering?
[The Romluan vessel decloaks.]
KIRK: Full astern! Emergency warp speed!
[The Romulan vessal fires, the Enterprise is already at warp]
KIRK: Do we have emergency warp?
SULU: Full power, sir. It's still overtaking us. If we can get one phaser working, sir, one shot might detonate it.
KIRK: Navigation?
STILES: Estimate it'll overtake us in two minutes, sir.

So in this instance the weapon spent the entire time at warp, however, there is no way to know if it would attack a sub-light target in the same manner.

Bigger problem is that the GE senser pick things us differnt law of phyical then the Star Terk sensers. So bigger question be would EW warfare work first place other thing make invisable to at least Star Terk sensers and our own law physical. On other hand Romulan warship like just out run the ISD still cause a war between Romulan and GE.

[sonofccn]

While I do agree that the two ships spent most of their time in sub-light combat/maneuvers, directly after the Romulan ship decloaked Kirk ordered the enterprise to full reverse before the Romulans had a chance to fire at sub-light ranges.

I stand corrected then. I also must conceede the most likely outcome would be for the Exectutor is blown to ribbons by the torpedo traveling faster than they could detect or hope to evade.

So in this instance the weapon spent the entire time at warp, however, there is no way to know if it would attack a sub-light target in the same manner.

Well since you have reasonbly argued it was fired at Warp and I don't have any evidence it was fired at sublight there is not enough evidence to assume an altering of its behavior.

[Mike DiCenso]

At least several seconds to pass through the width of the comet tail giving the Commander time to speak his line,who suggests it will take longer to be "fully obscured", implying either they'd dropped to sublight, which doesn't make sense in the context of the episode, or a comet tail better measured in AUs then kilometers which as far as I know equally doesn't make sense.

That depends, we actually know of a cometary body in the ST:ENT time frame that was much larger than anything we know of today:

ARCHER: Please report to the Bridge.

REED: I've checked the Vulcan database, sir. No previous sightings.

HOSHI: That means we discovered it.

TRAVIS: Archer's comet.

ARCHER: Take us closer, Ensign.

TRAVIS: Aye sir.

ARCHER: Ever seen anything like that in your astronomy books?

TUCKER: Wow, that's one big snowball.

T'POL: The diameter is eighty two point six kilometres.


That's from ST:ENT's "Breaking the Ice" which is 115 years before the events of "Balance of Terror" in TOS. So who knows how big this comet the BoP and Enterprise flew around and through really is (for a comet to have a tail, they had to be flying fairly close to a star inside a solar system, too). Another issue is that, even if the two ships occasionally dropped to sublight, over all the chase and battle occurred at FTL speeds. For example, the distance the Enterprise travels across at the beginning of the episode to try and reach Outpost 4 at the border at full warp speed and then some required four minutes. Even taking the lowest possible backstage speed for the ship, that means that E-1701 is doing 500 to 719c., and means that the ship is traversing several Sol systems in distance to reach the outpost. Graham Kennedy and others have done analyses of this over the years. You can read Graham's here.

Basically there is no way the Romulan ship is doing anything during most of the trip at sublight. It has to be maintaining FTL or the one hour time frame and then the 22 minutes time frame given wouldn't get the BoP to the Neutral Zone.
-Mike

[sonofccn]

That depends, we actually know of a cometary body in the ST:ENT time frame that was much larger than anything we know of today:

ARCHER: Please report to the Bridge.

REED: I've checked the Vulcan database, sir. No previous sightings.

HOSHI: That means we discovered it.

TRAVIS: Archer's comet.

ARCHER: Take us closer, Ensign.

TRAVIS: Aye sir.

ARCHER: Ever seen anything like that in your astronomy books?

TUCKER: Wow, that's one big snowball.

T'POL: The diameter is eighty two point six kilometres.


That's from ST:ENT's "Breaking the Ice" which is 115 years before the events of "Balance of Terror" in TOS. So who knows how big this comet the BoP and Enterprise flew around and through really is

With respect sir it seems a little far fetched to just assume that this trail of comet particles just happens to be hundreds of thousands if not millions of kilometers wide. Unless I am misunderstanding something, in which I do apologize.

Another issue is that, even if the two ships occasionally dropped to sublight, over all the chase and battle occurred at FTL speeds.

The chase I would agree sir but the battle I would contend at least part of it occured at sublight velocity since it centers around the comet which should be sublight.

For example, the distance the Enterprise travels across at the beginning of the episode to try and reach Outpost 4 at the border at full warp speed and then some required four minutes. Even taking the lowest possible backstage speed for the ship, that means that E-1701 is doing 500 to 719c., and means that the ship is traversing several Sol systems in distance to reach the outpost. Graham Kennedy and others have done analyses of this over the years. You can read Graham's here.

With further respect sir I'm not arguing that the Romulan ship wasn't at warp at any point or is incapable of warp. My argument was that TOS didn't always differentiate between FTL and STL velocities and as evidence presented an example I feel can only make sense if, at that particular time, the Romulan ship and the Enterprise are not going appreciably faster than the comet.