Romulan Bird - of - Prey ( 22nd century ) The Romulan Bird - of - Prey was a type of starship used by the Romulan Star Empire in the 22nd century . Green in color , these craft were so named because they each looked distinctively avian . They were equipped with disruptor bank s , as well as advanced cloaking technology . ( ) History . Vessels of this configuration were first encountered by Starfleet in 2152 , when the United Earth starship inadvertently encroached upon a Romulan - claimed star system , which was protected by a field of cloaked mine s . A vessel of this class decloaked and approached " Enterprise " , as it had unknowingly trespassed into Romulan space . The Romulan commander hailed ( on audio only ) and ordered the " Enterprise " crew to leave or be destroyed , though " Enterprise " s translator failed to lock onto the Romulan language . To prove the Romulans ' point , the Bird - of - Prey fired two warning shots at the Starfleet vessel , and " Enterprise " commanding officer Jonathan Archer ordered helmsman Travis Mayweather to activate " Enterprise " s quantum beacon s to avoid hitting any of the cloaked mines . The Romulan vessel then re - cloaked . Although " Enterprise " s quantum beacons proved successful in penetrating the mines ' cloaks , they were useless against the more advanced cloaking devices used by the Birds - of - Prey . Later , two more of these ships decloaked and ordered " Enterprise " to detach its hull plating or be destroyed . " Enterprise " eventually left the system after retrieving Captain Archer and armory officer Lieutenant Reed , following detonation of a cloaked Romulan mine safely away from " Enterprise " . When " Enterprise " subsequently went to warp , the two remaining Romulan ships did not pursue . ( ) Appendices . Background information . In the script of " Minefield " , this type of ship was described as " a spooky - looking craft , there ' s something bird - like about its design ( we will later learn that this is a Romulan vessel of the era ) . " A subsequent description in the same teleplay referred to the ship as an " ominous - looking craft . " The responsibility of designing this style of Romulan Bird - of - Prey , the first new Romulan ship to appear on , was given to Concept Artist John Eaves . He was hugely excited to be presented with the opportunity of designing a new starship for such a long - established alien race as the Romulans . Eaves took his cue from the earlier - depicted , 23rd century version of the , which had been designed by Wah Chang and featured in . Remembered Eaves , " " Immediately the consensus [ in the art department ] was to retro - out Wah Chang ' s original design for our episode . " " One reason why Eaves was a suitable candidate to assume this task was that he was very familiar with the history of " Star Trek " design . He knew the Bird - of - Prey he was designing for " Enterprise " needed to pay homage to Chang ' s equivalent . ( " " , issue 27 , p . 10 ) " " I didn ' t want to veer too far from it , but I wanted to do a phase prior to " The Original Series " version , " " reflected Eaves . " " I followed his lines a little bit . " " ( " " , issue 27 , p . 11 ) Next , John Eaves opted to add further segregation to the parts of the hull , segmenting them where one section could be seen joining another . This was key to him modifying the ship , as it made the design appear slightly older , though also dynamic . The use of modern visual effects meant the updated design would not have worked with the smooth hull style from its TOS predecessor , anyway . " " The VFX guys always wanted deep shadows and detail lines to help make the ship look authentic on screen , " " said Eaves . " " Something that was completely smooth , like Chang ' s design was , would never make it through the approval process today . " " ( " " , issue 27 , pp . 11 - 12 ) One detail which John Eaves added in his early design concepts was small wing fin attachments on the outside of the nacelles . These were incorporated in an initial black - and - white sketch he illustrated while experimenting with various looks for the ship . " " After I ' d done a couple of versions of it , " " he stated , " " I abandoned them . I decided I ' d taken it too far past where the design architecture had been established . " " The nacelles in specific also underwent revision in a subsequent series of color concept images , developing to have a more threatening look , as Eaves aimed to devise a style more in keeping with the Romulans . " " The nacelles on the early black - and - white drawing seemed a little bit too rounded , " " he explained , " " so that ' s why they evolved into jagged points . I thought the early design had too much of a soft , friendly look for an aggressive ship . That ' s why they go from the rounded tips to the more bull - horn - type points that I did in the colored drawings . " " ( " " , issue 27 , pp . 11 & 12 ) As a final homage to Wah Chang ' s original Romulan Bird - of - Prey , John Eaves drew a colorful war - bird graphic on the underside of the altered configuration , in one of his concept illustrations . " " I was trying to take his [ Chang ' s ] drawing back a little in time as well , but make it fit the new shape , " " Eaves recollected . Though he hoped this facet of the design would make it onto the finalized digital model , the graphic was ultimately vetoed because a decision was made that the stylized bird picture clashed with the overall design ethos which had been established on ENT . ( " " , issue 27 , pp . 12 & 13 ) Eaves related , " " Just when you think you ' ve done the right thing . . . lighting strikes . . . The graphic had to be removed . . . Ahhh , shuckydarn ! ! ! ! " " He elaborated , " " In fact , it got rejected brutally . I was hoping it would make it through because it was a neat way to pay homage to Chang ' s ship . But I understood that it had to go , as " Enterprise " was set in a different era . " " ( " " , issue 27 , p . 12 ) No motive for the removal was made explicit to Eaves , though . Robert Bonchune offered , " " It was rejected for no other reason than , once again , contempt for the " Trek " , the fans and the " Original Series " by … uh , ' management ' . . . you know who they are . ( Oh , and it wasn ' t their idea ; that didn ' t help . . . ) " " Even though it never appeared on - screen , the bird graphic was featured on the bottom of a version of the Bird - of - Prey , which Bonchune created . ( " " , issue 27 , p . 10 ) Despite the elimination of the bird picture on the final design of the Romulan craft , John Eaves opted to add lots of surface detail to the ship ' s exterior , helping the vessel seem more realistic when it became a computer - generated model . The finished design appeared in a concept image dated . ( " " , issue 27 , pp . 12 & 13 ) Eaves concluded , " " The architecture was pulled back about a hundred years and the end result was just enough to still pay homage without creating a whole new ship . " " While Producer Mike Sussman was writing the episode , he as well as Season Four showrunner and Co - Executive Producer Manny Coto initially wanted the episode to end with a scene in which one of the Birds - of - Prey picked up a Romulan operative from . The ship would have been depicted swooping up above the camera , revealing the colorful bird graphic was painted on the bottom of its hull . However , there wasn ' t enough money in the show ' s budget to include that scene . Nonetheless , Sussman later opined that the look of the Bird - of - Prey as it appeared in " Minefield " was " wonderful . " The fact that the Birds - of - Prey in the 2150s were equipped with cloaking devices constitutes an apparent continuity violation , because a comment made by Spock , in , gives the impression that cloaks were apparently unheard of before the 2266 setting of that episode . Hence , several staff writers on " Star Trek : Enterprise " – among them Mike Sussman – believed that 22nd century Romulan ships should not have been equipped with cloaking devices , in keeping with " Balance of Terror " . Manny Coto decided that Romulan ships would not have cloaks in any subsequent encounters . Whereas the 22nd century Bird - of - Prey was consistently portrayed without the colorful bird graphic on its underside , Lieutenant mentions in " Balance of Terror " that , during the Earth - Romulan War , Romulan ships of the time were painted like giant birds of prey ( hence the name ) . The fact that this ship clearly has warp drive has also sometimes been viewed as being at odds with " Balance of Terror " , wherein Montgomery Scott states that the Romulan ship only has " simple impulse . " Apocrypha . Birds - of - Prey were seen in " " as light cruisers . According to the novel " The Good That Men Do " , these cloaking ships were one - offs . Romulan stealth technology was still in development , and the cloaked mines were considered a successful application of the technology , but the power requirements for cloaking a whole ship were problematic ; sometime after the encounter with " Enterprise " , the prototype cloaking ship , " Praetor Pontilus " , was destroyed in an antimatter containment failure caused by its stealth systems . The Romulans believed it would be decades until a successful cloaking device could be developed . In " Star Trek Online " , the Romulans use a similar design – classified as either a " T ' varo " - or " Malem " - class light warbird – in the early 2400s . The Reman s use these ships as well .