Star Trek: 10 Secrets Of The Romulan Warbird You Need To Know

10. Axis Of Evil

His last assignment on Star Trek: The Next Generation after spearheading the designs of the Enterprise-D, the Tarellian ship (from "Haven"), and the Ferengi Marauder, Andrew Probert sought to rethink starship configurations in the Star Trek Universe with the Romulan warbird.

According to Probert, Gene Roddenberry had dictated that all starships in the franchise have two warp engines working in tandem, but never specified whether or not those engines had to be situated on the horizontal axis. Keeping the basic shape of the new ship rooted in the appropriately bird-like configuration of TOS' Romulan Bird-of-Prey, Probert opted to place the warbird's engines at the top and bottom of its primary hull.

The proposed design was a radical departure from previous Star Trek vessels and, as Probert saw it, a nice contrast to the very wide USS Enterprise-D:

I didn't have any information except that the Romulans were coming back and that we had never seen their ship before. Since the Enterprise is so horizontal, I wanted to contrast it with a vertical ship.

To Probert's disappointment, however, the producers requested the ship's alignment be corrected and a more traditional, horizontal configuration was further developed.

Probert ultimately left TNG following season one and his work on the Romulan warbird, but later returned to the franchise to provide illustrations for the Ships of the Line Calendars, reworking and fleshing out his vertical Romulan warbird for the 2011 edition.