Quote Originally Posted by Hawriel View Post
A dump truck today is pritty much the same as a dump truck from 60 years ago.
Remember - we're not talking about 60 years, or even 100 years. We're talking 150 years. Automobiles barely existed 150 years ago. The Age of Sail was still in full swing 150 years ago. It's an eternity in technological development.

To put things in perspective, during Kirk's era the Romulans were still trying to make cloaking technology viable and not all of their warfleet had warp drive. They had to barter with the Klingon Empire for decent ships. 100 years later, during Picard's era, the Romulan fleet's pride and joy is the kickass D'deridex-class warbird. That's a big leap. The Narada is another 20 years ahead of that, which is easily enough time for the advances made in the development of the D'deridex to have trickled down to lesser branches of the Romulan fleet.

Because yes, the Narada isn't a corporate ship, as there are no corporations, but a ship of the Romulan Star Empire. Our society doesn't upgrade constantly, as we're a capitalist society, but the 24th century has state-owned industrial replication and upgrading ships is only a matter of time, energy and capacity.

Again, to put things in perspective - and using the Federation as a yardstick, as it's the best we've got - the Galaxy-class ship was brand new during the 2350s. 20 years later, it's the Sovereign-class, Akira-class and Steamrunner-class which are brand new, not to mention the experimental Defiant and Prometheus. The Galaxy-class is old hat, and has undergone several refits, if the Enterprise-D's life is anything to go by. Starfleet still has quite a few Excelsior-class and Miranda-class ships kicking around, but they've all long since been upgraded to 24th-century standards. Some Miranda-class (which won't be developed until 50 years after the events of the Star Trek movie and would be considered state of the art at that time) are used as simple supply ships during Picard's time.

Take one of those refitted Miranda class 'supply ships' and send it back in time 150 years and it'll likely be capable of everything the Narada was (except the whole drilling thing). Throw in some quantum torpedoes and there won't be any doubt.