by ulfgardzook
Known Sphere of Operation Empire-wide use
Data Reliability E

     The A-1 class ships were designed for deep covert operations and used exclusively by the intelligence agency of the Romulan government. The A-1 is designed not to easily recognizable by visual sighting and does not look like most Romulan ships in the fleet. The A-1 is equipped with an adaptive coating which mimics its surrounds rendering it virtually invisible to sight even when the cloak is disengaged, when in stealth mode all view ports and other openings such as plasma cooling vents and bussard collectors are covered to eliminate the light emitted. The A-1 was first introduced in 2270 and is equipped with a quick-change weapons pod to allow quick upgrades to the weapons array. The ships are kept at state of the art level owing to the quick-change weapons pod, being up graded as soon as new weapons become available and these ships get the new weapons even before the main fleet. These ships have reportably traveled through klingon and federation space undetected but these are unconfirmed, but would answer many questions on how the Romulans know things they otherwise wouldn’t know about.
      The A-1 operates in small groups of 3-5 depending on mission. Of the 30 A-1’s built a few have been reportably been destroyed but were quickly replaced and all remain in active service and are continually being upgraded. The class carries 2 small-armed “fighters” each docked in is own bay. As well as 1 standard shuttlecraft for non-covert landings or contacts where beaming isn’t practical.
      The class is named for a mythical creature of Romulan lore that is said to be able to attack without being seen hence the nickname of the unseen ones.. Which is a direct translation of the Romulan Tal Shiara which is said to resemble a large man like creature who can fly and walk through objects and seems to not be solid but more like a foggy apparition.. There is only one photo of said creature and this is used as the class symbol… no-one knows who took the photo since all that was found was a camera and a few other bits of clothing and some skin and bone fragments. This was the only picture salvageable off the memory in the cam the rest were too distorted to be read or seen. Since the government agencies creation they have used this name to strike fear into the minds of those who are being tracked or watched since it almost always means their demise at some later point in time.