Why doesn't starfleet Tell the Romulans to F*** off?

[Equinox1701e]

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:48 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on January 4th, 2013, 3:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nathanj, again we DONT know that the cloak couldnt penetrated, all we know is that the Enterprise couldnt penerate it using standard tracking techniques. As I said, we dont know if it could have passed an anti proton scan, we dont know if it could have gotten through a tachyon detection grid, the Enterprise was ALONE, they didnt have those tools at their disposal, you cant make a detection grid using a single ship as we already know. So based on what we DO know, its undetectable to a Soverign class starship and Romulan warbird sensors, period. And remember in TOS the Romulans developed a "perfect" cloak back then too, thats why Kirk and Spock went and stole it, then they could counter it. Again its just a matter of time before its countered. Read up on cloaks in Memory Alpha and youll find many, many instancesd where cloaks are countered.

Either way, that doesnt really explain how the federation having cloaking technology would prevent a Shinzon like attack in the future for Starfleet.

Edit: Yes the ST6 Bob was tracked due to gas, but it took time for the Enterprise to modify a torpedo to track the ship, time which they wouldnt hava had if Chang could have shut his mouth for 5 seconds. And they had to have specialized equipment that oh suprise, suprise the Enterprise just happened to have along. Either way it would have still given the Klingons a HUGE tactical edge, especially if they developed it further to fix the radiation issues. Worth having around but for some reason it vanished with the ship, never to be used by the Klingons again.

[nathanj]

posted on January 4th, 2013, 3:56 am

Last edited by nathanj on January 4th, 2013, 4:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

You were the first one to make a baseless claim. Go back and reread your posts before you try and throw stones. You accuse me of making stuff up but then claim it was a one off for some absurd reason that I am STILL waiting for you to cite a source for. Your proof that it must be a one off is because nothing canon comes after it. and then you try and prove a negative by once again claiming that nothing came after it so it must be so.

"Got any proof that's actually the norm for Romulan ships? No, you haven't because there is nothing that even implies it's anything but a one-off with no plans left over (it apparently wasn't even a Romulan ship). By that same logic, all Federation ships have Slipstream and Ablative Generators because Voyager was shown using them once."

You want to be a jackass well so can I. I simply posited my argument (that Memory Alpha also had) that the ship was constructed by the Romulan military coup members.

My argument actually makes sense compared to your incredibly uneducated view of database storage and manipulation. I can at least back up my argument even circumstantially with two parts in the movie, I am still waiting for you to source a part of the movie where the Romulan military clearly has no idea what the ship and its capabilities are and that they had nothing to do with it. Your entire premise rests on Shinzon running his mouth off to all his fellow conspirators...........who he hates and only used because he needed them. :hmm


@Equinox.......according to La Forge (at Memory Alpha) it was a perfect cloak. The Romulans at the 60 minute mark were positive that Shinzon was going t wipe out all life on Earth. They clearly knew or at least thought that there was no way for Earth's defenses to be able to detect the ship. There wasn't a "maybe we should warn Earth about his attack" since subspace communicaes travel faster than ships at warp that would have made sense. The immediately hopped on board their Norexans and went into pursuit. The evindence indicates that they knew that the cloak was to good for Starfleet to detect.

Regarding the Klingon cloak.........once you find away around it it kind of makes it useless. The Enterprise woudl ahve simply told Starfleet about how to counteract it and since sensors are pretty easy to upgrade they probably found away to get the sensors to pick it up. Or for the time being all Starfleet vessels carried a payload of modified torpedoes....or they changed all their torpedoes to work against the cloak.

Oh wait. I stand corrected. The Enterprise A was retired afterwards so clearly there was no possible way for Starfleet to have been made aware of the tactics employed in the battle........unless Kirk did some awesome weird shiznit like uploaded the data to ANOTHER COMPUTER somewhere in Starfleet or maybe he just pulled out the mainframe himself and just carried up to Starfleet Command when he got back from his little side trip.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:04 am

The Borg threat and the Dominion War were two big wakeup calls for Starfleet; I doubt they'd let something like the Scimitar's cloak go unanswered. Plus there was a real indication that the Romulans were willing to extend an olive branch to the Federation at the end of Nemesis, a possible collective recoiling in horror at what a mad demagogue almost achieved. Those talks could have involved the cloaking technology, but who knows.

Nathanj: the comment about the STO timeline is probably misinterpreting what I said earlier about it. Like licensed works in general, STO's timeline isn't canon; what I was saying is that the lead writer for STO had to alter the timeline she had created in order to incorporate the effects of the JJ supernova and the destruction of Romulus as those events are canon. And STO isn't bad in terms of story -- and in some places is really very good. But that's an argument for another thread.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:08 am

Except they DID warn Starfleet what was happening, thats why they had a fleet waiting to meet up with the Enterprise, because they knew Shinzon wanted to get Picard before he went to Earth, Starfleet had reinforcements to meet the Enterprise "safety in numbers" is what Riker says. But Picard knew Shinzons plan to go after Earth, and the goal was to stop him with the fleet the Enterprise was heading too.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:08 am

Ok thanks for clearing that up.

Regarding the cloaking and Romulan thing I am actually happy how it turned out when I found the quote from the director/producer whoever the hell he was saying that they wanted to point out changes made in the Treaty of Algeron but just couldn't find a place to put it in the show (funny because I instantly thought of at lest three without any real effort). That explained why SF had a bunch of cloaking devices all of a sudden to put on those mines. I just assumed that Section 31 had something to do with that.

@Equinox.......I stand corrected if the Romulans did warn Starfleet. Although that seems to indicate to me at least that the cloak was perfect because they gave chase in their Norexans. If it was a normal ship then they would have just warned SF about it and that would be the end of it since it's not exactly a short trip to Earth. They were confident that Shinzon was going to destroy Earth.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:31 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on January 4th, 2013, 4:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

It wasnt the Romulans who warned Earth, it was Picard. He knew Shinzons plan, he stated that Shinzon was going after Earth and he knew Shinzon needed to capture him to survive. The only change to the treaty that I know of was the stipulation to allow the Defiant to have a cloak, any other use was illegal on a starship. The only other instance was the Pegasus, which was an illegal operation to begin with. The mines were likely cloaked using Klingon technology as we already know the Klingons use cloaked mines, no real mystery there. And just because a writer and or producer says something doesnt make it canon, even things Roddenberry said arnt canon unless they are depicted in the shows or movies.

And again as far as the BoP, it doest matter if they figured out how to detect it, its still a valuable tool. Yeah Im sure they downloaded all the Enterprise logs about the ship, you dont think the Klingons could have adapted and made the cloak better? And what good are those modified torpedos if youre dead before you can use them? Lets say the Klingons adopted that cloak, now lets say the federation ships had tracking torpedos. First you have to know if theres a Klingon ship out there (which the ship sensors couldnt detect unless they were literally on top of the ship). So if your running around running scans and doing federation stuff, and a cloaked Klingon ship decides to take a shot at you out of nowhere and happens to target your torpedo bay, then what? Your kinda screwed. Unless you plan on firing random torepedos into empty space in every sector you visit. You better hope you have alot of torpedos.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:39 am

Fair enough.

Wouldn't using the Klingon cloaking devices been just as much of a breach of the Treaty as making their own. That would be like paying the Ferengi to manufacture all of SF cloaking devices and then tell the Romulans. "Hey, we didn't build them, nothing in the treaty about having a third party make them for us. " Romulans would have had to have had the worst negotiators if they let that one slip buy and the Federation would have been as equally stupid for not figuring out the loophole till 60 years later.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:43 am

I would expect the Romulans to have taken a pragmatic view towards the cloaked minefield, even if they were in violation of the treaty. They know the Feds could have argued ad infinitum that they were a joint project with the Klingons (who aren't signatories) and the minefield served their interests in any event.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 4:44 am

Fair enough.

Wouldn't using the Klingon cloaking devices been just as much of a breach of the Treaty as making their own. That would be like paying the Ferengi to manufacture all of SF cloaking devices and then tell the Romulans. "Hey, we didn't build them, nothing in the treaty about having a third party make them for us. " Romulans would have had to have had the worst negotiators if they let that one slip buy and the Federation would have been as equally stupid for not figuring out the loophole till 60 years later.

Except the Federation 1) didnt develop the cloak and 2) they didnt use it on their ships at all. They used it on mines, which we dont know how that is interpreted by the treaty. All we know is the Federation cant use cloaks on their ships and likely their facilities.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 7:02 am

I'm pretty sure that in "The Pegasus" it was indicated that the treaty said that the Federation is prohibited from developing and using cloaking technology, with no exceptions even suggested.

posted on January 4th, 2013, 1:37 pm

You were the first one to make a baseless claim. Go back and reread your posts before you try and throw stones. You accuse me of making stuff up but then claim it was a one off for some absurd reason that I am STILL waiting for you to cite a source for. Your proof that it must be a one off is because nothing canon comes after it. and then you try and prove a negative by once again claiming that nothing came after it so it must be so.

You claim something never shown in canon, I have been reminding you it has no canon backing to be based on. Yours is baseless, mine is a reminder it is baseless.

"Got any proof that's actually the norm for Romulan ships? No, you haven't because there is nothing that even implies it's anything but a one-off with no plans left over (it apparently wasn't even a Romulan ship). By that same logic, all Federation ships have Slipstream and Ablative Generators because Voyager was shown using them once."

You want to be a jackass well so can I. I simply posited my argument (that Memory Alpha also had) that the ship was constructed by the Romulan military coup members.

My argument actually makes sense compared to your incredibly uneducated view of database storage and manipulation. I can at least back up my argument even circumstantially with two parts in the movie, I am still waiting for you to source a part of the movie where the Romulan military clearly has no idea what the ship and its capabilities are and that they had nothing to do with it. Your entire premise rests on Shinzon running his mouth off to all his fellow conspirators...........who he hates and only used because he needed them. :hmm

That isn't being a jackass, that is asking you for proof and reminding you there is nothing to back you up. Your idea is unsupported entirely by canon, which is what I've been spending the entire 'discussion' reminding you. Your idea is the one that requires him to run his mouth off and give away his tech.

Not sure why I even humored you since my entire stance is 'there is no proof and we don't know what happened next, so lets not jump to conclusions', you've made a claim not supported by canon and have to provide proof. All you've done is spout assumptions.

posted on January 6th, 2013, 10:20 pm

(Sorry if this was posted earlier and I missed it.)

Do we know anything about power requirements for cloaking? Because if the requirement is high enough it would require a significant shift in design philosophy for Starfleet to start installing cloaking devices en masse, even discounting treaty violations/not wanting a war/etc. From what I remember Romulan ships use some sort of singularity for power, giving them a higher threshold for generating power than the other factions. The Klingons do also cloak, but it may be a different system, and it probably isn't as good.

(Then again, the Defiant could cloak and it's pretty small, so this may not be an issue, assuming larger ships have fewer problems with power requirements.)

Also, if I remember things correctly Romulan ships travel slower when cloaked (since they have to mask emissions and stuff). Again, that's a design philosophy problem. Sure, the Federation doesn't have to cloak generally like the Romulans do, but that would relegate cloaking to be some sort of last ditch system. The Federation doesn't really need another one of those.



It's almost an issue of "Why doesn't every faction use every weapon?" For the most part, they all have the capability. But they all have different fighting styles, and different design philosophies. The Federation doesn't need cloaking to stay competitive - that's pretty clear. If they did use it, they probably wouldn't do it as well as the Romulans, and maybe even the Klingons (at least at first). I'd bet that the Romulans would be willing to invest a lot into a cloaking arms race if the Federation developed it, and they could potentially win (though the Federation seems to be better at improvising and developing technology quickly). For the Federation to develop cloaking to a point where it would be competitive with the Romulans, the war between them that it would start could have taken years, which is bad for both sides.

posted on January 7th, 2013, 11:22 pm

The only thing is that the Federation DID already develop a cloak in secret, not just a cloak but a phase cloak, and the Enterprise D did a pretty good test of it, and made it work flawlessly. There was never any indication when they hooked it up that there were any real hurdles to making the thing fully functional. And that was just a prototype, if the Federation wanted to deploy cloaking devices I dont see why they would have an issue installing them in short order. Its not like the Galaxy class was designed with cloaking in mind when it was built, you have to figure the Romulans and Klingons take cloaking into consideration when they design new ships, so the Enterprise not needing any real modifications seems to indicate a Federation cloak should be a relatively easy upgrade for the their existing fleet.

posted on January 8th, 2013, 5:03 pm

I seem to recall that the future Enterprise in "All Good Things" decloaked with the same effect that was used when she decloaked in "The Pegasus", an effect that's different to cloaking effects used on other ships. If it is (and I may have to go watch both episodes just to make sure!), it may have been a hat-tip at the earlier episode to suggest that it's the cloaking technology in use.

posted on January 8th, 2013, 7:46 pm

Equinox, I would theorise that whilst a cloaking device can be fitted to any ship, it's power consumption and effectiveness may vary greatly. So, it's not so much that Klingon and Romulan designs are the only ships capable of cloaking, but that they are designed around the ability to and as such their shape and composition effects the efficiency of which the cloaking device functions. Think of it a bit like a stealth aircraft. The shape and material use make it more effective at deflecting and absorbing incoming radar than would otherwise be the case.

As such, just because a Federation design used a cloaking device in a somewhat emergency situation (it was that or be trapped inside that asteroid if my memory of that episode serves me) does mean the whole fleet could use them at the drop of a hat. They might draw so much power when used on a standard Federation ship, or be so limited in effectiveness due to the shape of a Miranda, Excelsior et al compared to a K'T'Inga, B'rel, D'Dereidex that it wouldn't be worth it.

To use the stealth analogy, you can't just buy an Airbus and paint it in radar reflective paint and say "Tada! Stealth Bomber". The system works as a whole not a sum of it's parts.