I’m working my way through ST:TNG. I never saw the series all the way through when it was broadcast, though I did see the occasional episode then. Right now, I’m mostly through the 2nd season.
In TNG, it seems the Romulans usually show up with their ships cloaked. I seem to recall an episode of TOS where Kirk had his ears pointed, infiltrated a Romulan ship, and stole a cloaking device for the Federation. So why hasn’t the Federation reverse engineered a cloaking device and installed one on the Enterprise and all other Galaxy Class (I think) spaceships?
Because there’s been an arms race – or, rather an invisibility/sensor race. The Romulans invent a cloaking device, the Federation figures out a way to defeat it. The Romulans or Klingons improve that tech, the Federation and Cardassians improve their sensors. And so on. Picard’s Enterprise could easily defeat a cloaking device from Kirk’s era, just as it could have outpaced the fastest starship of that era.
In addition to what His Skaldness has said above, the Federation and Romulan Empire have the Treaty of Algeron. Where the Feds, rather stupidly imho, agree to not research cloaking tech.
This is actually a plot point for a later season episode.
It was part of a peace treaty that the Federation was not allowed to have/use cloaking devices. Of course, there was a super-secret incident where they did have/use a cloaking device. Riker was the XO on the ship involved prior to his time on Enterprise. There was a mutiny, he sided with the Captain, order was restored, they used the cloaking device for something or other, and then he was sworn to secrecy–an oath he later broke in TNG because reasons.
I’ll fanwank the theory of Algeron. It was negotiated and signed in the aftermath of the Genesis incident from the 2nd and 3rd movies. Yes, we all know that Carol Marcus and Company intended the Genesis device for peaceful purposes, but I seriously doubt that the Romulans, Tholians, Klingons, and so forth bough that – especially since Genesis did not and apparently could not fulfill its stated purpose of creating habitable planets. To the Federation’s rivals, Genesis was thew ultimate weapon of mass destruction, capable of destroying an entire world with one missile. I expect the other major powers demanded either that everybody get the Genesis tech or that the Federation give up any claim to cloaking tech, or otherwise the Klingons and Romulans, at least, would declare war.
Hell, I’m still not convinced that Starfleet’s motives were entirely pure.
How many times have I told you not to bother me with facts? Do you WANT me to Quantum Leap you into Prince Charles’ body? WHY DO YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME HURT Y’ALL?
Remember, DS9s Defiant is cloaked. Mostly for the Reason of Cool, but there’s some hand waving that the Romulans are only lending the cloak and are trading intelligence for it.
The Romulans made agreed to install a cloaking device on the Defiant on the conditions that; it only be used in the Gamma Quadrant, a Romulan officer be assigned to the Defiant with control over it, and Starfleet share any intelligence gathered in the Gamma Quadrant with the Tal Shiar. IIRC they quickly dropped the Romulan control officer, then of course the Defiant itself was destroyed and replaced by another ship with the same name.
Not necessarily. I’m not sure how much we want to compare nuclear weapons treaties on Earth to the Genesis weapon, but if we did… The first treaty on nukes (the Nonproliferation Treaty) had its first signers in 1968, 23 years after the first nuclear weapons were used. And then it took two more years (until 1970) before the final parties signed on and it went into effect. This shows that 1) it took a really long time just to get all the signatures and 2) the final signatures were in fact 25 years after the first use of the weapon.
Skald, feel free to teleport my share of the royalties on this fan-wank.
Although it’s never stated explicitly, I feel we can confidently conclude Jimmy Carter’s preserved-in-a-jar head was involved in negotiating the Treaty of Algeron.
Fair enough, but the treaty is explicitly the result of the Tomed incident, and was basically an exchange; Federation doesn’t develop cloaking technology, Romulans stop mucking about outside of their territory.