My fanwank was that the Feds are peaceful explorers. Why do they need cloaking devices?
For what it’s worth, I always heard that what Roddenberry said, when he talked about this, was pretty much what Dale Sams says: The Federation are good guys, so they have no reason to sneak around hiding behind cloaking devices.
From a logical point of view, though, that’s pretty obvious nonsense. It’s kind of like saying that since we’re good guys, our soldiers should never wear camouflage uniforms or employ codes when sending radio messages. It doesn’t really bear much thinking about, beyond the kind of “it’s a future utopia where humans have done away with all their negative traits” thing that Roddenberry often got to nattering about in his later years.
More practically, for a long time the cloaking device was the Romulans’ schtick. Every alien race had something that made them unique. The Klingons were the gruff warrior types, the Vulcans were the pointy-eared logical dudes, and the Romulans were the almost-Vulcans who had the cloaking device.
Then suddenly, around the time of Wrath of Khan, the Klingons had a cloaking device too, and the Romulans lost that bit of uniqueness. When the Romulans were the only ones with a cloak, it was easy enough to assume that it was a very difficult technological problem that only they had managed to crack, and naturally it was a closely guarded military secret. But now that other powers had cloaking devices too, it became necessary to explain why the Federation didn’t.
Hence, the Treaty of Algeron, which was at least an explanation (beyond “because we’re the good guys”). As noted, it’s not much of an explanation, because why would the Federation agree to abandon such a useful tool that everybody else gets to use, unless they got a monopoly on some other nifty technology in exchange (which we never saw any evidence of)? Again, to draw a modern parallel, it would be like the US agreeing that they won’t equip any of their ships with radar, but all other countries can use it as much as they want. What rational diplomat would sign such a treaty?
But the Federation does have a radar/sensors. A cloaking device is no good, if Federation can see through it. Just b/c Federation can’t develop cloaking devices, doesn’t mean they can’t develop technology to see through it.
I agree with Skald the Rhymer.
To fanwank the Treaty of Algeron, Federation could have gotten some planets in exchange? Or that was the Treaty that defined the neutral zone in Federation’s favor.
Another thought on Treaty of Algeron, Romulan could have forced the treaty on Federation at the time. The Federation is the protagonist in the series, but it doesn’t mean they’re the strongest. In AU eps, they were slowly losing the war against the Klingons, even if they put up a good fight. Maybe they had to take an uneven deal at the time b/c they realize they can’t win against the Empire. Per Memory Alpha, the treaty was signed after an incident that cause a lot of lost lives for the Federation. There’s enough internal politic unrest within Romulan that prevents a full scale invasion and also b/c Federation isn’t a walk over. But Federation can’t always negotiate from a position of strength or even as equals.
Keep in mind the early Romulans had cloak but NO WARP drive. Thats like allowing your enemies army to have bullet proof armor but they are all quadraplegics. Its something you can easily deal with.
So, one assumes that when it comes to warp drive technology, even when they finally get it, they are going to be way behind the curve warp technology wise for a few generations at least.
Of course, the idea of any kind of empire of some size that doesn’t have warp that is a threat to areas they don’t already control is stupid as all get out. And since the Federation really isn’t in the business of taking over territories controlled by someone else first…sure, let them have their cloaking technology.
If we’re willing to accept extended universe as canon, the Tomed incident was actually a false flag that didn’t actually cost any Federation lives, only Romulan lives. I can certainly see the Federation jumping at the chance to sign a treaty that limits their research in exchange for the Romulans not declaring war, especially given that they (the Romulans) had pretty good cause to ally themselves with half the powers in the quadrant.
Where is it said that the Romulans did not have Warp technology?
In TOS, in the episode they were they first met the Romulans, I seem to recall that they did not.
Or if they did it was really crappy.
But thinking about it a bit more, even if I am wrong about that consider the following train of thought.
IFFF cloaking technology is only particularly useful as a defensive measure and not when used offensively, it would make sense from the Federations point of view.
The Feds are not trying to overtake the Romulans. Letting the Romulans have the defensive edge keeps the Romulans happy and the Federation gives up an advantage they aren’t going to use. It also sends a real message to the Romulans that the Federation really isn’t interested in war or conquest.
Eventually, after years of peace, everybody calms down a bit.
I read that. (the Tomed Incident) I hate the idea that anything at warp can collide with a non-warping object and keep its speed and mass. A baseball at light speed would obliterate the Earth. You wouldn’t need fleets in a war. Just unmanned pods. I SUPPOSE the notion could be outlawed along the lines that utterly destroying planets is heinous even to Klingons and Romulans…but my FANWANK on that is the instant a warp field encounters something solid enough, it collapses. There would be no deceleration, one second you’re at warp and the next whatever speed you were at before you went to warp.
Space travel without warp technology=generation ships, which was certainly not the case.
Cloaking technology is a great offensive weapon. Think how much ass your soldiers could kick if they couldn’t be seen until they were ready to fire.
Or, watch the TNG episode The Defector. Excellent episode anyway.
Heck, in the early minutes of Insurrection, Federation scientists/anthropologists are casually walking through the village wearing invisibility suits (and in broad daylight) so not only do they have cloaking tech, it’s extremely sophisticated.
They stole it from the Predators in 1980s L.A.
I remember reading that the Romulans and Klingons had an alliance at one point and shared tech. I’m not sure of its canonocity but I recall that it was used to explain that Klingon and Romulan ships were the same in TOS.
Two fanwank theorys:
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The ship Kirk encountered was ‘dropped off’ by a mother ship. Unlikely since it was called a flagship.
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More likely, Scotty was fooled by the Romulans use of a forced singularity for power, instead of conventional warp power.
The first Klingon ship we saw in TOS was run by Romulans, in “The Enterprise Incident.”
Whatever the power source, it is clear that the Romulans did not have warp drive. Scotty’s comment was about their speed and maneuverability, and it proved to be true the way the battle played out. If the Romulans had warp drive, there was no reason for them to be dawdling on the way home, before they knew the Enterprise was in the area.
Another reason point 1 makes no sense is that they were clearly heading back to Romulus, not to a mother ship.
The only answer that makes sense to me is that the Romulans did have warp capability, but it had to be taken out of that ship in order to fit in the relatively new and primitive cloaking device. Clearly it got miniaturized by the time of the Enterprise Incident, but I think Scotty had to hook up the one Kirk stole to the warp engines to get it to work.
As the article notes, if the Federation had warp drive and the Romulans didn’t during the war, the Federation could have polished them off easily. Not to mention that Romulus is far enough away that Kirk’s call for advice took hours to get answered.
Though I don’t understand why the primitive ships during the war didn’t have the equivalence of Skype for visual communications.
I’ve not taken it as an actual impossibility, just that they didn’t bother to do it. They established the bare minimum of interoperability with the Federation radio. Perhaps even their ships didn’t bother having cameras.
Plus, Romulans are usually pretty sneaky in their dealings. Maybe they were afraid there would be visual tells that would give away when they were lying.
I don’t see it as being a lack of technical ability, just that they didn’t do it. It wasn’t until Kirk’s time that a standard had developed.
Huh? Did you mean to say “the first time we saw Romulans in a Klingon ship in TOS was in The Enterprise Incident.” ? Because “The Enterprise Incident” was in season 3, and there were plenty of Klingon ships run by Klingons in previous seasons. Like “The Trouble with Tribbles”.
The continuity is a mess. It took hours for Kirk to get a response…but since then the show has pretty much played Romulus as being about as far from Earth as the Capitols in the Civil War were.