Why does the federation not have cloaking

The ability to cloak was also part of the refit to the Discovery in In the alternate reality caused by the temporal incursion of the Narada , the Federation was already bound to treaties banning cloaked weapons as early as Star Trek Into Darkness display graphic.

In order to function, most cloaking devices needed to be tied into a ship's deflector shield grid. TOS : " The Enterprise Incident " When activated, the cloaking device projects a cloaking field, also known as cloaking shields, around the vessel which selectively bend the path of light and sensors to render the vessel invisible and undetectable. Most vessels could not use their weapons and deflector shields when cloaked.

Ships of the Klingon Dclass , for example, were vulnerable to attack for two seconds when their shields automatically dropped as the cloaking field formed. TNG : " Face of the Enemy "; Star Trek Generations Ships like the Scimitar with more advanced cloaking technology however did not have this problem, as it had primary and secondary shields and weapon systems that could remain online while the ship was cloaked.

Star Trek Nemesis. Ever since the initial introduction of the cloaking device, there was an ongoing race between the development of new cloaking technologies and the development of new detection systems that could defeat them. Starfleet's earliest method of penetrating cloaks was developed in , when Daniels provided Enterprise with 31st century quantum beacons so they could locate a Suliban stealth-cruiser.

These devices also proved effective against the Romulan cloaking devices used on mines but were ineffective against the Bird-of-Prey cloaking devices. ENT : " Shockwave ", " Minefield ". The cloak used by the Sarcophagus in used a massive gravitational field to bend light and electromagnetic radiation around the ship, rendering it invisible to sensors.

However, imperfections in the field led to near-imperceptible shifts in the background electromagnetic field. Using portable sensor devices surreptitiously planted on the Sarcophagus , Discovery made micro-jumps with the aid of its spore drive , taking readings from multiple vectors in a matter of minutes. Using these readings, Discovery analyzed the correlation between the cloak's field and the background electromagnetic field, allowing the formulation of an algorithm that exposed the enemy ship's position.

This ultimately led to the Sarcophagus ' destruction. The cloak used by the Romulan Bird-of-Prey that crossed the Neutral Zone in was less than perfect, allowing a starship to pick up a blip on its motion tracking sensors. This blip was not accurate enough for targeting of weapons and only appeared when the vessel moved, but it was enough to help the Enterprise locate the enemy vessel.

By , advances in Romulan technology had removed the problem, forcing Starfleet to steal a model of the new cloak. Versions of the cloak used by the Klingons in the late 23rd century also had their flaws.

Cloaked D7-class battle cruisers could be detected using a metaphasic sweep. VOY : " Prophecy " Energy "distortions", manifesting themselves most often as refracting visible light energy from surrounding stellar objects very near the cloaked ship's outline, appearing as a "shimmering" effect, while cloaked and prior to decloaking, could give away a cloaked ship when observed. In the 24th century , the Federation protected its borders from cloaked Romulan incursion by a gravitic sensor net.

In , Geordi La Forge developed a technique called the tachyon detection grid that used tachyon beams transmitted between different points to expose cloaked objects. Soon, this had been implemented on the Federation's border outposts as well as in Klingon space. In it was not commonly understood by Starfleet personnel that cloaked ships radiate a slight subspace variance at warp speeds.

These variances typically vanished once the vessel drops out of warp. DS9 : " The Search, Part I " If a cloaked ship exceeded its maximum propulsion capacity, it would not be able to fully cloak, and would appear on navigational sensors as a sensor echo. TNG : " Tin Man ". Using modified cloaks, a combined fleet of Romulan and Cardassian warships attempted to conduct a sneak attack on Founders' homeworld in They determined that as long as their fleet traveled under the speed of warp 6 their warp signatures would remain undetected, even while under cloak.

This modification, however, did not prevent the fleet from being detected by the sensors aboard Deep Space 9. In this case, the cloaked fleet appeared as high concentrations of tetryon particles. DS9 : " The Die is Cast ". Decloaking ships also created a build up of tachyon particles. DS9 : " By Inferno's Light ". Sensors aboard Deep Space 9 were also able to detect an entire nearby fleet of cloaked Klingon vessels jumping to warp as "a huge distortion wave in subspace", and Miles O'Brien was able to deduce their heading from the vector of the subspace disturbance.

DS9 : " The Way of the Warrior ". The Dominion , as well as the Cardassians, also possessed many methods of breaking through cloaking fields, including a long-range tachyon scanner and an antiproton beam.

DS9 : " The Search, Part I ", " Once More Unto the Breach " However, these methods were not always effective as Thomas Riker was able to partially counteract the antiproton beam scanning method by adjusting the cloak's resonance frequency. DS9 : " Defiant ". The Dominion's array in the Argolis Cluster could detect cloaked ships up to two light years away and required approaching the array by navigating the cluster's Gravimetric shear and Gravimetric distortion.

DS9 : " Behind the Lines ". The Tachyon scan , also known as a tachyon sweep or tachyon signal, was another method of detecting cloaked ships. Due to the enormous amount of power required to generate a cloaking field, there was, by and large, not enough power available to also power the weapons and shields.

DS9 : " The Search, Part I " However, there were several times when advances in cloaking technology rendered these tactical inefficiencies untrue. For example, in , the Klingons developed a prototype Bird-of-Prey capable of firing photon torpedoes when cloaked. Kirk in the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon. Fortunately for galactic peace, the Enterprise -A was able to deduce the existence of Chang's ship and devise a way to penetrate its cloak by tracking its plasma exhaust with new sensors for analyzing gaseous anomalies.

Using a Photon torpedo modified to home in on and target that plasma exhaust, the prototype ship was destroyed by the Enterprise -A and the USS Excelsior over Khitomer. Another advanced cloak was encountered in The Reman warbird Scimitar employed a new type of "perfect" cloaking device that did not give off any tachyon emissions or residual antiprotons , making the Scimitar completely undetectable while cloaked.

It allowed the ship to fire weapons and use shields while cloaked, as well as allow the ship to drop the cloak protecting certain quadrants of the ship without de-cloaking the entire ship at once. The effectiveness of this technology was demonstrated when the Scimitar engaged the USS Enterprise -E , the Valdore , and another warbird in the Bassen Rift , where it was able to cripple both warbirds without suffering any significant damage. Only through repeated blind targeting, barrages of phasers and torpedoes, and the use of telepathic triangulation by Commander Deanna Troi , was the Enterprise -E able to overcome the Scimitar 's cloak.

In addition, the mirror universe ISS Enterprise was able to fire weapons while cloaked using a Suliban cloaking device. The spheres had been placed in the expanse approximately a thousand years ago and the Sphere Builders had temporal technologies so the origins of this particular type of cloak are as mysterious as those of the Suliban.

In the Enterprise stumbled into a cloaked Romulan mine field. By using the quantum beacons they could successfully detect the mines but not the two birds-of-prey in the area. This encounter was a one off though, Romulan stealth technology was still very much in its infancy, the cloaked mines were considered a relative success but the power requirements for cloaking a whole ship were problematic; sometime after the encounter with the Enterprise , the prototype cloaking ship Praetor Pontilus was destroyed in an antimatter containment failure caused by its stealth systems.

It would be decades until a successful system could be developed. The Klingon cloak used gravitational bending to conceal the ship from sensors and was a key tactical advantage to the Klingons during the Federation-Klingon War of This put the two sides on a more even footing once again.

The Romulans finally developed a successful cloaking system by , which they tested on a next generation bird-of-prey , that they dubbed a ghost ship , in raids against Federation outposts along the neutral zone. The new Romulan cloak used so much power it precluded the use of weaponry and warp drive and the USS Enterprise was able to track it.

However it could still be considered a success and the Romulans quickly advanced the design to make its use more practical. TOS episode : " Balance of Terror ". While the Romulans were developing their new device Klingon agents became aware of it and the Klingon operative Korlat was sent to begin talks with the Romulans to make an alliance between the two powers, with the Klingons hoping to gain access to the technology in the process.

The alliance was agreed upon by the power-hungry new praetor, though other parts of the Romulan government saw other advantages in the alliance, such as "containing" the Cardassians. As they hoped the Klingons did receive cloaking technology in the alliance, while the Romulans were given Klingon starships. With two enemy states using cloaking technology, the Federation was keen to find ways to detect cloaked vessels to the extent that they even stole a Romulan cloaking device from a Romulan battlecruiser in Over the next few decades the Federation learned to detect sensor blips associated with cloaks; in return, cloaking technology advanced.

In the Klingons successfully modified a bird-of-prey to be able to fire torpedoes while cloaked. Captain Kirk and his crew eventually defeated this vessel by using a specially modified torpedo which tracked the ships plasma exhausts. For a significant period of time Dr Scott Heisenberg was credited for single-handedly refining Starfleet's sensors to detect Romulan cloaking devices. However this period came to an end when the Romulans retreated behind their borders following the Tomed Incident.

TLE novel : Catalyst of Sorrows. By the 24th century cloak detection was becoming commonplace; Federation borders used gravimetric sensor nets and interphase scanners. The Romulans countered this by improving their interphase generators. In the USS Enterprise -D 's chief engineer Geordi La Forge developed a more advanced technique, the tachyon detection grid , using tachyon beams transmitted between different locations to expose cloaked vessels.

TNG episode : " Redemption ". The Dominion and Cardassians used antiproton beams to locate cloaked ships. DS9 episode : " Defiant ". By , the latest iteration of the cloak had overcome all these problems. The Warbird Scimitar 's cloak did not give off any tachyon emissions or residual antiprotons, making it undetectable. In addition, the Scimitar could maintain shields and fire through its cloak. In , when a Romulan vessel managed to penetrate the Mars Defense Perimeter to retrieve an operative at Utopia Planitia , Admiral Alynna Nechayev suspected from sensor scans that the Romulans were seemingly putting phase cloaks in active service.

ST novel : Zero Sum Game. In , while being modified at the Vault , the Romulan mining vessel Narada was equipped with a cloaking device which allowed it to fire through the cloak. Upon observing this ability, General Worf of the Klingon Defense Force said that the Romulans "must have stolen that trick from us! In an alternate future created by the formation of the Red wormhole which started the War of the Prophets , by the Romulan Star Empire had developed a more advanced effective cloak known as a transmorphic cloaking device , which used biogenic components obtained from Grigari technology.

These transmorphic cloaks made the ships virtually undetectable. This future timeline was erased by the crew of the USS Defiant. DS9 novel : The War of the Prophets. Under the Treaty of Algeron , the Federation was banned from using cloaking technology without the explicit permission of the Romulans. However, before and throughout the 24th century , the Federation was active in the development of cloaking technology but did not implement it in the fleet.

TNG novel : Resistance. The outposts were empty and emitted false life signs. The names of the people that died had already died before this incident and were covered up until this time. The Klingons sided with the Federation on this incident, suggesting that they already had an alliance with the Federation by this time. The entire act of terror was orchestrated by Starfleet to diffuse the rising tensions between them and the Romulan Empire and create a treaty that would ensure peace for another century.

The Romulans were required to remove themselves from the interstellar government, while the Federation could not have or research cloaking technology. In the aftermath of the treaty being signed, Starfleet still completed research and used cloaking devices in a limited fashion. While most did not get caught, Erik Pressman was arrested in for the research and application of the phasing cloaking device used on the Pegasus in However, during the period before the treaty was signed, Starfleet crews developed the ability to detect cloaking devices.

A ripple in space, gaseous anomalies, and other methods were used to detect a cloaked ship nearby. After the treaty, these methods were even more important, as it provided a defensive strategy against those who would use cloaking to destroy the Federation.

The Algeron treaty was considered a mistake by many in the Federation because it restricted their defensive abilities. But the treaty had accomplished one thing for the Federation—it took the Romulans out of circulation from the interstellar government.

Peace was possible because factions that wanted war were out of the way. Eventually, the Romulans gave Starfleet permission to use cloaking devices with limited supervision against the Dominion.

Only the Defiant could use a cloaking device. Commander Sisko also used the technology several times during his time at the starbase. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.