Cardasian Federation war

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:03 pm

Jordanis wrote:That's true, but I think the Cardassian situation is the greatest Danegeld we've ever seen the UFP pay.

Among the greatest certainly, but the Treaty of Algeron comes pretty close, if not ever greater.

Deepcrush · Post by **Deepcrush** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 5:26 pm

I would have to say that the Treaty of Algeron is indeed worse.

Post by **Mikey** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:15 pm

Yeah, Algeron is worse. The Cardie treaty caused some political unrest and minor territorial issues; Algeron stifled Fed defensive capabilitie for decades (and on into centuries.)

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:43 pm

Indeed. Algeron was far worse than simply handing over a few planets.

Captain Picard's Hair · Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:55 pm

And yet the Klingons/Romulans never tried to take the advantage in a major way. (Before the Nerandra III incident, in the case of the Klingons)

Jordanis · Post by **Jordanis** » Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:37 pm

Do we have a date on the treaty of Algeron? It occurs to me that the tech field at the time might have heavily favored sensors over cloaks.

Deepcrush · Post by **Deepcrush** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:56 am

Remember we had a way of firing on cloaked ships back then. Spock and McCoy worked it out with PTs. That plus auto targeting would have made cloaks less useful. Starfleet had a good lead on its ships over the other empires up until around the 2340's. If the treaty was from before then, starfleet may not have seen the treaty and that big of a give up. It may have been a their jokers card. Give the enemy a gift that makes them think they have the advantage but in truth its just wishful thinking. I wouldn't think of starfleet today to have such ideas involving IQ but, the starfleet of old seems to have been a real military. I wouldn't put it passed 23rd century SFHQ.

Jordanis · Post by **Jordanis** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 1:02 am

Deepcrush wrote:Remember we had a way of firing on cloaked ships back then. Spock and McCoy worked it out with PTs. That plus auto targeting would have made cloaks less useful. Starfleet had a good lead on its ships over the other empires up until around the 2340's. If the treaty was from before then, starfleet may not have seen the treaty and that big of a give up. It may have been a their jokers card. Give the enemy a gift that makes them think they have the advantage but in truth its just wishful thinking. I wouldn't think of starfleet today to have such ideas involving IQ but, the starfleet of old seems to have been a real military. I wouldn't put it passed 23rd century SFHQ.

Yes, that's precisely what I was thinking when I wondered about the date. If it was STVI-ish era, it might have been a false gift, a calculated gamble that Starfleet technology would continue to largely negate the utility of the cloak (and that the Klingons and Romulans would eventually develop such sensor technology, meaning the cloak would not have been useful to Starfleet), letting them get something for a 'free' concession.

It may have been that, after the battle over Khitomer, the general consensus was that the cloak was on its way out. A mistake, but one that seems quite reasonable to make given that simple field modifications allowed the quick and easy destruction of a ship with the most advanced cloak the Klingons had.

Deepcrush · Post by **Deepcrush** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 1:06 am

Very true. The Feds may have been hoping to stay ahead of the Romulans and the Klingons were down sizing their fleets at the time to deal with praxis.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 11:54 am

The Tomed Incident, which apparently led to the Treaty of Algeron, was in 2311, from Data's mention of a 53 year gap in Fed-Romulan relations as of "The Neutral Zone". As for the issue of detecting cloaked ships, the E-A's wake homing torpedo indicates that it was only effective at close range, since the ship's own sensors were ineffective. It's therefore likely that the method would only be useful for locating a cloaked vessel if its presence were already know or suspected, and cloaked ships would therefore still be useful for scouting and raiding.

Jordanis · Post by **Jordanis** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:15 pm

Captain Seafort wrote:The Tomed Incident, which apparently led to the Treaty of Algeron, was in 2311, from Data's mention of a 53 year gap in Fed-Romulan relations as of "The Neutral Zone". As for the issue of detecting cloaked ships, the E-A's wake homing torpedo indicates that it was only effective at close range, since the ship's own sensors were ineffective. It's therefore likely that the method would only be useful for locating a cloaked vessel if its presence were already know or suspected, and cloaked ships would therefore still be useful for scouting and raiding.

True, but that's a field modification. Building on the principle, what can a full team of engineers accomplish in time to launch, saaaay... the Enterprise-B? My speculation is building on the DITL speculation of the E-B as an anti-cloak variant. And 2311 is quite in line with the timeline of the E-B.

Deepcrush · Post by **Deepcrush** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 4:04 pm

DITL has a good point. Even if the E-B wasn't truely the ship for fighting cloaked ships the thought of an auto targeting system and homing PTs makes a good bit of sense. That and with the excelsiors in mass production, starfleet may have just felt that it didn't matter. Cloaks were never the style of starfleet to begin with.

Captain Picard's Hair · Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:16 pm

When did the Federation begin installing outposts along its borders to detect the passage of cloaked ships? The Klingons/Romulans would still have the element of surprise and the potential to get the first shots off before Starfleet is able to raise shields, if their ships can fire quickly enough after decloaking.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:26 pm

Unknown - there probably wasn't an effective network along the Fed-Klingon border as of 2285/86, or Kruge's BoP would have been detected. The Romulan Neutral Zone had been covered since before the formation of the Federation, but that line was incapable of detecting cloaked ships. Overall, there's no evidence that cloaked ships could be detected beyond extremely close range until the Tachyon grid was developed. There's certainly no evidence that the equipment used in the wake-homing torpedo could be used as a long-range detection system.

Deepcrush · Post by **Deepcrush** » Sat Dec 29, 2007 5:27 pm

In STVI, in the HQ meeting. They had talked about removing the starbases and ship assignments. They seemed to see it as a major deal so I would guess that they must have had a sizable force there at the border. But, I don't think they had sensors at that time to detect cloaked ships. The biggest advantage would be the auto targeting systems. A ship or starbase could open fire before the klingon or romulan ship could get its shields up. A BOP, D-6 or D-7 could move about without being seen but if they wanted to attack then they would have to decloak some distance out of phaser range to avoid being targeted to quickly.