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Does that really sound like the Romulans? The people who wanted all out war in TOS as soon as they could prove that they had a military advantage?

The Romulans retreated after Tomed. I just cannot see that being part of a massive victory.

The political situation had clearly changed in the intervening years, given that the Romulan ambassador was given access to Federation military briefings prior to the Khitomer conference. Clearly the Federation suffered heavilly, given the massive operational and strategic advantage the treaty gave the Romulans, but equally clearly something stopped the Romulans from wiping out the Federation entirely. Perhaps one of the "more urgent matters" that they reffered to in "The Neutral Zone"

It has been speculated that the Klingons sided with the Federation about that time. Maybe that's what stopped the Romulans? (see the Tomed Incidend in Wiki)

SolkaTruesilver wrote:It has been speculated that the Klingons sided with the Federation about that time. Maybe that's what stopped the Romulans? (see the Tomed Incidend in Wiki)

I've read the Wiki article before. Was there ever any good chunk of literature dedicated to the Tomed Incident? Canon or not, I seem to recall there being a TNG book that discribed it.

Quite apart from the fact that it really doesn't seem to have been a Romulan victory in terms of what happened afterwards, I also have some issues with the big disadvantage of not having cloaks in the Federation.

Frankly, cloaks do not greatly impress me. They have their uses; intelligence gathering, covert infiltration and extraction, etc. But in actual combat, they have historically been as much a liability as an advantage.

Consider, Balance of Terror - The Romulan ship was defeated in part because of its cloak (which limited its range and made it vulnerable to attack when an attack did come.)
ST III - the Klingon BoP was defeated because of its cloak.
ST VI - Chang's BoP was defeated because of its cloak.
Generations - Lursa and B'Etor's BoP was defeated because of it's cloak.
The Chase - The Defiant was defeated largely because it relied on its cloak.

And so on. Now of course some of these are "hero's battle death exemption" situations. But in general terms, the cloak is NOT a perfect defence against detection. Almost every cloaked ship we have ever seen ends up getting detected, to at least some extent. Combine that with the fact that you can't use shields while you are cloaked - and you have a situation where you MIGHT go undetected... but you might well not, and if you are seen, you are dead.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if after Tomed the Federation folk sat back and said to themselves "well you know, cloaks aren't especially effective... so yeah, by all means let's agree not to have those if it will solve this situation."

Yeah the only reason I would use a cloak is for scouting ect. Phase cloak on the other hand is very useful... Lucky we are studing it.

I wish they would have made cloaking technology directly analogous to submarines of today. Cannot be fitted to vessels that are extremely large, limits speed, only certain weapons can be fired, can be detected but only after extensive search efforts using specialised sensors, etc.

I Am Spartacus wrote:I wish they would have made cloaking technology directly analogous to submarines of today. Cannot be fitted to vessels that are extremely large, limits speed, only certain weapons can be fired, can be detected but only after extensive search efforts using specialised sensors, etc.

Sounds a bit like the plot of "Balance of Terror."

GrahamKennedy wrote:Frankly, cloaks do not greatly impress me. They have their uses; intelligence gathering, covert infiltration and extraction, etc. But in actual combat, they have historically been as much a liability as an advantage.

Cloaks aren't meant to confer a tactical advantage - what they do confer is a tremendous strategic advantage. You mentioned their usefulness as intelligence gathering tools.

Sun Tzu wrote:Know your enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never know defeat.

Cloaking technology gives you a tremendous advantage in "knowing your enemy", and the treaty of Algeron's banning of it puts the Federation at a severe strategic disadvantage WRT the Romulans and Klingons.

Also I don't think cloaks fit in with the Federations ethic very well. The idea of invisible ships doesnt seem like them.

It didn't stopped:

1- Federation scientists developping a Phased Cloak year before the romulans
2- Having a Cloaking device on the Defiant
3- Having a cloaking device on Future Enterprise

The idea that "The good guys do not cloak" was an arguments decided by Gene Roddenburry, and it's a good dramatic reasoning. However, if we look at it the "hard" way, it's pretty stupid. The Federation could make cloaked probes, cloaked scout ships, etc.. everything that is not intended as "Showing off" the way the Galaxy class does. (Because, let's agree that the G-class IS a showoff)

By the way, to what extend does the Treaty of Algeron extend? We have seen the federation using cloack technology totally freely on these occasion:

- Cloaked mines
- Cloaking suits
- Cloaking installation

If I had been the Romulans, I'd have asked that ANY cloaking technology be forbidden to research in the Federation, so they'd be blind in a critical field of research.

SolkaTruesilver wrote:By the way, to what extend does the Treaty of Algeron extend? We have seen the federation using cloack technology totally freely on these occasion:

- Cloaked mines
- Cloaking suits
- Cloaking installation

If I had been the Romulans, I'd have asked that ANY cloaking technology be forbidden to research in the Federation, so they'd be blind in a critical field of research.

The mines, while most of the technology was apprently Federation, probably got their cloaks from the Klingons, given that the alliance had by that stage strengthened from the "we might help you if we feel like it" of TNG to a true military alliance to face off against the Dominion.

I don't think the duck-blind suystem was a cloak - it's a hologram generator, good enough to hide from a pre-industrial civilisation, but not an advanced one. It's possible that they might be defeated by modern sensor technology such as radar or infrared.

AFAIK the Treaty was scrapped by the time of Insurrection, wasn't it? If not the Feds would be in serious shizzle with the Cloaked Holoship.

Well, actually to "Abyss", a Section 31 book based in post-DS9 era (part of the "Relaunch", Insurrection's actions have been staged by Section 31. They managed to get the blame on one rogue admiral, and they were the one who stroke the deal with the Son'a.

Since the whole business happened in a part of the Galaxy that is totally isolated from the rest, Romulans have almost now way ever learning about it.

It could be argued that Tomed was not such a crushing defeat for the Federation - perhaps the Federation had been stumped regarding cloaking tech, and agreed to give it up because they really didn't have anything to give up.

Mikey wrote:It could be argued that Tomed was not such a crushing defeat for the Federation - perhaps the Federation had been stumped regarding cloaking tech, and agreed to give it up because they really didn't have anything to give up.

Then why would they let the Romulans know that? The only reason anyone would sign an assymetrical arms-control treaty would be if they were defeated. For example during WW1 German tank designs were extremely poor compared to their allied equivalents. That didn't mean they were blase about not being allowed them - indeed they did exactly what the Federation did, developed them in secret.