The Pegasus...

[Timo]

That was clearly an act of aggression. Yet Picard, instead of responding to the hostility, eagerly appeased the Romulans by decloaking within sight of the warbird and immediately confessing to wrongdoing. That was weak.

But consistent. Romulans always engage in acts of war (indeed, merely having Romulans onscreen is always and automatically an act of war because they don't have permission to come out of the Neutral Zone!). Picard never goes to war for it. Nor Kirk or Sisko, for that matter.

Which jibes well with the idea that the Feds would be giving up the right to use or develop invisibility cloaks in order to placate the Romulans. Supposedly the Romulans have the upper hand, the drop on the Feds. It's just that if they do drop, they, too, will lose - it's mutually assured destruction. But the Romulans with their invisible ships are in a better position to play MAD dogs than the Feds, so while both regularly violate treaties, the Feds technically have to be more careful about it...

Of course, the Romulans placate as well. They never go to war over anything. Here they let Picard live in "The Pegasus" even when they're within their rights to tear the peace treaty and kill 'em all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[velour]

#1 The truth. It's the righteous act. #2 It was the only leverage he had to take down Pressman & Co. If he had warped out of there under cloak, & THEN later on, tried to get Pressman busted for his transgressions, he'd have absolutely NO leverage to do so. They'd sweep it all under the rug, & anyone making waves would be reassigned, or sequestered, mothballed or whatever. They'd have shut down Picard's whole command crew before they'd let this get out, even the people who had no part in it, or would otherwise condemn it. Hell, they might do that anyway. So making a public spectacle out of it was really the best option for Picard, if he both wanted to keep his crew intact, and also wanted to take Pressman down for violating the treaty. It was the only chip he held that could push around his superiors

The situation that Picard faced was more complex than just about Pressman. He also had to deal with the Romulans. When I referred to leverage, I really wasn't talking about leverage to use against Pressman, but in his confrontation with the Romulans. Dealing with the Romulans was a more pressing matter than what to do about Pressman.

The situation required a deft touch by Picard, juggling two issues. Imo, he failed to do that.

Making a public spectacle may have been fine if Picard's only consideration was bringing down Pressman. However, decloaking in front of the Romulans would bring about a different set of problems.

Picard would be naïve if he thought the Romulans would give him brownie points for being honest; if he thought the Romulans were going to invite him to Romulus to pin on him the medal of the order of the Praetor (or whatever it is that the Romulans award) for honesty. To the Romulans, Picard admitted to wrongdoing because he was caught red handed.

The Romulans would use the treaty violation and Picard's confession for maximum gain in terms of propaganda and otherwise. Why wouldn't the Romulans demand to inspect the cloaking device and learn its secrets; to interrogate Pressman, Riker, etc.; to have inspectors in Starfleet R&D facilities to determine if Starfleet continues to cheat; and whatever else they can think of? And the Romulans could use the treaty violation, as an excuse, to start harassing and boarding Federation ships to determine if they had cloak on board.

The Romulans would want to extract concessions and make the Federation pay a price for the treaty violation. Why give the Romulans the upper hand?

Picard should have warped out of there fully cloaked. Let the Romulans speculate about what might have happened. And then deal with the Pressman issue out of sight of the Romulans.

If the Romulans wound up not having the guts to punish the Federation in any way (since there was no follow up episodes), then why should Starfleet even bother adhering to the treaty. Go ahead and just keep phase cloaking.

 

[Mojochi]

You know, even if Picard had withheld going public about the phasing cloak they'd just used, & secretly warped away, all the evidence on the site was still on hand. The Pegasus was still half materialized in the asteroid, and the Enterprise would be gone, after having been witnessed trapped within it. It honestly wouldn't take much speculating to deduce what had transpired anyhow. Better to come clean about it & blame a few rogue individuals, than to compound the conspiracy even more, by disappearing, & leaving a conspicuous piece of evidence behind.

Nope, if they were ever going to just leave under cloak, they'd have needed to rig the Pegasus to detonate beforehand, destroying all the evidence on the site, but even then, were the Romulans to survive that blast, to investigate, (& you should hope they do, because if they don't, it's even messier politically) they'd probably know, from the remaining debris, that only 1 ship had been destroyed, & since they knew the Enterprise was in there, then it's fair to assume they knew something about the 2nd ship that was in there as well.

Plus, if it's your intention to destroy the asteroid, and sneak away, that suggests a cover story in which the Enterprise has been destroyed, & therefore she must be decommissioned in order to keep the secret. If she's ever seen again, people are going to know something shady went down there. If you don't destroy the asteroid, then it's presumed the E is still in there, unless the Romulans find out otherwise. I suppose they could attempt a risky saucer separation within the asteroid, & leave it behind to be destroyed with the Pegasus & asteroid, & hope that such an amount of debris would be convincing enough under scrutiny. Since you're going to have to mothball the E anyhow, you could leave part of her behind & go home in the stardrive section under cloak

Point being, none of these options are terribly appealing for Picard & crew, & downright appalling that some random admiral would put them in this position anyhow. I'd have blown the whistle on the whole shit sandwich too, lol.

 

[Paradise City]

I wouldn't decloak before the Romulans. I'd just high tail it and possibly rig the asteroid with explosives and a warning beacon. Let the Romulans be confused. Picard decloaking was written in so Picard's forthright honesty could be juxtaposed with Pressman's shadiness in a way that every audience member would understand it. And I'm fine with that myself. I just think it's a bit underwhelming that the fall-out from this wasn't depicted. It's hard to imagine the Romulans being philosophical about it -- particularly as that Romulan Commander seemed a very shifty character and unlikely to be well disposed to be generous.

 

[Nyotarules]

Never made sense to me why Starfleet could not develop the cloaking tech, was there an in universe reason given? Why steal it in the TOS The Enterprise incident and never use it?

 

[Timo]

"The Pegasus" was the explanation. Until then, we had been wondering why the Feds don't make themselves invisible. After the episode, we could go "Oh, it was one of those treaty things".

Real world precedent abounds. Sometimes A and B both agree to stop wielding something very useful (such as defensive missiles that can stop nuclear Armageddon) because agreement prevents war. Sometimes A agrees to stop doing one thing (Soviet missiles won't be introduced in Cuba) while B agrees to start doing another (US missiles will be withdrawn from Turkey). Sometimes A dictates stuff to B; need not necessarily be that A is stronger than B, merely that B thinks agreeing is better than disagreeing (say, giving up something trivial helps with sustaining something useful).

We don't know what prompted the treaty mentioned here. We don't really need to know, though. The UFP is always making treaties, and we have yet to learn it would have lost ground because of that. Heck, even when ceding those annoying colonies to the Cardassians it supposedly made the enemy cede just as much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

I seem to recall hearing at some point that Gene didn't like the idea of the Federation using cloaks (at least by the time TNG had started) because the heroes weren't supposed to be "sneaky" but I don't recall much more detail or how much truth (if any) there is to it.

 

[velour]

I seem to recall hearing at some point that Gene didn't like the idea of the Federation using cloaks (at least by the time TNG had started) because the heroes weren't supposed to be "sneaky" but I don't recall much more detail or how much truth (if any) there is to it.

I, too, read that somewhere -- probably some post in this forum.

"The Pegasus" was the explanation. Until then, we had been wondering why the Feds don't make themselves invisible. After the episode, we could go "Oh, it was one of those treaty things".

Real world precedent abounds. Sometimes A and B both agree to stop wielding something very useful (such as defensive missiles that can stop nuclear Armageddon) because agreement prevents war. Sometimes A agrees to stop doing one thing (Soviet missiles won't be introduced in Cuba) while B agrees to start doing another (US missiles will be withdrawn from Turkey). Sometimes A dictates stuff to B; need not necessarily be that A is stronger than B, merely that B thinks agreeing is better than disagreeing (say, giving up something trivial helps with sustaining something useful).

We don't know what prompted the treaty mentioned here. We don't really need to know, though. The UFP is always making treaties, and we have yet to learn it would have lost ground because of that. Heck, even when ceding those annoying colonies to the Cardassians it supposedly made the enemy cede just as much.

Timo Saloniemi

I suppose you're right that "The Pegasus" was the explanation. Oddly enough, the explanation leads to more questions. What were the Feds thinking when they made that seemingly unbalanced deal? In any case, it was a rather lame explanation.

 

[DonIago]

It's lame that the Feds didn't develop cloaking tech because they signed and consequently honored a treaty in which they declared that they wouldn't do so?

Yes, the why of it is a bit of a question, but that doesn't, to me, make the explanation "lame" so much as, as evidenced by this thread, thought-provoking.

 

[USS KG5]

When the decision is made to take the Enterprise into the asteroid, why didn't someone suggest separating the saucer section???.... Is there any reason why they shouldn't have done that?

I seem to remember (I might have dreamt it though) one of the semi-canon references, like a Tech manual, mentioning that in addition to the secondary power aspect of the additional reactors in the saucer, that they found that constant seperating and re-attaching was causing excessive structural wear and tear.

Logically as well, if facing the kind of fight they could not probably win or run away from, just how safe would the saucer, not warp capable (apparently it has a "sustainer engine"), poorly armed, ACTUALLY BE? Sure they might not get hit by the same salvo of torpedoes as kills the battle section, they just all get killed a few minutes later.

So, you can re

 

[Jedman67]

I would hazard a guess that using cloaking technology was prohibited by the Treaty, but developing and testing was ok. "Testing" it on a full-size Starship would probably considered to be violating the Treaty, but testing it on something small like a shuttle or runabout would probably be ok as long as they're not caught.

I still don't understand why such a treaty violation would cause half the ship to mutiny against the lawful captain?

 

[DonIago]

If even researching such technology is a treaty violation (and field-testing would certainly be a serious form of research...you're well beyond theory at that point...) then the crew had every right to mutiny against a captain who was either directly committing illegal acts or following illegal orders.

While it's not necessarily emphasized as much as it should be, any armed forces service worth serving in has or should have a clause stating that you do not follow illegal orders.

 

[Jedman67]

With the mutiny causing the death of a third of the crew, rather than protesting unlawful orders and reporting it to Starfleet HR as soon as possible?

 

[Timo]

Significantly, we don't know which party escalated that crisis. Did a "good guy" threaten to blow the whistle there and then with a message that could be intercepted by Romulans, and Pressman gunned him down in panic? Or did Pressman tell the crew to proceed with a test that might kill them all, and a "good guy" panicked and started shooting, covering the action under the pretext of Pressman violating an important treaty?

We know Riker pulled a phaser to defend Pressman, but neither his original lie to Picard in public nor his forthright dialogue with Pressman in secrecy reveals whether this was the first gun drawn, and who fired first. One plausible scenario would have Pressman trying to flee (with the evidence) once his very illegal actions were questioned, and the crew trying to stop him while remaining within their legal rights.

(Note that in any scenario, starting a firefight would be a low-threshold event, because stun setting. "Sergeant, confine Captain Pressman to his quarters" and "Sergeant, open fire" would be orders with more or less identical impact. The deaths would come from the use/misuse of the cloak, not from the mutiny as such.)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

With the mutiny causing the death of a third of the crew, rather than protesting unlawful orders and reporting it to Starfleet HR as soon as possible?

We have no idea what exactly led to the crew's deaths, but it seems unlikely that the mutineers were directly responsible.

Hell, for all we know one of Pressman's loyalists intentionally activated the device.

In any case, the situation was precipitated by illegal actions in the first place, so I would hardly say that the mutineers are responsible unless there's evidence that they acted in some overtly foolish manner. Given that we know Pressman has friends at Starfleet, it's entirely possible that "reporting it to Stafleet HR" would have resulted in their complaints getting lost in the mail...or worse.

 

[velour]

I am going on the assumption that developing and testing cloak technology would have been a treaty violation.

About the mutiny on the Pegasus, I don't know if the crew would have been aware that Pressman's testing of the cloak technology was a violation of the treaty. It's possible that the crew, in general, might have thought that what was going on was legal, especially if Starfleet Command apparently authorized the experiment. There seems to be evidence that other higher-ups within Starfleet command were in on it and gave the o.k.

In any case, from what I remember from the episode, it wasn't the legal status of the experiment that caused the mutiny. What caused the mutiny was that the cloaking experiment caused serious damage to the ship that endangered the safety of the ship and crew. It was after the explosions and crazy stuff happened, then the mutiny started. Maybe the mutineers, subsequently, used the illegality of the experiment as their excuse for their mutiny.

 

[Timo]

Riker tells the story of "explosions and crazy stuff" in order to make the dubious Picard understand how a starship crew could have mutinied. Most probably, the story is utter fabrication, invented because Riker can't tell the real reason to his CO. But we can't know for sure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Jedman67]

Based on my poor recollections of the episode, i believe the remaining crew was trapped and subsequently died when they "re-phased" inside the asteroid and lost life support.
I don't think Riker would have stood up when his captain was being arrested; he must have believed they were trying to kill him.
Based on the clean escape Picard makes with the Pegasus cloak, i doubt that it was testing of the equipment itself that caused any damage.

 

[Timo]

Why wouldn't Riker pull a stun gun if others pulled theirs? Or even preemptively? It adds gravitas to words, and unlike lethal firearms, it may indeed have a pacifying effect, literally so if triggers are pressed.

I could well see a situation where Pressman tells the crew to proceed; somebody realizes "Hey, this is a cloak. This is treason!"; Pressman punishes the fellah for speaking out of turn; somebody rises to his defense; the inevitable "This is not a democracy!!" issue is raised; and by the time the XO tries the "You are under arrest, Sir!!!" stunt, there are already three exclamation marks there. So, stun guns.

Agreed that damage due to the experiment sounds unlikely. Damage exclusively due to rematerializing halfway inside rock is already sufficient for the plot needs. But why was the cloak activated if Pressman was already on the run? It's not as if the tech would involve automated countdown or anything. And the mutineers wouldn't feel a Fletcherchristianesque need to flee, as they could count on Starfleet assisting them and siding against Pressman, at least initially, until the board of inquiry.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DonIago]

I wonder whether the cloak worked somewhat akin to Genesis, at least originally...i.e. once you get it started up, there's no safe way to abort.