I always thought the Federation couldn't operate the cloaking device even though Scotty had got it working. But then in later series we learn that it was not used due to an agreement with The Romulans!
JB
JB
Episode of the Week : The Enterprise Incident
- Thread starter Botany Bay
- Start date
I'll rate it at a 7. Kirk's last comment to Scotty before he beams aboard the Romulan vessel is classic, "Just don't put me inside a bulkhead."
I doubt the point of our heroes getting access to a cloaking device would be that they'd be able to become invisible. Rather, both here and in ST4:TVH, the point is that by capturing a cloak, the hero side will learn how to penetrate this particular model, and stop invisible villains from wreaking havoc.
Alas, it's an exercise they have to repeat every few years. Not only will an outdated cloak tell them nothing about how to see through the latest Romulan or Klingon upgrade (heck, them having that outdated cloak is guarantee that the villains have come up with something new!), it most probably won't even make the heroes invisible to modern Romulans or Klingons.
Interestingly, the usual players normally don't seem to have any difficulty seeing through their own cloaks (witness their massive yet tight cloaked formations!) even though they never can see through contemporary adversary cloaks (see e.g. "The Defector"). That Scotty's jury-rigging of a Romulan device would render the heroes invisible to the Romulans themselves is unexpected, considering how the villains originally arrived to the scene under cloak and yet failed to collide with each other... But perhaps that was a feat of dead reckoning or careful preplanning, and only certain (most?) models of cloak let friendlies see through?
Timo Saloniemi
Alas, it's an exercise they have to repeat every few years. Not only will an outdated cloak tell them nothing about how to see through the latest Romulan or Klingon upgrade (heck, them having that outdated cloak is guarantee that the villains have come up with something new!), it most probably won't even make the heroes invisible to modern Romulans or Klingons.
Interestingly, the usual players normally don't seem to have any difficulty seeing through their own cloaks (witness their massive yet tight cloaked formations!) even though they never can see through contemporary adversary cloaks (see e.g. "The Defector"). That Scotty's jury-rigging of a Romulan device would render the heroes invisible to the Romulans themselves is unexpected, considering how the villains originally arrived to the scene under cloak and yet failed to collide with each other... But perhaps that was a feat of dead reckoning or careful preplanning, and only certain (most?) models of cloak let friendlies see through?
Timo Saloniemi
Regardless of the cloak, why should the Romulan ships collide with each other? Didn't they have subspace transceivers to communicate with each other? If you're the commander (Commodore) of the flag ship and you know you're at coordinates XXXXXX, can't you just order ships B and C to come in on different approaches? Since they all came in at different angles to the Enterprise, it seems that only minimal voice communication would have been required to prevent a collision.
Just my opinion.
Voice probably wouldn't help much, and why do that if you can just as easily send accurate telemetry directly from helm computer to helm computer? But communications would defeat stealth, as the enemy would hear them, too. Or at least Uhura was always hearing things on obscure channels.
And the multi-hundred-strong Klingon fleet flying from their space through UFP's (and neutral) all the way to DS9 unseen in "Way of the Warrior" would call for pretty active back-and-forth exchange of positioning data; that'd glow brighter on UFP sensors than if every skipper dropped their cloaks and painted WE ARE HERE on their hulls on fiery letters. And never mind the Romulans of "The Die is Cast", flying essentially shoulder to shoulder while approaching the wormhole.
Timo Saloniemi
And the multi-hundred-strong Klingon fleet flying from their space through UFP's (and neutral) all the way to DS9 unseen in "Way of the Warrior" would call for pretty active back-and-forth exchange of positioning data; that'd glow brighter on UFP sensors than if every skipper dropped their cloaks and painted WE ARE HERE on their hulls on fiery letters. And never mind the Romulans of "The Die is Cast", flying essentially shoulder to shoulder while approaching the wormhole.
Timo Saloniemi
At least we know from this episode that the Romulans were able to retrieve NOMAD's severed head and convert him into a cloaking device.
On a side note, I thought Joanna Linville was particularly good as the Romulan Commander. It reminded me a little of her performance in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode The Passersby.
On a side note, I thought Joanna Linville was particularly good as the Romulan Commander. It reminded me a little of her performance in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode The Passersby.
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