Treaty of Algeron

[Kaziarl]

I don't understand this particular treaty. I don't know what else is involved in it, but the main point we know about is that its a treaty between the Romulans and the Federation, and that because of it the Federation can't use cloaking technology.

Ok, so bring this back to our own time and this is how I interpret it:

We both have guns, I have a bullet proof vest. I can use my bullet proof vest, but you can never, under no circumstances, use a bullet proof vest.

Who would agree to that? I mean seriously, what could the Romulans have had to give for the Federation to agree those terms?

 

[Timo]

Nothing except a promise not to crush the Feds.

We somehow seem to assume that the treaty was signed in equal terms. But it's just as possible that the Romulans had the upper hand - for example because they had shown willingness to engage in genocidal attacks, which the Feds weren't able to defend against and which they didn't want to use as a counterthreat.

North Korea is able to dictate a lot of silly treaties because it holds Seoul by the short and sensitives, not because it would be a credible military power. Even the mightiest nations in the world can't stop North Korea from killing millions with a first strike, and they don't see any benefit in trying to use an equal counterthreat (which would be much more difficult to execute, too), so they yield.

Romulus certainly is a very nice North Korea analogy, not the least because of its fanatical isolationism, archaic ways, and the "reunification" thing with Vulcan...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

The Feds had a choice: Fight an all-out bloody war with the Romulans, or agree not to use cloaks. Seeing how later on enemies like the Dominion (and presumably the Borg) can see through cloaks and cloaks are detectable by advanced Fed tech it's not that great an advantage anymore.

 

[greenmystik]

Here's something to think about though. If the Feds were able to use cloaking technology, would they have pursued the tech to see through them less aggressively.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

I'm confused. When was the Treaty of Algernon instated? I thought it was supposed to be the treaty that ended the Earth-Romulan War, long before the Federation's first encounter with the Romulan cloaking device in "Balance of Terror." Or has ENT or one of the other sequel shows "corrected" that little fact?

Anyway, if I'm wrong and the Treaty was enacted after the Feds encountered the cloaking device, I think Anwar has it right. They may have figured they weren't giving up very much since right from the beginning (if "Balance of Terror" is the beginning) they've had no real problem detecting cloaked ships whenever the plot required it.

 

[Ethros]

^ No, it was in 2311 after the Tomed Incident

Memory Alpha- Treaty of Algeron
Tomed Incident

 

[Jonas Grumby]

^ Ah, that makes more sense! Thanks!

And I remember that now! I guess it's been a while since I've reviewed my TNG.

 

[Timo]

We never quite learned the name of the treaty that ended the war and established the NZ. When TNG "The Pegasus" aired, and mentioned that the no-cloak treaty was named the Treaty of Algeron, some of us got trigger-happy and decided that this one and only Romulan treaty for which we had a name was the original NZ treaty.

And that was because the episode never gave a solid date. It only said that the Treaty of Algeron had kept peace since the days of Tomed - but it could have been argued that it had existed even before that, and had simply failed to keep peace for each and every decade of its existence, until the 2311-2368 spell of peace.

David George spun a nice tale about the nature of the Tomed incident in his novel Serpents Among the Ruins, and added a half-baked rationale for why cloaking devices were part of the treaty that mopped up the mess afterwards. Believe that if you will (but it's a good book in any case).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

I thought "The Pegasus" made it clear that the Treaty of Algeron was signed after the Tomed Incident.

What WAS that Tomed Incident anyways? Was it some major battle that nearly became war? Back when I was a kid I thought it really was some kind of accident (I didn't learn the other political terms of "Incident" until years later).

 

[captcalhoun]

according to the aforementioned novel it's some incident involving the testing of a new Fed ship.

IIRC, in The Pegasus or in another TNG ep, it said something about the treaty defining or redefining the NZ as well... so maybe it's an update of the NZ treaty...

 

[Plecostomus]

Tomed is a bit like the Noodle Incident in Calvin And Hobbs... Everyone knows about it, no one wants to talk about it and if you mention it people get mad.

In fact given the nature of time-travel the two incidents *could* be related.

 

[Dayton3]

In the early 1970s, the United States signed and the U.S. Senate ratified the SALT I Treaty with the Soviet Union that allowed the Soviet Union to possess some 500 strategic nuclear weapons delivery systems MORE than the U.S. was allowed to have.

I always have a theory that the military conflict prior to the Tomed Incident of 2311 had Starfleet using cloaking devices to devastating effect against the Romulans.

So the Romulans insisted that any peace agreement include the Federation giving up cloaking devices.

By the way, my own personal continuity includes a Second Romulan War from 2304-2311.

And as we saw in the recent Trek novels, though Starfleet agreed to give up cloaking devices, Starfleet ships have the complete designs and specifications for cloaking devices in their computers.

So a Starfleet ship can construct its own cloaking device in relatively short order.

 

[Praetor]

I've always thought there was a possibility of a second small war myself, due to increased tensions between the Federation and the Romulans partially stemming from the detente and peace talks between the Federation and the Klingons.

One thing about the Tomed Incident: it seems like the Federation committed some major screw-up, and either rather than fight an all out war or to end a war, they made major concessions regarding using cloaking devices in the Treaty of Algernon.

It would be interesting if it involved some Captain used a prototype Federation cloaking device to basically do what the Romulans did in 'Balance of Terror' only this time he doesn't self destruct, he gets caught. (Not unlike the Gary Powers U2 incident with the Soviets.)

 

[Dayton3]

^That is interesting because one of the modern Trek Roleplaying games had their own take on the Tomed Incident.

In it, during a border skirmish with the Romulans in the Tomed system, an experimental Starfleet warship with a cloaking device, built secretly by Starfleet Intelligence, decloaked, streaked into battle, and blew away the Romulan forces.

Seeing just how deadly Starfleet forces would be if widely equipped with cloaking devices, Romulans insisted on the "no cloaks for the Feds" clause.

But as said, Starships apparently have abilities to build cloaking devices and activate them in time of war.

So if war broke out, the treaty would be null and void, the word would go out to Starfleet ships that they could build and utilize their cloaking devices.

So the treaty doesn't hurt Starfleet much in time of actual war with the Romulans.

What it does do is prevent the covert movement of starships in peacetime or deep penetration covert missions like the Klingons and Romulans both engage in.

 

[Praetor]

Fascinating. I rather like that. Perhaps a combination of that with my theory of a 'testing the waters' mission a la 'Balance of Terror'?

Pure speculation: I wonder if the original intention of the writer of 'The Pegasus' was that the Treaty of Algeron was connected to the end of the Earth-Romulan War, but mistakenly also attached it to the Tomed Incident which had already been established as happening later, which ultimately overruled it being attached to the Earth-Romulan War?

 

[Timo]

Well, it still wouldn't make sense that the treaty of the original war would have any sort of a clause about cloaking devices. Back then, invisibility technology supposedly didn't exist, or at least the Feds didn't believe in it - so it would have been idiotic of the Romulans to insist on a cloaking ban back then if they were the only ones involved who even knew that invisibility was viable!

Of course, ENT later established (and IMHO rightly so) that invisibility tech is relatively common and ancient in the galaxy, even if the heroes and main villains don't have it yet. And it went on establishing that Romulans had invisibility already during the war. So in hindsight, the cloaking treaty could be the original treaty could be Algeron... But the writers of "Pegasus" wouldn't have been thinking in those terms yet.

As for how "Pegasus" describes the treaty, the episode never mentions Tomed or the year 2311 specifically. It only says that the treaty has kept peace for 60 years, which would very roughly match up with 2311 - thus, people have preferred to associate the treaty with Tomed. And Tomed was only ever mentioned in "The Neutral Zone"...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[captcalhoun]

Fascinating. I rather like that. Perhaps a combination of that with my theory of a 'testing the waters' mission a la 'Balance of Terror'?

Pure speculation: I wonder if the original intention of the writer of 'The Pegasus' was that the Treaty of Algeron was connected to the end of the Earth-Romulan War, but mistakenly also attached it to the Tomed Incident which had already been established as happening later, which ultimately overruled it being attached to the Earth-Romulan War?

the writers of "The Pegasus" have nothing to do with it. the treaty was mentioned first in "The Defector" in season 3...

 

[USSHermes]

And as we saw in the recent Trek novels, though Starfleet agreed to give up cloaking devices, Starfleet ships have the complete designs and specifications for cloaking devices in their computers.

So a Starfleet ship can construct its own cloaking device in relatively short order.

It would seem that Starfleet could build their own cloaking devices in a short space of time - however Voyager didn't build one in all those years it took to get home. It would have saved a lot of time just going past the Vidiiians, Kazons etc. They could have had an episode where they did that, and that Cardassian girl Seska tells the Kazon how to track cloaked vessels with a poloron beam or something...

 

[nx1701g]

^ Novels aren't canon.

 

[Praetor]

Fascinating. I rather like that. Perhaps a combination of that with my theory of a 'testing the waters' mission a la 'Balance of Terror'?

Pure speculation: I wonder if the original intention of the writer of 'The Pegasus' was that the Treaty of Algeron was connected to the end of the Earth-Romulan War, but mistakenly also attached it to the Tomed Incident which had already been established as happening later, which ultimately overruled it being attached to the Earth-Romulan War?

the writers of "The Pegasus" have nothing to do with it. the treaty was mentioned first in "The Defector" in season 3...

Good catch. I'd forgotten that.

Well, it still wouldn't make sense that the treaty of the original war would have any sort of a clause about cloaking devices. Back then, invisibility technology supposedly didn't exist, or at least the Feds didn't believe in it - so it would have been idiotic of the Romulans to insist on a cloaking ban back then if they were the only ones involved who even knew that invisibility was viable!

Of course, ENT later established (and IMHO rightly so) that invisibility tech is relatively common and ancient in the galaxy, even if the heroes and main villains don't have it yet. And it went on establishing that Romulans had invisibility already during the war. So in hindsight, the cloaking treaty could be the original treaty could be Algeron... But the writers of "Pegasus" wouldn't have been thinking in those terms yet.

D'oh. Weird how that seemed to work out.

As for how "Pegasus" describes the treaty, the episode never mentions Tomed or the year 2311 specifically. It only says that the treaty has kept peace for 60 years, which would very roughly match up with 2311 - thus, people have preferred to associate the treaty with Tomed. And Tomed was only ever mentioned in "The Neutral Zone"...

Timo Saloniemi

True enough. So 'Enterprise' actually seemed to complicate the matter a bit, but the '60 year' reference would still seem to fit. Thanks for refreshing my memory.