Treaty of Algeron

[The Wormhole]

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

Actually, in ENT it is established in dialogue that the Treaty of Algeron was signed in 2311. TATV in case you didn't figure which episode I was referring to.

 

[EmperorTiberius]

I thought that the treaty also prevented research into cloaking, so I doubt Feds have the plans in their computer. I always thought it was a small fleet to fleet skirmish in the Tomed system, sort of like the ones that almost interrupted several times during the run of TNG, and where a Federation convoy was viped out as well as several ships lost. To avoid war, they signed a complex treaty, and one stipulation was that the Feds would be handicapped by not being allowed cloaking devices. We don't know what other points were and we don't know who gained the upper hand by the treaty though, Feds could have gotten territory in exchange.

 

[Vanyel]

My opinion on the treaty is that while the Federation gave up the ability to develop cloaking technology, it did allow them to spend more resources on better sensors (In Data's Day, I believe, the 1701D was able to track the approximate position of the cloaked Warbird, the same as in Ballance of Terror.) and a faster warp drive (Tin Man).

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The Treaty did two things. It banned Feds from using cloaks (Pegasus) and it redefined the neutral zone (TATV). This helped explain why, in The Defector, Data said that entering the neutral zone was a violation of the Treaty of Algeron.

It's possible that the zone was redefined in favor of the Federation. However, the Romulans also stopped harassing the Federation for 60 or so years, so maybe the trade off was peace.

 

[Myasishchev]

I believe the Romulans dictated the treaty from a position of moral strength but desperation as well.

Recall that the cloaked starship is directly analogous to the submerged submarine, and while the submarine is highly useful as a tactical weapon, the greatest acheivement of the submariner has been ensuring peace through the first and second strike capabilities of the SSBN. (Ymmv on this opinion.)

The Romulans found a ship named Tomed, named perhaps after a Vulcan colony (according to MA, T'Pol was supposed to have gone there, which rules out the notion that it's a Romulan world). More precisely, she was named the U.S.S. Tomed, and she was one of the Federation's first cloak-capable starships--one of several that formed a "reconaissance" task force that had penetrated the Romulan Neutral Zone. Something had gone wrong with her experimental cloak, and she blinked back into visibility--a few million kilometers above Romulus. She was captured, the Romulans, through their mind-probes (potentially obtained from the Klingons who used it in Errand of Mercy although it's just as possible that the Romulans shared it with them as part of the speculated technology exchange), discovered the existence of the other starships. And they were oh so very pissed. Unfortunately, they could not find the other starships, who were under strict radio silence and probably couldn't be reached anyway because of the visscitudes of subspace communications.

Fearing an invasion or even a first strike against their homeworld, the Romulans reacted, and mobilized their entire fleet to hit the Federation as hard as possible. Through the heroic efforts of whoever, maybe Sulu, the cloaked United Starfleet ships were reached and convinced to decloak and submit to internment. War was narrowly averted just as Romulan warbirds decloaked above Vulcan and Earth to avenge a the dreadful wrong their paranoid minds imagined might have already been done to their people, their families, their entire world.

Naturally, the Federation Council went nuts, because basically the Federation had, if unwittingly, threatened the Romulans with genocide. The government fell, or whatever happens in the Fed political system, and the hard-nosed Cartwrights were sacked for good, leading to the feel-good TNG era of blase diplomacy in the face of mortal peril. The Council offered the humiliating treaty of capitulation, which was signed at the only planet to be named after a mouse, super-intelligent mouse that he may have been.

 

[Unicron]

^ Is that your own version, or from some source? Just curious. Memory Beta mentions the description given in Serpents Among The Ruins. Personally I wish more details of the treaty had been given, since the restriction on cloaking doesn't seem particularly practical on its own. If nothing else, the Feds could easily circumvent it by asking their Klingon allies for the use of cloaked ships, as was done on TNG once or twice. Without the rest of the treaty, there's not much of a context for this particular segment.

 

[Myasishchev]

^Well, I thought it was my own interpretation, but looking at the synopsis for Serpent, I totally ripped it off.

The year is 2311. It is a year of infamy, a year that later generations will remember as one that altered the course of history at the cost of thousands of lives. It is the year of the Tomed Incident, and its tale can at last be told. In the midst of escalating political tensions among the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Federation, Starfleet goes forward with the inaugural flight of Universe, a prototype starship that promises to revolutionize space exploration. But the Universe experiment results in disaster, ravaging a region of space dangerously close to the Romulan Star Empire, apparently confirming suspicions that the Federation has begun testing a weapon of mass destruction. As the military buildup accelerates on both sides of the Romulan Neutral Zone, Captain John Harriman of the Federation flagship USS Enterprise-B is fated for a final confrontation with his oldest enemy at a flashpoint in history – with the Beta Quadrant one wrong move from the outbreak of total war.

I probably should've read this when I looked up "Tomed" and saw it there in the notes. Other than noting that the Tomed was a ship name (a Romulan one in the book), as well as a planet, I assumed that whatever the book was, it was completely different. Maybe I ought to buy this book. It has Cameron Frye in it.

One of the weird, sometimes good and sometimes embarassing things about Star Trek is that it's very likely when you come up with an explanation for one of the intricacies of a forty year saga, someone else explained it the same way already.

 

[Sci]

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...

You do realize that Ronald D. Moore wrote both "The Defector" and "The Pegasus," right?

 

[captcalhoun]

no. oops.

 

[Praetor]

I believe the Romulans dictated the treaty from a position of moral strength but desperation as well.

Recall that the cloaked starship is directly analogous to the submerged submarine, and while the submarine is highly useful as a tactical weapon, the greatest acheivement of the submariner has been ensuring peace through the first and second strike capabilities of the SSBN. (Ymmv on this opinion.)

The Romulans found a ship named Tomed, named perhaps after a Vulcan colony (according to MA, T'Pol was supposed to have gone there, which rules out the notion that it's a Romulan world). More precisely, she was named the U.S.S. Tomed, and she was one of the Federation's first cloak-capable starships--one of several that formed a "reconaissance" task force that had penetrated the Romulan Neutral Zone. Something had gone wrong with her experimental cloak, and she blinked back into visibility--a few million kilometers above Romulus. She was captured, the Romulans, through their mind-probes (potentially obtained from the Klingons who used it in Errand of Mercy although it's just as possible that the Romulans shared it with them as part of the speculated technology exchange), discovered the existence of the other starships. And they were oh so very pissed. Unfortunately, they could not find the other starships, who were under strict radio silence and probably couldn't be reached anyway because of the visscitudes of subspace communications.

Fearing an invasion or even a first strike against their homeworld, the Romulans reacted, and mobilized their entire fleet to hit the Federation as hard as possible. Through the heroic efforts of whoever, maybe Sulu, the cloaked United Starfleet ships were reached and convinced to decloak and submit to internment. War was narrowly averted just as Romulan warbirds decloaked above Vulcan and Earth to avenge a the dreadful wrong their paranoid minds imagined might have already been done to their people, their families, their entire world.

Naturally, the Federation Council went nuts, because basically the Federation had, if unwittingly, threatened the Romulans with genocide. The government fell, or whatever happens in the Fed political system, and the hard-nosed Cartwrights were sacked for good, leading to the feel-good TNG era of blase diplomacy in the face of mortal peril. The Council offered the humiliating treaty of capitulation, which was signed at the only planet to be named after a mouse, super-intelligent mouse that he may have been.

I prefer many of your version's details to the 'Serpents Among the Ruins' version.

 

[Myasishchev]

^My version doesn't have Alan Ruck and is hence inferior.

 

[Praetor]

Technically, neither did the book.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

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

Genesis device.

 

[Praetor]

^That's an interesting idea...