Defiance of the defiant

[Granitehewer]

Hiya
I may be totally wrong as am only half-asleep, but didn't during some of ds9, the uss defiant use her romulan cloak in the alpha quadrant?
Also why (in universe) was it a romulan cloak and not a klingon one? Are romulan cloaks better (all i know is that the d'deridex has limited warp when cloaked eg ''the die is cast'', and don't know that this applies to klingon vessels)? Or is it a matter of politics?

[Black Jesus]

Hiya
I may be totally wrong as am only half-asleep, but didn't during some of ds9, the uss defiant use her romulan cloak in the alpha quadrant?
Also why (in universe) was it a romulan cloak and not a klingon one? Are romulan cloaks better (all i know is that the d'deridex has limited warp when cloaked eg ''the die is cast'', and don't know that this applies to klingon vessels)? Or is it a matter of politics?

They used the Defiant's cloak in the Alpha Quadrant on a number of occasions. Which was in violation of the agreement they had with the Romulan government about its use.

I would guess that the Romulans have better cloaking technology than the Klingons do, but this isn't based on anything we've seen on the show(s). I simply figure that since the Romulans have a proclivity to sneaking around everyone's space that they'd place a lot of value on having the absolute best/cutting edge cloaking systems they could engineer.

I never thought that Shinzon or his people created the near perfect cloak seen onboard the Scimitar. Rather, I figure that they were using the next stage Romulan cloak, which eventually would've been deployed fleet-wide. I figure they either acquired it through sympathetic channels prior to the coup, stole it prior to the coup, or took prototypes after they were in power and placed them on their ship in preparation for the assault on Earth.

[Praeothmin]

I would guess that the Romulans have better cloaking technology than the Klingons do, but this isn't based on anything we've seen on the show(s).

It is true that there's no definitive stance on who has the better cloak.
After all, the only other cloak we've seen that could allow a ship to fire was develloped by the Klingons, so their cloaking technology could very well be on par with the Romulans...

I figure that they were using the next stage Romulan cloak, which eventually would've been deployed fleet-wide. I figure they either acquired it through sympathetic channels prior to the coup, stole it prior to the coup, or took prototypes after they were in power and placed them on their ship in preparation for the assault on Earth.

It would most definitely be the most logical conclusion, seeing as Shinzon did have allies in the senate and the military.
It would have been easier for him to procure such a piece of equipment, or at the very least, if the Remans did bring it to fruition, they probably based it on cutting-edge Romulan research...

[Captain Seafort]

I would guess that the Romulans have better cloaking technology than the Klingons do, but this isn't based on anything we've seen on the show(s). I simply figure that since the Romulans have a proclivity to sneaking around everyone's space that they'd place a lot of value on having the absolute best/cutting edge cloaking systems they could engineer.

However, prior to Nemesis the evidence was pointing the other way - as Praeothmin said, it was the Klingons who first developed cloaked-fire capability, not the Romulans

I never thought that Shinzon or his people created the near perfect cloak seen onboard the Scimitar. Rather, I figure that they were using the next stage Romulan cloak, which eventually would've been deployed fleet-wide. I figure they either acquired it through sympathetic channels prior to the coup, stole it prior to the coup, or took prototypes after they were in power and placed them on their ship in preparation for the assault on Earth.

Or, more likely, the entire ship was a Romulan design (possibly being constructed by Reman slave labour) that Shinzon appropriated as his flagship either after the coup or as part of it.

[Captain Seafort]

Also why (in universe) was it a romulan cloak and not a klingon one? Are romulan cloaks better (all i know is that the d'deridex has limited warp when cloaked eg ''the die is cast'', and don't know that this applies to klingon vessels)? Or is it a matter of politics?

Probably politics - they wanted to modify the treaty of Algeron to make their use of the cloak legal, so they used a Romulan cloak and gave them some oversight (at least initially) over its deployment.

[Graham Kennedy]

Hiya
I may be totally wrong as am only half-asleep, but didn't during some of ds9, the uss defiant use her romulan cloak in the alpha quadrant?
Also why (in universe) was it a romulan cloak and not a klingon one? Are romulan cloaks better (all i know is that the d'deridex has limited warp when cloaked eg ''the die is cast'', and don't know that this applies to klingon vessels)? Or is it a matter of politics?

Yes they used it in the Alpha Quadrant on several occasions. Presumably nobody ever found out about it.

As for why Romulan, the Romulans probably forced it on them. The Federation is forbidden by treaty from using cloaking devices, so to make an exception to the treaty needed Romulan permission. Although it was never stated, I can easily see that the Romulans would say "okay, but only if it's one of ours". That way the Romulans get to maintain a degree of control over the situation; they originally had an officer on the Defiant to run the cloak for instance, which gave them an eye into the Federation's newest and most powerful warship, as well as into their initial contact with the Founders. That would be valuable info for the Romulans. Throw in that the Romulans would know the best ways to penetrate their own cloaks, might even have some sneaky backdoor to disable it...

All in all, there are a ton of reasons why the Romulans would want a Romulan rather than Klingon cloaking device on the ship, and since they were in a position to force the issue if they wanted...

[Black Jesus]

I would guess that the Romulans have better cloaking technology than the Klingons do, but this isn't based on anything we've seen on the show(s). I simply figure that since the Romulans have a proclivity to sneaking around everyone's space that they'd place a lot of value on having the absolute best/cutting edge cloaking systems they could engineer.

However, prior to Nemesis the evidence was pointing the other way - as Praeothmin said, it was the Klingons who first developed cloaked-fire capability, not the Romulans

I never thought that Shinzon or his people created the near perfect cloak seen onboard the Scimitar. Rather, I figure that they were using the next stage Romulan cloak, which eventually would've been deployed fleet-wide. I figure they either acquired it through sympathetic channels prior to the coup, stole it prior to the coup, or took prototypes after they were in power and placed them on their ship in preparation for the assault on Earth.

Or, more likely, the entire ship was a Romulan design (possibly being constructed by Reman slave labour) that Shinzon appropriated as his flagship either after the coup or as part of it.

Not necessarily. The Klingons' cloak had a major flaw in that it left a ship highly detectable both from neutron radiation and by apparently simple gas sensors. Those are some pretty big flaws from a device that is supposed to render one invisible. The Klingons' cloak, while ambitious, ended up being a failure. The best cloaks we've seen have been the Starfleet one on the Pegasus and those of Romulan/Reman origin.

You know, they never clued the viewer in as to where or how the Scimitar was built, so that's a good point. One is left to think that Shinzon's forces built it, but how would slaves build such an ubership without being found out? Perhaps it was built to counter the huge Dominion battleship the Valiant was tracking but the war ended before it could be placed on the front. I'd assume that Shinzon appropriated the vessel during or after his coup, as well.

The Romulans loaned the cloaking device to the Defiant in exchange for all the intelligence Starfleet gathered about the Dominion. I think they mention that in The Search Part 1.

Completely off topic, but would Section 31 have starships of their own as the Tal Shiar did?

[Praeothmin]

The Klingons' cloak had a major flaw in that it left a ship highly detectable both from neutron radiation and by apparently simple gas sensors.

At the time of Kirk, 100 years before Picard, when we knew next to nothing of the Romulan cloaks and whether or not they were as good as Klingon cloaks.
And those "simple gas sensors" had to be installed on a torpedo to target the BoP, not with a simple "tweaking" of the ship's sensors, which shows how efficient it was.
The BoP was able to fire many torpedoes without being detected by sensors.

Just a few years prior to that incident, Romulan cloaked ships could be tracked by Federation ships, even before Starfleet acquired a working example of it ("Balance of Terror").

[Mikey]

Completely off topic, but would Section 31 have starships of their own as the Tal Shiar did?

I suppose they could, but it seems more likely to me that they just commandeered/appropraited ships and crews as needed.

[Captain Seafort]

The Klingons' cloak had a major flaw in that it left a ship highly detectable both from neutron radiation and by apparently simple gas sensors.

Only at extremely close range - the neutron surge was only detected (and not associated with a cloaked ship) when the BoP was right under the E-A, and the fact that the gas sensors had to be fitted to the torpedo indicates that a similar limitation applies to the exhaust. As Praeothmin pointed out, the most recent model of Romulan cloak we know some characteristics of was detectable directly, rather than indirectly at close range.

The Klingons' cloak, while ambitious, ended up being a failure. The best cloaks we've seen have been the Starfleet one on the Pegasus and those of Romulan/Reman origin.

The Scimitar's cloak, for all it's described as "perfect", has some serious flaws, not least of which is that the ship becomes visible while dropping out of warp, and when it fires (to a considerably greater extent than Chnag's. Given this, the possibility has been raised before that the reason Geordi couldn't detect the ship was because of "silent running" measures.

[Black Jesus]

None of which negates the fact that it was ultimately a flawed cloaking system that betrayed the ship's presence.

[Captain Seafort]

None of which negates the fact that it was ultimately a flawed cloaking system that betrayed the ship's presence.

Whether or not the system was flawed is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether Romulan or Klingon cloaks are better. Based on the evidence prior to Nemesis, the answer is the Klingons.

[Black Jesus]

Yes, a cloak that is completely nullified by the hodgepodge addition of one or two gas sensors to a torpedo is a good and superior system.

[Granitehewer]

the scimitar had shielding when cloaked, i wonder if that technology is solely limited to the scimitar as the valdores/norexans didn't seem to be able to do that, perhaps the ''perfect'' cloak of the scimitar is a bit of an anomaly and possibly overall klingon cloaks are better

[Mikey]

Yes, a cloak that is completely nullified by the hodgepodge addition of one or two gas sensors to a torpedo is a good and superior system.

I was under the impression that Seafort was trying to say that such a system is, indeed, superior to one which doesn't require such a modification to a torpedo to be defeated.