Something that kind of annoys me about the Star Trek Universe is that everyone but the Earthlings and Vulcans seem to be running around with cloaking capabilities… What gives? The Vulcans especially who are all into not disturbing people and running/talking versus fighting and are supposed to be some of the most intelligent beings in the universe don’t have it… But the Romulans and the Klingons (the Klingons!!!!!) and random barely mentioned species all are running around with it???? I don’t buy it. That is crap.
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Ah,
That would be due to the Federation/Romulan peace treaty in which the demilitarised zone between Romulan and Federation space was established. As part of the treaty, the Federation agreed not to develop cloaking technology.
There was a TNG episode where there was a federation-developed cloaking device (based on phase-shift technology rather than the standard cloaking technology which meant that the enterprise was able to move through solid matter) The whole storyline was about this being a breach of the Romulan-Federation treaty.
The Romulans agreed to lend a cloaking device to the federation in DS9 for the defiant’s foray through the wormhole to allow the “Founders” to be located.
If I remember correctly – it’s been some time.
It’s somewhat analogous to the UN anti-nuclear-proliferation pact, where countries with the GDP & technical skills to develop nuclear missile technologies agree not to do so to preserve the current status-quo (hence the current furore over Iran and North Korea breaking with the pact)
Just had to chime in on this. The Klingons got cloaking technology from the Romulans (which also explains why some of the old battlecruisers (D4?) for the Klingon and Romulans look the same). Only the Romulans have developed cloaking tech. The Fed did too, but the previous post explained that.
The phased-cloak was in the episode “The Pegasus” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pegasus_(TNG_episode)