/STG/ - Star Trek General

I meant to quote

Well the Enterprise had a cloak in "All Good Things". I know that was a better alternate timeline, and all, but that would have been set after the destruction of Romulus (albeit without any reference to that incident). So I suppose it's possible that the treaty of Algeron no longer applies and Starfleet are free to pursue the tech as they see fit.

I don't get why cloaking tech is considered so difficult to attain/invent. The Romulan cloak is, perhaps, much better than other seen versions of the technology, but we see several other races create and operate the technology with relative ease. I mean, fuck, if the Klingons can make it work then why can't the Breen or the Ferengi?
And the Delta quadrant is lousy with races that have invented cloaking devices.

>Breen
I suspect their energy drain weapons would mess with a cloak.
>Ferengi
There's one guy with an exclusive license for cloak distribution but he's going around robbing his competitors blind in his cloaked fleet instead.

>U.S.S Shran confirmed in STD
>how long till we get it lads
Never. Only the Clarke, Edison, Europa, T'Plana Hath, and Yeager have concept art on the official site. The Kerala and Shran got nothing.

The reason why Klinks got cloacks is because during Kirk's five year mission the organian treaty forced the Klingons into economical and cultural war with Feddies instead of the good old fashioned shooting war.
But since the treaty was only between Klingons and Feddies, the Romulans were allowed to fight them.
Due to this, the klingons aided Romulans by handing over large amounts of Klingon weaponry to them so that the other side couldwar freely and in exchange, the Klingons got their hands on some Romulan cloacking tech.

Due to this, while Romulan cloacking tech has advanced the Klingon cloacking tech is still very much on the same level as it was on during the TOS days, as for why Feddies dont have cloacking tech is because Federation andRomulan empire made a treaty forbidding Federation from developing cloacking tech.

Which is why you can see baddie of the week fly with an otherwise low tech ship with a cloacking device while Federation can only drool and technobabble their way to victory.

Captain Enright watched as the small, triangular, suspiciously familiar starship faded out of existence. His crew were quick to respond. Enright was already well aware of the enemy's "strategy".
"We've lost them. Must be a cloaking device of some sort." confirmed Ensign Sukrel. Enright tisked in disgust.
Beside him, his XO was tapping away on her arm-rest, she turned to him to speak. Enright held up his hand for her to wait. He then tapped the button on his own arm-rest and waited a moment for a response.
"Main Engineering here."
"Tachyons." said Enright, already bored of the situation.
"Tachyons. Gonna need you to dump some out the plasma exhaust."
"Sir, I'm not sure you understand how tachyons work, they're not a gaseous-"
"Okay, okay, use the defector then. I bet that works with tachyons, right?"
"... Lucky guess."
"Whatever, how long will it take to set up?"
"It's one of the pre-programmed functions, so right now. How strong a burst do you need?"
"Bout a few."
"... Yes sir, Bout a few." and with that, the comm line went dead. Enright had been an navigation officer in his day, one of the few joys of command was getting to be as big an asshole to the engineering team as they had been throughout his entire career.
A pulse of light polarised the view screen for a moment. When it cleared there was the distinct impression of a small, triangular ship moving against the background of space. Ensign Sukrel turned from his station in surprise.
"How did you-"
"Doesn't matter how, ensign, tachyons are nearly always the solution. Now, if you wouldn't mind disabling that ship? One phaser burst on low intensity aught to do it."
Sukrel tapped on his console for a few moment and a lance of orangey-red light struck the triangle. The ship re-materialised and careened wildly out of control before coming to a drift.
"Nice plan, assholes." muttered Enright. And with that he set about organising a boarding party.

Are you writing for STD?
Because you've nailed the tone and style.

It does reference that the Romulan Empire fell to the Klingons.

youtube.com/watch?v=kRXry95Q6e0

From what we've seen, cloaks are both resource-intensive and easy to circumvent. They're really only useful for recon and first-strike capabilities if the enemy isn't expecting it, but the moment you tip your hand it's easy for the other guy to come up with a countermeasure.

Ok, these are pretty amusing. Well played, TNG.

No, they didn't torture a sapient creature, or set their ship to spin, or leave behind someone to be tortured to death by Klingons and possibly eaten by them too.

How the fuck did they get CBS to approve a battle cloaking Sovereign class?!

>( ceremonial chant in unknown language )

Yeah, they seem more useful for non-combat situations. I can imagine they'd drastically up the survival of convoys though.

other than cost, as you'd need to quadruple the size of the power plant on those transports to fuel the cloak.

Because every bumfuck planet in the former RSE is led by someone who in most case is claiming to be either a successor state to the RSE or the true real honest guv Emperor of the thing.

Man, Avery Brooks is a strange mother fucker.

What makes you think the Romulan Star Empire is gone?

Hobus.

All we're told for certain is that it took out Romulus.

If you go by the STO continuity, the Romulan Republic is considered the officially recognized government of the Romulans with the Empire being reduced to scattered vestigial loyalists, and with the Republic allied with the Federation and Klingons both for joint operations and resource sharing, it makes sense that the Republic would allow the Federation limited development of cloaking devices.

If you go by the novelverse, the Romulans are part of a faction openly opposed to the Federation, so while the Federation will probably obey the Treaty of Algeron for now, if things go hot then all bets are off.

If you don't care about beta canon then just make shit up however you want.

All I'll say is we don't have any proper connector to prime timeline for that. All we know is that in an unknown timeline, Romulus got fucked. If I were the excec that takes over after Discovery ends, I'd weigh up whether Romulus being gone is a better thing for the story I want to tell. Shits all up in the air until some progresses the god damned story.

"In the prime universe, a supernova in 2387 threatened the entire galaxy. Ambassador Spock was able to halt the supernova, via the use of red matter to create an artificial singularity, or black hole, which absorbed the exploding star, but was too late to save the planet Romulus from destruction."

memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Alternate_reality

And seeing as we have an unreliable narrator to those events (Spock never confirms details about the prime universe, we only know for sure that it is a similar timeline, aesthetically speaking) that shit is all up in the air. As far as a writer might be concerned, Hobbs is optional.

>STO
>canon
holy fucking wew lad

"The alternate reality runs parallel, existing as a quantum reality, to the prime reality, which is where many of the events seen in the Star Trek universe have occurred. According to Star Trek writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the conceptual invention of the alternate reality allowed the prime reality to continue."

"This intent is also evident in the script of Star Trek. [3] While not completely audible in the film, before being teased by his classmates, young Spock is asked by the computer in the learning center on Vulcan, "What is the central assumption of Quantum Cosmology?" to which Spock replies, "Everything that can happen does happen in equal and parallel universes.""

Hobus happens in the prime universe

Hobus is an invention of STO. The only thing that's hard canon is

Again, eminently disposable. We have the writers intent and nothing else. Nowhere on screen do we have someone confirming that the prime timeline is involved. It's implied, yes, but claiming its concrete when there's no on-screen evidence is a bit of a reach.

>Memory Alpha hasn't ever been wrong about what is essentially conjecture
Let me tell you about the Earth-Romulan War

I'd do a series starting right from Romulus exploding and evacuating as many Romulans as they can grab, all from the perspective of a DMZ border patrol ship with a few cast members being Romulan refugees with no where to go. The series would mainly be about the complete shitstorm from having one of the major powers suddenly collapse overnight, and the Federation's attempt at stability compromised by Starfleet admirals wanting to see the collapse of their long time cold war enemy and the Klingons declaring open season on Romulan space.

>wanting to acknowledge jjtrek
Why would anybody do something so unabashedly evil, though? What sustained hatred for the world could make a person do that?

I thought that cloaks used the power usually supplied to weapons and shields, so you're still only using the same resciurces you'd need to be at combat alert.

It's time to shave that neckbeard off user, if anything, JJ proved that Trek isn't for you anymore, and Discovery only further proves it.

I'd watch/read the shit out of that.

And you think that the average unarmed (or at best, very lightly armed and shielded) transport has a combat reactor that can run a cloak without breaking a sweat?
I imagine they need a pretty substantial upgrade to have a reactor that can do that.

But I like Discovery.

>neckbeard
Are you 12 or something? I know this is a blue board and all but seriously, that's infantile.

We see a Klingon transport do that in the episode where Worf goes on trial for war crimes. Nobody bats an eye at the idea that Klingon transports have cloaks throughout the entire episode. That at least implies that it's not uncommon.

Sure but there's a few caveats to that. The cloak uses the power usually supplied to the weapons and shields of a top-line battleship. Even something like a BoP is stripped down to the essentials for combat, along with a single mess hall and training room. A transport is normally not going to have the same power supply. If you're fitting a transport with the power supply needed to run a cloak, then they're basically a battleship already. Much more resource-efficient to just assign a battleship or two to convoy escort duty.

>If you're fitting a transport with the power supply needed to run a cloak, then they're basically a battleship already.
So BoPs are battleships? Got it.

True, but I would expect a Klingon transport to be at least a modestly capable warship with a powerplant to match.

Anyone else's transports are probably best described as boxes with engines.

Your inability to read words and comprehend their meaning doesn't deserve a proper reply beyond a flippant comment and a reaction image.

Algernon was the worst treaty in the history of treaties.

t. Admiral Pressman

Really depends on the Empire/State.
I'd wager Romulan transports have cloaks because they want to be able to spook shit up at a moment's notice.
The UFP has transports that seem pretty run of the mill, so I'd be surprised if they had any sort of advanced power hub:
We got a pretty good look at a Cardassian cargo ship, so we know they have energy transfer issues. If they can barely fire a spiral-disruptor, I'm guessing that cloaking is off the table.
I'd assume then that most cargo ships fro other species are like the Cardassians, barring a few combat-centric groups.

I just like looking at pictures of battleships is all.

Yeah, I agree. Romulan stuff seems to be built with cloaking in mind regardless, besides, I expect theirs to be more efficient regardless (see the Scimitar, it could fire just fine while cloaked).

The conversation chain was about why lesser species haven't invented their own cloaks, not how many artificial black holes the second most powerful faction in the area can stuff into their ships.

Surely it scales to size. A battleship (Neghvar/D'deridex) would need more power to cloaca compared to a cruiser (Vorcha/Mogai) or escort (B'rel/T'varro).
So long as you've got the power plant, you're good to go.
We know that Starfleet ships have the power needed, seeing as we see a Galaxy cloak and know that an Oberth did. So long as you're not an underpowered Constellation class you're basically sorted.

>All we know is that in an unknown timeline, Romulus got fucked.

It's not an unknown timeline. It's the Prime timeline, confirmed by literally everyone with any degree of authority on the matter, but particularly by the fact that Prime Spock was played by Leonard Nimoy, the way he always had been.

Stop being contrarian.

>Nowhere on screen do we have someone confirming that the prime timeline is involved.

How would you even confirm that in-universe? Maybe by having Prime Spock reference some familiar events from the prime universe? Like, say, his encounter with Khan Noonien Singh?

Oh, wait, he did that.

Do you want someone from the Prime universe to, like, sit down and describe all the events of the Prime universe first, so as to establish their credentials, before you accept what they state? Are you really that much of a contrarian faggot?

Again, literally everyone with authority to make the claim confirms that Prime Spock is Prime Spock from the prime Star Trek universe and his accounts are accurate. You, on the other hand, are just some schmuck.

I am very sick of random schmucks thinking that they have the ability to impose their will on the canon of franchises.

>need more power to cloaca
Do you know something about starship design that we don't, user?

This is probably true. However, the point still remains that the power plant needed to power a cloak could also power shields and weapons relative to a ship that size, and transports tend to be bigger than normal because they need a lot of internal space for carrying shit. For a faction with limited resources, cloaks simply wouldn't be worth the expense because you can just send a large convoy with escorts for the same expense as a smaller convoy with cloaks.

Romulans use Sigularity Cores rather than Warp Cores. They might be more energy efficient.
>Scimitar
The Scimitar was running on whatever isotope creates Thelaron radiation. That's so fucking intense that it goes beyond the Greek alphabet. So fucked that the Romulans signed a treaty to not use the stuff.
From what we see of TNG, the Romulans still need to abide by the shields for cloak rule.

I'm saying it's entirely disregardeable until a prime canon show acknowledges it. All your evidence relies on the notion that there aren't example of numerous timelines extremely similar to the prime timeline.
Hell, I ain't even precluding the idea that the kelvinverse series of events is what ends up being the case. What I'm saying is that, until somebody makes a show that has to deal with it. Everything here is beta canon. Which is fine. I get the feeling that you're maybe taking this as an attack on your personal tastes, which isn't the case. So maybe chill out a bit.

So, what you're saying is, the movies aren't alpha canon? Despite CBS clearly stating otherwise and the beginning of Star Trek '09 as having been stated by CBS to take place in the prime timeline? You are arguing that the people who actually get to define canon defined it wrong according to your personal tastes. Perhaps *you* should chill out a bit and think about what you're arguing for a second.

>I am very sick of random schmucks thinking that they have the ability to impose their will on the canon of franchises.

Holy fucking shit dude. Get a grip on reality. We're talking about a tv show, not the moral fabric of society. Other user has a point, financially-speaking. Call that meta if you want, but it's not like CBS/Paramount/whoeverthefuck wouldn't take that option if they felt it was more profitable. Think of Star Trek as a Ferengi Holoprogram Franchise and you'll be fine.

It turned into a discussion of how cloaking's main utility might lie in non-combat applications, which then devolved into a lecture from a kind user about how realistic starship design means you need 40 bajillion gigacochranes of power available to make cloaking work, therefore nothing short of a battleship can use one. Pic related as it's another battleship.

For fucks sake how do you know what the actual power requirements are for a cloaking device? Are you a Romulan? For all we know the power requirements are trivial compared to all the other systems aboard a ship. I mean, hell, in DS9 'The Emperor's New Cloak' the cloaking device of the IKS Rotarran was able to cloak itself without even being plugged into a ship. We regularly see ships of all variety of sizes cloak, many of which I have a hard time believing would require a superhuge powerplant to support. I just don't buy this idea that cloaking is so damn expensive that it makes it not worthwhile for use by anything but the biggest warships.

But lets put that aside for a second and assume that it is a huge expense to outfit cloaks on transport ships. Are you certain that it wouldn't still be worth it? When a convoy has escorts it is still possible for a hit and run force to swoop in, wreck a few transports, and then run off before the escorts can finish them. In this case, maybe you've lost less ships and supplies than the cost of outfitting cloaks, but have still lost the battle being fought as the lack of supplies has forced a retreat or surrender. It comes down to the circumstances which approach is better and assessing that is reliant on cloaking devise operational parameters that I, as a mere 21st century human living on Earth, am not privy to.

I don't think that's how canon works. The owners (CBS) decide what is and is not canon, and they've decided that for now Romulus' destruction is canon. STO incorporated it because CBS said they had to; it wasn't up for debate. And of course CBS could change their mind and make it non canon and make the prime timeline include a fully functioning Romulus. They could also say TOS is no longer canon and has been superseded by STD. But they haven't, not yet, and until they do those things remain canon.

>you will never be raped by an Andorian woman

Why even bother with this whole "life" schtick, lads?

What do Andorian women even look like ?

..............

Just going to point out that the only hard canon examples of a ship shooting things while cloaked were a) a single prototype BoP limited to firing torpedoes and still had no access to its energy weapons or shields, and b) the motherfucking Scimitar, which had a thalaron reactor in addition to its primary power core. So it's a reasonable assumption that the amount of power a cloak uses is roughly equivalent to the ship powering its weapons and primary shields.

And this is also not counting Discovery which explicitly said that cloaking required a massive power drain but you're free to discount that for obvious reasons.

Like a human woman in blue alien makeup with antenna.

Duh.

This must be a double battle ship because it can phase AND cloak.

Our only canon info on Andorian females is that they're inclined to initiate sexual encounters, regardless of social or military station.

>What do Andorian women even look like ?
Like the sort of bad bitch that'd ruin your life.

Or it could be that using weapons while cloaked destabilizes the cloak and causes it to fail. We really don't know.

I'm not discounting STD since it is ostensibly set in the prime universe and will have to be worked in somehow, but I totally forgot about that line existing. Of course, I'd like to know exactly what kind of cloaking they're using. I thought TOS established that Klingons didn't have access to cloaking technology until they got it from Romulans, or is that some beta canon shit?

>ywn get married to two andorian woman and an andorian trap

Wait, were you talking about pegasus or this thing?

Yes.

For something that only shows up once and gets BTFO, the Romulan Runabout is pure fetish fuel
>greek helmet-style "face"
>comfy runabout modularity
>cloak

This is perhaps the only time I've gotten the appeal of the apocryphal 4 genders.

I'm sure they would...but they haven't.

>All your evidence relies on the notion that

People who own shit get to say what shit happened and what shit didn't, not you. That's my "evidence", the people who actually control canon.

>Get a grip on reality.

I do have a grip on reality. I accept that I don't control canon no matter how much I wish I did. I hate Star Trek Discovery, but I'm not going to claim that it's not canon. I don't get to make that call, I don't have that power or authority.

Fans who jump through hoops to "decanonize" things that are stated by everyone with actual authority to be canon, are the ones with delusions.

There's a similar issue going on right now in...another fandom I am part of. Long story. Horses are involved. You don't want to know the details. Suffice to say that I can only deal with "fans" having delusions of grandeur in a civil manner in one fandom at a time.

Runabouts in general are perfect for small group adventures. you know, before we have THE POST about how nobody discusses the lacklustre display of Trek-themed rpgs
But think about it. 2-6 people comfortably accommodated. A decent warp speed. Combat potential. Basically a perfect narrative ship.

>before we have THE POST about how nobody discusses the lacklustre display of Trek-themed rpgs
What are you even trying to say here

More for going to established place than exploring strange new worlds, though.

/stg/ has gotten in shit in the past for a lack of engagement with Veeky Forums topics. Primarily the lack of engagement with STA.

Attach a runabout to a Galaxy-class on a deep space exploration mission. Then give that runabout a snarky holographic personality and you've basically got Carte Blanche on a campaign/story.

>lack of engagement with STA.
It comes up several times in every thread. Not our fault if idiots can't read.

How about the Galaxy discovers a Rigel-like system with multiple inhabited planets. A runabout is sent down to one, then when they're coming home, they discover the Galaxy's not there anymore.

The Federation really doesn't /need/ cloaking tech, though. Yeah, it's a nice tool to have in the kit, but they've already got all kinds of passive stealth and active ECM tools at their disposal.

Fed ships don't need to cloak when they can use holograms to make it look like their ship is kilometers in another direction, or use their absurd sensor/defector technology to fuck your sensors in all it's holes at the same time. All a cloak really nets you is the visual element, and that can be done with matte-black paintjob.

why doesn't the RPG get talked about a lot?

Because Veeky Forums doesn't actually play tabletop games. That means no storytime, copypasta, and so on. Mentioning any of the youtube/twitch campaigns that are going on gets you called a shill, and Modiphius actively destroys link to their PDF for free.

I fully admit to being guilty of that. I've never played/touched a tabletop game in my life, as much as I would love to. I just like to hang around for the conversations.

well thats not good at all. hopefully the new show(s/ including the orville I suppose) inspires some people to check it out. its a shame there isn't enough interest for an /stovg/ thread.
I'd probably play the RPG if I could but none of my mates like star trek all that much which kinda blows.

>Because /[board]/ doesn't [thing related to board subject].
Welcome to Veeky Forums

This. About 2 years ago I was a regular on 40Krpg. Once I found a game I bailed. About 6 months later I returned to Veeky Forums to intermittently post about lore.
In fact, I feel like we'd be better off calling the board lore, because that's the principal point of discussion.

>t. datas brother
you fucking narcissist.

Hey now, I've played D&D once!

Anyway, there's more genuine Veeky Forums content in this general than there are in some of the other ones that keep running.

I'm pretty sure /stog/ moved over to another site since Veeky Forums moved too quickly for the general to stay alive sometimes. The real lack of any other current Star Trek games makes it hard to keep conversations going.