The best part of the whole thing is that it worked. I wonder what the Romulans thought when they saw it.
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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I've seen lots of people in the past asking why the Romulans stuck to the treaty after the Federation broke it, many seem to see it as a plothole. But really when you think about the realpolitik/~~geo~~ galactic politics of it, it was a massive win for the Federation.
If the Romulans said "Hey this is bullshit! Our treaty is over!" then the Federation would just say "aight lmao, we'll just use this cloaking tech that's way better than yours. And it can be trivially retrofitted to existing ships, our whole fleet will have this tech."
By flexing that they can make this tech, it made clear to the Romulans that sticking to the treaty was something that was absolutely within their best interest, whereas before they weren't so sure about that. They thought they had a technological upper hand and were being hamstrung by their inability to fully leverage it to crush the Federation.
Bonus: it showed the Klingons that they too shouldn't provoke the Federation too much, nor should they try to destabilise relations between the Federation and the Romulans either, because if that treaty dies, they'd also lose what they thought was an advantage they had as well.
The whole thing was a staggering power-play by the Federation. They fulfilled the Speak softly and carry a big stick mantra perfectly.
It's such a crazy display on just how advanced the Federation really is that a small group of rogue Star Fleet officers were able to successfully leapfrog the cloaking tech to such a degree. There was another episode where the Romulans tried and failed to create that same technology but I can't remember if it was before or after Pegasus.
In DS9, a Vorta makes a comment about Star Fleet engineers being able to turn rocks into replicators and he really wasn't that far off.
The romulan attempt was in S5E24 "The next phase" so it was before "Pegasus" which is in season 7
If that phase cloak thing was attached to photon torpedoes it would make them invincible as well since they could phase back beyond enemy shields. Or inside the enemy ship.
It's like that whole Tumblr post about humans sticking warp cores together lol
For the uninitiated: "The United Federation of Hold my Beer."
Yes, that explains what Humans bring to the table: sheer, ill-informed, unbridled, un-jaded, undistilled, optimism.
It also explains why Voyager sports bio-neural components that can't handle cheese, why 1701-D is comically oversized compared to its crew compliment, why outfitting the entire Federation fleet with recycled Borg tech got the green light, and why bridge workstations have a failure mode that kills the operator with heavy-metal concert pyrotechnics the moment it's shaken too hard. Nobody told them they couldn't do that, so they did.
Tal Shiar bout to go do some "business research"
And the brains behind the operation?
Of course, Riker had best keep his mouth shut about the whole thing.
I feel like I recognize that guy but I'm not sure who he is... who is he?
Erik Pressman who captained the USS Pegasus. Real piece of work. Also John Locke in Lost, where this gif is from.
Oh that's who it was! I knew I recognized him!
Also if you've seen Lost is it good?
The first couple seasons are a fun mystery, but it suffers from JJ Abram's lack of a plan syndrome. Best to just watch the Honest Trailer for the funny Cliff's Notes version.
The beginning is great, the later half isn't even worth watching for closure because there is none.
You would have thought that the Federation could have used it during the Dominion War. A cloak so powerful you can't even be shot at?
The alliance with the Romulans during the war was tenuous at best. They never could have swung that. At minimum they would have needed to share the tech.
That's a really good point, why didn't they use it?
I know it wasn't, but in my head I always figured this was the cloak of the cloaked minefield in front of the wormhole. Then the dominion couldn't just fire a torpedo and blow up the grid. That made the minefield make more sense to me.
The minefield works because of the cloaked and the self replicating. You blow up 100, the 100 nearest replicate invisibly to reform the "net."
They really should just build endless arrays of these around the station. Just deactivate them when not in battle, and broadcast "clear lanes" for ships to fly through to get to the station
Wartime? Mines rearrange themselves, then enable. No more clear lanes. Load DS9 with long range artillery and pick off fleets at distance.
Yea the only thing that didn't satisfy me with the self replicating is the "they can just... keep replacing themselves? Man replicators really are broken" and how fast is this replication? Like if the dominion wanted to send 1,000 ships through and it could only take out 5-10 before exhausting why not just send the ships through.
But if the mines were phased and could detonate when the big ships are through, or even inside the big ships, they'd think twice. Again, just weird head canon I had to explain the minefields effectiveness in the show haha
I'd buy that theory for a dollar.
My headcanon was that the non blown up mines could replicate new mines from the wreckage of exploded mines and the victim ships. That should get more material and have a net positive material/ energy system.
Yeah, the more you think about it, the more bullshitty it becomes as is. In the show, they cut to O'Brien working on the mines, and they are just photon torpedoes. They likely just used the default "explosive weapon" prop, but if you push the in universe lore a bit, it seems like they just invented cloaked, multiplying photon torpedoes, which would seem like a really, really awesome weapon to equip every ship in the fleet with.
Bird of prey just decloak? Fire one self replicating photon torpedo, which becomes two in flight that are invisible until they hit. Hell, shoot far enough away and yall fire one and get 12 when they hit. Sounds like a good enhancement, USS defiant.
Even if they dont replicate in a fight, i know a delta quadrant ship that sure could use infinite photon torpedoes. It sure would simplify a few things for them to fire off 150 of the fuckers when the Kasan are headed their way.
