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Why do the Klingons have cloaking devices?
kyeto13
Member Posts: 3 Arc User
Note: This is not a petition to remove cloaking devices from Klingon player's ships. This is talking about IP and canon wise and discussing Klingon social-psychology and military tactics as a race. Again I do not wish anything in game to change.[/B]
I was thinking about Klingons and Cloaking devices today... and I was kinda stumped on to how the two became acquainted. I know that some how in the late 22nd century that the Romulans gave the Klingons the cloaking tech (By one means or another... :rolleyes: ) But My question is: How does a race that values honor and military strength justify hiding from an enemy :P
I know that Klingons are not fools, but it seems so out of their style to even use cloaking devices. Wouldn't it be dishonorable to hide in the rocks on a path and then ambush your enemy? That is the same idea behind a Bird of Prey: you cloak and then ambush your enemy when he is not ready for it. Where is the honor in fighting an enemy who is not also prepared to meet you with full force? You are denying you and your enemy a full fight with full honor.
Again, I know the immense tactical advantage this would give a military force. But it just doesn't seem Klingon :P
I was thinking about Klingons and Cloaking devices today... and I was kinda stumped on to how the two became acquainted. I know that some how in the late 22nd century that the Romulans gave the Klingons the cloaking tech (By one means or another... :rolleyes: ) But My question is: How does a race that values honor and military strength justify hiding from an enemy :P
I know that Klingons are not fools, but it seems so out of their style to even use cloaking devices. Wouldn't it be dishonorable to hide in the rocks on a path and then ambush your enemy? That is the same idea behind a Bird of Prey: you cloak and then ambush your enemy when he is not ready for it. Where is the honor in fighting an enemy who is not also prepared to meet you with full force? You are denying you and your enemy a full fight with full honor.
Again, I know the immense tactical advantage this would give a military force. But it just doesn't seem Klingon :P
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Stop judging our honor by petty Human standards. :P
at this stage in galactic affairs the cloak would have seen as becoming and everyday part of space travel in the same way that everyone would have phasers, shields and warp drive. the feds would have developed their own cloak eventually if not for the treaty with the romulans some time later so the klingons would not want to be the only power without one.
klingon honour is also not quite the same thing as our honour. winning is what is important to them, the actual way its achieved is less important.
you could draw the conclusions that why would any klingon use a spaceship to destroy his enemies when they have been raised on legends of hand to hand combat. space combat is so impersonal but they move with the times.
... Why do I feel like I should sleep with a phaser underneath my pillow tonight...
What's a phaser when you can't see what you're shooting at....
We really really need an evil smiley.
Good point... :rolleyes:
But... Imagine that if someone stabbed a drunken Great House leader in the back in a dark alley on Qo'nos. How much of an outrage would there be over that? Or would it be seen as the House Leader's fault for not being prepared for combat?
And I agree on that smiley.. would totally get used on here.
Just my two dilithium crystals on the subject.
"Hah! You are doomed! You're only armed with that pathetic excuse for a musical instrument!!!" *the Savage Beast moments before Lonnehart the Bard used music to soothe him... then beat him to death with his Fat Lute*
That's what the wide-beam setting is for.
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cloaking and killing is how you deal with vermin not worthy of any extra effort or risk.
look at how some groups of human treat other groups if you want parallels in the real world. among their own group respect is a given, when dealing with another group...anything goes.
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The cloaks and ship types were later retro-canoned into a new history where Klingons and Romulans had a pact at some point in their history and exchanged ships and technology to explain why the Klingons have cloaks. This pact took place somewhere between TOS and The Search for Spock.
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Well, assassination and coming out of cloak are two different things.
Klingons don't like spying, assassination, and other kinds of espionage. They're clearly willing to accept it though by swallowing their pride and not talking about it, in forms like Klingon Intelligence and such though.
So, killing a Great House leader in the back somewhere, and he dies. So, another leader uses this vacuum to improve his own position. Everyone knows the first guy was assassinated, and while there can be talk, without proof, any accusation will be baseless.
Now, in any ST episode, of course our heroes would find it and expose it (we do the same on the Klingon side in Bringing Down the House). But that may not always be the case, in which case, the leader of the Great House may in fact get away with the assassination.
As for coming out of a cloak...
That's different, you're dealing with a ship to ship attack really. Klingons are warriors, and in turn, they are perfectly willing to gain an advantage on an opponent. It isn't really cowardly, because you're still attacking them, it isn't a Klingon's fault if the opponent didn't see an ambush coming.
Really, it's makes the most sense for Birds of Prey to cloak most of all. Sure all of their ships can cloak, but the raiders are meant to be hit and run. It isn't cowardly, it's military tactics, especially since the raiders ARE going to come back in again (if they didn't already die).
But my real question is battle cloak the only time that a ship under attack can cloak? I kinda understand the balance reasoning but in relation to the canon of Star Trek the seems to be completely off base with any cloaking technology...
I think this is the best way to sum up the Klingon species.
Today, 01:32 AM
Note: This is not a petition to remove cloaking devices from Klingon player's ships. This is talking about IP and canon wise and discussing Klingon social-psychology and military tactics as a race. Again I do not wish anything in game to change.[/b]
I was thinking about Klingons and Cloaking devices today... and I was kinda stumped on to how the two became acquainted. I know that some how in the late 22nd century that the Romulans gave the Klingons the cloaking tech (By one means or another... ) But My question is: How does a race that values honor and military strength justify hiding from an enemy
The Klingons lost the first war with the federation because
Starfleet ships had longer range Phasers and torpedoes and
Much superior shielding.
The romulans needed warp engines the Klingons had
Excellent mid and short range weapons so the cloaking
Device technology was agreed on I'n the exchange
Now the Klingons were I'n a better position to fight
The federation by being able to close range to the best firing range
Of there weapons without taking horrible damage from
The Federations long range superiority
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I believe the Romulan is a Warbird, not Bird of Prey.
They do look a little different, too.
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This was what I pretty much understood how the Klingons got the Cloaking Device.
The Klingons then designed a ship to optimize the cloaking effect and the Bird of Prey was born.
Later the Romulans realized what a mistake it was to share the technology with anyone else and they did their best to keep it out of any other species hands.
At least that was always my impression from ST and ST games' lore and/or background stories.
KBF CO
We are the Dead
join date Aug 2008
We also see from Enterpirse that the Klingons had photon torpedos and shields long before the Federation did. Losing battles probably had more to do with Federation numbers then superior Federation technology. The Federation had an alliance of species whereas the Klingons only had the Klingons. The Klingon losses were probably similar to Germany in World War I & II: Germany had the technological advances but the rest of the world just had too many people allied against them.
That came out of the same "trade" that gave the Klingons cloaks. The Romulans had the Bird-of-Prey first, and the Klingons acquired some of them, as well as plans on how to build more. In the shows, some Klingon Birds-of-Prey still had the Romulan bird painted on their hulls. In the real world, that's likely because the enemy was changed during production and the paint job just wasn't fixed, but in-universe it's because the Klingons never bothered to repaint the ships. Maybe they liked the bird. :P
3 d7's in exchange for a romulan cloaking device. because of the romulan's interest in this class of ship, they built better ships, notably the D'Deridex class and then the Valdore Type later on. When the Klingons got a hold of this device they modified it so it is perfected, the romulans did not even alter theirs and created a new one later on with the same problem, that sensors can pick up on the distortions of a cloaked ship or an abnormally high amount of energy being used at the time, or even traveling at speeds that a cloak can not cover.
As for Klingon honor, what more honorable way is there to fight an enemy of skill and cunning! if there was no honor and just torpedoes flying around, ships exploding left right and center, it would be more a senseless bloodbath even though honor would demand better, the Klingons were reluctant to fight battle like these when the federation attacked the dominion on their way to DS9. Why to you think General Chang was giddy with anticipation of a battle with the Excelsior and Enterprise? because it was honorable and worthy, it turns out his K'Vort was the problem, even then he found it very honorable.
I think there is the real answer to the question.
Klingon honor is not really about standing tall and being the last man standing (sort of a Viking honor). It comes forth more of a hunter society, as their ancestry to hunting animals shows (if you remember the TNG episode where everybody, including Worf, de-evolved).
There is another TNG episode where Worf goes to a planet, being told it was a Romulan prison camp where his father might be held. He was not, but a number of Klingons were, including Klingon youths grown up in captivity, and not being taught Klingon culture and honor. In two episodes, Worf proceeds educating the youths. What Worf teaches them was most illuminating about Klingons. He goes to the woods one day with a boy to hunt, and they come back with prey, and all sing to their victory. For Klingons it is not dishonorable to sneak up on your prey with stealth, and then slay it quickly and decisively. That is the hunt. So in using the cloak, they hunt, and their targets are seen as prey, hence the analogy of the ship name, bird of prey.
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Apocryphally, the Romulans were interested in the D7 largely for their power systems. They were apparently well suited for cloaking devices. Romulan cloaking devices are as far as I'm aware, amost universally better than Klingon versions. The Federation would have been more interested in pentetrating Romulan cloak over Klingon derived versions simply because the Romulans used them far more, and relations with the Romulans never reached the same warmth as Federation-Klingon relations did. To my knowledge, the Federation only had to hunt for a single cloaked Klingon ship, compared to the numerous attempts to pick up Romulan ships. Klingons did make the first cloak that could fire while cloaked, but by all appearances it could only fire torpedoes and could be tracked with readily available more sensitive sensors. Given that the Romulans were in on the Khitomer Conspiracy, they may have even been the ones to supply Chang with the cloak. It would fit with their usual methods of trying to maintain a favourable balance of power for them, and if they didn't then it would mean that they did practically nothing to contribute to the Khitomer Conspiracy.
Sensors can pick up a cloaked ship travelling at high warp, that wasn't known until T'Rul told the crew of the Defiant. Unless I'm mistaken, only the Jem'hadar have been shown to detect as well. The might simply be because Warbirds normally travel at lower speeds to decrease the chances for detection except when necessary, which would also mean that a Federation ship is unlikely to know what the distortion means, if they pick it up at all. There's also the matter of scale. A B'rel is far smaller than a D'deridex, and has far less energy to try and hide. Even the Negh'Var is about half the size of the D'deridex (686m vs 1,353m). For all we know, a Negh'Var might produce the same disturbance while travelling at warp 5.
Unless the cloak is leaking, sensors normally can't pick up a D'deridex without actively searching for a cloaked vessel. If the Klingon cloak was better than the Romulan cloak, then why would the Defiant use a Romulan cloak? Certainly, there's the Khitomer Accord aspect to consider, but if Klingon cloaking technology was better than Romulan, then why not agree to exchange sensor data to be allowed to use the better and more accessible Klingon cloak? The Romulans then wouldn't have had to loan the Federation a cloak which could potentially be examined, and any undiscovered flaws in the cloak, such as the disturbance caused at higher warp, would remain unknown to the Federation.
Romulans are more obsessed with making their cloaks work at peak efficiency, monitoring every potential source of emissions to limit the possibility that even a Federation ship on its toes near the neutral zone are unlikely to pick up even the hint of a Warbird shadowing it. Klingons however, are generally more content with the cloak working well enough. Which again is fine, not many actively try to detect cloaked Klingon ships. A Klingon ship is often decloaked as well, whereas a Romulan ship rarely is.
Klingon ships can not even detect each other while under cloak, ordinarily federation ships can not detect klingon ships under cloak, even at high warp.
The K'Vort had a problem because of exhaust system, that could be tracked through a cloak. i doubt even Klingon cloak can do anything about that. do not underestimate Klingon technological advancements either, while their ships are ancient, they can easily match starfleet with newer more powerful ships so their cloak would of advanced as well. But this was a one off.
The Enteprise regularly pick up the cloaking signature of Romulan and Klingon ships just before they decloaked, any competent weapons officer at tactical would be able to notice these distortions right away. sometimes above orbit it is possible to spot a cloaked ship mostly by the light betraying the presence of the cloak.
it was known, when the enterprise was going after Gomtuu to communicate there were 2 romulan ships traveling far faster then they should to keep up with the enterprise, this was detected even through the cloak. T'Rul did not know if the Romulan cloak can be detected by an Active Polaron scan and then there is the romulan warp core using a tiny blackhole to power their engines, it was detected by DS9 during the time O'Brien was shifting through time.
D'Deridex warbird's do not have a high warp capability, probably around warp 9 at best, it could of been a design choice with the cloak in mind for warp 5.
The Matter of size is not important at all, it's if anything can be detected that can not be hidden behind a cloaking device.
A tachyon detection field can detect cloaked ships at a specific location, especially if any suspicion of said ships are likely to pass through.
The Klingons and Romulans after this exchange were at war, sharing cloaking data would be like sticking homing beacon on every ship in the empire, why take such an unacceptable security risk? but dealing with the federation for a cloaking device was more strategic call then anything, it was attached to the defiant, but it's power signature was very high for a ship of it's size, the Jem'Hadar after scanning did pick up the defiant and acted if nothing was wrong then planned something for the arrival of the defiant, the Dominion are experts at data gathering. at the time the cloak was an exchange for data on the dominion in the gamma quadrant for the romulans, probably required for their alliance with the obsidian order to attack the founders.
the federation were already aware of these flaws anyway because the Enterprise already acquired a romulan cloaking device and a little later a klingon cloaking device by stealing a bird of prey through a swap of crews when the Enterprise-A was destroyed.
Romulans are not obsessed with cloaking technology, but rather to keep up in the technology race vs the klingons and federation.