In the Star Trek universe, why is cloaking technology so rare?

Question

The ST universe predominantly only depicts two main races with cloaking technology: the Romulans and Klingons. In universe, the Klingons originally got the technology from the Romulans as part of a treaty.

Therefore, the only races we've really seen that have developed the technology from first principles are the Romulans and the Federation (in TNG:Pegasus) (Particularly as this device was interphasic, making it different to regular cloaking devices as used by the Romulans and Klingons, it seems likely that the technology was independently developed, or at least improved, by Starfleet).

In the DS9 episode Homefront, it's speculated that the Dominion may have recovered a cloaking device from the combined Romulan/Cardassian fleet that attempted to invade the Founders' home world. It was barely even considered that the Dominion may have developed the technology itself, even though the Jem'Hadar have personal cloaking devices, making the possibility that they have developed ship-size cloaks at least plausible.

There are other technologically superior races (such as the Borg) that also don't seem to have ever developed the technology as far as we're aware of.

Given that most major races are more-or-less technologically on a par - warp drives, transporters, phasers/disruptors are ubiquitous for example - in universe, what makes cloaking technology so rare?

Answer 1

More difficult than it's worth.

I don't know of a specific, canon answer to this exact question, so this is an analytical answer rather than an authoritative one.

Consider that:

• Few groups have and use cloaking devices
• Cloaking devices do not seem like a high priority for warlike groups that don't have them and are not bound by treaties not to develop them
• Cloaking doesn't seem to be all that good for many applications

These together suggest that if you already have cloaking technology then sure, use it. But if you don't, it may not be worth all that much effort to develop.

Romulans are a power in the galaxy, but they're far from a dominant one and for all their ship cloakery they don't seem to win a particularly large proportion of their battles or wars. The Klingon Empire is similar in that cloaking doesn't seem to have given them all that much of an edge.

The known limitations on cloaking device effects are pretty severe as well. Not only do there seem to be multiple ways of detecting a ship under cloak (radiation leaks, implausible-in-space networks of tripwires, logical deduction, and more) but they're also hard to use in anything other than reconnaissance and pre-combat maneuver.

You have to have your shields down and weapons unpowered. And, as above, you're still plenty detectable (if not casually detectable). Not to mention that any groups which have active cloaking research programs are likely to be far ahead of new entrants, meaning that an independently researched cloaking device might not level the playing field against those which already have cloaks.

So I argue that the reason for cloaking technology being so rare is that it's not all that awesome in practice. The few things it is good for are not compelling enough to make it a major research priority for most groups on a practical level, and those that do have and use it do so for other reasons.

Romulans are big on military theory and maneuvering. Cloaking fits nicely with those, even if it doesn't grant a big advantage. Perhaps they have a cultural or biological preference for dramatic appearances to unsuspecting audiences, or just like the cool visual effect of cloaking and de-cloaking.

But the practical case for striving to create cloaking technology seems weak.

Answer 2

Cloaking of small objects is not uncommon.

You see it widely used. It's often seen as little more than a parlor trick.

The problem comes when trying to cloak an entire ship.

Bending light or imitating light becomes exponentially more difficult the larger the object you are concealing. This is made even more difficult if the source of the cloaking system is to be contained on the vessel it is trying to cloak.

The extreme development difficulty and thus prized nature of this tech is why in the peace treaty with the Romulan Empire, a major stipulation for the federation was for the Federation not to develop or try to acquire cloaking technology.

As of why it is so hard to cloak starships, You have to remember your average Starship is about half a kilometer wide. Even the small Defiant (attack class) and Intrepid class (rapid response class) ships are larger than a typical sports field.

The Enterprise D was incredibly large and designed for diplomatic, transport and other such missions. It was large enough to luxuriously house several thousand people, and massive amounts of cargo. At 43 decks high, with the saucer section being about 20 decks high it's crew and cargo capacity were roughly that of a small city.

Klingon attack ships are by contrast much smaller, with crew space of roughly the size of an attack sub. They are cramped, unsafe and generally not particularly pleasant. Even the larger, more defensive ships are still small.

The Romulan ships while of comparable size to the Enterprise D are designed with substantial modifications to handle the cloaking field and high speed and maneuverability. They still cannot maintain maximum warp with the cloaking field enabled and have much smaller usable ship volume due to these changes.

The USS Defiant was the only federation ship ever to be fitted with a traditional cloaking device.

The Defiant was the smallest full fledged star-ship Star Fleet had made in almost a century. It was only capable housing a maximum of about 50 crewmen with several in each room that was no bigger than a small locker room. This is far less than the 1000+ typical crew/passenger count in the Enterprise D, which could be expanded with the fitting of multipurpose decks and/or cargo bays.

Corrections: Referenced Memory-Alpha Star Trek wiki for more exact information. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com