Technically, this isn’t a cloaking device. It’s a phasing device. They can’t help it if the Romulans or everyone can’t see them while they are in another phase. I feel like the admiral just didn’t do a good job marketing his invention. Lol
If you can play legalese with the language, so can they. I’m sure the treaty language doesn’t just say “cloaking device,” it says something like “any technology which can render physical objects undetectable by visible light or subspace scans,” which WOULD apply to this device.
Years later, worf on the USS Defiant acts uncomfortable and states, “I’ve never been on a federation ship with a cloaking device”. Lies Mr. Worf, Filthy lies!
Resistance is futile.......... Whered that come from We shall add your techonological.......... oh wait, u suck, well just wipe you out Huh, wheres that coming from Borg ship phases inside the enterprise and assimilates it and the crew in one phase shift..........
You would think the Borg would of already assimilated cloaking tech from some race. But the queen probably thought, cloak or no cloak, don't matter to us.
Actually, if I remember right, there was at least once instance in DS9 where this gets brought up in regards to the Federation and Romulans forming an alliance treaty against the Dominion. I believe in recognition of the bigger threat, the Romulans did agree to a limited use of cloaking devices.
@@jojomojojones Riker and the Admiral there had been involved in a phase cloak experiment on the USS Pegasus some 10 years prior. Pegasus was found embedded in an asteroid have decloaked improperly. The admiral insisted on a rescue of the tech. The Romulans blew the entry to the asteroid trapping Enterprise inside. They then used the Phase Cloak to exit through the multi KM thick rock face, and (frankly stupidly) decloaked. YES the truth had to come out, but he is VERY lucky the Enterprise didn't get melted to slag right there and then.
I really like that Commander Riker steps forward to take blame on participating in the actions sanctioned by the admiral. Sense of honor and responsibility is what made the Starfleet what it is.
Shows you how clever Scotty was. When they stole the cloak device from the Romulans he had it working on the Enterprise in an hour. Before these guys were born!
Odd considering it was stolen tech that wasnt designed for a federation ship, yet the one used here was specifically engineered for a federation ship and they still took much longer to install and use it.
@@LouSaydus The Romulan one may have been simpler. Or the first Enterprise was easier to add modifications like that to. Or any other number of potential reasons, or combination thereof.
"Centurion, Federation Starship de-cloaking off the starboard bow!" "Alright lieutenant, raise shields and- Waaaaait a minute. Something's not right here...."
Riker: "Excuse me, Captain, I need to go to the holodeck, play a Maco, press some buttons on the bridge and cook some stuff in the kitchen of the Enterprise NX-01 which we never heard of."
@@mattrogers5188 Wow, really...? All that just to correct a contraction I missed? What about the main post that did not abbreviate M.A.C.O. and did not capitalize Holodeck? Perhaps you can tell me, is a comma needed after NX-01 in the post as well?
I always thought this was mishandled, it wasn't a cloak. They were out of phase with normal matter. This would have been an invaluable scientific research tool.
Most likely, the treaty was worded in such a way that phase-shifting would fall under the umbrella of cloaking. For example: "No space-faring vessel of the United Federation of Planets or its member worlds shall be outfitted with any system or device that would permit the vessel to evade sensor detection..." The Romulans would certainly have known that there were yet-unexplored methods for evading detection that the Federation would explore if they were left any loopholes, and they would have insisted that the treaty was worded accordingly.
@@bloodred255 To be fair, it was season 7 of TNG, so there weren’t too many more episodes to reference it. Also, Admiral Riker’s Enterprise in “All Good Things” had a cloak. That said, it would’ve been real useful during the Dominion War on DS9.
"Mr. Worf, send a message to the Romulans." A few seconds later "Mr. Worf, take the Admiral to the brig" Worf: "You know there are other able-bodied people on this bridge, captain."
Yeah that part was pretty weak. With this type of incident, Picard should have opened a channel and immediately started a dialog, otherwise the Romulans would have opened fire as this violation would have been a declaration of war. But alas, not enough time left in the episode!
LOL, awesome. Except in Commander Keen, enemy sprites like Robo Red from Keen 5 can still see you with No Clipping enabled, and Commander Keen being a platform game, you have to be very careful not to fall through the bottom of the map, which results in instant death. Do Wolfenstein 3D and games using its engine, like Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, have no clipping? If so, there it might be properly useful as a way of exploring some of the mind-bending mazes contained in some of the levels.
Riker felt bad for his part in the conspiracy...he knew the truth and he couldn't tell him. Riker thought it was right to be taken in also knowing he could face the same type of punishment as the admiral did.
The Pegasus is one of my absolute favorite episode’s from TNG series 7. Brilliant story, excellent writing, and superb acting as always. Brilliant, brilliant episode.
@@calderarecords Well, the one that’s considered the best ever TNG episode is always either “The Inner Light” season 5 or the 2 parter from the end of season 3 and the first episode of season 4 called “The best of both worlds”
@@captpicard6894 The Inner Light.. was not an easy watch by any stretch of the imagination. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I have struggled for the last 15 years to attempt to convey a similar situation to our own population but even the Scientific community are intransigent. The constant falling upon deaf ears is dejecting. The parallels are far too closely aligned with our own reality. I shall leave it at that.
I remember watching this and wishing I had another hour of this episode, but devoted to Riker hanging out in the holodeck in some simulation of a past Enterprise, working up his resolve to talk to Picard.
To those wondering why they do not use or keep this cloak, there's actually a treaty between the Romulan Empire and the federation, and I am sure everyone knows about the Neutral Zone between them. Part of the Romulan treaty is that no federation ship is ever allowed to manufacture, develop, or use cloaking in any way.
Unless it's the original Defiant, and even then the Romulans only loaned it to the Federation with the proviso that it was supposed to be used solely in the Gamma Quadrant (even though Sisko gave the rules the finger all the time, because he was Sisko and that was how he did things).
It wasn’t even a cloak though. A cloak hides the ship, but this caused the ship to be out of sync, so to speak, with reality so they could move through solid material.
@@QixTheDS The Romulan lawyers would definitely quibble over the semantics since the device had the secondary effect of rendering the ship invisible to sensors and the naked eye, much like a traditional cloaking device does. The Federation might have gotten away with the legality of it, but it still would have meant war because the Romulans would stubbornly refuse to acknowledge there was a difference and view its existence in Federation hands as a threat to the Star Empire.
"Captain, I'll have to be placed under arrest as well." "I know. That's the plan. You're under arrest for aiding and abetting." "If you want to take the Admiral in you're going to have t-WWWWWWWWWWWWWHAT?"
Johnny Five what the fuck is wrong with you?! i wasn't trying to pick up anybody. I was making an honest comment. Not that you'd know anything about honesty....
Johnny Marvéll You had to click on her profile to even know that she was a gamer in the first place. Sounds to me like you were trying to pick her up... in a very stalker-ish way...
Johnny Marvéll Alright, listen here kid, I did not once insult you and here you are cursing your brains out, trying to play up your little "tough guy" facade. First of all, I'm from the U.S., not some backwater, dirt-poor, riot everytime there's a soccer game, country. Second of all, "get a life"? You're really going to tell that to me when you responded to my comment at 2:51 AM? Lastly, you have no idea what a passive-aggressive statement is, let alone whether someone is using one or not. Bottomline: you're an insecure little bitch who thinks that telling someone to fuck off over the internet makes you somehow a hard-ass. Go watch your anime porn and die peeing on yourself.
2:23 I imagine the romulans would have two reactions to a decloaked enterprise, either: Ah-ha! Just as we thought. Or *HOLY SH** HOW IN F*** *DID THEY DO THAT?!?!*
Humans in Star Trek: "Hey you know how we're developing an illegal cloaking device?" "Mm Hmmm?" "... what if we try use it to phase through solid matter?" "Dude, you're slow I made it do that five minutes ago."
"We've routed the impulse engines through the plasma conduits but you're going to have to watch the intercooler levels. If they get too high, we'll blow the entire relay system." Yes, I would like to order the Big Word Salad please.
@Bocaan The Humble Geordi like Scotty could do anything to the enterprise but surprisingly when plot demanded it failed on other ships or the enterprise when she had to be damaged.
@Bocaan The Humble Not next to it, the main impulse engine is well above the warp core. If the main impulse engine were to rupture it would hit the main deuterium tank first, which is just as bad. However, pay attention to what Riker said next. It wouldn't destroy the ship, it would likely either set the ship adrift, or the phase cloak would just fail locking them in rock forever.
3Rayfire to be fair though it has been shown that a mild scrape to the enterprise D’s warp nacelle can cause a power surge that makes the ship spiral out of control and rupture reactor containment causing the ship to explode
@Bocaan The Humble To be fair, an intercooler is actually a real piece of tech sometimes used in engines or nuclear reactors. Basically, if you have ever seen a water radiator, be it on a water cooled engine or a water cooled computer, its basically the same idea of a metal radiator with lots of surface and water flowing on the inside to deliver the thermal energy. An intercooler is basically sticking a radiator into another container with water that in turn will ALSO have a radiator at the end of it (or in case of nuclear reactors a turbine).
Systems Commonwealth Of course they were. There are hints given by Sloan that the ship he uses to travel to DS9 is cloaked. I wouldn't be surprised if the good Rear Admiral was recruited by 31 while he was still cadet
@@colin-campbell No..... the cloak changes the vibrational state of the matter inside the cloaking field which allows the phased matter to pass through the non-phased matter.
@@zorkmid1083 that's what I always remembered him from. In fact, when I saw him playing the Admiral in this episode, I was like, OMG, it's the stepfather!
Technically, the Admiral didn't violate the treaty of Algernon since the technology phases one into another dimension as opposed to bending light and other electromagnetic waveforms to become invisible.
It depends on how you look at it. The Romulans could take the position that it made the ship disappear (mechanism being irrelevant) and thus qualifies as a cloak and a violation. also, it would depend on the exact wordage of the treaty which we don't know.
Just occurred to me now: Riker went from ensign to commander in roughly 5-7 years? Crazy. The writers should have said the incident happened 20 years ago, even accounting for a likely super rapid rise in the ranks. Or Pressman should have had a line in the episode mentioning fostering Riker in terms of promotion.
@@simonbas6 This episode is in the series' 7 season! Riker made commander as first officer in Encounter At Farpoint! So ensign to commander in 5-7 years is accurate.
This, combined with the Federation's other weapons and defensive technology would have been a complete galaxy-wide game changer. But treaties signed in good faith should remain in effect. Otherwise the Federation and Starfleet would lose all moral credibility. Imagine though, if Paramount/CBS had done a TNG "mirror universe" story where the Terran Empire uses the phasing cloak at will? I'd watch that...:)
Toolpusher There is a worst of both worlds fanfiction (where the borg defeat the federation and neighbouring factions) where after they discover the phase cloak they implement it into their ship to help evade the borg. Unfortunately thats as far as the fanfic gets as it cuts off not long after.
Pressman as he's being escorted to the brig by Worf: I have a lot of friends at Starfleet Command, Captain! Picard after they enter the turbolift: You're going to need them.
There was a book wayyy back in the day, "Secret of Stardeep" I think... where a ship warps and then materializes inside a planet. It's only found years later, partially intact, by people exploring the planet's caves. Has some things in common with this episode. Always wondered if one of the writers read that as a kid and incorporated some of it. Either way, killer episode.
I got a notion despite his adherence to the Treaty of Algeron and his misgivings about Admiral Pressman and the statements of Riker, Picard was actually impressed with the cloak's ability to "phase" through normal matter. Pressman knew there was more than just the Romulans to deal with if the cloak were to be revealed. The Klingons would have also been aggravated as they also attempted to create a phase cloak as well. However, their cloak was a failure as their research indicated the cloak would only last about 20 or so minutes before damage to their plasma conduits occured. This was also later discovered by Section 31. However, they were able to stabilize their version by heavily reinforcing their plasma conduits thus giving them about 12 hours of cloaking. But, they concluded it could not be done for any tactical length of time on a larger starship. So it was either utilize it on a much smaller scale say a shuttlecraft or runabout which doesn't make much sense as a weapons platform, or as pretty much ALL Alpha Quadrant powers did (Federation/Klingons/Romulans) simply abandon it. Now the information is all non-canon, but what IS canon is that the phase cloak still exists as far as the Picard Series. It was locked up with Data at the Daystrom Facility. With the technology available in Picard's century, and with the Romulans no longer a large power, the Federation can legally pursue the phase cloak and possibly make it work to its promised capabilities. And since the rechristened Titan is now Enterprise G, perfect test bed.
Those who ask why the Federation doesn't have cloaking devices and talk about war miss the entire point of Star Trek completely. Roddenberry introduced the clause preventing the Federation using cloak because he believed the Federation 'doesn't go around doing cloak and dagger stuff'. The whole point of Star Trek, as evidenced by it's impact on civil rights, was to inspire people to take on a greater ideal, NOT for people to invent better ways to wage future war - an issue I take with Deep Space 9, which people argue is 'realistic' but it's only realistic in our present day. The goal of Star Trek is to show inspiration for improving the future. It casted Nichelle Nichols as Uhura as the first main cast black woman, and had one of the first major interracial kisses on scene (which William Shatner, understanding Roddenberry's intent, purposefully messed up the shoot as the TV studio demanded two scenes be shot - one with and one without. Shatner still did the kiss in every take until they got enraged and gave up). Such was Star Trek that Martin Luther King Jr encouraged Nichelle Nichols to not quit the role (which she was planning to do) as even MLKJ understood Roddenberry's intent. So when people ask 'why don't the Federation using cloaking technology', it is in order to inspire our people and our government not to stoop to using underhanded, secretive ways which we despise so much. Think about how much evil is conducted in the shadow of darkness - Guantanamo Bay, civilian deaths in drone strikes in extrajudicial (outside trial) killings, tax evasion, financial rate rigging, cop corruption, to name but a few - a cry to cloak is a cry for underhanded secrecy, and we as a whole race, are better than that.
Anyone who doesn't understand why the Federation doesn't use cloaking technology clearly doesn't have any historical perspective on the suicidal nature of the Cold War arms race, which is what the whole treaty and limitation on Cloaking technology is all about discussing.
I don't know what was Roddenberry thinking, he created a perfect society and surrounded it with hostile factions on all sides. And they are supposed to diplomatically end all conflicts? Impossible, some of this factions don't care about peace or talks, they just want to conquer and enslave other races. Even the Klingon's who become one of the biggest allies of the Federation would continue to fight them if the explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis never happened.
Elandil5 *And they are supposed to diplomatically end all conflicts?* Clearly not, or else they would never be armed, which they always are, and they would never have to go to war, with the history of the Federation is full of. Its not about never going to war, its about never welcoming it when you have alternatives. Most wars that politicians and leaders throughout history have professed were essential and unavoidable were hardly that. Its rare that a war could not have been prevented along the way. Most are welcomed and created deliberately by the powerful. With the Federation being as powerful as any other individual power therefore its not as if they're victims who can be pushed around. They are instead the powerful and they choose to act differently. History shows us that when they want to powerful societies can establish detente and live peacefully. The Cold War proved as much when nuclear arms made the cost of war too great. Somehow diplomacy prevailed every time, often despite the efforts of the pro war hawks. That's the lesson of Star Trek, that diplomacy first and foremost is the best option. Not only that, and arguably more importantly, its the moral option as welcoming war brings bloodshed to everyone and is costly to those who had no say in determining it would happen. If diplomacy were always successful though, again, they wouldn't be armed and be powerful enough militarily to actually make expansionist empires like the Klingons or the Romulans pause and actually respond to diplomacy.
BollocksUtwat And then the Borg arrived, a faction that can't be reasoned with or engage in talks. A faction that send one cube and destroyed a lot of Federation ships and colonies. Which forced Starfleet to militarize or face destruction. Gene envisioned TNG's Starfleet as perfect combination of explorers and peacekeepers but the creators of DS9 showed what would Starfleet and the Federation actually look like.
I think the Enterprise cloaking and decloaking looks so badass. I think that part in the treaty about the Federation not being able to develop cloaking technology was a mistake. It's not just about evening the odds. Yes it does help keep everyone in check. It can also be used for research and for emergency situations other than offensive or defensive intentions. If the Klingons and romulans have it, then why not?
When I first saw “Die Another Day” and the Aston Martin disappeared I felt like yelling “Hey! You can’t make a cloaking device! THAT’S in direct violation of the Treaty of Algeron! Do you want a War?!”
i believe it keeps the peace. its like a promise they will never play an arms race, and its a token gesture of faith, and tangible proof that the federation is not interested in conquest or battle with the Romulans. If Romulans always have that slight advantage, with no threat to that advantage, then they are comfortable with the status quo of peace.
Which is why it's never used again.... Not to mention breaks a treaty the Feds have with the Romula........Ooooh, a Star Wars person......What I meant was pew prw pew pew pew pew pew pew.😋😂
Correct, the cloak was special.. Phase cloak. In the episode, a Federation ship was buried in Solid rock, inside an asteroid. The Admiral was testing it out, but it glitched
You know it could be a great defensive system. An enemy say the Borg shows up at a vulnerable colony or just Earth they activate the Phase Cloak (that's what it's called) and the enemy can shoot all they want but will hit nothing nor find nothing.
what about it? the federation doesn't even seem to know about it. only a select few who are tapped and told. the point he made was that is not what the federation is supposed to do. and even if we ignored the obvious flaws of your argument, and assumed that section 31 is legitimate and fully part of the federation government, the laws preventing the use of cloaking and other underhanded trickery/warmongering would be the lip service given to the public for their image.
When I saw this episode it reminded me of the TOS episode 'The Enterprise Incident' where the Enterprise used a Romulan cloaking device and the Enterprise D became the first Enterprise in over a 100 years to use a cloaking device the only difference this device was of Federation design instead of Romulan design.
I would have considered leaving a photo torpedo inside the asteroid timed to go off after the Enterprise has escaped, making it look like the Enterprise destroyed itself (and the Pegasus) rather than be captured by the Romulans. The discussion of what to do with Pressman and others would be pursued later, once the danger was over and the secret of the phase cloak successfully kept safe. Now would this have made me a good captain or a bad one, and what else could have come of such a decision?
The Admiral's not wrong in this episode. It's utterly insane to sign a treaty that gives your enemy access to an entire class of technology you agree not to have.
Except cloaking systems aren't the advantage they seem to be. They consume a great deal of ship's power, render weapons and shields useless as long as the cloak is active, renders the ship vulnerable while decloaking, and can be defeated by a number of active scanning technologies which Federation R&D has invented, tested, and deployed with considerable effectiveness in the intervening years. The Dominion had effective anti-cloak scanning and penetration technology, and the Defiant's cloaking system wasn't any kind of game-changer in the Dominion War. The Federation found greater advantage in developing and refining anticloak detection and penetration technologies and relying on active defences rather than a stealth system that makes a ship more rather than less vulnerable, and an alert captain suspecting cloaked ships might be in his sector will already have shields up and weapons ready, which diminishes the effectiveness of an ambush. So yes, Admiral Pressman is wrong on a number of levels, one of which is the supposed advantages of cloaking technology which field experience has demonstrated to be a dubious quality. In signing the treaty, the Federation gave up something it could not only live without but also defeat for far less expense and risk involved.
So here's a question: The treaty between Romulus and the Federation is that they can't create cloaking devices, right? Or is it that they can't create stealth technology in general? Because what if the Federation ship like the Normandy from Mass Effect, that was able to hide it's heat and energy signature, and was designed to blend in with natural space? Would that be an acceptable loophole the Federation could exploit?
Considering that the technologies of both universes are vastly different.. I would wager the Normandy would not be technically 'cloaked' in the star trek universe. Recall that the heat dispersion and overall design does not actively conceal completely the ship. So someone with just eyes could see it if they looked out a window, and in star trek they could see things with a magnification of ten thousand (as shown in this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HzyxEcDUSAk.html) all in all, I feel the Normandy piloted by Joker and Commander Shepard would be in for a rude awakening if they crossed The Enterprise
@@LufiaSinistral Well yes, but the point of the heat dispersion is to hide it from sensors, so Star Trek ships wouldn't know to actively look for it. And if it was camouflaged properly, a dark blue/black with white specs to imitate stars, and it could be hidden very well. Unless I'm missing something
Thanks you for the informative and courteous response. In this case Picard should have kept the "phase cloak" on and shut his moral high ground trap shut for the sake of a significant military, defensive, and scientific technological discovery. Think of it, they would worry less about their Federation Science only vessels that may wander into danger ala, Voyager, and have then use that to get out conflicts without confrontation.
@@andrewshouse9840 Obviously you don't play Civilization. The strongest military society sets the terms of any diplomatic concord. This is true in real life. Diplomacy only works if you have the military might to back it up.
I really didn't agree with Picard in this episode. There was no need to put his crew in danger by de cloaking in front of the Romulans. He could've left them there for hours and been long gone. THEN he could've sent a message to Romulus.
De-cloaking in front of the Romulans negated any possibility of Pressman or Starfleet command trying to order them to cover it up or classify the incident again.
@doctorwho0077 Except Pressman likely had a lot of political connections, so it's possible he could've had it hushed up. Picard just destroyed the chances of that. I expect, though, that the Fed diplomats had their work cut out for them.
TNG is usually conveniently idealistic in situations like this. When Picard takes the moral high ground it tends to work out for him. He's such a good actor that the universe bends to his will!
Its Picard's way, he is someone who is all about transparency and is willing to go above and beyond to do what he believes is right. He on multiple occasions puts his crew in danger to show he is willing to do deals with honor. On many occasions that is with the Romulans. You do see even if spiteful that the Romulans to show token respect for Picard and that is because of things like this.
what I would have done, was before I left the asteroid, plant 5 or 6 photon torpedoes set to detonate in 5 minutes, leave the system under cloak, still busted the Admiral and those at Starfleet Intelligence, I always thought them uncloaking in front of the Warbird wasnt too bright, the Warbird could have easily destroyed the Enterprise, or worse disabled the Enterprise and took the ship and the cloaking device back to Romulus.
Indeed. But we don’t know what the Treaty of Algernon entailed. The people who run the United Federation of Planets clearly believe that the lack of cloaking technology is worth what that treaty brought them. It certainly isn’t the place of high-level Starfleet officers to go behind their government’s back. That’s illegal, and extremely unhealthy to a government.
Remember in DS9 when Worf looks around warily while they're traveling to Cardassia and Sisko asks what's up and Worf says "I have never been on a Federation ship with a cloaking device. It's a little disconcerting." I imagine Worf blacked out during this sequence and that's why he doesn't remember being on a cloaked federation ship...Either that or Worf was replaced by those shapeshifting aliens that kidnapped Picard.
@@CardboardSliver I saw the clip but these are the Romulans we're talking about here, there's a good chance they know about that incident but stayed quiet about it.
I don't remember the name of it, but there WAS a TNG episode where cloaking & phasing were more involved. La Forge and some lady were "cloaked and phased." The episode dealt more with character development, but there was some kind of accident, and there was some kind of "decontamination" that uncloaked and unphased them. I also remember Riker kept going on about a eulogy but kept getting interrupted.
Actually Starfleet has been portrayed as militaristic in TOS, the series written by Roddenberry. Starfleet is also authorised to conduct exploration and diplomatic missions as one of their primary roles, the most important being defence. The Enterprise for example was stated several times to be a military vessel and also displayed the ability to rival if not outright surpass the combat vessels of other races.
I don't disagree with the Admiral's core mission, the Federation SHOULD be allowed to create and use cloaking devices. In the novels, the ban only exists because the Feds are afraid that the Romulans will develop and use planet destroying weapons but chances are that the Romulans are developing them in secret anyways so it's pointless to have the treaty....... What the Admiral and his co-conspirators did wrong was do it in secret and violate Federation law. If they feel so strongly about the Treaty of Algeron sucking, they should have used legal methods to get the Federation to change or abolish the treaty.
Revkor Then why wasn't it used during the Dominion war? Section 31 has agents within the Romulan government (as well as Starfleet security) that keep tabs on the Romulans. What Planet Destroying Weapon? Was it similar to the weapon deployed by the Xindi in ST: Enterprise?
Trent Timoy It may HAVE been used off camera on secret missions or something. It isn't like we were shown everything that goes on during the Dominion War.
ryan macdonald I was thinking the same thing but that weapon alone could've done some considerable damage and given the Fed and its allies a good enough cushion of success.
No, they are contained within said phase field. Which is why the ships both remains visible to them, and they stay in contact with the hull of the ship.😂
I'm seeing comments of people saying that the federation doesn't use cloaks because they aren't a militaristic view for the future, enlightened, no cloak and dagger, all that stuff. I understand that point but I have to disagree. Technology like this would be extremely valuable because it would allow captains the ability to exit a violent scenario safely. Such technology would also be extremely useful across all fields (such as search and rescue, non-invasive surgery, studying potentially warp capable species, studying extremely hard to access areas, etc etc), not just military. Advanced phasing technology does not morally compromise the federation anymore than standard issue torpedoes and ray guns that can commit planetary genocide at the pull of a trigger; both have the potential to be used for good, or evil.
Wthin universe, it's because of the treaty Picard mentioned. The Federation wouldn't pursue cloaking technology; don't know what the Romulans agreed to. Really, the special effects weren't good enough in TOS to do it often, and it would take the danger out of so many situations. And, of course, the Federation did get a cloaked vessel during the Dominion War on DS9. And it's not like the science teams don't use holographic technology to hide research facilities on habitated planets to study prewarp races.
