Trekkies fire phasers in Romulan/Klingon spat

The official Star Trek website reveals that the cloaking device was a Romulan invention

Star Trek may be off the air and its latest film still locked in development hell, but the battle lines have been drawn once again between the Klingons and the Romulans. 

In an argument befitting the 40th anniversary year of the show, a vnunet.com story about a real-life cloaking device has sparked fierce debate. 

"It was Klingons that could cloak their starship in the Star Trek series," claims forum user 'trekie', kicking off the argument.

After a brief description of Star Trek history, 'Eric' asks: "Is this even relevant? To a true Trekkie, yes." 'Tom' only adds fuel to the fire with his outburst: "Trekkies!! Hahaha."

Thankfully, it seems that a good majority of our readers know that Trek-lore agrees with our story.

A quick scan of the official Star Trek website backs up the fact that the cloaking device was a Romulan invention.

"Technology of Romulan origin, first described in 2266, that can generate an energy screen to render a target object, usually a spacecraft, relatively invisible to sensors," the site states.

The site goes on to describe a Klingon cloaking device as: "Similar to the Romulan cloaking device, the Klingons received this technology from the Romulans circa 2268, when the two civilizations shared a political alliance."

Sources close to science-fiction publishers Titan Magazines also revealed to vnunet.com that the Klingons only have a cloaking device in the third Star Trek movie because the villains were originally scripted as Romulans. 

It was left to vnunet.com reader 'James' to take a different tack and wonder whether anyone had any photos of an invisibility cloak at work.