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What is the smallest cloaking device in the Star Trek universe?


Like all technology improvements, the power and size requirements for cloaking technology seem to be getting smaller and more efficient.


In 2370, Quark illegally acquired a small cloaking device and installed it in the central engine core of a Cardassian shuttle. Also from DS9, the self-replicating mine invented by Miles O'Brien, Rom, and Jadzia Dax in 2373 were even smaller. Each mine was cloaked and extremely small, no more than a meter across. Can or has the cloaking technology been reduced in size even further than that? Say to a size suitable for an individual cloak?




Answer



Assuming you're talking about a standard cloaking device (e.g. as opposed to one of the more exotic ways of hiding things such as the cloaking particles used by the Suliban, the miniature subspace cloaks used on the 'Houdini' mines in DS9: "The Siege of AR-558" or the holographic "isolation suits" seen in Star Trek: Insurrection) then within the TV series, the smallest cloaking device is Quark's "small cloaking device" from DS9 : Profit and Loss. The cloak is about the size of a honeydew melon.


Given the relative 1M size of the self-replicating mines seen in later episodes of DS9, it's likely that the cloak inside those was of a similar size and composition.


Small cloaking device


Outside the TV series, we see a "Romulan cloaking band" in the Star Trek game "Away Team". The device renders your player character invisible for a brief duration.


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