Wasn’t it for the intelligence value from the one Federation ship with cloaking technology? I do remember they explaining this, but don’t remember where.
The cloaking bit was a late entry only provided to the Federation after the discovery of the wormhole. Sisko probably was asking for a ship since the first incursion with the Cardassians but Starfleet was spread thin. After the entire shenanigans with Odessy being destroyed by the Jem’hadar and the very real threat the Dominion was proving to be, Sisko probably threw a fit at being told there were no ships available to be stationed at DS9 that could carry out the mission. To which he probably pointed at the Defiant he knew to be in prototype phase and probably mothballed in a drydock.
At some point in the conversation the Romulan deal to supply a cloaking ship for use in the Gamma Quadrant in exchange for all the information gathered using it was probably made known to Sisko and he would have pointed out the Defiant was the only ship powerful enough to utilize it given the oversized reactor. So in universe it’s all just a happy accident they sent the one guy to look over the wormhole who had first hand knowledge about an unused prototype ship and vague theories on how to get it working on top of figuring out how to get a favor out of the Romulans in a way that pleased both sides.
I remember the Romulans lending the Feds a cloaking device on the condition that they share intel on the other side of the worm hole and that Starfleet not use it in the Alpha quadrant.
Presumably the cloak could have been fitted on to any Starfleet ship of a certain size/class though, from an in-universe perspective.
Cloaking devices do seem to be very plug-and-play across starship types.
Scotty gets a Romulan cloak to work on the Enterprise.
The Enterprise-D crew quickly adapt a phasing cloak designed for a different class of starship.
The Titan-A uses the Klingon cloak from the Bounty.
Wasn’t it for the intelligence value from the one Federation ship with cloaking technology? I do remember they explaining this, but don’t remember where.
The cloaking bit was a late entry only provided to the Federation after the discovery of the wormhole. Sisko probably was asking for a ship since the first incursion with the Cardassians but Starfleet was spread thin. After the entire shenanigans with Odessy being destroyed by the Jem’hadar and the very real threat the Dominion was proving to be, Sisko probably threw a fit at being told there were no ships available to be stationed at DS9 that could carry out the mission. To which he probably pointed at the Defiant he knew to be in prototype phase and probably mothballed in a drydock.
At some point in the conversation the Romulan deal to supply a cloaking ship for use in the Gamma Quadrant in exchange for all the information gathered using it was probably made known to Sisko and he would have pointed out the Defiant was the only ship powerful enough to utilize it given the oversized reactor. So in universe it’s all just a happy accident they sent the one guy to look over the wormhole who had first hand knowledge about an unused prototype ship and vague theories on how to get it working on top of figuring out how to get a favor out of the Romulans in a way that pleased both sides.
I remember the Romulans lending the Feds a cloaking device on the condition that they share intel on the other side of the worm hole and that Starfleet not use it in the Alpha quadrant.
Presumably the cloak could have been fitted on to any Starfleet ship of a certain size/class though, from an in-universe perspective.
Cloaking devices do seem to be very plug-and-play across starship types.
Scotty gets a Romulan cloak to work on the Enterprise. The Enterprise-D crew quickly adapt a phasing cloak designed for a different class of starship. The Titan-A uses the Klingon cloak from the Bounty.