An isolation suit was a highly technological type of clothing used by the Federation on pre-warp cultural observation and "duck blind" missions. They were sealed to contain the life signs and noises of operatives, and equipped with a basic cloaking device which made the user invisible to the naked eye, so not to contaminate alien culture. They were, however, visible with properly configured sensor equipment, which were generally utilized by mission base of operations to keep tabs on field personnel. (TNG movie: Star Trek: Insurrection; DS9 - Mission: Gamma novel: Lesser Evil)
- The Star Trek Fact Files state that isolation suits used holographic technology rather than a cloaking device to achieve their invisibility.
The isolation suit was developed by Starfleet in the early 2360s, with much of the research being conducted on Starbase 74. A supply officer from this base, Lieutenant Dar Ableen, was able to use an early version of the suit to carry out a series of murders undetected. (SCE eBook: Security)
- The SCE story uses the term "stealth suit", which is also the name of a similar 23rd century technology.
Section 31 developed the cloaking capabilities of isolation suits after reverse engineering the Romulan cloaking device aboard the USS Defiant. (DS9 - Millennium novel: The War of the Prophets)
In 2376, the Trill Hiziki Gard used an isolation suit to evade capture after he assassinated the Bajoran First Minister, Shakaar Edon, on Deep Space 9. The ploy was successful for some time, but he was eventually tracked down by Lieutenant Ro Laren and Taran'atar to a small crawlspace above Ops. (DS9 novel: Lesser Evil)
Gard's isolation suit was later discovered to have originated from the USS Kelly, a ship which was destroyed at the Battle of Rigel. It was believed the suit was one of many items the Orion Syndicate had salvaged from the battle site. Councillor Bera chim Gleer later brought up the issue of the isolation suit in a session of the Federation Council. (DS9 - Worlds of DS9 novel: Trill: Unjoined)
- See also: stealth suit.
Connections[]
- Isolation suit article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.