Cloaking Devices: Finding Cloaked Ships
- Thread starter AlxxlA
- Start date
Except that's not what it does. The idea is that it bends light around the ship, so that an observer sees whatever's behind the ship as though the ship weren't there. You wouldn't see "nothing," you'd see the same background readings you'd get in the absence of a ship.
Even assuming your sensors could somehow scan for the few dozen individual hydrogen atoms that might otherwise occupy the volume taken up by a cloaked ship, surely an advanced cloak would be able to create an illusion of their presence, just as a holodeck can create an illusion of just about anything.
I'd think most cloaks would not be supercomputers that create illusions out of nothingness in realtime - they'd just play the "look, I'm completely transparent so all you see is the things behind me" trick and hope that this is sufficient.
..Because it probably would be. While many a thing can be scanned in the Trek universe, it's far from said that a strange concentration of gas in a random spot of space, or a stray thermal emission, or a sporadic subspace signal, is a cloakship. There'd be a lot of background noise there on such phenomena, especially on a battlefield where your own engines, weapons, shields and other devices have stirred the local space.
You'd need something far more solid, far more practicable than just a hydrogen atom count (or a neutrino surge count as in ST6) to get a combat fix on a cloakship. Similarly, a H.G.Wells type invisible man today would be extremely efficient as a special forces soldier or master criminal despite still having a thermal signature and non-transparent eyes and whatnot...
Timo Saloniemi
..Because it probably would be. While many a thing can be scanned in the Trek universe, it's far from said that a strange concentration of gas in a random spot of space, or a stray thermal emission, or a sporadic subspace signal, is a cloakship. There'd be a lot of background noise there on such phenomena, especially on a battlefield where your own engines, weapons, shields and other devices have stirred the local space.
You'd need something far more solid, far more practicable than just a hydrogen atom count (or a neutrino surge count as in ST6) to get a combat fix on a cloakship. Similarly, a H.G.Wells type invisible man today would be extremely efficient as a special forces soldier or master criminal despite still having a thermal signature and non-transparent eyes and whatnot...
Timo Saloniemi
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
There are an infinite amount of spaceship sized areas (even larger areas) of pure vacuum in space, space is not completely filled with gasses or stray atoms so when the sensors show lightyears of vacuum with a few patches here and there of gas they're not going to know where a cloaked ship is.
I would think the ship could be spotted by its sensors.
This would only work if it needs active sensors for space flight, or if it decides to scan a ship it intends to attack.
So I guess the real question in regards to cloaked ships is how much information passive sensors can give. If they can't give enough to move into attack position, or to see if its intended target is ready to defend itself, then active sensors could give it away.
This would only work if it needs active sensors for space flight, or if it decides to scan a ship it intends to attack.
So I guess the real question in regards to cloaked ships is how much information passive sensors can give. If they can't give enough to move into attack position, or to see if its intended target is ready to defend itself, then active sensors could give it away.
Then again, a cloakship might fire off some active scanners at pseudo-random intervals, at pseudo-random frequencies and intensities. Space in Trek is likely to be full of sensor echoes anyway, from the millions of starships roaming the vacuum. A BoP might slip in some of its own, and glean information from those.
In a pitched battle, it would actually be to the cloaked vessel's advantage if the enemy were aware of her presence, although not of her location. The enemy would then keep pouncing for all these false signals and echoes, and be badly disoriented, unduly stressed, and unsure of himself when a real signal was observed. It would only be in special infiltration missions that cloakships would desire to stay completely invisible and unnoticed. And they could probably go totally passive on such missions, at least when sneaking past enemy starships and fortifications.
Timo Saloniemi
In a pitched battle, it would actually be to the cloaked vessel's advantage if the enemy were aware of her presence, although not of her location. The enemy would then keep pouncing for all these false signals and echoes, and be badly disoriented, unduly stressed, and unsure of himself when a real signal was observed. It would only be in special infiltration missions that cloakships would desire to stay completely invisible and unnoticed. And they could probably go totally passive on such missions, at least when sneaking past enemy starships and fortifications.
Timo Saloniemi
There wouldn't be any way to cloak a ship's waste heat without melting the ship itself. That kind of infrared signature against the icy black backdrop of space would stand out like a neon sign saying "SHOOT HERE!" Cloaking devices are pure and utter fantasy to begin with. A simple sidewinder heat-seeking missile would home in easily.
Read this and everything else on this site.
Read this and everything else on this site.
Oh, that's bullshit.
There's nothing physically impossible about for example putting a superconductively cooling sheath around the ship and then concentrating its heat emissions into a narrow beam that is sent in some obscure direction that doesn't expose the position of the ship. Or packing the heat into pellets that are spat out, initially encased in a cooling system themselves, and capable of trajectory change to obscure their origin.
There would be minor practical problems, but no show-stoppers for making your ship another insignifcant wrinkle in the tapestry of 3K background noise.
Timo Saloniemi
There's nothing physically impossible about for example putting a superconductively cooling sheath around the ship and then concentrating its heat emissions into a narrow beam that is sent in some obscure direction that doesn't expose the position of the ship. Or packing the heat into pellets that are spat out, initially encased in a cooling system themselves, and capable of trajectory change to obscure their origin.
There would be minor practical problems, but no show-stoppers for making your ship another insignifcant wrinkle in the tapestry of 3K background noise.
Timo Saloniemi
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Depends how cloaking devices work, maybe the heat is stored inside its quantum singularity.
For the narrow-beam heat ray to work, you'd have to know for dead certain that your enemies or their detection mechanisms were not in the hemisphere of space it was pointed toward. You'd also have to know how to instantly gather and direct all heat before it can radiate through the hull.
As for the ship pooping out heat pellets... I'll let that one speak for itself.
If you can lug a black hole around with you and use it as a heat sink, I think you'd be sufficiently advanced to the point where just about any enemy you can name is no threat to you. You'd be able to devestate solar systems at will.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
You do know that Romulan ships are powered by Quantum Singularities dont you?
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Firstly the quantum singularities are likely so small that they wouldnt pose any significant threat to a ship or anything else and without being within a containment field it might collapse into nothingness, secondly you cant just hurl a black hole.
Black holes do not collapse into nothingness. They eat, and grow larger. The ability to control and manipulate them for power sources implies a technology level advanced enough to use them as weapons - an order of magnitude or two above anything in the Federation arsenal.
Sorry, I find Trek highly entertaining, as most of us do, but from a scientific standpoint it gets a lot of things very, very wrong.
Sorry, I find Trek highly entertaining, as most of us do, but from a scientific standpoint it gets a lot of things very, very wrong.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Depends what Trek means by Quantum Singularity in respects to the Romulan power source, the Singularity they use might not be anything like a normal blackhole you find naturally in space, also if you're going to fire a black hole as a weapon how big is the blackhole going to be to start with? its going to be a big torpedo if you wanna fire a black hole thats going to damage a ship, we've seen voyager escape from a huge powerful blackhole before, would a black hole have any effect on the shields of a ship?. You've also got to ask the question why would the Romulans want to keep firing blackholes? seems a little stupid having thousands of blackholes everywhere in space and if the area of space they fire it is devoid of matter then its not going to be feeding and it certainly aint going to be growing.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Why would using black holes be more destructive than using Trilithium?
Just because you can obliterate a star system doesnt mean you should do it.
No, but they can evaporate, shrink and eventually vanish if they emit more Hawking radiation then they ingest matter. And in the case of an artificial singularity like those used on Romulan starships, where the event horizon is well away from the nearest matter source, unless the Romulans keep feeding it, it's life will be finite.
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