Cloaking tech

[Timo]

That's at the heart of the problem: "I can't see it - amazing!" is the repeated but inconsistent reaction to invisibility. If modern sensors can penetrate old cloaks, fine (but why aren't they shown doing so, making the old ships visible for the user?). But the correct reaction to modern sensors failing to penetrate what's ahead is not "Amazing!". It's "Mr Uhura, please crawl beneath Mr Spock's console to see if the wires haven't come loose again (and Mr Spock, please move aside so that I get a clear line of sight)".

I could easily accept Georgiou or Kirk or Harriman or Garrison or Picard personally only having to face invisibility once or twice in their careers. It must be an impressive sight and all. But they aren't entitled to amazement there if every immediate predecessor or successor of theirs encounters the phenomenon at the same frequency - and why wouldn't they?

It's like American pilots being constantly amazed at seeing an enemy jet aircraft. The one fighting in WWII, the one escorting the Berlin Airlift, the one fighting in Korea, the one over Vietnam... All can be amazed that the most recent enemy is flying jets. But only the first one is entitled to the exact sort of amazement we see in Trek.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

I just watched the scene in "Balance Of Terror" again (for like the fifth time in the last few days now, lol) to make sure I'm not delusional. I am still failing to see "amazement" in their reactions to the cloak. Their reactions of alarm, dismay, confusion, horror and incredulity don't really seem to visibly and immediately escalate with the ship appearing out of nowhere, but rather with it firing and managing to utterly destroy with a single shot a base insulated beneath a mile of solid iron asteroid, a protective casing of cast rodinium, and deflectors. The ship's disappearance causes them no distinguishably greater concern than the fact of the attack itself and the sheer destructive power of the weapon. In fact, they almost immediately grow much calmer and more reflective as they try to reason out that aspect. It doesn't even elicit a full-on "fascinating" from Spock, but merely a milder "interesting"*; Kirk exhibits at most puzzlement or befuddlement when he says he can't understand.

I don't know how the scene was scripted, but that's how it plays to me. I'm honestly not pushing any agenda of desperate apologia here; I was actually (pleasantly) surprised to find the scene so accommodating when I first re-watched the episode after many years the other day. In present perspective, I really think we as nitpicking fans have made all too much of the allegedly grievous "inconsistency" between it and ENT (and now DSC) up to this point. (And I don't mean to exclude myself. It's hardly the first time.)

-MMoM

P.S.

A little gift, courtesy of "The Squire Of Gothos" (TOS)...

SPOCK: Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, I should think interesting would suffice.

 

[Ronald Held]

Some Starfleet officers are awed by a phenominum no matter how many time they experience it.
I can see Kirk's crew becoming calmer when they know what they are up against.

 

[Timo]

The specific issue is with Kirk's line:

"I don't see anything. I can't understand it."

This after a couple of minutes of invisibility action that doesn't differ from the DSC stuff in any fashion. It's not amazement as in surprise, it's amazement as in inability to comprehend.

I guess when (if) the hero ship of DSC returns to the Klingons, we may learn that the defeating of the Klingon cloak manifests in a specific manner that

a) does not involve making the enemy visible on screen
b) nevertheless involves something visible such as a marker appearing on screen

and is what Kirk expects to see when Sulu magnifies the image. Instead, he sees nothing, no marker, no synthetic outline, no vector graphics.

Even then, his and Spock's reactions would be wholly inappropriate. Kirk should be asking "Why aren't the tracking graphics working?" rather than blaming himself for being slow or stupid. And Spock should not be speculating on any specific new way to achieve invisibility, least of all having the gall to suggest characteristics/shortcomings of tactical significance.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

Perhaps Cadet Kirk didn't get graduate in time to get to the front lines and never experienced one of the Klingon ships with a cloaking device, since they might be sort of rare following the end of the war and death of Kol.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You can wiggle the explanations anyway you want, but the clear intent of Balance of Terror was that this was their very first time encountering a cloaking device. This is clear enough because the SECOND time they encounter a cloaking device, they are not surprised that it exists, in fact they barely even mention it at all. At least two ships attack them in "The Deadly Years", decloaking to attack and then immediately cloaking again. Sulu is clearly able to track them but they don't provide any visible target so Enterprise can't really shoot back.

The THIRD time they encounter the cloak, they still aren't amazed it exists, only by how effective it is:

KIRK: The design of the ship is the same. Mister Spock, you said you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the new ships until they were upon us.
SPOCK: I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless.
KIRK: If so, Romulans could attack in Federation territory before we knew they were there, before a vessel or planet could get even begin to get their defences up.​

Which means the ship being invisible and also failing to show up on sensors is a totally new thing.

In Balance of Terror, they were simply puzzled as to why they couldn't SEE whatever was showing up on their sensors. Evidently the cloaking device only bends light on the visible spectrum but doesn't deflect whatever the Enterprise is using as a search sensor (probably X-band or Ku-Band radar or microwaves), which lets them tell where it is but isn't precise enough to paint a target on them (they need lidar for that, and the cloaking device interferes with it). The more advanced cloak in "enterprise incident" blocks search sensors too, so the ship isn't just invisible to light, it's invisible to sensors as well.

Klingon cloaking devices are clearly of the first category, probably the same type as the BoT cloaking device, with similar limitations. This CANNOT be reconciled with Balance of Terror because it's clear from their subsequent reactions that IF the cloaking device was a familiar technology it would be the ways it is DIFFERENT that surprise them, not merely the fact that it exists.

 

[Tuskin38]

Klingon cloaking devices are clearly of the first category, probably the same type as the BoT cloaking device, with similar limitations. This CANNOT be reconciled with Balance of Terror because it's clear from their subsequent reactions that IF the cloaking device was a familiar technology it would be the ways it is DIFFERENT that surprise them, not merely the fact that it exists.

The Cloaks the Klingon were using in DSC were flickering during movement, at least on their "Birds of Prey", they were not completely invisible during movement like the Rom BOP

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

The specific issue is with Kirk's line:

"I don't see anything. I can't understand it."

He doesn't specify exactly why he can't understand it, though. That lack of specificity allows us wiggle room. That he can't understand it because he's never witnessed a ship appear or disappear out of thin air is an assumption counter-indicated by the previous episode! I must say, I'm most surprised to find you of all people on the opposing side of this argument...

In fact, we could even parse out "it" as meaning something other than his not seeing anything, despite this being the intended point of reference. Maybe he can't understand why the Romulans would attack unprovoked after a century of peace. Or again, simply that they could pulverize a fortified asteroid base with one blast.

You can wiggle the explanations anyway you want, but the clear intent of Balance of Terror was that this was their very first time encountering a cloaking device.

This intent was already a bit out of step to begin with, and has been effectively nullified altogether by other productions, yet the actual content of the scene as played can still stand nonetheless. That this much can be wiggled is exactly the point.

This is clear enough because the SECOND time they encounter a cloaking device, they are not surprised that it exists

And as I still maintain after quite careful and repeated review, they clearly have other reasons to be surprised that "FIRST" time in "Balance Of Terror" besides the mere fact of the cloak itself, and their surprise actually subsides somewhat when the cloak alone becomes the focus of the conversation. (Those subtleties are all totally lost just reading the text, of course.)

The THIRD time they encounter the cloak, they still aren't amazed it exists, only by how effective it is:

KIRK: The design of the ship is the same. Mister Spock, you said you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the new ships until they were upon us.
SPOCK: I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless.
KIRK: If so, Romulans could attack in Federation territory before we knew they were there, before a vessel or planet could get even begin to get their defences up.​

Which means the ship being invisible and also failing to show up on sensors is a totally new thing.

Yes, but the ship in "Balance Of Terror" explicitly did show up on sensors. So that's preserved as a novelty in "The Enterprise Incident" in any case; what are you getting at here?

In Balance of Terror, they were simply puzzled as to why they couldn't SEE whatever was showing up on their sensors. Evidently the cloaking device only bends light on the visible spectrum but doesn't deflect whatever the Enterprise is using as a search sensor (probably X-band or Ku-Band radar or microwaves), which lets them tell where it is but isn't precise enough to paint a target on them (they need lidar for that, and the cloaking device interferes with it). The more advanced cloak in "enterprise incident" blocks search sensors too, so the ship isn't just invisible to light, it's invisible to sensors as well.

Klingon cloaking devices are clearly of the first category, probably the same type as the BoT cloaking device, with similar limitations. This CANNOT be reconciled with Balance of Terror because it's clear from their subsequent reactions that IF the cloaking device was a familiar technology it would be the ways it is DIFFERENT that surprise them, not merely the fact that it exists.

The Klingon cloak as depicted in STIII produced a visible distortion that could be seen on the viewscreen, at least at times. This was quite pointedly called out. (I will have to re-watch DSC soon to see whether @Tuskin38 is correct that this effect can ever be seen there as well.)

-MMoM

 

[Ronald Held]

Is flickering onset and dropping of cloaks TOO cheap a VFX for DSC?

 

[Brainsucker]

SPOCK: I have a blip on the motion sensor. Could be the intruder.
KIRK: Go to full magnification.
SULU: Screen is on full mag, Sir.
KIRK: I don't see anything. I can't understand it.
SPOCK: Invisibility is theoretically possible, Captain, with selective bending of light. But the power cost is enormous. They may have solved that problem.

-MMoM

Well, realistically, visual invisibility is pointless, if your sensor / radar still capable to detect it. Even F-22 is better than that Klingon cloaking ship was. At least F-22 can shoot another plane that the pilot can't even see with his own eyes in BVR environment.

I know that TOS was aired in '60, where nobody know about F-22 and only few selected people know about BVR combat scenario. They knew only pew-pew as airplane to airplane combat; which is already outdated in our current standard of air-battle.That's why they need new creative concept. Just only use the old as reference, but don't stick hardly into the past.

Star Trek is not a law after-all. We don't need to recall all the old episodes word by word. Maybe the current cloak technology in DSC violate the old Balance of Terror. But they can always make a new Balance of Terror in the future with updated technology that fit into 21st Century audience common sense.

So, why bother?

 

[zar]

You can wiggle the explanations anyway you want, but the clear intent of Balance of Terror was that this was their very first time encountering a cloaking device. This is clear enough because the SECOND time they encounter a cloaking device, they are not surprised that it exists, in fact they barely even mention it at all. At least two ships attack them in "The Deadly Years", decloaking to attack and then immediately cloaking again. Sulu is clearly able to track them but they don't provide any visible target so Enterprise can't really shoot back.

The THIRD time they encounter the cloak, they still aren't amazed it exists, only by how effective it is:

KIRK: The design of the ship is the same. Mister Spock, you said you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the new ships until they were upon us.
SPOCK: I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless.
KIRK: If so, Romulans could attack in Federation territory before we knew they were there, before a vessel or planet could get even begin to get their defences up.​

Which means the ship being invisible and also failing to show up on sensors is a totally new thing.

In Balance of Terror, they were simply puzzled as to why they couldn't SEE whatever was showing up on their sensors. Evidently the cloaking device only bends light on the visible spectrum but doesn't deflect whatever the Enterprise is using as a search sensor (probably X-band or Ku-Band radar or microwaves), which lets them tell where it is but isn't precise enough to paint a target on them (they need lidar for that, and the cloaking device interferes with it). The more advanced cloak in "enterprise incident" blocks search sensors too, so the ship isn't just invisible to light, it's invisible to sensors as well.

Klingon cloaking devices are clearly of the first category, probably the same type as the BoT cloaking device, with similar limitations. This CANNOT be reconciled with Balance of Terror because it's clear from their subsequent reactions that IF the cloaking device was a familiar technology it would be the ways it is DIFFERENT that surprise them, not merely the fact that it exists.

It's only clear that it isn't new in "Enterprise Incident" because you already saw it in previous episodes. "The design of the ship is the same" only has meaning as an implicit reference to the other appearances of the bird of prey.

You know, I can easily imagine a world where "Incident" was the first introduction of the cloak and "Balance of Terror" was a prequel. In this hypothetical world, the script could have been almost exactly the same, and we would be seeing the same argument here. On one side, "Incident" was obviously intended to be the first, and on the other side, the way it played out clearly leaves room for a prequel.

Speaking of intent, the "wiggling" is also completely intentional. This isn't just fan apology. Almost definitely, the DSC team looked at "Balance of Terror" themselves and saw the wiggle room to creatively play with. They basically told us so directly back in September:

Adding an entire chapter to that canon with Discovery, which will fill in the gaps of the cold war between Klingons and the Federation, is a big responsibility, and one that Discovery’s showrunners, Gretchen Berg and Aaron Harberts, don’t take lightly.

There are some areas of Trek canon that Discovery’s showrunners simply will not touch. The Romulans, for example, are a “no-go,” Harberts told me, because their appearance in the Original Series episode “Balance of Terror” is supposed to be the Federation’s first face-to-face encounter with the species. Other areas offer more wiggle room. The trick, Berg said, is figuring out which parts of canon are too sacred to toy with and which leave some undiscovered country ripe for further exploration. “Any kind of canon is like Scripture. There’s some interpretation going on,” she said. “I really find that my favorite creative people can look at those boundaries and say, there’s so much room within to play. Instead of going outside the lines, we can dig deeper within the boundaries that exist.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/..._like_star_trek_discovery_stick_to_canon.html

Much earlier than that, we were told that "Balance of Terror" was "a touchstone for the Discovery story arc". We mostly assumed they were referring to the tone of the series, but now it's a safer assumption that the cloak is a deliberate plot link.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

^Agreed overall, but one correction:

It's only clear that it isn't new in "Enterprise Incident" because you already saw it in previous episodes. "The design of the ship is the same" only has meaning as an implicit reference to the other appearances of the bird of prey.

The ship in question isn't the same BoP design from "Balance Of Terror" and "The Deadly Years" (TOS); it's a Klingon design they're explicitly already familiar with. By production order, it first appeared in "Elaan Of Troyius" (TOS), although they already recognize it there, and in "Incident" it's also called out as familiar in dialogue from the outset, so even wonky airdate order doesn't manage to screw up continuity on that front. (It was also later retroactively added into "remastered" versions of earlier episodes that predated the building of the model, and of course to "Trials and Tribble-ations" [DS9]. We could even take the fact that there are onscreen versions of those events both with and without visible Klingon ships as further reason to think they did have cloaking already by that point, if we like!)

-MMoM

 

[zar]

^Agreed overall, but one correction:

The ship in question isn't the same BoP design from "Balance Of Terror" and "The Deadly Years" (TOS); it's a Klingon design they're explicitly already familiar with. By production order, it first appeared in "Elaan Of Troyius" (TOS), although they already recognize it there, and in "Incident" it's also called out as familiar in dialogue from the outset, so even wonky airdate order doesn't manage to screw up continuity on that front. (It was also later retroactively added into "remastered" versions of earlier episodes that predated the building of the model, and of course to "Trials and Tribble-ations" [DS9]. We could even take the fact that there are onscreen versions of those events both with and without visible Klingon ships as further reason to think they did have cloaking already by that point, if we like!)

-MMoM

Oh right, the Romulan bird of prey was added in Remastered. So really, the whole scene could have gone exactly as presented without "Balance of Terror" or "Deadly Years" existing. We would have assumed that the Romulans were already well known to the Federation but had just developed a cloaking device for the first time.

If years later we had a prequel that showed the first encounter in almost 100 years taking place in the beginning of season 1, that humans had no idea Vulcans and Romulans were related, and that Romulans already had developed a cloaking device 2 years before "Incident", I'm sure there would be cries that it violates canon because "no one mentioned it" in seasons 1 and 2 and the cloaking device was "clearly new".

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Oh right, the Romulan bird of prey was added in Remastered.

Just to clarify for anyone we've confused here...yes, a BoP was added in among the others for the "remastered" version, but it's still made quite clear even then that the ship Spock is talking about, the one displayed on the monitor during the briefing, and which they communicate with and beam aboard and steal the improved Romulan cloak from, is one of the ones of Klingon design.

-MMoM

 

[David cgc]

Speaking of intent, the "wiggling" is also completely intentional. This isn't just fan apology. Almost definitely, the DSC team looked at "Balance of Terror" themselves and saw the wiggle room to creatively play with. They basically told us so directly back in September:

It seems like a fairly easy wiggle to make, since Enterprise had cloaks used willy-nilly by the Suliban and Romulans themselves a hundred years before TOS (and ST09 nearly had Klingons using cloaks thirty years before TOS). Like women being allowed to be captains, it's a retcon that's already been and gone.

 

[Tuskin38]

Didn’t one of the producers (or writer) say some of the liberties Enterprise took made some things hard for them?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

It's only clear that it isn't new in "Enterprise Incident" because you already saw it in previous episodes.

Well, no, it's clear because they talk about the cloaking device as if it's a new variation on something they're already familiar with:

SPOCK: My crime is sabotage. I freely admit my guilt. (Scott is continuing to work) The oath I swore as a Starfleet officer is both specific and binding. As long as I wear the uniform, my duty is to protect the security of the Federation. Clearly, your new cloaking device is a threat to that security. I carried out my duty.​

Nothing in the episode implies that anything about the concept of a "cloaking device" is unknown to them, only that they've developed one that renders their tracking sensors useless. This is consistent with "Balance of Terror" (the old device did not) and with Discovery. Balance of Terror is the clear outlier here, however, because there is otherwise nothing new about the device as described.

"The design of the ship is the same" only has meaning as an implicit reference to the other appearances of the bird of prey.

Well, no, it's a reference to the Klingon design the Romulans are apparently using. It's a "new ship" in that they've never seen the Romulans using it before.

Speaking of intent, the "wiggling" is also completely intentional.

Sure. Retcons are ALWAYS intentional. But that IS what we're talking about here, and it's made neccesary by the fact that the retcon already happened, like, 10 years ago and it's nothing really new.

Much earlier than that, we were told that "Balance of Terror" was "a touchstone for the Discovery story arc". We mostly assumed they were referring to the tone of the series, but now it's a safer assumption that the cloak is a deliberate plot link.

Well, it would be a different kind of retcon if it turns out that the implication is that the Romulans actually got cloaking technology FROM the Klingons in the first place, which would explain why Kirk and company didn't expect anyone but the Klingons to be using them. It would also add some context to "Enterprise Incident" if the Klingon designs the Romulans were using were brand new additions to BOTH fleets, but that would then lead us to wonder why the Klingons weren't using cloaking devices in their other TOS appearances.

I've personally toyed with the idea that Klingons became a proxy of the Romulans at some point and that the Klingons were actually being used by Romulus for a form of proxy warfare, not unlike (apparently) the Remans before them.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Well, no, it's clear because they talk about the cloaking device as if it's a new variation on something they're already familiar with:

SPOCK: My crime is sabotage. I freely admit my guilt. (Scott is continuing to work) The oath I swore as a Starfleet officer is both specific and binding. As long as I wear the uniform, my duty is to protect the security of the Federation. Clearly, your new cloaking device is a threat to that security. I carried out my duty.​

Nothing in the episode implies that anything about the concept of a "cloaking device" is unknown to them, only that they've developed one that renders their tracking sensors useless.

His point was that this is only clear by virtue of the inferior cloaking device having been featured in previous stories. If it hadn't been, and the dialogue in "The Enterprise Incident" remained exactly the same, the audience might well have inferred from it that the Romulans had no cloak before this this one, and that's why it was described as "new"!

-MMoM

 

[Crazy Eddie]

His point was that this is only clear by virtue of the inferior cloaking device having been featured in previous stories. If it hadn't been, and the dialogue in "The Enterprise Incident" remained exactly the same, the audience might well have inferred from it that the Romulans had no cloak before this this one, and that's why it was described as "new"!

-MMoM

That's my point: "A cloaking device" is treated as a thing that is already established and it's assumed the audience should know what this means. From a world building perspective, if this is the very first time this sort of concept is introduced, it gets a bit of exposition to explain what it is. E.g. "I believe the Romulans have developed some sort of invisibility screen, a cloaking device, that renders their ships invisible to the naked eye as well as our tracking sensors." Later TV shows did much the same thing because the "cloaking device" was already established in Trek lore. ENT, on the other hand, went back to treating it as something new, which is why we have characters referring to it as "some kind of stealth technology" before eventually simply referring to it as "the cloaking device."

Note the first overt mention on "Discovery" in which Lorca refers to the spore drive as a "displacement activated spore-hub drive." Probably the entire crew already knows what it's called, but the AUDIENCE doesn't, so he has to establish it.

Regardless, the point is Balance of Terror has been retconned significantly by prequel/previous shows in any case, so this is a long-dead horse that needs no further beatings. Trying to make Discovery consistent with Balance of Terror would be to overtly contradict a much LARGER volume of canon; making it consistent with Enterprise incident, on the other hand, is easily doable.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

That's my point: "A cloaking device" is treated as a thing that is already established and it's assumed the audience should know what this means.

But it wouldn't play that way at all if one had never seen or heard of "Balance Of Terror" (TOS). Yet it would all still make perfect sense.

From a world building perspective, if this is the very first time this sort of concept is introduced, it gets a bit of exposition to explain what it is. E.g. "I believe the Romulans have developed some sort of invisibility screen, a cloaking device, that renders their ships invisible to the naked eye as well as our tracking sensors."

This dialogue does exactly what you suggest:

KIRK: Mister Spock, you said you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the new ships until they were upon us?
SPOCK: I believe the Romulans have developed a cloaking device which renders our tracking sensors useless.
KIRK: If so, Romulans could attack in Federation territory before we knew they were there, before a vessel or planet could get even begin to get their defenses up.

The notion that "cloaking device" is some previously-understood term and not just Spock's ad hoc way of describing what's been observed is an inference that no one would have made if this were the first time it had ever been heard. (And in fact, technically, it is. The Romulans called their device a "cloak" and a "cloaking system" in "Balance Of Terror" but the term was never overheard or otherwise introduced to Our Heroes™ there, and they never use it.)

Do you really not see what he's getting at, here?

If years later we had a prequel that showed the first encounter in almost 100 years taking place in the beginning of season 1, that humans had no idea Vulcans and Romulans were related, and that Romulans already had developed a cloaking device 2 years before "Incident", I'm sure there would be cries that it violates canon because "no one mentioned it" in seasons 1 and 2 and the cloaking device was "clearly new".

See it now?

Regardless, the point is Balance of Terror has been retconned significantly by prequel/previous shows in any case

Quite. And that means we need to re-interpret what is shown and said there in light of what we now know from ENT and DSC. And fortunately, it leaves us just enough room to do exactly that, if we only let go of our preconceptions of how it was originally intended to be taken.

-MMoM