Phase inverter cloaks a death trap?

[Lyon_Wonder]

A couple of TNG ep’s center their plots around phase inverter cloaking technology.

In TNG “The Pegasus” we learn Riker served on the USS Pegasus under Admiral Pressman several years before serving about the E-D, which was a starship equipped with an experimental phase inverter cloaking device that phased the entire ship. The Pegasus crew mutiny against Pressman and he, Riker and a handful of others escape the ship, which later dematerializes inside an asteroid killing everyone still onboard. Even Federation use of the cloaking technology was specifically banned by the 2311 treaty between the Federation and Romulan Empire, IMO, I think the Pegasus crew rebelled against Pressman because they believed the phased cloak was an unreliable death trap. Unfortunately they were correct.

In the “Next Phase” a Romulan ship experiments with an interphase inverter cloaking device that cloaks individual humanoids. Unfortunately for the Romulan crew the device causes problems with their ship, which required intervention from another vessel for repairs. Of course the Enterprise-D came to the vessels aide, and the Romulans decide to cover up their phased cloaking research by creating a feedback into the E-D that would cause a warp core breach the next time it went to warp. Fortunately Geordi and Ro Laren, who were accidentally phase cloaked while transporting back from the Romulan ship, were dephased and saved the Enterprise. Geordi mentions that Klingons conducted research into phased inverters too, and their research went nowhere too. I have the opinion that phase inverter cloaks aren’t a very reliable technology.

 

[Mister_Atoz]

Yeah, in fact the technology is SO unreliable, a "cloaked" humanoid can walk around on the deck plating without falling through, put push them hard enough and they'll fly right through the bulkhead into open space.

 

[Timo]

Which makes rather good sense if we consider what is implicit in "invisibility" or "transparency".

If a phased target is invisible, its electromagnetic interaction is somehow negated or weakened. And walls, tables and the like are held together by electromagnetic interaction.

But floors aboard a starship are not merely held together: they are impregnated with artificial gravity. If phasing does not negate gravitic interaction, then walking on floors should naturally follow. Sure, the heroes might sink into each floor by an inch or two, but we can overlook such detail at television resolution...

The true caveat with the observed transparency is the problem of breathing air. Where do our heroes get air that isn't transparent to their lungs? Other issues such as heat balance could be relatively easily explained away, but why should this phased realm feature oxygen?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

I have a question:

When was it expressly stated in canon that the Treaty of Algeron was signed in 2311? I don't remember any date being attached to it.

As for the whole phase-shifting-cloak issue, I agree with Timo. "The Next Phase" struck me as silly from the get-go. If Laforge and Ro were "phase shifted", how were they able to breathe the ships' presumably non-phase shifted atmosphere? They should've suffocated immediately, right? As for the gravity, is the mass of a phase-shifted person going to be affected by non-phase-shifted gravity? More silliness.

"The Next Phase" comes across like something that should've been a part of SPACE: 1999; two of the show's characters discover what it's like to become ghosts and attend their own funerals.

"Don't Attend Your Own Funeral As A Guy Named Phil Shifley" is where that kind of BS belongs, not TREK!

 

[Timo]

When was it expressly stated in canon that the Treaty of Algeron was signed in 2311? I don't remember any date being attached to it.

AFAIK, the only reason this date is preferred in novels and the like is the line from "The Pegasus":

Picard: "That treaty has kept us in peace for sixty years"

Nothing about when it was signed, only this bit about it having had at least this one period of relative effectiveness. Although if it's a cloaking ban, it must come from after "Balance of Terror" where our heroes fail to believe in invisibility in general, and Romulan invisibility in particular.

That is, unless we ignore "BoT" and go by every other cloaking-related episode of Star Trek - you know, the ones where invisibility is mundane, commonplace and never really worth writing to HQ about.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MatthiasRussell]

In the novels, the Romulans have mastered the phased cloak. It is used a lot and even discussed in the new Plagues of Night by DRG III.

I won't speak as to the scientific validity of it, but the possibilities for its use are pretty cool as seen in the book.

 

[Wingsley]

The treaty business doesn't add up.

Earth and the Romulans negotiated a peace treaty by some low-bandwidth subspace radio roughly 100-110 years before TOS ("Balance of Terror", ENT). So what was that treaty? It wasn't the Treaty of Algeron? So, there was another treaty in 2311? What brought about that negotiation? Another war?

"The Neutral Zone" makes it clear that the Federation and the Romulan Empire have had no communications since roughly the Tomed Incident, about 2311. Commander Tabok told Picard "matters of great importance caused our absence. Now witness the result. Destruction of our outposts, expansion of the Federation everywhere. We have indeed been negligent, captain."

If something happened to cause the Romulans to shift their attention something/someone else for decades and ignore the Federation, why would a treaty be necessary? And if this treaty banned Federation cloaking technology, why did it not also apply the same restriction to the Romulans?

None of this makes any sense.

 

[Timo]

So, there was another treaty in 2311?

Considering how the Romulans appeared to be (at least covertly) UFP military allies in the early 2290s, it would seem clear that there was a succession of treaties there - all of them equally insincere examples of typical Romulan plotting and scheming.

"The Neutral Zone" makes it clear that the Federation and the Romulan Empire have had no communications since roughly the Tomed Incident, about 2311.

...Yet Romulan and Starfleet forces had clashed during those years, and indeed had come close to clashing again just a few months earlier, in "Angel One". The relative lack of contact need not mean there wouldn't have been all sorts of exchanges of fire, ultimatums, captured spies, and perhaps also treaty signatures.

What was really said about the issue in the TNG season-ender was this:

Riker: "There's been no direct contact with the Romulans since the Tomed Incident."

There had been no direct contact between Spock and Sarek before "Journey to Babel", either. Doesn't mean messages wouldn't have been flying between the two stubborn fools. Diplomacy is often indirect...

If something happened to cause the Romulans to shift their attention something/someone else for decades and ignore the Federation, why would a treaty be necessary?

Because it is implausible that the ignoring would be anywhere near total? As said, the two sides continued interacting on some level, as indicated in many episodes. And the actively continuing interaction between Romulans and Klingons would be of great concern to the UFP, as Klingons were their close allies.

And if this treaty banned Federation cloaking technology, why did it not also apply the same restriction to the Romulans?

Why should it? Germany was banned from having submarines, tanks, battleships, combat aircraft, heavy artillery and so forth in the 1919 treaty; Britain, France, Italy, Russia and the United States were not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Unicron]

Personally, I like to think the phasing effect in "The Next Phase" had some limitations, which is why Geordi and Ro could breathe the ship's air and not fall through the decks. It's still a silly episode, but I consider it good in a silly way.

 

[Lyon_Wonder]

If something happened to cause the Romulans to shift their attention something/someone else for decades and ignore the Federation, why would a treaty be necessary?

Maybe the Romulans were more concerned with the Klingons. The Klingon Khitomer outpost was attacked by the Romulans in the 2340s, and the Romulans even took surviving Klingons as prisoners. And they also launched an attack against Narendra III too in 2344, which the Enterprise-C intervened in, and the Ent-C's intervention impressed the Klingons so much they were open to an alliance with the Federation.

 

[Timo]

A diversion, if you may:

When Riker spoke of lack of direct contact with the Romulans in "The Neutral Zone", the events of "Yesterday's Enterprise" had apparently not happened "yet". So the Federation wouldn't know what happened to the E-C - and probably the Klingons wouldn't, either, because if the starship didn't survive her encounter with Romulans in that timeline, then Narendra III in all likelihood would not have survived to tell the story, either...

Or then the original outcome of the battle had been that the E-C triumphed before succumbing, Narendra III was saved, and Klingons were thankful - but not thankful enough to tell the Feds what had really happened there.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

Well a phase cloak would phase some oxygen around the machine that was ionized perhaps Flint was supposed to exist on Earth's fields, One oxygen passes through our phased individuals, it can then perhaps be captured by body processes--perhaps by some charging through the deck plates as a ground. So they could get oxygenated without breathing at all. So the particles affect them but standard beamed energy weapons don't.

If they were phased in a more intense way, then they would just float around, so it wasn't a desired effect.

 

[Tiberius]

Yeah, in fact the technology is SO unreliable, a "cloaked" humanoid can walk around on the deck plating without falling through, put push them hard enough and they'll fly right through the bulkhead into open space.

It's because the grav plates stop them from going through!!!

 

[Timo]

Interestingly enough, all modern backstage sources describe shields as a gravitic technology. This would appear to mean that a projectile cloaked with the technologies of "The Next Phase" could not penetrate shields.

On the other hand, a starship cloaked with the Federation version of the tech apparently did not have much of a gravitic influence on the surrounding asteroid, which was said to be prone to collapse yet did not collapse during the cloaked transit. Inconclusive at best, yes: the gravitic pull of a starship might not be significant to begin with, and the asteroid could have been more robust than Worf feared. But perhaps still the beginnings of an argument if we want to claim that a more powerful or more advanced phase cloak than the Romulan type should be capable of penetrating shields.

Timo Saloniemi