Cloaking device

[Jimilu]

I was watching yesterday the episode of ds9 in which Rom and Quark have to deliver a cloaking device to the alternate universe and basically the cloaking device is invisible. I remember a episode of the TNG where the some captain of the federation (i think it was the actor how plays Lock in Lost) was experimenting with cloaking tecnology, the ship went through a planet, and then something failed and they got stuch on the planet.
So, my question is, those are to differnet cloaking tecnologies, it seems to me that romulan and klignon technologie, just makes the ships invisible, and undetectable, but why can the shoot?, in the ds9 the device has mass and energy, and while is activated it gaves Quark a kind of electrical shot.
Anyway, i wish my wife liked star trek, because there is nobody at my home that will be intrested in this kind if discussions.

 

[Forbin]

Dude, Jack on Lost (Mathew Fox) was only 28 when that epsiode aired. You're thinking of Terry O'Quinn, who plays Locke.

 

[Unicron]

That was a big plot hole anyway, since the Alliance ships were shown to have cloaks in the first DS9 MU ep (Crossover). It's hard to say how different individual cloaks are, though it stands to reason the Romulans might have a bit of an edge.

 

[Jimilu]

hehe, thanks! I changed Jack for Locke.

 

[Praetor]

Well first of all, I'm pretty sure that the real-world reason that the cloaking device Rom and Quark had was cloaking and uncloaking was for the sight gag of it, and the Trekverse reason was because it was somehow damaged, hence the shocks. (I believe a line in the episode may refer to this.) In TOS, the device Kirk steals isn't itself cloaked, so Kirk must have been briefed at least slightly, on how to remove it, considering it was a planned intelligence mission.

Second of all, in 'The Pegasus,' I'm pretty sure it's clear that the device from the Pegasus, the phasing cloak, was an experimental technology beyond anything that the Klingons or Romulans had, which was another reason it would have been so disastrous for the Romulans to recover the device, aside from the treaty implications. I would say that the 'standard' cloaks we encounter only make a ship invisible and mask its various signatures, and don't affect their mass or actual 'real' physical qualities, while obviously the phasing cloaks must at least temporarily alter the molecular structure and mass of the vessel they are equipped to.

Hope those thoughts help!

 

[Timo]

There would seem to be numerous different kinds of cloak, really. The "modern classic" hides a ship from eyes and sensors of most kinds, but doesn't make it ghostlike and doesn't allow it to go through matter. The phase cloak allows that latter feat, apparently making the ship invisible to everything in this universe, including the forces acting between elementary particles. But the original cloak from TOS "Balance of Terror" didn't hide the ship from all of the Enterprise's sensors, merely from the visual ones: Spock could follow the enemy with sensors well enough to get coarse positional fixes and indications of course changes. And then there are all those simple holo-camouflages that only fool the eye but probably cannot fool even the cheapest tricorder.

So "a cloak is a cloak is a cloak" is putting it too simply. As for "The Emperor's New Cloak", perhaps we should argue that "Mirror Universe is Mirror Universe is Mirror Universe" is also a faulty conclusion? It's not as if we would ever be explicitly told that our heroes visit the same Mirror Universe every time.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Starlock]

IDW Publishing has just started a new "Star Trek: Year Four" storyline (written by D.C. Fontana herself!) called The Enterprise Experiment. This is a direct sequel the "The Enterprise Incident" and revolves around how the Enterprise is used to test the Cloaking Device.