Federation Cloaking Devises post Hobus

[Tarek71]

Maddox never said he couldn't duplicate Data. He just said he didn't know how to build Data. Duplicating him with the transporter wouldn't help there: he'd have to vivisect the duplicate, then, and that'd involve the very same legal hurdles as vivisecting the original.

Just as with sentient androids, the cloning of people is shunned as a thing, regardless of method. Transporter copies, in vitro replicas... The direct consequence is the originals drawing their weapons, and their colleagues cheering when they push the trigger. Clones are bad, just like sentient androids are bad. Except perhaps for brief periods that merely serve to assert the badness again.



Blah, irrelevantly small differences. It's insane not to crush your enemies when you can, and to hand over the means of crushing to them when you don't have to. Which is what is nevertheless being done all the time: the US naval might could have secured the Pacific had they not agreed to not building one, while simultaneously giving Japan a carte blanche for kicking up a fighting force that essentially outnumbered the US one (not being split between two oceans and all). The result? A war averted till a time when the US no longer was in the throes of a recession, while Japan was starving to death and in no shape to wage a war (which could probably have been won in a week had the US had some non-defective torpedoes available).

Giving up cloaking is no different from giving up ABM: its one benefit is curtailing of escalation, in a situation where escalation better serves the enemy. Or, as with the Washington and London treaties, in a situation where escalation would better serve you in the short term but is better avoided as a thing. OTOH, treaties forcing escalation are fine when you want an arms race for an arms race's sake, such as with SDI, so that your opponent is beggared to no gain while you... Well, you can take being beggared.

That everybody in Trek doesn't cloak, or nova-bomb, or clone, or go cyborg (even though all would be sensible things to do), is best resolved (for the sole purpose of providing diversity and character to the various players) by dramatic means with a healthy degree of verisimilitude. A seemingly insane arms limitation treaty fills that condition nicely enough!

Timo Saloniemi

1. If the Transporter can do it and the replicator can do it, then Maddox can do it. It's the same blue print. And not just for making exact copies, but making ones that are not exact copies. New models.

2. No the differences were not "irrelevantly small", they were completely contradictory to the claim. The US and UK agreed to a plan that put them at a Naval advantage over Japan. The only question was why Japan would agree to a Treaty that put them at such an obvious disadvantage. Why? Because they already were at a disadvantage anyway. The treaty allowed them to build alot more than they had when they signed it. Even without the Treaty, they would have gone on building one way or the other. All of this is exactly the opposite of what the Federation did. ABM Treaty was also not, "ok the Soviets can have these weapons systems and we agree not to develop them." That's insane.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I would thiink that cloaking devices would be fair game for the Federation now.

The treaty outlawing them was between the UFP and the Romulan Star Empire. Not all Romulans, just that one, specific government. The RSE no longer exists, therefore the treaty is null and void.

Even if the Romulan Free State had a problem with the Federation using cloaks, legally speaking they can't do a damn thing about it. And what passes for a fleet among the RFS probably wouldn't stand a chance either.

 

[Yistaan]

I would thiink that cloaking devices would be fair game for the Federation now.

The treaty outlawing them was between the UFP and the Romulan Star Empire. Not all Romulans, just that one, specific government. The RSE no longer exists, therefore the treaty is null and void.

Even if the Romulan Free State had a problem with the Federation using cloaks, legally speaking they can't do a damn thing about it. And what passes for a fleet among the RFS probably wouldn't stand a chance either.

Admiral Pressman's probably smiling on whatever prison he's on (or island he's exiled to according to "Lost" fans).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Assuming Pressman ever went to prison. His friends (who are probably Section 31) could have bailed him out.

 

[Yistaan]

Assuming Pressman ever went to prison. His friends (who are probably Section 31) could have bailed him out.

I'd love a Terry oquinn appearance.

Admiral Pressman: Remember me Picard? Didn't you wonder why Riker is no longer in Starfleet? Oh and i have a pet smoke monster now, don't try anything foolish

 

[Timo]

1. If the Transporter can do it and the replicator can do it, then Maddox can do it. It's the same blue print. And not just for making exact copies, but making ones that are not exact copies. New models.

Copying of Data (via transporter, replicator or a wizard's staff) yields no "blueprint": it's a black-box action that provides Maddox with no information on how Data is put together. He merely gets a second Data, and he never wanted that.

We know the transporter can make exact copies. It certainly doesn't follow that it could make inexact ones, any more than a mirror can provide an inexact reflection because it provides an exact one. Riker was Riker even when copied. Kirk was split uncontrollably into two halves that both were dying. Maddox really couldn't hope to achieve anything with the transporter. It is not an understanding-providing device at all. It's a blindly-processing one, utterly agnostic to what it is moving (indeed, it often moves things without realizing it is moving them - the salt vampire, say.

Sure, our heroes have scanners for showing stuff. But the transporter is not a scanner. And indeed the process of transporting probably doesn't involve much scanning to begin with. Certainly it never yields anything one could consider a scan.

2. No the differences were not "irrelevantly small", they were completely contradictory to the claim.

Nope, minor Herbertry only. But:

The US and UK agreed to a plan that put them at a Naval advantage over Japan.

The 5:5:3 ratio worked massively to the advantage of Japan, which initially was nowhere near the "3" whilst both the US and the UK could easily have been at "9" or "12" if they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. The UK already had the lead, and the US was there, too. They both gave that away in hopes of stalling. It sorta worked, too.

ABM Treaty was also not, "ok the Soviets can have these weapons systems and we agree not to develop them." That's insane.

Yes, that's the point. It's insane from one POV, or many. But yes, the US decided that the Soviets could keep the ABM system they had, while their own attempts had proved expensive failures and dead ends: curtailing ICBM acquisition was the workable way of curtailing the number of warheads falling on US cities, while anti-missile missiles were not. And still aren't, and probably never will be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

I would thiink that cloaking devices would be fair game for the Federation now. The treaty outlawing them was between the UFP and the Romulan Star Empire. Not all Romulans, just that one, specific government. The RSE no longer exists, therefore the treaty is null and void.

The big issue of course is why the treaty was signed in the first place. The UFP was probably afraid of something the Romulans would do if the Feds didn't make this concession. Did Romulus lose the ability to do that thing when it lost, well, Romulus? Probably not: a planetbound asset would not be a particularly plausible interstellar threat... The Free State might still have a doomsday weapon stashed away somewhere, or simply be in possession of sufficiently many cloaked ships to terminate Earth at their leisure. All it takes is one Scimitar, after all. And thalaron certainly wasn't news to our heroes in ST:NEM, even if it wasn't immediately associated with the Treaty of Algeron, either.

Even if the Romulan Free State had a problem with the Federation using cloaks, legally speaking they can't do a damn thing about it.

But might makes right, which is where all the laws come from, too. And Starfleet has never felt it would fare badly in a fair, conventional fight with either the Romulans or their other enemies, yet it did agree to the cloaking ban. So the explicit might, or lack thereof, of the Free State or whatever need not mean much.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tarek71]

Copying of Data (via transporter, replicator or a wizard's staff) yields no "blueprint": it's a black-box action that provides Maddox with no information on how Data is put together. He merely gets a second Data, and he never wanted that.

We know the transporter can make exact copies. It certainly doesn't follow that it could make inexact ones, any more than a mirror can provide an inexact reflection because it provides an exact one. Riker was Riker even when copied. Kirk was split uncontrollably into two halves that both were dying. Maddox really couldn't hope to achieve anything with the transporter. It is not an understanding-providing device at all. It's a blindly-processing one, utterly agnostic to what it is moving (indeed, it often moves things without realizing it is moving them - the salt vampire, say.

Sure, our heroes have scanners for showing stuff. But the transporter is not a scanner. And indeed the process of transporting probably doesn't involve much scanning to begin with. Certainly it never yields anything one could consider a scan.



Nope, minor Herbertry only. But:



The 5:5:3 ratio worked massively to the advantage of Japan, which initially was nowhere near the "3" whilst both the US and the UK could easily have been at "9" or "12" if they didn't shoot themselves in the foot. The UK already had the lead, and the US was there, too. They both gave that away in hopes of stalling. It sorta worked, too.



Yes, that's the point. It's insane from one POV, or many. But yes, the US decided that the Soviets could keep the ABM system they had, while their own attempts had proved expensive failures and dead ends: curtailing ICBM acquisition was the workable way of curtailing the number of warheads falling on US cities, while anti-missile missiles were not. And still aren't, and probably never will be.

Timo Saloniemi

1. No, the transporter and the replicator is an exact blueprint. Any scan would give that to Maddox. Just a tricorder would be enough for an exact blueprint of how he is put together. And naturally the transporter or replicator couldnt function at all without a scan and a blueprint. It's not a "black box action". It couldnt copy something if it couldnt detect what it was made out of and without a blueprint of how all it is put together.

2. No, it was massively in favor of the US and UK. 5 is a higher number than 3. Exactly the opposite of what the Federation did here. Japan would go on building those ships whether they signed the treaty or not so the US and UK dont give up much to them. But either way no one said "Japan can have capital ships, and we will agree NOT to have capital ships." That's insane. Both the Naval and ABM treaties are great examples for showing why the Federation would never have agreed to this.

 

[Yistaan]

1. No, the transporter and the replicator is an exact blueprint. Any scan would give that to Maddox. Just a tricorder would be enough for an exact blueprint of how he is put together. And naturally the transporter or replicator couldnt function at all without a scan and a blueprint. It's not a "black box action". It couldnt copy something if it couldnt detect what it was made out of and without a blueprint of how all it is put together.

2. No, it was massively in favor of the US and UK. 5 is a higher number than 3. Exactly the opposite of what the Federation did here. Japan would go on building those ships whether they signed the treaty or not so the US and UK dont give up much to them. But either way no one said "Japan can have capital ships, and we will agree NOT to have capital ships." That's insane. Both the Naval and ABM treaties are great examples for showing why the Federation would never have agreed to this.

Data was always "magical" in Trek even before. So there's probably some antimatter positronic reason why the transporter won't scan him in ways it would scan another (defying logic that he could somehow still be transported).

Remember, even the Borg were unable to assimilate him in First Contact to get the Enterprise encryption codes.

 

[Ronald Held]

Philosophically, will the Federation stoop to using cloaks?

 

[Yistaan]

Philosophically, will the Federation stoop to using cloaks?

That's pretty mild compared to what else the Federation has been letting go on in Picard.

 

[Captain Killy]

Admiral Pressman's probably smiling on whatever prison he's on (or island he's exiled to according to "Lost" fans).

You know something has always bothered me about that episode (and it’s not just that it was the jumping off point for that horrible ENT finale). Phasing tech > Cloaking tech. The treaty says you can’t develop cloaking technology, but phasing tech seems totally legal. And if you can phase your ship, why the frak do you need to bother cloaking it in the first place? What so the bad guys don’t fire at you, well who gives a shit if your phased?

 

[Crewman6]

Military tech. Freighters aren't submarines.

This analogy doesn't work in space when every vessel travels in the same medium the same way.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Admiral Pressman's probably smiling on whatever prison he's on (or island he's exiled to according to "Lost" fans).

I hear New Zealand is really nice.

 

[Captain Killy]

I hear New Zealand is really nice.

I don’t know, Tom Paris wasn’t really a fan if I recall correctly...

 

[Makarov]

An admiral pressman spin off show would be amazing and you know Terry o'Quinn would do it

 

[Timo]

1. No, the transporter and the replicator is an exact blueprint. Any scan would give that to Maddox. Just a tricorder would be enough for an exact blueprint of how he is put together.

Well, obviously and explicitly not. Maddox himself says he absolutely needs to take Data apart in order to figure out how he works. Do you really think yourself smarter than him?

And naturally the transporter or replicator couldnt function at all without a scan and a blueprint. It's not a "black box action". It couldnt copy something if it couldnt detect what it was made out of and without a blueprint of how all it is put together.

Wrong again, considering how it effortlessly moves everything from A to B yet the heroes hardly know everything about everything.

How the transporter actually works in the episodes and movies is that it grabs somebody or something, turns the target into something that at first glows and then becomes invisible and moves through walls and space and whatnot, and then allows that something to coalesce back into the target again. "Scanning where every single quark is" is a potential mode of operating, but not a very likely one: it's not supported by dialogue, it's incompatible with the fact that the heroes assuredly can't scan things like Data's innards with necessary resolution, and there are actually adventures where handling that sort of dataflow is a crisis and something the heroes almost can't handle (say, a runabout transporter hands over perfectly ordinary patterns to the entire processing power of DS9, and the station basically crumbles, in "Our Man Bashir").

The transporter is not a scanner, and there's nothing to be won by claiming so. There is no shortcut to knowing stuff in Trek. Scanners reveal bits and pieces of the truth. But explicitly not those bits and pieces that Maddox wanted. Denying that is fun to watch - are you next trying to deny that Maddox existed, or that Data was an android, or that the relevant adventures ever happened? (Mind you, Trek has done wilder stuff, and your denial might not be misguided after all. But that's exactly what makes it fun to watch.)

2. No, it was massively in favor of the US and UK. 5 is a higher number than 3.

But the US had 2.5 at best - most of its enemies were in the Atlantic, including that pesky UK with its fearsome 5. OTOH, the European players really couldn't bring their navies to bear on Japan in anything approaching 1, let alone Britain's exceptional 5. Which is why it was a real coup for Japan, and factually gave the island nation not just parity with the other two treaty parties, but actually an overwhelming advantage in the scenarios relevant for the late thirties and the early forties. This was a calculated risk, and very much not to the liking of the other European players who had Pacific and Far East interests...

Every arms limitation treaty is such a calculated risk. Some involve giving away assets one has or might hope to have; others involve giving away something one doesn't have a prayer of possessing to begin with. Japan's "missing 2" was of the latter sort, and all of the US "5+" bits were of the former.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tarek71]

Well, obviously and explicitly not. Maddox himself says he absolutely needs to take Data apart in order to figure out how he works. Do you really think yourself smarter than him?

Timo, I am going to make this my final post in this discussion, as it seems progress it impossible here.

1. That is obviously false. Not sure what Maddox would see with his eyes after disassembly that the tricorder cannot detect. That makes no logical sense at all. The tricorder would give an exact blueprint. The transporter and the replicator could not do what they do unless they had that blueprint. That obviously includes "innards". Not "bits and pieces". The complete blueprint.

The transporter cannot function without sensors. It has to detect the object or person to be beamed up. And it could not rematerialize them in the correct configuration if it doesnt have any information about composition and configuration. It does it with such precision that your memories and personality are intact. That's how fine tuned your rematerialized brain innards are.

The idea that sensors cannot do this is directly and repeatedly contradicted through the entire run of the Trek franchise. Sensors differentiate species, identify specific individuals, the presence of weapons, microbes, diseases, detect and differentiate sub atomic particles, including irregularities in their spin, position, etc.

I agree that they write dialogue for the characters that somehow they just cant make Soong androids. But clearly they could and could do so easily and in any arbitrary quantities that they want.

2. Again, building ships was legal before the Treaty. They are not giving Japan any ability for ship building that they didnt already have, and they did NOT do what the Federation did. They did not say THEY can build battleships, but we agree not to. The number 5 is larger than the number 3 no matter how you try to rationalize this. The main feature was the UK giving up the 2 Power Standard. But they would have had to give it up anyway. What the Federation did is not similar in any sense to what the US and UK did.

 

[Timo]

Timo, I am going to make this my final post in this discussion, as it seems progress it impossible here.

No prob.

1. That is obviously false.

However, it's explicitly true. It is stated and shown to be true. So something about that "obvious" bit is obviously wrong.

Not sure what Maddox would see with his eyes after disassembly that the tricorder cannot detect.

Me neither. But neither of us is Maddox. He knows his shit, while we know shit. Get the difference?

In any case, the whole point was that disassembly. Tricorder might work fine once Data is in pieces. But Data doesn't want to be in pieces, hence the episode.

The tricorder would give an exact blueprint.

Why? I mean, what possible reason do you have for thinking that the tricorder can do that? Nowhere in Star Trek does it reveal all the secrets of the universe. It's just a scanner. It has limitations, and Maddox makes it clear that those limitations inhibit his work. If you want to argue that Maddox is lying, you have to prove (among other things) that you know the properties of the tricorder better than somebody who actually shares the fictional universe with the device. That's a pretty tall order. Feel up to it?

The transporter and the replicator could not do what they do unless they had that blueprint. That obviously includes "innards". Not "bits and pieces". The complete blueprint.

Bullshit. A taxi driver doesn't need to know anything about your innards to get you from A to B (and he'd really hate for you to leave some on the seat). The transporter explicitly doesn't know, either. It just grabs, transforms, delivers and transforms back - and the heroes cannot find out during or afterwards what exactly was being transported, which already ought to tell us volumes.

How the transporter works exactly is something we don't know, but the characters (or at least a couple of them) do. It really doesn't do for you to invent a model of transporter that results in contradictions in the fictional universe - you're way out of your depth there, and also up to no good in trying to demolish something that is shown working fine.

The transporter cannot function without sensors. It has to detect the object or person to be beamed up.

And the taxi driver only needs to see you waving your hand, not presenting a CT scan of your tummy.

And it could not rematerialize them in the correct configuration if it doesnt have any information about composition and configuration.

Sure it can. It just turns you into "phased" matter and then back, as per dialog. The process does not involve any knowing, any more than transforming your voice into an analog signal for transfer across phone lines and then back does/did. Indeed, most processes in the known universe, real or imagined, do not involve "knowing everything". As far as we can tell, the whole concept of "knowing everything" is a fundamental fallacy anyway - but the philosophical point aside, "knowing everything" is basically never relevant in anything we do or think. Why would you bring such an esoteric and irrelevant concept into the simple discussion of how to divine Data's inner workings?

It does it with such precision that your memories and personality are intact.

So does taking a taxi from A to B. There really is no need for knowledge or information to be involved in the process in any way, since those are already packed inside you. Apparently also while you are in this "phased" state, where obviously you keep on being you, apparently usually having thoughts and heartbeat and mobility and all.

Which of course is inherent in how "transporter" is faked in Star Trek: it's impossible for the actor to hold the exact same pose at A and B both, so we have to accept the character remains a complete whole even when undergoing limb motion and the like. Just like he would if not being transported.

That's how fine tuned your rematerialized brain innards are.

...Completely without interference from the transporter. Or the taxi driver. Or little green Ferengi. Being fine tuned is not all that difficult - most people do it throughout their lives without trying.

Sensors differentiate species, identify specific individuals, the presence of weapons, microbes, diseases, detect and differentiate sub atomic particles, including irregularities in their spin, position, etc.

And conversely, there are a zillion things they can't do. And one of those is telling Maddox how Data works exactly. What's so difficult to grasp about that?

Just take this back to the reality of today. We have fine scanners now. We don't know everything. Nothing about that has changed in the Trek fictio-future. There's no logical nor dramatic reason for it to change.

I agree that they write dialogue for the characters that somehow they just cant make Soong androids. But clearly they could and could do so easily and in any arbitrary quantities that they want.

Cloning ten thousand Will Rikers is obviously doable. But it's equally clear why this is not something the characters want to do.

And Maddox never wanted to clone ten thousand Datas - that was a straw man created in desperation by Picard so that he could win the court case. Maddox wants to understand what makes Data tick, presumably chiefly so that he can do even better and leave Soong in his shadow. Crusher might want to understand what makes Riker tick, too - but she doesn't. She's no God.

Perhaps Q could tell her, and Maddox. But Q and a tricorder are different things. Can you appreciate the difference?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tarek71]

No prob.

No, a Taxi is like a shuttle, you just get inside. Neither of them has to break you down and put you back together. An impossibility without knowing your innards. As with the Treaties, the examples you give show the exact opposite of what you are arguing for, obtuse mental contortions notwithstanding.

Maddox doesnt know anything. He is a character in a TV show. This is writers wanting the characters to say that they just cannot do this, even though the technology they have established could do so with ease and in any number they wanted. They just need their existing sensors to know the schematic of a Soong android. Since they can scan to even the sub atomic scale, this is childs play. The transporter does it every day and could not function as it does if it couldnt. And they could make as many as they want. And not just clones.

I know I said the last one was going to be the last post. But the Taxi analogy here was so bonkers I couldn't resist. As was the bizarre claim that rematerialzing the innards of the brain with such amazing finely tuned high fidelity is something "most people do...throughout their lives". No they never do that.