PHASING CLOAKING DEVICE

[Juju Zombie]

With (transwarp) transporters, matter replicators, time travel, black hole-powered fuel cells, and more existing in the universe, you have trouble with a device that just shifts you a little out of phase as being wholly implausible?

I always found it one of the more plausible evolutions of technology in the franchise, and boggled at why they tried to make it sound so impossible to master.

I mean, transporting yourself from one location to another allegedly without destroying and building a new version of you is a regular thing. How impossible is that, nevermind doing it instantaneously over lightyears.

 

[apollo1984]

So much about trek "science" and tech does not make sense one way or another, I mean why doesn't Voyager need to spend time each week to learn the latest brand new language they never heard before, why they still understand alien languages when their comm badges have been removed and why despite characters seemingly to be able to walk miles and miles in the holodeck can the always seem to get to the wall to activate some controls here and there.

 

[Timo]

None of that sounds like "science" to me. It's just computer applications - and we already know from the real world that computer technology will come up with applications that meet and exceed our needs (even if they sometimes also redefine or dictate our needs).

The ship's computer may be capable of learning all-new languages in about half an hour (DS9 "Sanctuary"), but not all languages are all-new (many are related through interstellar interaction just like Earth's languages have their connections, see e.g. TNG "Contagion"), and many are no doubt available as instantly loadable, readymade packages at well-equipped starports.

We never heard that the commbadges would be the means by which our heroes know languages. What VOY "Basics" showed us is that they are essential to them learning languages (possibly by allowing them to connect to an external language-learning computer, possibly by powers already inherent in the badges or a network thereof) - but what is learned may well be retained by a different, probably implanted device, or then by the brain itself.

And the holodeck is an entertainment device. Surely it would be designed to please the customer? There's no reason why it shouldn't be capable of doing all the pleasing we see it do, not when much more low-brow applications are shown handling more difficult tasks...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ithekro]

I seem to recall the universal translators were implanted into the ears by the 24th century.

 

[GregroxMun]

Imagine the flatland analogy of subspace, but where flat starships and crewmembers have some fuzzy width that is really small. In the phase cloak, you remove all of your width and go to the edge of the rest of the universe's fuzz, so you can see and no one else can see you.

That makes sense in my head, and I'm usually pretty good at explaining dimensional analogies, but today I'm tired and hungry.

 

[publiusr]

I think this is from Stargate SG-1, but their version pushed the individual slightly out of phase with the universe, rendering it insubstantial.

The big question, of course, is why didn't they fall through the floor??

That was a problem I always had with TNG's The Next Phase, particularly when they push that Romulan out through the wall. I didn't think of it being as much of a problem with the entire ship in Pegasus though.

My theory for that romulan episode is they would have fallen through both the floors and the walls, but the artificial gravity from the ship affected matter in all phases, and the gravity generators keep them right on the floor. I know, its a bit of a stretch, but it seems like the best explanation. As to how they breathed the oxygen from the ship, I don't know...

Inside the body, inside the field. Some interaction, just at a lower level?

 

[Starborn Dragon]

Yeah, Mythbusters disproved the hell out of Kirk's bamboo cannon.

Actually I think that if they used more reinforcement around the base then the bamboo might not have split so soon.

 

[BillJ]

Yeah, Mythbusters disproved the hell out of Kirk's bamboo cannon.

Actually I think that if they used more reinforcement around the base then the bamboo might not have split so soon.

They stayed as true to the episode as possible.

 

[Timo]

It seems they built the cannon the wrong way around, misunderstanding the relationship between the cannon as built and the cannon as wrecked by use. Whether this would have made any difference, we don't know...

...Of course, the ST episode never actually says the substance was bamboo.

Timo Saloniemi