Proximity blast phasers

[johnnybear]

Cloaking technology is a new thing in Balance of Terror!!! That is a proven fact and the only problem people have with that is the prequel shows which show Klingons with that ability where as in TOS it was only the Romulans who possessed that sneaky device! That is until Commissioner Bele of Cheron who was hunting Lokai and whose ship was sheathed in invisible materials appeared in the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield!
JB

 

[Timo]

Well, no. "BoT" is already in contradiction with "Charlie X" where the Thasian ship appeared out of nowhere.

It doesn't matter how exactly this effect of appearing out of nowhere would be achieved. There's nothing theoretical about it for Spock, who has seen it happen firsthand already: he isn't really entitled to babble about "selective bending of light" or the like.

A ship appearing out of nowhere happens again in "Errand of Mercy". Invisibility or not, it's once again something Spock has seen before, and this time it justly goes without comment. "LTBYLB" just adds another species to the operators of invisible ones, and the heroes don't appear surprised much, again rightly so. It just isn't plausible that seasoned space travelers would be unfamiliar with the phenomenon in practice, even if they themselves haven't quite mastered the theory yet.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ssosmcin]

Well, no. "BoT" is already in contradiction with "Charlie X" where the Thasian ship appeared out of nowhere.

It doesn't matter how exactly this effect of appearing out of nowhere would be achieved. There's nothing theoretical about it for Spock, who has seen it happen firsthand already: he isn't really entitled to babble about "selective bending of light" or the like.

A ship appearing out of nowhere happens again in "Errand of Mercy". Invisibility or not, it's once again something Spock has seen before, and this time it justly goes without comment. "LTBYLB" just adds another species to the operators of invisible ones, and the heroes don't appear surprised much, again rightly so. It just isn't plausible that seasoned space travelers would be unfamiliar with the phenomenon in practice, even if they themselves haven't quite mastered the theory yet.

Timo Saloniemi

You seem to be assuming the Thasian ship was zipping around invisible until they reached the Enterprise. There’s no indication of that. The implication is they took solid form as we saw them appear and they tried to contact the Enterprise before they arrived.

SPOCK: Sensors show there something's there, Captain. Deflectors indicate no solid substance.

This isn’t the same as cloaking, which was “the selective bending of light” to hide a ship from sensors. Thasians weren’t corporeal beings, they only took on a humanlike visage to communicate. That’s Charlie’s whole issue: he can’t even touch them.

However, even granting what you say, the Romulans weren't really more advanced a race than humans or Vulcans, neither of whom had achieved cloaking tech. So, yep, for Spock it’s new and unexpected to see someone of the same technological level being able to render a ship invisible. There’s no continuity error here.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Cloaking technology is a new thing in Balance of Terror!!! That is a proven fact and the only problem people have with that is the prequel shows which show Klingons with that ability where as in TOS it was only the Romulans who possessed that sneaky device! That is until Commissioner Bele of Cheron who was hunting Lokai and whose ship was sheathed in invisible materials appeared in the episode Let That Be Your Last Battlefield!
JB

Klingons don't use cloaking devices at all in Enterprise. I don't know why you keep bringing it up. It's the Suliban and (yes) Romulans that use such devices there.

 

[Henoch]

Balance of Terror is early in the first season, or if you use Stardates as a guide, then it happens on Stardate 1709.2. Errand of Mercy is in later season one on Stardate 3198.4, or 1489.2 stardates after BOT. That's almost one and a half years after the bitter Romulan defeat; plenty of time for the Romulans to forge the alliance with the Klingons and give Klingons some cloaking devices for their scout ships (equivalent in size the Romulan ship if the cloaking devices are ship size rated) in return for D7 battlecruisers. New Romulan D7's show up with new improved cloaking devices for the large ship in The Enterprise Incident on Stardate 5027.3, over three years after EOM. Three years sounds plausible to build new ships plus do the R&D on the new cloaking device. Why build new D7's? I see the D7 as just as rare to the Klingons as Constitution-class starships are to the Federation.

 

[johnnybear]

Klingons don't use cloaking devices at all in Enterprise. I don't know why you keep bringing it up. It's the Suliban and (yes) Romulans that use such devices there.

It's quite a while since I've watched ENT, and not something i'd want to do again so thought they did have cloaking tech!!! But the fact that the Suliban had it also affects the premise of cloaking devices in TOS unless you say that ENT is another reality or timeline!
JB

 

[Timo]

You seem to be assuming the Thasian ship was zipping around invisible until they reached the Enterprise. There’s no indication of that.

I need assume nothing. The Thasians appeared out of nowhere right next to the hero ship, exactly like the Romulans.

It does not matter how they achieved this. The only thing that matters is that Spock is familiar with the phenomenon itself. He has no excuse to go babbling about theoretical bending of light when there's nothing theoretical whatsoever about the ability of an opponent to appear out of nowhere right next to the heroes.

Now, it is theoretically possible that the Romulans indeed achieved this by bending light (even though Spock has no basis for speculating that, he may have guessed right, and his putative later sensor readings off screen might have confirmed that, although nothing in later Trek directly backs up the claim), and that the Thasians did not (Spock did get some sensor readings after the fact there). It doesn't make "Balance of Terror" any more excusable, though.

However, even granting what you say, the Romulans weren't really more advanced a race than humans or Vulcans, neither of whom had achieved cloaking tech. So, yep, for Spock it’s new and unexpected to see someone of the same technological level being able to render a ship invisible. There’s no continuity error here.

Why would the Romulans be on the same technological level with the Vulcans? If Spock is to be believed, the two have not met for ages - or at least the Vulcans know nothing of the Romulans. Later Trek shows that ages here stands for at least two thousand years (while also putting the lie to that), meaning the Romulans could have come up with immortality, warp 928345.47 engines and sixteen differently colored ways to phase-cloak.

What the heroes actually can say about the tech level of the Romulans is that they used tech a hundred years prior in a war. Were they holding something back at the time? Were they on the verge of developing new stuff? They have come up with the plasma weapon, meaning Spock would be wrong to assume they only have things the Vulcans could have.

Basically, "Balance of Terror" is the only episode from an alternate universe here. In all the others, the TOS heroes are familiar and comfortable with invisibility, and so are their predecessors and successors. Furthermore, everybody is comfortable with the idea that invisibility comes in degrees, from cheap visual illusions to the magical ability to disappear from every sensing method ever devised; they allow themselves to be surprised by better invisibility every now and then, but they don't disbelieve in it. And everybody is comfortable with the idea of tech exchange, whether by trade or espionage or outright theft and conquest.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shawnster]

Klingons don't use cloaking devices at all in Enterprise. I don't know why you keep bringing it up. It's the Suliban and (yes) Romulans that use such devices there.

DISCO is a prequel that depicts Klingon cloaking technology.

 

[Tim Thomason]

DISCO is a prequel that depicts Klingon cloaking technology.

He mentions Enterprise here:

Klingon ships did not have cloaking technology in TOS! Not before the movies at least and before you start moaning, ENT & DSC don't count!
JB

I'm just mentioning that there is no indication that Klingons possess cloaking devices in the Enterprise era. They did encounter the Xyrillians and perhaps obtained cloaking technology from them, but that's far from a given.

But it'd be interesting if T'Kuvma's cloak was of Xyrillian origin.

 

[johnnybear]

DISCO is a prequel that depicts Klingon cloaking technology.

But in another timeline...
JB

 

[Ssosmcin]

I need assume nothing. The Thasians appeared out of nowhere right next to the hero ship, exactly like the Romulans.

It does not matter how they achieved this. The only thing that matters is that Spock is familiar with the phenomenon itself. He has no excuse to go babbling about theoretical bending of light when there's nothing theoretical whatsoever about the ability of an opponent to appear out of nowhere right next to the heroes.

It absolutely makes a difference. The Thasians are aliens who either have super technology to change their form for simple communication or they are naturally endowed with the ability to appear or disappear at will. Unlike Romulans, they aren’t humanoids (or Vulcanoids). They don't have a physical form. The Thasian appears on the bridge either as a floating head or a projection. We don't know, but Charlie's reaction leads me to believe that's the alien itself. His appearance and disapearance is unlike a transporter materalization, implying they can teleport naturally.

Romulans may be “distant brothers” but they didn’t develop this super science or evolve way ahead of humans and Vulcans. They discovered how to use visual stealth technology without the “enormous power cost” Spock mentions. It remains two different things. Thaisans are presented as “aliens with alien powers.” Romulans are at about the same level who had a technological breakthrough related to something the Federation is aware of but couldn’t crack because of the amount of power needed. Spock reacting to “wow aliens who can appear out of nowhere” isn’t the same as “our contemporaries solved a technological problem we haven’t been able to.”

Why would the Romulans be on the same technological level with the Vulcans? If Spock is to be believed, the two have not met for ages - or at least the Vulcans know nothing of the Romulans. Later Trek shows that ages here stands for at least two thousand years (while also putting the lie to that), meaning the Romulans could have come up with immortality, warp 928345.47 engines and sixteen differently colored ways to phase-cloak.

There’s nothing to indicate they are more advanced. Every episode with Romulans shows them to be contemporary. They may even be less advanced since “their power is simple impulse.” Their super weapon has limited range. Kirk kicks the crap out of them. Their only advantage is the technology of the cloak. Later episodes has the Enterprise outrunning them easily, so we know they didn't achieve faster engines. Any super advanced race wouldn't need to have an alliance with the Klingons. However, two contemporaries would.

Basically, "Balance of Terror" is the only episode from an alternate universe here. In all the others, the TOS heroes are familiar and comfortable with invisibility, and so are their predecessors and successors. Furthermore, everybody is comfortable with the idea that invisibility comes in degrees, from cheap visual illusions to the magical ability to disappear from every sensing method ever devised; they allow themselves to be surprised by better invisibility every now and then, but they don't disbelieve in it. And everybody is comfortable with the idea of tech exchange, whether by trade or espionage or outright theft and conquest.

Timo Saloniemi

I disagree. "Balance of Terror" is the first episode to introduce invisibility as a technology used by contemporaries. After that, it's accepted. Again, the Thasians are alien in every way. If an advanced alien came to Earth today and appeared out of nowhere, we'd be all sorts of awed. If humans invented invisibility, we'd also be impressed because that would indicate a major technological advancement. One is "aliens have powers - cool" and other is "this other country on our level figured this out!" It's unexpected.

 

[Maurice]

Balance of Terror is early in the first season, or if you use Stardates as a guide, then it happens on Stardate 1709.2. Errand of Mercy is in later season one on Stardate 3198.4, or 1489.2 stardates after BOT. That's almost one and a half years after the bitter Romulan defeat; plenty of time for the Romulans to forge the alliance with the Klingons and give Klingons some cloaking devices for their scout ships (equivalent in size the Romulan ship if the cloaking devices are ship size rated) in return for D7 battlecruisers. New Romulan D7's show up with new improved cloaking devices for the large ship in The Enterprise Incident on Stardate 5027.3, over three years after EOM. Three years sounds plausible to build new ships plus do the R&D on the new cloaking device. Why build new D7's? I see the D7 as just as rare to the Klingons as Constitution-class starships are to the Federation.

This presumes a jump of 1000 in a stardate is a year. Nothing aired on the original series indicates that.

 

[Tenacity]

we might decide the phaser beam is sheathed in a jacket of some sort

If they are fired at warp, they would have to be in something to keep them at warp speed.

 

[Timo]

It absolutely makes a difference. The Thasians are aliens who either have super technology to change their form for simple communication or they are naturally endowed with the ability to appear or disappear at will. Unlike Romulans, they aren’t humanoids (or Vulcanoids).

And of course none of this is known to our speculating Vulcan, unless he's a filthy liar, so it doesn't matter.

Romulans may be “distant brothers” but they didn’t develop this super science or evolve way ahead of humans and Vulcans.

There is no way Spock could vouch for that. Vulcans fancy themselves pretty cool guys, yet they are utter retards compared to humans who developed the usual treknologies a hundred times faster; they can't rely on their Romulan cousins being retards, too, even in the scenario where they do know the Romulans are their cousins. Which they do not know, according to Spock.

Thaisans are presented as “aliens with alien powers.”

Which is all our heroes should know about the Romulans, too. Nobody has seen a Romulan; for all they know, Romulans are floating blobs of light, too. After all, their one defining factor is that their ship does the exact same thing the Thasian ship does!

There’s nothing to indicate they are more advanced. Every episode with Romulans shows them to be contemporary.

But there are no "episodes with Romulans" here. There's only this Romulan ship that acts like a Thasian ship.

The only one who knows anything about how Romulans "ought" to be is Stiles. Romulans acting like Thasians is new to him, clearly enough, but there's nothing he can offer to prove Romulans haven't become Thasians in the intervening century.

Now, if we assumed the heroes actually know more about the Romulans than they let show in "Balance of Terror", we could argue that Spock's outrageous claims have some basis in reality. But that episode would no longer be "Balance of Terror". (It would be a better one, and I'd be happy to see "BoT" gone in favor of something more reasonable and less derivative. But so far, we aren't supposed to pretend that specific Trek adventures never happened, or even that they happened differently from what we saw, slight casting or costuming issues notwithstanding.)

Timo Saloniemi