The pegasus vs. the next phase

[at Quark's]

Two days ago, I re-watched "the next phase".

I think that although the Romulan experiment ended in disaster, it could also be said that it did succeed, as three persons were phase-shifted. Moreover, the Romulans could perhaps find that out rather easily, given that one crewmate of theirs has vanished without a trace. Quite possibly, only some fine-tuning would be needed to eliminate the nasty side effects.

Combining this episode with "the pegasus" it would mean that both the Romulans and the Federation have some form of phase shifting cloak, but the Federation shouldn't have it, and the Romulans simply don't know yet they have it.


So, I was wondering...

1. would the two technologies actually be similar in both principle and capabilities, giving neither side the actual advantage in that respect if both sides were to employ their technology? Or would there be significant differences ?

2. Given that it might be only a matter of time before the Romulans discover they were actually successful and they might not trust the Federation to really abandon their phase cloak (it is an insanely useful invention after all), would the mutual knowledge of posession lead to a new stalemate between the Romulan Empire and the Federation ?

3. Slightly related to that, it has been said in "the pegasus" that the Treaty of Algeron kept the peace for over 60 years. But, giving up cloaking technology is a huge disadvantage for the federation -and I'm inclinded to believe the Federation would not be so naïve to only give it up for idealistic reasons-, so I'm curious what the Romulans gave up from their side? And how would that factor in in the new stalemate ?

 

[Ithekro]

I keep imagining a ship phase cloaking through an enemy ship, and then leaving an unphased photon torpedo in their engine room.

 

[Timo]

Some ideas and opinions:

1. would the two technologies actually be similar in both principle and capabilities, giving neither side the actual advantage in that respect if both sides were to employ their technology? Or would there be significant differences?

Conventional cloaks come with enough variety that Klingons can sneak right down to the surface of the Romulan homeworld, and supposedly Romulans can return the courtesy; possession of the technology does not mean possession of effective countermeasures.

One would suppose the phase cloak would also defy categorical countermeasures; we already know that "phasing" comes in varieties, such as in "Time's Arrow" where things can be phased forward or backward in time by a desired degree, rendering them intangible just as in these two episodes. The competing players would have to live with the fact that the other side can remain invisible to them, plus with the new fact that they can sail through solid matter. But shields are good at categorically stopping beams from "phasers" and "phased matter streams" from transporters and so forth; relatively minor tweaking might allow them to block "phased" ships and torpedoes, too, regardless of the nuances of the phasing involved.

2. Given that it might be only a matter of time before the Romulans discover they were actually successful and they might not trust the Federation to really abandon their phase cloak (it is an insanely useful invention after all), would the mutual knowledge of posession lead to a new stalemate between the Romulan Empire and the Federation?

The stalemate seems to stem from some other aspect than the ability to sneak up to the enemy planets unseen and unhindered. Earlier, Romulans had the invisibility and Feds did not, yet there still was no hot war and no policy of arrogant blackmail by the Romulans that we'd know of. Supposedly, a conventional retaliation by the potentially much superior UFP Starfleet was enough to keep the Romulans from pressing their offensive advantage. This probably would not change with phase-cloaking.

3. Slightly related to that, it has been said in "the pegasus" that the Treaty of Algeron kept the peace for over 60 years. But, giving up cloaking technology is a huge disadvantage for the federation -and I'm inclinded to believe the Federation would not be so naïve to only give it up for idealistic reasons-, so I'm curious what the Romulans gave up from their side? And how would that factor in in the new stalemate ?

It might be the Romulans just said "Do that for us, willya, and we won't bombard Earth back to stone age even though we can, with impunity", and Earth decided that these madmen were better placated with an insincere promise to do as they tell than with a counterthreat of annihilating their sorry little star empirelet.

I don't see any specific weapons technology advantage being worth this wrangling, nor any territorial holding. Such concerns are short-lived compared with the general call for stability and semi-civilized interaction.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

I still feel like the treaty of Algeron was set as a political strategy. "It has always been Starfleet's policy to never start a war". By openly engaging in a techno-arms race, you are declaring your status as an enemy. To refuse to do so is a political play. How right or wrong it was is debatable, but that was the intention & it worked for 60 years

If you say "I won't be dragged into a singular animosity with you" then you have the political advantage to claim victimization if ever they get caught trying to move on you, & at that point you can pull in aid from all over. Klingons, Vulcans, etc... Everybody comes to your aid, which is not something the Romulans want

But if you say "You've got a technology that can hurt us. So I want that technology too" even though it's only use is to hurt you, you are making a statement that you are enemies. Then if they strike on you, you got nobody backing you up, because you were playing the game. The better play is to develop preventative tech. No one would begrudge you the right to be developing detection tech. However, if "Starfleet is an organization of peace" well, hell, it's hard to be that guy, if you are developing first strike weaponry. You've given up the one thing that kept people from thinking you were a menace to be dealt with

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Clearly unrelated technology. The Pegasus phase shifting let you fall through the floor.

My guess is that section 31 had a hand in squashing the Romulan phase cloak.

 

[Timo]

The Pegasus phase shifting let you fall through the floor.

Umm, no. We never saw anybody fall through floors in the episode, or heard of that happening. (That grisly fate befell an extra in "In Theory", where the culprit was a natural phenomenon. That, or an alien phase-cloak gone awry.)

Why would the Romulans think their phase cloak did not work? They already had a test article being operated in outer space - surely there would be dozens of examples in labs, plenty of theoretical confirmation, a production line in readiness?

Or are we to think that the Romulans thought their tech was so dangerous it would have to be tested in empty space first before anything else was attempted? As opposed to finally applying a tested technology to its intended purpose, that of cloaking starships?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

Personally, I always assumed that in both cases, the phase cloaking tech had been successful, or at least functional enough that that they were implementing it aboard starships, which is hardly a controlled testing facility, clearly, as it caused differing system failures on both ships, failures that indicated more of a problem of application than functionality. In a way, it's the same tech, but much like Romulan warp engines are different than Starfleet's, so to was this perhaps achieved by different means

 

[MikeS]

I still feel like the treaty of Algeron was set as a political strategy. "It has always been Starfleet's policy to never start a war". By openly engaging in a techno-arms race, you are declaring your status as an enemy. To refuse to do so is a political play. How right or wrong it was is debatable, but that was the intention & it worked for 60 years

If you say "I won't be dragged into a singular animosity with you" then you have the political advantage to claim victimization if ever they get caught trying to move on you, & at that point you can pull in aid from all over. Klingons, Vulcans, etc... Everybody comes to your aid, which is not something the Romulans want

But if you say "You've got a technology that can hurt us. So I want that technology too" even though it's only use is to hurt you, you are making a statement that you are enemies. Then if they strike on you, you got nobody backing you up, because you were playing the game. The better play is to develop preventative tech. No one would begrudge you the right to be developing detection tech. However, if "Starfleet is an organization of peace" well, hell, it's hard to be that guy, if you are developing first strike weaponry. You've given up the one thing that kept people from thinking you were a menace to be dealt with

You make a very interesting argument there. I had not considered those points before. Relating to real world politics, Regan has been pretty much vilified by historians for "Star Wars". After reading your argument I believe that his intentions were good. But to follow up on it he should have promised to scrap all the U.S's nukes. Never would have happened in the Cold War, I know, but still, an interesting line of thought about the moral "high ground"

 

[Marc]

The Pegasus phase shifting let you fall through the floor.

Umm, no. We never saw anybody fall through floors in the episode, or heard of that happening. (That grisly fate befell an extra in "In Theory", where the culprit was a natural phenomenon. That, or an alien phase-cloak gone awry.)

And it wouldn't happen because the crew would be in phase with the ship even though they are out of phase with the rest of normal space.

Of course the danger is that if the ship rephases inside an asteroid or any other solid you're going to rephase too which is what happened to some of the crew from The Pegasus.

As for passing through phased and leaving a torpedo behind, didn't the Jem Hadar destroy the U.S.S Odyssey by rephasing right in the warp core or was that a straight in ram? (can't recall if it was in a book or online comment about the dephasing).

 

[Timo]

What we saw happen was that the Jem'Hadar ship crashed into the secondary hull of the Odyssey and broke into pieces, one of which spun into the tip of the starboard nacelle, and then the starship went kaboom.

IMHO this is inconsistent with any phasing trickery, as that would have sent the attacker deep into the secondary hull and allowed for no breakup or spinning of jetsam before the re-phasing inside the warp core already made the starship go nova.

We never saw the forces of the Dominion operate cloaks, phasing or otherwise, except for the personal invisibility abilities of the Jem'Hadar troops ("The Abandoned" suggests they could do this without any equipment, making it sound like a psychic skill and probably something they learned from the Tosk of "Captive Pursuit" fame...).

Of course, us never seeing any Dominion cloaking activity might be the best possible proof that the Dominion did operate cloaking devices!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[tavor]

am I right in assuming transphasic torpedoes used by voyager to destroy the borg cubes in the final episode were the same tech as the Pegasus

 

[Timo]

Who knows? Supposedly, there is one and the same natural phenomenon behind all "phasing" technology in the Trek universe, but the people who invented the Pegasus cloak might have provided nothing for the people who invented Admiral Janeway's torpedoes. The expertise and documentation might have been lost by accident or on purpose.

It seems rather probable, though, that the Feds developed the Admiral Janeway torps, and made use of earlier research by the Feds. It's the same research, even if the machinery needed for making a transphasic torpedo work may be drastically different from the machinery needed for phasing a starship (compare bullets to aircraft or anchor mines to submarines, say).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mojochi]

I still feel like the treaty of Algeron was set as a political strategy. "It has always been Starfleet's policy to never start a war". By openly engaging in a techno-arms race, you are declaring your status as an enemy. To refuse to do so is a political play. How right or wrong it was is debatable, but that was the intention & it worked for 60 years

If you say "I won't be dragged into a singular animosity with you" then you have the political advantage to claim victimization if ever they get caught trying to move on you, & at that point you can pull in aid from all over. Klingons, Vulcans, etc... Everybody comes to your aid, which is not something the Romulans want

But if you say "You've got a technology that can hurt us. So I want that technology too" even though it's only use is to hurt you, you are making a statement that you are enemies. Then if they strike on you, you got nobody backing you up, because you were playing the game. The better play is to develop preventative tech. No one would begrudge you the right to be developing detection tech. However, if "Starfleet is an organization of peace" well, hell, it's hard to be that guy, if you are developing first strike weaponry. You've given up the one thing that kept people from thinking you were a menace to be dealt with

You make a very interesting argument there. I had not considered those points before. Relating to real world politics, Regan has been pretty much vilified by historians for "Star Wars". After reading your argument I believe that his intentions were good. But to follow up on it he should have promised to scrap all the U.S's nukes. Never would have happened in the Cold War, I know, but still, an interesting line of thought about the moral "high ground"

The high ground, but also the "Good guy" routine, where you can have allies to support you against the other guy, who may have a tool for first strike, but won't use it if they think they will have everyone come down on them. It seems to have kept the Romulans at bay for 60 years, because they are afraid that by attacking the Federation with their cloaks, then they risk everyone in the territory turning on them

The Federation don't need cloaks. They got principles people can get behind, & friends........ & some friends with cloaks. That's still my favorite Starfleet/Romulan engagement in all of Trek, when the Klingons decloak in The Defector "Oh! You thought we were punks, did you? Guess again"

Plus they always have people like Geordi on the verge of breaking technology that can detect ships in cloak. Work on THAT stuff, Bubba

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The Pegasus phase shifting let you fall through the floor.

Umm, no. We never saw anybody fall through floors in the episode, or heard of that happening. (That grisly fate befell an extra in "In Theory", where the culprit was a natural phenomenon. That, or an alien phase-cloak gone awry.)

The asteroid went through the floor.

 

[Timo]

A five-million-ton asteroid goes through any floors it wants, cloak or no cloak.

A four-million-ton asteroid, now...

Timo Saloniemi