Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

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Platonian
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Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Platonian »

I recently read a fascinating article on developments in real-life cloaking technology: The U.S. Military Is One Step Closer to Having Invisibility Cloaks.

It seems from this and other articles that I've read on the subject that we are making real advances in this field. Presumably, similar advances would have been made in the ST universe, too. This leads me to wonder why we don't see an indigenous cloaking technology in the Federation long before the Treaty of Algeron forbade such development. According to our own article Cloaking Device:
Cloaking technology was first encountered by Humanity when the NX-01 begun its mission in 2151.
Might the kind of cloaking technology encountered by the NX-01 have been so much more sophisticated than anything humans had by then developed that our indigenous efforts were tossed out the window? Given the rate of development of real-world cloaking technology, it seems things would be pretty far along in the ST universe in this regard by 2151 or so.

Of course, this might be just another real-word / ST-universe disconnect.

Whatever the case, I'd be interested to gain your insights on this.

Thanks.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Teaos »

That would have been a cool plot device. The NX is fitted with the most advanced cloak humans have... which everyone they encounter can see right through.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Platonian »

Teaos wrote:That would have been a cool plot device. The NX is fitted with the most advanced cloak humans have... which everyone they encounter can see right through.
:)
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Graham Kennedy »

There's nothing to say that this kind of thing isn't happening. Notice that in Tomorrow is Yesterday the ship's nav deflectors were enough to prevent it being detected on any radar Earth had in the 1960s. In Future's End Voyager could avoid 1990s radar by a simple shield modulation.

It would be perfectly reasonable to suppose that the NX design was very stealthy by the standards of the day, such that a merchant ship would have great trouble spotting or targeting it. Or that the Constitution would likewise be very hard for an NX to see on sensors, whilst the Connie would see an NX from a long ways off.

What they didn't have was the particular "cloak" which functioned by bending light around the ship to make it actually invisible to the naked eye. But hell, nobody in the 22nd century had that until Berman and Braga mucked up the continuity.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Teaos »

I wonder what the wording of that treaty is, because cloak could be taken very narrowly or very broadly.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Platonian »

Thanks to you both, Graham & Teaos. As always, good observations.

Graham, your comments about stealth vs. cloaking technology are spot on. I should think that active and passive electronic countermeasure systems (ECM)
(low observable [LO]/stealth technology being a form of passive ECM technology) would have been as standard a part of a front-line military spacecraft's systems as, say, communications. As such, they would not be a subject of special attention.

Cloaking technology as we are describing it would, on the other hand, represent a sea-change in ECM and therefore be worthy of special note. That such an advancement in ECM is not noted for Star Fleet is what led me to start this discussion. I can only conclude that efforts towards this goal yielded unsatisfactory results (maybe the scenario you proposed, Teaos). Perhaps the real-life issue of not being able to cloak moving objects ("it could be used to hide large, stationary objects but probably not moving objects," from the original article) was the problem.

I would also love to see the wording of the Treaty of Algeron. Is there a canon (or even reasonable non-canon) source?
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Coalition »

Graham Kennedy wrote:There's nothing to say that this kind of thing isn't happening. Notice that in Tomorrow is Yesterday the ship's nav deflectors were enough to prevent it being detected on any radar Earth had in the 1960s. In Future's End Voyager could avoid 1990s radar by a simple shield modulation.

It would be perfectly reasonable to suppose that the NX design was very stealthy by the standards of the day, such that a merchant ship would have great trouble spotting or targeting it. Or that the Constitution would likewise be very hard for an NX to see on sensors, whilst the Connie would see an NX from a long ways off.

What they didn't have was the particular "cloak" which functioned by bending light around the ship to make it actually invisible to the naked eye. But hell, nobody in the 22nd century had that until Berman and Braga mucked up the continuity.
Tomorrow is Yesterday - TOS starship (and science) vs 1960s technology.
Future's End - TNG Voyager vs 1990's technology.

I'd argue that the 2-4 centuries of tech advancement did more to protect vs local radar instead of the specific technology. As to NX-01 being stealthy vs civilian ships, that is the inherent difference between civilian and military ships. The NX would use its far better sensors and any passive signature stealthing to track the cargo ship, while the cargo ship would use its basic sensors to avoid hitting anything in their path, and track stuff that is very nearby.

But having a cloak that is worthless vs other races would be a nice idea, unfortunately, I'd expect the Vulcans to point out each cloak ship using their sensors. "Yes, you are trying to develop a cloaked ship. However the sensors we are using to track it are fairly common. You really should focus on building a more reliable ship, rather than trying to go for poor stealth attempts."

Of course, dropping attempts to make cloaking vessels means that Starfleet can focus more of its efforts on science and sensor technology, and its ship hulls don't have to include cloak capability as a compromise. This makes them a bit tougher than a cloak-capable hull, and lets Starfleet handle slightly bigger opponents than others would expect.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

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Coalition wrote:But having a cloak that is worthless vs other races would be a nice idea, unfortunately, I'd expect the Vulcans to point out each cloak ship using their sensors. "Yes, you are trying to develop a cloaked ship. However the sensors we are using to track it are fairly common. You really should focus on building a more reliable ship, rather than trying to go for poor stealth attempts."

Of course, dropping attempts to make cloaking vessels means that Starfleet can focus more of its efforts on science and sensor technology, and its ship hulls don't have to include cloak capability as a compromise. This makes them a bit tougher than a cloak-capable hull, and lets Starfleet handle slightly bigger opponents than others would expect.
This is a very reasonable scenario to explain why indigenous human cloaking technology development in the ST universe might have been shelved -- for the time being, at least.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Coalition »

Platonian wrote:
Coalition wrote:But having a cloak that is worthless vs other races would be a nice idea, unfortunately, I'd expect the Vulcans to point out each cloak ship using their sensors. "Yes, you are trying to develop a cloaked ship. However the sensors we are using to track it are fairly common. You really should focus on building a more reliable ship, rather than trying to go for poor stealth attempts."

Of course, dropping attempts to make cloaking vessels means that Starfleet can focus more of its efforts on science and sensor technology, and its ship hulls don't have to include cloak capability as a compromise. This makes them a bit tougher than a cloak-capable hull, and lets Starfleet handle slightly bigger opponents than others would expect.
This is a very reasonable scenario to explain why indigenous human cloaking technology development in the ST universe might have been shelved -- for the time being, at least.
It would also be a good way for humanity to have fooled the Romulans. The Treaty of Algeron states that the Federation shall not perform research or development into cloaks. But it is a distraction, as the Federation is never conducting that research. The Romulans assumed we were and made sure to get that part into the treaty, and the Federation made the Romulans give up something that was actually valuable.

Result - Romulans have a strategic limitation thanks to the Treaty, plus their ships have to compromise by making them compatible with cloaking technology. The Federation doesn't.

Now we just need a reason for the Romulans to think the Federation had cloaked vessels. One idea would be that the Federation used the various member races to look at the Romulan defenses from all sort of psychological angles, and figure out where the cloaked bases are based on that. The Romulans see Federation ships dropping out of warp near a cloaked base, and assume that a cloaked spy ship has been sitting nearby the entire time spying on ship movement (that is what they would do).
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by McAvoy »

It makes perfect sense for a war between detection and sensors to be going on in Trek. Sensors being powerful enough or advanced enough to see through countermeasures and anti detection equipment being able to prevent detection. The cloak would be the ultimate version of this with various powers trying to get the upper hand.

The NX class no doubt has the best Earth has to offer in these respects and probably not enough.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

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McAvoy wrote:It makes perfect sense for a war between detection and sensors to be going on in Trek. Sensors being powerful enough or advanced enough to see through countermeasures and anti detection equipment being able to prevent detection. The cloak would be the ultimate version of this with various powers trying to get the upper hand.
Yes, this seems to have been a recurring theme in Trek: the exchange of cloaking technology for vessel technology by the Romulans and Klingons; the Federation's "acquisition" of cloaking technology in "The Enterprise Incident"; the phase cloak device in "The Pegasus."
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by Teaos »

If cloaking is defined as the bending of light, the Federation "cloak" that phases out and allows light through it would be fine.
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

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Teaos wrote:If cloaking is defined as the bending of light, the Federation "cloak" that phases out and allows light through it would be fine.
This would have been a great defense! :)
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Re: Advances in cloaking technology: In the ST universe?

Post by McAvoy »

Platonian wrote:
McAvoy wrote:It makes perfect sense for a war between detection and sensors to be going on in Trek. Sensors being powerful enough or advanced enough to see through countermeasures and anti detection equipment being able to prevent detection. The cloak would be the ultimate version of this with various powers trying to get the upper hand.
Yes, this seems to have been a recurring theme in Trek: the exchange of cloaking technology for vessel technology by the Romulans and Klingons; the Federation's "acquisition" of cloaking technology in "The Enterprise Incident"; the phase cloak device in "The Pegasus."

Naturally. It's going to be a battle between who can who detect who first. With the Federation basically shooting itself in tthe foot by not having a cloak it will only be logical for them to focus on detecting cloaked ships. Even more so.

Also I think we have forgotten that ships can block scans or at least scatter them. Even we have episodes where ships or objects are not well defined until the ship gets closer.
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