Cloaking Device

[T-WAR]

I have to Q how do they work and what is making the crew inside the ship be able to see the equiment in side the ship (why dosent the inside of the ship also cloak along with the out side of the ship.) if any 1 can tell me there ildeals.

[syd2002]

I dont know. It just goes that way.

[Tremiles]

They work by bending light around the outside of the ship.

[Oompsty]

I would just like to say there are several things wrong with the tech of a cloak...

The Romulan cloaking device

The Romulan cloaking device has been seen repeatedly from TOS through to the current time. It seems to be based on stealth concepts since all cloaked starships must adopt "silent running" tactics to keep their emissions from revealing their location. Although some Federation cultists claim that it functions by warping space to such an extent that light passes around the ship in the same manner as our own cloaking devices, this is obviously not true for the following reasons:

A woman was able to walk up and actually touch a cloaked vessel in ST4 without any ill effects, which would have been impossible if the vessel were surrounded with a massive gravitic spatial distortion.

The interior of a cloaked ship can be seen through an open hatch (again, in ST4). Again, if the ship were surrounded by a massive spatial distortion field, then nothing would be visible through the hatch even if it were open.

They can still detect EM radiation and other forms of sensor data. If the cloak is a massive spatial distortion, it will indiscriminately prevent all incoming EM radiation (regardless of frequency) from striking the vessel. If it doesn't strike the vessel, the vessel's sensors will never see it and the ship will be blind. However, they can still see when cloaked, so the cloak obviously allows visible light in (and probably, everything else as well). This strongly suggests that the Romulan cloaking effect is based on a form of simulated transparency rather than a massive gravitic field.

The ship is unshielded when its cloak is active. This means that energy weapons and torpedoes will strike the vessel unabated. If the cloak employed a massive spatial distortion, it would deflect weapons away as effectively as any shield.

[Robin]

if you explanation is that long it has to be right

[T-WAR]

thats a nice explanation of the cloaking device but what i still dont get is why the inside of the ship dosent cloak 2. and how dos it prevent heat from coming off of the ship?

[Vortex]

this site explains all.
www.ditl.org

[Captain Matt UssVoyager]

The inside is cloaked and so is every body in in so thats wh they can see it if the people were not cloaked and the sip was then they would not sthe the computer conseals.

[Oompsty]

[Dax Orien]

Maybe they have special paint that they used on the inside of the ship.......

[Zeke Zabertini]

THE INSIDE ISN'T CLOAKED!!!

[Los]

Ah, but they're subject to the matter change.

Aren't they???



In the episode where Geordi and Ro were phased out, they could walk through walls and stuff. So one would have to assume that if you were cloaked, then all the matter in the cloaking field would be cloaked and 'phased'. Thus you have the Pegasus in the asteroid. If the interior wasn't cloaked with the rest of the ship, the interior would hit the exterior of the alien ship, if you can think on that level.

Its weird I think.

[Dax Orien]

........ I wonder if they got the paint at montgomery wards....

[Zeke Zabertini]

No, no, no... That's a PHASED cloak. It's different than conventional cloak. Phased cloak actually pushes the cloaked object slightly out-of-phase with the space around it. Regular cloak just bends light and scanner waves.

[T-WAR]

lol, thx i under stand it a little better, but i still dont get it

[Los]

so if I cloak myself with conventional cloaking, then I can still sleep with my girlfriend and she'll know I'm there, even though she can't see me?

[Zeke Zabertini]

Huh?

[excel55]

Here's why: magic.

[voyagerlr]

the cloaking projectors are activated my modules outside of the ships!!!

therefore hiding them or taking them out of phase!! rendering them unseeable but the contents and crew of the ship are in phase with each other thus they can see each other ok.

[Hyper]

I was going to reply to this, but will leave it until tomorrow, its past 5am here in UK and i'm tired!

[Captain.Dan]

Here is info :

The cloaking device was first developed by the Romulan Empire in the 2260s. Invisibility had long been possible - the selective bending of light around a vessel would render it invisible to whatever frequency range was selected. However, the power cost was so enormous that such a device was not considered to be practical.
In 2266 the Enterprise encountered a Romulan vessel which carried the first known practical cloaking device. The ship was able to cloak itself from sight at will, and although it is was still visible to motion sensors these were not accurate enough for more than a general location - certainly not accurate enough for a firing solution. Although the cloak was quite effective, it did have its drawbacks. The power drain was so great that the Romulan vessel was unable to use its own scanners effectively and could not fire any weapons. The vessel also had relatively limited range due to the high fuel consumption.

The Romulans apparently traded cloaking technology to the Klingons in exchange for warships. Certainly the Romulans began operating Klingon-designed vessels in the 2268, while the Klingons were known to employ cloaking technology at least as early as 2285. The Klingons made one major innovation in cloaking technology in 2293, when they produced a Bird of Prey capable of firing torpedoes whilst cloaked. The prototype vessel battled the USS Enterprise and USS Excelsior in orbit of Khittomer; despite emitting large amounts of neutron radiation the weapon was highly effective, but the Enterprise crew realized that the Bird of Prey could be tracked by following the plasma exhaust emitted by its engines and modified a photon torpedo to follow this trail. The development was so effective that the Klingon development was rendered next to useless, and was never again an effective combatant.

In 2311 the Federation signed the Treaty of Algeron, which reaffirmed the Romulan Neutral Zone and forbade the Federation from developing or deploying any cloaking technology.

Perhaps the most impressive example of cloaking technology was observed in 2364, when the supposedly mythical planet of Aldea was discovered by the Enterprise-D. The planet had been hidden for centuries behind a complicated light refracting mechanism which bent light around it in a similar manner to the Romulan cloaking device.

The Minosians were also known to employ cloaking technology as part of their Echo Papa 607 weapons system. The Enterprise-D was forced to battle a cloaked drone weapon in orbit of the planet; it overcame the cloaking device by luring the drone into the atmosphere where the turbulence made it visible.

Later in the same year the Romulan Warbird was encountered for the first time when the Enterprise-D encountered one at the Neutral Zone. It was initially believed that the Enterprise sensor systems could detect the Warbird through its cloak, but it quickly became apparent that the Romulans had in fact deliberately allowed themselves to be detected in order to determine the Federation's intentions towards them.

Subsequent encounters revealed that the improved cloaking device still suffered from limitations. The Romulan vessels remain unable to fire whilst cloaked, whilst advanced in Federation sensor technology have made its invisibility less than assured. Subspace listening posts and gravitic sensors are both a worry for Romulan commanders, and the Federation has deployed large numbers of these along its borders. Perhaps the most effective development was the Tachyon detection grid; created by Enterprise-D personnel in 2368, the system involves a network of vessels which send tachyon beams towards one another across a large area of space. Even a cloaked vessel will disturb one of these beams when crossing it, hence rendering it detectable.

In 2369 the Federation gained significant intelligence on the Warbird when a Starfleet officer masqueraded as a Romulan for a short time. She confirmed that the ship must keep a careful watch over its own electromagnetic missions whilst cloaked, and that the radiative emissions of the warp engines must be precisely balanced by means of nullifier cores. Even a small misalignment in one of these cores creates a polarized magnetic disturbance whenever the ship is in motion, a disturbance which can be detected by a Federation vessel.

Ironically, perhaps the greatest single advance in cloaking technology was made by the Federation. In 2358 the Starship Pegasus was believed destroyed after a mutiny by the crew. However, in 2370 Starfleet discovered that the Pegasus was still largely intact. Admiral Pressman, Captain of the ship at the time of its loss, attempted to recover some technology from the vessel using the Enterprise-D. It transpired that certain Federation officers had been illegally developing a Phase Cloak, a device which could change the structure of matter in order render it both invisible and able to pass through normal matter. A vessel equipped with such a device could hide within a planet or a star, completely immune from conventional attack. The crew had been so fearful of what they considered to be a dangerous device that they had mutinied rather than continue to operate it.

In 2368 the Enterprise assisted a Romulan vessel in distress, and discovered that this vessel had also been attempting to test a phase cloak. The results had been disastrous, causing an accident that would have completely destroyed the ship if not for the assistance of the Starfleet vessel. There has since been little sign of progress with this technology.

In 2371 the Romulans agreed to allow Starfleet the use of a single cloaking device on board the USS Defiant in order to facilitate that ships missions against the Dominion, in return for all of Starfleet's information about the organization. Although the original agreement was to only use the cloak in the Gamma Quadrant, Captain Sisko subsequently violated this aspect of the agreement on many occasions.

[PrankishSmart]

[Hitomi]