I've been doing some re-reading of Masao's Starfleet Museum articles as part of a project I'm working on. And there's one strange inconsistency that's bugged me...
In "Balance of Terror," it seemed that the Romulan Bird-of-Prey's only (or at least primary and only truly effective) weapon was the plasma cannon, which required "enormous" amounts of power. Thus, it makes sense that a weapon requiring such power couldn't be fired while the ship is cloaked.
However, later stories seemed to take it as a hard and fast rule that any cloaked ship is incapable of firing any weapon until the cloak is deactivated. This, of course, became the major plot point in Star Trek VI, and to a lesser extent Nemesis as well.
I wonder, though... just how much power does it really take to push a photon torpedo out a tube? Can that really require so much power that it's either power to the cloak, or power to the torpedo tubes? I could understand phasers and disruptors, since those are a more continuous drain of firepower. But projectile weapons like torpedoes (or missiles, for Masao's ships) seem to be a rather strange limitation.
Can anyone think of a reasonable excuse for why standard photon torpedoes couldn't be fired at all while the cloak is engaged? I got nothin'.
Posted by Neutrino 123 (Member # 1327) on :
I thought it was an intrinsic property of cloaked things that they couldn't fire or have shields. Otherwise, one could simply gain spare power by replacing the power plant. Probably the cloaking field cannot properly interact with the other necessary fields or phases associated with shields and weapons.
If it was explicitly stated that the weapon required lots of power and prevented cloaking, it may have just been a conjecture, since cloaking was very new then.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Considering episodes in which a cloaked vessel jumped to warp, I find it unreasonable that it could not fire its weaponry since I would think jumping to warp and maintaining warp speeds would take alot more energy than firing weapons. But then again, I might be wrong.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Perhaps the cloaking system interferes with targeting sensors? It's been a while since I saw any episodes w/cloaked ships in so I don't know if this has been ruled out. It may be that it's possible to track the approximate location of an enemy vessel, but not with sufficient accuracy to guarentee a hit, in which case firing would only give away the presence of a cloaked vessel.
Even if that was the case though, it's hardly an insurmountable problem (multiple torpedo launchers, stealthed remote sensing platforms, etc.)
Posted by Mirror-Amasov (Member # 742) on :
Could have something to do with the cloaking field. The torpedo could "interrupt" it and make the ship visible. General Chang's BoP's nose was visible for a moment when he fired a torpedo, so maybe the Klingons somehow managed to reduce the cloaking field disturbance to a point where it is nealy impossible to detect that disturbance.
Interestingly, no one really seemed to bother that the Scimitar could fire while cloaked.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, the Scimitar was already a ridiculous �bership anyway. Anyone else remember one member's sig line from a few years ago? It said something to the effect of "Shinzon was the ultimate fanboy: he grew up in a cave, has zero sex life, and built a starship with fifty torpedo launchers."
Amasov, I like your idea of weapons fire disrupting the cloak. That might be a reasonable explanation... although there may have been a brief tactical advantage (assuming all the R&D didn't go up in flames with Chang's ship), as Federation (and everyone else's) sensors got faster with the response time, the enemy could more quickly pinpoint the source of the fire and nail them.
That could also explain why shields would be unavailable while cloaked... they'd also interfere with the cloaking field... or maybe vice versa. Remember that silly scene from Generations, when the Klingon Kleavage Klan went ka-boom? (Again, there's also the exception of the �bership Scimitar.)
Therefore, with the combination of those two factors, it generally made sense for any commander to want to decloak and raise shields before opening fire.
So I guess the rule Scotty quoted would be, in full, "A Bird-of-Prey can't fire while cloaked and remain effectively cloaked after firing." (Since the Enterprise obviously didn't detect Chang's ship after it fired.)
I thought of an interesting ambush tactic to get around those limitations, though... if you've got a bunch of ships, say five or more, each one could remain cloaked, fire a single salvo, and break off in evasive maneuvers before firing again. The number of ships would compensate for each one's low rate of fire due to the frequent maneuvers required. Of course, it would only be useful in limited situations.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
But the Scimitar was long after Changs BoP. Also, it seemed to be able to fire with out giving away it's position, which seemed to be more of a worry to the E-E's crew.
Aside: why did they not just use a series of wide phaser beams to sweep the area around them, instead of wasting all of their torpedoes (another reason i've only seen this dumb movie once).
All in all, I think that Mirror-Asamov is right - you don't want to give the game away by telling everybody where you are if you cant use your shields. I suppose that the field does not prevent firing, but the use of a field that distorts space to such a degree would preculde the use of shilds. Of course that previous statement is kind of contradicted by the fact we know a cloaked ship can travel at warp (Erm, that DS9 episode with the cloaked Cardassian / Romualan fleet. Either 'The Die is Cast' or the one before. I forget. It was one of the bes t though.) Enough for now - I needs me sleep. Nighty night.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
In Nemesis doesn't Troi use her psychic abilities along with the ship's sensors to find the Scimitar. It makes you wonder why this technique was never used before since it would pretty much negate all cloaking technology unless there's a way to hide brainwaves.
Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
I think it's an early technical limitation that was unnecessarily continued. As a rather weak analogy, It's sort of like early biplanes not being able to fire forward because the bullets would hit the propellars, then having all planes not be able to fire forward for the rest of time!
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
My take on it has followed the "if you're cloaked, you don't have sields" approach. If you can get a lock on that ship while it's cloaked but unshielded -- blammo! That's my rationalisation for the continued restriction in later eras.
--Jonah
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Ginger: Actually, the way they handled the firing in Nemesis was blind aiming of the phasers, and once they hit the Scimitar, they'd launch torpedoes to hit it with the heavy firepower. It was actually quite sensible. But as Shinzon said, they were still "too slow"-- not all the torpedoes hit the target.
There are plenty of precedents for cloaked ships traveling at warp. The Cardassian/Romulan fleet is one, but we saw the Defiant doing it many, many times. Heck, we even saw it in "Face of the Enemy," with the warbird that Troi was on. Come to think of it, they cloaked the Enterprise while it was making its Warp 9 getaway in "The Enterprise Incident" way back in TOS.
Therefore, I conclude that it's not directly a question of how much power a ship has available that determines when the cloak can be used. So we're back to Amasov's suggestion, that it's the shields and/or weapons that disperse or disrupt the cloaking field and make it unusable.
Of course, this is all just so much rationalization. I was thinking exactly the same thing as Masao. Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: In Nemesis doesn't Troi use her psychic abilities along with the ship's sensors to find the Scimitar. It makes you wonder why this technique was never used before since it would pretty much negate all cloaking technology unless there's a way to hide brainwaves.
Because TNG is the absolute worst representation of telepathy/empathy in all of sci-fi. Might as well call it magic.
Consider- Troi can sense the emotions (and her mom the thoughts!) of a person tens of billions of kilometers away just by looking at visual representation of said person on a viewscreen?! Assinine. The less we see of that crap, the better.
As to the cloak, it's possible that it's the shields that are easily detectable and so pointless while cloaked...also consider what the 'ol "weapons lock" really is- an enemy ship hitting your vessel with some form of targeting beam just prior to attacking- also easily detectable, and a ship's computer (or Vulcan) should be able to instantly plot where the beam is coming from.
What should work, but is almost never seen, is cloaked mines. A Romulan ship should be deploying cloaked mines in a ship's path...possibly even sensor-jamming bouys that would allow the cloaked ship to de-cloak and fire with impunity.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: What should work, but is almost never seen, is cloaked mines.
You mean, apart from in the multiple DS9 and ENT episodes that revolved around exactly this idea?
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
I think we're just making things unnecessarily hard on ourselves. Why consider the "no firing when cloaked" a solid rule, when basically every time the rule is quoted, it's called an optimistic guess (ST3, ST6, "Contagion")?
I don't think there's any insurmountable technological problem with firing when cloaked. Rather, the issue is doctrinal: a cloak is meant for hiding, and firing is the antithesis of hiding. Shielding and running are not. The Feds, inexperienced in cloak warfare, may attempt to assign technological reasons to the fact that the enemy follows a doctrine of stealth. They are then fooled into thinking they could be right whenever the enemy does refrain from firing while cloaked, or does uncloak when engaging in battle.
That said, cloaks no doubt are degraded somewhat when one fires high energy things through them. Sometimes this doesn't really matter. Other times, perfect stealth is vital, and partial cloak really is no better than no cloak at all (as the Romulans found out in "BoT" already). It depends on the exact technology, and on the mood of the captain that day.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:What should work, but is almost never seen, is cloaked mines.
Well of course they're never seen, they're CLOAKED. Duh.
Seriously though, I imagine cloaked mines are as much a danger the deplyer as the deployee (a new word is born! huzzar!) as such not the sort of thing you want to dump in your wake if you have a mind to turn around anytime soon.
Posted by HerbShrump (Member # 1230) on :
TPTB should have left the Bird of Prey and Kruge as Romulan villians (and equipment) as originally envisioned for Star Trek III. Klingons and cloaking device don't mix. Klingons are warriors, they don't go sneaking around cloaked. It's cowardly, all this hiding.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim:
quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: What should work, but is almost never seen, is cloaked mines.
You mean, apart from in the multiple DS9 and ENT episodes that revolved around exactly this idea?
Two instances among hundreds of stories. Besides, neither involved ships deploying mines in combat with other ships- mines were used exclusivly to defend stationary positions (in orbit of said positions at any rate). The closest we ever saw was Janeway leaving torpedos behind as mines against the Krenim- it shows it can work: add in some guideance systems (like the DS9 mines) and viola!
quote:Originally posted by Reverend:
quote:What should work, but is almost never seen, is cloaked mines.
Well of course they're never seen, they're CLOAKED. Duh.
Seriously though, I imagine cloaked mines are as much a danger the deplyer as the deployee (a new word is born! huzzar!) as such not the sort of thing you want to dump in your wake if you have a mind to turn around anytime soon.
Well, that leads to the old "can Romulans detect their own cloaks" debate. Considering their power structure, I'd think they must be able to- to avoid the enivetible coup attempt.
On the other tenticle, we also never saw Starfleet wide up and use toropedo as depth charges (somehow Kirk manages this with phasers in BoT, but that's bad effects).
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Yeah depth charges would be good weapons, but then it would lead to many slow battles since neither side would be willing to attack without knowing for sure that there are mines.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
...But if they knew for sure that there are mines, they would go to battle at full speed?
I don't think we have ever seen good evidence of space mines that weren't cloaked. It's not as if those in DS9 "Sons of Mogh" were detectable by sensors or anything, I mean.
But mines just aren't the thing to be used in "hot" combat. If it's a straightforward pursuit thing, then there's no advantage in the forward ship dropping camouflaged ordnance when visible things would have a far greater pursuit-discouraging effect. If it's complex maneuvering, then a camouflaged explosive is useless, and a camouflaged device that launches a homing weapon (a "Captor mine", which I think all Star Trek mines are anyway) is unnecessary overkill when a visible homing weapon would be just as good or even better.
Mines are area denial and ambush weapons, to be used when the deploying party is NOT present at the battlefield. If both sides decide to attend the battle, then weapons that have some but not all of the qualities of mines are preferable.
As for depth charges, the dramatic problem with "Balance of Terror" was that Kirk couldn't have any dedicated anti-invisibility weapons aboard because he wasn't supposed to know about the existence of invisibility technology. The regular weapons had to serve.
Agreed that torpedoes would have better matched the visuals we got - but the ideal solution IMHO would have been for Kirk to fire phasers without any silly "proximity blast setting". He should simply have ordered the beam swept in a "search pattern", so that it would occasionally lick the Romulan ship and cause all that plaster to fall. Too bad the neo-TOS couldn't alter both the visuals and the dialogue.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:I don't think we have ever seen good evidence of space mines that weren't cloaked. It's not as if those in DS9 "Sons of Mogh" were detectable by sensors or anything, I mean.
Oh, I dont know about that. Consider all the regions of space where "sensors will be useless" (or at least minimalized). If I were the paranoid type (like the Klingons/Romulans/Tholians likely are), I'd be mining any nebula capable of hiding a ship.
Sure, mining a whole nebula is impossible, but a little goes a long way with deterrent!
I'd have had the Romulans mine key areas of their side of the Neutral Zone- for decades. Maybe the Preator's power lies with knowing where all the cloaked stuff is at any given time.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
quote:Well, that leads to the old "can Romulans detect their own cloaks" debate. Considering their power structure, I'd think they must be able to- to avoid the enivetible coup attempt.
Wasn't there an episode of DS9 where the klingons were mining the border of Cardassian space? I sea, to recall it being a specific plot point that they indeed couldn't detect their own mines as a Vor'Cha damn near blew itself in two after blundering into one.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
But by the same token, there was that scene in "Way of the Warrior" where that gigantic Klingon fleet decloaked around DS9. There was no way they could have maintained that formation without knowing where their ships were.
Posted by Chris (Member # 71) on :
Maybe it was specifically regarding the mines that they made them so they couldn't be detected...?
Posted by Neutrino 123 (Member # 1327) on :
It wouldn't have been difficult for the ships to have prearranged attack positions set up prior to cloaking and decloaking. Cloaked ships can receive messages as well, so that is another possibility. They could even have been following a standard attack pattern that is a function of target size and fleet size, though that doesn't sound very Klingon-ish...
Posted by OnToMars (Member # 621) on :
Or ships have encoded transponders that allow discreet information to be transmitted between friendlies, but not to hostile ships - which might be a piece of equipment lacking in your run of the mill mine (though I wouldn't see why).
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I figure a mine would not have transponder "friendly ship" capability- after all, a mine could be captured (like that one on Enterprise was inadvertedly) and then all that transponder intel would be in enemy hands.
Also, it's possible that diffrent houses use mines to protect their discreet holding from rivals.
A good question is "Can the Klingons/Romulans detect each other's cloaks?" Probabaly not (as a general rule) but I'd imagine that there's a tech-race between the two empires to always get one step ahead.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
There's a dozen ways that a fleet of cloaked ships can stay in a pre-arranged formation without too much trouble, especially when these things are most likely auto pilot most of the time. It's all down to syncronisation and a little forethought.
The only problem I can see with cloaked mines is preventing them from detonating each other. The solution to that could range from short range "pings" that let all the mines around them know to keep away, then there's the slightly tricky method of getting them to hold a specific point in space reletive to a pre-determinind point of reference, be it local or stellar. On the other hand you could have them networked via a web of narrow beam transmissions that keep them at a fixed distance from each other, a web which could double as a triggering mechanisum if a ship interrupts the beam.
As for Romulans & klingons being able to see each other, clearly they can't as has been demonstraited on a few occasions. The one that jumps to mind is from early TNG when the E-D was facing of againt a Warbird when a bunch of Klingon cruisers decloaked, surprising the Romulans.
I think the bottom line is that if any one with a cloak can see through everyone else's then one captured ship means the cloak is rendered useless, or worse a liability.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
One could either assume that cloaks have certain "frequencies" of vulnerability and that Klingons can choose to tune Klingon cloaks so that fellow Klingons can (partially) see through them; or then assume that nobody can see through properly working cloaks, not even Klingons through Klingon ones.
And actually, those could be one and the same thing; a cloak that leaks out on a certain frequency isn't working properly...
But the accident in "Sons of Mogh" where the Klingons mined themselves wasn't because they ran into one of their own mines. It was (as far as the dialogue tells) because a mine being laid detonated close to the laying ship - a classic accident in the real world, either because the mine is faulty in general or because its "safety timer" (which keeps it inert for a certain time or distance beyond deployment) runs fast.
So I'd say a cloak is a cloak: you don't see through it even if it is a "friendly" cloak. Unless you deliberately degrade it in a specific and hopefully super-secret way that the enemy still might find out.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Considering that cloaks have been shown on rare occasion to be "tune-able," my guess is that each military would have a system where they choose a specific frequency at random to be open for a masked transponder signal (that probably would be designed to blend in with background radiation). This wouldn't even have to be fleet-wide, just something used by specific task forces or for specific locations, depending on the circumstances. And since it's not hard-wired in, then it's something that could constantly be changed when circumstances required.
Posted by Mirror-Amasov (Member # 742) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mars Needs Women: In Nemesis doesn't Troi use her psychic abilities along with the ship's sensors to find the Scimitar. It makes you wonder why this technique was never used before since it would pretty much negate all cloaking technology unless there's a way to hide brainwaves.
At that point she already had some mental connection to the Viceroy through the "mindrape". Since he was the second in command, he probably knew about Scimitar's course and speed. I have no clue why that rape should have increased her empathic abilities to a telepathic level, but you could ask John Logan.
quote:Originally posted by Peregrinus: My take on it has followed the "if you're cloaked, you don't have sields" approach. If you can get a lock on that ship while it's cloaked but unshielded -- blammo! That's my rationalisation for the continued restriction in later eras.
What about ablative armor? Quite effective, even if shields are down. Besides, starships during the Dominion War didn't have shields anyway. Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I think ships in the Dominion War did have shields, they just weren't very effective. Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
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