I've always liked the ban on cloaking development. From an in-universe perspective, it paints the Federation as the good guys, willing to put themselves in a more disadvantageous position in pursuit of peace. From a narrative perspective, it makes the universe feel bigger than not everyone has exactly the same stuff. It also helps increase the tension since they're the flagship of the Federation, literally the best most powerful ship and it's boring to stomp in every engagement.

@Numba003

7 ай бұрын

Agreed! Thank you. God bless! ✝️ :)

I'm a science teacher, and I think you delivered the physics part of this script pretty well. Nice video!

@OrangeRiver

7 ай бұрын

Thank you!

The biggest problem with cloaking devices is that, if they bend all light around an object, nothing in/on the object can see anything outside the cloaking field. Nobody can see you, but you can’t see anybody

@DarrinKemp-lr1cz

7 ай бұрын

Ah, the invisible man paradox. Almost no one considers this. Hats off to you.

@misterlau5246

7 ай бұрын

It should be detectable in other wavelengths, so the sensors have to do the same. And there's no real way to get rid of all the EM spectrum that a body emits specially Heat... Neither block it

@Lonovavir

7 ай бұрын

This shows up in The Expanse where at one point the Rocinate is almost detected by a Martian destroyer because Alex can't use active scanners.

@sergioaccioly5219

7 ай бұрын

@@DarrinKemp-lr1cz Three possibvle solutions: 1) periscopes; 2) syncing sensors and cloak so that for a few microseconds every second the ship is visible and the sensors can mantain a decent situational awareness; 3) a few (possibly changing) sensor frequencies that the cloak won't affect (again, it's necessary that sensors and cloak act in sync)

@4891MR

7 ай бұрын

I remember that one time Marvel Comics had a contest for their readers to invent an explanation as it pertains to the Invisible Woman. Multiple different possible solutions were submitted. I just forget what they were.

The light bending method seems the most likely, and it fits with the Romulan ships using a singularity as a power source for warp.

The ban on cloaking devices should be lifted if the Federation signed a treaty in "good faith" and the Romulans keep trying to start a war every other tuesday then we have the same situation as the Apeasement in WW2. Especially since TNG showed us that the Federation could build a better cloaking device than both the Romulans and Klingons

@stevencoardvenice

7 ай бұрын

Not every geopolitical conflict is Adolph Hitler. There are at least 2000 years of western history upon which you can draw in assessing a situation, going back to Rome and beyond. Not just 1939. Around 100 million people died during world War 2, and entire generation of young men from England, France and germany was wiped out in ww1. Wars between great powers is to be avoided at all costs. Millions if not billions of people were lost in the Dominion War in Ds9. Until the romulans threaten a vital core interest of the federation, such as the safety of Earth of some other Homeworld in the federation, there is no reason to go to war with the romulans And if the AngloSphere had LOST to the Axis in ww2, you wouldn't be talking about appeasement. The fact that our countries' side won (due to enormous support from the soviets), is the only reason why we glorify the choice to wage war on Germany in ww2. If you're fight a war against another great power, then you've already lost. The point of the game is to become strong enough to DETER war, and to use diplomacy to resolve disputes over non-critical issues, like incursions into the neutral zone

@cpt_bill366

7 ай бұрын

That treaty was an example of strategic arms limitation in a cold war, not WW2 appeasement where we just let the other side annex territory. It was a perfect example of how we deescalate tensions in the real world. Gene wanted to show that you shouldn't just try to arms race your way to hegemony.

@stevencoardvenice

7 ай бұрын

@@cpt_bill366 and it WORKED. Despite the romulans endless provocations, the agreement kept the peace for hundreds of years

@stevencoardvenice

7 ай бұрын

@@cpt_bill366 Everything is "appeasement" to many of my American compatriots who've never experienced total war against a peer. The u.s. suffered no damage during ww2. They think war is a movie or a video game. Something that happens "somewhere else." Everryone went completely ape$hit on sep 11, when all we lost was 2 skyscrapers.

@mikenolan73

7 ай бұрын

​@@cpt_bill366I think the problem with the treaty is that it didn't feel like the Romulans made any significant concessions on their side. An arms limitation should involve *both* sides imposing limits on themselves. "Don't develop cloaking tech or we'll attack you" feels more like extortion than a treaty.

I can definitely understand why Roddenberry wanted cloaking banned for the Federation. He wanted to show how humanity could be better. Since his death, a lot of what he envisioned Trek to be has kinda fallen by the wayside.

@dernudel1615

7 ай бұрын

@@stevenstrain283 I mean, fair, but it seemed like the intent was, as insinuated in the video "we're the good guys, good guys don't sneak around, therefor, all the people who are sneaking around are bad guys and we can kill them with impunity. Because we're better."

@charlestaylor253

9 күн бұрын

​​@@dernudel1615 Then comes the Borg and the Dominion and you realize that 'we were better' doesn't look so good on a galactic civilization's tombstone...

"There is no stealth in space." -Isaac Arthur

Starfleet does have "cloaking' technology to some degree. Star Trek Insurrection showed Starfleet observing the Baku with suits with active camouflage, and time travel episodes often include discussions of how the ships can avoid detection by the technology of the time. (Although apparently there are no backyard astronomers around the time of First Contact, since all it took was a telescope then.) It's also likely that while the Federation doesn't have "tactical" cloaking devices, fleets in Starfleet probably have sensor countermeasures that would prevent fleet locations from being determined in wartime. For the Lost Era / TNG Federation, the lack of tactical cloaking technology was probably a strategic choice. Building fast ships with outstanding sensor capabilities that could detect cloaked ships was far more effective for a fleet that would be tasked with scientific duties during peacetime than building warships with a lot less capability to carry out tasks not related to stealth.

@ElOchentero

7 ай бұрын

Finally a fan that is not cryng because the Federation has no cloaking device

@bjorn00000

7 ай бұрын

@@stevenstrain283 There's very little evidence that major Klingon and Romulan ships were either general purpose or good at science. You're not taking the Neghvar or the Scimitar off for a month-long survey of gaseous anomalies.

@qdllc

7 ай бұрын

My take on the Baku is that the cloak tech was nowhere near as good as Romulan, but it was good enough to fool a less tech enchanted society. After all Data was attacked for discovering the cloaked ship…which was giving off emissions his tricorder detected.

@bjorn00000

7 ай бұрын

@@qdllc They specifically had detectors for those active camouflage suits though.

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, and on Baku we see "a bad Federation".

One of the things that gets lost in the shuffle of the Star Trek canon for those of us too young to have watched the TOS movies as they came out, was that the first appearance of the bird of prey in The Search for Spock (and then later carried over into The Voyage Home) was originally intended to be a stolen Romulan ship, hence the cloaking device. The later retcon in The Final Frontier and the Undiscovered Country that Klingons had these ships as part of their fleet, and Romulans didn't, meant Klingons retroactively had cloaking technology all along, despite it never quite fitting in with their honor-based warrior image. There's nothing honorable about your enemey not being able to see you until it's too late. Whereas it fits perfectly with the Romulan style of subterfuge and trickery. I wish they had kept it as a stolen Romulan ship in later canon, so that Kirk would have been flying a Romulan bird of prey, stolen from Kruge, stolen from Romulans, when they scared off the whaler in ST4. But I understand how, once the production crew had their cool new ship model, they wanted to use it in every movie, but didn't have any stories to tell about Romulans. But it bears remembering that that one ship model was used in every single Star Trek movie starting in Search for Spock right up to Generations.

@rohenthar8449

7 ай бұрын

In Star Trek Online it still counts as stolen, when Tiaru talks in this "Temporal" mission, that Klingons stole their stealth tech, and now Borg also stole it.

@kevinalexander5408

7 ай бұрын

The Enterprise incident TOS. Stolen Romulan Cloaking Device. Dude.

@charlestaylor253

9 күн бұрын

Nothing's more honorable than victory...

The music choice around 3:20 fits this scene so well. Not only did Metroid first release in 1986, but the Enterprise crew also is saving the animals.

Repeal the ban on cloaking devices! I love how DS9 got around it with the Defiant. Great video!

@allocater2

7 ай бұрын

I wish they had kept the Romulan Attaché

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

@@allocater2 That Romulan Attaché was cardassian spy anyway lol.

@charlestaylor253

9 күн бұрын

​@@tomasr. Yeah, but she was cute...😉

I’m with Venom Geek Media on this one; I think the Federation did outlaw the cloak AFTER the Treaty of Algeron but not before. They put advanced Federation cloaks into the Excelsior II’s (Enterprise B variants with widened secondary hulls). This then lead to the Tomed Incident (see Venom’s badass - AND I MEAN BADASS - account of this incident). After the near apocalyptic events that led to the deaths of so many Federation and Romulan citizens…. both sides entered into a negotiated peace leading to the outlawing of Federation cloaks. Makes 100% sense to me.

With a real cloaking device, anyways you can't really hide. Scanning all frequencies, it will cause some distortion. And it can't block IR. We are here at 4 Kelvin in space, and we are always a little hotter.

Thought experiment: you know that "mirrage" that happens when a layer of air close to the ground is much hotter than the air above it, causing a thermocline which, thanks to the differential optical index of hot and cold air, reflects light, making the layer of air reflect the sky, which human eyes usually then interpret as water where there is none? Well, what if you had a warship on the ocean and wanted to hide it visually from some observer, and you used one of those fancy microwave emitters which militarized police use as area-denial weapons on crowds by super-heating a target, and you aimed it at a point between your warship and the observer, superheating the air and creating a localized mirrage effect which meant when the observer looked in the direction of your ship all they saw was reflected sky, interpreted as more sea?

@stewartbugler6157

7 ай бұрын

I imagine it would have quite adverse effects to the crew of a ship cloaked in this way though

@MrARock001

7 ай бұрын

@@stewartbugler6157 I was envisioning there just being a hot, mirrored surface of air just tall enough to cover the shape of a ship on the horizon, located somewhere between the "cloaked" ship and the observer. In theory, nothing on the "cloaked" ship itself would be affected.

i always felt that cloaking was more a decent into subspace more like a submarine which would explain the power consumption and the inability to fire while cloaked

@canis2020

7 ай бұрын

That's actually super interesting. The only counter I can come up with off the top of my head is that the cloaked objects still interact with things in real space. Torpedoes and such

@AcornElectron

7 ай бұрын

Descent.

@Anacronian

7 ай бұрын

Sub-space... I see what you did there :p

@Tuning3434

7 ай бұрын

In Spacebattleship Yamato 2199 (possibly also in the OG series?) there is an enemy cloaked ship that is basically a submarine that travels in separate space time continuum instead of normal space time. They use a periscope to peak into normal space time in order to perform target acquisition.

@danielseelye6005

7 ай бұрын

The problem with that is Long Range Sensors. Those are designed to scan through subspace and focus on warp signatures, thus gathering real time data even when a handful of light-years away. If a cloak worked by a ship "descending" into subspace, it would still be detectable on the long range sensors, unless they were to go into one of the "infinite honeycombs" that even Federation sensors doesn't delve into. However, they would be increasing the chance of running into beings like the Solanae in "Schisms" if they did the cloaking as you're positing.

I think a practical reason for the Federation not using Cloaking devices is that it makes Starfleet Engineer's jobs easier. They need to keep track of engines, weapons and shields. Romulan and Klingon engineers have to add the cloaking device to that list. The simpler the job the better it's done.

I really love your take on realistic science within Trek; of course it is not a "hard" scifi show, but pretty close for its time and it's fun to speculate ❤❤

I could see some wild fiberoptic-LED camo cloak being a thing in the next 10 years. Great video as always.

@OrangeRiver

7 ай бұрын

Thanks beezelbuzzel!

My main issue with the cloak is, if you are bending lightly and frequencies used by sensors around your ship, none of that light or frequencies are reaching your ship, making you blind. If you ommit a certain frequency, allowing it to pass through your cloak to peak outside, a broad frequency scan would pick that up.

Well no one can see cloaking tech coming

As another commenter mentioned below, I personally enjoy not having federation cloaking devices, in general. It does make the Federation seem more trustworthy to not use them militarily. Thank you for another fun video trying to mesh real life science up with Trek. God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

AHHHHH! YEAAAAAAAH!!@ Finally!!! Once again reunited with my Friday Orange River video!!!

I've always thought universal cloaking devices were a bit off. I think different types of cloaks should exist for different types of sensors.

I love your little compilation of the imperfections and detection methods. One rational reason I can think of not to pursue the technology, and instead to invest in detection methods, is that all the older cloaks would be rendered obsolete once they are reliably detectable. Meanwhile, improvements to your detection methods usually yield other benefits besides. Constantly replacing your cloaks with the newest, once-again cloaking, models is a huge upkeep commitment. This is at least reflected in the fiction by many Klingon ships having old or unreliable cloaking devices, rather than the most cutting-edge ones. But the Romulan Empire doesn't seem to have any sub-par cloaks, really.

You know, one question I've always had about cloaking devices is - how does one cloaked ship avoid a collision with another cloaked ship?

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

The biggest danger of sneaking in the dark is that you bump into someone else who is also sneaking.

We already HAVE Clothing Devices !

Self-sealing stem-bolts. You got me there. Dayum. 😂

Happy Friday! Many thanks for this insightful and entertaining video! Really appreciate your research and contrasting against sci-fi.

I'm surprised you didn't go into the key fundamental flaw to invisibility. Blindness. If not all light bends around you, you're not invisible. If all light bends around you, no light reaches your eyes. The more invisible you are, the dimmer your vision, this also affects any radiation based sensors. Which is probably all of them. The more detectable radiation bends around the ship, the less makes it to the sensors. It's an inescapable tradeoff for invisibility. Trek doesn't mention it, obviously; But it's expected for real life invisibility technologies.

In the listing of various cloaking devices used on Federation ships throughout multiple series/seasons, there was also the future aspect/perspective in All Good Things… when the Enterprise herself had a cloaking device installed. This was interesting since Admiral Riker was in charge of that ship and he specifically called out his former commanding officer in the TNG episode where the cloaking technology was used on the USS Pegasus and which was a driving force in its mutiny by the crew. So the man who risked his career by exposing the illegal actions of Starfleet in the creation of a cloaking device went on to be in command of a Starfleet vessel, as an Admiral, with a cloaking device on board.

I enjoyed the.......spoonsered segment

I like this topic. Your videos are always very entertaining. To answer your question: In my opinion, stealth technology shouldn't be banned by Federation. Instead that, it should be used "responsible" (to hide your position to enemies, not to create ambush). I believe that in Fallout universe every stealth device work in a similar way (manipulation of light deflection or so).

in our games (like star fleet battles) we did just treat the cloak as a "super ECM" system.

Starfleet can't build a cloaking device, but can it build a stealth ship?

@LanMandragon1720

7 ай бұрын

Probably some loophole about the Baku ship not being primarily a weapon or somr such legalize. Governments do such things routinely that is to say doing things that follow the letter the kaw while shit**ng on said laws spirt.

I'm impressed with how deep you went into this subject!

I swear Tyler I swear I thought you were about to say " the first I'd like to take a moment to talk to you about your car's extended warranty" lol

I would think it goes back to the TOS days. The Federation represented NATO/League of Nations and was a melting pot of multiple races and cultures. The Klingons represented the Soviet Union and the Romulans represented China. During this time most of the public had no concept of stealth tech but did have a healthy fear and general understanding of radiation sickness. I find it very ironic that the first 2 true stealth aircraft(A-12 and SR-71) were built by the US. Gene Roddenberry lived to see the A-12 SR-71 F-117 B-2 F-22 and F=35 become partially declassified. The cloak was meant to give an aura of mystery and omnipresence to the Federations adversaries. I wonder if Gene found that the US pioneering advanced stealth tech to be a bit ironic?

I think it helps with Star Trek to accept that the world just has some fictionalized physics and thus materials and fields. You can kind of squint and recognize a progression from the real progress of science in history, but I rationalize my suspension of disbelief on many things by figuring there there's something about the subspace 'barrier' that kind of unlocks all kinds of stuff you just can't really detect until you can start playing with warp fields and maybe 'di-unobtainum ' elements and getting all the previously-inaccessible physics involved. Whatever it is, it means, for one, you don't need planet-destroying energies just to have a warp shuttle or to beam people somewhere, and kind of only need a passing tip of the hat to Einsteinian physics now and again. (Also might gel with why warp drive is that threshhold for first contact, cause once someone has something like that, they probably have a 'transtator' or other key invention and everything else is coming fast for them anyway. And why planets are more appealing than making a bunch of space habitats, cause gravity wells stop being a huge deal.)

@OllamhDrab

7 ай бұрын

(Also, replying to self as addendum: Also kind of explains the 'Fermi Paradox' of real history when there's all kinds of Vulcans and Andorians and maybe Centaurans up in our zone since we had radios: Everyone's using subspace radio and stuff by the time they pass maybe-brief tech adolescence. (And, you know, maybe the Andorians would be more inclined to say hi, but the Vulcans were all like, 'Nope, our sphere of non-influence.' )

Optic cloaking is awesome, but I always thought it was a bit amusing that people cared so much about rendering space ships invisible, given that space is immense and one is unlikely to spot a ship in the distant darkness... even without cloaking technology, indeed evading sensors is more valuable. I can see cloaking being more useful within the atmosphere of a planet, as we see in the movie Voyage Home, especially if used for reconnaisance, infiltration or more nefarious purposes. Very interesting analysis! Also to answer the question you presented, I think on principle I agree with banning the development of cloaking technology, the very existence of the tech prompts an arms race and much fear and paranoia amidst the peoples and nations of the galaxy, and in general I would be in favor of not investing in weapons of war, that said, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to play nice, and the one who plays nice in a land of people playing naughty ends up losing it all except their morals, so it is necessary to be at the very least up to date with the technology. On a lighter note, the technology can have plenty of non-military applications, such as observing animals and pre-warp civilizations, and I'm sure people would be able to come up with plenty of other creative uses for it.

Bonus points for the Super Metroid theme background music!

I get the suspicion that cloaking might be a bit overated when viewed in a battle, given both the tacheon grid that ships can form, and the various ways to overcome cloaking shown in the shows. Since both shielding and weapons are off while the cloak is active it appears more like a disadvantage, especially if used against enemies that can use sweeping attacks [like the phaser array]. I think it would be more useful outside of battle to strike at unprotected planets or space stationd

@OrangeRiver Let us know if you ever want some upscaled DS9/Voyager footage. It's mostly our whole shtick...

For an organization that doesn't need the use of cloaking devices, the federation sure knows how to improve in them.

I love that you used Metroid music for this.

Always enjoy your postings. Thanks.

Double negative meta materials deflect incoming EM waves (light) around them due to their properties (this only works for select wavelengths) Of course the problem is that you become effectively blind (but that is basically the same problem for all theoretical concepts for invisibility) Gravitational lensing produces artifacts based on whatever is behind it (Einstein's cross) and the shape of the lens, you can imagine this would be simillar to classic invisiblity VFX where you can tell the shape/outline of the invisible object because it's corners have a distortion effect. So it wouldn't really work. Btw, a temperature gradient is a vector field (the direction being towards the lowest/highest point and the magnitude being the slope) all gradients are vector fields by definition. Temperature is a scalar value so "temperature" alone itself is a scalar field.

Reminds me of the world's navy's a hundred years ago who thought use submarines to attack was immoral. Then came the U-boats . . .

Star Trek Tech is always interesting to talk about, but since I never watched "SNW", did they finally admit that NuTrek is set in another timeline/Dimension?

@rickjohnston2667

7 ай бұрын

The SNW episode "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," has an alternate timeline Kirk and La'an Singh visit 2021 Toronto and meet a genetically engineered Khan as a kid, meaning the Eugenics Wars happen later in the 21st century, instead of in the 1990's.

@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701

7 ай бұрын

@@rickjohnston2667 Ah I see.... Makes more sense though

@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701

7 ай бұрын

@@subraxas ok thanks

How is the Higgs field like a Catholic priest? It gives mass.

@user-fh6mc9du5n

7 ай бұрын

Does it also fondle choir boys?

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

@@user-fh6mc9du5n If only you knew that in my language is an almost identical term for incense and anus :D

I always felt Gene's explanation was weak and nonsensical. Stealth and being sneaky would be a good way to avoid conflict and safely study the universe as well. Plus, good guys like intelligence agencies that monitor and even diminish threat sneak around. And as for cloaking devices, I think the most realistic depiction of one would be the Normandy from Mass Effect as it temporarily stores its heat and emissions allowing it to blend in with the background of space.

Cloaking is just too OP for it to be used by the protagonists. It constantly kept breaking down on DS9 and i very much suspect that that's the reason.

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, as if it wasn't enough they have plot armor on Defiant.

Self-sealing stem bolts will solve all the world's problems! I'm ok with the Federation not lifting the ban on cloaking technology since in the books Starfleet perfects slipstream drive... calls them jaunt drives if I'm not confusing it with something else, and doesn't share with the other members of the AQ. Being able to travel 3x faster than anyone else is a far more beneficial technology than cloaking devices IMHO.

I think the ban should be lifted, oh wait you mean they never even bothered with it and the defiant has had a working cloak and section 31 has cloaking ships this whole time?

@EarthenDam

7 ай бұрын

7:17 He mentions Section 31 having cloaking devices.

Does anyone else think that in universe, Starfleet missed a trick by not figuring out a way to phase a ship without cloaking it? Admiral Pressman in TNG:Pegasus said that they tried to develop a cloak that was better than what the Romulans had because the treaty of Algeron tied Starfleet's hands behind their back. The phasing cloak in that episode violated the treaty but creating a phasing generator would be the ultimate uno reverse card for Starfleet. 'We can't see your ships but you can't TOUCH ours'.

@wendyheatherwood

7 ай бұрын

That just makes me imagine a phased Federation ship unknowingly flying through a cloaked Romulan ship and the Romulan crew freaking out.

It makes sense that a cloaking Device is tied into the shields. Inherently, defecting incoming focused radiation (eg. a phaser beam) to prevent or reduce damage is no different from preventing light or any other radiation from escaping your own vessel and so allowing it to be detected.

Our government tried cloaking with a Navy ship. And it went horribly wrong.

@PoolOfTrees

7 ай бұрын

Could you give a link to more info on this please?

Great analysis!!!

Funnily enough, I watched 4 of the 6 videos shown at 0:10 today.

I mean think about real world war crimes, like shooting your enemy's medics. If you do that, then you're also putting your own medics in danger. Medics wore an arm band to distinguish them from other soldiers, but their enemies would ignore this. Subsequently, they stopped wearing them because it was supposed to protect them, but in reality, it made them a more vulnerable target. We can probably say something similar with cloaking devices. If your enemies are doing it, there's no reason for you not to as well. I think the best compromise for Starfleet would be to have cloaking devices installed, but only use them as a last resort.

I think that being able to sneak out of fights is more moral than being forced to fight and kill

well now you have todo one on self sealing stem bolts! lol great vid!

I will consume this piece of content with voracious avarice. My need for Star Trek nerds talking about Star Trek can't be satisfied.

@OrangeRiver

7 ай бұрын

We love to see it

Great trip down memory lane on cloaking in Trek, but nice ideas here on the "real world" tech too

@OrangeRiver

7 ай бұрын

Thanks Matt!

I didn’t know much about stealth tech, recently surprised to learn (perhaps on Perun’s yt) that the actual stealth tech was meant to evade targeting by enemy weapons primarily. And many stealth aircraft are perfectly detectable using older radar but not by anything precise enough to be able to interfere with it. We all read about tiny radar signature - truth is a bigger story. I think if Gene R had understood more about the military tech, he would have a different response. It’s less like hiding ninja and more like hiding from-you-being-able-to-intercept - in other words : they do what they want!

I just clicked for Kruge. 😁

Other than plot demands, one wonders why Starfleet didn't suspend the treaty and crank out more of those phase cloaks during the Dominion War. The only in universe reason for this could be that the design flaws responsible for causing the accident on the Pegasus couldn't be overcome enough for regular use

I feel like in a setting with faster than light travel, tachyons would have to exist even if they were artificiality created.

I always thought the Federation agreeing to not use cloaking technology unrealistic. Allowing an adversary to have such an advantage over them is problematic. I wonder what a person who knows international defense treaties thinks about the reasonableness of such a treaty.

@PoolOfTrees

7 ай бұрын

Trying to think of parallels, I found myself thinking of the Japanese after the nuclear bombs were dropped: you have an enemy with such a technological advantage that diplomacy is the only feasible option to continue to exist as you do.

Let's be real. The reason why the Federation never uses cloaking devices in Star Trek is the same reason why no effective tactical countermeasure to Lightsabers is ever developed in Star Wars. The distinctive look of the double-nacelled Star Fleet vessels is an intrinsic part of the franchise's marketability. It's imperative to keep these ships onscreen for as long as possible, and turning them invisible would reduce the overall chances of action-packed phaser battles if neither side could see each other.

"Oh that's just super-duper. Been pulled over by a Viiiiiirginia state trooper. Said 'Radar detectors are illegal in the COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!' I says 'Well, I bet your CLOAKING DEVICES are IIIIILLEAGAL TOO! GOODBYE!'" - Clutch - Super Duper

Starfleet very quickly discovered that cloaking devices could easily be detected, and in most cases stops the cloaked firing, It takes a lot of power, makes them easier to detect ... So a cloaking device makes suspected objects not only easy to detect, but easier than a visible object ... and cripples defense and attack i.e. cloaking makes a ship esier to detect, anmd defeat, not harder ... and so is utterly useless, unless you don't expect a ship and just being conventially stealthy is more than enough ....

Are u sure the Romulans didn't want Intel processors? They were cool at the time

I feel like the federation would get a lot of mileage out of painting their ships black and wrapping their nascelles with duct tape

A cloaking device may visually mask a ship, but it can't get around the laws of thermodynamics. Dissipating heat in a vacuum is a problem, because there's nothing for the heat to conduct to (hot objects in space tend to stay hot), so while you may not see a cloaked ship if you look out the window, it will still have a very detectable heat signature that you could pick up with an IR sensor.

Class of '86!!! 😂😂😂🖖🏻

This may be a dumb question for some, but, how do you bend light in space? I remember an episode of Batman, where the caped crusader was chasing a bad guy, and they seemed to "disappear". they used mirrors to reflect the scenery around them to look invisible, .

We love you OrangeRiver

Magic spoon as I learned in UCLA was some water, bicarbonate or ammonia, and eroxitrylum coc.. 😬😬😬😬 😭😔😈 Those were wild times 😔

The use of a artificial singularity used by the Romulans would use gravity of their power source to cloak their ships the Klingons would use a different technology

Black paint on the hull is just as effective in space.

@tomasr.

7 ай бұрын

How do you want to paint black exhaust gases from engines? :)

I'm just here to watch Tyler eat cereal 🥣🥣🥣

The thing about not using cloaking tech is too stupid. Honestly, they had it since TOS to reverse engineer it and the "Bounty", the bird of Kirk 🤓🥃😅 😳 😟 😭. Gravitational lensing is very detectable, and they go at least at impulse... If it's.. 0.5 c, you'll detect variation of light of stars and other objects behind the ship, showing displaced from their standard position

Great video! After The Dominion War, The Federation should lift the ban on cloaking devices. It would be beneficial against the next new bad guys in the Galaxy. Just sayin.

A cloaking device?? So a cloak then. yeah we nailed that during the medieval period!!haha

@user-fh6mc9du5n

7 ай бұрын

I vaguely remember a Donald Duck cartoon that parodied Star Trek, in which his vessel had a black cloak with really fake looking stars painted on it.

Live long and prosper 🖖

Orangeriver is smart. We need his computer things

I'm looking forward to the time when I return to North America and can try this magic spoon stuff - anyway, live long and prosper

Honestly, if I were a negotiator, I would have given the Romulans the choice, either Starfleet can use cloaking technology, or the Romulans don't either, simple.

@PoolOfTrees

7 ай бұрын

Starfleet were coming to the table at a significant disadvantage and the Romulans weren't going to give up cloaking tech. It would be like the USA destroying their nuclear arsenal in an agreement that Iran that they will cease to try to make nuclear weapons - it makes no sense as they would then be in a much weaker position in relation to the other major powers.

Starfleet has no cloaking device, because good guys don't sneak in the shadows with open knife (ok, maybe except Batman, but he is not such sweet boy lol). Anyway, the Federation must have some kind of network of detection devices around their systems, after all the Romulans can theoretically build about cloaked 200 ships/missiles that could destroy most of the Stafleet in the first (de)cloaked attacks (just like they tried with Dominion faaaake homeworld). That would also explain why Sela and Neral were trying to infiltrate Vulcan with only 2000 soldiers, they wouldn't do anything with it! Well, they could turn off this detection network, at least.

Another brilliant scientific episode. Clearly.... you are far more intelligent than you give yourself credit for. As for the ban on Federation use of stealth technology, I think it was important from a credible point of responsibility.

It was my understanding that Enterprise took place in a timeline after the events of First Contact, which is why there were borg on Earth.

Like the Treaty of Alderan, i guess

What did the Federation get in exchange for Banning Cloaks for themselves in that Romulan treaty, whom rarely act in good faith

@wendyheatherwood

7 ай бұрын

It's a good question. The cloaking ban and the establishment of the neutral zone are the only things that really get talked about, but we don't know if the Romulans gave up claims on any territory or maybe agreed to dismantle military facilities near Federation space, that kind of thing. Without knowing all the conditions each side agreed to, and the state of their respective fleets at the time, there's no way of knowing if either side came out of the deal on top.

Pragmatically the federation should not ban any technology that would give them an edge in war, but the Federation is not pragmatic. It is high minded, it has a set of ethics that the choices any of us would make today would violate on average. thats why about a third to half of the BAD EGG admirals/captains and silly section 31 stand out so much(havnt seen new trek to see how they've fluxed up that Idea, ugh, section 31 was best utilized as a organization that seriously might not have existed in reality. no offense to new trek) These bad eggs are pragmatic, not necessarily evil, but they are the enemies of the federation, through and through. The Federation stands for something, these ideals might get them destroyed at some point but they can claim that they stood up as best they could for the right things. That being said, they should still reaserch cloaking so they can try to stay ahead of the curve for their detection systems, just keep it quiet and only for the purposes of stated, to stop other cloaks. But for all the nay sayers out there, think for a moment, how much of a juggernaught is the federation that others have to use these tactics to even threaten the federation for the most part?

Strategic use of cloaking technology against other galactic powers might be against Starfleet morals, but it sure comes in handy to conceal themselves from less advanced cultures, so long as their morals also include the Prime Directive.

Face it fellow Trekkies. Star Fleet Protocol Number One. You can not have Ratings if they cannot see your "Prestige" Ship nor "imaginary" invisible enemies. Ratings People are more powerful that Cloaking Technology. So says a very old Solo Sailor upon Pacific Northwestern Waters. I love the fact Star Fleet is not "sneaking around" unless necessary. The Heart of Star Fleet is not Sneaky.

I got a box of magic spoon from the food bank once. The box only made 2.5 bowls of cereal and it was very mediocre. Would not recommend.

@serqetry

7 ай бұрын

I find it hard to believe a food bank would have something like Magic Spoon, but smaller portions for a higher price is typical of healthy brands... Catalina Crunch is the same way. The mediocre part is probably a personal taste issue, as I've heard a lot of people rave about how good Magic Spoon is. If you're into super sugary junk cereals it might not be for you though.

Thanks... I've wondered about this subject. I favor the " bending theory" . It seems foolish for the Federation to ban and not develop cloaks. Think of the different countries that didn't use Gases or Bio weapons......but developed antidotes or countermeasures including retaliation to their use . And we have the Cultural ( for want of a better word) ideas of the other beings... they may have no filter or evaluation/concept that something is honorable. GR's ideal world is nice but are we are being real here .... ? But that nasty time line ( SSSS) keeps messing up things. .. I am waiting for the planet that jumps through time and space creating havoc but is untouchable because they can't be found. SO... My question. What does/would a SF Battleship look like ? Thanks for thinking about the unthinkable. It's a tough job , but someone has to do it.

Popular science may 1997 issue invisible jets! In '97!

...because treaty!