Trek Cloaking Device

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

I'm pretty sure that the Klingon and Romulan clocking devices work by bending EM waves and other sensors around the ship. Even though you can't see them, they should still be detectable, they can find and study dark matter. Also, the cloaked ship still has mass, so it will exert a gravitational pull on all other matter close to it. If the hull is polarized that means that it is magnetic and so that also is easily detectable (shoot where the 3-D compass points). So much for a perfect cloak like the Scimitar's.

[Praeothmin]

Also, the cloaked ship still has mass, so it will exert a gravitational pull on all other matter close to it.

Yes, but if I recall correctly, the Feds do have gravitic sensors. So for a claoked ship not to be detected, it would probably mean mass lightening tech in the cloaks, à la Warp Field and Impule Engines.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

Of course they would have their mass reduction systems on while cloaked, but the ship would still have mass.

[l33telboi]

If the hull is polarized that means that it is magnetic and so that also is easily detectable

Where did you get this from? Hull polarization was replaced by structural integrity fields as i understand it. But even if the hull was polarized, i doubt it would mean it became magnetic.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

When Voyager is getting boarded by the Vidians (in "Fury" I think) they re-polarize (or reverse polarity, I can't remember which) the hull in order to break free. So hulls are still polarized, they just have shields and forcefields etc. also. A polarized hull would have a magnetic field, not necessarily a strong one, but it would be there.

[l33telboi]

A polarized hull would have a magnetic field, not necessarily a strong one, but it would be there.

Why?

I realise that when the term polarized is used in normal science there usually is some form of magnetic force involved. But i can't say i've ever seen any indication of this in trek. Wouldn't it be kinda awkward flying around with spaceships that attracts metal to them?

Backstage sources say the polarization part is something a kin to what was shown in Batman Forever. A material that is normally flexible becomes rigid when currect passses trough it, and like this the hull of the Enterprise became stronger when they feed some form of energy through it.

If i'm not mistaking something similar has been done with real life ceramics too.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

Yes it sort of works the way the cape did in Batman Begins, by putting an electric current through it. It causes the monocles to reconfigure into a much stronger form, by alining them, which is how magnets works.

[GStone]

Huh. I was assuming hull polarizing created a repulsive effect along the surface of the material polarized, kinda like a reactive hull, like when you put explosives along a hull and their explosion redirects an attack.

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

It might do that also, the magnetic field could repel some forms of attack, or deflect them.

[Nonamer]

Magnetic fields actually causes charges to move in a sideways manner. Remember the right-hand rules guys.

[GStone]

We were talking about that when strek-v-swars was up with the DS's magnetic field, as it's shield. Forgot that.

[SailorSaturn13]

Since the cloak stops EM, any magnetic change INSIDE the cloak radius would be undetectable OUTSIDE it. Duh

[AnonymousRedShirtEnsign]

The cloak doesn't stop Electromagnetic waves, it bends them around the ship, which probably acounts for the distorted look of a cloaked ship.

[Mike DiCenso]

We've only actually seen one cloaked vessel (Kruge's BoP in ST3) that suffered from a constant distortion effect. When active, Romulan and Klingon cloaks generally have little or no distortion, except during cloaking or decloaking operations.
-Mike

[AFT]

We've only actually seen one cloaked vessel (Kruge's BoP in ST3) that suffered from a constant distortion effect. When active, Romulan and Klingon cloaks generally have little or no distortion, except during cloaking or decloaking operations.
-Mike

And later on during ST-IV that very same ship was perfectly cloaked with absolutely no distortion whatsoever on some park at San Francisco.