how does star trek cloaking technology work

Phasing cloaking device

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The Federation phasing cloak

The phasing cloaking device was an experimental technology developed by a secret group in Starfleet Security in the 2350s . An expansion on the more traditional cloaking device , it was designed to phase sequence the structure of matter and energy to such a rate that it was possible to allow any vessel utilizing the device to pass through normal matter in the phased state. A direct violation of the Treaty of Algeron , which banned cloaking technology aboard Federation starships , the phasing cloak was first tested aboard the USS Pegasus in 2358 , under the command of Captain Erik Pressman .

In response to the illegal use of this device, the crew of the Pegasus mutinied against Pressman, forcing Pressman and a small group of officers who sided with him, including a young Ensign Will Riker , to flee the ship. The cloak blew out the plasma relays aboard the ship, and it drifted into an asteroid field in the Devolin system while still in a phased state. When it passed through a particularly large asteroid, the cloak failed, causing the Pegasus to partially materialize inside solid rock . With the crew dead, the Pegasus remained entombed in the asteroid for the next twelve years, though the device itself survived. A Judge Advocate General 's investigation into the mutiny was initiated, but, in order to conceal the illegal test, Starfleet Intelligence classified the file.

The USS Enterprise -D deactivating its phasing cloak in front of a Romulan Warbird

In 2370 Pressman, then an admiral at Starfleet Intelligence, boarded the USS Enterprise -D and mounted a mission to retrieve the cloaking device. He was successful, but not before a Romulan Warbird sealed the Enterprise inside the asteroid. Riker, then the first officer of the Enterprise , decided to reveal the existence of the device to Captain Picard in order to use it to escape the asteroid. This plan worked, and Picard subsequently ordered the Enterprise to decloak in front of the Warbird , thereby revealing the existence of the phasing cloaking device to the Romulans. Both Admiral Pressman and Commander Riker were subsequently taken into custody for their respective roles in the illegal experiment. ( ENT : " These Are the Voyages... "; TNG : " The Pegasus ")

Other similar phasing technology [ ]

In 2368 , on Devidia II , crew of the USS Enterprise -D devised a method of phase-shifting crewmen to a positive phase variance of 0.004 percent. Data was enveloped in a contained subspace force field created by a subspace generator. By adjusting the synchronic distortion of the field with the phase discriminator in his positronic brain , he phase-shifted himself. The procedure was repeated for other members of the crew using a tricorder modified to interface with the subspace generator, containing a custom built phase discrimination. It was theorized in both instances that the phase displacement was not precise enough to synchronize the Enterprise crew to the Devidians' perceptual range, even though the Enterprise personnel could see them when phased. ( TNG : " Time's Arrow ")

To covertly conduct their invasive experiments on other humanoids , the Srivani also used this type of stealth technology for themselves, as well as their equipment and ships . In 2374 , when invading the USS Voyager , the technology hid the Srivani to a phase variance of 0.15. Adjusting the Borg sensory node of Seven of Nine for this variance allowed her to see them. Seven also modified her hand phaser to a modulation that would penetrate the cloak. ( VOY : " Scientific Method ")

Both Klingons and Romulans have been experimenting with similar technologies, with the Klingons apparently forced to cease their experiments due to numerous accidents. ( TNG : " The Next Phase ")

External links [ ]

Interphase cloaking device at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
Phase shifting at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Screen Rant

Why do star trek: discovery's klingons have cloaking technology.

Klingons should not have cloaking technology on Star Trek: Discovery, according to existing canon, but it looks like T'Kuvma is an exception.

Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery

The two-part premiere of Star Trek: Discovery was a thrilling ride with vibrant, fascinating characters, and a new visual interpretation of Gene Roddenberry's classic creation. It's inevitable, however, that any attempt to breathe fresh life into a venerable franchise is going to come with some growing pains, and few things draw the ire of those resistant to change like new creators coming in and violating established continuity.

One canonical change that fans have been dwelling on is how the Klingons on Star Trek: Discovery somehow have access to cloaking technology. The antagonist, T'Kuvma, was able to render his flagship invisible to his enemies at a pivotal moment in the story. Yet Star Trek 's long, complicated history says that Klingons shouldn't have cloaking devices on-hand for another decade or so.

Since last night's episode, "Context is for Kings," was quite light on Klingons, Star Trek: Discovery has not yet revealed how T'Kuvma was able to get his hands on cloaking tech. All we know is that his ship, which hasn't been named on the show but was informally known among the production crew as "the Sarcophagus Ship," is now the first known Klingon ship capable of cloaking. This flies in the face of information established by Star Trek: The Original Series .

Did T'Kuvma develop his own cloaking device, separate from the Klingon Empire's later efforts? Did he acquire the technology from another alien race, like the Romulans? That wouldn't be too hard to imagine, given the two empires' sharing of this technology a few years down the road.

There's no guarantee that Discovery will ever explain where T'Kuvma's cloaking device came from, especially if such a revelation doesn't serve the story. The matter at hand is that Klingons had cloaking tech much earlier than we were led to believe.

How is this possible?

In the original series episode "Balance of Terror," Captain Kirk and crew experience first contact with Romulans after a war with them ended a century earlier. They didn't even know at the time that Romulans looked like Vulcans, so the discovery that they had cloaking technology was one of several shocks. At the time, this was believed to be the first human contact with a cloaking device of any kind.

Star Trek: Enterprise later retconned this with the help of time travel and that whole "Temporal Cold War" thing. In a nutshell, thanks to the manipulative efforts of the mysterious Future Guy, Captain Archer and the Enterprise crew encountered cloaking technology that was being used by the evil Suliban, but thanks to a little futuristic help on their side of things, they came up with a device able to counteract cloaking. It's suspected that all of this was made classified by Starfleet, due to how mucking around with time tends to cause history to unravel.

For their part, the writers behind Star Trek: Discovery have already hinted that they know about the discrepancy. The script -- and namely the characters on the show -- identified their device as a "Cloaking Screen," not a cloaking device. See? So it's not the same! It's all cool now!

Except for a vocal contingent of Trekkies, it's not cool at all.

Here's the thing. Cloaking technology is not the only way in which Discovery plays fast and loose with Star Trek continuity. Another glaring change is the fact that Spock apparently had an adopted sister in Michael Burnham, whom he never once mentioned. For what it's worth, Discovery producers have promised that they have an answer for how Burnham's existence doesn't violate Spock's story, and that they'll reveal it eventually.

Then there's the design of the Klingons . From their costumes to their prosthetic makeup, they've evolved drastically since the days of Worf and Gowron. Taking a cue from J.J. Abrams' alternate timeline films, Discovery 's Klingons are hairless, with bone ridges going all the way over the tops of their heads and down in back. Discovery takes things a big step further by introducing more pronounced ridges over the nose and head, and widely varied skin tones among the Klingon race.

The show itself as much as told viewers that the Sarcophagus Ship is a special case. It's not part of a Klingon militia, it's not a war machine. It's the ancestral ship of T'Kuvma's family. This was hammered home by the fact that its exterior was covered in the bodies and coffins of hundreds of dead Klingons. And if anything, the interior design of the Sarcophagus Ship has more in common with a church than a spacefaring vessel.

Discovery has also established that at this point in history, the Klingon Empire is a fragmented mess, its power divided among the 24 most powerful Klingon houses. So if every house has its own ship or ships that it built itself, that makes the Sarcophagus Ship very much one-of-a-kind. As a certain Jedi would say (sorry, wrong franchise), from a certain point of view , it could be argued that the cloak used by T'Kuvma wasn't owned or used by the Klingon Empire. Therefore, they have a little wiggle room to play with.

Ultimately, what has to be remembered is that if it is a contradiction of canon... So what? Yeah, that's a sacrilegious statement for some, but Star Trek is more than 50 years old now, and if you examine any media property that old closely enough, you're going to find discrepancies everywhere.

There are very few franchises that have lived as long as Star Trek . James Bond and Doctor Who come to mind. Bond has already been rebooted once. Doctor Who practically makes a habit of rewriting its own history on a seasonal basis. (It's literally about constant time travel . Do you really expect it to always add up?)

Star Trek 's world is a huge, sprawling galaxy filled with countless cultures constantly going through the kinds of struggles and upheavals that have occurred throughout (real) history. Add in the numerous time periods Star Trek 's stories are been set in, and you've got an incredibly complex canvas for modern storytellers to try to make accessible to new viewers .

What matters most is the emotional drama and interpersonal relationships between the characters. And Star Trek: Discovery has already shown how firm a grasp it has on that.

Next: Star Trek Discovery: The Vulcan Katra Explained

Science Fiction or Fact: Invisibility Cloaks Will One Day Exist

In this weekly series, Life's Little Mysteries scores the plausibility of popular science fiction concepts.

In the "Star Trek" universe, cloaking devices on Romulan and Klingon spaceships create all sorts of tactical nightmares for their human foes. Hiding in plain sight is certainly a handy trick for a person, too, as fans of "The Invisible Man" and the "Harry Potter" series know well.

Science has given us glimpses, as it were, of how these anti-detection technologies might be possible. But full-fledged invisibility cloaks like those of science fiction and fantasy remain quite a ways off.

"I won't call it impossible, but it's implausible what you see in 'Harry Potter ,'" David Smith, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, said. "That's perfect movie invisibility — too perfect."

Nevertheless, research into rendering objects invisible has made leaps and bounds just in the last several years. Partial cloaks that work like sophisticated camouflage — much like the shimmering distortion of the Predator alien in the 1987 movie of the same name — might be more realistically achievable, Smith said.

The rise of cloaking tech

Smith leads the group at Duke that demonstrated the deflection of microwaves around a two-dimensional cylinder back in 2006, making it appear almost as though the cylinder were not actually there. The effect is similar to water flowing around a rock and resuming its course, as if the former obstacle was not there at all.

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This breakthrough result and many of the others since made use of so-called metamaterials. These custom-crafted metals, plastics or other materials have structures — and therefore properties — unlike those found in nature. The metamaterials' design allows them to manipulate electromagnetic waves in prescribed ways.

"Artificial materials, where you have so much more flexibility, have allowed this theoretical idea [of cloaking] to really move forward," Smith said.

Traditional attempts at cloaking have focused on reducing electromagnetic emissions and light reflection from an object. The B-2 stealth bomber , for instance, has engines in its wings to cut down on heat exhaust, plus the aircraft is coated with radio wave-absorbing paint to thwart radar. But objects still cast shadows this way, which can spoil an attempt at truly turning ghost.

Bending light to our will

Recent work with metamaterials has extended their deceptive capabilities to wavelengths in the optical range. One such approach devised a "carpet cloak" that could hide a tiny lump of material under a special metamaterial layer. Another approach relied on natural, chunky calcite crystals to manipulate visible light with a certain vibration direction, or polarization.

In short, progress continues to be made. The metamaterial and calcite techniques could see real-world applications soon, with the former preventing antennas from interfering with each other, for example.

Yet what's been accomplished thus far has been limited in terms of wavelength range and types of light that have been duped into doing our bidding.

In microwave and visible bands, state-of-the-art cloaking device-like technologies have been able to address only "a tiny portion, at best, of any one of those bands, let alone the whole thing," Smith said. [ Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World ]

To cloak a dynamic object moving through free space, like the dreadlocked Predator creature romping through the jungle, metamaterials have a long way to go. "Give us one hundred years with other technologies that come in, and we might have something a lot closer than you'd think," Smith said.

In the meantime, would-be invisible men might pin their hopes on an entirely different technological method to cloaking, one that fools the eye by emitting light, rather than detouring it around a hidden object.

The concept involves covering the object or person in micro-cameras and tiny screens, all hooked up to fancy software and an energy source.

"The micro-cameras take images of what is behind the person. Then the screens project that image in front so it seems like you're looking through the person," explained Sidney Perkowitz, a physicist at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. "You would need perhaps hundreds of thousands of devices, but if they were linked wirelessly and had fast enough computing, you could have the illusion be fast enough for a real-time effect."

The idea is similar to how cuttlefish change the complexion of their skin with astonishing speed and accuracy to mimic the hues and patterns of coral and rock they nestle against. Crude versions of this sort of "active" or "adaptive" camouflage are in the works by the U.S. military and other armed forces.

What of cloaking devices for future spaceships? "If you cloak something the size of a human, I don’t think it will be too much [more difficult] to cloak a battleship," Smith said.

A problem that will limit all cloaking technologies, however, is the speed of light. With a flawless cloak, diverted light waves arrive at a potential observer without any delay. But re-routing light waves from and then back to a normal, straight-line path means the light has to cover more distance, which of course takes more time, Smith said.

The delay means some diverted light arrives late; the delay is slight, but probably still enough to mar the cloaking effect." To some extent, these things are always going to be detectable," Smith said.

"Star Trek" writers got around this quandary pseudo-scientifically by proposing that a cloaking device warps space itself, thus delivering diverted light to an observer right on time. Not an easy trick to pull off, though, Smith said. "It would take a ridiculous amount of energy to make something like that feasible."

Still, even in the relative near-term, cloaking tech should make the move from the lab into the field. "I think invisibility cloaks have largely moved from a physics problem that has been solved," said Perkowitz, "to an engineering problem that may be solved."

Plausibility score: A total disappearance-style cloaking device as depicted in sci-fi and fantasy is out of bounds. But extremely sophisticated camouflage that lets you melt right into the background looks like a go. On balance, then, we give the cloaking concept three out of four Rocketboys.

how does star trek cloaking technology work

This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries , a sister site to LiveScience.

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Where did all that superscience tech come from?

The original "Star Trek" television series featured technology that had first appeared decades earlier in science fiction stories. Pulp heroes had been wielding ray guns, flying faster than light and teleporting from place to place since the 1930s. But perhaps the true inspiration of Star Trek’s superscience is the revolutionary physics discoveries of the early 20th century. Relativity, discovered by Albert Einstein and quantum physics, pioneered by Max Planck revealed a universe far different than ordinary human experience might suggest.

Although Einstein’s theory forbids matter to accelerate past the speed of light, the demands of sci-fi storytelling require that people be able to travel between the stars in a reasonable amount of time, usually hours, or at most, days. Enter the space warp drive, or as it was called in "Star Trek’s" pilot episode, "hyperdrive."

Warp drive in Star Trek works by annihilating matter (in the form of deuterium, a kind of hydrogen gas) and antimatter in a fusion reaction mediated by dilithium crystals. This produces the enormous power required to warp space-time and drive the ship faster than light.

The Evolution of 'Star Trek' (Infographic)

The crew of the Enterprise measures velocity in warp factors. Warp factor 8 equals the cube of 8 (8 times 8 times 8), or 512 times light speed .

Even this velocity is too slow to allow starships to travel as quickly as they appear to on TV. In reality, the script writers arbitrarily allowed the Enterprise to get to wherever it was going, as fast as was convenient for storytelling. By the era of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," the warp speed scale was recalibrated. Under the new scale, a starship could get from Earth to Alpha Centauri in about 37 hours at warp factor 8.

USS Enterprise Evolution in Photos (Gallery)

Science fiction author E.E. "Doc" Smith describes a spaceship traveling at a speed "thousands of times greater than that of light" in his novel "Skylark of Space," written between 1915 and 1921 and serialized in "Amazing Stories" magazine in 1928.

The technology and style of " Star Trek " was influenced by the 1955 film "Forbidden Planet." United Planets Cruiser C-57D (above) used its quanto-gravitic hyperdrive to greatly surpass the speed of light. The cruiser travels to the star Altair, 16.7 light-years from Earth, in 378 days.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre proposed moving not a spaceship, but space itself, faster than light. All that would be required is to distort the fabric of space-time into a bubble surrounding a spaceship. Enormous energy would be required, but once created, the bubble would move independently of the rest of the universe, even faster than light.

The bubble moves by compressing the space-time in front of it and expanding the space-time behind it.

The Top 10 Star Trek Technologies

NASA scientist Harold "Sunny" White believes as-yet-undiscovered "negative energy" could be used to create the space-warp bubble , using a smaller amount of total energy than Alcubierre thought possible.

A plausible alternative to traveling across space is the wormhole, a shortcut between two widely separated points in space-time. Scientists Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen first proposed the wormhole, or "Einstein-Rosen Bridge," in 1935. Wormholes have not yet been observed in nature, but they are not forbidden by our current understanding of physics.

If they exist, wormholes would permit travel faster than light and backward through time (at least to the time when the wormhole was created).

In "Star Trek's" Transporter device, normal matter is converted temporarily into energy, then beamed to a target point for restoration to its original pattern and structure. The Transporter has a range of about 16,000 miles (25,750 kilometers).

The "Vibra-Transmitter" described in Frank K. Kelley’s 1933 story "Into the Meteorite Orbit" functions similarly to Star Trek’s Transporter. The human body is "reduced to vibration traveling on a wave-channel" and then reintegrated into matter in a receiving chamber.

In real-world science, subatomic particles can be quantum teleported, but this only transmits a quantum state between a pair of entangled particles, not the particles themselves. The human body contains an immense number of atoms, about 10^27 (one followed by 27 zeroes). Recording the quantum states of all these atoms would require an unrealistic amount of data storage. Even worse, quantum physics prevents the precise measurement of the individual atoms.

Deflector shields (or "screens") are an invisible force-field barrier activated automatically by the ship's computer when needed. Screens can be maintained continually for 20 hours before the ship’s power is exhausted. Transporters cannot be used when the screens are enveloping the ship.

Navigational deflector beams sweep the space ahead of the ship to shove aside obstacles such as small asteroids. Anything too large to be deflected triggers the ship’s computer to change course to avoid collision.

In earlier sci-fi, deflectors for diverting meteoroids out of a spaceship’s path show up in "The Ethical Equations” by Murray Leinster, published in "Astounding Science Fiction" in 1945.

Lawrence Krauss, in his book "The Physics of Star Trek," supposes that to bend light (or phaser beams), deflector shields would have to warp space-time around the starship. But if warp drive is possible, deflector shields that work this way are perhaps also possible.

Tractor beams are a form of reverse deflector beam, pulling instead of pushing. The tractor beam has a range of about 100,000 miles (160,930 km).

E.E. "Doc" Smith uses the exact term " tractor beam " to describe force beams for grabbing objects in space in his 1931 story "Spacehounds of IPC," published in "Amazing Stories."

In real-world science, microscopic particles of matter have been manipulated in the laboratory with laser beams. Starships are much more massive. Tractor beams that work on an electromagnetic principle might be plausible in theory. However, Newton’s laws require that if the Enterprise pulls on another object with its tractor beam, the Enterprise itself will be moved toward the object. The Enterprise must fire thrusters to remain in place during the operation.

A phaser is an energy beam that can be "phased" to interfere with the wave pattern of any material object. Settings include dematerialize (converts matter to energy), disrupt (breaks down molecular cohesion), heat (increases molecular velocity) and stun (impacts the nervous system of a living target). Phasers can also be adjusted for use as cutting torch or welder. A phaser set to overload creates a powerful explosion. The ship's main phaser batteries can destroy matter over vast distances and are powered directly by the warp engines.

The Martian heat ray in H.G. Wells’ 1898 novel " The War of the Worlds " is very much like a ray gun or death beam. In the 1920s and 1930s, some scientists, including Nikola Tesla, believed that a death ray capable of killing at a distance was feasible. Toy Buck Rogers guns began appearing in the 1930s, one of which was called a “disintegrator pistol.”

Weapons exist today that are capable of stunning the human nervous system (the taser, for example). However, tasers require physical contact to deliver their charge. Due to the inverse square law by which energy decreases as distance increases, to disintegrate matter at a distance a phaser weapon would have to generate an incredible amount of energy. Military research continues into developing directed energy weapons capable of shooting down missiles.

A photon torpedo is an energy pod of matter and antimatter separated by a magno-photon force field. They can be fired directly as torpedoes, laid in a mine field or scattered in an enemy’s path like modern-day depth charges. Electrochemical, proximity and other fuses are available.

Photon torpedoes require a quantity of antimatter. Generating even a few atoms of antimatter uses up an enormous amount of energy. The starship’s warp drive, powered by antimatter, also has this problem.

In theory, the explosive yield of one gram (0.04 ounces) of antimatter and an equal quantity of matter is about 43 kilotons (possibly lower in actual practice). Background material for the Next Generation series says that photon torpedoes carry 1.5 kilograms 3.3 pounds) of antimatter.

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Encyclopedias

cloaking device

Duke University prototype cloaking device. Duke researchers built a simplified version of their cloaking device out of copper rings and wires patterned onto fiberglass sheets and demonstrated that it successfully diverted microwaves.

Federation interphase cloaking device.

Japanese visual stealth jacket.

Microwave cloak.

A cloaking device is a form of stealth technology familiar in science fiction, most notably in the Star Trek universe, but that is now becoming possible, to a limited extent, in the real world (see below). Humans have long dreamed of having the power of invisibility. In Greek mythology, Perseus possessed a cap that let him wink out of view. In more recent times, H. G. Wells penned "The Invisible Man" about a scientist who learned to change the refractive index of his own body.

Star Trek cloaking technology

In the Star Trek universe, a cloaking device renders a starship or other facility so equipped, invisible to the eye and to most sensor systems. Cloaking is said to require so much power that a vessel can't use weapons (or, in early episodes, also warp drive ) unless it first de-cloaks. This proviso provides ample opportunity for interesting plot developments. However, the stricture is violated in several Star Trek episodes. For example, in the original series episode "Face of the Enemy" a Romulan warbird fires while cloaked. By the 24th century, as depicted in Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), a method has been found to detect cloaked ships: by searching for neutrinos that leak from the cloak. Apparently, even the best cloaking system can't prevent all of these elusive particles from escaping from sources such as the ship's warp core. Somewhat implausibly, only the Romulans and Klingons used cloaking in the original series.

The absence of the technology aboard Federation ships was explained in TNG by way of the Treaty of Algeron, in which the Federation relinquished the right to develop or use cloaking devices. However, an illegal Federation cloaking device turns up aboard the USS Pegasus in the TNG episode "Pegasus". The Pegasus device is particularly advanced in that it allows passage through solid matter – so-called "interphase cloaking" (see photo at upper right).

In season three of Deep Space 9, the Federation starship Defiant is introduced complete with a cloaking device on loan from the Romulan Empire – an arrangement not in violation of the Treaty of Algeron. The Romulans loaned the Federation a cloaking device specifically so that it could conduct covert surveillance of the Dominion in the Gamma Quadrant.

In the Star Trek universe, the cloaking device supposedly generates a "spatial distortion" which causes light and sensor rays to travel around the ship, so that nothing is reflected from its surface. Such an in intense distortion – equivalent to an enormous mass concentration, such as that in the vicinity of a black hole or neutron star – would certainly crush the ship and crew unless additional measures were taken to counteract the effect inside the distortion.

In the real world, there is great interest in the development of optical stealth technology which is effectively a form of cloaking. Indeed, this technology has already begun to break into the public sector, notably in Japan.

Anomalous localized resonance

In 2006, mathematicians Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton proposed a kind of cloaking that would exploit a resonance with light waves (G. W. Milton and N. A. Nicorovici, "On the cloaking effects associated with anomalous localized resonance," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London , to appear, (2006). Called anomalous localized resonance, it would involve placing certain objects close to a material called a superlens so that they would appear to vanish. The effect is analogous to a tuning fork being placed next to a wine glass causing the wine glass to ring with the same frequency.

Nicorovici and Milton explain in their paper how an illuminated speck of dust would scatter light at frequencies that induce a strong, finely tuned resonance in a cloaking material placed very close by. The resonance would effectively cancel out the light reflecting from the speck of dust, rendering the dust particle invisible.

One way to construct a cloaking device is to use a superlens, made of recently discovered materials that force light to behave in unusual ways. If the speck of dust is close enough it induces a very aggressive response in the cloaking material which essentially acts back on the speck of dust and forces it to stop shining. Even though light is hitting the speck of dust, scattering of the light is prevented by the cloak which is in close proximity. The authors of the paper argue that the cloak needn't just work with a speck of dust, but could also apply to larger objects. However, the authors have so far only done the maths to verify that the concept could work.

Microwave cloak

Also in 2006, a team of British and American scientists gave the first practical demonstration of a cloaking device at Duke University, North Carolina. The device mostly hid a small copper cylinder from microwaves . It works by deflecting the microwaves around the object and restoring them on the other side, as if they had passed through empty space.

The microwave cloak consists of 10 fiberglass rings covered with copper elements (see illustrations at right and top). This is classed as a metamaterial – an artificial composite that can be engineered to produce a desired change in the direction of electromagnetic waves. The precise variations in the shape of copper elements patterned on to the ring surfaces determines their properties.

In the experiment, the scientists first measured microwaves traveling across a plane of view with no obstacles. Then they placed a copper cylinder in the same plane and measured the disturbance, or scattering, in the microwaves. Finally, the researchers placed the invisibility cloak over the copper cylinder. Although the cloak did not completely iron out the disturbance, it greatly reduced the microwaves being blocked or deflected.

In principle, the same mechanism could be used to cloak objects from visible light. But this would pose a challenge, as nano-scale engineering would be needed to make the cloak.

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Cloaking device

A cloaking device is a form of stealth technology that uses selective bending of light (and other forms of energy) to render a starship or other object completely invisible to the electromagnetic spectrum and most sensors.

2.2 Cloaking Device Politics
2.3 Limitations
2.4 Realism
3.1 Realism
4 Cloaking Devices in Stargate

Active cloaking devices are fundamentally unrealistic - if a ship bent light around itself, it could not be seen, but it would also be blind. The same would apply to other methods of detection; if the ship avoids those signals, then it can't receive those signals, either.

If a cloak somehow "traps" sensor pulses, it will accumulate heat. This problem is worsened by the need to trap waste heat from the ship's own power supplies. A cloaked ship using the gigawatt-range power supplies typical of science fiction starships would cook its crew in short order.

Cloaking Devices in Star Trek

A cloaking device manipulates a starship's shields [1] to bend light around the starship, making it effectively invisible. Advanced cloaks affect high-tech sensor emissions similarly, making the the ship invisible to many other forms of detection, as well.

The purpose of a cloak is to prevent detection before combat and when fleeing combat, and cloaking devices have been able to hide vessels from all but the most advanced scanners and tracking systems. Cloaking devices are usually used for stealth, and their combat use is usually limited to moving into position for a surprise attack. For example, the early cloaking device was a perfect supplement to the Romulan plasma weapon , allowing the Bird of Prey to approach as close as possible to deploy the limited-range weapon for maximum effectiveness.

The early cloaks were proprietary technology of the Romulans. In the first recorded instance of military use of a cloaking device against a Starfleet vessel, the cloaked Romulan vessel was completely invisible to visible light and targeting scanners, but she could still be detected with subspace motion sensors and was tracked in this manner by the Enterprise throughout the engagement near the Neutral Zone . This form of tracking proved poor for targeting and precision movement, forcing Captain Kirk to lay down a pattern of weapon fire in hopes of catching his target. [2]

Later, as part of an ongoing technology-sharing program, the Klingons gained cloaking technology and Romulans abandoned their existing warbird design in favor of Klingon designs like the D-7 . [3] Klingons began using cloaking devices on their own Bird of Prey designs, as seen in the Genesis incident when Kruge's Bird of Prey penetrated deep into Federation space, destroying the USS Grissom and ambushing the Enterprise utilizing the cloaking device. [4]

The performance characteristics of cloaking devices have changed over time. For instance, the Klingon cloaking device in ST3 created a visible distortion effect when the ship was in motion, but it successfully hid the ship from all other forms of detection. As seen in the TNG era and onward, the cloaking devices available to the Klingons and Romulans have grown much more sophisticated. Klingons cloaks are so advanced that even when cloaking and decloaking within several kilometers of Deep Space Nine , the sensor suites could not accurately track the Klingon vessels [5] . Romulan Warbirds were also able to approach the station completely unseen and decloak within several kilometers, despite the station being at battle stations, with a Klingon fleet and Federation vessels all within range and expecting a Dominion attack. [6]

One of the most recent evolutions of cloaking technology was seen twice, once by Klingon design and another by the Romulans. General Chang of the Klingon Empire utilized a Bird of Prey that could fire while cloaked, a notorious limitation of most cloaking devices. This Bird of Prey was destroyed over Khitomer and was the only known prototype. We have not seen a cloaked Klingon ship accomplish this since. The cloaking device used on the Scimitar also allowed the vessel to fire while cloaked and was used with devastating effectiveness against the Enterprise-E . This may be the natural progression of the device should greater enhancements be made in the future, but advances in sensor technology may defeat this cloaking system, as apparently occurred with Chang's now-obsolete cloak.

Cloaking Device Politics

The Federation is banned from developing cloaking devices by the Treaty of Algeron with the Romulan Empire. The circumstances under which the Federation agreed to hamstring itself by not developing this technology are unknown. Despite the ban, the Federation did produce one illegal cloaking device - one that is a quantum leap ahead of anything produced by either the Romulans or the Klingons - a phase cloak that allows a vessel to pass through solid matter.

Limitations

Cloaking devices have high power requirements. Consequently, depending on their power sources, cloaked vessels are usually weakly shielded, if shielded at all. Similarly, cloaked ships have relatively little power available for their weapon systems. The initial Romulan cloaking device was so power intensive that it nearly drained the energy reserves of the Romulan Bird of Prey during its battle with the Enterprise in "Balance of Terror". One can speculate that the primary reason a typical cloaked vessel cannot fire while cloaked is that too much power is required for maintaining the cloak to properly power the weapons systems. This is hinted at when Captain Kruge warns his ship's gunner to transfer power to the weapons "at my command," perhaps concerned that power would be transfered too soon, thus compromising the cloak. [7]

Because cloaking devices are integrated into a ship's shield systems, cloaking and decloaking usually creates a window of vulnerability in which shields are not functional; Commander Riker exploited such a weakness in Star Trek: Generations to destroy a Klingon Bird of Prey .

Romulan officers do not consider their cloaking technology sufficient to bypass the prepared defenses at the Federation border. [8]

A cloaking device can be defeated using a tachyon net ; a cloaked ship trying to pass through the net will still interrupt one of the tachyon beams being transmitted among the ships participating in the net, revealing its location.

The Scimitar in Star Trek: Nemesis was shielded while cloaked. Worf was eventually able to target the Scimitar based on weapons fire and disable its cloak.

In certain rare instances, cloaked vessels have been spotted by the naked eye, such as in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, or the external visuals in Star Trek: Nemesis.

Cloaking, as described in Star Trek , has all of the realism issues described at the beginning of this article. Dumping waste energy into subspace won't solve the problem, since Star Trek ships have subspace sensors that would be expected to detect such emissions, foiling the cloak.

Cloaking Devices in Star Wars

Cloaking devices have occasionally been mentioned in the Star Wars movies, but never actually seen in operation. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back , when the ISD Avenger loses track of the Millennium Falcon , Captain Needa questions the possibility that his target engaged a cloaking device because a ship that small shouldn't have one. In Star Wars: The Phantom Menace , Qui-Gon Jinn asks if Queen Amidala's yacht has a cloaking device, but Captain Panaka informs him that it does not.

In the Heir to the Empire series of novels by Timothy Zahn , Grand Admiral Thrawn employs cloaking devices in several ways. According to these novels, a ship can avoid detection with a cloaking device, but the cloaked ship is also completely blind, limiting the usefulness of the device.

In Star Wars: The Clone Wars , the second-season episode "Cat and Mouse" shows a prototype cloaking device. This cloak made the ship invisible to normal sight and most sensors. There was a distinct shimmering effect when engaging or disengaging the cloak. This cloak allowed a trace amount of "magnetic energy" to escape, which eventually allowed the cloaked ship to be tracked by enemy missiles. Unlike the devices used in Heir to the Empire , this cloak was not "double-blind", thus possibly explaining the leakage and its status as an important, cutting-edge prototype.

While not much more realistic than cloaks from other settings, the "double-blind" aspect of Star Wars cloaks is a slight improvement in realism over cloaks that allow a ship to hide from sight and sensors without experiencing any limitations on its own sensor capacity. The "magnetic energy" leakage of the device from The Clone Wars also improves realism: if the ship is absorbing enough energy to see, it needs to release a similar amount to avoid heating up.

Cloaking Devices in Stargate

The Goa'uld posses some level of cloaking technology which can be used on both a human scale as well as on the scale of small spacecraft such as Al'kesh and Tel'taks . For the most part cloaking devices on the scale of capital ships such as Ha'tak are beyond the technical capacity of the Goa'uld, with the notable exception of that of Sokar's realm. Puddle Jumpers are also equipped with cloaking devices which can be interfaced with Atlantis' shields. In late 2006, Daniel Jackson gave the USAF Odyssey the ability to cloak. The Asurans also fielded cloaking devices on their warships.

Electronic countermeasures
Phase cloak
↑ TOS "The Enterprise Incident"
↑ TOS "Balance of Terror"
↑ Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
↑ DS9 "Way of the Warrior"
↑ DS9 "By Inferno's Light"
↑ TNG "Face of the Enemy"
ST Starship Defense
ST Technology
SW Starship Defense
SW Technology

Real-life invisibility cloaks are already here. But how do they work?

Invisibility cloaks have already transcended fiction. The future is now.

Have you ever dreamed of the ability to roam the world without being seen? While the idea of invisibility has long fascinated human imagination, it seemed confined to the realms of science fiction. However, recent advancements in optical technology have brought us closer to our very own real-life invisibility cloaks.

Although not nearly as impressive or easy to use as the cloaks shown in Star Trek or Harry Potter , these yet early devices are redefining the meaning of the word stealth.

How does an invisibility cloak work?

“Visibility depends on the action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible.” – H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man

At its core, invisibility technology relies on manipulating light waves, which are responsible for our visual perception. Researchers have developed innovative approaches that bend and redirect light, effectively concealing objects from view.

However, achieving a full-blown invisibility cloak across the entire visual spectrum is a huge challenge. Previously, scientists have made fighter jets invisible to radar and made thermal invisibility jackets that hide soldiers from enemy thermal cameras. But to conceal something from the naked eye as if it never was there requires some serious engineering.

Normally, when light interacts with an object, it is either absorbed or reflected, making the object visible. True transparency would require light to pass through an object undisturbed, as if it were not there. To achieve this, a cloaking device would need to redirect light from all directions around the object, so that it appears invisible from any angle.

Metamaterials, engineered materials with unique properties not found in nature, play a pivotal role in creating invisibility cloaks. By designing these materials with carefully arranged nanostructures, scientists can control the behavior of light waves. This field, known as transformation optics, allows for the manipulation of light around an object, making it appear invisible.

Metalenses, on the other hand, are thin lenses that can focus light of various wavelengths onto the same point, overcoming the limitations of traditional lenses.

Several cloaking mechanisms have been proposed and developed to achieve invisibility. One approach involves bending light around an object, creating a “cloak” that renders it optically transparent. Another method utilizes the redirection of light, making an object appear as if it were not there. These techniques require precise control over the speed, direction, and intensity of light waves to achieve the desired effect.

Examples of invisibility cloaks

While true invisibility cloaks are still in the realm of scientific research and development, there have been notable advancements and demonstrations in the field.

Quantum Stealth

One of the most interesting invisibility cloak prototypes comes from Hyperstealth Biotechnology, a Canadian manufacturer of military-grade camouflage uniforms. In 2019, the company unveiled “Quantum Stealth”, a paper-thin material that bends light around a target of any size from soldiers to tanks and ships. Moreover, the cloaking not only works for visible light but also against infrared and shortwave infrared light, making Quantum Stealth a broadband invisibility cloak.

This unparalleled versatility is made possible by employing lenticular lenses, typically seen in 3D bookmarks or collectible cards. In the case of Quantum Stealth, these lenses remain clear and unprinted. By layering multiple lenticular sheets with different lens distributions, the material can refract light at numerous angles, creating “dead spots” that prevent light from passing through and effectively concealing the subject while keeping the background unaffected.

The Rochester cloak

Other notable advancements include the Rochester Cloak , which uses a system of lenses to disappear small objects. Developed in 2014 at the University of Rochester, this particular cloaking device uses four standard lenses in a unique configuration. The end result is three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking, which works across the visible spectrum.

This means that the device can hide an object from view regardless of the viewer’s position relative to it. The team accomplished this feat by carefully selecting the lens type, power, and distance between the lenses.

During one experiment, the scientists placed the cloaked object in front of a grid background. As the researchers changed their viewing angle, the grid shifted as if the cloaking device did not exist. The grid lines behind the cloaked object remained continuous and matched the background in terms of magnification and spacing. And unlike previous designs, which resulted in visible shifts in the background, this new device ensures that the background remains undisturbed, thereby enhancing its effectiveness.

While the current device showcases significant advancements, there are still areas for improvement. First of all, you can’t turn this setup into an invisibility suit because the optics are complicated and inflexible. The researchers acknowledge that the cloaked region currently resembles a doughnut shape due to the way light is bent and sent through the center of the device. However, they have developed more intricate designs to address this limitation. Furthermore, the cloak exhibits edge effects, although these can be mitigated by using larger lenses.

Copper rings cloak from Duke

Engineers at Duke University are responsible for the world’s first functional cloaking device, which they unveiled in 2006. However, the device suffered from an issue related to reflections, which reduced its overall efficiency. In 2012, the researchers devised an improved design that addresses this critical concern and takes us closer to harnessing the full potential of controlled light transmission.

One of the primary challenges faced in the development of the original cloak was the loss of waves due to reflections at the boundaries of the device. These reflections, akin to the ones seen on clear glass, disrupted the seamless cloaking effect. The upgraded cloak retains the row-by-row design of the original, but now incorporates additional copper strips to create a more intricate and high-performing metamaterial.

The device, measuring approximately two feet square, forms a diamond shape with an empty center. By carefully positioning each strip to meet its mirror image at each interface, the Duke researchers successfully mitigated the reflections that plagued earlier versions. However, this cloak only achieves invisibility in 2-D and at a certain angle.

An invisibility cloak for security cameras

A team of Chinese graduate students has managed to outsmart security cameras with a breakthrough invention. Meet InvisDefens e, an unassuming coat designed to render its wearer virtually invisible to AI-monitored cameras.

InvisDefense possesses the extraordinary ability to render the wearer indistinguishable to surveillance cameras while remaining visible to the naked eye. The secret lies in its meticulously crafted pattern, cleverly configured to evade detection by AI algorithms.

“Security cameras using AI technology are everywhere. They pervade our lives,” said Wei Hui, the computer science graduate student at Wuhan University who designed the coat’s core algorithm. “Our privacy is exposed under machine vision.”

“We designed this product to counter malicious detection, to protect people’s privacy and safety in certain circumstances.”

During daylight hours, cameras primarily rely on motion and contour recognition to identify human bodies. By adorning the surface of InvisDefense with a specially designed camouflage pattern, the coat cunningly disrupts the machine vision’s recognition algorithm, leaving cameras incapable of discerning the wearer as a person.

As darkness descends, the challenge intensifies as cameras switch to infrared thermal imaging. To counter this, InvisDefense integrates irregularly shaped temperature-controlling modules on its inner surface, generating a unique thermal pattern that bewilders the infrared camera, further cloaking the wearer from prying eyes.

While not a visible spectrum invisibility suit, this design is so ingenious that it’s worthy of a mention on our list. And in addition to its transformative impact on personal privacy, InvisDefense holds promise in domains such as anti-drone warfare and human-machine engagement on the battlefield.

A breakthrough in 2018 involved the use of titanium-based nanofins in metalenses, allowing them to bend light by the necessary amount to achieve invisibility. While previous metamaterials could not cover visible light wavelengths, the combination of metalenses and metamaterials shows promise in extending invisibility to the visible-light spectrum.

This advancement in metalenses offers the potential to create visible-light cloaking devices, where light of different wavelengths can be manipulated to render objects invisible. While the technology is not yet fully developed, it represents a significant step towards achieving real-life invisibility cloaks in the near future.

The Invisibility Shield

The Invisibility Shield uses a precision-engineered lens array that cleverly manipulates light. By redirecting the majority of the light reflected from the subject away from the observer, the shield effectively camouflages the person behind it. This redirected light is then spread sideways across the face of the shield, creating the illusion of a background instead of the person who should be visible.

According to Invisibility Shield Co., their shields perform at their best when used against uniform backgrounds. Natural settings like foliage, grass, and the sky, as well as man-made features such as rendered walls, sand, rails, or painted lines, offer the perfect canvas for these remarkable shields. In these scenarios, the background light is expertly diffused, making the shield incredibly effective at concealing its wearer.

The future of invisibility cloaks

In the military domain, cloaking technology could revolutionize stealth operations, rendering military assets invisible to radar or surveillance systems. Additionally, in the field of optics, invisibility techniques can enhance the efficiency of telescopes, microscopes, and other imaging devices.

While we may not witness Harry Potter-like invisibility cloaks anytime soon, the strides made in this field are undeniably impressive. Ongoing research and collaboration between scientists, engineers, and material specialists hold the promise of further breakthroughs in the future. Invisibility technology might someday become an integral part of our lives, revolutionizing various industries and transforming the way we perceive the world.

Was this helpful?

Cloaking devices—it's not just 'Star Trek' anymore

by Acoustical Society of America

Cloaking devices play a pivotal role in many sci-fi television programs. Scientists are now working to take this technology from the dramatic realm of science fiction and make it real. Amanda D. Hanford, at Pennsylvania State University, is taking the introductory steps to make acoustic ground cloaks. These materials redirect approaching waves around an object without scattering the wave energy, concealing the object from the sound waves.

During the 175th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, being held May 7-11, 2018, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hanford will describe the physics behind an underwater acoustic shield designed in her lab.

Hanford and her team set out to engineer a metamaterial that can allow the sound waves to bend around the object as if it were not there. Metamaterials commonly exhibit extraordinary properties not found in nature, like negative density. To work, the unit cell—the smallest component of the metamaterial—must be smaller than the acoustic wavelength in the study.

"These materials sound like a totally abstract concept, but the math is showing us that these properties are possible," Hanford said. "So, we are working to open the floodgates to see what we can create with these materials."

To date, most acoustic metamaterials have been designed to deflect sound waves in air. Hanford decided to take this work one step further and accept the scientific challenge of trying the same feat underwater. Acoustic cloaking underwater is more complicated because water is denser and less compressible than air. These factors limit engineering options.

After multiple attempts, the team designed a 3-foot-tall pyramid out of perforated steel plates. They then placed the structure on the floor of a large underwater research tank. Inside the tank, a source hydrophone produced acoustic waves between 7,000 Hz and 12,000 Hz, and several receiver hydrophones around the tank monitored reflected acoustic waves .

The wave reflected from the metamaterial matched the phase of the reflected wave from the surface. Additionally, the amplitude of the reflected wave from the cloaked object decreased slightly. These results demonstrate that this material could make an object appear invisible to underwater instruments like sonar.

Using linear coordinate transformation, the researchers were able to map the flat surface of the bottom of the tank and determined that space was compressed into two triangular cloaking regions consisting of the engineered metamaterial.

These results show potential to contribute to real-world applications, such as acoustic materials to dampen sound and appear invisible underwater.

Provided by Acoustical Society of America

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Cloaking Devices , Star Trek News - May 19, 2020

Star Trek Cloaking Devices.. Are They Possible?

Could it work, what the experts say, metamaterials, bending light, star trek: first contact, introduction of the unknown, what do the original scripts say, where star trek was right and critics were wrong, data, the too-real android, communicators, what do the fans say, is a cloaking device possible, given what is known today.

Again, the cynic would reply that we already have the technology. It is in no way unreasonable to believe that, within the next 200 years, "accepted science," building on knowledge currently circulating on college campuses, will include as-yet-unknown technology. The possibility of a future non-human source of information is a variable that renders the equation too complex to solve. No one can say for certain that a Vulcan ship isn't just a few light-years away at any given time. (Fingers crossed!) More importantly, there is nothing yet discovered by any recognized scientific authority, at NASA, at universities and colleges, or at independent research facilities, that adequately or completely refute the day-to-day science of the Star Trek Universe. Questions about possible future technology deserve more than a flippant "Anything Is Possible" reply. Yes, anything IS possible. That is the beauty of all truly great Alternate Universes. When looked at scientifically, analytically, even clinically, there is more reason to believe that we are a mere few decades from the technical knowledge to hide in plain sight than to believe that any technology or device is "impossible."

What do you think?? Let me know in the comments below!!

Mohammad Ashraf May 25, 2020

In one of the episodes a strange microscopic organism attacks Enterprise and gives nightmares to Data and also attacks counselor. The organism is eliminated by a supersonic sound emitted by Data. Could this technology be used to eliminate the Covid-19?

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Star Trek canon just retconned a crucial piece of starship technology

How do you cloak a starship? One of Star Trek: Prodigy’s advisers breaks down that Chimerium cloaking device.

Stealth tech in Star Trek has always been unreliable for the people in the starships and reliably awesome for the audience. First introduced in the Romulan-centric ‘60s episode “Balance of Terror,” starships with cloaking devices are pretty much invisible, and therefore a giant pain-in-the-neck for the ethical members of the Federation, who mostly lack cloaking tech.

But now, there’s a new type of cloaking technology in the Star Trek universe, and it's powered by a mysterious variety of crystals called “Chimerium.” The funny thing is, though, Chimerium isn’t new at all. It originates in Star Trek novels and has recently made its way into the Trek canon.

To figure it all out, we caught up with one of the advisers for Star Trek: Prodigy — Trek novelist David Mack — who filled us in on the origin of Chimerium and how it fits in with what you think you knew about cloaking technology. Spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Prodigy , Episode 7, “First Con-tact.”

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SCI-FI MOVIE? Tell us now for a chance to get paid to write an article for Inverse .

The USS Protostar , surrounded by Chimerium.

What is Chimerium?

In the latest episode of Prodigy , “First Con-tact,” Dal and the crew of the Protostar encounter Dal’s adoptive mother, a Ferengi thief who is actually trying to rip off Dal, too. But the game-changing thing here is something that has been brewing in Prodigy for a while, the idea that certain kinds of cloaking devices can be powered by Chimerium crystals.

The crystals that Dal and everybody were being forced to mine by the Diviner in the very first episode are, in fact, Chimerium crystals, used primarily by the Diviner to cloak his entire penal colony. In terms of the onscreen Trek canon, Chimerium has been newly introduced by Prodigy , but it’s not a new concept.

The Star Trek novella where Chimerium was first created.

The literary origin of Chimerium

Before Prodigy , Chimerium debuted in a series of books called Star Trek: S.C.E , which stands for Starfleet Corps of Engineers. In the novella Invincible — written by David Mack and Keith R. A. DeCandido — the substance of Chimerium first appeared because as Mack puts it, “I needed an objective for the laborers.”

His idea was that Chimerium is “a substance that is useful for blocking and/or reflecting sensors.” The name as you might have guessed comes from “chimera,” something that has been made of other elements. In Mack’s conception of Chimerium, the crystal is a mineral compound of various elements.

Does the mining operation in Prodigy episode 1 make a little more sense now?

How Chimerium became canon for Prodigy

The incorporation of this non-canon crystal into the actual visual canon of Trek was pretty organic. Mack explains it like this:

“Early in the development of Star Trek: Prodigy , when the Hageman brothers were still developing its detailed final proposal for Alex Kurtzman, they hired me as an expert Star Trek consultant. The Hagemans described to me the setting and purpose of the mining operation on the planetoid Tars Lamora. They wanted the Protostar to be hidden inside the planetoid, and for their bad guy, the Diviner, to have been searching there for the ship over a period of many years, possibly even decades.

Because sensors in the Star Trek universe should easily have been able to find a starship no matter how deeply it was buried inside the planetoid, I suggested to the Hagemans that it might be a good idea if the planetoid were rich with a compound that blocks sensors. That would explain why the Diviner was forced to resort to such brute-force search methods, while also giving him a valuable resource he could trade to finance his ongoing search. The Hagemans thought that sounded like a good idea and asked me to recommend such a compound. I immediately suggested Chimerium, a substance that seemed custom-made for their story needs, and they agreed that it felt like a good fit.”

The Diviner activates his Chimerium cloak in the second episode of Prodigy , “Starstruck.”

How is Chimerium different from “regular” cloaking?

In Prodigy’s newest episode, “First Con-tact,” Dal and the crew not only lose the chance to get a Chimerium cloaking device but also lose their entire supply of Chimerium too. Naturally, the young crew of the Protostar was pretty pumped about the possibility of having a cloaking device jacked into their ship, mostly because it would help keep them safe. But if you were wondering if Chimerium has always been required to power cloaking devices in Star Trek canon, the answer is no . The specific type of “Chimerium cloak” is new to Star Trek: Prodigy , and we actually saw the Diviner use it in the second episode of the series.

Other than the fact that it uses these specific crystals, how is this kind of cloaking device different from the ones we’ve seen in Trek before? Mack says the biggest difference is that Chimerium “is like a natural stealth,” because it doesn’t literally make the ship “invisible.”

“The types of cloaking devices we usually see used by Klingons and Romulans use an artificially generated energy field to bend both visible light and sensor beams, rendering their spacecraft literally invisible and also hiding them from sensors,” Mack explains. “Chimerium is a mineral compound that blocks, bends, or reflects sensor beams.”

So, this means that if someone were to look out the window, a ship using a Chimerium cloak would probably be visible to the naked eye. But if you were trying to look for that ship with sensors or other kinds of scanning equipment, you wouldn’t find anything. What Prodigy has done is canonized tech from Star Trek novels, which allows starships to hide in plain sight.

Considering how cool this kind of technology is within the framework of the endlessly enthralling Star Trek starship canon , it would be shocking if this tech was limited only to Prodigy . We should probably be on the lookout for Chimerium in other upcoming Trek shows, assuming, of course, we even know how to find it.

Star Trek: Prodigy streams on Paramount+

Phasers on Stun!: How the Making — and Remaking — of Star Trek Changed the World

Science Fiction

Why Does Starfleet Not Use Cloaking?

By: Author Brad Burnie

Posted on Published: October 22, 2020 - Last updated: August 26, 2022

Share the Universe!

Almost every race that Starfleet crews come across have cloaking technology. While Starfleet ships can implement this technology, they have refrained from doing so. Why does Starfleet refrain from using cloaking technology?

Starfleet signed a treaty with the Romulans at Algeron after the Earth-Romulan wars that had the provision that Starfleet would not use cloaking technology. Klingons have cloaking technology because they joined the Romulans’ side. Starfleet developed the ability to detect cloaked ships as a defense.

Starfleet might have caved in the treaty of Algeron, but let’s keep going to find out how they’ve adapted to win wars and conflicts.

History of Cloaking Technology

The “stealth technology” that the Suliban had on Star Trek: Enterprise suggests that cloaking technology existed long before Starfleet sent their first warp-capable ship into space. Some say, however, that the Suliban’s stealth technology was a precursor to cloaking technology because it doesn’t exactly use light bending. In that same series, the Suliban’s technology is proven to be cloaking technology.

Romulans had cloaking technology in the 22nd century. Supposedly the Klingons gave the technology to the Romulans, as they had an uneasy alliance. However, the Romulans’ devices needed extensive engineering to work properly, so the Klingons alliance was terminated.

Humans never had a chance to use this technology, as the treaty was signed before Starfleet engineers could create anything that resembled a cloaking device. The Vulcans also withheld information from humans because they thought humans were too primitive to handle space travel rigors.

What Is Cloaking Technology?

A cloaking device allows a ship to become invisible to enemies, which has the added advantage of spying on another culture before attacking. It uses a selective bending of light and other forms of energy that makes the ship invisible to most sensors. In order to work, the device needed to be connected to a ship’s deflector shield grid.

When Did Humans First Encounter Cloaking Technology?

Two fishermen on a whaling ship off the coast of Alaska in 1987 were hunting two whales when their spear hit the side of something. They didn’t know what it was at first, but suddenly a large flying ship appeared out of nowhere. Admiral Kirk and crew were going home in a Klingon Bird of Prey after getting Spock and discovered that they needed to go back in time to save humanity.

Humans’ first encounter with cloaking technology was when Kirk and crew saved Earth from itself by bringing two humpback whales with them to repopulate the species and have them talk to the alien probe.

The next encounter with this technology was when Suliban agents broke into the Enterprise’s sickbay to kidnap Klaang before he could go back to Kronos with vital information. Since that encounter, Starfleet ran into this technology multiple times.

Races Who Can Use Cloaking Technology

Who can use cloaking technology without it being seen as an act of war? It appears that almost any other race or civilization can use cloaking technology. But because of the Algeron treaty , the Federation was never to put cloaking devices on their ships. (Of course, certain Starfleet ships did use the technology without being detected.) The races who could use the device were:

Cardassians
The Sphere Builders
The Duck Blind Mission on the Ba’Ku homeworld
and many more.

The Treaty of Algeron Stopped Starfleet From Using Cloaking Technology

The Algeron Treaty stated that the Federation could not use or complete further research into cloaking technology. In return, the Romulans would stay on their side of the Neutral Zone and not commit espionage acts in the future.

Captain Pressman , who tried to circumvent this treaty by using a phasing cloaking device, declared that the treaty was the biggest mistake the Federation made, as it cut off any possibilities for real defense. He was arrested in 2370 for his role in the illegal cloaking device activity.

The Earth-Romulan War

The treaty was signed 160 years after the conclusion of the Earth-Romulan war . The war began in 2156 due to the tension the Romulans felt due to how Earth was creating peace among the enemies of the Romulans–Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellerites. As a result of space exploration by the Enterprise with Captain Archer, the diplomatic relations between these races improved greatly.

But the Romulans didn’t like this new peace and created a campaign to disrupt it by sending automated drones to attack Andoria and Tellar. Unfortunately for the Romulans, it had the opposite effect. The attacks resulted in the new factions working together to return the drones and created peace between the worlds.

These neighbors created a Coalition of Planets and fought together when the Romulans waged open war in 2156. The war lasted until 2160 when the Coalition brought a decisive blow against the Romulan empire. Once the war was decided, a treaty was signed between the Romulans and the Coalition by subspace radio.

The treaty established the Neutral Zone, which neither side could cross without being interpreted as an act of war. The neutral zone did its job so well that neither side saw each other for over 100 years.

Tomed Incident and the Algeron Treaty

In 2311, a confrontation between the Romulan Empire and the Federation resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Named the Tomed Incident, it was a staged terrorist attack against a Federation starbase. A Romulan warship crashed into the base at high warp, and the quantum singularity wiped out over thirteen Starfleet outposts.

However, while thousands of lives appeared lost, that was a ruse by Starfleet to make it seem they were dead. The outposts were empty and emitted false life signs. The names of the people that died had already died before this incident and were covered up until this time. The Klingons sided with the Federation on this incident, suggesting that they already had an alliance with the Federation by this time.

The entire act of terror was orchestrated by Starfleet to diffuse the rising tensions between them and the Romulan Empire and create a treaty that would ensure peace for another century. The Romulans were required to remove themselves from the interstellar government, while the Federation could not have or research cloaking technology.

Starfleet Developed the Ability to Detect Cloaked Ships

In the aftermath of the treaty being signed, Starfleet still completed research and used cloaking devices in a limited fashion. While most did not get caught, Erik Pressman was arrested in 2370 for the research and application of the phasing cloaking device used on the Pegasus in 2358.

However, during the period before the treaty was signed, Starfleet crews developed the ability to detect cloaking devices. A ripple in space, gaseous anomalies, and other methods were used to detect a cloaked ship nearby. After the treaty, these methods were even more important, as it provided a defensive strategy against those who would use cloaking to destroy the Federation.

The Algeron treaty was considered a mistake by many in the Federation because it restricted their defensive abilities. But the treaty had accomplished one thing for the Federation—it took the Romulans out of circulation from the interstellar government. Peace was possible because factions that wanted war were out of the way.

Eventually, the Romulans gave Starfleet permission to use cloaking devices with limited supervision against the Dominion . (Only the Defiant could use a cloaking device.) The Dominion came from the Gamma Quadrant to take over the Federation, starting with Deep Space 9. Commander Sisko also used the technology several times during his time at the starbase.

Memory Alpha: Treaty of Algeron
Memory Alpha: Dominion
Memory Alpha: Erik Pressman
Memory Alpha: Tomed Incident
Memory Alpha: Earth-Romulan War
Memory Beta: Cloaking Device
Memory Alpha: Cloaking Device
Universe Guide: Why Does Starfleet Space Ships Not Have Cloaking?

Why Does Starfleet Not Use Cloaking generated pin 56379

Brad Burnie is the founder of Starships.com. He loves all video game genres. In his spare time, he loves reading, watching movies, and gaming

How Do Star Trek Stardates Actually Work?

T here are few handier delivery mechanisms for "Star Trek" exposition than a Captain's log entry, crucial Starfleet records that mark time with "stardates" — an enigmatic calendar system integrating decimals into each date. Although based on a real-world astronomical dating system, the Starfleet version doesn't make a ton of sense because it was never meant to, which is why the "Star Trek" timeline can seem confusing the deeper you dig into it.

As outlined in a 1967 "Star Trek" writer and director's guide, "The progression of stardates in your script should remain constant but don't worry about whether or not there is a progression from other scripts." Still, understanding the Julian date system can be a good starting point for those who care to try.

Speaking with The Space Review in 2019, "Star Trek: The Original Series" technical advisor Kellam de Forest explained that the futuristic calendar system was inspired by the Julian day — the solar day measurement used in the 365-day Julian solar dating system that predated the Gregorian calendar. Because the Julian day system creates a continued count of dates from the beginning of the Julian period, the ease of calculation between two dates without breaks has made it the preferred calendar for many scientific applications, including astronomical software. Julian dates are calculated by adding the Julian day — that is, the solar day since the beginning of the Julian calendar — and then adding a decimal point to indicate the fraction of the day that has passed since noon in Universal Time Code (UTC). Although the Julian date calculates days running into the millions, only the final five digits are commonly used by astronomers — and just four are used in "Star Trek."

Read more: Star Trek Stories That Are Actually Horrifying

Stardates Are Intentionally Difficult To Calculate

According to the "Star Trek" writer's guide, the Starfleet calendar system was invented to deemphasize the in-universe date. As the guide puts it, "We invented 'Stardate' to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's century (actually, about two hundred years from now), and getting into arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then."

Speaking on the 1988 documentary "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," de Forest emphasized that this almost wasn't the case since the original script contained dates from the Gregorian calendar. Upon reviewing the script, de Forest felt this didn't feel right for the future spacefaring society. As a solution, he pitched the Julian-inspired concept, which the tech advisor felt had a futuristic vibe thanks to its use of decimals.

While "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry liked the concept as a jumping-off point, his version was always meant to be a little esoteric, as Samuel A. Peeples, who wrote the second pilot for "Star Trek: The Original Series," recounted in "Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and Man Behind Star Trek." According to Peeples, "We tried to set up a system that would be unidentifiable unless you knew how we did it." Conceptualizing the revised stardate system over drinks, Roddenberry and Peeples took into account the weirdness of space and relative time, ultimately concluding that any date-related continuity errors in "Star Trek" could be chalked up to these issues. Or as the "Star Trek" writer's guide put it, "Stardates are a mathematical formula which varies depending on location in the galaxy, velocity of travel, and other factors, can vary widely from episode to episode." In other words, don't think too hard about it.

Read the original article on Looper

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COMMENTS

Cloaking device
A cloaking device, also known as a cloaking system, cloaking shield or invisibility screen, was a form of stealth technology that used selective bending of light (and other forms of energy) to render a starship or other objects completely invisible to the electromagnetic spectrum and most sensors.It was encountered in varying forms over the centuries. For a period of time, the Federation ...
The Cloaking Devices Of Star Trek Explained
Cloaking devices in Star Trek function by bending light at the expense of massive amounts of energy. In terms of how Star Trek's cloaking device might actually work, the essential principle of ...
star trek
(by 2269): Klingons have cloaking technology. 2286: The Federation obtains a functioning Klingon cloaking device in the events of Star Trek III and IV. 2293: The events of Star Trek VI take place. Praxis explodes, leading to peace overtures and the Khitomer Conference / Accords.
Cloaking device
A cloaking device is a hypothetical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.Fictional cloaking devices have been used as plot devices in various media for many years.. Developments in scientific research show that real-world cloaking devices can obscure objects ...
Phasing cloaking device
The phasing cloaking device was an experimental technology developed by a secret group in Starfleet Security in the 2350s. An expansion on the more traditional cloaking device, it was designed to phase sequence the structure of matter and energy to such a rate that it was possible to allow any vessel utilizing the device to pass through normal matter in the phased state. A direct violation of ...
Star Trek: Discovery's Klingon Cloaking Technology Explained
Klingons should not have cloaking technology on Star Trek: Discovery, according to existing canon, but it looks like T'Kuvma is an exception. Spoilers ahead for the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery. The two-part premiere of Star Trek: Discovery was a thrilling ride with vibrant, fascinating characters, and a new visual interpretation ...
How Real Invisibility Cloaks Work
"Star Trek" writers got around this quandary pseudo-scientifically by proposing that a cloaking device warps space itself, thus delivering diverted light to an observer right on time. Not an easy ...
How 'Star Trek' Technology Works (Infographic)
The original "Star Trek" television series featured technology that had first appeared decades earlier in science fiction stories. Pulp heroes had been wielding ray guns, flying faster than light ...
cloaking device
A cloaking device is a form of stealth technology familiar in science fiction, most notably in the Star Trek universe, but that is now becoming possible, to a limited extent, in the real world (see below). Humans have long dreamed of having the power of invisibility. In Greek mythology, Perseus possessed a cap that let him wink out of view.
Cloaking device
Nature. A cloaking device manipulates a starship's shields [1] to bend light around the starship, making it effectively invisible. Advanced cloaks affect high-tech sensor emissions similarly, making the the ship invisible to many other forms of detection, as well. The purpose of a cloak is to prevent detection before combat and when fleeing ...
Real-life invisibility cloaks are already here. But how do they work?
Several cloaking mechanisms have been proposed and developed to achieve invisibility. One approach involves bending light around an object, creating a "cloak" that renders it optically ...
About the infamous Cloaking Devices : r/startrek
The Scimitar's cloak was Reman tech, not Klingon or Romulan. Klingons and Romulans use different means to power their ships, and their cloaking technology is different as well. The cloaking device used in ST:IV on the stolen Bird of Prey is also at least 100 years older than the Scimitar's. Chang's Bird of Prey, that was able to fire torpedoes ...
How Does the Cloaking Device Work? : r/DaystromInstitute
The trick (and complexity) surrounding the cloaking device is to absorb incoming light (and other sources of radiation used by active sensors) so that your own ships sensors can make a note of it and then rapidly re-route the light through a subspace domain and re-emit it around and behind your ship. You have to route it through subspace so ...
Cloaking devices—it's not just 'Star Trek' anymore
Cloaking devices play a pivotal role in many sci-fi television programs. Scientists are now working to take this technology from the dramatic realm of science fiction and make it real. Amanda D ...
Invisibility cloaks are not just possible, but are becoming reality
As Star Trek first envisioned it, it took centuries for cloaking technology to be perfected. Here on Earth, it may require a mere decade or two. Here on Earth, it may require a mere decade or two.
Star Trek Cloaking Devices.. Are They Possible?
Sensors. We already have radar, sonar, laser ranging, vibration, gravimeters, energetic-particle detectors, and light-wavelength detectors. And they are on right now. From medical technology to advances in physics, biology, and computers, Star Trek has pre-envisioned much of what we would recognize as MRIs, Micro-Surgery, Text Messaging, and on ...
How Cloaking Works
In this video I explain and demonstrate with in game footage how cloaking works in Star Trek Infinite. I also explain how combats works with cloaking and wha...
Star Trek canon just retconned a crucial piece of starship technology
Jan. 13, 2022. Stealth tech in Star Trek has always been unreliable for the people in the starships and reliably awesome for the audience. First introduced in the Romulan-centric '60s episode ...
Why does Starfleet not use cloaking technology? : r/startrek
There's a treaty with the Romulans (Treaty of Alergeron or something.) that says they agree not to develop or deploy cloaking technology. Keep in mind, The Federation HAS in the past tried to develop (and succeeded) in developing SUPERIOR cloak (See the Episode 'Pegasus' in TNG), but it was also done in secret and was punished when it came to ...
How many Star Trek societies have cloaking technology?
9. The Aldeans are a race of people who cloak their entire planet in When The Bough Breaks. also have cloaking technology. Quark managed to acquire a damaged cloaking device on the black market. He ultimately gave it to some Cardassians in Profit and Loss.
Why Does Starfleet Not Use Cloaking?
Starfleet signed a treaty with the Romulans at Algeron after the Earth-Romulan wars that had the provision that Starfleet would not use cloaking technology. Klingons have cloaking technology because they joined the Romulans' side. Starfleet developed the ability to detect cloaked ships as a defense. Starfleet might have caved in the treaty of ...
How Do Star Trek Stardates Actually Work?
There are few handier delivery mechanisms for "Star Trek" exposition than a Captain's log entry, crucial Starfleet records that mark time with "stardates" — an enigmatic calendar system ...