Would the Scimitar be of Interest to the Empire?

[Ender]

alright then, scrap that idea

[Darth Wong]

Slowing it down would be consistent with what we know about cloaked ships, and as for the gravity, I would think that the Quantum Singularity reactor they use would tip off others already, so either they don't scan for gravity, or the sinking of mass into subspace hides it.

They don't scan for it. In DS9, they detected a cloaked ship circling around the ship by its gravity. It was an accident; they thought it was a micro-singularity (naturally, since there's a micro-singularity inside the Romulan power generator).

There are lots of ways to pick up a cloaked ship. When Troi was kidnapped and put aboard a Romulan warbird, its captain was not at all optimistic about the prospects of entering Federation space undetected. The abilities of the cloaking device are somewhat overrated IMHO; people tend to assume the Federation has no countermeasures but the Romulans themselves seem to think otherwise. The Federation's failure to deploy these countermeasures and detection systems to their ships (as opposed to these "picket line" detection grids) is a mystery, but the fact that they exist is not.

[Alyeska]

Slowing it down would be consistent with what we know about cloaked ships, and as for the gravity, I would think that the Quantum Singularity reactor they use would tip off others already, so either they don't scan for gravity, or the sinking of mass into subspace hides it.

They don't scan for it. In DS9, they detected a cloaked ship circling around the ship by its gravity. It was an accident; they thought it was a micro-singularity (naturally, since there's a micro-singularity inside the Romulan power generator).

There are lots of ways to pick up a cloaked ship. When Troi was kidnapped and put aboard a Romulan warbird, its captain was not at all optimistic about the prospects of entering Federation space undetected. The abilities of the cloaking device are somewhat overrated IMHO; people tend to assume the Federation has no countermeasures but the Romulans themselves seem to think otherwise. The Federation's failure to deploy these countermeasures and detection systems to their ships (as opposed to these "picket line" detection grids) is a mystery, but the fact that they exist is not.

Its typically assumed that ships like the sensor pod modified Nebula serve as long range sensor detection ships. I have no doubt one of those Nebulas could pick up a cloaked ship with relative ease compared to most of the other means. Tachyon detection grids are ok, but they are only for fixed locations and can be bypassed. Not quite as easy to deal with a dedicated sensor ship hunting you down.

[Durandal]

Slowing it down would be consistent with what we know about cloaked ships, and as for the gravity, I would think that the Quantum Singularity reactor they use would tip off others already, so either they don't scan for gravity, or the sinking of mass into subspace hides it.

They don't scan for it. In DS9, they detected a cloaked ship circling around the ship by its gravity. It was an accident; they thought it was a micro-singularity (naturally, since there's a micro-singularity inside the Romulan power generator).

There are lots of ways to pick up a cloaked ship. When Troi was kidnapped and put aboard a Romulan warbird, its captain was not at all optimistic about the prospects of entering Federation space undetected. The abilities of the cloaking device are somewhat overrated IMHO; people tend to assume the Federation has no countermeasures but the Romulans themselves seem to think otherwise. The Federation's failure to deploy these countermeasures and detection systems to their ships (as opposed to these "picket line" detection grids) is a mystery, but the fact that they exist is not.

Its typically assumed that ships like the sensor pod modified Nebula serve as long range sensor detection ships. I have no doubt one of those Nebulas could pick up a cloaked ship with relative ease compared to most of the other means. Tachyon detection grids are ok, but they are only for fixed locations and can be bypassed. Not quite as easy to deal with a dedicated sensor ship hunting you down.

And the evidence behind this assumption is ... where?

[Darth Wong]

One interesting possible explanation is that a stationary platform (such as the static Fed detection "picket line") can do it but a moving ship can't. Their heavy reliance on fancy subspace fields means that they sit in a puddle of distortion, figuratively speaking, which can't be good for sensors.

[beyond hope]

namdoolb, the answer to your question is right in ST 6: the bird-of-prey is gving off detectable traces of drive plasma specifically *because* it's firing while cloaked.

Do you have any evidence for this speculation besides wishful thinking?

Spock said that all vessels dump drive emissions, cloaked or not. He said this would work. He did not say that he expected this vessel to be unusual in this regard thanks to its ability to fire on the move.

And precisely why would its ability to fire on the move mean that it dumps plasma from its propulsion system (note: unrelated to weapons) in a manner that ordinary cloaked ships don't?

...and that's what I get for relying on my memory, rather than watching the scene before shooting my mouth off. Conceded, and I'll be reporting to the SD.net stocks later for public ridicule. I've read a lot of the novels, the tech manuals, and several different games based on Trek and it all kind of blurs together after a while.

As far as why I'd expect this to be the case, I assumed that the cloak conceals all emissions from the ship. This is evidently not the case, however it does make me wonder why Fed ships of the time were not fitted with similar warheads if the plasma emissions were a known vulnerability. After all, the Klingons and the Romulans are the two biggest threats to the Federation at that time: both make use of cloaked ships. My new assumption (and I emphasize assumption) would be that the cloak has a scattering effect on the drive plasma: it still leaves a distinguishable trail, but one sufficiently diffuse that it can't be used to target the ship with weapons fire. Diffusing the thrust like that would require more power to maintain the same speed, which could account for the slower speeds of cloaked ships. So, my idea was that with the cloak, the engines, and weapons all drawing power, something had to give.

All that aside, I figure that the there's a few things aboard the Scimitar that the Empire would be interested in. The cloak for one: it's advanced enough that current Federation technology can't see through it, while the Scimitar is capable of following the E-E at warp and targeting and attacking accurately while cloaked (I don't remember seeing the Scimitar miss often.) I'm thinking that the power requirements of the cloak must have dropped as well: the Scimitar was capable of following the E-E at warp, powering all it's weapons, and also maintaining shields while cloaked. The "Medusa gun" would be another: I know that many people don't agree on that, but I see it as having some practical uses. For one thing, there's no reason it has to be used in the full-bore "kill everything" mode: taking out individual ships or heavily defended positions on a planet should be possible (if it's not with the weapon on the Scimitar, it could be scaled down a bit when adapted for use on Imperial warships.) The same technology could make grenades the size of the device that was used to assassinate the Senate: that was no bigger than maybe 8 inches or so across. *Assuming* that thalaron radiation penetrates shields, it should do well against ST ground forces as none of them employ significant NBC protection.