Puddle jumper versus Death Star

[NecronLord]

There are so many unknowns regarding that, I don't know if it can really be compared directly.

[Kon_El]

SG cloak seems to account for all of that, as it has been consistently shown to be indetectable, even when the cloaked ship was making radio transmissions.

Would this be built in communications on the puddle jumper or hand held earth tech? If it was the latter I can't see how the radio waves could be manipulated at all by the cloak without disrupting communications. It just might not be a method of detection their opponent used.

[Batman]

Jumper onboard communications may very well be be beyond the Wraith ability to locate or even detect them, being Ancient tech (at least I don't THINK that ever happened). The Ancients WERE immensely more technologically advance then the Wraith, they lost to a combination of sheer numbers on the Wraith and abject stupidity on their side.
As for the SGC issue comms, they're moderately short range and might simply not be detectable at anything above a few 100 km. Besides, they're RADIO. A species with everday FTL communication ( Teyla's locator beacon was tiny compared to a modern day cellphone)might simply not think about or even any longer be equipped to monitor the EM band WRT communications. (As always, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

As for the Ancient cloak covering Atlantis' heat signature, compared to a starship Atlantis usually doesn't have all that large a one, what with no engines running, the shield down, and ZPMs apparently emitting very little heat into their immediate surroundings (I guess they could be using Ancient technobabble to reroute the heat elsewhere). Besides, Atlantis is usually sitting in an atmosphere AND on an immense water reservoir they can dissipate waste heat into.

[Connor MacLeod]

A minor nitpick regarding the gravity sensors on the DS. Are they really precise enough to differentiate the gravity generated by a tiny fighter from its own gravity well?
I might buy a regular ship, even a capital ship, doing so. But the DS is a massive planetoid whose own gravitational pull should be enough to obscure small objects, specially so close to its surface.

That depends entirley on how big CGT sensors are, but we never found that out. Except that it was implied they could tow them through hyperspace, so they obviously cannot be absurdly high (Ie smaller than, ssay, the Executor.) Hell evne if they WERE Executor-sized, thats piddly compared to the internal volume of the 1st DS.

Also, regarding the cloak, SG-verse cloaking fields are capable of completely hiding an entire city from enemy vessels in orbit actively scanning for them.

Meaningless unless you go over the methods of scanning form them. And, as mentioned, power can/does matter in this.

I'd say considerations about irradiated heat and other sensible means of detecting objects that have simply become invisible are moot, the SG cloak seems to account for all of that,

Wrong. You don't get to handwave it away without an explanation, nor do you get to ignore thermodynamics. Try again.

as it has been consistently shown to be indetectable, even when the cloaked ship was making radio transmissions.

Which tells us nothing useful. Try again.

Edit: I will also point out there are still some hefty unknowns, such as the whole "how they move" issue, whether or not this hypotheticla cloak will actually block FTL signals (tachyonic and/or subspace), or that the puddle jumper will be able to bypass/get under the DS's fields/shields or be able to manuver in the aforementioned distortion very well.

[Themightytom]

How does the yield of a drone compare to a proton torpedo in the context of destryong the reactor? It would be pretty stupid if they flew up under cloak... carefully maneuvered the jumper so taht they could fire right down the tube to account for any drone maneuverability issues, and then the drone wasn't powerful enough to cause the chain reaction detonation.

Although they can drill right? We DID decide they can drill?

[Oskuro]

Thus the PJ cloak most likely won't work against the DS, assuming competent operators who investigate (or fire a few shots at) all anomolous inbound sensor signatures.

Problem here is that space is big, very big, and a relatively tiny object such as a Puddle Jumper, and a cloaked one no less, wouldn't be trivial to detect.

Then again, this is all pointless without quantifiable information on the DS detection capabilities and the limits of the Puddle Jumper's cloaking technology.

[Starglider]

Jumper onboard communications may very well be be beyond the Wraith ability to locate or even detect them, being Ancient tech (at least I don't THINK that ever happened).

Existing stealth aircraft can use satellite communications without (significantly increased) risk of detection simply because the transmission is directional, and there are no sensors directly above the aircraft. Long range space communication pretty much has to be highly directional (or based on bizarre superphysics effects as the ancient intergalactic comms systems seem to be) or transmission will be too weak to detect by the receiver. As long as the enemy aren't close to the axis from the transmitter to the intended target this is not a stealth compromising issue regardless of technology level.

[Straha]

I'd say considerations about irradiated heat and other sensible means of detecting objects that have simply become invisible are moot, the SG cloak seems to account for all of that,

Wrong. You don't get to handwave it away without an explanation, nor do you get to ignore thermodynamics. Try again.

Considering that they have a dial that can change the mass of the Puddle Jumper I think that storing the heat released from the puddle jumper, or exploiting a loophole in the laws of Thermodynamics to achieve that effect, should be of no problem to them. And considering that we see more primitive technology in universe accomplish similar feats (including preventing radiation of heat, or at least hiding such radiation from dedicated observers in an effective manner) I think it's probably best just to say "This is possible through mechanisms unexplained at present." and instead focus on questions like "Can the drone make the turn in the exhaust port?" and "Would the drone cause enough damage to trigger the chain reaction necessary to destroy the Death Star?" and "Can the Puddle Jumper even make it through the shields to give its drone(s) a shot?"

[Oskuro]

I'd say considerations about irradiated heat and other sensible means of detecting objects that have simply become invisible are moot, the SG cloak seems to account for all of that,

Wrong. You don't get to handwave it away without an explanation, nor do you get to ignore thermodynamics. Try again.

Do we have to explain how the DS's mere existance defies the laws of physics? My point was that the observed operation of the SG cloak techonology seems to compensate for those issues. Wether they do it by use of handwavium or quatum is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

And I'd like to add that one point of SG is the pressence of competent scientists on the character roster. Even if the writers are too ignorant to consider things such as thermal radiation, I'd assume the characters are not, and use that as IU proof that SG cloaking technology can't be simply detected by use of thermal goggles.

[Ghost Rider]

I'd say considerations about irradiated heat and other sensible means of detecting objects that have simply become invisible are moot, the SG cloak seems to account for all of that,

Wrong. You don't get to handwave it away without an explanation, nor do you get to ignore thermodynamics. Try again.

Do we have to explain how the DS's mere existance defies the laws of physics? My point was that the observed operation of the SG cloak techonology seems to compensate for those issues. Wether they do it by use of handwavium or quatum is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Given that nearly most of the SG side hinges on the cloak? It has to go beyond your personal ideas of it seems to compensate and come up with an objective explaination of why it would defy SW technology.

And I'd like to add that one point of SG is the pressence of competent scientists on the character roster. Even if the writers are too ignorant to consider things such as thermal radiation, I'd assume the characters are not, and use that as IU proof that SG cloaking technology can't be simply detected by use of thermal goggles.

Are you actually using this illogical approach to justify your non explaination?

[Connor MacLeod]

Considering that they have a dial that can change the mass of the Puddle Jumper I think that storing the heat released from the puddle jumper, or exploiting a loophole in the laws of Thermodynamics to achieve that effect, should be of no problem to them.

Excuse me? Trekkies have tried the "loophole in thermodynamics" trick before when they wanted to justify the Enterprise putting out gigatons of energy doing absolutely nothing despite that violating thermodynamics, so why should Stargate be allowed to? Nevermind SW gets called on that all the time (EG you rusual "we never see anything looking like a multi-GT explosion in SW or the various "refutations" that come up for high end firepower.)

And considering that we see more primitive technology in universe accomplish similar feats (including preventing radiation of heat, or at least hiding such radiation from dedicated observers in an effective manner) I think it's probably best just to say "This is possible through mechanisms unexplained at present." and instead focus on questions like "Can the drone make the turn in the exhaust port?" and "Would the drone cause enough damage to trigger the chain reaction necessary to destroy the Death Star?" and "Can the Puddle Jumper even make it through the shields to give its drone(s) a shot?"

The problem with that is that you're trying to handwave away something fundamental to the SG side's argument without bothering to explain it adequately. The hows and whys of this ARE important to the debate, because detection methods are a key part of the debate. And appealing to radio transmissions while cloaked does not circumvent that in the least, since as starglider mentions, transmissions can be directional (alternate theories can explain it other than "the cloak magically somehow ignores common sense and science")

[Connor MacLeod]

Do we have to explain how the DS's mere existance defies the laws of physics? My point was that the observed operation of the SG cloak techonology seems to compensate for those issues. Wether they do it by use of handwavium or quatum is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

We have to explain things to a certain degree for it to be plausible, yes. You can't ignore science and then do analysis on it based on science. Why the fuck do you think things like "neutrino radiators" or tensor fields came into existence, pray tell? Hell, we've had to try to explain or deal with the recoil oriented issues of the DS too.

The debate is based on the capabilities and limitations of the device, saying "it works somehow" doesnt' fly. That's been tried far too often in debates.

As I mentioned, what you are in essence trying to do is claim "The cloaking device will work fine and probably be undetectable, even though we dont know how it deals with certain fundamental issues highly relevant and/or crucial to the debate.) Does that sound even remotely fair or plausible or even logical to you?

And I'd like to add that one point of SG is the pressence of competent scientists on the character roster. Even if the writers are too ignorant to consider things such as thermal radiation, I'd assume the characters are not, and use that as IU proof that SG cloaking technology can't be simply detected by use of thermal goggles.

Why should you dare to presume competence, and what do you base that competence on? That's a rather extraordinary claim to make and that also requires extraordinary proof.

That's lke saying "The Clone Troopers look kinda competent in some cases, so we can presume they are generally competent in all cases" despite the fact we know in some cases (and in higher ones) their competence sucks.

[Oskuro]

Given that nearly most of the SG side hinges on the cloak? It has to go beyond your personal ideas of it seems to compensate and come up with an objective explaination of why it would defy SW technology.

Wich we can't determine due to lack of information. My comment was regarding a comment stating that the cloak would be easy to spot since it has to obey the laws of thermodynamics (in that particular case, heat dissipation), wich I say is bullshit given the observed operation in the series. I find it hard to believe that military craft with advanced sensors as seen in SG-1 have no heat detection capabilities (I can't recall examples of them using heat detection, sorry, but I guess lifesign detection partially hinges on it), so I guess the ancient cloak compensates for heat dissipation somehow, so claiming that the DS would detect it because of its residual heat is bullshit.

Yeah, it's a weak argument, but given the source material I really can't come up with anything better. Although I'm not positioning myself on the whole PJ vs DS debate, just on that particular point.

Are you actually using this illogical approach to justify your non explaination?

Illogical? I'm just stating that human scientists, as well as USAF airmen, have come up with no ways to break the cloak. Regardless of writer incomptence, if in-universe these characters are compentent scientists, we can infer that solutions available to our current technology level (like the aforementioned heat dissipation) have already been tried and failed. Again, there's not much to work with, and it borders on appeal to authority, I know.

This is more or less the opposite to the lasers vs navigational deflectors issue, where a line of dialog taken literally prompted inconsistent results. Here we never see SGC using thermal vision to scout for cloaked units, is it because the whole of the US military as well as the combined greatest minds on Earth never though about it, or because they tried off-camera and it didn't work? I'd say the second scenario is more plausible.

The again, I have no hard evidence, and then again, my comment was more of a nitpick on a minor part of the issue, than claiming that the PJ would go undetected (wich I don't claim at all).

[Themightytom]

As I mentioned, what you are in essence trying to do is claim "The cloaking device will work fine and probably be undetectable, even though we dont know how it deals with certain fundamental issues highly relevant and/or crucial to the debate.) Does that sound even remotely fair or plausible or even logical to you?

About as logical as "The Death Star can probably detect a cloak" because it does that so much more often then a puddle jumper flies past under or into advanced alien ships without being notticed. As a bseline, a civilization as advanced as the Asurans couldn't break a puddle jumper's cloak.

[Samuel]

As I mentioned, what you are in essence trying to do is claim "The cloaking device will work fine and probably be undetectable, even though we dont know how it deals with certain fundamental issues highly relevant and/or crucial to the debate.) Does that sound even remotely fair or plausible or even logical to you?

About as logical as "The Death Star can probably detect a cloak" because it does that so much more often then a puddle jumper flies past under or into advanced alien ships without being notticed. As a bseline, a civilization as advanced as the Asurans couldn't break a puddle jumper's cloak.

We don't use advanced without qualifiers. We look at what the toys they have can do- how much power, how fine a manipulation, how fast, etc.

[Ghost Rider]

So in the end, no one has anything for it as any baseline, anything we can compare...other then *It could might* for the puddle jumper? Fucking A, just locking if no one is going to even fucking try.