Freedom of Speech by Norman Rockwell and referencing TNG s7e12 “The Pegasus”

  • ummthatguy@lemmy.worldOPM
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    3 days ago

    Admittedly, there aren’t a lot of “honorable” uses for it. Even in Insurrection, the Federation abused cloaking tech on Ba’ku in their attempt to relocate the population. Observation with the intent to not interfere would benefit from cloaking availability. Not much else coming to mind.

    • Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 days ago

      Yeah, that’s all I’ve got too. Research/study of Pre-warp civilizations is literally the only thing that I can think of but Heisenberg says “Good fuckin’ luck with that one” too. Maybe the cloak could break it.

        • Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Okay that got me. I’m referencing the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and, more specifically, the Observer Effect which says that the study of something will inherently change it. Granted, that applies to physics in that case but it’s still used in reference to studying various other things as there is no way to study something without leaving a footprint of some kind. That footprint alone is enough to vary the study or, as Starfleet is afraid of with Pre-Warp civilizations, vary the thing you’re studying.

          • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Oh gotcha. Yeah wasn’t even thinking about that. Good joke.

            I should have realized, since there’s an old joke in my family my parents would make that when you forgot to turn on the burner, you were cooking with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Effect. Something about it being possible for all the atoms of the food to spontaneously change energy states, just incredibly unlikely.

    • Hux@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Cloaking for pre- first-contact missions makes a ton of sense. I think if the enterprise showed up in orbit today, we’d notice.

      But if it is outlawed by treaty, that’s that.

      Phasing just seems like really good shields to me—defensive, but not covert. How many times would the Enterprise been able to just outright avoid entire story lines if it couldn’t be touched? Not even confrontational issues—like when asteroid dust introduced metal-eating parasites, that just wouldn’t have happened.

      Although, just like any advantage, even a defensive advantage like phasing could be used for offensive purposes (invasion, etc) unless an equal counter to it is developed.

      Thinking about it further, you’d almost assume any people with the technology of faster than light travel would have had to develop some form of phasing tech prior to the FTL stuff…