Stealth Star Destroyers

[GreyStar]

I was reading through the Dev Dairies and updates for Imperial Civil War, and noticed that the idea for Peallon in Era 5 would be a focus on preybirds and other such TIE like but upgraded Starfighters, alongside every ship of his using stealth devices, including Star Destroyers. Did he actually use such?

[Corey]

A good portion of the Hand of Thrawn duology talks about cloaking and the Empire's use of it in that timeframe. I think the opening scene of Specter of the Past may even be a test of some tech related to it (a computer system to help fix some of the communication issues related to it) but it's been so long since I've read those books I may not be remembering the order correctly.

[GreyStar]

Right, the sytingiam crystals had long run out and the Empire's new supply of them when they blew up a planet full of them were destroyed when the Executor carrying all the TIE Phantoms was destroyed. Before the Phantoms they had developed a cheaper more easily mass produced stealth field generator but it suffered from double blindness.

[Pali]

A good portion of the Hand of Thrawn duology talks about cloaking and the Empire's use of it in that timeframe. I think the opening scene of Specter of the Past may even be a test of some tech related to it (a computer system to help fix some of the communication issues related to it) but it's been so long since I've read those books I may not be remembering the order correctly.

Specifically, it was a test of a computer targeting system that was intended to predict the movements of other ships well enough to allow a Star Destroyer to cloak and still fire with a degree of accuracy.  At the time it was written, all Star Wars cloaking devices caused double-blindness, largely because Zahn invented the rules for them in the original Thrawn trilogy (which were later retconned because other authors wanted non-blinding cloaks like Star Trek's).

[DarthRevansRevenge]

yay, but again, the old crystal tech that made the ship go invisible or the kind that made the double blind bubble field, different tech, different results

[Revanchist]

yay, but again, the old crystal tech that made the ship go invisible or the kind that made the double blind bubble field, different tech, different results

I'm pretty sure the only reason we have 2 different cloak types is because of writer inconsistency. Though I must say it was one of the better retcons that they've done.

[Pali]

I actually preferred Star Wars sticking to double-blind cloaks as it made them distinct from Star Trek's.  Edit: It also made sense - you are bending incoming light around your ship, so how would it ever actually reach your ship's sensors?  Star Trek gets around this by using subspace sensors, but Star Wars sensors are never described as such.

[tlmiller]

I actually preferred Star Wars sticking to double-blind cloaks as it made them distinct from Star Trek's.  Edit: It also made sense - you are bending incoming light around your ship, so how would it ever actually reach your ship's sensors?  Star Trek gets around this by using subspace sensors, but Star Wars sensors are never described as such.

Although Trek also once had double blind.  In TOS, when they introduced the Romulans for the first time, the cloaks were double blind.

[Pali]

Although Trek also once had double blind.  In TOS, when they introduced the Romulans for the first time, the cloaks were double blind.

They weren't truly double-blind; the Romulans could detect the Enterprise and navigate around stellar phenomena (a comet in particular).  It definitely seemed to limit the Romulan sensors significantly, so that both ships were reading each other imprecisely through "motion sensors", but it wasn't the absolute blindness a Star Wars cloak created.

And as you say, this was the episode they were introduced; just about every appearance of the cloak later has this weakness negated significantly, though "primary sensors" (likely an active mode rather than passive) aren't used while cloaked as they'd reveal the ship.

[Corey]

You can't really blame the Romulans for starting with double-blinded ones though. The fact that they got a cardboard ship into space in the first place is impressive on its own.

[Pali]

An invisible cardboard ship.

[Revanchist]

An invisible cardboard ship.

Who knows, there could be invisible cardboard ships all around us right now.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

this is not a drill!!! fire at the flying cardboards before Washington falls!!!!!!

[Pali]

Who knows, there could be invisible cardboard ships all around us right now.

And teapots floating around the sun.