Why Didn't They Just Cloak The City? (First Strike)

[Locutus_Of_Borg]

I've watched "First Strike" several times and I thought...yeah leaving the planet, that's not that bad an idea.

But yesterday something occurred to me, when they were moving that asteroid which they think use to be a moon into position so they could lower the shield...why didn't they just cloak the city instead.

Because they said that there was nowhere on that planet they could hide...but do you think the satellite weapon would of been powerful enough to detect them cloaked?

What's your opinion?

[jenks]

Maybe they didn't have enough power to use the cloak and the stardrive at the same time?

[Locutus_Of_Borg]

nah i don't mean it like that because they needed the shield and they can't use both, but what i mean is, why didn't they just cloak it while the asteroid wasn't hitting them because of the asteroid, im sure they could of moved the city a little bit to the left or right...

[Vala_M]

The satellite probably also had a way to track Atlantis even if it was cloaked. It could just calculate it's probable position with the orbit speed of the planet and all. Plus, they'd have to stay cloaked forever then as the satellite didn't appear to be leaving regardless and they can't destroy it.

Vala,

[Locutus_Of_Borg]

The satellite probably also had a way to track Atlantis even if it was cloaked. It could just calculate it's probable position with the orbit speed of the planet and all. Plus, they'd have to stay cloaked forever then as the satellite didn't appear to be leaving regardless and they can't destroy it.

Vala,

Yeah you've got a point there, but generally they mention little things like that in passing during the ep, i was just curious because they didn't refer to it.

[Rudy Pena]

Cloak=no shield, after the asteriod passed the laser beam would have still hit Atlantis. Laser beam hitting Atlantis=Atlantis being destoryed or being close to destoryed.

[SG13-NightOps]

The Asurans know they have a cloak - and no doubt being smarter in all things ancienty - would be able to work out where Atlantis was.

Mostly, putting up the cloak and thus rendering the shield impotent would be far too risky. Even if they did move it a bit and they couldnt find it - would you risk everyones life on that chance knowing their technology is far superior in so much as they know how to use it and you dont?

They couldnt risk using the cloak and praying that the Asurans had no other means of locating Atlantis.

IMHO anyway.

[the fifth man]

I agree with the point that the Asurans probably had a way to track Atlantis, even cloaked. It was their only choice IMO to leave the planet.

[Dutch_Razor]

What if they'd (SG1 S10 spoilers esp Line in the Sand)

Spoiler:

Used Merlins cloak? It could cloak a planet why not just Atlantis, then set off a nuke to let em think we self destructed

[Pharaoh Hamenthotep]

The atlantis cloaking device is ancient technology, the Asurans use (and are) Ancient technology. They probably have a device to track cloaked Ancient ships/cities. The cloak would only work if they used it while moving the city, but without a shield they would be unable to leave the planet so would have to land again somewhere else on the planet. Even when cloaked Atlantis would create a huge wave in the ocean when landing again which would give away their position.

[garhkal]

That would explain why / how they knew we were monitoring them all the time.

[immhotep]

They could have used the Phase cloak but that wouldnt have solved any problems and would have left altantis stranded completely. Plus they didnt have the phase cloak. if they Phased no ship could land, no communications sent and no stargate would connect. And they might fall through the planet...

[VSHARMA]

I don't like these 'Why Didn't They Just' Threads. Let the TPTB decide all that. I could ask a Hundred questions like that right Now

*Why don't they just cloak Jumpers or Al'kesh, fly into a Hive with a Mark IX and detonate it? Do it with every Hive Ship in Galaxy

*Why didn't they use Asgard Beaming Tech instead of the Horizon to attack the Asurans, better still Blow up the Sun like Carter did in SG-1?

*Why don’t Human or Jaffa pretend to follow the Ori then stab them in the Back?

*Why didn't Atlantis lunch any Drones on the Satellite Weapon?

*Etc....Etc

[Vala_M]

They couldn't take Atlantis out of phase because they didn't have the technology at their disposal and because it would completely cut them off from everything, supplies, communications, Earth, the Daedalus and Apollo and such.

Actually, they didn't launch drones because McKay said it would do no good against a shield being powered by a ZPM. It was stated in the episode.

Vala,

[Atlanis]

Why, 1: the beam would have torn the city apart (no shields)

2: Atlantis doesn't have a phase-cloak it just has a normal one,
like Oddasay does

3: Cloaked objects weather they be station, ships, or city ships sometimes leave nomaluse energy signetures that can be tracked it the Asaurans can track the energy signetures and there's no reason that they can't (we can)

4. sapce isn't compleatly empty there are billions of particals (who cares what thou) a cloaked ship would mask theos particals and create a prue vacume if they scan for the vacume and fired at it just be like cutting down an un-shielded ship, or better still a hot knife through butter that's why