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Cloaking Device

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this was a device which caused a ship to appear invisible to another ship's scanners. There were two types of cloaking devices that were developed in the galaxy. The earliest form employed the mineral known as stygium, and was manufactured by the Sienar Advanced Projects Laboratory. First used on the Sith Infiltrator, stygium-based cloaking devices were extremely efficient, and allowed the cloaked ship to use it sensors to monitor its surroundings. However, stygium was found only on Aeten II, and was prohibitively expensive to mine. This didn't prevent the mining of the mineral, however, and many ships on both sides of the Clone Wars regularly traveled through hyperspace without being detected. In the turmoil of the Clone Wars, though, Aeten II's resources were completely stripped away, and stygium technology was lost. Imperial scientists then discovered that hibridium could also be used to generate a cloaking device. Initial testing seemed to indicate the hibridium-based cloaking could only be used on stationary objects. However, with further research, a hibridium cloaking device was developed for starship use. Unfortunately, it was tremendously bulky, and required huge amounts of power to operate. Its abilities were overshadowed by its cost, and it was never fully implemented. The one major drawback to the hibridium cloaking device was that it was unstable during hyperspacial travel. This fact was not known to Admiral Zaarin, who attempted to steal a version for the Alliance. He took a cloaked CR90 corvette into hyperspace to escape Vice Admiral Thrawn but the cloaking device ruptured and destroyed the corvette as it entered hyperspace. Several years after the Battle of Endor, Grand Admiral Thrawn recovered the technology from Mount Tantiss and used it twice: once at the Battle of Sluis Van, to hide the contents of his false freighter Narsisstue; and again when he mounted them on asteroids and set them loose in orbit around Coruscant. There were several limitations to using the device on a starship, the foremost of which was that the cloaked ship was as "double-blind": the cloaked ship was as blind to the outside world as the ship was to observation. This presented a problem to early engineers and designers, but was overcome by the advent of the Imperial Computer Combat Predictor. It didn't alleviate the fact that the cloaked ship was blind, but tried allow it the opportunity to shoot down attacking craft.