Scanner

This article is about non-medical scanning equipment. For medical scanners, see Medical equipment.

Scanners can detect dark matter once it is flooded with neutralized axion particles.

Scanner was a generic term that referred to any device that surveyed and recorded information about a target, including an object or environment. On spaceships, scanners could be external devices to relay data about outside space to the crew and internal devices to record data about the ship itself and its occupants. Scanners could also be handheld devices called comscanners.

Civilizations with scanning technology included the Planetary Union, the Kaylon, the Krill, the Calivon, the Horbalak, the Alibar, and the Benzians. Within the Union, scanning was an older technology that dates at least to the early 24th century.

Ship scanners

On a spaceship, the entire network of scanning equipment was called the scanner array. In Cupid's Dagger, ship scanners were distinguished between external and internal scans. In the Planetary Union, external scanners were monitored by the ship's second officer while internal scanning technology seems to have been overseen by security officers.

Additionally, there is mention of a lateral scanner array on the USS Orville, which engineers Yaphit and Brosk removed during upgrades in early 2422 so that Yaphit could access the power couplings. Based on its name, it is supposed that the lateral scanner array was a network of external scanners on the Orville's sides.

External scanners

Bortus operates the Orville's scanner.

External scanners detected foreign objects or the external environment around the ship, including signs of life, a breathable atmosphere, and even the progression of time. A computer could track a precise target, such as for a Particle Beam Cannon, with a ship's targeting scanners, which could be manually operated or set to automatic targeting. Forward navigational scanners were used as well. However, scanners seem not to have been able to detect spatial distortions such as quantum wakes, "natural" electromagnetic interference, or (prior to 2419) dark matter. Data obtained from external scanners was recorded in scanner logs.

Union ship scanners had gradients of probity. For example, Captain Ed Mercer ordered scanners set at "maximum." However, scanning could be frustrated by the hull of a ship or a dense debris field, and scanning could be slow to process due to a planet's proximity to a photosphere.

External scanners had a finite detection distance. On the USS Orville, scanners could detect an object only once the ship came within range. The ship's range was roughly 500 billion light years. Additionally, power could be diverted to the scanners for a "long-range search." A long-range scan set at maximum consumed considerable power.

Scanners could be subdivided by location, such as forward scanners.

Specified scans

There were different kinds of external scanning:

• Multispectral scans - Captain Mercer ordered Second Officer Bortus to conduct one when he wanted "to know everything" about a mysterious multiphasic planet.
  • Chief of Security Talla Keyali requested a multispectral scan on the entire region of the Giliac constellation. Such a "massive scan," according to Chief Engineer, "would be a Hell of a power drain. Unless you knew what you're looking for, it would take weeks."
  • However, a multispectral scan of the region for a specific object, in this case black holes, narrowed the spectral scan and makes the search extremely simple.
• Full-range scan - Ed ordered Isaac to perform to map the spatial dimensions of a quantum wake.
• Bioscan (see below) - Surveyed organic objects for data and signs of life. This was one of the most common types of external scanning.
• Internal scan - Not to be confused with internal scanners. An internal scan looked below the surface of an object, such as a planet. More probative than a typical scan, an internal scan could detect deposits of dysonium ore or even the ruins of an advanced subterranean civilization.

Internal scanners

Internal scanners tracked objects and environments, such as the location of persons within the ship. On the Orville, scanners recorded security logs containing video and audio recordings of the ship, which were indexed by time.

One type of internal scanner was a communications scanner, which tracked the communications on the ship. Isaac suggested to Alara checking the communications scanners to determine the fate of the Orville's crew.

Another type of an internal scanner was a computer diagnostic to detect the presence of a virus.

Other scanning devices

Bioscanners

Scanners of Kaylon 1 sweep the Orville.

Both the Planetary Union and Krill possessed a type of external scanner known simply as bioscanners which detected lifeforms and identified species.

All that is known of Union bioscanners is that according to Teleya, the only way for the Krill to bypass the technology was by transcellular micrografting a person.

Krill bioscanners were ranged scanning devices capable of scanning entire vessels from afar. Krill bioscanners were hardly perfect and can be fooled by a holographic generator.

Calivon scanners

Calivon scanning technology was particularly advanced. Computers could scan a ships' entire database in mere seconds and manufacture fictitious holographic displays. For example, after a Calivon buoy scanned the Orville's library and generated a holographic version of Ed's father, he remarked, "[The buoy's computer] even knew to make my dad talk about his colon. That's an advanced technology."

Comscanners

Main article: Comscanner

Comscanners could be used to scan a ship for information, such as information retrieval after a spatial anomaly damages the ship. Data retrieved through comscanners could be processed through the ship's central Computer for analysis.

Shuttle scanners

Shuttlecrafts possessed scanning technology that could detect deposits of dysonium on a planet's surface.

Historical scanners

Scanning was a technology over 100 years old and, unsurprisingly, older ships such as the BCV Burton came equipped with a less advanced targeting scanner. The Burton's scanner had a short range of 1,000 kilometers. It could be set to manual or automatic targeting.

Trivia

• Scanning technology was not perfect, even to the advanced Calivon. Scans could be frustrated by certain materials, such as Pria Lavesque's control box and the hull of the Bio-ship, or altogether fooled by a holographic generator.
• Doctor Claire Finn stated that when she disguised Captain Ed Mercer and First Officer Kelly Grayson as an Alibar, the significant differences "in Alibaran biology" from a human meant that the disguises would likely not fool a scanner.