If my opponent has a specilist which which I cannot see and have never seen, should I be able to see their effects in the time machine?

This might be case by case, but specifically in the case of the general. I'm in a situation where I can see that my opponent has one because of a potential future combat, but that is the only way I know.

It seems like if my opponent has gone to lengths to conceal some specialists then I shouldn't be able to see their effects until there has been a tangible reason to do so.

promoted specialists are the only ones with global abilities that affect other players, so we made promotions public information. you should get a PN for every promotion and they should also appear in your log.

if we don't make that public info, things would become too weird. for example, if you have an admiral out of my range you will see your sub traveling at 1.25x and i will see it traveling at 1x?

I thought about that, but figured it would be different in the case of the admiral since speed is just distance over time. The fact that a sub is visibly traveling faster then 1x would automatically infer there is an Admiral in play.

However, in the case of a General, if they are hidden, there is no visible indication of their existence until there has been a relevant combat event.

That gets weird if you had seen one and it gets hidden... should the time machine assume it's still out there somewhere, or...?