Shields - how?

[Duskofdead]

Somewhere on this forum is a lengthy dissection of what is meant by "shields at x%." I'll try to find it from way back when and link to it for you.

That'd be interesting to read, and appreciated.

[Duskofdead]

Did anyone happen to remember the thread title or have a link to that discussion about shields? I figure someone who remembers reading it would have better luck finding it than I would.

[Sionnach Glic]

Thing is, threads around here go wildly off-course after a page or (at most!), so it's rather difficult to find things. The shield discussion is probably in some thread about Riker's beard, or something.

[Tsukiyumi]

That's about right.

[Mikey]

Yeah, I'm sorry Dusk, but I just can't seem to find it. One more thread shanghaied by TR-116 syndrome.

[Aaron]

In matter shileds Riker gets an A.
Lesers can't penetrate them.

That's a joke right? The E-D's nav shields protected against what was said to be mounted on a primitive ship. There's no reason why they would protect against a more powerful laser, there's a limit for everything.

[Sionnach Glic]

Let's not forget the Borg cutting lasers that carved up the E-D "like a roast".
Also, wasn't there an episode where Picard refused to take the E-D into a warzone because it was filled with laser activity?

[Tsukiyumi]

Did the Borg use the cutting laser before or after they blew the shields down? I haven't seen that episode in years.

[Duskofdead]

Did the Borg use the cutting laser before or after they blew the shields down? I haven't seen that episode in years.

This is correct to my knowledge. Lasers were probably more efficient for removing segments of hull (for assimilation or analysis) intact once shields were down. At any rate we haven't seen this weapon used much other than in Best of Both Worlds and the Wolf 359 sequence in Emissary, and in both cases it was used on unshielded ships.

[mlsnoopy]

That's a joke right

Of course.

Let's not forget the Borg cutting lasers that carved up the E-D "like a roast

With the tractor beam locked on and shield down.

[sunnyside]

Ok I guess what I know about shields off the top of my head (from shows and RPGs and tech manuals).

First the writers leave themselves plenty of room to play with shields. But the general technobable is the "graviton" thing.

My rationalization is that, somehow, the ships are able to contain gravitons within a thin surface that extends around the ship. When sometime impacts the surface the gravitons have the effect of distorting space/the objects path with the result of the incoming energy/matter being deflected away.

This process seems to use up some of the gravitons. Reducing the "percentage" the shields have.

You cannot just gradually refill shields. Instead you have to drop the shields temporarily and rebuild them from scratch. This is a process that seems to take longer if your shields have been destroyed/damaged from weapons fire than if you're just throwing up shields for the first time. In any case this is never a long process (it takes less than a minute in the cases where it was mentioned). But that's still far to long to do mid battle.

You can however allocate more energy to the shields. However this simply seems to slow the rate at which gravitons are lost or can, against things like radiation from a sun or planet, result in gravitons not being lost i.e. "shields holding at X% ". Maybe some other kind of weaker protection, perhapse whatever field contains the gravitons, is instead reflecting the incoming radiation or whatever.

We can see, visually, that multiple shield "bubbles" exist on a ship and sometimes we hear about "port shields failing". Presumably these things are linked meaning there are somewhat seperate graviton containments.

Shields are not perfect even when full. A powerful blast could overwhelm them in a localized area. This can result in ensigns flying over the captains chair or certain systems going offline. The odds of this happening may or may not be correlated with the percentage of shields remaining.

Shields have a frequency (and something else that starts with an n ). Energy weapons at this frequency pass through the shield unafected. This is how a shielded ship is able to fire it's own weapons. While photon torpedos start out as solid devices something in their firing turns them into glowing energy things that have a frequency.

Other things can get through shields as well. Such as light in the visible spectrum for example. Hence why you can see through them. If you run into a new alien species/celestial phenominon it's a gamble whether their energy weapons or celestial effects will be stopped by shields. However once the crew has a chance to examine whatever it is the shields can usually be adapted to interact with whatever it is.

[Sionnach Glic]

With the tractor beam locked on and shield down.

What does the tractor beam have to do with anything? That isn't a weapon, it's just to hold the ship in place.
Also, from what I remember, in the battle of Wolf 359 in the DS9 pilot episode, a Federation ship is struck by the cutting laser. Shield effects are observed, and the beam slices straight through the shields and hits the hull.
I'll look up more info on these instances now and try to get some clear data.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I never really understood how the shields were meant to work and was never able to put together a comprehensive theory of shields that made sense to me. Of course, the problem is that the writers were making it up as they went along, as always, but as any one of you might point out, this doesn't help us in-universe.

[Sionnach Glic]

Are shields even physically possible in the way we see them in Trek?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

The general idea of deflecting incoming matter and radiation with gravity is possible in the same way Warp drive is possible, but it probably wouldn't look anything like it was depicted in Trek.