Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

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Lucky
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Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Lucky » Fri Jul 10, 2015 6:19 am

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/P ... nse_system

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/E ... se_Network
http://www.startrek.com/database_article/Earth_1997-10-06-00-00-00 wrote: Earth enjoys one of the most advanced, peaceful, and materially pleasant cultures of any known.  There has been no case of terrorist bombing or a State of Emergency, other than the Borg attack of 2366-67, reported in over a century prior to the Antwerp Conference incident and the Changeling scare of 2372. It appears to have no self-government in the Federation, fully subjecting itself to the multi-world direction of the Federation Council and its president, who is authorized to enact a state of emergency.

Its worldwide power-relay system is run by the Division of Planetary Operations to operate sensors, transporters and surface-based defense installations. Starfleet has its own emergency back-up system.
http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie1.html wrote: CHEKOV: All planetary defence systems have just gone inoperative.
http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/483.htm wrote: ODO: You all right? 


SISKO: I'm fine. Admiral, what's going on? 


LEYTON: From what we can tell, Earth's entire power relay system's been knocked offline. Even Starfleet's emergency backup's been affected. 


SISKO: How could that happen? 


LEYTON: I don't know, but if you ask me, there's only one possible explanation. 


ODO: Sabotage. 


SISKO: The changelings. 


ODO: Take down the power relays, and you neutralise sensors, transporters, surface-based defence installations. 


SISKO: In other words, Earth is defenceless. 


LEYTON: If the Dominion attacks now, we don't stand a chance.
Earth has planet side defenses.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/71.htm wrote: SCOTT: Well, there's one last thing we might try. Perhaps the ship's phasers can cut through a section of the force field at its weakest point. Where did you say that was located, Mister Sulu? 


SULU: On the far side of the planet, Mister Scott.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/118.htm wrote: Captain's log, stardate 41509.1. Either by chance or intent, we've been led to the planet Aldea, which appeared out of nowhere, hidden behind a sophisticated shielding device.


[Bridge]

DATA: Sensors indicate that the shield is electromagnetic, a complicated light refracting mechanism. 


PICARD: A cloaking device?
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/407.htm wrote: CHAKOTAY: If she's given the other ships temporal shielding, they've undoubtedly informed their home worlds. They'll be able to protect their planets against your weapon.
Image

What we see is that full coverage planetary shields are really rather common, and given what is shown after and attack by the Dominion, we can conclude there is a strong likelihood that Sol-3 has a shield covering it.

Where the idea that Sol-3 has no defenses beyond random ships in the area, or that planet covering shields are a one off comes from is beyond me.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Jasonb » Fri Aug 21, 2015 12:45 am

Will in Star Trek Motion picture talk them going off line. Which suggestion able to something about those things fire at the Earth. It kind like they keep it vague what Earth surface defense are. It not able stop Borg Cube however able to destroy much Breen fleet.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:53 pm

Lucky wrote:http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/P ... nse_system

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/E ... se_Network
http://www.startrek.com/database_article/Earth_1997-10-06-00-00-00 wrote: Earth enjoys one of the most advanced, peaceful, and materially pleasant cultures of any known.  There has been no case of terrorist bombing or a State of Emergency, other than the Borg attack of 2366-67, reported in over a century prior to the Antwerp Conference incident and the Changeling scare of 2372. It appears to have no self-government in the Federation, fully subjecting itself to the multi-world direction of the Federation Council and its president, who is authorized to enact a state of emergency.

Its worldwide power-relay system is run by the Division of Planetary Operations to operate sensors, transporters and surface-based defense installations. Starfleet has its own emergency back-up system.
http://www.chakoteya.net/movies/movie1.html wrote: CHEKOV: All planetary defence systems have just gone inoperative.
http://www.chakoteya.net/DS9/483.htm wrote: ODO: You all right? 


SISKO: I'm fine. Admiral, what's going on? 


LEYTON: From what we can tell, Earth's entire power relay system's been knocked offline. Even Starfleet's emergency backup's been affected. 


SISKO: How could that happen? 


LEYTON: I don't know, but if you ask me, there's only one possible explanation. 


ODO: Sabotage. 


SISKO: The changelings. 


ODO: Take down the power relays, and you neutralise sensors, transporters, surface-based defence installations. 


SISKO: In other words, Earth is defenceless. 


LEYTON: If the Dominion attacks now, we don't stand a chance.
Earth has planet side defenses.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/71.htm wrote: SCOTT: Well, there's one last thing we might try. Perhaps the ship's phasers can cut through a section of the force field at its weakest point. Where did you say that was located, Mister Sulu? 


SULU: On the far side of the planet, Mister Scott.
http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/118.htm wrote: Captain's log, stardate 41509.1. Either by chance or intent, we've been led to the planet Aldea, which appeared out of nowhere, hidden behind a sophisticated shielding device.


[Bridge]

DATA: Sensors indicate that the shield is electromagnetic, a complicated light refracting mechanism. 


PICARD: A cloaking device?
http://www.chakoteya.net/Voyager/407.htm wrote: CHAKOTAY: If she's given the other ships temporal shielding, they've undoubtedly informed their home worlds. They'll be able to protect their planets against your weapon.
Image

What we see is that full coverage planetary shields are really rather common, and given what is shown after and attack by the Dominion, we can conclude there is a strong likelihood that Sol-3 has a shield covering it.

Where the idea that Sol-3 has no defenses beyond random ships in the area, or that planet covering shields are a one off comes from is beyond me.
Ha, this reminds me so much of the fallacious method used to prove that Alderaan had a shield, although it's a bit less dramatic because of the vagueness of words regarding the evidence used in favour of Trek.
The entire first part of the post proves that there are defenses, no more no less. There's no reason to assume that they are shields. In fact, if we were to think about what this would mean in a near future, it would only point to weapons, not passive systems.

Only the last part of Lucky's post mentions or implies three cases of planetary-wide fields, each one actually different.

The first one from the OT is the rather very unique case of of planet Elba-something; a seemingly solid force field. But as I have largely shown in a lenghty discussion, it is rigged with so many conceptual and technical issues regarding its working and the safety of the people it's supposedly meant to protect that this can hardly be considered a bog standard reliable planetary-wide shielding system.

The second one from TNG is a cloaking system which would obviously be a rarity, especially to the UFP.

The third one is time based, whatever that means, but is more similar to the first case in that it is said to be able to block weapons. Although temporal shielding is certainly not a casual thing at all.

Lucky's demonstration was quite poor methinks.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 30, 2016 10:55 pm

Besides, Iscander, that's a good collection of quotes!

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 30, 2016 11:06 pm

Iscander wrote: Cardassian
DS9 S4E14 “Return to Grace”

DAMAR: Sir, we're approaching the outpost on Korma, or what's left of it.
DUKAT: What are you talking about?
DAMAR: From what we can tell, it's been attacked. The planetary defense systems have been disabled. Every building has been destroyed.
[LATER…]
DUKAT: Because the outpost's planetary defense weapons are system five disruptors. They were never designed to operate aboard a moving spacecraft, and this cargo bays were never designed to hold them.
Here we see that for one person, planetary defense systems can and does actually mean planetary defense weapons.
This does not mean it is always the case but proves that assuming it means shields is not legit.
VOY S7E8 “Nightingale”

LOKEN: Our world has been under an Annari blockade for three years. The planet is protected by a shield grid, but it's almost impossible to get our ships in or out.
This, however, is a definitive case of a planet-wide shielding system. Although it's not part of the alpha quadrant and belongs to late Trek.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Dec 30, 2016 11:18 pm

Iscander wrote:I tracked down a few more examples and thought I would share.

Kirk is surprised by the lack of shields on a Federation outpost
TOS S3E18 “The Lights of Zetar”

UHURA: Sir, I'm unable to establish contact with the planetoid. I'm hailing on all frequencies. No response.
SPOCK: It is of little consequence, Captain. Memory Alpha has no protective shields.
KIRK: No shields?
SPOCK: None, Captain. When the library complex was assembled, shielding was considered inappropriate to its totally academic purpose. Since the information on the Memory planet is available to everyone, special protection was deemed unnecessary.
Shielding such a large structure wouldn't technically be that hard. After all, it's more or less some kind of grounded science and academic vessel, or a grounded station. You just need several power generators and shields projectors dotting the hull.


Dominion Surface installation is shielded and armed
Now what comes below is a typical case of WOW SOUNDS IMPRESSIVE until you start picking the little details that kinda hurt. I'll emphasize one of them:
Delta Quadrant race has Planetary Sensor net, prison has shields, and planet has a series of surface based phased ion cannons with orbital range.
VOY S2E12 “Resistance”

KIM: I've been studying their orbital sensor net. It surrounds the entire planet. This is the most sophisticated system I've ever seen. It monitors everything we do. There's no way of disabling it from orbit.
CHAKOTAY: So much for a surprise attack.
I suppose it's better to assume that what baffles Kim isn't the idea that it covers the whole planet, but the quality of the sensor net. Otherwise it would mean he has never seen or heard of a planetery coverage before, which is kinda dumb and most likely in contradiction with many, many sources. :/

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Sat Dec 31, 2016 4:27 pm

I take it you still believe the Cylons could nuke the Federation like they did the Twelve Colonies, Mr. Oragahn?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The third one is time based, whatever that means, but is more similar to the first case in that it is said to be able to block weapons. Although temporal shielding is certainly not a casual thing at all.
Define casual. A "temporal shield" is merely a modified shield system which prevented you from being erased from existence via the Krenim time weapon. Voyager developed it by adjusting their bog standard shield and it follows that any planet so similarly protected would need either to have a planetary shield system in place or the means to install one fairly quickly.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The first one from the OT is the rather very unique case of of planet Elba-something; a seemingly solid force field. But as I have largely shown in a lenghty discussion, it is rigged with so many conceptual and technical issues regarding its working and the safety of the people it's supposedly meant to protect that this can hardly be considered a bog standard reliable planetary-wide shielding system.
Define unique. There is the explicit planetary shield example from "Year of Hell". While its exact dimensions are never revealed, the "penal colony" of Tantalus in "dagger of the mind {TOS-01}" has a "security forcefield" protecting it which is a quite similar arrangement to the known to be planetary-scale shield protecting Elba Two. Then there is the casual suggestion Memory Alpha should be shielded. An installation which, as the attachment should show covers a notable fraction of the planetary body's surface.
thelightsofzetarhd0468.jpg
And while of course on a far smaller scale, the apparent ease of which the Federation in "Balance of Terror {TOS-01}" set up an outpost capable of shielding an at least 2 mile in diameter asteroid is worth noting.

The majority of the evidence suggest, from the 23rd century onward, the Federation has the capability, if not necessarily the will, to shield its planets. In addition to surface emplacements, theater and installation shields as well as local defense ships we've seen them employ. Suffice it to say I don't think planetary defense is a particularly weak link in the Federation.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The second one from TNG is a cloaking system which would obviously be a rarity, especially to the UFP.
More to the point the aliens in question were a race of super-advanced "space elves"/ higher-tech species who were demonstrably more advanced than the Federation. Not the best case to make an argument for planetary shielding in regards to the UFP.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn
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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:28 pm

sonofccn wrote:I take it you still believe the Cylons could nuke the Federation like they did the Twelve Colonies, Mr. Oragahn?
The whole Federation? If we're talking about a suicidal and silly immediate onslaught, I don'k think so, too many worlds for ships which are outclassed in defenses and armament. Against Earth alone, yes. The whole Cylon fleet is large enough for that and its method of FTL transport is vastly different than what the UFP uses and recognizes.
But as we know, Cylons assess their enemy (humans and more humanoids, disgusting!) and come up with a plan. Their Basestars are huge and have lots of room to spare. Cylons would obviously know what their enemies are capable of. Shields, weapons, sensors, logistics aren't exactly that secret except logically for the latest toys. Then again there are people ready to sell the tech. Cylons don't need their Basestars to be equal, just better by bridging the gap, packing above all more defenses so as to be able to do the damage and survive longer.
Active UFP defenses aren't totally impenetrable either. A flotilla of Jemmie bugships did manage slipping deep enough through the defenses –despite using warp travel and probably being easy to spot on the rim of the solar system, at least– so as to create some noticeable damage in San Francisco. Even if that's only debris of ships that fell from the sky, the simple fact that debris managed to reach the ground at all tells us a lot the imperfection of defenses.
I also left aside any possibility of the Cylons trying to hack into some defense grid by taking their time and getting the malware delivered where it needs to be.
As for infiltration, I don't know how that would translate to the UFP but although less advanced in some departments, the Colonies already had holotech (see the webisodes), which does requires a certain level of mastery in hardware reduction. The Cylon hybrid cellular biotech was so clever that no screening would spot the infiltrators on Caprica. For all intents and purposes and aside from sheer luck, Cylon clones would pass as true humans unless the UFP had a specific routine meant to detect them, with perhaps certain radiations, a way to detect the hybridization biotech. Mind you, Cylon biotech was quite hax in several departments. Like the ability to heal their Basestars or the fact that the clones all had a FTL link with a Resurrection ship and instant transfer of conciousness and memories upon death.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The third one is time based, whatever that means, but is more similar to the first case in that it is said to be able to block weapons. Although temporal shielding is certainly not a casual thing at all.
Define casual. A "temporal shield" is merely a modified shield system which prevented you from being erased from existence via the Krenim time weapon. Voyager developed it by adjusting their bog standard shield and it follows that any planet so similarly protected would need either to have a planetary shield system in place or the means to install one fairly quickly.
What did they need to get that update? And more importantly, the species that had access to this planet-wide shield, could we make a generality out of them?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The first one from the OT is the rather very unique case of of planet Elba-something; a seemingly solid force field. But as I have largely shown in a lenghty discussion, it is rigged with so many conceptual and technical issues regarding its working and the safety of the people it's supposedly meant to protect that this can hardly be considered a bog standard reliable planetary-wide shielding system.
Define unique.
This would require going through the thread, wherein I explain why the setup is definitely weird and illogical, notably because it works in a way that no sane people would want to use, which allowed me to suggest that the planet-wide shield was not a natural and standard use of the shielding technology.
Simply put, a shield that kills all people it is meant to protect just because someone pokes a hole in it opposite to the generator is quite a gravely stupid design, to say the least.
That's like if Solo & co blew up the DSII, or at least killed its entire crew, simply by planting explosives in the casting station down on Endor.
There is the explicit planetary shield example from "Year of Hell".
Isn't that VOY? This is a show about a crew flying through a totally uncharted space full of seemingly non-united worlds.
One can come with some super tech and another world lack that super tech of the week but have something of their own too, unique and different.
Just to be clear, my point is not to deny the references. I'm saying there's no rule to be made out of very isolated outliers.
While its exact dimensions are never revealed, the "penal colony" of Tantalus in "dagger of the mind {TOS-01}" has a "security forcefield" protecting it which is a quite similar arrangement to the known to be planetary-scale shield protecting Elba Two.
That would be a good addition to this thread. At the very least it would reveal a shield protecting a facility of some sort.
Then there is the casual suggestion Memory Alpha should be shielded. An installation which, as the attachment should show covers a notable fraction of the planetary body's surface.
thelightsofzetarhd0468.jpg
As I said, M.A. is akin to a grounded station. Shielding a station is just a matter of having plenty of power plants, shield generators and relays. It's not the same thing as one moon or planet wide shield being cast from one single point.
Considering the mess the shield of Elba was when covering an entire planet, I'm quite sure the Federation would rather opt for a redundancy of local shields to protect the civilians.
And while of course on a far smaller scale, the apparent ease of which the Federation in "Balance of Terror {TOS-01}" set up an outpost capable of shielding an at least 2 mile in diameter asteroid is worth noting.
And is noted but doesn't tell us much about the hardware itself. How big it was, what it ran on, how long it took to bring it here, with what type of ship, how powerful, etc.
The majority of the evidence suggest, from the 23rd century onward, the Federation has the capability, if not necessarily the will, to shield its planets.
Many examples taken from VOY do not apply to the Federation. In fact, probably most of them if not all of them.
Thus far, all evidence shows that a planet wide coverage could only be achieved with a copious amount of shield generators forming a lattice of some kind, a patchwork.
In addition to surface emplacements, theater and installation shields as well as local defense ships we've seen them employ. Suffice it to say I don't think planetary defense is a particularly weak link in the Federation.
I don't think either. I'm not a Wongie denying the obvious. There's enough evidence.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The second one from TNG is a cloaking system which would obviously be a rarity, especially to the UFP.
More to the point the aliens in question were a race of super-advanced "space elves"/ higher-tech species who were demonstrably more advanced than the Federation. Not the best case to make an argument for planetary shielding in regards to the UFP.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn
Indeed.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sun Jan 01, 2017 5:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by 2046 » Sun Jan 01, 2017 2:10 am

1. Memory Alpha was a re-use of Yonada before, meaning its size has been increased and the installation is now external instead of internal. However, either version is canon per Okuda. This is potentially confusing but useful for the many examples where they screwed up in the remaster (e.g. spitball ranges).

2. Chakotay was the one speaking to Annorax about worlds he did not know since Janeway's alliances were made after his capture, IIRC. Planetary shields were simply assumed by Chakotay and Annorax did not protest this assumption. Sounds to me like me talking to Duterte about some other country's radar systems, electrical grid, or other commonplace item.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 07, 2017 3:57 pm

Realized a thing:
CHAKOTAY: If she's given the other ships temporal shielding, they've undoubtedly informed their home worlds. They'll be able to protect their planets against your weapon.
... does not necessarilly mean that the planet does get a shield.
We have two elements : 1. ships get the temporal shielding. 2. planets could now be protected against temporal weapons.

Considering that the vast majority of cases has shown that planets are either defended by fleets or stationary small battle stations and armed satellites, that line above is certainly not conclusive in that the planets would have a temporal shielding.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:03 pm

Outside of freak-of-the-week isolated cases, some of the largest shields we saw used by recurring factions were those deployed by the Dominion around asteroids.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Sat Jan 07, 2017 7:06 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:The whole Federation? If we're talking about a suicidal and silly immediate onslaught, I don'k think so, too many worlds for ships which are outclassed in defenses and armament. Against Earth alone, yes. The whole Cylon fleet is large enough for that and its method of FTL transport is vastly different than what the UFP uses and recognizes.
But as we know, Cylons assess their enemy (humans and more humanoids, disgusting!) and come up with a plan. Their Basestars are huge and have lots of room to spare. Cylons would obviously know what their enemies are capable of. Shields, weapons, sensors, logistics aren't exactly that secret except logically for the latest toys. Then again there are people ready to sell the tech. Cylons don't need their Basestars to be equal, just better by bridging the gap, packing above all more defenses so as to be able to do the damage and survive longer.
Active UFP defenses aren't totally impenetrable either. A flotilla of Jemmie bugships did manage slipping deep enough through the defenses –despite using warp travel and probably being easy to spot on the rim of the solar system, at least– so as to create some noticeable damage in San Francisco. Even if that's only debris of ships that fell from the sky, the simple fact that debris managed to reach the ground at all tells us a lot the imperfection of defenses.


You never specified the exact parameters of the confrontation to the best of my knowledge. Only that the "high profile worlds" of the Federation were vulnerable to Basestars jumping into position for an Alpha strike.

Regarding the damage to San Francisco, which I believe was part of the Breen's Doolittle raid against Earth, the fact the city wasn't a smoking crater when we know the Breen should be able to pump out terajoules if not petajoules per ship would strongly imply some kind of protective field be it theater or planetary based.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:What did they need to get that update? And more importantly, the species that has access to this planet-wide shield, can we make a generality out of them?
Concerning the first part, the relevant portions from here:
Year of Hell wrote:JANEWAY: Commander, put the ship on twenty four hour tactical alert. Tuvok, analyse whatever data we've got on those chronoton torpedoes. See if you can modify our shielding. When those Krenim attack again, I want to be ready.
.
.
.
TUVOK: Fascinating. When will the deflectors be ready?
SEVEN: They're ready now, but the modifications are untested.
.
.
.
PARIS: The Krenim are within visual range.
JANEWAY: On screen.
TUVOK: Seven's modified temporal shields should be online in a moment.
KIM: It's a warship.
JANEWAY: You know the routine.
PARIS: Evasive manoeuvres.
.
.
.
[Deflector control]

SEVEN: Temporal shielding is online.

[Bridge]

KIM: They're firing.
CHAKOTAY: Full port thrusters.
(One torpedo misses, the other hits.)
TUVOK: Temporal shields are holding. No damage.
.
.
.
[Bridge]

TUVOK: Captain, the Krenim warship is in pursuit, but their weapons are not powered.
JANEWAY: They don't know what to do with us now that we're shielded against their torpedoes.
KIM: Captain, there's some kind of spatial distortion heading toward us. Sensor readings are erratic. I can't identify the phenomenon.
CHAKOTAY: What's the source?
KIM: Unknown. But it originated approximately twenty light years from our position. It looks like a shockwave in the fabric of space-time.
JANEWAY: Tom, get us out of here.
PARIS: We'll never outrun it, Captain.
JANEWAY: Maybe our new shields will help. All hands, brace for impact.
TUVOK: You were correct, Captain. The temporal shielding has protected us. The wave front has passed.
As for the aliens Chakotay knows little more about them than that they exist and could only surmize from his general understanding of 24th century technology.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:... does not necessarilly mean that the planet does get a shield.
We have two elements : 1. ships get the temporal shielding. 2. planets could now be protected against temporal weapons.

Considering that the vast majority of cases has shown that planets are either defended by fleets or stationary small battle stations and armed satellites, that line above is certainly not conclusive in that the planets would have a temporal shielding.
Besides the episode there's also the memory alpha page.

Suffice it to say the weapon erases people and things from history. Which in turn further affects history by their absence, such as the Krenim going from disposed rabble rousers to supreme rulers of the region from one alteration, which every world would be vulnerable too if they didn't have temporal shielding.

For Chakotay to think the aliens can protect their worlds can be taken as an implicit example of planetary shielding.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:This would require going through the thread, wherein I explain why the setup is definitely weird and illogical, notably because it works in a way that no sane people in space would want to us, which allowed me to suggest that then planet wide shield was not a natural and standard use of the shielding technology.
Simply put, a shield that kills all people it's meant to protect just because someone pokes a hole in it opposite to the generator is quite a stupid design, to say the least.
That's like if Solo & co blew up the DSII simply by planting explosives in the casting station down on Endor.


Since the shield generator and the colony were one and the same on a hostile, toxic planet it isn't too surprising overpowering one could have negative results for the other. This is a universe with exploding console syndrome after all.

More saliently nothing in the episode suggests the shield is some special, unique or rare piece of technology, nor explain why an asylum with a handful of inmates would warrant such a device.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Isn't that VOY? This is a show about a crew flying through a totally uncharted space full of seemingly non-united worlds.
One can come with some super tech and another lack that super tech of the week but have something of their own, unique and different.
Just to be clear, my point is not to deny the references. I'm saying there's no rule to be made out of very isolated outliers.
I'm sorry, Year of Hell is the temporal example we are discussing above.

How are we defining outliers?
Mr. Oragahn wrote:As I said, MA is akin to a station. Shielding a station is just a matter of having plenty of power plants, shield generators and relays. It's not the same thing as one moon or planet wide shield being cast from one single point.
Considering the mess the shield of Elba was when covering an entire planet, I'm quite sure the Federation would rather opt for a redundancy of local shields to protect the civilians.
How do you know the MA wouldn't have a single shield generator? Or a starbase for that matter? Elba shows the Federation has the capability and no moral qualms with employing it to protect civilians. Not to mention there is no evidence breaching the Elba shield would actually threaten a planetary population as opposed to a, relatively, small asylum worth of people concentrated around the shield emitter.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:And is noted but doesn't tell us much about the hardware itself. How big it was, what it ran on, how long it took to bring it here, with what type of ship, how powerful, etc.


True. But it does tell us 2 mile plus diameter shields are not cost prohibitive for the 23rd century to produce and are strong enough to be of some use in a combat situation.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Many examples taken from VOY do not apply to the Federation. In fact, probably most of them if not all of them.
Thus far, all evidence shows that a planet wide coverage could only be achieved with a copious amount of shield generators forming a lattice of some kind, a patchwork.
It would really depend on the example in question. It would have to established the example is abnormal and specifically atypical to the Federation tech and capabilities.

"Year of Hell" specifically is based upon the technical expertise of a starfleet officer who could only speak in the general about a race of aliens he has never met and only recently learned entered an alliance with Janeway. Chakotay being a captive on the Krenim time weapon at the time. Which implicitly implies shield technology is doable by a general 24th century level of technology.

As for your idea of a patchwork shield, what evidence supports that? Every example I can think of, regardless of the shield's ultimate size, is singularly generated be it a building, a colony or a planet.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Jan 07, 2017 8:16 pm

sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The whole Federation? If we're talking about a suicidal and silly immediate onslaught, I don'k think so, too many worlds for ships which are outclassed in defenses and armament. Against Earth alone, yes. The whole Cylon fleet is large enough for that and its method of FTL transport is vastly different than what the UFP uses and recognizes.
But as we know, Cylons assess their enemy (humans and more humanoids, disgusting!) and come up with a plan. Their Basestars are huge and have lots of room to spare. Cylons would obviously know what their enemies are capable of. Shields, weapons, sensors, logistics aren't exactly that secret except logically for the latest toys. Then again there are people ready to sell the tech. Cylons don't need their Basestars to be equal, just better by bridging the gap, packing above all more defenses so as to be able to do the damage and survive longer.
Active UFP defenses aren't totally impenetrable either. A flotilla of Jemmie bugships did manage slipping deep enough through the defenses –despite using warp travel and probably being easy to spot on the rim of the solar system, at least– so as to create some noticeable damage in San Francisco. Even if that's only debris of ships that fell from the sky, the simple fact that debris managed to reach the ground at all tells us a lot the imperfection of defenses.


You never specified the exact parameters of the confrontation to the best of my knowledge. Only that the "high profile worlds" of the Federation were vulnerable to Basestars jumping into position for an Alpha strike.
Yes. Isn't it what I essentially summarized?
I also remember the discussion and pointing out that the further we'd go in the past of the UFP, the greater the chances for the Cylons to actually win in a real war. For sure, by TNG I think I couldn't see anything better than an alpha Strike and then again, the Cylon fleet is not infinite.
Regarding the damage to San Francisco, which I believe was part of the Breen's Doolittle raid against Earth, the fact the city wasn't a smoking crater when we know the Breen should be able to pump out terajoules if not petajoules per ship would strongly imply some kind of protective field be it theater or planetary based.
No need to go for that. The damage is so small that it's quicker to say debris fell towards San Francisco and maybe some troops were beamed down in a hurry and did some damage with whatever they packed and that's about it.
The level of damage is in line with the amount of firepower troops could carry.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:What did they need to get that update? And more importantly, the species that has access to this planet-wide shield, can we make a generality out of them?
Concerning the first part, the relevant portions from here:
Year of Hell wrote:JANEWAY: Commander, put the ship on twenty four hour tactical alert. Tuvok, analyse whatever data we've got on those chronoton torpedoes. See if you can modify our shielding. When those Krenim attack again, I want to be ready.
.
.
.
TUVOK: Fascinating. When will the deflectors be ready?
SEVEN: They're ready now, but the modifications are untested.
.
.
.
PARIS: The Krenim are within visual range.
JANEWAY: On screen.
TUVOK: Seven's modified temporal shields should be online in a moment.
KIM: It's a warship.
JANEWAY: You know the routine.
PARIS: Evasive manoeuvres.
.
.
.
[Deflector control]

SEVEN: Temporal shielding is online.

[Bridge]

KIM: They're firing.
CHAKOTAY: Full port thrusters.
(One torpedo misses, the other hits.)
TUVOK: Temporal shields are holding. No damage.
.
.
.
[Bridge]

TUVOK: Captain, the Krenim warship is in pursuit, but their weapons are not powered.
JANEWAY: They don't know what to do with us now that we're shielded against their torpedoes.
KIM: Captain, there's some kind of spatial distortion heading toward us. Sensor readings are erratic. I can't identify the phenomenon.
CHAKOTAY: What's the source?
KIM: Unknown. But it originated approximately twenty light years from our position. It looks like a shockwave in the fabric of space-time.
JANEWAY: Tom, get us out of here.
PARIS: We'll never outrun it, Captain.
JANEWAY: Maybe our new shields will help. All hands, brace for impact.
TUVOK: You were correct, Captain. The temporal shielding has protected us. The wave front has passed.
Thank you for the details regarding VOY 4.07. Unfortunately, they relate to a piece of information which I previously thought proved the existence of a planetary shield. It is not the case anymore.
As for the aliens Chakotay knows little more about them than that they exist and could only surmize from his general understanding of 24th century technology.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:... does not necessarilly mean that the planet does get a shield.
We have two elements : 1. ships get the temporal shielding. 2. planets could now be protected against temporal weapons.

Considering that the vast majority of cases has shown that planets are either defended by fleets or stationary small battle stations and armed satellites, that line above is certainly not conclusive in that the planets would have a temporal shielding.
Besides the episode there's also the memory alpha page.

Suffice it to say the weapon erases people and things from history. Which in turn further affects history by their absence, such as the Krenim going from disposed rabble rousers to supreme rulers of the region from one alteration, which every world would be vulnerable too if they didn't have temporal shielding.

For Chakotay to think the aliens can protect their worlds can be taken as an implicit example of planetary shielding.
And ST4 shows that you can throw an entire crew into the past, pick two whales, even provide the formula for transparent steel and this changes absolutely nothing noticeable to the future. The movie even makes a point showing things happening the exact same way.
So there's no need for an implied planet-wide shield.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:This would require going through the thread, wherein I explain why the setup is definitely weird and illogical, notably because it works in a way that no sane people in space would want to us, which allowed me to suggest that then planet wide shield was not a natural and standard use of the shielding technology.
Simply put, a shield that kills all people it's meant to protect just because someone pokes a hole in it opposite to the generator is quite a stupid design, to say the least.
That's like if Solo & co blew up the DSII simply by planting explosives in the casting station down on Endor.


Since the shield generator and the colony were one and the same on a hostile, toxic planet it isn't too surprising overpowering one could have negative results for the other. This is a universe with exploding console syndrome after all.

More saliently nothing in the episode suggests the shield is some special, unique or rare piece of technology, nor explain why an asylum with a handful of inmates would warrant such a device.
And space is a dangerous place, cold and full of radiations. Besides, it sucks people out when a breach is made in the hull of your ship. On the other hand, the compound was under a solid dome.
So yes, as you typed, overpowering is precisely the point. It is not normal, nor safe. If you read the thread, you'd see more points I make that prove the stupidity of its working.
Think of it. We don't see ships blowing up because a hole is made in their shields. Here, a shield that would protect an entire planet is ought to fend off more than one ship. Yet one ship has the potential to not only put a hole in the shield but cause more damage than a fleet of warships. It does not follow, if simply for the fact that such a shield, if it were stable and normal, should not only not threaten its protected users if it were to falter, but would also have the objective to protect a whole planet, which because of the sheer size of the target, would make it far more likely to face more than one single ship.
Otherwise you're going to admit that planetary shields in Trek can be taken by ships with a firepower in the KT, low MT, and will surely kill those it means to protect, even if the whole is made on the other side of the planet, opposite to where the generator is located.
I don't think you want that.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Isn't that VOY? This is a show about a crew flying through a totally uncharted space full of seemingly non-united worlds.
One can come with some super tech and another lack that super tech of the week but have something of their own, unique and different.
Just to be clear, my point is not to deny the references. I'm saying there's no rule to be made out of very isolated outliers.
I'm sorry, Year of Hell is the temporal example we are discussing above.

How are we defining outliers?
In this case, that would be an alien civilization that, thus far, has no connection to the usual factions. So even if the show records a case of a planet-wide shield, it is an exception as it does not apply to the factions which are generally considered in Star Trek (UFP, Klingons, Dominion, etc.).
Mr. Oragahn wrote:As I said, MA is akin to a station. Shielding a station is just a matter of having plenty of power plants, shield generators and relays. It's not the same thing as one moon or planet wide shield being cast from one single point.
Considering the mess the shield of Elba was when covering an entire planet, I'm quite sure the Federation would rather opt for a redundancy of local shields to protect the civilians.
How do you know the MA wouldn't have a single shield generator? Or a starbase for that matter?
It could, but artificial structures can house plenty of relays, secondary generators and power plants and sort of buse-buffers to cope with the excess of energy in a given section. That is the advantage of building an entire structure from the ground up.
It is not required, but would surely help a lot in the protection. Still, what do we have in terms of evidence of a unique, centralized and very powerful shield generator and caster?
For example, in ROTJ, it's simple. We see the antenna and there's the entire power plant underneath, and by the size of the fireball we can guesstimate the size of the power plant.
Do we have any diagram or anything showing the size of a shield generator meant to repel capship firepower and how it works, spreads, so on and so forth?
Elba shows the Federation has the capability and no moral qualms with employing it to protect civilians.
At that very moment in the show, it wasn't used by civilians nor the UFP but by a mad man. We simply don't know if the UFP would use it that way.
And if the UFP isn't too dumb, I'd certainly think they would not use it that way.
Not to mention there is no evidence breaching the Elba shield would actually threaten a planetary population as opposed to a, relatively, small asylum worth of people concentrated around the shield emitter.
Considering the power it's ought to use regarding the shield strength per zone and the overall total resistance against nuclear-level firepower... and that ships alone carry gigatons worth of antimatter... something tells me that if a planetary shield generator were to blow up... it would be pretty nasty.
I mean, simply put, either you have a super wide shield that still kills people locally and can only repel the firepower of one single ship like the Connie using phasers only (and perhaps a spread of torps for the icing) and... that's not great. I don't know how much AM the Connie carried but I'd say you'd need at the very least that amount of AM to cover the power expenditure. I think you'd reach in the hundreds of megatons and considering how fast the bombardment go, you may not have anytime to move people around to safe zones.
Or you go for a real wartime planetary shield that can provide protection against a flotilla of warships (flotilla already existed back in ENT so the UFP would know what kind of sizes flotillas could come in). A shield also capable of tanking shots for an extended amount of time... so you see it require heaps of antimatter. How many? Gigatons, easily (TOS-era ships are less powerful than TNG-era ones, themselves carrying several gigatons worth of AM based on several self destruction sequences, but we compensate with numbers, as always). Now, a multi-gigaton explosion wouldn't kill an entire planet's population, but it would surely mess things up a lot because your design includes the fact that poking a hole in it blows the entire generator facility up, something we've never seen with ships (ships lose their shields and... that's all, they're only exposed).
Or your super mighty planetary shield has no such weakness, but then we'd be discussing about something we're yet to see.
It's just that the Elba case is totally fishy. Find me a Scarif-like or Druidia-like case and I think we'll be in agreement.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:And is noted but doesn't tell us much about the hardware itself. How big it was, what it ran on, how long it took to bring it here, with what type of ship, how powerful, etc.


True. But it does tell us 2 mile plus diameter shields are not cost prohibitive for the 23rd century to produce and are strong enough to be of some use in a combat situation.
That's true, they have such devices in stock and are logistically affordable. They don't seem to require very special circumstances to be deployed. But then again it's only a protection of two miles in diameter.
I'm not going to make a calculation to show how many of them would be needed to cover something like Cuba.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Many examples taken from VOY do not apply to the Federation. In fact, probably most of them if not all of them.
Thus far, all evidence shows that a planet wide coverage could only be achieved with a copious amount of shield generators forming a lattice of some kind, a patchwork.
It would really depend on the example in question. It would have to established the example is abnormal and specifically atypical to the Federation tech and capabilities.
Best examples for the Federation show that only completely artificial structures –therefore capable of hiding tons of conduits, relays and what-have-you– are showing evidence of large scale shielding... and it's not planet-wide yet, always limited to stations, with the shields themselves likely being bubbles barely extending beyond the structures, or hull hugging.
"Year of Hell" specifically is based upon the technical expertise of a starfleet officer who could only speak in the general about a race of aliens he has never met and only recently learned entered an alliance with Janeway. Chakotay being a captive on the Krenim time weapon at the time. Which implicitly implies shield technology is doable by a general 24th century level of technology.
And YoH 1 & 2 don't specifically mention planetary shields and don't even need to imply any, as demonstrated several paragraphs above.
As for your idea of a patchwork shield, what evidence supports that? Every example I can think of, regardless of the shield's ultimate size, is singularly generated be it a building, a colony or a planet.

-Respectfully, Sonofccn
Simply put, for the two first cases, building or colony, unless there is a proof that these systems can be pushed at a planet wide scale under sane and safe conditions, there's no other way round than relying on an assembly of several shields.
As for the third, there is only one and only case of a shield encompassing a whole planet, that of Elba, and it is not a sound design at all and does not behave like any other shield regarding what happens if it gets pierced in just one single point.
So overall it's quite a strong case in favour of patchworked shields if anyone is willing to claim the existence of planet-wide shields.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by sonofccn » Sun Jan 08, 2017 5:07 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Yes. Isn't it what I essentially summarized?
I also remember the discussion and pointing out that the further we'd go in the past of the UFP, the greater the chances for the Cylons to actually win in a real war. For sure, by TNG I think I couldn't see anything better than an alpha Strike and then again, the Cylon fleet is not infinite.
Your argument was that "Clearly, around 225x, in a setting wherein the UFP clearly put more emphasis on big ships and guns instead of exploration, there's still no adequate defense to properly protect Earth or Vulcan, and therefore most likely the same applies to any other UFP world." Emphasis mine.

That is incongruent with just "Earth alone" vs the entire Cylon fleet.
No need to go for that. The damage is so small that it's quicker to say debris fell towards San Francisco and maybe some troops were beamed down in a hurry and did some damage with whatever they packed and that's about it.
The level of damage is in line with the amount of firepower troops could carry.
I would respectfully have to disagree with that interpretation. I did not get the vibe, watching the episode, the Breen did a charge of the light brigade and then vomited their debris all over San Fran.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:And ST4 shows that you can throw an entire crew into the past, pick two whales, even provide the formula for transparent steel and this changes absolutely nothing noticeable to the future. The movie even makes a point showing things happening the exact same way.
So there's no need for an implied planet-wide shield.


Well firstly I feel I should point out the entire plot of the episode sort of hinged on radically altering the destiny of entire civilizations with entire empires emerging and disappearing with each temporal shockwave. A shockwave a temporally shielded ship couldn't save a planet from I hasten to add.

Then I should point out that, barring sabotage, the time weapon never fully enters our space-continuum and is virtually impervious to non temporal weapons that Voyager, and by extension the aliens, have. It could certainly survive long enough to erase a homeworld. A temporal shield is the only way to ensure your world is protected. And even that can be overwhelmed if the timeship fires directly at it for long enough as Voyager very nearly found out the hard way.

I also feel I should point you to "The City on the edge of Forever {TOS-01}" or "Past Tense {DS9-03}" where saving a woman's life or getting one man killed in the past erased the Federation from existence necessitating the timeline be "fixed" either by ensuring the woman died or by having Sisko start the Bell riots.

Now I'm completely willing to be shown where my interpretation in all this is wrong, I provided you a link to the episode's transcript and I"m sure you can find the episode on the webs somewhere, but I'm going to need an argument a little stronger than ST4.
It could, but artificial structures can house plenty of relays, secondary generators and power plants and sort of buse-buffers to cope with the excess of energy in a given section. That is the advantage of building an entire structure from the ground up.
It is not required, but would surely help a lot in the protection. Still, what do we have in terms of evidence of a unique, centralized and very powerful shield generator and caster?
Well if we have no evidence in favor of your proposal I see no reason to assume it just to dismiss the MA example. As for examples in my corner we have this In Defector we learn a Galaxy class can on the fly rig and extend its shields five kilometers and still stop a shot or two.
PICARD: We are moving to intercept. Maintain your course and power.
(The picture breaks up. The little ship has been hit)
DATA: Scout ship is severely damaged, Captain. Engines inoperative, shields are down.
RIKER: Position?
DATA: Coordinates one four zero by two zero five, sir.
RIKER: Federation space.
PICARD: Right. Move to within five kilometres. Mister La Forge, prepare to extend

[Engineering]

PICARD [OC]: Our shields around the Romulan scout ship.
LAFORGE: At that range, the shields won't be able to take much punishment, Captain.

[Bridge]

DATA: Five kilometres, sir.
RIKER: All stop.
PICARD: Extend shields.
LAFORGE [OC]: Shields in place.
All from a single emitter source that is the Enterprise.
Do we have any diagram or anything showing the size of a shield generator meant to repel capship firepower and how it works, spreads, so on and so forth?
The nearest thing to my knowledge to a Canon diagram would be the display screen from the movie Generations where we learn "gravitons" are somehow involved in shield. Beyond that, nothing as far as I know.
At that very moment in the show, it wasn't used by civilians nor the UFP but by a mad man. We simply don't know if the UFP would use it that way.
And if the UFP isn't too dumb, I'd certainly think they would not use it that way.
Uh...its a Federation asylum. They built/installed the shield. At no point does Garth, egomaniac that he is, claim to have tampered with let alone "improved" the shield. So barring evidence from the episode Garth had modified or otherwise used the shield abnormally we can accept the shield was acting within its normal parameters.
Considering the power it's ought to use regarding the shield strength per zone and the overall total resistance against nuclear-level firepower... and that ships alone carry gigatons worth of antimatter... something tells me that if a planetary shield generator were to blow up... it would be pretty nasty.
I mean, simply put, either you have a super wide shield that still kills people locally and can only repel the firepower of one single ship like the Connie using phasers only (and perhaps a spread of torps for the icing) and... that's not great. I don't know how much AM the Connie carried but I'd say you'd need at the very least that amount of AM to cover the power expenditure. I think you'd reach in the hundreds of megatons and considering how fast the bombardment go, you may not have anytime to move people around to safe zones.
Or you go for a real wartime planetary shield that can provide protection against a flotilla of warships (flotilla already existed back in ENT so the UFP would know what kind of sizes flotillas could come in). A shield also capable of tanking shots for an extended amount of time... so you see it require heaps of antimatter. How many? Gigatons, easily (TOS-era ships are less powerful than TNG-era ones, themselves carrying several gigatons worth of AM based on several self destruction sequences, but we compensate with numbers, as always). Now, a multi-gigaton explosion wouldn't kill an entire planet's population, but it would surely mess things up a lot because your design includes the fact that poking a hole in it blows the entire generator facility up, something we've never seen with ships (ships lose their shields and... that's all, they're only exposed).
Or your super mighty planetary shield has no such weakness, but then we'd be discussing about something we're yet to see.
It's just that the Elba case is totally fishy. Find me a Scarif-like or Druidia-like case and I think we'll be in agreement.
I am perfectly happy to debate and speculate about the particulars and operations of Elba-Two until your blue in the face. No problem at all. However, since I have no desire to clutter up these posts more than I have too, first things must come first. I'm sorry if you personally think Elba-Two is "fishy" or nonsensical. I truly do and I do enjoy your speculations and theorizing.

But that doesn't make it less canon. Even if I agreed with you that it was total nonsense on stilts it would still be better than the most brilliant dissertation of fan fluff. I am open to a concrete counter-example, a showing where the Federation tried and failed to shield a planet for instance or how they marveled at an example of one, but otherwise I remain steadfastly convinced of my position.

If all you are going to do is reiterate how much Elba-Two doesn't make sense I politely advise you to save your breath. Our difference of opinion is insurmountable.
Simply put, for the two first cases, building or colony, unless there is a proof that these systems can be pushed at a planet wide scale under sane and safe conditions, there's no other way round than relying on an assembly of several shields.
As for the third, there is only one and only case of a shield encompassing a whole planet, that of Elba, and it is not a sound design at all and does not behave like any other shield regarding what happens if it gets pierced in just one single point.
So overall it's quite a strong case in favour of patchworked shields if anyone is willing to claim the existence of planet-wide shields.
You misunderstand. I grasp the concept of patchwork shield. I wanted evidence of its use in operation within the Federation. Find me an example of a building or colony which employs multiple shield generators. Or of course a planet if you can find it.

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Re: Planetary Defenses in Star Trek

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:23 am

sonofccn wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Yes. Isn't it what I essentially summarized?
I also remember the discussion and pointing out that the further we'd go in the past of the UFP, the greater the chances for the Cylons to actually win in a real war. For sure, by TNG I think I couldn't see anything better than an alpha Strike and then again, the Cylon fleet is not infinite.
Your argument was that "Clearly, around 225x, in a setting wherein the UFP clearly put more emphasis on big ships and guns instead of exploration, there's still no adequate defense to properly protect Earth or Vulcan, and therefore most likely the same applies to any other UFP world." Emphasis mine.

That is incongruent with just "Earth alone" vs the entire Cylon fleet.
How is my point wrong here? Since Earth and Vulcan are important members and fully developped worlds, yet haven't shown any defensive capability that would protect them from an alpha strike, I don't see what's incorrect. I remember making a distinction between a scenario of wasting one single world and actually waging a war against the whole UFP.
No need to go for that. The damage is so small that it's quicker to say debris fell towards San Francisco and maybe some troops were beamed down in a hurry and did some damage with whatever they packed and that's about it.
The level of damage is in line with the amount of firepower troops could carry.
I would respectfully have to disagree with that interpretation. I did not get the vibe, watching the episode, the Breen did a charge of the light brigade and then vomited their debris all over San Fran.
The outcome is hard to analyze, but is totally consistent with the damage one can expect from debris or low level firepower from auxiliary or infantry weapons.
Occam's razor supports that, not a weak argument for the existence of some shield that would have conveniently always let only some megajoules or low gigajoules pass through the shield every single time an enemy craft attempted to land a hit on some random piece of the scenery.
Seeing evidence, even implied, of a planetary shield here is very convoluted.
Mr. Oragahn wrote:And ST4 shows that you can throw an entire crew into the past, pick two whales, even provide the formula for transparent steel and this changes absolutely nothing noticeable to the future. The movie even makes a point showing things happening the exact same way.
So there's no need for an implied planet-wide shield.


Well firstly I feel I should point out the entire plot of the episode sort of hinged on radically altering the destiny of entire civilizations with entire empires emerging and disappearing with each temporal shockwave. A shockwave a temporally shielded ship couldn't save a planet from I hasten to add.
You won't be bothered by such a weapon if it has a limited range and the firing ship or ships needed to get into close range to fire it at the planet since defensive fleets will be able to intercept the incoming ships first, unless they use a FTL system that's impossible to detect.
I don't know the episode so I cannot assess the abilities of this weapon to a comfortable extent.
This being said, if the weapon is really powerful and relies on a very long range and can, from one single shooting position, bath a whole section of a planet or more in a temporal shockwave, then indeed, worlds themselves would need a complete protection.
Then I should point out that, barring sabotage, the time weapon never fully enters our space-continuum and is virtually impervious to non temporal weapons that Voyager, and by extension the aliens, have. It could certainly survive long enough to erase a homeworld. A temporal shield is the only way to ensure your world is protected. And even that can be overwhelmed if the timeship fires directly at it for long enough as Voyager very nearly found out the hard way.
But then why is it so important that ships get this kind of protection if they cannot reach and destroy the weapon?
I also feel I should point you to "The City on the edge of Forever {TOS-01}" or "Past Tense {DS9-03}" where saving a woman's life or getting one man killed in the past erased the Federation from existence necessitating the timeline be "fixed" either by ensuring the woman died or by having Sisko start the Bell riots.
Time in Trek is a sensible thing, perhaps, but it also has episodes hinging on the principle of predestined events and some cases of time travel without consequences (see here (TNG) and here (TOS) for interesting lists of cases of time travel).
Now, a weapon that is designed to mess with timelines is probably going to be more effective than some random time-related singularities that seem to pop randomly throughout the galaxy's quadrants.
So a planetary shield would be required.
Now I'm completely willing to be shown where my interpretation in all this is wrong, I provided you a link to the episode's transcript and I"m sure you can find the episode on the webs somewhere, but I'm going to need an argument a little stronger than ST4.
Having read summaries of the twin episodes from Memory Alpha, I realize that Chakotay is wrong although he does not know it. He didn't see Voyager's modified shield still crumbling before the attack from the Krenim ship (he and Paris had just been whisked away and probably put into a detention spot immediately).
No world would be protected because the ship can't be damaged and can still pound a target's shield and get through after a while.
Although that would mean that in Chakotay's head, planetary shields would do the work, how the heck does he know that all those homeworlds have planetary shields?
He can't. All he knows is that the Nihydron and Mawasi have warships. That is all. So based on what he knows –and not what he'd make up– he can only be refering to warships. And this makes no sense, unless we take the context here.
He was trying to convince Annorax to stop his campaign of temporal genocides and throwing excuses from the top of his head. He was also bluffing to some degree since he told Annorax that Janeway & Pals wouldn't attack if they hadn't the guarantee that they could damage the Krenim ship.
Note that Chakotay's line we've been analyzing comes almost directly after his remark about Janeway's confidence in her ability to deal some damage.
Basically, he's doing everything to convince Annorax that his enemies have both weapons and defenses that are now relevant against the temporal weapon.
As we see, his bluff didn't work.
It could, but artificial structures can house plenty of relays, secondary generators and power plants and sort of buse-buffers to cope with the excess of energy in a given section. That is the advantage of building an entire structure from the ground up.
It is not required, but would surely help a lot in the protection. Still, what do we have in terms of evidence of a unique, centralized and very powerful shield generator and caster?
Well if we have no evidence in favor of your proposal I see no reason to assume it just to dismiss the MA example.
I'm not dismissing it. I'm arguing about what it entails. Thus far there's no definitive answer either way and unless I missed something, only the station, not the planetoid, is said to almost having had a shield of its own.
Then again, Memory Alpha is not the Earth. It's just a grounded station stuck on the face of a small yet round planetoid with no atmosphere whatsoever.
As for examples in my corner we have this In Defector we learn a Galaxy class can on the fly rig and extend its shields five kilometers and still stop a shot or two.
PICARD: We are moving to intercept. Maintain your course and power.
(The picture breaks up. The little ship has been hit)
DATA: Scout ship is severely damaged, Captain. Engines inoperative, shields are down.
RIKER: Position?
DATA: Coordinates one four zero by two zero five, sir.
RIKER: Federation space.
PICARD: Right. Move to within five kilometres. Mister La Forge, prepare to extend

[Engineering]

PICARD [OC]: Our shields around the Romulan scout ship.
LAFORGE: At that range, the shields won't be able to take much punishment, Captain.

[Bridge]

DATA: Five kilometres, sir.
RIKER: All stop.
PICARD: Extend shields.
LAFORGE [OC]: Shields in place.
All from a single emitter source that is the Enterprise.
Which is one of their biggest classes of ships at that time. Unsurprisingly, the shield is weakened because of that.
We're a far cry from extending a shield beyond a radius of, say, seven thousand kilometers.
It is also interesting to note that the Elba shield proved to be quite weak since one single ship was thought to have a chance to pierce it on its most distant, weakest point. Which as I said, is really craptastic for a planetary shield. That fits in quite nicely with the idea that the shield was stretched beyond safe levels.
At that very moment in the show, it wasn't used by civilians nor the UFP but by a mad man. We simply don't know if the UFP would use it that way.
And if the UFP isn't too dumb, I'd certainly think they would not use it that way.
Uh...its a Federation asylum. They built/installed the shield. At no point does Garth, egomaniac that he is, claim to have tampered with let alone "improved" the shield.
That is true. Still, it's a guy who managed to produce an explosive of silly abilities with whatever he could put his hands on. In an asylum.
Perhaps the guy isn't too stupid, which does offer the possibility that he could modify the shield's parameters.
So barring evidence from the episode Garth had modified or otherwise used the shield abnormally we can accept the shield was acting within its normal parameters.
Well then I can accept that the UFP builds planetary shields that one single ship can reasonnably poke within a very short timeframe and this will trigger the entire destruction of the generator and quite logically the fuel it uses, potentially exposing the world to a ground-level multi-gigaton explosion, making the shield quite irrelevant and also very dangerous.
Considering the power it's ought to use regarding the shield strength per zone and the overall total resistance against nuclear-level firepower... and that ships alone carry gigatons worth of antimatter... something tells me that if a planetary shield generator were to blow up... it would be pretty nasty.
I mean, simply put, either you have a super wide shield that still kills people locally and can only repel the firepower of one single ship like the Connie using phasers only (and perhaps a spread of torps for the icing) and... that's not great. I don't know how much AM the Connie carried but I'd say you'd need at the very least that amount of AM to cover the power expenditure. I think you'd reach in the hundreds of megatons and considering how fast the bombardment go, you may not have anytime to move people around to safe zones.
Or you go for a real wartime planetary shield that can provide protection against a flotilla of warships (flotilla already existed back in ENT so the UFP would know what kind of sizes flotillas could come in). A shield also capable of tanking shots for an extended amount of time... so you see it require heaps of antimatter. How many? Gigatons, easily (TOS-era ships are less powerful than TNG-era ones, themselves carrying several gigatons worth of AM based on several self destruction sequences, but we compensate with numbers, as always). Now, a multi-gigaton explosion wouldn't kill an entire planet's population, but it would surely mess things up a lot because your design includes the fact that poking a hole in it blows the entire generator facility up, something we've never seen with ships (ships lose their shields and... that's all, they're only exposed).
Or your super mighty planetary shield has no such weakness, but then we'd be discussing about something we're yet to see.
It's just that the Elba case is totally fishy. Find me a Scarif-like or Druidia-like case and I think we'll be in agreement.
I am perfectly happy to debate and speculate about the particulars and operations of Elba-Two until your blue in the face. No problem at all. However, since I have no desire to clutter up these posts more than I have too, first things must come first. I'm sorry if you personally think Elba-Two is "fishy" or nonsensical. I truly do and I do enjoy your speculations and theorizing.

But that doesn't make it less canon. Even if I agreed with you that it was total nonsense on stilts it would still be better than the most brilliant dissertation of fan fluff. I am open to a concrete counter-example, a showing where the Federation tried and failed to shield a planet for instance or how they marveled at an example of one, but otherwise I remain steadfastly convinced of my position.

If all you are going to do is reiterate how much Elba-Two doesn't make sense I politely advise you to save your breath. Our difference of opinion is insurmountable.
Contrary to a rotten popular belief, a lack of evidence of the existence of element A when it's more than due is a very strong argument against the existence of said element.
There is simply one, just one example of a shield covering an entire planet as far as the UFP is concerned, and even the YoH case is not as solid as previously thought regarding the rest of the galaxy, because Chakotay would be making stuff up as fast as he could, which is probably what he was actually doing since he tried to bluff Annorax out of his madness.
So we have one single type of planetary shield that has all the dramatic flaws I have described. It's fixed, weak and dangerous to the people or assets it has to protect, and we haven't even dealt with how long it may take to have a shield of that size raised.
Okay. It's canonically illogical and absurd.

Mind you, only Elba is canonically shown to have such a shield.
The rest is pure conjecture.
If you want to say it would be stupid for the UFP not to have such shields on their more important worlds, I'd tell you that it would be immensely stupid to design and use shields that way to begin with. Being a canon rigorist swings both ways.
Besides, we know ships don't suddenly blow up just because they lost their shields. They just get... exposed.
Simply put, for the two first cases, building or colony, unless there is a proof that these systems can be pushed at a planet wide scale under sane and safe conditions, there's no other way round than relying on an assembly of several shields.
As for the third, there is only one and only case of a shield encompassing a whole planet, that of Elba, and it is not a sound design at all and does not behave like any other shield regarding what happens if it gets pierced in just one single point.
So overall it's quite a strong case in favour of patchworked shields if anyone is willing to claim the existence of planet-wide shields.
You misunderstand. I grasp the concept of patchwork shield. I wanted evidence of its use in operation within the Federation. Find me an example of a building or colony which employs multiple shield generators. Or of course a planet if you can find it.
The patchwork suggestion is only relevant to large objects like planets, simply because of the sheer size of the surface area. That's not the case for colonies or bases, especially since a single UFP ship like a Galaxy-class can increase the radius of her shield (with a cost in strength though).
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Mon Jan 09, 2017 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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