Trek planetary shields

[Mike DiCenso]

On the subject of the Elba II asylum dome, the Enterprise could cut through the force field, but not without risking destroying the asylum and killing everyone inside it in the process:

SCOTT: Immediate probe. Is the force field in place, Mister Sulu?
SULU: Yes, sir. Solidly.
UHURA: (at Spock's station) Life continues to exist on the planet.
MCCOY: Got to break through it somehow.
SCOTT: Doctor, I told you we couldn't do it without killing everyone in the asylum dome.
MCCOY: I know it, Scotty.

As for theater-level shields we have canonically seen that as early as the mid-22nd century, the Klingons were able to shield an outpost as per "Affliction" [Season 4]. We also know from this episode, that damage done to a planet-bound shield, also shows leakage very much the same as a starship's, with the "leak through" increasing as the shields are progressively weakened, though in the case of the Klingon shield, it took a sustained firing over several minutes time by a D-5 battlecruiser to run the risk of bringing it down. Fairly impressive for the time, given that Klingon weapon was generally superior in firepower to the 500 gigajoule phase canons of the NX-class.

In the 24th century, there is, of course, the Calder Two defenses as described in TNG's "Gambit, Parts I and II", which happen to be there for a mere archeological expedition and the ruins nearby:

BARAN
Nothing to worry about. They have
a type-four deflector shield
protecting the outpost and the
ruins.
PICARD
They'll also have a minimum of two
phaser banks... and possibly even
photon torpedoes. Is that enough
to worry about?

At the very least this is a theater-level shield, and this outpost also is likely to have at least a couple of phasers as well as photon torpedoes. Not bad at all for something so seemingly unimportant tactically or strategically.
-Mike

[Who is like God arbour]

What I find interessting is that we have a clear proof in the highest possible canon level, in TOS, that the Federation has planetary shields.

On the other side, there is not on single indication in the movies that such thing like planetary shields exist in Star Wars.

• • Episode 1:
  Naboo, although it was a well developed, wealthy and influential world, didn't have had a planetary shield.
  And the objection that the Naboo are pacifists is not conclusive. A planetary shield would only be a defensive system. No harm could be done with it.
  On the other side, the yacht of the Queen has had shields and the Naboo have armed fighters. Their pacifism doesn't seem to forbid self-defense.
  
  
  • Episode 2:
  Geonosis, although it was a important factory of arms and the meeting place of the leaders of the the Separatists supporting parties, didn't have hade a planetary shield.
  
  It was taken over by the Republik. The Acclamators have landed without problems. All that shouldn't have been possible if there would have been a planetary shield.
  
  
  • Episode 3:
  Coruscant, although the seat of government for the Galactic Republic, didn't have hade a planetary shield.
  
  The fleet of the Separatists could come in the orbit of Coruscant and capture the Chancelor. In the following battle, the novellization is very clear: Destroyed ships and parts of destroyed ship have fallen down on the planet and have killed thousands.
  
  All that shouldn't have been possible if there would have been a planetary shield. And the argument that the fleet of the Separatists were already too deep to be beyound the shield if it would have been activated, is not conclusive. If they would have a planetary shield, one could expect that they are able to retract it so far that the enemy fleet would be beyound the shield.
  
  
  • Episode 4:
  Alderaan, although it was a well developed, wealthy and influential world, didn't have had a planetary shield.
  The destruction scene of the movie is non-ambiguous and also in the novel, there is no planetary shield mentioned.
  
  I know that some pro Star Wars debater see that otherwise. But I'm convinced that there is no shield to be seen.
  
  If you want to object this point, please use the already existend thread Alderaan, & problems with planetary shield claims. There and on the sites this thread is linking to, you can find already a lot of arguments. But please check that you really have to provide something new to the ongoing debate.
  
  
  • Episode 5:
  Hooth has had only a theater shield. Imperials could land beyound the shield. A planetary shield would have been extremly beneficial.
  
  
  • Episode 6:
  Endor wasn't protected by a planetary shield.
  The rebel hologramm ...
  • 
  ... as well as the novelization,
  
  • "the view-screen depicted the battle station itself, the moon Endor, and a web of energy -- the deflector shield -- emanating from the green moon, encompassing the Death Star."
  are non-ambiguous. There is no planetary shield.

In all that events, a planetary shield would have been really beneficial. That in not a single event was a planetary shield involved shows that there are no planetary shields in Star Wars.

But for all that, many pro Star Wars debaters claim the contrary. Star Wars has planetary shields and Star Trek has no planetary shields.

• • • Planetary Energy Shields
      
      "My Lord, the fleet has moved out of light-speed. Comm-Scan has detected an energy field protecting an area of the sixth planet of the Hoth system. The field is strong enough to deflect any bombardment"- General Veers, TESB. Planetary energy shields were used in TESB and ROTJ, but the Rebels' primitive Hoth energy shield was not at all similar to the sophisticated planetary energy shield in ROTJ which could prevent any and all ground attacks (unlike the Hoth shield), while simultaneously protecting the orbiting DS2. The Hoth energy shield essentially formed a "canopy" which ground forces could penetrate easily, while the Endor energy shield completely encircled the Endor moon as well as the DS2, leaving no openings through which to launch a ground assault.
      
      The Rebels' primitive Hoth energy shield was therefore capable of withstanding the full bombardment of 5 ISD's and 1 SSD, carrying an order of magnitude more firepower than a Base-Delta-Zero operation would require, indefinitely (in other words, >5 billion TW). Most significantly, this energy shield paled in comparison to the massive planetary energy shields erected at well-defended planets like the Endor sanctuary moon, Coruscant, and Byss (among others). This is one of the primary reasons that our strategists valued the Death Star, and why we built a second Death Star even after the first one was destroyed in the disastrous Battle of Yavin. Only truly massive firepower can penetrate the sophisticated planetary energy shields used in the Star Wars galaxy. As far back as the Clone Wars, planetary energy shields had the capability to resist Base-Delta-Zero firepower; the surface of Caamas was "burned off" in a Base-Delta-Zero operation just after the Clone Wars, long before the events depicted in ANH. No one survived (the only Caamasi survivors were off-world at the time, thus indicating the speed of a Base-Delta-Zero operation), but the planet was immune to attack until Bothan spies disabled the planet's shield generators (ref. Spectre of the Past). The Caamas incident demonstrates the speed and lethality of Base-Delta-Zero operations; no one was able to evacuate from the planet, and its surface was so completely destroyed that it was still uninhabitable decades later. It also demonstrates the effectiveness of planetary energy shields; if the planet's energy shields had not been disabled by Bothan operatives, Caamas would have been invulnerable to the massive firepower necessary to cause this destruction.
      
      Luckily, the Federation does not possess the technology to create powerful planetary energy shields, and are limited to partial-shields which only prevent matter-energy transportation. This allows us to bombard their planetary populations at will even with very small starship groups. Some cultists dispute the fact that they lack planetary shielding technology, but no Federation planet has ever been demonstrated to be capable of surviving orbital bombardment without assistance from starships. In Way of the Warrior, it was stated that the Klingons were "fortifying their positions and deploying orbital defense systems", perhaps similar to the orbital defense systems used by the Dominion in their defensive stand against fleets of Federation and Klingon warships. If they possessed the ability to build planetary shields capable of withstanding massive orbital bombardments, flimsy orbital defense systems would be unnecessary.

It's curious and borders on obsession and denial.

• • • • Only two examples to show how much rubbish that is:
        

        The Rebels' primitive Hoth energy shield was therefore capable of withstanding the full bombardment of 5 ISD's and 1 SSD, carrying an order of magnitude more firepower than a Base-Delta-Zero operation would require, indefinitely (in other words, >5 billion TW).

        If they would have been able and willing to deploy so much energy, they could have fired them at a place on Hooth that wasn't protected by the theatre shield. This shield could had have protected only an area within a diameter of some kilometers. But the collateral damages of such weapons fire should be enough to damage or destroy the base, depending on how much energy they would have fired on the planet and how far away the target area from the base would be.
        

        If they possessed the ability to build planetary shields capable of withstanding massive orbital bombardments, flimsy orbital defense systems would be unnecessary.

        That's totally inconclusive. Whith orbital defense systems, one would not only be able to seek sanctuary underneath a shield, one would be able to offensively defend themselves and attack bombarding ships.

I mean, I'm sure that it is possible to find explanations for each event.

But how plausible and believable would such an explanation be?

Why does nobody who sees a Star Wars movie and doesn't know the novels and other canon sources but the movies and their novellizations, would not even think that Star Wars - as it is known to this person - has such thing like planetary shields?

[TheRedFear]

This I have issue with. I believe in ST:TMP we hear passing reference to planetary defences but never anything that could be equated to a planetary shield. IN fact we've never seen anything in Trek to my knowledge that equated to a planetary shield.

If I am remembering correctly, the TMP novelization directly refers to a planetary shield, but is of course non-canon. In Year of Hell, I believe it was mentioned that some of the races (some of which technologically inferior to Voyager) would be able to build planetary shields using Voyager's shield modifications to protect them from the Krenim Temporal Weapon. Of course, overall I would have to agree with you about whether or not they actually have the shields, as there were plenty of episodes where they seemed to be absent when they could have be used (such during the Breen attack on SF HQ), but I suppose this doesn't preclude the possibility of Starfleet being able to set one up, though one must wonder why they did not already do so.

To be fair, we know NOTHING about the Breen attack on earth, other than somehow, a Breen attack force managed to do a little bit of damage to Starfleet HQ before being annihilated. Thatw as more a moral victory/defeat than a military one for the Breen/Starfleet

Whatever kind of planetary defense Earth had, the Breen somehow got through, or around it. That's all we know about that.

[Socar]

[To be fair, we know NOTHING about the Breen attack on earth, other than somehow, a Breen attack force managed to do a little bit of damage to Starfleet HQ before being annihilated. Thatw as more a moral victory/defeat than a military one for the Breen/Starfleet

Whatever kind of planetary defense Earth had, the Breen somehow got through, or around it. That's all we know about that.

A lot of things make me wonder about it. They should've detected the Breen entering the Sol System long enough before they reached Earth and had enough time to put up a shield (if they had had one), unless the Breen somehow dropped out of warp right at Earth, which is strange. Another thing is why their weapons only caused the amount of damage it did. Did SF HQ have defense/protection of its own that it prevented more damage being done to it? Ah, details, details.

[Mike DiCenso]

As has already been gone over:

* The Breen do possess cloaking technology as mentioned in "Hero Worship" [TNG].

* Shields projected from a planet, if bombarded long enough, can also suffer "leakage", ala what starship shields do, and damage increases as the shields are weakened. An example of this is found in "Divergence" [ST:ENT] with the Qu'Vat colony/outpost's shields suffering damage, and energy from the attacking D-5's weapons "leaking" through to damage the facility below.

* The following dialog from "The Changing Face of Evil:

SISKO
Starfleet was able to destroy
most of the Breen attack force,
but by then the damage had been
done.

So yes, Starfleet, with ships, planetary defenses and or both, wiped out a good portion of the attacking Breen fleet, thus likely limiting the amount of damage possible in the attack.
-Mike

[Socar]

* The Breen do possess cloaking technology as mentioned in "Hero Worship" [TNG].

I would think things like tachyon detection grids would be a useful part of any system defense. Unless of course Breen cloaking technology operates unlike the other major AQ species cloaks.

[Cpl Kendall]

Don't forget the gravitic sensors that were deployed along the Romulan Neutral Zone, mentioned in the episode where Troi is impersonating a Tal'Shiar officer. The episode name escapes me.

[Mike DiCenso]

Which would imply that such detection grids are mostly employed along the RNZ, and the Breen came in from a direction where the detection grids could not cover, or at least provide effective enough cover. Suffice to say, most of the attacking fleet was destroyed, and we know that even planet-based shielding can suffer "leakage" as it gets sufficently damaged.
-Mike

[Cpl Kendall]

Unless SF are made up of complete retards, they would have detection grids and gravitic sensors distributed throughout sensitive systems as a backup in case something slipped through the RNZ net. After all to use a real life example we didn't just rely on the DEW line for complete defense of North America but had radar scattered throughout the continent.

This isn't entirely unreconcilable with what happened in the episode, we know that they were stopped before they could cause widespread damage to Earth so it's possible they were detected while in Earth's system by the net and intercepted and only a portion got through to orbit.

Unless I'm misremembering the entire episode.

[Who is like God arbour]

If the Breen would fly cloacked and with high warp velocity to Earth (several hundred, if not even several thousand times of c) it would be difficult to detect them. And when they are finally detected and recognised as a thread, the reaction time would be very small.

But as it was said several times already, we don't know much of the Breen attack on Earth.

It could be that a Breen ship have come to Earth under assurance of free passage and diplomatic immunity for negotiations. The other ships were cloacked and have flown very near to the official expected ship. All anormal sensor readings were accredited to the one Breen ship that was apparently there.

And - as far as I know - the raid on San Francisco was the first warlike operation of the Breen.

That the Breen have negotiated an alliance with the Dominion was already said in the episode DEEP SPACE NINE: "Strange Bedfellows", an episode before DEEP SPACE NINE: "The Changing Face of Evil", on which beginning the already happened Raid on San Francisco was mentioned. But only Worf and Ezri Dax, who were prisoners of the Dominion, have learned about these alliance. But they have come back to Deep Space Nine only in the beginning of DEEP SPACE NINE: "The Changing Face of Evil" and then, the Raid on San Francisco has already happened.

As far as we know, the Federation did neither know about the Alliance nor that it was in war with the Breen. The Raid on San Francisco was the first act of war - and a only by that act implied declaration of war.

[TheRedFear]

* The Breen do possess cloaking technology as mentioned in "Hero Worship" [TNG].

I would think things like tachyon detection grids would be a useful part of any system defense. Unless of course Breen cloaking technology operates unlike the other major AQ species cloaks.

Or, whatever kind of cloaking technology the Breen employ can't be countered with the same things that counter Romulan cloaks.

Considering how completely unprepared they were for the Breen Energy Dampening Weapon, it's not at all hard to beleive the Breen had a few more technological surprises up their sleeves.

Remember, the Breen are possibly the single most mysterious race in the Trek Universe. They're the proverbial riddle wrapped in an enigma. Nobody knows why they wear those refrigeration suits(in fact, do we even have any kind of confirmation on whether or not those ARE refrigeration suits?). Their very language defies the Universal Translator. We don't even know for sure if they're biological beings in the traditional sense. It seems to be commonly accepted knowledge that the Breen don't have blood(According to Bashir in the Dominion POW Camp), and their speech certainly SOUNDS robotic. Though, for all we actually know about them even that could be misinformation.

The only things we know about the Breen is they had at least one piece of technology nobody in the Alpha Quadrant was ready for, a hell of a lot more ships than anybody expected, and that everything we previously thought we knew about them is suspect.

There's all kinds of possible ways they could have pulled off their strike. We simply don't know enough to speculate.

[Mike DiCenso]

Unless SF are made up of complete retards, they would have detection grids and gravitic sensors distributed throughout sensitive systems as a backup in case something slipped through the RNZ net. After all to use a real life example we didn't just rely on the DEW line for complete defense of North America but had radar scattered throughout the continent.

This isn't entirely unreconcilable with what happened in the episode, we know that they were stopped before they could cause widespread damage to Earth so it's possible they were detected while in Earth's system by the net and intercepted and only a portion got through to orbit.

Unless I'm misremembering the entire episode.

As has already been pointed out, that all presumes that the Breen use a cloaking device that works on the same principles as the Romulan and Klingon devices.

As for the episode's details. We are never shown the battle itself, only a quick shot of the aftermath at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, and very brief descriptions that states that most of the Breen's fleet was wiped out. But there are no other particulars given.
-Mike

[2046]

It's entirely possible that the Breen attack was a landing of troops or deployment of fighter-esque vessels . . . possibly similar or equal to the little vessels seen in combat late in the war. We simply have no detail on the nature of the surface attack, so anything's possible, especially since the low yields already require conjecture and extra detail.

As for the RotJ stuff, there was another quote from the novelization that used the term "encompassed them both" regarding Endor and the Death Star, though obviously that is overruled both by the other quote in the novel and by the higher canon. However, it's worth pointing out for completeness.

[Jasonb]

Who said Earth did not have planetary shields. When the Breen attact Earth it is possible Earth did have Planetary shield just did no good thanks . Because remember energy dissipators Weapon That Breen used during DS9: "The Changing Face of Evil"). There no reason to think Breen might have not used this weapon against Earth as disable Earth shields.

[The Dude]

Wow! Blast from the past, I don't even remember having that discussion.