Interesting quotes from DS9 "Starship Down"

[Darth Wong]

Irrelevant. A proximity explosion will propel the forcefield into the user's body and cause blunt-force injuries even if the forcefield is impregnable. See Newton's Third Law. The smaller the forcefield generator is, the more likely it is to injure its wearer after the first hit.

Yeah but it uses a quantum phase varience to recalibrate a tachyon conduit to create a subspace bubble.

And interesting how they weren't shown in the Dominion War. Perhaps another device proved to be an overcomplicated useless piece of shit.

Interestingly enough, personal forcefields would be vulnerable to very high-powered weapons or a heavy physical impact of some kind. If anybody was using these toys, it might help explain why the Klingons use that ridiculous heavy bat'leth; if you hit a forcefield-equipped man hard enough with that thing, you'll probably injure him severely. Mind you, a higher-powered energy weapon, RPG, or heavy projectile weapon would be much more effective, but no one said the Klingons were geniuses.

[Darth Wong]

Nice little nitpick Poe but you didn't really add anything now did you? I'm sure Wongs more than capable of sticking up for himself and if he didn't pick up on it its either because it was irrelevant or because he just doesn't care.

Or I figured any reader will see that you haven't shown defensive weapons to exist, hence the point is moot. Saying that they might possibly be weapons is hardly evidence of weapons.

[Durandal]

Actually, the name "force field" would imply that it was better at stopping physical impacts than absorbing heat. A real life force field is gravity. A more accurate term would be "energy shield" or something.

[Vertigo1]

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[Note: Sisko isn't being an idiot here by ignoring using phasers, they were knocked out.
O'BRIEN: O'Brien, here.
SISKO: How many atmospheric probes do we have on board?
O'BRIEN: Two.
SISKO: Could they be rigged with warheads from the quantum torpedoes?
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It is confirmed torpedoes can't be used as "dumb" missles.

Not to nitpick here, but couldn't that have been an attempt to allow the warheads to have the ability to lock onto a target and hit it? Worf already said that the regular torpedoes would be useless (since all the other vessel would have to do is evade...) so this could have been an attempt to compensate.

[Lord Poe]

I said Could Be Weapons

Ah, yes. Now its "Could Be" instead of "I never said they had to be a weapon". Good to know you are firmly behind your point.

Nice little nitpick Poe but you didn't really add anything now did you?

How could I add anything to one of the oldest Trekkie arguments? It's already been said.

[TheDarkling]

Ah well in future you could just put + 1 Post if you feel the need to raise the post count, since I can't believe me or the exact wording of my posts are that interestng and you don't care about the subject at hand (or at least have nothing to add) I must assume that was the intent of your post.

I was saying "possibly weapons?" which was just a side note to the point about the statements of Leyton (of actually Odo) indicating planetary shields don't exist.
It wasn't my point it was just an asside , i.e maybe weapons, what do you think?, I stated no opinion one way of the other just raised a question (although them being weapons does seem likely to me since we do nkow defenses of some sort exists and phasers on colonies have existed since TOS).

However since everyone finds my post more interesting than the possible nature of said statsions/platforms do continue to comment.

[greenmm]

Ahem...

[Note: This is all inside a "Class J" Gas Giant with 10 000 kph winds]


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KIRA: There's so much interference our imaging systems are practically useless...
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Gas Giants effect the viewscreen which isn't just a window...

At least it confirmed what we saw in TWoK, where we (the audience) could easily see the Reliant and E-nil, but they could barely even see each other. Damn them and their reliance on nonvisual sensors at short ranges...

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SISKO: (to Dax) Hold this altitude. (to Worf) Any sign of the Karemma or the Jem'Hadar?
WORF: No, but sensor range is less than two kilometers.
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Gas Giants ruin sensors.

Wow... a sensor range less than the original flight range of an AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM. Maybe they'd have been better off firing old FFAR dumbfire rockets at it...

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SISKO: Mister Worf, what's our weapons status?
WORF: The cloak is ineffective inside this atmosphere. And the interference will jam our torpedo guidance systems.
SISKO: What about phasers?
WORF: We'll have to target them manually.
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Gas Giants seriously effect weapons.

You know, considering how often phaser lock and targeting equipment ends up being knocked out, you'd think the Academy would have courses in how to manually aim phasers....

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[Note: Sisko isn't being an idiot here by ignoring using phasers, they were knocked out.
O'BRIEN: O'Brien, here.
SISKO: How many atmospheric probes do we have on board?
O'BRIEN: Two.
SISKO: Could they be rigged with warheads from the quantum torpedoes?
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It is confirmed torpedoes can't be used as "dumb" missles.

which is extremely dumb. Even with modern guided missiles, if you don't provide them with initial targeting data they'll generally at least follow a ballistic course. That qoute implies that, unless the torpedo guidance lock systems have been given any kind of guidance data, they won't arm the warhead. And honestly, they can't even give it an old fashioned intertial fix-type thing, or at least set the warhead for proximity use (say, detonate if it detects a solid object within 500 meters)?

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46 EXT. ATMOSPHERE (OPTICAL) as the probe arcs up, around, and back over the Defiant, toward the Jem'Hadar right on our tail. The probe hits home and the ship explodes in a FIREBALL.
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Interesting. 1 Quantum torpedo warhead can destroy a Jem'Hadar ship. Or were they damaged?

Question: were the Defiant's shields knocked out by the Jem'Hadar, knocked out by the gas giant, or still functional when the torpedo hit the Defiant? If the planet's atmosphere is playing havoc with everything else, why not also the shields?

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56 INT. DEFIANT - ENGINE ROOM
We hear the SOUND of the second torpedo coming closer...
STEVENS: The second one's still closing... range, one hundred meters... seventy-five... fifty...
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Jem'Hadar ships have torpedoes. And they're SLOW (at least in the Gas Giant)

That's what, 25mps? That is slow -- about 56 mph (90 kph), or about the speed of an M1 MBT.

Of course, that's just its closing speed... but still, I really hope that's due to atmospheric drag (although why a slim torpedo casing would have more drag than a huge-ass ship is beyond me), because a 25mps closing speed advantage is piss-poor.

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A beat, then a LOUD metallic thunk that jolts the ship. Everyone tenses up, waiting for the explosion... but nothing happens...
CUT TO:
57 INT. DEFIANT - MESS HALL
on Quark and Hanok, both staring numbly at something off-screen.
58 NEW ANGLE to reveal the nose-cone of a Jem'Hadar TORPEDO sticking through the back wall. Nitrogen streams in from around the perimeter of mangled metal into which the torpedo is jammed.
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Torpedo fails to detonate.

Blind luck/deus ex machine perhaps. Either it was an extremely rare dud (and the only dud I can think of that ever appears in TNG, DS9, or VOY), or the atmosphere messed up the torpedo and the Jem'Hadar didn't know it would happen. IMHO, the dud explanation is more likely...

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QUARK: And go where? If that thing explodes, the entire ship will be destroyed.
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Quark thinks one torpedo can destroy the Defiant.

He's also not a starship engineer or weapons expert (at least not in terms of starship weapons, as they're not as easy to "export"). Still, though, given how much Fed starships seem to rely on structural integrity fields to keep them together, that is a big concern. Sure, the Defiant has a lot more armor than most ships... but armor is designed to protect against external damage, not internal damage. Put a grenade or a Molotov cocktail in an M1's fuel tank, and it'll brew up almost as much as a T-64 will. That torpedo already made it past the Defiant's shields (apparantly already down), and penetrated the hull (both hulls if it had a double hull, as I doubt they would have left the galley outside the "inner" hull, and it was leaking atmosphere into the ship). The Defiant's much smaller size and Fed starship's general susceptibility to internal damage makes for a dangerous situation.

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O'BRIEN: With all due respect, I think you're riding these men a bit too hard. You have to understand, they're out of their element. They're not bridge officers, they didn't go to Starfleet Academy. They're Engineers. They're used to being told to repair something, and figuring out how to do it on their own.
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These engineers didn't go to the Academy, they're enlisted. Strange, since on Voyager and the E-D, most were officers.

Chief O'Brien wasn't, though, and he was on the E-D. And on Voyager, while B'Elanna did attend the Academy, she didn't graduate from it. Nor do we know for sure that all of the engineering personnel on Voyager were officers and graduates from the Academy.

Of course, in real life, the majority of people in the armed forces don't go through the Academy either, even in the Navy and Air Force. Academy training is reserved for commissioned officers; even higher-ranking NCO's in the USN and USAF didn't attend a military academy, they simply have spent enough time in service working their way up in rank.

[greenmm]

ODO
Take down the power relays, and
you neutralize sensors,
transporters, surface-based
defense installations.

Also the distinction between surface based and orbital defense installations imlpies both exist (phaser/photon satellites?).

Well, it's hard to say exactly what would constitute a Federation surface-based defense installation without more quotations. However, generally speaking, in science-fiction you find that such installations do normally consist of defensive and offensive systems. At a minimum, normally some ground-based weaponry with aerospace fighters, possibly with planetary shield generators as well.

Since ST generally doesn't have aerospace fighters used by Starfleet, or at least not at that time period, then the logical assumption would be that, if they were merely weapons installations, they would have been called that, and if they were merely shield generator installations, they would have been called that. Since neither term was used, and Starfleet was never big on having huge planetary armies, it would be logical to assume that both weapons and shields were in these installations.

Granted, we have no definitive proof that weapon systems, fighters, and/or shield generators were part of these "defense installations". However, if none of those 3 things were included, that leaves only 2 possiblities:
-- troop facilities (in which case, they'd use "troop installations" or some other name to denote their purpose it to house troops)
-- sensor facilities (which, given that Fed sensors have trouble penetrating even a few miles of bedrock, would hopefully not be the primary facilities, as orbital or even outer-system platforms would have much better detection arcs; and again, if they were sensor facilities, why weren't they called "subspace sensor arrays" or "subspace sensor installations"? Plus, Odo listed sensors separately from these defense facilities)

Troops are only good if you have enemy troops invading, so if they were building planetary defense installations, it would be logical for them to have weapon and/or shield systems. Of course, this is Star Trek we're talking about

Now, Odo also used the term "surface" in that quote. Obviously, if there were orbital defenses that depended on beamed power from the planet, he would have mentioned them as well. He may have even assumed that Earth had orbital installations to supplement the ground ones. However, I think it's likely that Earth didn't have any orbital defenses, beyond perhaps Spacedock and/or any other drydock facilities, for the following reasons:

1. Sisko himself said Earth was defenseless. Now, perhaps he was exaggerating a bit (as he sometimes would do when moralizing at the end of the episode)... but while he may have meant that Earth was now dependent entirely on its orbital and mobile system defenses, that's a far cry from being considered defenseless. That would seem to imply, though, that the orbital defenses were severely lacking (or nonexistant), or that the capabilities of any orbital installations were so piss-poor in comparison to the planetary installations, that even with additional help from mobile units like the starships they were nowhere near adequate for the defense of Earth. Given the number of starships Starfleet undoubtedly had assigned to protect Earth (given it being the seat of the Federation, and having already needed to rebuild their defenses after the Borg came through), that to me implies some heavy-duty weaponry at these installations.
2. Placement (and shielding). If you have orbital defenses, you need to either make sure that a) they'll maintain orbital separation as they orbit the planet, or b) they're in geosynch orbit so that they always protect the same portion of Earth. The farther out your installations are, though, especially for geosynch orbit, the less need you have for massive thruster/impulse units -- and any power saved for engine needs can be used for additional shield and weapon strength, so it makes more sense to go with a geosynch plan, right? Well, assuming they even tried to enclose Earth in multiple defense shields to form 1 massive shield system, I don't think they'll want to extend it out to geosynch (IIRC, that's a little more than 42,000 km from the Earth's center, or about 36,000 km above the Earth's surface). In fact, generating a shield at geosynch orbit would result in a shield strength per square meter 1/35th that of a shield of identical total power output generated at 7200 km from the Earth's center (about 800 km above the surface). Smaller shield area = stronger shield or less power needed = more power available for weapons or more reserve power available for temporarily boosting shields.

Again, there's no direct evidence to say that they have weapons and/or shields in these installations... but there's no direct evidence to the contrary, either, and there's some secondary evidence (i.e. the separate comment about sensors) that, together with logic/common sense and other sci-fi examples, would point to these installations having shields and weapons.