Trek Has Planetary Shields, Dammit

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2002-09-07 09:21pm

Yes, I considered that as well. But if you are trying to keep Picard there, why not bring them online to prevent his simply being beamed back up?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-07 09:24pm

They didnt have control of planetary defense?, they were over confident (as enemies always are when writers need them to make a mistake

)

However I dont recall them waiting to keep Picard there (they ordered him to stay and he stayed I cant remember him making a break for it until Phasers started going off)

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2002-09-07 09:27pm

As I recall, they had to hold him literally a gunpoint (phaserpoint?) for a while until the "implanted" Riker beamed down.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-07 09:36pm

No they started eating worms and Picard backed off then Riker appeared and blocked Picards escape.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-09-07 11:01pm

Missing planetary shields brought to you by the same A-HOLE writers that gave us exploding console!!!!

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-09-07 11:02pm

Ender wrote:Yes, I considered that as well. But if you are trying to keep Picard there, why not bring them online to prevent his simply being beamed back up?

1. IIRC they were all Vice Admirals.
2. They IIRC invited him down.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2002-09-07 11:12pm

Darkling already proved I was mistaken anyhow.

DocMoriartty · Post by **DocMoriartty** » 2002-09-10 04:07pm

One has to look at this in context. We have seen one single planet in the Federation with a full planetary shield.

Why?

1. They cannot build more. Not logical since why would the only one be used here.

2. They dont want to build more. More plausable. The planet with the shield is a poisonous wasteland. There is no life outside the asylum.

Maybe the shield emits intense radiation or blocks important portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Using such a shield on a populated planet could be a death sentance for everyone living below it.

3. There is no point in building more. Also plauable. Yes the shield covered the whole planet. But all it could do was stop the Enterprise just enough to be inconvenient. If there had been no worry about Kirk below Scotty could have blasted right through it. If this represents the power of ST planet shields then there is nothing to worry about. Maybe they could never learn to improve them enough to make them effective defensive tools and thus abandoned there widespread use.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2002-09-10 04:20pm

I just wanted to point out that in this story I ran across called Star Crossed there is a planetary shield around Earth, so I guess that's cannon huh?

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-10 04:24pm

huh?

I do know that the sb'ers pro trek debators would love to have TMP book (written by GR) to be canon because that starts earth has a nice planetary shield (can stop enough energy to stop the sun rotating or something like that).

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2002-09-10 04:27pm

Singuler Quartet wrote:
Ender wrote:I remember someone mentioning that ST:TMP indicated a shield was part of Earth's defenses.
That was in Gene's novelisation of TMP, not in the movie.

How does Gene's novelization fit in the canon heirarchy?
Anywhere?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-09-10 08:26pm

Novels are never ever cannon in ST, one of the reasons trekys hate the EU so much and try and get it kicked out whenever possible because... thier jelious

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2002-09-11 05:21am

DocMoriartty wrote: 3. There is no point in building more. Also plauable. Yes the shield covered the whole planet. But all it could do was stop the Enterprise just enough to be inconvenient. If there had been no worry about Kirk below Scotty could have blasted right through it. If this represents the power of ST planet shields then there is nothing to worry about. Maybe they could never learn to improve them enough to make them effective defensive tools and thus abandoned there widespread use.

IIRC, Scotty said that if they did try to blast through the shield it would kill every living thing on the surface of the planet.

I believe that the E-Nil was on the opposite side of the planet, not above Kirks position.

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2002-09-11 06:10am

TheDarkling wrote:huh?

I do know that the sb'ers pro trek debators would love to have TMP book (written by GR) to be canon because that starts earth has a nice planetary shield (can stop enough energy to stop the sun rotating or something like that).

That's not Earth, that Voager-6...

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-11 09:41am

No I meant V'Ger could stop the sun rotating and Kirk said something to the effect that it couldnt take on earths defenses.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2002-09-12 01:10am

TheDarkling wrote:No I meant V'Ger could stop the sun rotating and Kirk said something to the effect that it couldnt take on earths defenses.

No, I don't feel like doing a direct quote, but the book effectively said that Earth defenses had just gone inoperative (V'Ger had remotely disabled them somehow, apparently) and that Admiral Nogura (Starfleet's top man at the time) had been thinking the sheer firepower and strength of Earth defenses might give him some bargaining power.

While one would normally assume that Earth's defenses would include shields, shields more powerful than the ones on the Enterprise, it's still worth noting that V'ger demonstrated an ability to fire weapons "hundreds of times more powerful" than the ones it used on the Enterprise, and that the Earth defenses were not guaranteed to knock down V'ger.

Also, V'ger was not stated as being able to stop the sun from rotating, but as generating enough power to do so. [/i]

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-12 01:57am

Those are some mighty fine nits there.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-09-12 12:48pm

Just to add a snippet:

The Klingon planet Ty'Gokor at least had theatre shields in "Apocalypse
Rising."

DAMAR
Personally, I think we'd be better
off launching an orbital assault
on Gowron's Command Center. A
full spread of photon torpedoes
would take care of him, the
Klingon High Command and everyone
else within a few hundred
kilometers.

Odo looks at him with distaste.

ODO
You should ask Dukat for some
shore leave. I think you've been
in space too long.

DAMAR
Why? Because I'm willing to spill
a little Klingon blood to get the
job done?

O'BRIEN
Shelling Ty'Gokor won't get the
job done. You'd be lucky to
launch one torpedo before they
shot you down. And even a dozen
wouldn't penetrate the shielding
around the command center.

This is a heavily fortified installation, with a few dozen starships always
protecting it, a few funky-looking armored starbases, and is deep
inside an asteroid field full of cloaked mines. The Klingons are
thorough

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-12 02:07pm

TNG was weak in DS9 we have many examples of people thinking a few starships can cause mass destruction, TDiC, Garak thinking the Defiant could do heavy damage to the founders world with a few shots, this quote by Damar - its odd.

What sort of esplosion are we talking for that kind of destruction by the way?

Also to add something to the thread heres some info on a theatre shield on a Federation colony world.

DS9 - Nor the Battle to the Strong.

Jake "There must be some portable genrators we could use"

Colony Doctor "They're using them to keep the shield up round the settlement"

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2002-09-12 02:31pm

TheDarkling wrote:TNG was weak in DS9 we have many examples of people thinking a few starships can cause mass destruction, TDiC, Garak thinking the Defiant could do heavy damage to the founders world with a few shots, this quote by Damar - its odd.

Yeah. Of course, Garak wasn't exactly stable at that point

I believe him when he says the Defiant could do
significant damage to the Founder planet, but how long
would he have until the Jem'Hadar arrived? How many quantums
does Defiant carry? (Worf says, "Phaser banks are fully
charged, but...we are down to only 45 quantum torpedos" in
the finale. I'd guess the regular payload would be significantly
higher.)

As for what Damar said, I'd really have to defer to someone who has
a firm grasp of such weapons' effects in an atmosphere. I could
try to hodge-podge something from the Nuclear Weapons FAQ
but I'm afraid I'd embarrass myself

Besides, there are lots of unknowns. By "destroy," what does
Damar mean? And how many torpedos are in a full spread?
This is a scout-class Bird we're talking about, and I've only
seen them fire three torpedos in rapid succession, max ("Shattered
Mirror" IIRC). What would the dispersal pattern of those torpedos
be? Air-burst, ground bursts, sub-surface bursts? And are we talking about several hundred square kilometers, or several hundred klicks extending
in all directions around ground zero? (E.g., if Damar meant 500
km, the weapons' effects would reach 250 km N, S, E, and W--not
500 in all directions.)

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-12 02:43pm

A full spread wouldnt exceed 10 I would think but it could be far lower.

My main point was there would be more powerfull than the kt fire crackers some people get from TNG.

Also a dont think the Defiant would have had time to get off more than a few shots before it was destroyed (Worf says as much to him) but Garak seems to think it would be worth the effort.

beyond hope · Post by **beyond hope** » 2002-09-14 01:02pm

I like the "discontinued by TNG because the tech was impractical" explanation, it seems to fit well: the colony was only shielded against a few shots from the Enterprise, and perhaps the shielding technology simply failed to keep pace with advances in the firepower of phasers and pho-torps. I got the *distinct* impression that the shield was there to stop transporters, anyway: a function that the Feds have since found can be done more efficiently with "transporter inhibitor fields." That would be my reasoning: in ST, planetary shielding technology has not advanced past the point where it is prohibitively expensive and inefficient. If Earth really has one, it would be for the same reasons that DC is currently the only city in the US with an AA battery: it's the center of government and apparently the most important world in the Federation. (By the way, didn't the Dominion successfully do some damage to Earth when they attacked? I stopped watching before then, but I thought I remembered that.)

For the sake of argument though, let's say Earth has a planetary defense shield covering the entire globe. The obvious question would be, "how strong is it?" Remember, the Death Star existed because you could not breach a planetary shield with the guns of a *fleet* of Star Destroyers... it took 1E38 joules of energy in one massive blast at one point to drop that shield and destroy Alderaan. So, how strong would a Star Trek planetary shield need to be? I did some rough numbers and figured that 50 ST ships should be able to put out about 1.6 gigatons with a volley of 5 photorps each (using the 64 megaton number and assuming the shield takes 100%,) so even assuming it's 10x more powerful to deal with the possibility of dispersed attacks over the area covered, that's a shield that can handle 16 gigatons. A star destroyer will *laugh* at that.

This tells us two things: first, that there's not a whole lot of evidence for planetary shields from TNG on. Second, if they exist and Earth had one, the Dominion didn't seem to think it would stop their fleet from taking earth. If they can't handle the output of ST weapons, they won't handle heavy turbolaser fire very well at all.

TheDarkling · Post by **TheDarkling** » 2002-09-14 02:53pm

The Breen lost an entire fleet (not sure how many ships) attacking Earth and all they did was inflict light damage on San Fran.

They never tried to take Earth just inflict a bit of morale damage.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Trek Has Planetary Shields, Dammit

The one full ST Planetary Shield

Re: The one full ST Planetary Shield