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I totally disagree with Ossus' shield theory. The scimiter still had 70% shields! That's plenty to hold off a collision for a split second. This is just a petty example for bias warsies to claim shitty trek shields.

Galaxy wrote:I totally disagree with Ossus' shield theory. The scimiter still had 70% shields! That's plenty to hold off a collision for a split second. This is just a petty example for bias warsies to claim shitty trek shields.

STFU asshole. You cite a 70% shield, yet you give NOTHING about how strong Trek shields actually are, let alone the ones on the Scimitar, therefore, you have no justification for saying that 70% is "plenty to hold off a collision for a split second".

You ADMIT the shields were still at 70% and yet the E-E still crashed through them. Therefore, the 70% shields were NOT sufficient to "hold off a collision for a split second". Do you realize you contradict youself?

You're stupid. I should mock you. I was implying if the shields were still up that 70% shielding should at least do something.
The shields are going to resist for fraction of a second even if they are overwhelmed. i don't care what mr. ossus claims, or how rabidly you defend it.

Galaxy wrote:You're stupid. I should mock you. I was implying if the shields were still up that 70% shielding should at least do something.
The shields are going to resist for fraction of a second even if they are overwhelmed. i don't care what mr. ossus claims, or how rabidly you defend it.

Explain "Tears of the Prophets" DS9, where Jem'hadar fighters ram and destroy Klingon battlewagons that have JUST entered combat.

EDIT: And NO shield flashes are to be found, more importantly.

Geez, Galaxy ran away already. How unlike him.

Galaxy wrote:You're stupid. I should mock you. I was implying if the shields were still up that 70% shielding should at least do something.
The shields are going to resist for fraction of a second even if they are overwhelmed. i don't care what mr. ossus claims, or how rabidly you defend it.

Did you even remotly consider that it could have been a computer malfuntion or that the sheilds had been affected by the special weapon in some strange way?

Galaxy, here it is accepted you need evidence for your claims.

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:

Galaxy wrote:
You're stupid. I should mock you. I was implying if the shields were still up that 70% shielding should at least do something.
The shields are going to resist for fraction of a second even if they are overwhelmed. i don't care what mr. ossus claims, or how rabidly you defend it.
Explain "Tears of the Prophets" DS9, where Jem'hadar fighters ram and destroy Klingon battlewagons that have JUST entered combat.

EDIT: And NO shield flashes are to be found, more importantly.

When faced with this evidence, only two conclusions are possible.
1. Klingon shields are far weaker than Federation shields.
2. Klingon shields (and maybie Romulan) shields really suck when it comes to stopping K.E. attacks, compared to Federation shields.

If the evidence says Klingon ships are destroyed by slow moving light attack craft without so much as a shield flicker, then so be it. It should not be ignored, however, that Federation shields have survived worse, much worse. Infact, it becomes kinda silly. For example, The J.H. attack craft almost certainly had the standard trek mass lightening fields active. On top of that they moved slowly. But the nacelle that hit the Enterprise-D was not only larger and faster moving but could not have had mass lightening fields up and running! The diference in K.E. and momentum surely was staggering. And it comes down to this: One shield shrugged a large attack off without mentioned damage, the other failed (or didn't oppose it, or something) after a small attack without a flicker, yet both can handle similar punishment from energy weapons.....

Ingersoil's posted image brings up another point... the visuals give us a VERY inconsistent depiction of how shield reactions "look". Another instance, in Datalore, where a crystalline entity is attacking the Enterprise, depict a green flare around the ship, not blue.

Makes me wonder... what if it's NOT the shields that cause the standard "shield glow", but instead, the object used against the shield?

That is possible, however it changes very little about my argument. Flicker or no flicker, the Klingon shields should have held, easily. They didn't.

The Silence and I wrote: When faced with this evidence, only two conclusions are possible.
1. Klingon shields are far weaker than Federation shields.
2. Klingon shields (and maybie Romulan) shields really suck when it comes to stopping K.E. attacks, compared to Federation shields.

#1 works in early TOS, if "Elaan of Troyius" is an indication. But by the time of TMP, it's a bad example. If anything, the K't'inga cruisers had shielding roughly on par with a refit Constitution: know how the E was only expected to take one hit of the plasma weapon, and the second would destroy her?

Well, the Klingons took a hit that didn't destroy them, too. We saw this from the message the Federation space station received, as Amar took a hit, violently shuddered, and "continued their attack."

That doesn't necessarily mean perfectly comparable shield protection, but it's roughly the same...it wouldn't vary by as much as 10 times.

Later on, in TNG, we saw K'Vort battlecruisers take on an unprepared IKS Bortas (Vor'cha-class). Bortas took many dozens of hits, just as the heavily militarized E-D did in "Yesterday's Enterprise" from 3 similarly-sized ships (one of which didn't focus her attack on the E-D until a sister ship was destroyed).

So again, we have a ship that's actually smaller than the Federation's best--the K't'inga at 214m length vs. the Connie's 305, the V'C's 481m vs. the GCS's 641--that sports roughly comparable shields. A true match in size should at least give Klingon shields parity with Federation ones, if not somewhat better shields overall.

Number two is more likely, but I also think it's deceiving. I'm not entirely convinced that the Jem'Hadar simply overpowered the Klingon shields. They certainly *were* shielded craft, and I don't buy this appeal to ignorance about offscreen fire depleting said shields (as RSA suggested on his site)...BUT a weakness to kinetic energy is only one possible explanation why the craft were able to plow straight through.

I think it's equally possible that Klingon shields simply can't stop Jem'Hadar shields. KIM that shields and tractor beams seem to be closely related technologies, and that Jem'Hadar shields are impervious to tractors ("The Search," I think). It's no big stretch to think if they're immune to tractor beams, they could pass through an enemy's shields too.

(Someone will ask me why I think the two are closely related technologies. I'm in a pinch, so suffice to say, "Way of the Warrior.")

That does not adequately explain why Scimitar was so badly damaged by E-E's impact, which probably would've imparted roughly the same energy to Scimmy as the far less massive, but much quicker Jem'Hadar attack ships nailed Vor'chas with. Obviously, the Scim. HAS "particle shields," because it stops photorps. And even though we didn't see its shields flare (which, IMO, we should've, even if they failed instantly), I think it's stupid to suggest Shinzon just left the damn shields down altogether.

So, we're back to the weakness to physical impacts thing.

If the evidence says Klingon ships are destroyed by slow moving light attack craft without so much as a shield flicker, then so be it. It should not be ignored, however, that Federation shields have survived worse, much worse. Infact, it becomes kinda silly. For example, The J.H. attack craft almost certainly had the standard trek mass lightening fields active.

Actually, those ships weren't moving what I'd call slow--the ones that plowed through Vor'chas were doing better than probably 900m/sec.
Even *after* they tear through the V'C's hull, it takes them less than a second to cross the thing's length, which would slow them down significantly. Estimating their velocity based on that (481m/sec.) would be a lower-limit.

As for mass lightening fields, I sorta agree, but we don't know that the Dominion uses such technology, nor do we really know anything of their power sources. As far as I know, mass lightening for impulse drives is never mentioned onscreen; we can infer its necessity from what we know of ships' power outputs, but those are Federation ships. We honestly don't know enough about the Jem'Hadar to make such a claim. While I think it's likely, it's an unknown.

On top of that they moved slowly. But the nacelle that hit the Enterprise-D was not only larger and faster moving but could not have had mass lightening fields up and running! The diference in K.E. and momentum surely was staggering. And it comes down to this: One shield shrugged a large attack off without mentioned damage, the other failed (or didn't oppose it, or something) after a small attack without a flicker, yet both can handle similar punishment from energy weapons.....

I see what you mean, though again, those attack ships were zipping along at a nice clip...even after plowing through the Klingon ships' hulls, they exited the ass end of the things in under one second, barely slowing down. Their initial velocity must therefore have been higher.

As I also mentioned, it's possible that the Jem'Hadar ships provide a complicated example in rating Trek powers' kinetic shield strength. We've never seen a Jem'Hadar ship nail a fresh Federation cruiser like that (Odyssey was in bad shape, and might not've had shields up at all after rerouting shield power to her phasers, as mentioned in the episode's dialogue). Klingon shields might be as effective in stopping roughly equivalent levels of kinetic energy, but they cannot block whatever it is that makes up a Jem'Hadar shield--that which Federation tractors couldn't lock on to.

That's just a guess based on the little we know of Jem'Hadar ships, of course. It's far easier to conclude a weakness to kinetic energy is what we're looking at, and that's something certainly not without precedent among the alien races (Son'a, Klingons, Reman/Romulans, Jem'Hadar themselves, Krenim).

Thanks Sean, I appreciate the supportful comments.

Galaxy wrote:You're stupid. I should mock you. I was implying if the shields were still up that 70% shielding should at least do something.
The shields are going to resist for fraction of a second even if they are overwhelmed. i don't care what mr. ossus claims, or how rabidly you defend it.

LMAO! You are a complete idiot, who subscribes to a laughable "circular logic" theory in place of an actual model. Nice try, moron.

The Silence and I wrote: When faced with this evidence, only two conclusions are possible.
1. Klingon shields are far weaker than Federation shields.

That's incorrect. At least, Klingon ships are not substantially weaker than UFP shields. Remember how surprised Kira was to see a Vor'Cha class attack cruiser with "a hole the size of a house" blown in it? Since fairly standard weapons can easily do this to Galaxy class ships, there is little reason to suspect that Klingon ships do not have as powerful shields as Klingon vessels. In addition, Klingon ships appear to be about as durable as UFP vessels in combat against Cardassian and Dominion forces. Note that their ships usually take damage at about the same time, during combat--indicative of similar shield strengths.

2. Klingon shields (and maybie Romulan) shields really suck when it comes to stopping K.E. attacks, compared to Federation shields.

Where have we seen a UFP shield turn back an attack of anywhere NEAR this magnitude?

If the evidence says Klingon ships are destroyed by slow moving light attack craft without so much as a shield flicker, then so be it. It should not be ignored, however, that Federation shields have survived worse, much worse. Infact, it becomes kinda silly. For example, The J.H. attack craft almost certainly had the standard trek mass lightening fields active. On top of that they moved slowly. But the nacelle that hit the Enterprise-D was not only larger and faster moving but could not have had mass lightening fields up and running!

What does this have to do with anything? What nacelle are you referring to striking the E-D?

The diference in K.E. and momentum surely was staggering. And it comes down to this: One shield shrugged a large attack off without mentioned damage, the other failed (or didn't oppose it, or something) after a small attack without a flicker, yet both can handle similar punishment from energy weapons.....

I don't know that we ever saw the impact in question. I hardly think this is a legitimate reason to dismiss my argument.

The Silence and I wrote:MoO, my point about the nacelle vs. the JH attack ships was not that the Oddessy's shields were defeated but that something like a fresh Vor'Cha's should not have been. It would be reasonable to assume a Vor'Cha is roughly comparable to a GCS, right? (Maybie a little weaker?) If so, why couldn't their shields handle as much as the Enterprise-D's could before war-time upgrades? I see it as evidence that non-Federation shields really suck when dealing with K.E. If the Vor'Cha could handle even nearly as much as the Enterprise-D then the JH attack ship should have looked like it just hit a solid wall, even if it does get through.

In other words, you have NO way of explaining the incident in "Sacrifice of Angels," so you resort to appeal to ignorance fallacies. Since we don't KNOW that everything was A-okay on those Klingon ships, something weird must have happened. You do this instead of examining a defined theory, and contend that your COMPLETELY undefined theory is superior on the basis of speculation from unobserved phenomena.

Basicly, I am trying to point out that the ramming incidents you cite as evidence do indeed display pathetic K.E. upper limits, but that the Federation can handle higher limits without comment. So unless Federation shields can handle more K.E. than they can energy from normal attacks, the Nemesis ramming incident proves very little. (Feel free to poke holes in it, I can change my mind)

Again, this is merely an appeal to ignorance. Show that something was wrong with the Klingon shields without using circular logic.

That's incorrect. At least, Klingon ships are not substantially weaker than UFP shields. Remember how surprised Kira was to see a Vor'Cha class attack cruiser with "a hole the size of a house" blown in it?

Wouldn't that be more of a hull issue than a shield issue? since Klingon ships don't have shields whilst cloaked (with one exception).

Correct me if I'm not getting your meaning because your statement seems a little confused.

TheDarkling wrote:

That's incorrect. At least, Klingon ships are not substantially weaker than UFP shields. Remember how surprised Kira was to see a Vor'Cha class attack cruiser with "a hole the size of a house" blown in it?

Wouldn't that be more of a hull issue than a shield issue? since Klingon ships don't have shields whilst cloaked (with one exception).

Correct me if I'm not getting your meaning because your statement seems a little confused.

I assumed that that indicated that standard weapons (ie. torpedoes) could not normally do that much damage to a Vor'Cha class cruiser's shields. I suppose she could have been referring to unshielded ships, but I've never seen anything to indicate that Klingon ships in TNG/DS9 era are substantially weaker in terms of shielding than their UFP counterparts. If anything, the fact that two or three BoP class ships can pose a substantial threat to the E-D, despite the large volume discrepency, it shows that Klingon ships have stronger shields per unit of volume than their UFP counterparts.

MoO, you missunderstand me. In the TNG episode "Contagion" the Galaxy class Yamato fell prey to the Iconian computer weapon and blew up. The Enterprise-D was at the scene, and raised shields when the Yamato showed evidence of imminent core-breach. Seconds later the Yamato blew up, and the Starboard nacelle was flung into the Enterprise's foreward shields. It bounced off without comment of damage to either shields or ship. The nacelle was moving very quickly, and of course was more massive than any J.H. attack ship.

So what? Well, you have proven beyond reasonable doubt that Klingon shields were unable to resist J.H. ramming attacks. I have presented evidence that says Federation shields (before war upgrades) can handle the K.E. involved in such an attack and perhaps then some.

So Klingon shields must be weaker than Federation shields, right? Wrong, they handle about as many weapons hits as Federation shields. In terms of x and y we have this: (Assuming x is bigger than y)

Energy weapons: (this includes torpedos, as the damaging energy is gamma rays, not the physical impact of the casing)
Klingon =x Federation=x
Kinetic Energy:
Klingon=y Federation=x

If you use the Klingon--J.H. ramming scenes as evidence supporting the pathetic shield energies in Nemesis then one can't claim the Klingons shields were impaired (and I wasn't). There are few conclusions left, the most obvious is that Klingon shields don't deal with K.E. as well as Federation shields. It may not sound right, but it fits the evidence.

The Silence and I wrote:MoO, you missunderstand me. In the TNG episode "Contagion" the Galaxy class Yamato fell prey to the Iconian computer weapon and blew up. The Enterprise-D was at the scene, and raised shields when the Yamato showed evidence of imminent core-breach. Seconds later the Yamato blew up, and the Starboard nacelle was flung into the Enterprise's foreward shields. It bounced off without comment of damage to either shields or ship. The nacelle was moving very quickly, and of course was more massive than any J.H. attack ship.

Justify your claim of its superior mass. The damned thing could be nearly hollow for all we know. Hell, I'm not even sure its volume is greater than that of a JH bug. And precisely how fast is "very quickly?" Have you got a range for this figure?

So what? Well, you have proven beyond reasonable doubt that Klingon shields were unable to resist J.H. ramming attacks. I have presented evidence that says Federation shields (before war upgrades) can handle the K.E. involved in such an attack and perhaps then some.

So you figure they could handle it before the upgrade, but not afterwards? That's one hell of an upgrade.

The Silence and I wrote:MoO, you missunderstand me. In the TNG episode "Contagion" the Galaxy class Yamato fell prey to the Iconian computer weapon and blew up. The Enterprise-D was at the scene, and raised shields when the Yamato showed evidence of imminent core-breach. Seconds later the Yamato blew up, and the Starboard nacelle was flung into the Enterprise's foreward shields. It bounced off without comment of damage to either shields or ship. The nacelle was moving very quickly, and of course was more massive than any J.H. attack ship.

I don't see that the thing was more massive than a JH ship. The nacelles that I've seen all appear to be almost completely hollow. Look at the ram-scoops on the front of them. When deactivated, they appear to have almost nothing behind them, and indicate a largely hollow warp engine. Moreover, I don't even think that the warp engines are more voluminous than the JH bug. I don't have the episode in question, but I'll assume that you're correct in your belief that the warp-engine was moving more quickly than the JH ships involved in the numerous ramming incidents we've observed. We are now left to question whether or not this particular incident was caused by an unusual situation, or by a low-mass impact, or both.

So what? Well, you have proven beyond reasonable doubt that Klingon shields were unable to resist J.H. ramming attacks. I have presented evidence that says Federation shields (before war upgrades) can handle the K.E. involved in such an attack and perhaps then some.

So Klingon shields must be weaker than Federation shields, right? Wrong, they handle about as many weapons hits as Federation shields. In terms of x and y we have this: (Assuming x is bigger than y)

Energy weapons: (this includes torpedos, as the damaging energy is gamma rays, not the physical impact of the casing)
Klingon =x Federation=x
Kinetic Energy:
Klingon=y Federation=x

If you use the Klingon--J.H. ramming scenes as evidence supporting the pathetic shield energies in Nemesis then one can't claim the Klingons shields were impaired (and I wasn't). There are few conclusions left, the most obvious is that Klingon shields don't deal with K.E. as well as Federation shields. It may not sound right, but it fits the evidence.

Again, I don't see that this is the only explanation. That the impact in Contagion was the only example in which a similar circumstance occurred, and since we don't know anything about the mass of the warp engines, I don't think we can draw conclusions from this particular event. If there's more evidence for it (ie. there's a similar circumstance with an asteroid, or something else with more completely understood properties), then we could evaluate it. As it is, I don't see that there's enough evidence to draw conclusions one way or the other. Your theory could be correct, but I don't think there's enough evidence to justify creating another sub-theory to explain the incidents in question.

Ok, I thought this was obvious, but here goes:

The nacelles of the Galaxy class starship are 285.7 meters in length (total length is 641 meters--16.6 mm on my picture, and the nacelle is 7.6 mm long--285.7 meters.) 30 meters high (average, ~0.8 mm high) and not quite as wide. So, if I assume a slab 285.7m long, 30 meters high and 50 meters wide, I find a volume of 428,550 cubic meters.

The source I have says J.H. Attack ships are 68.3 meters long, 70.02 meters wide, and 18.3 meters high. Simple math gives a generous volume of 87,517.3 cubic meters. This source also gives a displacement of 2,450 metric tons.

Now, I am sorry, but I just don't see why I needed to point that out. Using very a generous volume for the J.H. attack ship (I assumed it was a solid rectangle) it still only has 20% the volume of the nacelle. Claim densities all you want, but keep in mind vessels themselves are not very dense.

Justify your claim of its superior mass. The damned thing could be nearly hollow for all we know.

Actually, Mr. Wong, we know as a canon fact that they are mostly hollow. One TNG episode - I forget the name - depicted a crewman committing suicide by jumping into an exposed plasma jet up in the nacelle of the E-D. In the background, the interior of the warp nacelle is visible... and it is mostly empty space.

The Silence and I wrote:Ok, I thought this was obvious, but here goes:

The nacelles of the Galaxy class starship are 285.7 meters in length (total length is 641 meters--16.6 mm on my picture, and the nacelle is 7.6 mm long--285.7 meters.) 30 meters high (average, ~0.8 mm high) and not quite as wide. So, if I assume a slab 285.7m long, 30 meters high and 50 meters wide, I find a volume of 428,550 cubic meters.

The source I have says J.H. Attack ships are 68.3 meters long, 70.02 meters wide, and 18.3 meters high. Simple math gives a generous volume of 87,517.3 cubic meters. This source also gives a displacement of 2,450 metric tons.

Fair enough, although the JH bug is more like 100 metres long based on onscreen scaling, which nearly triples its volume. However, you have still not established superior mass.

Now, I am sorry, but I just don't see why I needed to point that out.

Fine. Now prove that it was going faster and that it was more dense even though, as SPOOFE pointed out, we've seen the inside of the nacelle and the fucking thing is HOLLOW.

Using very a generous volume for the J.H. attack ship (I assumed it was a solid rectangle) it still only has 20% the volume of the nacelle. Claim densities all you want, but keep in mind vessels themselves are not very dense.

They're more dense than a hollow tube.

SPOOFE wrote:

Justify your claim of its superior mass. The damned thing could be nearly hollow for all we know.

Actually, Mr. Wong, we know as a canon fact that they are mostly hollow. One TNG episode - I forget the name - depicted a crewman committing suicide by jumping into an exposed plasma jet up in the nacelle of the E-D. In the background, the interior of the warp nacelle is visible... and it is mostly empty space.

I remember that. Someone posted screen grabs a while ago. We see Riker standing, looking into the hollow space, so scaling would not be difficult.

The Silence and I wrote:Ok, I thought this was obvious, but here goes:

The nacelles of the Galaxy class starship are 285.7 meters in length (total length is 641 meters--16.6 mm on my picture, and the nacelle is 7.6 mm long--285.7 meters.) 30 meters high (average, ~0.8 mm high) and not quite as wide. So, if I assume a slab 285.7m long, 30 meters high and 50 meters wide, I find a volume of 428,550 cubic meters.

The source I have says J.H. Attack ships are 68.3 meters long, 70.02 meters wide, and 18.3 meters high. Simple math gives a generous volume of 87,517.3 cubic meters. This source also gives a displacement of 2,450 metric tons.

Now, I am sorry, but I just don't see why I needed to point that out. Using very a generous volume for the J.H. attack ship (I assumed it was a solid rectangle) it still only has 20% the volume of the nacelle. Claim densities all you want, but keep in mind vessels themselves are not very dense.

1. The source you used for JH attack ships is incorrect in both its length and proportions. The JH ships seen on the show measure at least 100 meters.

2. You STILL need to prove that the MASS of the warp nacelle is greater than that of the JH bug. JH bugs are comparatively heavily armored, have critical systems, and are loaded with equipment. From what I can see from the warp engines, they're largely hollow. Your volume comparison doesn't show a whole lot.

Edit: It appears that everyone else has already established warp engines are almost completely hollow. There is little reason to continue along this line of debate, unless additional information surfaces or is presented showing that the warp engine is somehow made of materials significantly more dense than the JH bug.