Another overlooked possibility is that deflector shields are actually a bunch of low-power phasers that can work very, very, very fast to intercept incoming fire. To us, it may look like a continuous shield, but slow it down enough...and...its just low power phasers or lasers striking the incoming fire.

I would think gravity based shield could just deflect everything else except charged particles that would be dealt with by magnetic fields

@@coolsenjoyer Well since it's basically shaping the time-space continuum it's more that everything is flowing along the shape.

Basically, you cannot just make the energy disappear, and they’re not reflecting it. That means they have to negate it. It would work on multiple frequencies and wavelengths. Opposing waves of energy will have to be calibrated and utilized. As they advance and gather data, subsets and basic systems will be created. An adaptive program/system will have to adjust on the fly and gather information for new modulations as different types of damage and energy are intercept by the shield barrier. Eventually we will discover a method that can encompass large amounts of different types, a certain type of modulation that will protect as needed while allowing freedom of movement and sight.

There was that one TNG episode that implied that there were navigational deflectors separate from the combat shields.

Even if matching the frequency perfectly, let's say a phaser passing through would loose 1% of energy...if that hapens during a transport that will be bad. And i would even guess a small hole could open in the shield (or a guidance tunnel) to let a torpedo pass through in the moment of firing just to prevent damage to the torpedo.

Time manipulation could put a ship slightly out of sync with the universe. Incoming fire wouldn't have that benefit.

Yes, I think that's how the Krenim (in certain timelines, anyway) defend their ships. Same net effect as metaphasic shields, if via a different technological principle.

I think the real Question on everyone's mind is "Can metaphasic shielding protect against metaphasic weapons, when Fired by a metaphasic species, at a metaphasic space slug while we have our shield extended around the slug?"

Thought it was cause he knew the refresh rate of that particular ship since he was an engineer on it before transferring to the E-D

@@ericzaiz8358 no he was engineer of the uss rutlidge. Maxwell previous command. She was a new Orleans class ship . ( mini galaxy destroyer type) . This is a nebula class . But I believe he knows the class shied type. ( specs )

.5 of a second was all he needed because the Phoenix shields cycled every 5 and a half minutes.

I think it was due to a tiny hole forming in the shields every 30 minutes or so which is a pretty big design flaw if you ask me.

​@@shanenolan5625Tactical officer if you want to get really pedantic.

also risky - get your timing wrong and that person reappears as swiss cheese

Interference in a transporter beam causing corruption to the data I imagine would be terrible for the thing being transported. Interference with an phaser may reduce the effectiveness but mostly that doesn't matter so much. So the SieveStrainer metaphor works well.

I'll just paste the comment I just made in here because now I'm curious what you think. Actually it kinda makes sense that we see beaming through shields less. Because with the whole refresh rate frequency idea, when it comes to energy weapons it doesn't really matter if 1% of the energy doesn't make it through due to slight inaccuracies in one's knowledge in what that frequency is and/or the accuracy of whatever is controlling/generating/regulating the frequency reference (like how a radio needs to have the oscillating frequency generator for reference to process the incoming information normally via the use of a crystal oscillator; I might be screwing that up slightly or oversimplifying). However with a transporter.... that 1% may very well be the difference between life and death for the person beaming through.

Spot on @@materialdialectics

Like a balloon and something bad happens.

There wasn't enough room in Engineering to test dangerous tech right next to the warp core like later crews would do, so Reed made do.

@@kevinkeeney9418 * remembers Data and Geordi testing a phaser rifle next to the warp core * Fair point! I guess the cargo bays were full…

@@mb2000NX bays were 100% full, you really think no replicators or the size of the ship suggest otherwise?

Good eye

What is strange that photon torpedos are physical projectiles with antimatter warheads and whenever we see them hit shields, they just serm to sort of disappear, not really detonating like when hitting a hull

The enterprise should have been able to destroy her in a single barrage. Really ( shield or not )

Wouldnt of mattered, la forges vizer was comprimsed so no matter what frequency they change to the duras sisters would be able to match

you didnt get the point, in order for the BoP to fire through the Enterprises Shield they need their own shields modulated the same way... which would have also allowed the enterprise to ignore their shield@@darthdragonborn1076

​@@darthdragonborn1076i believe in the battle dialogue, it suggests that la forge attempts a new frequency, but the klingons were able to require it . ( the gunner said he had it again. ) frequency.

​@@shanenolan5625litterally what i just said

Excellent idea.

Wasn't Heisenberg on Breaking Bad

Look up the Heisenberg uncertainty principe

How about something more serious, lol! I have a theory for artificial gravity on space ships. We already know of the Alcubierre formula, and it’s few iterations of the formula as described by the 3D model image. If the warp field is tuned for travel, the deep dip in front, and high apex in the rear of a ship, with the ship supposedly within the “ring” that describes the field. The second iteration that was put out had the inner section inside the warp “ring” at an angle that would have been more than adequate to be the “artificial gravity.” Follow me, it’s easy and hard all at once…. So, maintaining the lesser inertial forces inside the field was automatic. A ship at rest, or “full stop,” would have no warp ring, yet still be producing a gravity field for the crew. Smaller fields could be used within that field, as we have seen where lifters can move heavy items. So, your artificial gravity and inertial dampers are basically one and the same. As a side note, being tossed around in a ship would simply be a reaction to the system’s inability to compensate for some of the larger, or more intense, energy weapons that would drain the system for brief periods. In that case, floating down a corridor or being smashed to a wall or floor would not be that uncommon in a heavy battle. This all assumes we have no real source to generate gravitons. Or do we?? By placing a standing wave of multiple “warp rings” around a ship, and energizing each ring with its own frequency of ionizing energy within, these “force fields” would be a fairly easy task to create. My own theory is, we will be capable of producing a field that is able to surround a ship, but never be able to get one to hug a surface. Electromagnetic and gravitic forces are very happy to follow rings and ellipses, but following a surface may well be too much to ask, even with a theoretical unlimited energy supply. If anyone wishes to expand on this, especially in the theory of the standing wave and flux field requirements, I could use the input. Don’t bother trying to tear it apart, I want to make it POSSIBLE. BTW, if this works, especially without monstrous rings of fluid metal traveling in a ring at incredible speeds…. Think “old school,” where the things we know are not just simple, but doable with what we have! PUT ON THE INNOVATION HAT!

Lasers aren't an an energy weapon. They emit photons not energy.

@@IRMacGuyver i think you should look that up again

They did try that against the Borg in _The Best of Both Worlds,_ feeding warp power through the main deflector dish, turning it into a sort of _Wave Motion Gun._ But the Borg were ready for it. *Riker:* Mr Worf.... Fire. *Locutus of Borg:* The knowledge and experience of the human Picard is part of us now. It has prepared us for all possible courses of action. Your resistance is hopeless... Number One. It did also have the disadvantage that it burnt out the main deflector, which had to be repaired before the ship could do FTL again.

The phaser bolts from the phasor cannons on the defiant had something like that involved

@@M33f3r The Defiant's cannons were basically just phaser bolts made using the nadion particles in a magnetic envelope similar to disruptor or plasma cannons. They were more of an upgrade/variant of existing technology than anything new. They essentially were more destructive and has a higher rate of fire than previous versions of the tech but the basic technology had been around since the 22nd century.

Its known as feedback in lore, the energy that impacts the shields has to go somewhere. So what would happen is that the energy goes to the emitter and results in waste heat. This heat needs to be dissipated to keep the emitter operating optimally.

They do use blast _resistant_ fireproof expanding foam. It looks like rocks......

Most ships do have armor. At least in Starfleet and given video evidence so do the Klingons. Star Trek weapons are just insane. The basic torpedo is an antimatter explosive more destructive than a nuke. As for cloaking devices in escape pods, that is an international incident.

Early on, Roddenberry had meetings with writers to explain the difference between deflectors and shields because they were conflating the two and using the term 'deflector shields' in their scripts. Deflectors are not shields.

I guess the Borg did it

Don't forget we've seen phasers rapidly cycle through frequencies, for example when the enterprise first encounters the Borg. So I imagine the shields can rapidly change their frequencies following a specific algorithm. Whenever we see a ship ignore shields of another ship, they've actually figured out that algorithm, rather than simply the shield frequency

@@gabrieldarcy1744 i would even guess there are more component. A phaser is a charged particle beam. So you got the particles (for example they can detect if damage was done by disruptors, so may use different type of particles). The charge of the paricles (kill or stun), how much electrons you can pack into your particle beam. The field that keeps the beam together (longer range, less damage, as the field loses power and the beam just desintigrates). I would guess that the frequency is that field, as we can see in one episode were they were shooting with different charges against the Borg and the phaser changed its color. I would say the Borg adapt First to the field frequency and are able to disperse the energy, then they actual manage do adapt to the particle it's self, we're changing the frequency wouldn't bring any affect and they may then even be capable to use the free electrons to power the forcefield it self

​@gabrieldarcy1744 Something like what you commented is mentioned in various episodes of TNG & Voyager, where it's SOP to rotate frequencies at certain intervals. Basically the algorithm you mentioned.

Exactly. In the tech manual of the enterprise d, they say that due to this very reason phaser frequency changes automatically after each shot. Strange since they had to do it specifically for the Borg.

It has to do with senescence. Each time a cell duplicates, it's telomeres shrink. And once those are gone a cell isn't allowed to replicate itself anymore. Fixing that 'damage' would involve genetic fuckery, which the Federation outlawed because of very good reasons.

This theory has some interesting ramifications with with TNG's shaped shields.

Yep.

iirc in Iain Bank's books the outer shield is thought of as the 'true hull' of the ships, or something like that.

@@AlternicityBlogspot Yes, and people routinely hang out on the physical hull, under the stars.

The real physics would support this; pretty much all warp drive solutions to Einstein’s field equations have an extremely large gravitational shear at their edges - essentially tearing stuff apart if it tried to cross the threshold of the bubble.

I'm delighted to hear that. I've got a humanities background, so I was totally just spitballing. :)

Metaphasic Shielding is the one you mean.

Yeah. That was just an efficient was of dealing with the solar radiation. Enterprise was still cooking, just slower.

If nothing else the more efficient power systems will give you more way better shields

@@Nostripe361depends on the rate of advancing weaponry

It helps the narrative by giving a countdown/enumeration.

One thing that Rik skips is that there's an absorbtion/redirection/energy-sinking component involved. They can only sink a certain amount of incoming energy during a period of time without overloading.

The Deflector is a low power long acting thing. The idea in general is that it pushes things out of the way gently millions of kilometers ahead of the ship under warp, that way they're not knocking things away at near luminal velocities. It's more closely related to tractor beam technology in a lot of ways.

Those are just slaves on long tethers

Hard to calculate or hit (it is a good question thought as it should be possible) the "half a Galaxy" class ship with the module utily on top is seen in games to have an option to have a torpedo point defence module that can take out all incoming torpedos for a short time when activated (as well making a ship immune torpedoes would make it pretty powerful in a game) Funny thing is you see the phase cannon based taking out most of neos mining torpedos in the alternate time line

​@@leexgxNebula Class, with the Point Defense Phaser upgrade in Star Trek Armada 2 is what you're thinking of.

@@Kittamaru yes it was very cool if you could Stagger the ship groups so you could make them never get hit by torps

That's part of the 'holes' in the shielding...they're designed *not* to stop non-damaging levels of energy from passing through, like most visible light,

That's why matching shield frequencies is so important. You know the frequency of both your own shield and your weapons, make a guess.

The weak force is weak and short.

The atoms in "magnets", permanent or electromagnetic are organised and aligned in a specific way that aligns the atoms in another material (with similar properties) with the opposing polarity and enough charge exists in all those aligned atoms to pull the atoms closer together. If something is already magnetic the polarity can either be opposed, increasing the attraction force, if the polarities are equally aligned then there is a strong repelling force. Every permanent or electromagnet will have both polarities, to finish my one paragraph explanation of a very complicated topic it can be loosely described as an amplification of all the attractive and repellent properties all atoms can have by aligning them in large numbers. Some materials are more susceptible than others and generally the polarity of atoms in a material are chaotic and ever changing rather than organised like in magnets.

Sub space shenanigans, it's always sub space shenanigans. :)

@@Tuberuser187 *Yes.*

​@@Stormcrow_1 Also yes.

I actually had a thought on this recently. If the shield is an energy field that can be disrupted then *any* particle - such as a photon - hitting it would result in some tiny change to the field. If you could detect these changes and feed them into a powerful enough computer, you could form a rough picture of what's on the other side of the shield, and we already have the tech today to generate imagery of all the things we see in Trek. If you get something that vaguely suggests the outline of a Bird of Prey with the generalized EM signature of a bird of prey you can guess it's a Bird of Prey and adjust whatever image is shown accordingly - and we know that sensor ghosts can show up on a ship's display as the actual ship, since Worf has used that trick once. As for seeing outside of the ship, it may be that the field is somewhat directionally selective in how it disrupts output and it's only for some things which are too high energy or which require some level of high-fidelity bi-directional communication that you might have some sort of issue. With that said, Starfleet shields do apparently have a 'refresh' cycle which largely would solve this issue, as it means there's non-continuous gaps in the shield and a sufficiently high refresh speed is basically invisible to the human eye (you probably don't notice that the display you're reading this on is rapidly refreshing the screen, for example)

Plot armor is impossible to get through. Many have tried.