Why were ships so fragile in DS9

[Edit_XYZ]

Prior to "Call to Arms", starfleet's shields were ineffective against dominion weaponry.

I was referring to after "Call to Arms" - the dominion heavy ships or cardassian orbital platforms (beefed up by dominion tech) were repeatedly shown brutalising starfleet/klingon/romulan ships. Despite their shields working efficiently - the dominion weapons were't slipping around the shields by technobabble, but punching right through them.

Of course, large caliber starfleet weapons (DS9's weapons, defiant's, etc) were also shown easily destroying dominion fighters.


No hiding behind one's shields while reciting an inspired speech about federation values in this war.
Unless you want to get blown out of the sky in a minute, tops.

[Timo]

Despite their shields working efficiently - the dominion weapons were't slipping around the shields by technobabble, but punching right through them.

Isn't this more like the definition of the shields not working efficiently?

That is, the likeliest explanation of what we see is that the Alphans had restored some worth to their shields by "Call to Arms", but they never got normal performance out of them against Dominion phased polaron beams or the Dominion-upgraded Cardassian beam weapons. In fights with "standard" opponents, the shields still worked normally enough, such as in "Message in a Bottle".

Timo Saloniemi

[Edit_XYZ]

Timo wrote:

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Isn't this more like the definition of the shields not working efficiently?

No.
You see, shields were established to have an upper limit to what they can withstand - even if they're efficient at stopping/deflecting what is used against them.

In "Call to Arms", it's UNAMBIGUOUSLY established that starfleet shields can stop dominion weaponry efficiently.
As I said, beyond that point, the dominion weapons weren't slipping around the shields by technobabble, but punching right through them.

[Distorted Humor]

In WotW and Call to Arms, both times you had starships fighting orbital installations, it is highly probable that orbital stations have enough firepower to devastate a individual ship, thus the requirement for large fleets to take losses while the orbital defenses are knocked out.

[Nightdiamond]

Strangely enough, in Call of Arms, with the Dominion and Cardassian fleets attacking, they were having no success. Only when Dukat order the fleet to target a specific area was when the shields went down temporarily. And still not enough to board the station.

The Klingons dropped the shields and boarded the station.

DS9 always played up the angle that the Dominion was somehow superior in weapons. It was really subtle.

Like, you'd never see a Federation ship directly destroy a Dominion ship, at least on screen. Except for the Defiant or Defiant type vessel.

They also switched to from shield bubbles to tight shields, where with fire scorching the hull, but not necessarily damaging the ship.

It had a cool look.

[TheRoyalFamily]

Martok's puny BoP was able to take on the bug ships, and is seen destroying several of them. I guess they're not so tough, just the feddies aren't used to taking a hit.

[Nightdiamond]

That's what's so strange. You see Klingon ships destroying Jem Hadar ships, Cardassian doing it, but never a Starfleet vessel, except for the Defiant, a Defiant type vessel, and maybe a Runabout.

And even then with the Runabout, the Bug ship's vulnerable point was given to Odo, otherwise they would have been destroyed.

At most you'll see a Starfleet ship firing on a Dominion ship, but not destroying it, not in all 4 seasons we've seen the Domonion. Whether they show it or not might not mean anything, but it does give it an odd feel to the whole concept.

[MacLeod]

Maybe that's because Starfleet focused on shield technology, while the Klingons focused more on Weapon technology.

[Hartzilla2007]

Smellincoffee wrote:

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that works fine when they're fending off an entire fleet of ships. But if there was only one cruiser, it would have to be far feistier to prove a challenge.

Actually The Defiant was on shoting Jem'Hadar Bugships in the episode where they were fighting them in that gas giant.

[Mr_Homn]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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Actually The Defiant was on shoting Jem'Hadar Bugships in the episode where they were fighting them in that gas giant.

Yeah that bugged me as well. I just saw that episode for the first time last week and I was like... "Ok this totally contradicts what we've been told"

and it can't be because of the gas giant radiation because the defiant's shields seemed unaffected

[Knight Templar]

I give Trek battles a pass in this respect for the simple reasons of dramatic license.

In single ship battles, you need to convey "rising tension".

So you have ship hit, shields weaken, ship fires, other ship evades, ship hit again, shields weakening, ship makes desperate evasive turn......

For fleet battles trying to do that would radically slow down the pacing of the story so it is not viable to include.

[Nightdiamond]

MacLeod wrote:

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Maybe that's because Starfleet focused on shield technology, while the Klingons focused more on Weapon technology.

But then wouldn't that mean that the Federation was destroying less ships, than the Domonion?

I don't know if the effect was on purpose, or there wasn't enough screen time or budget money, but it was never shown.

In all the major Domonion battles you don't see it.


The Fleet battle in SOA was one the best space battles I've ever seen.

They showed almost everything-the Fed fighters, fleet formations, tactics. Even the Klingons showing up at the nick of time.

Perfect blend of story telling and special effects.

[Timo]

In "Call to Arms", it's UNAMBIGUOUSLY established that starfleet shields can stop dominion weaponry efficiently.

Only that they can withstand it significantly better than before. Which may still only tell of a partial reversal of technological imbalance. It's not as if "Jem'Hadar" unambiguously established that the shields would have been having no effect at all against the enemy weapons, either; we're probably talking about grades and shades here.

(One wonders if the weapon effectiveness in "Jem'Hadar" really was due to a strong imbalance. Perhaps it was just a psychological trick, accomplished by having a saboteur aboard the Odyssey who informed the attackers of shield frequencies or weakened the shields?)

Timo Saloniemi

[pimp]

Oh yeah I always hated this on DS9, where an unimportant ship to story gets blown up in matter of seconds. But a runabout full of important characters sustains many shots by an array of enemies and does not get a scratch.

[Timo]

I'd saythat in DS9, having a certain main character aboard is a valid reason for a runabout surviving, say, like in "The Die is Cast".

That is, whenever Odo is aboard, the enemy is very unlikely to shoot to kill. In the early Dominion episodes, our heroes don't realize this yet, of course. But later on, hailing the enemy and saying "BTW, meet our Constable" is better than raising shields...

Timo Saloniemi