We know that raising of shields is generally an extremely bad idea.
How do we now this? Why, because nobody ever raises shields unless absolutely necessary. And this criterion does not include, say, "entering a war zone".
Obviously, Starfleet regulations would reflect that, and would strongly recommend against raising shields in most circumstances. Indeed, GO12 might be the one to state that, if a ship in apparent distress is met, raising of shields is a court martial offense because it will block transporter evacuation and be comparable to machine-gunning survivors who tread water.
We don't know why raising of shields is a bad idea, to be sure, only that it very much is. Blocking of transporting is certainly an aspect there, but in many situations, this would be desirable yet shields stay down. Consumption of precious energy reserves is another option, but there are zero instances of anybody counting down on such dwindling assets: once shields are raised, concerns of this sort evaporate. This covers both shared assets (power going to shields might be away from propulsion or weapons) and non-shared ones (keeping shields raised might wear down the shield generators); neither gets any mention in dialogue.
The very name could be suggestive, of course: a knight who holds up his shield is at a disadvantage, not only because his arm is getting tired, but because the shield blocks his sword hand and his vision. And we do hear (exactly once!) that full shields prevent the use of full weapons, in "A Taste of Armageddon" (which also introduces the idea that beaming up is blocked by shields, although beaming down apparently is not). But this sentiment never resurfaces in subsequent fights.
So the one option we have left is that raised shields make you blind. Not completely blind, but again the analogy is obvious: the knight is in mortal danger when donning his helmet which stops him from seeing or hearing the bowman to his left and the axeman behind his back. And Starfleet would be the one party to value situational awareness over most other things, even when a Klingon might to to a fight blind and uncaring of what exactly he is killing.
The other is that a shield shines suicidally bright. You can't sneak up to anybody with shields up, so your situational unawareness is doubly dangerous.
In the encounter with the Reliant, Kirk needed intel on the fellow ship. He also would have needed the ability to use transporters. There is no doubt that raising of shields would have been a bad move - after all, we had seen this very encounter a couple of times earlier, with Kirk meeting unresponsive fellow starships and steadfastly keeping shields down. Did Kirk break regulations every single time in those TOS encounters? More probably, regulations would reflect the practicalities, and raising of shields would be forbidden. Nothing Saavik says contradicts that exactly.
Timo Saloniemi
