Planetary Shields

[Kamen Rider Blade]

After watching ST:P S01.E04 recently, I got to thinking of Planetary Shields again.

Given worse case scenarios of Borg invading planets, Dominion Fleet attacks, random marauders, surprise attacks by who knows what, etc.

Every planet with a major populace or significant resources should have some form of Planetary Shield Network or multiple layers of Planetary shields.

Even in Star Wars: Rogue One, they had the Shield Gate that only let a certain specific set of traffic through.

Wouldn't modern UFP have Planetary Shields and Shield Gates that inspect StarShip traffic going in and out like today's Immigration, Border Patrol, and customs?

I could literally see that happening for every planet of worth within every major power including the UFP.

 

[Timo]

We need to establish when planetary shields first became technologically possible. When VOY draws to an end, the tech doesn't seem to exist yet...

If it's a new thing in the 2390s still, not only might it not be installed everywhere it should, but places that shouldn't have priority could nevertheless enjoy access by sheer chance.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DEWLine]

Remembering a thing in the role-playing game 2300 AD called Orbital Quarantine Command...or was it Orbital Quarantine Control?

 

[YouAreDooomed]

Planetary shields are almost as old as the franchise itself.

SULU: We can't beam anybody down, sir. The force field on the planet is in full operation, and all forms of transport into the asylum dome are blocked off.
[...]
SCOTT: Well, there's one last thing we might try. Perhaps the ship's phasers can cut through a section of the force field at its weakest point. Where did you say that was located, Mister Sulu?
SULU: On the far side of the planet, Mister Scott.

- TOS "Whom Gods Destroy"

Powerful enough to withstand a constitution, and that's just some minor Federation "colony" with an asylum.

Moreover, Voyager has some implications.

CHAKOTAY: If she's given the other ships temporal shielding, they've undoubtedly informed their home worlds. They'll be able to protect their planets against your weapon.

- VOY "Year of Hell"

LOKEN: Our world has been under an Annari blockade for three years. The planet is protected by a shield grid, but it's almost impossible to get our ships in or out.

- "Nightingale"

That shield grid belongs to a species which appears to be rather technologically inferior to the Federation.

 

[Unicron]

There's also the electronic field on Rura Penthe in TUC, which prevents beaming, although it's possibly not a full planetary shield in this context. Only whatever is necessary to protect the prison installation.

 

[Cpt. Kyle Amasov]

We need to establish when planetary shields first became technologically possible. When VOY draws to an end, the tech doesn't seem to exist yet...

If it's a new thing in the 2390s still, not only might it not be installed everywhere it should, but places that shouldn't have priority could nevertheless enjoy access by sheer chance.

Timo Saloniemi

Remember that it's Romulan tech. Maybe they were able to do that kind of thing but the Federation couldn't? Fed tech is based on fusion or M/AM reactors, Romulans use singularities. So especially in situations where unlimited power supply is needed, that type of tech could give you a massive advantage. As far as I understood it, they used the weapons platforms to estabish shield grids. Maybe the weapons platforms were self-replicating.

 

[Timo]

Whether the Vashti thing even has a shield component to it, or is merely an active interceptor grid that stops ships by destroying them (the ability it's actually credited with and shown using), is debatable. But the grid is extremely dense with those killer nodes - there would seem to be billions around the planet!

"Whom Gods Destroy" has always been a complicated issue. No, the shield around Elba II is not credited with being able to resist the firepower of a Constitution. Quite to the contrary, Scotty worries that if he fires, everybody on the planet will die. But the field stops transporters. Or, as McCoy puts it, "How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still so helpless?"...

The shield covers the entire planet, but can't even stop a shuttle from landing on the far side. Apparently, though, it isn't a "glass ceiling" around the surface, like the Vashti grid, since the shuttle then cannot fly to the asylum domes beneath that ceiling. Instead, the shield perhaps gets denser and denser when one moves from far side to the domes.

Blocking transport appears simple, and is often seen. Stopping starships is simple, too - you just fire back, from a million orbital fortresses. The missing element in this equation is whatever (if anything) stops phaser beams from raining death to the surface of a planet... The Elba II shield couldn't do that, and we never saw any other shield actually perform the feat, either, but supposedly the capacity would exist or else a lot more planets would be dead!

Then again, when the Romulans and Cardassians bombarded the Founder hideout, they never commented on the shields being absent. Quite possibly shielding is not a valid way to defend a planet, and your prime choice is a powerful net of killsats, while a poor substitute is a fleet of defensive starships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Then again, when the Romulans and Cardassians bombarded the Founder hideout, they never commented on the shields being absent. Quite possibly shielding is not a valid way to defend a planet, and your prime choice is a powerful net of killsats, while a poor substitute is a fleet of defensive starships.

Or the founders didn't waste their time with Planetary Shields because "IT WAS A TRAP!.Ackbar.Gif" and once they passed the nebula that surrounded the founders home world, they were blind to the outside. The Dominion were ready to surround the combined Obsidian Order / Tal Shiar fleet.

 

[YouAreDooomed]

Mars also seems to have one by 2385, in the first episode of STP the reporter says, "A group of rogue synthetics dropped the planetary defense shields and hacked Mars's own defense net."

Freecloud probably as well, although that green border might be something else like a sensor grid.

Spoiler: Freecloud

If even a backwater place like Vashti is protected by shield, a world like Freecloud should be all the more.

Whether the Vashti thing even has a shield component to it, or is merely an active interceptor grid that stops ships by destroying them (the ability it's actually credited with and shown using), is debatable.

No, it has a shield. Blocks energy weapons and solid objects.

Spoiler: Shield flare

But the grid is extremely dense with those killer nodes - there would seem to be billions around the planet!

If you look at the last image above perhaps, but that's most likely a sfx issue. The nodes are like hundreds of kilometres away from each other here:

Spoiler: Vashti

Probably thousands or tens of thousands.

"Whom Gods Destroy" has always been a complicated issue. No, the shield around Elba II is not credited with being able to resist the firepower of a Constitution. Quite to the contrary, Scotty worries that if he fires, everybody on the planet will die. But the field stops transporters. Or, as McCoy puts it, "How can we be powerful enough to wipe out a planet and still so helpless?"...

Well, the ship's phasers at full power set to narrow beam cannot get through the weakest point.

SCOTT: Well, there's one last thing we might try. Perhaps the ship's phasers can cut through a section of the force field at its weakest point. Where did you say that was located, Mister Sulu?
SULU: On the far side of the planet, Mister Scott.
MCCOY: Will it leave a margin of safety for the people below?
SULU: Yes, sir.
SCOTT: Prepare to change orbital path, Mister Sulu.
SULU: Orbital co-ordinates released, sir.
SCOTT: Break synchronous orbit. Come to course one four mark six eight.
(after a few moments)
SULU: Course one four mark six eight. Synchronous orbit re-established, sir.
SCOTT: Ship's phasers to narrow beam.
SULU: Ship's phasers ready, sir.
SCOTT: Let's punch a hole in it. Full power. Another blast, full power.
SULU: Force field still holding, sir.

The shield covers the entire planet, but can't even stop a shuttle from landing on the far side.

Apparently, they would have cut through with phasers to clear the way first.

Apparently, though, it isn't a "glass ceiling" around the surface, like the Vashti grid, since the shuttle then cannot fly to the asylum domes beneath that ceiling. Instead, the shield perhaps gets denser and denser when one moves from far side to the domes.

It would mean that people can walk through on foot while shuttles are kept out. I think they cannot fly to the asylum directly because sensors can detect those crafts much easier. Since Kirk and Spock are hostages, you would try to be as inconspicuous as possible.

SULU: The force field is weakest on the far side of the planet. We can send down a shuttlecraft carrying a team in environmental suits.
MCCOY: It won't work, Scotty. They'd have to cover thousands of miles through poisonous atmosphere before they'd ever reach the asylum.

 

[Timo]

That the heroes would have to blast a hole in the shield to let the shuttle through is a good way to explain away that part of the rescue plan in "Whom".

But the main concern still seems to be that the ship can easily defeat the shield - yet at the cost of the lives of those huddling beneath. This is a concern even when the ship fires on the opposite side of the planet! The "safety margin" apparently is in the order of "thousands of miles". Unless it's in the order of terawatts, and McCoy and Sulu discuss whether firing on the weak part of the shield will require so much less power than firing on the strong part that the consequences to those sitting next to the shield generator are sufficiently less deadly.

That the shield can be penetrated is never in slightest doubt in any of those bits of dialogue, remarkably enough... Which keeps it consistent with later Trek where orbiting starships reign supreme against surface installations.

If the Elba II shield is a "glass ceiling" like the one above Vashti (and, yes, probably Freecloud as well), then what does the hero team have to fear in the shuttle scenario? Garth will know the heroes are coming in any case - they are coming by default and by their own admission. (Heck, Garth wants them to come, or at least the dubious character posing as Kirk is calling for a security team in those messages Scotty rejects.) The Elba shield isn't like the Vashti defense where it would matter: it isn't firing back, and isn't expected to. So the shuttle ought to be safe whether detected or not.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Paul Weaver]

Then again, when the Romulans and Cardassians bombarded the Founder hideout, they never commented on the shields being absent. Quite possibly shielding is not a valid way to defend a planet, and your prime choice is a powerful net of killsats, while a poor substitute is a fleet of defensive starships.

A shield may stop a ship from attacking for a few minutes, maybe even an hour, just like shields on a starship. But with no way to fire back, and no way to have evasive maneuvers, you're not going to buy much time. You might stop raids from small pirate ships, but once a starship turns up you're stuck unless you can shoot back.

If you look at the last image above perhaps, but that's most likely a sfx issue. The nodes are like hundreds of kilometres away from each other here:

Vashti is about 1000 pixels across. Each vertex near the edge of the planet (thus same scale, clearly tricky to judge) is about 20 pixels. That would mean a surface area of about 300 million square pixels. Each triangle being about 170 square pixels, or somewhere in the 1-3 million triangles (and thus generators)

 

[Timo]

A shield may stop a ship from attacking for a few minutes, maybe even an hour, just like shields on a starship. But with no way to fire back, and no way to have evasive maneuvers, you're not going to buy much time. You might stop raids from small pirate ships, but once a starship turns up you're stuck unless you can shoot back.

Which is all for the better, as supposedly planets before PIC were already reasonably safe from attack by lone starships or small formations thereof, even though we never saw any shield glare around them. Nigh-invisible and nigh-invincible killsat swarms would best match that evidence, with generous backing from surface cannon of some sort. And an attacker that can either prevent the controlling of those killsats (and equally automated ground cannon), or pervert it to his own purposes, is going to catch the planet pants real down, much as happens in a number of TOS movies and the 2009 one. And in all those cases, the attacker is a superbeing with unexpected superaccess to the presumed control network - an advanced entity, even if by a margin of mere century in Nero's case.

Reliance on killsat defenses helps explain how Nero can deploy his extremely vulnerable drill at Vulcan and Earth: backup means of defense have been deemed unnecessary in light of the extreme efficacy of the killsats. But it doesn't explain all of that, since most Trek (including PIC) shows even small spacecraft are very potent weapons in lieu of the killsat grid.

Vashti is about 1000 pixels across. Each vertex near the edge of the planet (thus same scale, clearly tricky to judge) is about 20 pixels. That would mean a surface area of about 300 million square pixels. Each triangle being about 170 square pixels, or somewhere in the 1-3 million triangles (and thus generators)

And nothing wrong with that as such. Although possibly the defense grids of earlier eras had fewer and larger nodes, such as with the Chin'toka one.

What is odd is a place like Vashti having the shields up even at times of no perceived threat. I mean, starships in wartime go to battle with their shields down, basically preferring to wait for the enemy to score the first hit. And we can't easily argue on the lines of "planets have more power than ships", since a starship is close to the Sith definition of Unlimited POWERRRR!!! and nobody ever starts counting down to inevitable shutdown when a skipper does order the shields raised.

Freecloud I get - the folks down there need their constant (illusion of) security. But why Vashti? They can spot the warlords coming lightyears away.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tarek71]

Planets are the largest class of super dreadnaught. Planets could have tens of thousands to millions of missiles or anything inbetween and a vast array of heavy guns and beam weapons. Swarming waves of fighters and drone fleets, their own larger ships and stations. Attacking fleets might be crippled quickly.

WMDs would be the main concern for a planet, not individual conventional missile/torpedo strikes. Air defense tries to stop anything coming thru but hitting small, missile sized objects travelling at very high speed is just an inherently hard thing to do, and some will get thru. The planetary shield would help there, but people down there have to breathe the air and live on the planet. So WMDs getting thru would be the largest concern.

With a Genesis device, only one would appear to be enough to wipe out the entire population. With trilithium warheads as well, just one would be enough to do the job. A shield around a star would seem to be an even more difficult task. Combine these with interstellar beaming, and it would seem hard to defend. You could also equip the WMD missiles with warp drive.

Of course, all of the above applies to the species attacking you. You can hit them back with planet and star killing weapons. Mutually assured destruction might function to limit the use of mass extermination weapons.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Look at how many times Earth or another Federation Planet / Colony gets attacked because they leave shields down all the time.

The Dominion take out StarFleet Command and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nero gets to Earth and tries to drill it to death.

The founders have the Obsidian Order & Tal Shiar "TRY" to kill them via Planetary Bombardment.

It's just fundamentally Smart to have Shields on at ALL times and control access via small floating "Shield Gates like in Star Wars: Rogue One".

That would make things MUCH harder for Alien Fleets or Terrorists to pull anything.

Look at ST;Picard, all those defensive systems around Utopia Planetia.

After Wolf 359, they significantly updated their defenses, which is good. But Cyber Security needs to be FAR better.

 

[YouAreDooomed]

But the main concern still seems to be that the ship can easily defeat the shield - yet at the cost of the lives of those huddling beneath. This is a concern even when the ship fires on the opposite side of the planet! The "safety margin" apparently is in the order of "thousands of miles". Unless it's in the order of terawatts, and McCoy and Sulu discuss whether firing on the weak part of the shield will require so much less power than firing on the strong part that the consequences to those sitting next to the shield generator are sufficiently less deadly.

That the shield can be penetrated is never in slightest doubt in any of those bits of dialogue, remarkably enough...

Scotty thinks they might cut through the shield at the weakest point with a couple of highly focused phaser shots at full power without success, so they clearly underestimate the shield strength. Nonetheless, with enough time (and the use of torpedoes) the ship could probably take it down.

Which keeps it consistent with later Trek where orbiting starships reign supreme against surface installations.

• The installation's dome shields on Corvan II from ST: DSC "The Butcher's Knife Cares Not for the Lamb's Cry" resist 3 klingon Bops for 6+ hours, even though the attackers want to take not destroy it.
• The klingon planetoid Ty'Gokor is (maybe wholly) protected by a shield powerful enough to easily shrug off a dozen photon torps or more from a Bop. (DS9 "Apocalypse Rising") The ship would be "lucky to launch one torpedo before" getting shot down, the base is guarded by 30 ships minimum + defence platform(s).
• The dominion fortress on Trelka V has shields and weapons on its own along with at least several ships. Sisko notes it would require half the ninth fleet to take it down. (DS9 "Once More Unto The Breach")

I wouldn't say starships reign supreme. The shields of those places are generally very powerful and can buy you quite some time on their own. If there is something that can shoot back, the assaulting ship(s) got a serious problem.

If the Elba II shield is a "glass ceiling" like the one above Vashti (and, yes, probably Freecloud as well), then what does the hero team have to fear in the shuttle scenario? Garth will know the heroes are coming in any case - they are coming by default and by their own admission. (Heck, Garth wants them to come, or at least the dubious character posing as Kirk is calling for a security team in those messages Scotty rejects.) The Elba shield isn't like the Vashti defense where it would matter: it isn't firing back, and isn't expected to. So the shuttle ought to be safe whether detected or not.

The shuttle may be safe, but the hostages aren't. I assume the asylum's sensors are not geared to detect some people on foot who don't have the energy output/ signature and size of a shuttle which would give them the crucial moment of surprise.

Vashti is about 1000 pixels across. Each vertex near the edge of the planet (thus same scale, clearly tricky to judge) is about 20 pixels. That would mean a surface area of about 300 million square pixels. Each triangle being about 170 square pixels, or somewhere in the 1-3 million triangles (and thus generators)

How did you get 300 million? Wouldn't the surface be more like 4 *

* 500^2 = 3,141,593 square pixels, or since the shields extends ~ 65 pixels beyond the surface: 4 *

* 565^2 = 4,011,500 square pixels, so you would have 23,597 triangles.

What is odd is a place like Vashti having the shields up even at times of no perceived threat. I mean, starships in wartime go to battle with their shields down, basically preferring to wait for the enemy to score the first hit. And we can't easily argue on the lines of "planets have more power than ships", since a starship is close to the Sith definition of Unlimited POWERRRR!!! and nobody ever starts counting down to inevitable shutdown when a skipper does order the shields raised.

Freecloud I get - the folks down there need their constant (illusion of) security. But why Vashti? They can spot the warlords coming lightyears away.

Unless someone gets their hands on a cloak, there is no indication that Vashti has a detection grid to counter such a thing.

 

[Ronald Held]

Federation Philosophy would preclude planets being shielded all the time.

 

[Paul Weaver]

small, missile sized objects travelling at very high speed is just an inherently hard thing to do, and some will get thru

Rods from god near light speed are in the terrajoules/gram range. 4e16 per kg.

That's in the megatons of TNT range. Per gram.

Good luck detecting them, let alone stopping them.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Too bad there isn't an Archanian around when you need one. Pity the Boglodites ate 'em.

 

[Unicron]

Planets are the largest class of super dreadnaught. Planets could have tens of thousands to millions of missiles or anything inbetween and a vast array of heavy guns and beam weapons. Swarming waves of fighters and drone fleets, their own larger ships and stations. Attacking fleets might be crippled quickly.

WMDs would be the main concern for a planet, not individual conventional missile/torpedo strikes. Air defense tries to stop anything coming thru but hitting small, missile sized objects travelling at very high speed is just an inherently hard thing to do, and some will get thru. The planetary shield would help there, but people down there have to breathe the air and live on the planet. So WMDs getting thru would be the largest concern.

There's something of this nature in the Battletech universe, although it's a rare and complex system. The original Star League had developed the Reagan Space Defense System, which was intended to support the Star League Defense Force (regular military) and allow a small human crew to protect an entire system. The SDS mainly consisted of a number of bases, warships, and similar components which were controlled by a sophisticated AI with a knowledge bank of SLDF tactics. Without the need for a human crew, the drone units could react much faster and carry more weapons, with the Caspar drones becoming infamously nasty during the Amaris Civil War. They were basically modified destroyer hulls that retained mobility, but whose weaponry improved to be closer to that of a battlecruiser. They could perform maneuvers that would be impossible with a living crew, and the AI wasn't afraid to use suicide attacks against SLDF if it were necessary. The knowledge bank meant it could predict and adapt to many SLDF capabilities.

Planetary shields don't exist in the BT universe, but the SDS did include some special planet-based weapon systems to support the space based components, like the Rattler. For scale, the mech standing next to the Rattler is an 80-ton Awesome assault unit. The original system was taken over by Stefan Amaris when he seized Terra, and was employed against the SLDF that it had been meant to fight alongside. The SLDF eventually developed some jamming systems that helped them finally win, but the war was brutal and Amaris succeeded in effectively collapsing the League. Many SLDF crews gave their lives fighting to take down SDS enemies.

The Clans apparently possess a more limited form of the SDS technology to guard some key planets, although its features haven't been described as well. The Word of Blake also salvaged elements of the Reagan system when they captured Terra from ComStar in 3058, and would build newer advanced drones over the next decade that were used in the Jihad. This system lacked the full autonomy in the Reagan era drones, and relied on a few modified destroyers to serve as control ships, but otherwise retained many of the advantages.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Federation Philosophy would preclude planets being shielded all the time.

Not really, Federation Philosophy would only prevent it from being closed to visitors / travel / discrimination / shady dealings.

Nothing wrong with having to show ID and get scanned before they let you in through the gate.