Happened to stumble across something a while back that really got me thinking
See image: http://www.phasers.net/2370/p2-er05.jpg
I remember this episode. It was Be'lanna using a phaser to create a forcefield when the Delta Flyer's hull was collapsing under the pressure of a gas giant. At least visually, it seems to work more or less exactly like a standard force field, which would sort of explain why forcefields sometimes have similar effects as phasers (i.e. it stings when you touch them, Borg can pass through them, etc).
In that case, I do feel a little more keen on the idea of some starship shields being at least partially reactive, something similar in principle to a low-level phaser on extremely wide field. These would be the skin-tight shields we see sometimes, and like phasers, they would have to be recharged after a certain amount of usage; they're normally dormant, but only snap on the moment they detect some kind of body (either mass or energy) hitting the ship. I would even go so far as to say that the "shield grid" on the surface of starships might actually be a network of short range sensors designed to trigger a shield emitter the instant something scary comes within, say, ten meters of the hull. Maybe the emitters or setup in the intersections of the grid line, or possibly entire sections of the ship have only one or two emitters, which might explain what Spock and later Worf are talking about when they mention "Number 4 shield is failing" and so on.
Again, still distinguished from deflectors, which are either on or off and serve to reach out and scatter incoming energy or divert incoming objects away from the ship. I figure that deflectors ALONE aren't normally to actually protect the ship from real weapons fire, but they greatly reduce the load on shields, which otherwise just buy time for a section of armor plating.
See image: http://www.phasers.net/2370/p2-er05.jpg
I remember this episode. It was Be'lanna using a phaser to create a forcefield when the Delta Flyer's hull was collapsing under the pressure of a gas giant. At least visually, it seems to work more or less exactly like a standard force field, which would sort of explain why forcefields sometimes have similar effects as phasers (i.e. it stings when you touch them, Borg can pass through them, etc).
In that case, I do feel a little more keen on the idea of some starship shields being at least partially reactive, something similar in principle to a low-level phaser on extremely wide field. These would be the skin-tight shields we see sometimes, and like phasers, they would have to be recharged after a certain amount of usage; they're normally dormant, but only snap on the moment they detect some kind of body (either mass or energy) hitting the ship. I would even go so far as to say that the "shield grid" on the surface of starships might actually be a network of short range sensors designed to trigger a shield emitter the instant something scary comes within, say, ten meters of the hull. Maybe the emitters or setup in the intersections of the grid line, or possibly entire sections of the ship have only one or two emitters, which might explain what Spock and later Worf are talking about when they mention "Number 4 shield is failing" and so on.
Again, still distinguished from deflectors, which are either on or off and serve to reach out and scatter incoming energy or divert incoming objects away from the ship. I figure that deflectors ALONE aren't normally to actually protect the ship from real weapons fire, but they greatly reduce the load on shields, which otherwise just buy time for a section of armor plating.
