Shields during warp speed?
- Thread starter Lorthos
- Start date
Of course it can.. It also seems to be able to transport really really far away..
All the other ships have been able to maintain any given system at any given mode of flight - not a big surprise, given the great number of episodes. We can't really expect the writers to cling on to any specific limitation there.
All of them have also demonstrated the ability to shut down one system and shunt its energies to another, though. Things like phasers and life support have been sources of extra power for the warp drive. So why not shields? I wouldn't be surprised to see the shields shut down by our heroes when they want to go really, really fast. And it wouldn't be a treknological contradiction or anything if the lack of shielding during the trip from Earth to Vulcan in STXI was because every possible watt of power was being directed into the warp engines. (Excepting the watts that illuminated the bridge, of course!)
Timo Saloniemi
All of them have also demonstrated the ability to shut down one system and shunt its energies to another, though. Things like phasers and life support have been sources of extra power for the warp drive. So why not shields? I wouldn't be surprised to see the shields shut down by our heroes when they want to go really, really fast. And it wouldn't be a treknological contradiction or anything if the lack of shielding during the trip from Earth to Vulcan in STXI was because every possible watt of power was being directed into the warp engines. (Excepting the watts that illuminated the bridge, of course!)
Timo Saloniemi
Maybe getting overly technical here but, if I understand it correctly, the "artificial singularity" created by the warp drive causes space to contract in front of the ship and expand behind it... so the ship isn't really moving, space is. The ship is just sitting inside a subspace field. Given that fact plus the vacuum in which space travel takes place, I can't think of any reason why defensive shields couldn't be used (in addition to deflector screens which are an absolute necessity as T'Girl pointed out)
Well in the real world, warships of various designs have to balance speed, fire power and protection. I may be oversimplifying here but, as an example a heavily armed, heavily armoured battleship must sacrifice some of its speed. Battle Cruisers sacrifice armour protection for speed and fire power, whereas heavy cruisers generally sacrifice armour and fire power for speed.
Starships however, seem to be able to augment this balance of speed, fire power and weapons by diverting power between them. That is, if they need more speed, they divert power from the weapons and shields, if they need more fire power, they reduce power to their engines and shields and so on.
Therefore, it is probably not a question as to IF a starship can raise shields while at warp, but whether the captain is willing to sacrifice some of his power for speed and weapons to raise the shields.
In ST09 Captain Pike probably diverted every ounce of power to the warp drive, then shifted it back into weapons and shields just as they came out of warp.
Starships however, seem to be able to augment this balance of speed, fire power and weapons by diverting power between them. That is, if they need more speed, they divert power from the weapons and shields, if they need more fire power, they reduce power to their engines and shields and so on.
Therefore, it is probably not a question as to IF a starship can raise shields while at warp, but whether the captain is willing to sacrifice some of his power for speed and weapons to raise the shields.
In ST09 Captain Pike probably diverted every ounce of power to the warp drive, then shifted it back into weapons and shields just as they came out of warp.
And the movie stayed true to a Star Trek tradition of not keeping shields up at high warp: in ST6:TUC, Sulu does the same when fully well knowing he is going to enter a battle zone.
Indeed, I'm hard pressed to find any examples of our skippers maintaining shields during warp even in wartime, as long as they feel confident there are no threat forces in the immediate vicinity!
Clearly, then, there are major advantages to dropping shields during warp. Indeed, there must be advantages to dropping shields in all situations, or else starships would never drop shields, except perhaps to perform a beam-up or a very special and detailed sensor scan.
We just don't know whether this obvious advantage is a simple power consumption issue, or possibly something more complicated...
Timo Saloniemi
Indeed, I'm hard pressed to find any examples of our skippers maintaining shields during warp even in wartime, as long as they feel confident there are no threat forces in the immediate vicinity!
Clearly, then, there are major advantages to dropping shields during warp. Indeed, there must be advantages to dropping shields in all situations, or else starships would never drop shields, except perhaps to perform a beam-up or a very special and detailed sensor scan.
We just don't know whether this obvious advantage is a simple power consumption issue, or possibly something more complicated...
Timo Saloniemi
It might be fun to speculate on just what these other disadvantages might be.
On the power consumption issue, travelling at cruising speed while keeping its deflector shields at combat power levels may consume the starship's deuterium fuel at a faster rate, thus reducing a fuel supply intended for a five year mission down to 2.5 years.
Additionally, there may be a trade off between the Navigational Deflector and the Deflector Shields. As starships travel at higher warp speeds, they may need additional power for the navigational deflector, thus reducing available power for the deflector shields. These systems may even share components such as capacitors, graviton generators, etc since they are essentially the same system.
On the power consumption issue, travelling at cruising speed while keeping its deflector shields at combat power levels may consume the starship's deuterium fuel at a faster rate, thus reducing a fuel supply intended for a five year mission down to 2.5 years.
Additionally, there may be a trade off between the Navigational Deflector and the Deflector Shields. As starships travel at higher warp speeds, they may need additional power for the navigational deflector, thus reducing available power for the deflector shields. These systems may even share components such as capacitors, graviton generators, etc since they are essentially the same system.
Kirk's Enterprise flew there at high warp (but perhaps not shake apart speeds) and from what we can tell had his shields up prior to dropping out of warp. (He never calls for them to be raised.) He probably was wary of being jumped by a fire-while-cloaked ship while still at warp.
Well we know the TOS Enterprise usually had deflectors on automatic for navigation and would automatically raise combat shields if it detected anything unusual so it seems to be mostly a power saving measure. But you're right that there maybe other forces at work that we aren't aware of regarding starship operations.
They only sacrificed any of the three because of treaties and technological limitations, heavy cruisers were bound to a 10.000 ton displacement figure which set limits to what you can do, battleships were limited at 35.000 tons, if there hadn't been any treaties the brits would have ships already in the late 20's/early 30's which were pretty damn close to the Yamato class in terms of firepower and protection and battlecruisers which were pretty damn close to an Iowa but with heavier armour, what was left after signing Washington naval treaty became the Nelson class which sacrificed speed primarily.
Makes me wonder if they're limited by treaties in Star Trek or that ship sizes are only bound by technological limits..
The Royal Navy did want super-duper battleships - but it could not have met its commitments without leaving most of those unbuilt and building feeble light cruisers instead. Battleships were limited not only by treaties and the tactical considerations relating directly to the ships themselves, but by strategic considerations on how many ships the navy could afford to build and operate overall. "Lots of weak ones" was the only way for the planetwide British Empire to go... While "Lots of strong ones" was the only option open for the otherwise disadvantaged Japanese Empire.
Starfleet seems to be chronically short on ships, which might dictate the construction of lots of affordable ones and the omission of big units from Starfleet even when technology would easily allow for fifty-kilometer-long behemoths capable of eating entire Klingon fleets for breakfast.
Timo Saloniemi
Starfleet seems to be chronically short on ships, which might dictate the construction of lots of affordable ones and the omission of big units from Starfleet even when technology would easily allow for fifty-kilometer-long behemoths capable of eating entire Klingon fleets for breakfast.
Timo Saloniemi
Shields can clearly be raised during warp - the E-D has them up during its attempt to escape the Borg Cube in their first encounter (Q Who), in fact the Borg are actively draining them and, once successful then take out the warp drive.
Whether it's standard practice to raise shields before dropping out of warp is another matter, but one presumes anything a starship hasn't spotted on sensors before leaving warp will take just as long to react to a de-warping vessel (powering weapons, decloaking, etc) as it would take the de-warping ship to put up the shields once they spot the threat.
Whether it's standard practice to raise shields before dropping out of warp is another matter, but one presumes anything a starship hasn't spotted on sensors before leaving warp will take just as long to react to a de-warping vessel (powering weapons, decloaking, etc) as it would take the de-warping ship to put up the shields once they spot the threat.
Pike ordered shields up just before the Enterprise dropped out of (maximum) warp at Vulcan.
So: Yes.
So: Yes.
Similar threads
