Starship Deflector Shields : How are they powered ?

[DumbDumb2007]

How are Starship Deflector Shields powered ? Does energy come directky from the main engines or does it come from stored power reserves ?

 

[Mister_Atoz]

based on pure speculation I would say both. The main engines charge the shield reserve which the shield draws from whenever they are raised. When the shields take damage, they draw more power from the reserve to repel the attack, when the reserve is depleted the shields only have the power directed to them from the main engines. This is just my opinion however, I am sure there are canon contradictions to this.

 

[Unicron]

That's always been my impression - that the warp core serves as the primary power source for the main systems on the ship.

 

[Timo]

But people make special mention if a ship's weapons are directly powered by the warp core.

Probably the whole power system is integrated so that the main powerplant, the secondary powerplants (impulse engines?) and the various power storage systems can all feed juice to the loop. But fairly often, ships continue to fight after the enemy has deprived them of warp drive. Is this just because the enemy only knocks out the propulsive parts (warp coils) while the power parts (warp core) continue to operate? Or is it because the secondary power generation systems are quite capable of powering shields and weapons even when the warp core is down for the count?

We have seen starships fire their main weapons with battery power only. But have we seen ships maintain shields when main power is out? I think we have witnessed fights where auxiliary power has kept the shields up and running, but I'm at loss of specific references.

It's a slightly different issue when the starboard power coupling fails again. That usually kills all combat systems, but this happens regardless of which component is feeding power to those systems. Be it from the warp core or the fusion reactors, or even the batteries, the juice fails to reach the guns and shields because the connection has failed.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[shipfisher]

Tribbles rolling in little gerbel wheels or having their fur rubbed for the static discharge help keep the shields up when main power is down. Tribble:anti-tribble contra-rotating wheels provide back-up power by the 26th century I believe, or was that the quantum zero point tribble?

 

[Ronald Held]

Why aren't they fed from the power distribution system, regardless of what is powering it?

 

[Walter Sochack]

Mister_Atoz said:
based on pure speculation I would say both. The main engines charge the shield reserve which the shield draws from whenever they are raised. When the shields take damage, they draw more power from the reserve to repel the attack, when the reserve is depleted the shields only have the power directed to them from the main engines. This is just my opinion however, I am sure there are canon contradictions to this.

I'm pretty sure there are cannon confirmations. Like in TNG's Arsenal of Freedom, where the Enterprise comes under fire from the stealth 'drone' - they transfer emergency reserves to the shields as they come under fire, and are squeezing every ounce of power from engineering. I think they even state "we can't maintain these power levels for much longer" while just hanging in one spot maintaining their deflectors.

---------------------------------
"If there is to be a Brave New World, our generation will have the hardest time living in it."
STAR TREK: RUST RED