Why Do Federation Ships Go Around With Shields Down Most of the Time?

[Timo]

"have they ever complained or worried about having the shields up...?"

Since shields never are kept up as a default, even in high threat environments, this isn't really a question that needs to be asked - as it would be like asking "Have the brave submariners of SeaQuest ever complained about having to keep the hatches shut while underwater?". It apparently goes without saying - it's that serious and fundamental to the mechanics of Star Trek spaceflight.

We just can't conclusively figure out why it would be so fundamental, what with us not knowing much about the mechanics of Star Trek spaceflight. But there's no steering around it, no way to assert that shields can be kept up and therefore should. It's about fifty years too late for that now.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Greg Cox]

I assume when writing fiction and not, for instance during a really interesting day job?

If only I had shields in real life . . .

"Deadlines approaching, captain."

"Raise shields!"

Getting back on topic, I think the OP kinda answered their own question. If it was possible to keep the shields up all the time, why wouldn't they? The fact that they don't implies that this simply isn't an option.

Where it gets tricky is when you have to figure psychology and politics into the mix. In a First Contact situation, is it smart or provocative to raise shields at the drop of a hat? My own thought there is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer there, which is why it's up to the discretion of the captain, who may have make some difficult judgment calls.

 

[MacLeod]

It's like how Captain Smith of the Titanic should have slowed down in the ice field, especially considering he'd been amply warned of what was ahead by other ships. He didn't even have the watertight bulkhead doors raised as a precaution. Of course that wouldn't have changed the ship's fate, because of a faulty design, but it might have slowed the ingress of water long enough for the rescue ship to arrive.

Re: The Titanic at the time wasn't it standard practice to get through the Ice field as fast possible i.e go as fast as possible? And the watertight bulkhead doors where raised at the time, I think you mean closed. But like any disasters the Titanic disaster was a chain of events, the lookouts not having binoculars due to the key not being availble, HAd theSS Californian responded to the Titanics distress rockets. But it's likely the Titanics design even with flaws saved more lifes than had it been an older design. But I digress

If a ships is likely to be entering a situation where shields might be needed, they would likely be at at least Yellow Alert. But in general it only takes seconds for the shields to come on. Sure a lot can happen in a few seconds.

 

[Stoo]

I just assume either they consume too much power, or, there's some component that burns out if forced to operate 24/7.

 

[MacLeod]

Where it gets tricky is when you have to figure psychology and politics into the mix. In a First Contact situation, is it smart or provocative to raise shields at the drop of a hat? My own thought there is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer there, which is why it's up to the discretion of the captain, who may have make some difficult judgment calls.

To use an example albeit from another show B5. We witness the first contact between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari. The Minbari approach with gun ports open as a sign of respect (in their culture) only the Minbari leader Dukhat reliased that this was a bad idea. (True the minbari sensors were overwhelming the Earth sensors)

 

[Shark]

I'll have to agree with some of the prior statements made. Why waste the power? And why risk burning out the components?

 

[JWPlatt]

To use an example albeit from another show B5. We witness the first contact between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari. The Minbari approach with gun ports open as a sign of respect (in their culture) only the Minbari leader Dukhat reliased that this was a bad idea. (True the minbari sensors were overwhelming the Earth sensors)

As much as I like and am a fan of B5, the "gun ports open" thing impresses me only as a "bizarre alien behavior of the week" used to force the story to do what JMS wanted done. Star Trek had bizarre alien behaviors of the week in the same way they had foreheads of the week. Both are easy story or production gimmicks, as was gun ports open as a sign of respect.

(But to not throw B5 completely under the bus, they did new alien creature designs far, far better then Trek's foreheads)!

 

[Kemaiku]

They look slimmer.

 

[Kahless the Unforgettable]

I'm inclined to think they might have, although that's a lot of canon trek to trawl through just to disprove a negative. On the other hand given the shields are a massively important systems which by definition are there to counter massively powerful weaponry and save the massively valuable ship and crew inside them. It seems very unlikely they would be anything less than massively powerful themselves ad therefore a huge drain on energy.

If I were sat inside a ship with a determined enemy unleashing rapid fire torpedoes and disruptors, each one hitting harder than current day tactical nukes, in my general direction I probably wouldn't complain too much about the battery drain either. In fact I would be pretty upset if the shields wee anything less than the very top end power output tech available.

I other words not the sort of thing you just leave running to drain power and accumulate wear and tear so they failed when you actually needed them.

Again: It's never come up on the show. Even when they're using them for prolonged periods of time. Not once has the engineer called up and said the warp core can't handle keeping the shields themselves up for so long. In fact, the only time such things come up are when the shields are being continually assaulted by something, which is perfectly believable.

But as others have pointed out, the same is basically true of some similar things even in the real world. No one goes around wearing a bulletproof vest 24/7 even though they could if they wanted to. No one wears a bike helmet 24/7 even though they could if they want to. etc. In most of those examples, the reason is simply "because they're not comfortable" or "they're inconvenient," not "because they're require a massive increase of caloric intake in order to maintain them, cap'n!"

In Star Trek's case, I think the best answer is that they might just interfere with too many other useful systems, like long range sensors and the like. That makes a lot more sense than anything else.

 

[Kemaiku]

Transporters are useless with them up.

 

[Griffeytrek]

Again: It's never come up on the show. Even when they're using them for prolonged periods of time. Not once has the engineer called up and said the warp core can't handle keeping the shields themselves up for so long. In fact, the only time such things come up are when the shields are being continually assaulted by something, which is perfectly believable.

But as others have pointed out, the same is basically true of some similar things even in the real world. No one goes around wearing a bulletproof vest 24/7 even though they could if they wanted to. No one wears a bike helmet 24/7 even though they could if they want to. etc. In most of those examples, the reason is simply "because they're not comfortable" or "they're inconvenient," not "because they're require a massive increase of caloric intake in order to maintain them, cap'n!"

In Star Trek's case, I think the best answer is that they might just interfere with too many other useful systems, like long range sensors and the like. That makes a lot more sense than anything else.

Remind me. Wasn't there something along these lines in Voyager's Year of Hell story arc? Part of that story was the shields having to be kept up nonstop, and the detiorating toll everything was taking on the ship. I don't remember how directly the two were equated however?

 

[Griffeytrek]

It's important to note that the conquest-minded villains don't appear to keep their shields up, either. Nor do they have their weapons at the ready, or automatically targeted at the nearest potential victim. Rather, on those rare occasions where we see the villains' side of the action, they issue the very same prepare-for-battle commands the heroes do.

What is the longest time anybody has kept combat shields up? Minutes? Any examples of hours? (The metaphasic shields could do something like that against solar radiation, but perhaps that very thing, rather than the ability to fight suns, was the big innovation?)

I'd like to undersign all four of the above points, and then add that the shield machinery itself may rapidly degrade when in use. OTOH, none of these points has ever been made explicit in the shows - it's just implicit that something like this must be at work.

Timo Saloniemi

Given how they always know when weapons are being targeted, it is likely that most weapons, at least the energy based ones, use an active targeting system. So the firing ship will paint the target with targeting sensors before firing. Similarly we see in ST VI where Torpedoes carry their own internal targeting sensors.

This might also be a reasonable explanation why most Klingon and Romulan ships decloak to fire, and why Chang's ability to shoot from cloak is never seriously developed. Much like shields Cloaking (which is probably very similar to shield technology, just applied differently) likely blinds or limits the sensors of the cloaked vessel. Part of Klingon battle drill is likely how fast they can get a firing solution as they drop cloak. Something that we see acted out numerous times without it ever being explicitly explained.

 

[Kahless the Unforgettable]

Remind me. Wasn't there something along these lines in Voyager's Year of Hell story arc? Part of that story was the shields having to be kept up nonstop, and the detiorating toll everything was taking on the ship. I don't remember how directly the two were equated however?

That's because they were under constant attack, wasn't it?

 

[The Wormhole]

Remind me. Wasn't there something along these lines in Voyager's Year of Hell story arc? Part of that story was the shields having to be kept up nonstop, and the detiorating toll everything was taking on the ship. I don't remember how directly the two were equated however?

I thought the deflectors crapped out, meaning they had no way to deflect space junk out of their way while they were travelling at warp. And it was temporal shields they had to run non-stop to protect them from Annorax's changes to the timeline.

 

[Ithekro]

I seem to recall that the shields were automatic in some stories. That the ship could bring itself to Red Alert if the sensors spotted something that was going to hit it that the deflector couldn't handle.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

That's because they were under constant attack, wasn't it?

Yep.

 

[Spot261]

Two points there, are you really that confident that you know all 800 odd hours of star trek word for word that you can make that statement? I'm not and I've been a fan for 35 years.

Secondly, as you say, if they never do it, why would the situation come up? Presumably because being well trained in the use of starship technology they wouldn't need to, it would go without saying.

 

[Timo]

Again: It's never come up on the show. Even when they're using them for prolonged periods of time.

But the "prolonged period" thing ever happens like twice in all of Star Trek. And there are complaints involved: say, Scotty says keeping the shields up in "A Taste of Armageddon" makes the phasers lose potency, which is a severe issue only ever occurring this once.

Transporters are useless with them up.

Well, not really. Apparently, it's fine to beam down through raised shields, as in "A Taste of Armageddon": it doesn't harm you, it doesn't weaken the shields, and the bridge team apparently won't even notice it happened.

Beaming up is generally desirable soon after beaming down, though, so an indirect limitation emerges...

So the firing ship will paint the target with targeting sensors before firing.

Apparently so. But how does this relate to shields? Having yours up won't stop you from targeting the enemy, nor from noticing that the enemy is targeting you. So why are shields kept down until the last second, even by the villains? It apparently isn't because of sensor issues.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I figured it was so they could dramatically raise them.

 

[Ghel]

Perhaps a combination of fuel consumption and/or wear and tear on the components. Although it may not be enough for the main engineer to directly complain about if it is necessary to keep the shields up for a longer time, perhaps the systems amount of energy use ultimately means ripping through way more antimatter than one would if the system is turned off. The answer could be as simple as energy efficiency to maximize exploration time in between fueling stops (which we never see in Trek either but must happen at certain intervals).