Faults of The Sisko

[Atekimogus]

We don't know what they were using in TWoK, because we never saw a shielded ship hit. We do, however, know that the shields weren't the ships' only defences - part of yellow alert procedures involved activating "defence fields", which could be much more strongly argued to operate on a similar principle to the NX's polarised hull based on the bridge display of it activating.

Very good point actually, hadn't remembered that.

[SolkaTruesilver]

We don't know what they were using in TWoK, because we never saw a shielded ship hit. We do, however, know that the shields weren't the ships' only defences - part of yellow alert procedures involved activating "defence fields", which could be much more strongly argued to operate on a similar principle to the NX's polarised hull based on the bridge display of it activating.

Very good point actually, hadn't remembered that.

My Trek-fu is very weak. I can't remember when this is mentioned in the movie... Although Memory Alpha does back up your claim.


So, how about that Sisko's, eh?

[Mark]

Strictly non cannon, I seem to remember reading in some tech manual or other that those yellow alert defensive fields are to protect the bridge from transporter beams.

However, it seems redundant to me. When Starfleet developed shields that were infinitely more effective that "polarizing the hull plating" it doesn't seem nessessary to incorporate that system anymore. Plus, that system seems to have a limited effectiveness and "modern" weapons unaffected by it (after all, would you don a set of leather armor under your flak jacket if you were storming a machine gun nest?)

[Mikey]

A flak jacket wouldn't have helped in storming a machine-gun nest anyway. But, I see your point. It does seem like a useless redundancy amidst an engineering philosophy that tends to shun all possible useful redundancies. It is, as you say, non-canon, so it was likely just an individual author thinking some idea was kind of "neat."

[Mark]

It makes perfect sense to me actually.....at condition green an enemy ship could swoop in, beam away the entire bridge crew and guarantee a first strike that would likely cripple the ship. Those transporter screens at Yellow Alert make sense....non provocative but protects the command crew.

By TOS and TNG I'd imagine you could polarize the hull plating all day long, and it wouldn't do a damned thing against a QT or modern phasers.

[alexmann]

But it would help prevent beaming.

[Mark]

Sorry, should have been clearer. Polarizing the hull doesn't do a damned thing to prevent beaming as we've seen. Those "screens" as they are labeled on ST:II are something else.

[alexmann]

OK.

[McAvoy]

I just finished doing a marathon of ENT (minus These are the Voyages ). I noticed in Season 4 Divergence that the Enterprise is protected by some blue energy field when hit.





Probably a VFX error since we never seen this before.

[alexmann]

I think we do. The polarised plating is blue when hit.

[McAvoy]

It is? I never noticed it until now. I always thought there was no reaction by the polorized hull plating when hit unlike shielded hits.

[Mikey]

Are you sure that's flare from an impact? Tough to say from those shots... it could be impulse flare. Remember, the NX-01 had blue impulse exhaust.

[McAvoy]

Definitely. I took those stills.



As you can see blue flareup from the impact.



Enterprise flies underneath the battlecruiser to protect the planet and the whole ship lights up from the impacts.

Interestingly, when I looked for better pictures of this, I noticed prior to these two shots, Enterprise was taking fire and there were no blue flareups.

Also alex, I checked a few early episodes and so far no blue impact flareups.

[Captain Seafort]

I checked a few early episodes and so far no blue impact flareups.

Interesting. Have you checked any other S4 episodes? She might have been equipped with a beefed-up SIF to support the hull plating in the post-Xindi refit.

[McAvoy]

The Awakening is the earliest episode this shows up. The Augment arc doesn't show any blue flareups.



This is the best shot I could find. It isn't as pronounced as later on but still there.