Shields
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Shields are the primary defensive tool used by all interstellar species. There are many different types of shields with slightly different uses, all with the game goal: to protect against enemy fire and natural hazards.
A navigational deflector functions by constantly emitting a low-level energy shield in front of a vessel in order to destroy or deflect natural space debris. This debris, especially for a ship traveling at warp speeds, would be extremely destructive even at microscopic particle sizes.
Deflector Shields
Deflector shields are the primary defense grid of starships, starbases, and even planets. Deflector shields generally all operate on the same principle of multiple generation points coming together to form a powerful energy bubble. However, the term 'bubble' can be misleading. While some shields are round in shape, deflector shields are highly adaptable and customizable to take any form needed, such as tightly held to the hull of a starship.
Graviton Shields
Graviton shields function by using quasi-independent power sources feeding individual shield emitters throughout a starship creating a localized zone of highly focused spatial distortion within which an energetic graviton field is maintained. The deflector field itself is emitted and shaped by a series of conformal transmission grids on the spacecraft exterior, resulting in a field that closely follows the form of the vehicle itself in the form of a "bubble" around the ship; this bubble can be modulated to become larger to encompass other objects at the expense of shield strength due to a larger overall surface area to protect produced by the same amount of energy. This field is highly resistive to impact due to mechanical incursions ranging from relativistic subatomic particles to more massive objects at lesser relative velocities. When such an intrusion occurs, field energy is concentrated at the point of impact, creating an intense, localized spatial distortion. To an observer aboard the starship, it appears that the intruding object has "bounced off" the shield. The deflector is also effective against a wide range of electromagnetic, nuclear, and other radiated and field energies. The quasi-independent nature of the individual shield emitters also meant that certain areas of a starship could be protected better than others and that power could be redistributed if necessary.
The Federation first deployed graviton shields as its standard throughout Starfleet, and later other civilian agencies, in its earliest days of formation primarily of the Andorian design being incorporated into Starfleet starship design. The graviton shield was standard for the next two centuries only growing in strength and defensive power as successive power plants were able to supply more and more energy to the shield emitters. The graviton shield can still be found on some older designs, primarily in the Starfleet Auxiliary and mothballed fleets, that were unable to upgrade to the Regenerative Shield design
Regenerative Shields
Regenerative shields differ from graviton shielding by allowing the ship's shield emitters to pull directly from the ship's warp core rather than having a quasi-independent power source. Coupled with giving the ship's computer direct, automated control over the frequency, modulation, and power output of the shields, this allowed a rapidly adapting shield grid versus incoming enemy weapons fire. Regenerative shields are typically hull-conformal, tight against a ship's hull. This allows the shield to have less overall surface area when taking impacts, allowing more energy to be deployed over a smaller area. However, regenerative shields are adaptive by nature and can be programmed into a "bubble" if required.
Regenerative shielding was first developed by the Federation in response to first contact with the Borg Collective and was first deployed on the Sovereign-class starship. The Borg ability to adapt to Federation shield frequencies, shape, and power meant that the Borg were able to overcome and destroy entire fleets of Starfleet vessels easily. After the successful deployment on the Sovereign-class, regenerative shielding became standard across all Starfleet designs that came after. Some concurrent designs, such as the Steamrunner and Saber-classes were deployed with the regenerative shielding. And while the Galaxy-class was able to be upgraded to the regenerative shielding systems, most older designs could not support anything past their graviton shielding system.
Multiphasic Shields
Multiphasic shielding is a massive technological leap above regenerative shielding by pulling large amounts of zero-point energy from artificially created pockets of subspace-time. This massive powerplant, coupled with the enhanced version of the regenerative shield's ability to modulate frequency and modulation, allows the multiphasic shield to withstand formerly debilitating incoming assaults. The multiphasic shield is enhanced with backwards-engineered Borg technology which allows it to be deployed at the starship level, greatly increasing a vessel's defensive capabilities. Additionally, the multiphasic shield incorporates the metaphasic shielding technology as standard with no additional requirements or energy sinks, allowing a vessel to withstand the pressure, radiation, and energy of a star's corona. Much like the regenerative shield, the multiphasic shield is primarily hull conformal for maximum efficiency but can be adapted into "bubble" mode as well.
Starfleet first began working on multiphasic shield in the late 23rd century. However, even by the mid-24th century the ability to deploy multiphasic shielding was only limited to forcefields and smaller applications. The ability to deploy to an entire starship for any meaningful use seemed to be out of reach. Encountering the Borg and Borg technology began some slight breakthroughs, but it wasn't until the USS Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant with massive amounts of knowledge on Borg technology that the true breakthroughs began. The multiphasic shielding was first developed along side the at-the-time in development Sagan-class, but the shielding itself was ready much earlier than the ship design itself. This allowed all contemporaneous classes to the Sagan to be deployed with multiphasic shielding including the Echelon-class, Duderstadt-class, and Constitution III-class starships.
Armors
Polarized Hull Plating
Polarized hull plating is an armored hull technology that disperses an electromagnetic charge throughout the outer hull of a vessel making the metal alloys several orders of magnitude harder than it would be under normal circumstances.
Polarized hull plating was formerly standard issue on United Earth Starfleet vessels before the founding of the United Federation of Planets and the incorporation of deflector shield technology across the fleet. Starfleet vessels are still capable of polarizing their hull plating as a tool, but generally speaking, deflector shields far outpace this technology for defensive purposes. This technology is still predominantly found in early warp civilizations throughout the galaxy.
Ablative Armor
Ablative armor was developed in response to the Borg threat and first deployed on the Defiant-class starship. The armor works in two stages; in the event of a shield-envelope disruption, energy weapons fire is first dissipated over the hull surface, and above an undisclosed threshold causing the molecular matrix to boil off at a controlled rate, carrying away a large fraction of the landed beam energy. In most cases, the boil-off creates a medium-density particle cloud, which may help disperse the incoming beam.