Shield frequencies

[douglas]

Somehow the idea of frequencies never occurred to me in thinking about phased shields and weapons. I always thought of it as "phase" being roughly synonymous with "layer" or "stage". By this explanation, a phased polaron beam actually shoots two shots at a time, the first being an extremely localized and short term shield depleter that only serves to open a temporary whole for the second, much more powerful, shot to go through. Phased shields would block this by having a second layer behind the first.

[Thermodyne]

Seems to me, that for shields to ever be realized, we would have to discover some new form of energy. And to say that this energy would not have a frequency spectrum would be premature. If it produced a field that could be seen, like when they take a hit in ST, then there would be a measurable frequency within the visible light spectrum. And it would then seem feasible that some energy weapons could be made more effective by altering them to best defeat the energy frequency of the shields. And when speaking of shields as in ST, we would be talking about a layered matrix of small overlapping areas of energy. There is no reason why they could not be modulated so as to offer a different band of frequency protection. As too energy shields, the closest thing that comes to mind, would be some type of ionized energy layer that would channel the energy into a dissipation device or perhaps direct it into some type of storage device so that it could be recycled. This would certainly have a measurable frequency. Also, it comes to mind that a pure energy weapon would be only one of several types of weapons that would need to be defeated. IMHO, shields, like warp drive are vapor physics, and will not be realized without the discovery of some branch of physics totally unknown to us at this time. But it does make for some damn good entertainment! How may time have I enjoyed hearing some variation of “Scottie, I need warp drive now!”?

[Will]

Ok, I think I understand something now. Every time a star trek ship gets fired on by something, even though shields are still up, the ship shakes, things blow up, and people get thrown around. With the shields being turned on/off based on a specific frequency, some of the energy from the weapon would get through, thus justifying the death of even more red shirts.

[AgentZero]

Exactly. Wierd thing is that's not how it's explained in ST. Can't remember where I saw it, but it's mentioned somewhere that the the damage the ship takes even when it's shields are up is some sort of energy feedback effect. Which always seemed silly to me. I mean, in several hundred years of using shields, did no one think to isolate the shield generators from the rest of the ship's systems, thus avoiding having consoles exploding all over the place every time the ship gets hit?

[Slick]

No shield can protect a red shirt.