2.20 Defensive Shields
Describes Voyager's defensive shields, distinguishing them from the navigational deflector, with notes on automatic activation, how they are ordered, shield-strength reporting, and the deflector's offensive use.
In brief: A series of energy forcefields which protect Voyager against both natural dangers and enemy attack. The defensive shields are very powerful and are more than adequate to protect the ship against most hostile forces. These are distinctly different from the NAVIGATIONAL DEFLECTOR which sweeps far ahead of Voyager and pushes aside meteoroids and space dust which might otherwise be a hazard to the ship at high impulse or warp speed. The transporter cannot be used when the shields are in place. The ship’s computer can automatically activate the shields in crisis situations before our human crew has a chance to react.
How to use it: Defensive shields will sometimes be automatically activated by the ship’s computer in certain hazardous situations. In such cases, the tactical officer might report that “Shields just came on.” In other cases, specific dialog might include: “Raise shields,” “Full power to forward shields,” “Shields failing,” or “Lower shields.”
Defensive shield power: Usually expressed in terms of percentage of shielding remaining, as in “shields down to thirty-seven percent... we cannot survive another attack.”
The navigational deflector, the big dish-like apparatus at the front of the Engineering Hull, can also be utilized as a weapon by channeling warp power directly to a series of power conditioners and emitters. This power can be focussed to produce a variety of high-energy effects.