Sovereign Class Deflector Shields
| USS Challenger-A | ||
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 INACTIVE STATUS | ||
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Perhaps one of the most significant upgrades created by the Sovereign Project is the advent of Regenerative Shield Technology. Originally field tested aboard the prototype U.S.S. Sovereign, these shields make use of redundant shield generators which alternate coverage on a specific area when integrity drops below a predetermined percentage. In practice, this allows the active shield generator to bare the brunt of incoming fire while the redundant generator remains on hot standby. As the primary generator drops in integrity, power is then increased to the redundant generator which seamlessly takes over the burden of shielding that portion of the ship, allowing the other generator to once again recharge on standby.
The original Type-6 warp reactor was unable to handle the intense power requirements of this new system, and the Regenerative Shielding was almost scrapped before being successfully implemented in the Prometheus-class prototype. With the installation of General Electric's Type-8 warp reactor, the power demands of the new system were eventually met, allowing for the already-launched U.S.S. Enterprise-E and U.S.S. Monarchy to be refitted while the Sovereign remained in dock at Utopia Planitia.
Type: Redundant symmetrical subspace graviton field. While made up of standard 450 MW graviton polarity generators, the shield system aboard Sovereign-class vessels is somewhat different then those aboard most Federation starships. Compared to other ships of similar mass and hull rating, the Sovereign is equipped with twice as many shield generators that make up a Regenerative Shield system that would allow a ship to withstand weapons fire from a Borg vessel for a significantly longer period of time while the vessel attempted to maneuver out of the weapons lock. Another ability, learned as a result of the first Borg encounter at System J-25 and incorporated into all Starfleet ships, is the automatic shifting of shield nutation frequencies. During combat, information from the shields is sent to the main computer for analysis where, with the assistance of the tactical officer, the frequency and phase of the incoming weapon is determined. Afterwards, the shields can be reconfigured to match frequency with the weapons fire, but alter its nutation to greatly increase shield efficiency.
Output: There are twenty six shield generators on the Sovereign class, each one generating 450 MW of output. All together, this results in a total shield strength of 11,700 MW, but only little over half of that is in actual use at one time due to the nature of regenerative shielding. The power for the shields is taken directly from the warp reactor and impulse fusion generators and transferred by means of high-capacity EPS conduits to the shield generators. If desired, the shields can be augmented by power from the impulse propulsion power plants. The shields can protect against approximately 36% of the total EM spectrum whereas the Galaxy-class starship is equipped to protect against only about 23%. This is made possible by the multi-phase graviton polarity flux technology incorporated into the improved regenerative shielding.
Range: The shields, when raised, stay extremely close to the hull to conserve energy, the average range of which is ten meters away from the hull. This can be extended at great energy expenditure to envelope another starship or object within a kilometer of the starship.
Primary purpose: Defense from enemy threat forces, hazardous radiation, and micro-meteoroid particles.
Secondary purpose: Ramming threat vehicles.