Force field

A force field is an energy barrier with many applications and varying degrees of strength. Although force fields had been in use for many years, Starfleet did not begin research on such a device until 2147, then referred to by Malcolm Reed as a "stable EM barrier." He made use of such a barrier to save several crewmembers, including Jonathan Archer. By the 24th century, Federation Starfleet force fields were commonplace and were rated by intensity, ranging in strength from level 1-10. A level 10 force field is the strongest and would be used, for example, during a scientific experiment of which the outcome was unknown, or known to be explosive in nature. Applications range from creating holograms to sealing a hull breach to personal force fields designed to keep potential assailants at bay. 

The effects of a force field on its surroundings vary greatly. Contact with a force field may cause anything from a slight tingle to death. Most force fields are non-lethal, although some civilizations such as the Dominion prefer the lethal variety. If a force field is active, an object or transporter beam generally cannot pass through it, although this is not always the case. The Borg are known to not be hindered by most force fields; they can adapt and simply walk through the field. However, a Borg drone can be cut off from the Borg Collective if it is surrounded by a Starfleet level 10 force field. 

Force fields could be activated from various locations. On Starfleet starships there were emitter points at almost every junction along every corridor. The computer could be programmed to run a series of force field activations and deactivations within the ship, effectively creating a protected corridor which could follow a person. Commander Data used this technique with great control when he commandeered the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) on stardate 44085.7. He also demonstrated another technique involving instructing the computer to implement a scan-series of force field activations, activated by his movements along a short distance of corridor, thus forcing the security team to back away from him. 

If part of a humanoid body is caught in a force field while it is activated, the person may suffer second-degree burns on the affected area. 

Tolian Soran's force field on Veridian III generated an output of fifty gigawatts. 

When various security measures left over from the Cardassian occupation came on-line on Deep Space 9, Elim Garak was recognized as a person of sufficient importance by the computer to have the force fields dividing the station drop when he approached. 

If necessary, a transporter platform can be completely enclosed within a force field, to, for example, contain an alien subject or prisoner during transport. 

Force fields are also capable of selective positioning, allowing the majority of it to cover a secure location, while a smaller portion is deactivated to allow transport of food, drinks, and other items; particularly used when it would be considered dangerous to deactivate the entire force field. 

Cadderon force field
In 2369 Major Kira Nerys created cadderon force fields to arrest the Klaestrons who kidnapped Jadzia Dax and secured the airlock to their starship. Ilon Tandro was able to override the system and deactivate the cadderon force field. 

Containment field
A containment field is essentially a force field used to prevent the escape of matter or antimatter.

Containment fields were usually raised when cargo bay or shuttlebay doors were opened to keep them pressurized, although the containment field was partially disengaged when a shuttlecraft passed through it. Unfortunately, eighteen engineers from the crew of the USS Yamato were killed when the containment fields in a shuttlebay failed after the ship was infected with an Iconian software transmission. A containment field could be manually activated and deactivated should the need arise. Containment fields would be used by Starfleet personnel to isolate an area for investigation, such as using a field to isolate a transporter room pad to beam aboard a sample of an object. 

Containment fields could also be used to reinforce antimatter containment, although they could not prevent an impending warp core breach. Lieutenant Commander Data raised a level 3 containment field around the warp core of the Enterprise-D in 2369 when the ship was facing destruction by a core breach. By 2379, it was a standard procedure on the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) for the warp core to be reinforced by a high-level force field before engaging in battle. 

''In an alternate timeline Miles O'Brien tried to create a sort of a containment field in sickbay to retain Benjamin Sisko on the station. He was unable to and Sisko went into the temporal displacement again.''

Structural integrity and emergency force fields
The structural integrity of a starbase, starship, or shuttlecraft could be enhanced by force fields. This way the hull could absorb more mechanical stress.

In the event of an outer hull breach, emergency force fields were automatically deployed to protect the damaged part from the influences of space; at the same time they prevented decompression of the entire deck by keeping the atmosphere in. During critical situations, such as ship-to-ship battles, if the main defensive force field was ruptured and a section of the ship was destroyed, it took longer for the computer to re-establish the structural integrity field than usual because of the large energy demands already placed on the vessel. In this short space of time, sections of a vessel could indeed be exposed to the vacuum of space. Captain Kirk was lost to the vacuum of space in this way, in 2293, when the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) was struck by the nexus energy ribbon. 

A lieutenant aboard the Enterprise-E was blown out into space in 2379 before an emergency force field could be activated when the bridge front wall and viewscreen were destroyed by the Reman warbird Scimitar. A similar incident happened during the "Year of Hell" when an alien ship was disabled by the Krenim timeship's conventional weapons, and collided with the almost-already-crippled USS Voyager's bridge front/viewscreen and portions of her decks. Fortunately, Captain Janeway was not blown out into space, due to the quick activation of the emergency atmospheric force fields. A plasma leak caused by an explosion on the USS Defiant (2370) was covered by a level 8 force field, which Jadzia Dax then walked across in order to tend to Dr. Lenara Kahn. 

On stardate 49263.5, the USS Defiant (2370), under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko, descended into the atmosphere of a Class-J gas giant with 10,000 kilometer per hour wind speeds. The emergency force field that was erected to save the ship from decompression due to a hull breach was not able to withstand the pressure for more than a few minutes. 

Defensive shielding
Starbases, starships, shuttlecraft, and even advanced weaponry were often equipped with external force field emitters, which, when activated, produced a "bubble" around the generating object, known as defensive shields. These shields were variable, and could even be extended to encompass a nearby vessel or object. Defensive force fields could be penetrated in two ways. The most conventional method involved firing energy weapons at the shielded object, which weakened the field. The other method was achieved by matching the frequency of the shield to the weapon used. Chroniton torpedoes could not be stopped by normal shielding but require modifications to enable temporal shielding. 

Examples of other Federation force field applications
On holodecks, force fields were used to give objects substance so people could manipulate them like in real life. These force fields had no substance outside the holodeck. They could be configured to either allow passage of "real" matter, or appear solid.

In sickbay, a force field could be used to separate a patient from the rest of the crew when a contagious disease was diagnosed or when a patient needed a specific environment to stay alive. 

The Emergency Medical Hologram and other variants (Emergency Command Hologram and the slave Mark I) used force fields to mimic solidity and to allow the manipulation of tools, manual computer access, and for social interaction.

Force fields were used to contain prisoners inside the holding cells of various races, including Humans, Klingons, and Cardassians. Cardassian technology was able to create a tubular force field from the ceiling to the floor in order to encompass an intruder; however, during First Contact with the Dominion, Jem'Hadar such as Talak'talan could walk right through them. The Federation had adapted similar technology by 2366, and it was in use on the bridge of the Enterprise-D as well. 

Most Federation penal colonies had force fields to prevent escape. Examples included Elba II asylum and the Tantalus colony. 

During emergencies in a Starfleet holodeck, a holographic force field can be created during a simulation. 

In 2369, Major Kira Nerys used a force field to prevent Chief Miles O'Brien and Commander Benjamin Sisko from beaming onto the Valerian transport. 

The same year, the Bajoran engineer Neela created the program ANA, which granted her access through the security fields on Deep Space 9 after she attempted to assassinate Vedek Bareil Antos. O'Brien found this computer program in a security field subsystem during maintenance work. 

In 2372, Admiral Leyton told Federation President Jaresh-Inyo that Starfleet Security had been stockpiling personal force fields on Earth in case of a planet-wide emergency. 

By 2373, a holo-projection system had been installed on the bridge of the USS Defiant, linked up to the communications system. In this way, a person could 'appear' and speak to others. However, this form of holoprojection had no cohesion, and so people could not interact directly with the hologram. Holoprojectors of this type were also seen in the captain's office adjacent to Ops aboard space station Deep Space 9. 

Jean-Luc Picard demonstrated to Lily Sloane a force field closing a hatch to space aboard the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) when Lily spotted no glass. 

During the late 2260s and early 2270s, a device known as a life support belt was used on board Starfleet vessels. This was a type of personal force field that supplied the wearer with the appropriate atmosphere and protected them from the vacuum of space. This type of technology has only been seen in one other application. In 2369, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander Data, Deanna Troi, and Geordi La Forge used subspace isolation fields, projected from modified emergency transporter armbands, that enveloped each of them in their own pocket of subspace. This isolated them from the effects of the temporal fragment that affected the Enterprise-D. This is an example of a "skin-tight" force field, rather than the conventional bubble geometry. 

Examples of non-Starfleet force field applications
In 2154, the encountered an Illyrian ship in the vicinity of the Azati Prime system in the Delphic Expanse. This small ship had a force field surrounding its warp coil, which prevented Commander Trip Tucker from removing it easily. 

In 2267, Apollo, from Pollux IV used advanced force field technologies to create a gigantic hand to hold the Enterprise in space. This force field could be penetrated by M-rays at carefully calculated frequencies. 

In 2346, the Khitomer colony had a force field to help protect itself from attacks. The Khitomer Massacre could have been averted if the Klingon traitor Ja'rod had not given the Romulans the codes to the force field surrounding the colony. 

In 2364, the entity known as Q used an immensely powerful force field to block the Enterprise's passage. 

Also in 2364, The Enterprise-D rediscovered the planet Aldea. The Aldeans hid their planet behind a very powerful planet-wide cloak and a defensive shield. 

In the same year the crew of the Enterprise-D encountered the Echo Papa 607 weapon, on Minos. One of the weapon's special features is the ability to encase a target in a bubble force field. 

In 2367, Captain Picard, Ensign Wesley Crusher, and a civilian shuttle captain, Dirgo, discovered a fountain of water surrounded by a force field on Lambda Paz. 

The storage lockers in the assay office aboard Deep Space 9 were secured by individual force fields. 

Dr. Tolian Soran used a high-power force field (rated in gigawatts) to protect himself and his star-destroying weapon from Captain Picard in 2371. 

The Borg utilized personal defensive force fields. The force field was sufficient to allow survival in space without a spacesuit. When in combat, Borg drones could be killed by phasers but only for the first several shots. The phaser became ineffective if used at the same setting after multiple shots. The phaser's effectiveness could be extended though by adding a frequency modulation chip, but drones would eventually adapt to this as well. Borg drone shields appeared to be less resilient to projectile weapons; when the Borg attempted to assimilate the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-E) in 2063, Jean-Luc Picard lured two drones into the holodeck and used a holographic Thompson submachine gun to kill the two drones. 

The Cardassians utilized force fields in their labor camps to maintain the populace. The Hutet labor camp utilized such force fields. 

Contact with Dominion force fields is always lethal and they are even harder to see than those of the Federation, which are visible to the careful eye. Captain Sisko and Quark were held in a Dominion force field when they were kidnapped while on a camping trip with Jake and Nog. A similar force field was used to hold Chief O'Brien and Doctor Bashir hostage when they were taken prisoner by a rogue group of Jem'Hadar. 

In 2371, the crew of the USS Voyager encountered the Vidiians, who made extensive use of force fields to conceal their underground bases from intruders. These force fields could be configured to produce the illusion of solid rock, which could fool tricorders and the naked eye. 

When the Cardassian Silaran Prin held Kira Nerys prisoner for a brief time, he enclosed her in a personal force field of sorts that prevented her from moving. 

By 2373, the Breen had developed a hand-held weapon, the CRM 114, which could penetrate force fields of up to 4.6 gigajoules. 

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