Defences

Trans-Spatial Shields

This new shielding system, also used on the Sovereign class, builds a back-buffer shield in addition to the primary shield. When sufficient damage is taken to the primary shield, the back buffer is phased through to replace the primary while it regenerates within the protection of the new primary shield. This new system consumes a good deal of energy, which is supplied directly from the slipstream core. When seperated, the saucers shields draw power from several fusion reactors arrayed near the shield emitters. The new shields also incorperate every advancement Starfleet has made in the last 20 years (ie: Auto modulating, Meta-phasic shielding, Regenerative, and Multi-spatial shielding technology).

The shield modulation frequencies are under the control of the ships computer system, which continually evaluates incoming weapons fire and automatically re-modulates the shields to give the most effective possible defence, increasing its effectiveness against both high energy tractor beams and phased poloron particles,weapons which are used by the Borg and the Dominion.

It is belived that these new shields, added to the ablative armor, will create sufficient protection against known types of Sernaix weaponry.

Ablative Armor

Ablative armor was originally developed for the USS Defiant; the Borg had proven their ability to penetrate Federation shields with ease during their encounter with the Enterprise at system J-25, and the Defiant designers wanted the ship to have a degree of protection even if the shields should be overcome in the expected future encounters. The value of the armor was proven when the Defiant came up against Dominion forces. Like the Borg, the Dominion were able to penetrate Federation shielding systems relatively easily in the first years of hostility between the two powers, and the Defiant's ablative armor allowed the ship to withstand attacks that would have otherwise caused significant damage.

Recently there has been a massive revolution in this technology with the appearance of the ablative armor generator. This device was obtained from a future version of Kathryn Janeway, who brought it back to the U.S.S. Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. The generator involves a series of devices placed onto the hull of a vessel; when activated these replicate a layer of armor over the surface of the ship. The effectiveness of armor is considerable. The system Voyager employed was able to withstand simultaneous attacks by several Borg cubes. One of the most useful features of this system is that as it can be materialized and dematerialized as needed, even weapons systems can be covered over when they are not actually in use. This gives a much greater degree of coverage than any standard armor protection which must leave permanent apertures through which to operate such systems. Starfleet has had relatively little time to asses this technology, but the ease with which it was adapted for use on Voyager without spacedock or any outside support indicates that it should be reasonably easy for the remainder of Starfleet's ships to create ablative armor generators for themselves. This should multiply the hull strength of the fleet massively at a single stroke.

This new armor is deployed by multiple generators on both sections of the Voyager Class, allowing it to be deployed on both sections when the ship is seperated.