Planetary Defence
Planetary Defence
Quick Links: Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate
Unfortunately even though planetary defence is mentioned several times in Star Trek, most notably "Home Front"[DS9-4], little useful information was given about Federation capabilities. This lack of knowledge has led to fans resorting to taking bits and pieces of evidence from many episodes and piecing thing together.
Planetary or theatre shielding can provide an important part of any defence system. In Star Trek the Federation large scale defence network undoubtably includes planetary shielding. In "Dagger of the Mind"[TOS1] and "Whom Gods Destroy"[TOS3] Planetary shields were used on Federation prison and asylum worlds. In "Whom Gods Destroy" The Enterprise was able to penetrate the shields of the facility but had to accomplish this be firing phasers from the far side of the planet. This indicates that in a one shield generator planetary shield the farther from the shield the weaker the shield is. Fortunately on a major Federation member planet we would most likely see a multi-generator shielding system that provides equal coverage over an entire planet. In "Year of Hell, Part II"[VOY4] Chakotay states that two of the less technologically advanced races in the Delta Quadrant should have planetary shielding capable of being reconfigured to protect against the Temporal weapon ship. In "Gambit"[TNG7] a shielded research outpost was mentioned but the type of shielding was not mentioned. However considering they were not trying to prevent people from escaping the planet a theatre shield, much like the one on the Klingon out post in "Divergence"[ENT4] is most used likely to conserve power. Also the existence of planetary shielding on Earth is unknown but in "The Changing Face of Evil"[DS9-7] (above picture) a large scale raid on Earth only caused minimum damage to one city, which by Star Trek weapon standards is positively weak most likely the raid was prevented from bringing its full weaponry to bear. Whether that is becasue of shields or some other defence system is unknown.
Ships have historically played an important role in defence of planets. In "Best of Both Worlds"[TNG4] a Fleet was sent to (unsuccesfully) intercept the incoming Borg cube and latter in the Dominion War the Third Fleet was tasked to protecting the Core Federation worlds. In the Dominion War the Federation had a total of 10,000 ships, split into 10 fleets. Prehaps the best example of ships being used in defence of a planet is in "What You Leave Behind", in which a large Dominion fleet is in orbit over Cardassia (above right picture) and atempts to hold of the Allied advance.
Star Fleet also has a veriaty of other means of defending a planet. In "Best of Both Worlds" the Mars Defence perimeter was easly bypassed by the Attacking cube (as was every thing else the Federation threw at it). The defence perimeter used drone ships to attack the cube.
In "Gambit"[TNG7] the Federation out post was said to have phasers and possibly torpedos, which would indicate that ground based phaseres and torpedos are not uncommon in the Federation. And in "Tears of the Prophets"[DS9-6] the Cardassians deployed thousands of orbital platforms (above pictures) in defence of the Chin'toka system. These proved quite effective untill their power source was neutralized. It is unknown whether the Federation uses similar systems.
A full fledged Federation planetary would likely included an perimeter in the outer solar system, drone ships, orbital weapon platforms, ground based phasers and torpedos and planetary shields with ships as back up. In order to penatrate these systems a very powerful fleet numbering in the thousands would need to be used to break through the defences.
While not as advanced as their Federation counter-parts, Star Wars planetary defence systems are hardly weak by any standards.
Planetary shielding is one of the most debated aspect of Star Wars technology is planetary shielding. The debate has been raging for years on the internet. The Debate has been based around a rather ambiguous few frames from ANH that show an atmosphereic glow on Alderaan when the Death Star's super laser impacts the planet. As seen in the top right animated picture (thanks to Wayne Poe and his juvenile obsession with discrediting Darkstar). In the two screen caps below, taken a few frames apart, you can see the glow does not radiate evenly around the planet like one would expect from the shields, but instead follows the clouds.
Obviously it can't be a shield because it doesn't display the correct characteristics. If it was a shield one would expect either a localised glow or an evenly radiated glow. Unfortunately we see neither, instead the glow follows local weather patters. That would indicate that the observed glow is in fact light given off by the super laser being radiated and reflected through the clouds.
Although planetary shields have never been observed theatre shields have. In TESB the Rebel base as protected by a shield that could hold off any Imperial bombardment. Based on the time it took the AT-ATs to reach the Rebel base one can estimate the approximate shield size as 20km in radius. Considering that this was probably black market tech, military shields being 50% large is not out of the question. Also in the ROTS novel "defence umbrellas" were mentioned, though no information on their nature was given.
Like in Star Trek large fleets are used in defence of planets as witnessed in ROTS. In fact in the beginning of ROTS five thousand ships were engaged in battle over Coruscant. Given the fact that the ships not the surface shields and guns were responsible for victory it would seem like fleets are still the best way of defending a planet.
As seen in TESB ground based weapons also provide an important component of planetary defence systems. In TESB the Rebels used a large ground based ion cannon to cover the retreating ships. Aperently the ion cannon is used to disable enemy ships and was able to disable a fully shielded Star Destroyer in just a few hits. This would indicate that either ion cannons are significantly more powerful than turbolasers or that ground based weaponry is capable of penetrating shielding on capital ships in just one or two shots. Either way ground based weaponry is a key part of any defence system.
Star Wars planetary defence systems include large theatre shields, suplemented by surface weaponry emplacements and star ships.
This section about the planetary defences of Stargate is broken down into sections about Earth, the Goa'uld and the Ancients. This section will look at Star Gate defence and Orbital Defence in the Stargate universe.
Earth is the new kid on the block as far as the galaxy is concerned in Stargate and therefore have a lot of learning to do to catch up the the Goa'uld and other races in the galaxy and their technical approaches reflect that much of the time.
Stargate is different from other sci-fi because the Stargate allows instant travel to thousands and thousands of planets in the galaxy. However with that imense benifit comes added danger because the gate opens up Earth to invasion from the Goa'uld, the Ori and anyone else who wants to conquer Earth. Because of the threat of attack through the gate extra defences are needed that are not required in the Star Trek and Star Wars universe.
Stargate Command (SGC) under Cheyenne mountain severs as the front line in the war with the Goa'uld and because of that it has very strong defences. Their most important piece of defencive technology is the iris on the stargate. The iris (animated picture above) is much like that on a camera but closes over top of the stargate 2-3 micrometers from the event horizon of the gate's wormhole to form a solid barrier and is made of a Trinium/Titanium alloy. This very short distance allows a wormhole to be formed but it does not give mater enough room to reintegrate. When ever matter is sent through the stargate with the iris closed there is a load thud as matter impacts the back of the iris. This impact leaves a radioactive residue on the back of the iris that can be anylised to tell what came through the gate. To open the gate off world teams carry a G.D.O (garage door opener) that sends a code through the gate over radio frequencies. This signal is lets the SGC personel known that friendly people are coming through so they can open the iris.
In the event that the iris is successfully breached a team of soldiers armed with assault rifles and two 50cal guns are their to defend the gate room. Because of fact that the gate severs as a choke point the squad can hold of an attack for some time. Then the solid blast doors of the gate room will help contain the enemy force while re-enforcement arrive. Once out of the gateroom the attacking force will have to fight their way up level by level through 28 level to reach the surface. During that time a nearby armoured battalion will be called in to defend hold the attacking force inside the mountain. As a last resort the SGC's nuclear self-destruct can be activated to destroy the complex and burry the gate underneath rubble.
Beside threats from the stargate Earth also has to deal with threats from space, becasue of that large amounts of money and resources were spent on orbital defence. Several aproches have been tried and each will be discussed in this section.
The first approach tried by the USAF was enhancing the nuclear warheads on their minuteman missiles with Naquadah to produce a yield of 1000 megatons or 1 gigaton and were set to launch into a retrograde of. Two of these missiles were put to the test when Apophis attacked Earth at the end of season 1 of SG-1. Unfortunately for Earth the missile impacted the shields of Apophis' and Korel's Ha'taks before they could detonate. Their usefulness if they had had a chance to detonate before impacting the shields is unknown.
With the failure of the enhanced minutemen missiles the USAF began looking at other options including space capable interceptors. After the attempt at combining goa'uld and human technology in the X-301 failed work was shifted to an all human built craft, the X-302. The F-302 as it is called once mass production started proved to be an invaluable asset to Earth during Anubis' attack in late season 7. Besides the F-302 Earth also has began work on their own fleet of star ships. First was the Prometheus and latter the Deadalus classes of ships that have help defend Earth several times.
In addition there is the recently discovered Ancients out post in Antarctica which will be discussed in the section dealing with the ancients.
The defences of Earth include the iris and the SGC to guard the Gate and Earth's fledging starfighter and starship fleet.
The Goa'uld Systems Lords have been the rulers of the Galaxy for thousands of years. However despite their long history and technological advantages their planetary defence stratagies leave much to be desired.
Goa'uld star gate defence usually consists of a squad or two of Jaffa, numbering around 10. As stargates are usually located on open ground with hills nearby the Jaffa guarding the gate usually position them selves some distance away from the gate to allow their staff weapons to come into play and utilise the choke point the gate creates. The Jaffa are usually equiped with staff weapons and one or two staff cannons. Much of the time however the Jaffa leave the gate unguarded until an alarm is sounded. Instead they rely on roving potroles to spot enemys. It should be noted that there are exceptions to these rules.
Like Earth the Goa'uld rely on star ships to defend their planets. If a planet is deemed important enough any number of Ha'tak class ships will be placed in orbit with Al'kesh and glider in support.
The Goa'uld use jaffa squads to guard the gate and Star ships to defend against orbital assults.
The Ancients are the race that lived thousands of years ago. They are the ones who built the Stargates and the City of Atlantis.
In the City of Atlantis the Ancients used a shielding system to place an energy field of the gate, much like the iris on the gate at the SGC. The shield prevents matter from being reintergated and like the iris will give a audible sound if matter impacts the shield. The shield was clearly effective as it kept the Wraith out of Atlantis for the hundreds of years that they were at war.
The Ancients have what is probably the most powerful and flexible defence system in all of the Stargate Universe. As witnessed in "The Lost City, Part 2" an entire fleet of Goa'uld ships was destroyed in seconds by the Ancient defences left on Earth under the ice of Antarctica.
The "Chair Weapon" in the Antartica outpost and on Atlantis when activated and powered with a ZPM (zero point module) is capable of launching thousands of glowing yellow drones that will lock on to a target. These drones are capable of bypassing shields and directly damaging enemy ships. In season 8 of SG-1 the Goa'uld Ares was killed when a mere two drones from a puddle jumper that SG-1 found hit his Ha'Tak.
In addition to the weaponry that Ancient cities and outpost carry they also have advanced shields to protect them selves. The shields are small theatre shields that at most cover a city. In fact even the Ancients have not show the ability to create shields on a planetary scale. That leads me to wonder if there is some limitation in the stargate universe that prevents shields from covering such a large area? The Shield on Atlantis when properly powered by multiple ZPMs was capable of holding out indefinitely against the Wraith. The shield is quite possibly the biggest advantage that the Ancients over other races.
The planetary defence systems of the Ancients include a shield for the gate, drone weapons to destroy enemy ships and a shield to provide passive protection.