Armor, Shielding and Forcefields
From TFC Galactopedia
The basic concept of armor and shielding is as old as war itself, dating back to the beginnings of recorded history. The first kinds of armors were made of animal hides, leather or bone, but today come in too many forms to enumerate. As a general explanation, armor, shielding and forcefields can be defined in the following ways:
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Armor
"Armor" is any kind of defensive physical covering, used to protect a person, building, or starship from outside attack or collision. Most modern armors are constructed of various composite materials combined in specific ratios to produce a material of desired properties, such as exceptional torsional strength, superconductivity, high radiation absorbtion, low mass, molding flexibility, hardness, high specific energy or a host of other attributes. Some common armor components are: neutronium, duranium, zersium, gold, tritanium, lommite, chanlon, iron, monotanium, carbon or depleted uranium.
Common Armor Types
Common forms of starship armor include Tritanium, Durasteel, Thermal Superconductive Armor, Dura-Armor, Duranium, Neutronium and Ablative.
Shielding
"Shielding", in it's most proper usage, is any field or physical barrier used to protect a ship's biological inhabitants from exposure to varying kinds of radiation. This word usage is a holdover from outdated technologies such as lead shielding, which at the beginning of most planet's atomic ages were used to block neutron radiation emissions from fission reactors. With the advent of energy-forcefields (covered below), the physical lead barriers were left behind, but the term "shielding" was not. This is why "shielding" or "shields" is sometimes used to describe energy barriers (including military defensive screens) or physical barriers.
Common forms of Radiation Shielding Ardanium, Carbonite, Phobium, Monocrystal Beryllium Silicate, Osmium-2/4/6 Alloy, Plasma Dissipation Shielding
Common types of Defensive Shielding
See: Forcefields (below)
Forcefields
The term "forcefield" refers specifically and exclusively to those types of energy fields which have assumed the role of physical barriers to deflect either radiation or outside attack; they are more commonly known as "deflector shields" or just simply "shields" (see explanation above).
Forcefields are sometimes preferred over physical barriers for their ease of implementation or disengagement (for the most part, they can be raised or lowered at will) and their ability to repel attacks of magnatudes far exceeding reasonable physical capacities. They do, however, have drawbacks in the fact that they can sometimes be circumvented and often require massive amounts of power to operate and maintain. Still, for most spacefaring species, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.
Like differences found in various kinds of armor, forcefield technology takes a great many forms and dooes not always rely on the same principles. Shielding used by the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, for example operates on a set of physical laws and principles entirely seperate from the shielding technology commonly used by races of the Alpha Quadrant. These technologies are known as Ray/Particle Shielding and Graviton/Subspace Amplification Shielding, respectively. They represent two of the most advanced forms of forcefield technology in the known galaxies.
Simpler forms of forcefields, such as magnetic shielding (as in the Magnetic Bottle) or so-called "black-hole shielding," are also sometimes found in use, but usually only by minor civilizations or powers from outside the traditional galactic communities.
Confinement
Annular Confinement Beams are used in turbolasers to help contain the plasma beam on its way to the target, and also in transporters to contain and boost the signal during transport.
TFC Canon
This area is still under revision. Please do not assume any technology information is Canon unless told otherwise by a tech admin/moderator"
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