Tech Report: Alliance Shielding (AMAS)

History

Having been developed specifically to counter Drule weapons, Earthling refractive* armor was the original basis of Alliance damage-prevention technology. This armor used aluminum oxynitride and graphene in a specialized microlattice to scatter incoming laser fire, and a layer of reinforced photovoltaic panels underneath to absorb the scattered light into a battery for the armored vessel's use. It was vulnerable to ballistic weapons, which could disrupt the microlattice on impact, but with the Drules favoring powerful laser weaponry this drawback was seen as acceptable.

After the GA's formation, the Kolaliri integrated echo restructuring—a precursor technique to crysforging—into this armor, allowing it to 'remember' its original form. A simple energy pulse triggered by the ship's engineers could then restore any damaged microlattice to a pristine state. Later still, the Daesulos would integrate their own intelligent-reflex technology, eliminating the need for engineers to manually trigger such repairs; the armor could do so itself, drawing on the energy it had absorbed from enemy fire.

In this self-repairing form, refractive armor became nearly immune to attrition damage; only attacks which outright ripped bits of armor away would have lasting effect. It was considered the Alliance's single greatest asset in battle against Drule ships, and over time has forced the Fourth Kingdom to completely redirect several weapons programs to counter it.

Due to the effectiveness of refractive armor, shield technology was something of a niche. Several forms of shielding technology did exist, but few were particularly useful: Glis projected force barriers were unwieldy, and the knowledge of how to produce them was long since lost. Biboh pulse shields were designed for space dust and radiation, not combat. Earthling energy shields had limited absorption capacity and interfered with their own ships' weapons. The military had little interest in improving on any of these technologies, and most languished.

Despite High Command's indifference, the civilian sector still displayed some interest in shield development. Refractive armor was strictly military technology, and even primitive shields had been the difference between life and death for many cargo vessels during the original Drule invasion of human space. With the next invasion seeming inevitable, shields were in demand on civilian vessels, but without military funding the technology saw only creeping incremental improvement.

This started to change when the Kazthol joined the Alliance in 2221. Their homeworld of Skotathyr lay on the edges of an asteroid belt, and was regularly bombarded with meteors. To deal with this, the Kazthol had developed artificial atmospheric domes: layers of ionized gasses which could be deployed over population centers to burn up anything that made it through the planet's natural atmosphere. The Kazthol were happy to offer this technology to anyone who asked, and within two years nearly every major shield manufacturer had Kazthol engineers among their ranks.

Li-kari Shielding Systems produced the first working model of a shield based on this technology: the Li-kari Exo. The Exo system worked extremely well against physical objects, but was less effective than hoped against energy weapons, which tended to cause system overloads after only a few shots. It was, however, an enormous improvement over any previous system. Similar shields were soon being produced by several other companies, and the Alliance as a whole saw a modest uptick in economic activity from increased merchant confidence.

Noticing this, the Alliance Council voted to distribute some research grants to encourage further shield development. Though it was a small amount compared to what the military could have provided, it was enough to spark a new wave of innovation.

The defining breakthrough in Alliance shield technology came in 2234, when continuing efforts by researchers at Servallis Security Development partially unraveled the ancient Glis shield projectors. Integrating Glis directional force matrix technology with the Kazthol artificial atmospheric generators, Servallis shocked its competitors with the release of the Atmo-Matrix A in early 2235.

By using an outward ionic flow derived from the Glis projectors, the Atmo-Matrix shield system achieved nearly double the effectiveness against physical projectiles via a principle they called plasmatic friction. But most importantly, the system was highly effective against energy weapons, concentrating the Kazthol atmospheric shield into a permeable semisolid able to 'catch' all incoming energy. The shield's ionic flow structure would then rapidly disperse the captured energy throughout the shield, giving it far more absorption capacity before being overloaded.

The Atmo-Matrix revolutionized the shield industry almost overnight. Other companies began producing similar models remarkably quickly; it would later come out that Servallis had secretly licensed the underlying technology. Though they wanted to recoup their development costs, they believed it was inevitable that the military would need the system in time, and knew they wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand alone. By the time the licensing agreements expired, most manufacturers had begun to make their own improvements to the base design. Spacecraft shielding had become a robust industry despite being shunned by its most obvious clientele.

Servallis' prediction on that matter proved correct, though it took the better part of a century. In 2318, the Alliance's first contact with the Galra revealed the limits of their refractive armor in brutal fashion. Galra weaponry included solid-state cutting plasma and massive-bore ion acceleration cannons, both of which could tear through the Alliance's prized armor as though it were foil.

High Command, stunned and slightly panicked, immediately looked to issue contracts for military-grade shield development. A rather amused shield industry, with Servallis in the lead, offered the products they'd already been making for decades. On modern warships, refractive armor and powerful shield systems are paired to offer the most efficient and versatile protective suite possible.

*In scientific terms, "refractive armor" does not utilize refraction at all, but rather dispersion. The formal name of this armor is "Laser-Dispersive Photonic Capture and Reversal System," which was never commonly used for obvious reasons.

Function

Formally known as Atmospheric Matrix Absorption Shielding, or AMAS, the Alliance's shield equipment generates a powerful energy-plasma barrier at a distance of anywhere from five to thirty feet from the equipping vessel's hull. This barrier serves two purposes. First and foremost, it absorbs energy. Secondly, it prevents certain physical objects from crossing, though this is situational.

AMAS shielding consists of three layers: the contour, the mesoplasma, and the barrier. The barrier is what is popularly recognized as 'the shield': a layer of fully ionized outward-flowing plasma, stabilized and cycled in an electromagnetic matrix. The contour is a layer of charged particles that clings directly to the hull of the shielded vessel. The mesoplasma is the space between these two layers, which is saturated by ions that have not yet become part of the barrier.

The barrier absorbs any energy or plasma which strikes it, preventing it from reaching the hull. This generates what is called feedback power. Feedback power is integrated into the barrier, but the carrying capacity of the shield matrix is limited. If overloaded, the shield will violently rupture, possibly damaging the equipping ship and certainly damaging anything nearby. A ruptured shield may also send some of its energy back through ion channels in the mesoplasma and contour, damaging or destroying the generator.

All AMAS shields are designed to reach a state of real energy subtraction; that is, after taking into account the ambient radiation encountered in normal travel, the shields still operate at a net loss. This allows feedback power to dissipate over time, but a shield taking fire from combat weapons will quickly outpace this energy bleed. If a shield is close to overload, it will attempt to perform an emergency shutdown: this process involves sending a countercharge over the hull, 'ejecting' the contour in order to safely disperse the barrier. Though it removes any risk of shield rupture, the shutdown leaves the hull unable to accept a new contour for several minutes, effectively forcing the ship to go without shields. Emergency shutdowns can be overridden, though this is generally discouraged.

In addition to absorbing energy, AMAS shields will burn up many physical objects which strike the barrier. Space dust and small debris, as well as small-caliber bullets, can be fully neutralized with negligible impact on the shield's strength. Larger bullets or debris impart noticeable heat energy into the shield matrix, though significantly less than an equivalent energy weapon would.

Large objects can pass through shields more or less unhindered. Large space rocks and capital-caliber bullets cannot be burnt away quickly enough, though their impacts will be reduced. Conversely, missiles are specifically designed to pass unharmed through the barrier. Unshielded spacecraft can also pass through another ship's shields with minimal effect, protected by their hull heatproofing, though with enough exposure the barrier will start to eat away at that protection. If two AMAS shields make contact, each barrier will attempt to absorb the other. Functionally this causes the energy between the two shields to equalize and, if one system has lower capacity than the other, may lead to the weaker system rupturing.

The shield's distance from the hull impacts its efficiency in indirect ways. A further distant shield is larger, requiring more power to maintain, but is also able to hold more feedback power within its own matrix. The further a shield extends, the greater its effectiveness against energy weapons. Conversely, closer shields are more effective against physical projectiles, as the mesoplasma is denser and thus can contribute more to burning up the invasive object.

Shields are nearly invisible under normal circumstances. When absorbing laser or plasma weaponry, their color will often spread over the barrier for a second or two as the energy is distributed. Contact with physical objects causes a bright flare, usually blue.

AMAS equipment comes in two forms: single generators or multi-nodal systems. Both produce the same type of shield via similar mechanisms. The main difference is in how the shield achieves its hull coverage.

Single generators are installed at a location close to the ship's exterior, usually near the front. They function by first creating the shield contour, distributing a layer of 'tracer particles' over the hull of the ship. The interaction of these particles with the hull creates an electromagnetic field that follows the shape of the vessel. Rapid plasmatic pulses are then sent through the contour. This plasma radiates outward, attracted by the electromagnetic field, creating the mesoplasma; the barrier is formed at the field's boundary.

Multi-nodal systems, found most often on capital ships, carry two types of generating equipment. The first type is one or more generators inside of the ship, which produce the contour in a similar manner to single generators. The second type is shield nodes—anywhere from dozens to hundreds—mounted on or in the hull. Shield nodes are the source of the system's plasmatic pulses.

Shield nodes can also allow for extra feedback dissipation. If enough concentrated fire lands near a node, that node can draw in some of the feedback and shut down to cycle, neutralizing it. Any given single node in such a system is redundant; the other nodes are structured to compensate. Multiple nodes shutting down at the same time, especially in the same area of the hull, will quickly start to degrade the shield's strength more than the feedback itself. Most models are thus designed with strict limitations on such node cycling. When used properly, however, this capability offers noticeable improvement over the shield's baseline performance.

Though they are generally more robust than single generators, multi-nodal systems require significantly longer to initially deploy; the nodes themselves require a brief 'gathering' phase, and the barrier takes longer to achieve cohesiveness since it is projected unevenly. Older models could take thirty seconds or more to reach full coverage. Modern systems have cut this time down substantially, but it remains a consideration.

Some ships possess harmonics chambers: specialized internal chambers used to dissipate feedback faster, thus effectively increasing the shield's strength. Though these are often thought of as being part of the shield system, they are actually innate to the ship's structure. A ship with a harmonics chamber can install nearly any shield model it likes, and the chamber will function appropriately.

Most harmonics chambers are large rooms filled with conductive radiator structures, usually made of echo-restructuring silver, connected to a central resonant purifier module. Feedback power is drawn into the chamber by the purifier in a purposely nonlinear fashion. This causes extreme harmonic conditions within the radiators, resulting in significant energy loss and dispersal as heat within the chamber. This heat is in turn nullified by a coolant system. The remaining power enters the purifier, which conditions any remaining harmonic waveforms and uses the resulting electricity to power itself and the chamber's coolant pumps.

A harmonics chamber's effectiveness depends on the surface area of the radiators within it. The more surface area, the more feedback power can be safely drawn from the shield without overloading the purifier. The system's use of harmonics as a source of electrothermal conversion is made possible by echo restructuring technology: the very frequencies that would typically cause excessive wear on the radiators can be used to restore their undamaged state. However, the purifier module is subject to wear and must be inspected regularly.

A multi-nodal shield system attached to at least one harmonics chamber is informally classified as a "capital-class" shielding system. Though smaller ships (most famously, Cerox-Masterson's Vagrant and Vanguard spaceplanes) can carry such configurations, they are rarely either space- or cost-effective.

Much of the later-generation research and development on AMAS systems, especially in the military era, has focused on their high susceptibility to electromagnetic disruption. The most common method of countering this is known as a twin-layer system: two separate layers of tracer particles with different properties create two electromagnetic fields, with the inner field forming the shield while the outer field neutralizes any incoming charge. Twin-layer systems have existed since shields were a purely civilian industry, but military research has made them vastly more effective.

Shields can also be disrupted by major gravitational fluctuations at close range. This is a less relevant vulnerability, primarily impacting ships carrying graviton-based interdiction field generators. Historically, this weakness has also prohibited certain options for shipboard artificial gravity.

Due to the outward-flowing structure of the shield matrix, a shielded ship's own weaponry can pass through the barrier with minimal disruption; the 'catch' effect only goes one way. Pure energy weapons may still lose a bit of power while crossing. Weapon designers are well aware of this, and most Alliance-manufactured energy weapons feature both 'shields up' and 'shields down' power settings. Electromagnetic disruptor cannons have a unique effect: since any protections against electromagnetic interference are similarly geared towards external threats, a disruptor cannon firing from inside the shield will part the barrier at its point of exit for a fraction of a second. Unless perfectly anticipated and timed by an enemy, this is nearly impossible to exploit and is thus considered an acceptable risk.

Most Alliance ships larger than fighters carry a shield system, though their deployment differs. Civilian vessels typically keep their shields up at all times. Military vessels often drop their shields when fighting Drules, in order to take full advantage of the benefits offered by their refractive armor. Shields are always deployed in hyperspace, where like most things they function a bit differently, protecting the ship from the most violent planar fluctuations. Upon breaching out, the shields must reset and redeploy, due to the fragments of ninth-dimensional matter that may contaminate the shield matrix.
Though permeable and highly fluid, pilots are reminded that the barrier is a physical object with mass which is tethered in a fashion to the ship, and must be taken into account when attempting to perform especially tight maneuvers.