Talk:Shield

What canon evidence do we have that the GTD Amadeus was taken out with a single wing of bombers? --Mars 02:22, 5 August 2006 (BST)

Debatable statements?

Which statements in particular made you stick a non-canon tag on this page, The E? I find the mention of "sheath shielding" and Mars's point above as debatable. The rest of the article are fine. - TopAce 09:55, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• The current revision is fine without it. What was missing was the bit about there being no canon info on whether or not beams could pierce the Lucy's shields. That said, this article really rubs me the wrong way, as it doesn't show the sources for the various statements, making it hard to find out which statement is definitely canon, and which are only conjecture.The E 13:03, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
  • We've never had an operable citation system, unlike Wikipedia. We don't have as many canon sources as would require it to be implemented. - TopAce 14:17, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Lucifer shields, beam cannons and beam canon

The reason why there is no canon info on whether or not beams would be able to penetrate the Lucifer's shields is that there is no canon engagement between the Lucifer and another beam-equipped vessel. As such, any speculation on this topic is noncanon, with no particular canon information to support either side of the debate. The E 11:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

There's plenty of canonical information that supports the notion that beam cannons can penetrate Lucifer-style shielding. Firstly, shields are not used whatsoever in any Sathanas juggernauts encountered, despite being a heavier, more powerful class of ship. This would indicate that Lucifer-style shielding is not practical past a certain point, and if the Lucifer lacked its shielding, it would be rather easy to take down for a superdestroyer. Secondly, the canon explicitly states that the Colossus was designed to counter any future Shivan threat, and then says that the Colossus "can fit twelve Lucifer superdestroyers within her massive hull"--thus, the implication is quite clear, even if it is not explicit, that the Colossus was designed and built as a be-all-end-all counter to one (or several) Lucifer-class destroyers. Thirdly, beam cannons and beam turrets of all kinds penetrate straight through even the heaviest of shields mounted on bombers and fighters, suggesting that the beams penetrate right through shields by nature of their design and qualities, rather than the amount of power and force involved. Even the weakest AA beam goes straight through shields, despite doing only marginally more damage than non-beam weapons of the FS1 era. Lastly, there is no way the GTVA would invest 20 years and huge amounts of resources into building a super-ship that could not fight a Lucifer-type threat that was the lynchpin of the entire First Shivan Incursion. Given how the Lucifer was the key to that whole war (its presence and efforts were more of a threat than the entire rest of the Shivan force combined, and once destroyed, the rest of the Shivan forces were cleaned up with relative ease), it makes no sense whatsoever for that kind of huge investment to be made on something that could not do the most important part of its explicit design goal. If the Colossus couldn't fight a Lucifer, then the GTVA--unless all ruled by utter morons--would have invested those resources and efforts into something that COULD, instead. - SaltyWaffles

All of this, however, is beside the point. In FreeSpace Canon, Gameplay > Tech Room. There are no further levels, any speculation based on this is pure fanon. Which means that, since there's no CANON battle between a shielded Lucifer and a beam-equipped vessel, we just do not know whether beam weapons are able to penetrate capital-grade shields. Hell, if we take the Lucifer exactly as it appeared in FS1 and pit it against any vessel, its shields would prove to be impenetrable (since the Lucy is actually invulnerable through most of FS1). As such, I stand by my assertion that the available evidence provides no firm clues, since the only evidence in favour of this theory are the (in-game) theories developed by the GTVA, which were neither confirmed nor falsified during FS2. The E 11:42, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

But going by your Gameplay > Tech Room dynamic, my point should still be valid, unless I misunderstand. As there is no direct gameplay evidence that goes against my theory, and there is plenty of evidence that supports my theory in both cutscenes and Tech Room entries, can't I safely say that there is a heavy implication that capital-level beam cannons can penetrate the Lucifer's shields? Furthermore, there actually is a degree of gameplay evidence supporting my assertion--beam weapons of all kinds, from the mighty BFred to the weak-but-surgical AAAf, completely penetrate the shields on any craft that encounter them, with absolutely no difference being made because of the shield strength. IIRC, Tech Room entries describe these AA beams as being capable of piercing right through shields by their nature, not because of their power (which makes sense, as Fusion Mortar shots do not penetrate shields, but the Fusion Mortar out-damages the SGreen and completely out-damages all AA beams). There is more gameplay evidence--during FS1, you conduct thorough scans of the Lucifer, including most of its subsystems; why would the Colossus be built with the explicit purpose of effectively countering a future Shivan invasion, especially with the clear implications that it could definitely best a Lucifer (explicitly described/boasted as being 12 times the size of the Lucifer) if it couldn't even take on a single Lucifer-class ship (which was the lynchpin of the entire First Shivan Incursion--it was unstoppable and glassed Vasuda Prime, but once it was destroyed by a dozen strike craft in subspace, the Shivan incursion went from 'apocalyptic threat' to 'clean up operation')? Wouldn't it be more cost-effective and morale-improving to have six new destroyers instead, if the only effective way to hurt a Lucifer was by attacking it in subspace with a decent strike force? As for FS1's FRED quirks, the Lucifer never actually had a shield of any kind, it just had the invulnerable flag on--likely done to save time and reduce performance costs for rendering a massive shield; by FS1's standards, the Lucy's beam cannons were actually heavily modified blob turrets made to look like continuous beams, and they had practically infinite range (because their usage was almost entirely scripted, IIRC). Look, I'm not saying my assertion is proven or even fully accurate, but I think I presented enough of a case (hopefully) for the wiki entry to be changed from "There is no canonical evidence to suggest that any GTVA weapon could penetrate or effectively deplete the Lucifer's shield system" to something along the lines of "though there is no direct evidence on the matter, enough indirect evidence from gameplay, cutscenes, and Tech Room database entries exists to suggest that the GTVA's heavy beam cannons were at least somewhat effective against Lucifer-style shielding." I could be wrong, I know, but what I'm trying to do is get the article's statement on the matter changed from "there is no evidence at all to even suggest X" to "there is no direct evidence, but there is enough indirect evidence to suggest/imply X". I'm not trying to suggest that my theory/assertion is correct, only that we know more than "nothing" on the matter. Sorry for dragging this on--if this last entry doesn't change your thoughts on the subject, I'll drop it completely. And thanks for taking the time to discuss this and make some good points--I appreciate it. SaltyWaffles 19:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)