Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To make a company specific version of Force-Dome that can be applied to starships
- Image Source: David Passmore's "Dome Shield"
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: Force-Dome
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Labs customers
- Model: Starlight Scutum-series Shield System
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Modularity: Can be scaled up and down in terms of shielding power and coverage (smaller systems may protect starfighters and large ground vehicles, while largest version can protect massive groundside installations and starships
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Calor-series BioComputers, Biolux-series Organoform circuitry, Force-Dome Components, Synthetic Crystals, Grab-safety technology, Trimantium casing, various electronics
- Force-Dome Based Technology: Starlight Scutum uses Force-Dome technology, traditionally used on ground installations, and applies it to starships too. This technology provides Starlight Scutum-equipped ships with some unusual features. As it uses Force-Dome technology, Starlight Scutum provides protection against energy, kinetic, radiation, environmental, and ion damage. It also produces its shield in the form of a sphere where the diameter is determined by the longest dimension of the shielded object – this often means that there are large open spaces within the shield itself. For practical purposes, this means that a Starlight Scutum capital ship can shield smaller ships within its shield diameter, or a building could shield vehicles and infantry in its immediate vicinity. It also means that grounside facilities do have shielding from underground threats – though this can provide some complications as well. As Force-Dome technology works on different principles than conventional ray and particle shielding, it has some defense in principle against many weapons designed to be effective against conventional shielding. In almost other aspects, it operates like a shutter shield.
- Variable Output: Starlight Scutum can be fed different amounts of power, giving it different levels of strength even while maintaining the same shield radius. It can also expand its shielding radius up to twice the size of the using object’s greatest dimension, albeit this also makes the shielding less dense and thus weaker. Conversely, the shield can be shrunk down to a smaller size but with greater shield density (and thus greater resistance).
- Automatic Shield Management: Starlight Scutum uses the same automatic shield management systems found on the company’s Aspis-class Shield System. Calor-series Bio-Computers use sensor information to reinforce certain areas of shielding expected to fall under heavy strain and reroute power from areas of the shield under less strain. The quick reaction time of machines means that it is less likely to suffer issues from surprise attacks and sudden shifts of fire, but also means that it may be tricked by electronic warfare or particularly cunning tactics. An organic or group of organics typically supervise the automated management program to ensure that the system isn’t compromised for long periods of times by these tactics, or to take over if electronic warfare renders this automated management process useless.
- Environmental Calibration: Like other Force-Dome technologies, Starlight Scutum be can shield objects and areas from hostile environments, such as extreme cold and heat, radiation, hostile atmospheres, and even prevent the penetration of liquids . For starships, this means it can be used in a manner similar to the shields of the Deepwater-class Light Freighter – allowing starships and other vehicles to travel underwater with a few minutes of calibration. While used in these environmental protection modes, the shielding suffers deficits in protecting against kinetic and energy weapons attacks whose effect is commensurate with how much of the shield has been calibrated (and thus how much energy) is being used to protect against the environment.
- Grab-safety technology: Starlight Scutum incorporates grab-safety technology, which helps to counteract the effects of dovin basals and other similar devices from quickly stripping away the shields from a target.
- Radiation Overshield: Thanks to a software patch released in 864 ABY following the invasion of Sarka where radesh oil coated battlecruisers penetrated through a Salyrini's shield entirely undamaged, Starlight Scutums now produce a radiation overshield in front of their primary shielding barrier. This radiation field is designed to interact primarily with organic matter and technology, especially that used by the Bryn'adul. This biohazardous radiation can physically disintegrate and degrade substances such as radesh oil to make such penetrations significantly more hazardous and unlikely in the future. Additionally, this radiation shield interrupts the ability of Debauchers and similar technologies to sap energy away from the shield itself by causing energy currently getting drained from the shields to instead interact with the radiation overshield, diverting it to create a cascading chain of micronuclear reactions which instead enhances the strength of the radiation shield. This results in less energy from the Starlight Scutum to be available to feed the Debaucher and other similar technologies/creatures.
- Comprehensive Protection: Force-Dome technology inherently provides at least some protection against most threats.
- Kinetic Fortitude: Starlight Scutum is particularly effective and energy efficient against kinetic threats. Whereas some particle shields simply strengthen existing materials to bear the brunt of an attack, Starlight Scutum rapidly discharges large amounts of energy to destroy or damage objects that come into contact with it, effectively trying to disintegrate them.
- Area of Protection: Starlight Scutum can provide protection not only to the using ship or installation, but also can harbor smaller units within its shield sphere.
- Defense in Principle: Starlight Scutum uses different shielding technology than most commonly encountered deflector shields (including particle and ray shielding) which makes it resistant (but not immune) to anti-shield weapons such as solar ionization cannons or shield disruptors designed to defeat those more conventional types of shielding
- Crystal-Based: Starlight Scutum uses synthetic crystals as part of its shield generating process. Crystals eventually need to be replaced, which can make Starlight Scutum have a potentially higher cost to maintain than other shielding systems. Perhaps more importantly, it is not uncommon for a synthetic crystal to be slightly imperfect in form. Most Starlight Scutum systems have at least one crystal which is imperfect in some way, leading to reduced performance in one section of the shield.
- Large Shield Windows: Starlight Scutum is an all-in-one shield, which means that if one area of the shield is down for whatever reason, it is susceptible to all damage types (unlike conventional deflector shields which are often two separate systems: ray shielding and particle shielding). This is especially problematic when the utilizing ship or installation is seeking to open a shield window to launch or recover objects or vehicles. Anything can come through this window and hit an unshielded target (In comparison, a ship using conventional deflector shields would still have full ray shielding coverage even when launching or recovering starfighters).
- Well...this is Awkward: Projecting a bubble-shaped shield around a ship means that it cannot be used in tight formations, as the shield could damage or destroy any object that comes into contact with it. A ship using this shielding also cannot engage in the landing process with this shield activated, as it would then damage or destroy the landing surface. As it uses different technology than conventional deflector shields, it can also cannot combine or overlap shielding with another ship’s shields (unlike ships equipped with conventional deflector shield technology), even if they are both using Starlight Scutum shielding technology.
- Vulnerable to ion weapons: Starlight Scutum’s strength depletes faster against traditional ion weapons than against other weapons, and it appears to be more vulnerable to them than many conventional shields.
Always looking for the next advantage in starship design, Lucerne Labs engineers were reviewing a catalogue of shielding technologies and came across the little-used Force Dome. While the technology has some limitations compared to conventional deflector shield technologies especially in combat settings especially against traditional weapons, the current trend of using more exotic anti-shield weapons made investment and research into the technology intriguing to these scientists. With approval from the Circle to continue this research with the stipulation that the resulting product also be able to be applied to space-going vessels, the designers turned their sights into modernizing the technology and optimizing it for production by Lucerne Labs. While a good portion of this work based in recreating the basic Force-Dome shield technology, research also went into adapting existing proprietary technology such as Calor-series Bio-Computers, Biolux-series Organoform Circuitry, and automated shield management technology pioneered on the Aspis Shield System. Further materials experiments were required to find suitable crystals for the device, with the end result of using large, synthetic crystals not unsimiliar to those used in some lightsabers being selected – this eliminated a possible problem in sourcing supplies if a certain location became denied to the company’s use. It also facilitated the possibility of replacement crystals being fashioned by molecular furnaces and manufacturing technologies in deep space by utilizing vessels themselves.
The resulting product has produced a shield that is very dissimilar to most other shields on the market.
While many other starship shields hug relatively close to the hull, the Starlight Scutum can only project its shield as an encompassing sphere. Whereas most other shield systems do not do this because it drains more power, Starlight Scutum projects this sphere relatively efficiently. But projecting a sphere brings its own shares of advantages and disadvantages: While it may allow it to harbor smaller friendly ships and vehicles within it, the using ship also has some noticeable and severe limitations when interacting with other vessels, such as difficulties in flying in tight formations or even in the simple act of landing. The main counteracting attraction to these problems was the nature of the shield itself, whose more exotic technology provides a more comprehensive protection against different environments and types of weaponry, especially against kinetic weapons and exotic anti-shield weapons. However, it was also found to be somewhat more vulnerable to being drained quicker by ion weapons. Starlight Scutum also has some potential disadvantages because its all-in-one shield design means that any lowering of a shield section allows any type of weapons fire to bypass the shield entirely. On the flipside, the environmental protection afforded by the shield also allows vessels to penetrate and work in unusual environments, such as underwater.
The peculiar properties of Starlight Scutum means that it is unlikely to ever be the main shield system of a combat vessel. It’s large shield windows and difficulty in interacting with other formations or terrain objects make it almost as much of a liability as a help. It does have some potential as a situational auxiliary system for some warships, especially Directorate warships engaged in scouting and exploring the Unknown Regions for their opponents. Conversely, it is a reasonably attractive system for civilian ships which aren't expected to regularly engage in combat, where its awkward properties rarely come into play and where its ability to control the environment around the ship can open up some lucrative trading opportunities, such as trading on water worlds. It is also a reasonably attractive option for ground installations for the same reasons that made the original Force-Dome attractive. Lucerne Labs expects to maintain a small but continuous production of this shield system for some time.
Update 864 ABY: After the Invasion of Sarka, Lucerne Labs spent some time making their shielding technologies significantly more resistant to the unusual technologies used by the Bryn'adul which ignored shielding, especially the Debaucher and the use of Radesh Oil. Rather than retrofit existing hardware with new components, Lucerne Labs instead opted to use a software patch to reroute ambient radiation naturally produced by shielding to form a protective radioactive over-shield over the primary shield. The radiation will largely disintegrate or rapidly degrade radesh oil before it makes contact with the primary shield, making shield penetration by this method alone unlikely or highly hazardous to its user - especially as the Starlight Scutum attempts to disintegrate that which makes contact with its shield faces. Similarly, this radiation overshield also interferes the ability of the Debaucher to sap the Starlight Scutum's shield. This radiation is tuned to be highly dangerous to organic beings including the Debaucher, but perhaps more importantly, it hampers the ability of the Debaucher to effectively drain energy by interfering with its ability to take up energy from the primary shield. As energy is drawn from the primary shield, the radiation overshield reacts with the energy to produce nuclear chain reactions. These reactions produce little latent heat and are not in and of themselves terribly dangerous to either conventional tech or most organics, but they do bind up energy, making it significantly harder for Debauchers and similar bio-tech to penetrate through shielding. While previous Starlight Scutum shields were penetrated in a few seconds previously by Debauchers, it will now take a matter of minutes for Starlight Scutum Shields to be penetrated successfully by Debauchers and similar technologies, with the exact number dependent on the relative energy available to the shield itself as well as the number of attacks the shielding device is attempting to thwart/absorb.
Updates 4/5/2021:
-Added "Radiation Overshield" section to "Special Features"
-Added "Update 854 ABY" section in description
Last edited:
