Jem'Hadar Fighters and Shields

[359]

The Jem'Hadar: a probable source of DS9's annoying habit of not displaying shield effects when there should have been, save a couple instances. We have seen the Jem'Hadar defy shields in many ways, their beam weapons originally passed straight through them, they beamed thought them, and in at least one instance a Jem'Hadar stepped right through a containment field akin to what a Borg would do. And, as I stated in a different thread, one of their ships appeared to pass straight through active shields as well.

In DS9:"The Jem'Hadar", three fighters approach the Odyssey on their first attack run. One banks off to the right and attacks the port nacelle, another is not visible, and the last moves in an arc directly under the saucer-section. This fighter would need to pass through the Odyssey's shields in order to take this course.

DS9:"The Jem'Hadar":
Kira: Here they come.

[the Jem'Hadar's first attack on the Odyssey. This is the time period I am talking about.]

Officer: I'm getting casualty reports from decks four, five, eight and seventeen. We also have a plasma leak in our port nacelle.
Keogh: Deploy damage control teams.
Officer: Aye, sir.
Keogh: Keogh to runabouts.
Kira: Go ahead.
Keogh: They're using some kind of phased polaron beam to penetrate our shields.

Dax: Have you tried altering your harmonics to compensate?

[Keogh now orders power diverted.]
Keogh: We've run through the full spectrum, but none of the frequencies were effective. Divert shield power to weapons. We'll give O'Brien five more minutes.

Using a 3d modeling program I recreated one frame of this event. I scaled the models to each other (109m and 642m) and then positioned them into their spots in the single frame as precisely as I could, thanks to a clip of the event provided by 2046 I was better able to pinpoint the location of the Jem'Hadar fighter.

Having the sizes constant allows for positioning of models in a 3d environment based on their size, location, and rotation. The size would normally be effected by both their scale and distance from camera, but because the scale is a constant, only the distance from camera remains. Coupled with a position in the frame, a 2d projection, this provides a coordinate in 3d space.

After positioning the models I created a sphere and deformed it into an ellipsoid around the Odyssey to estimate its shield perimeter, the Jem'Hadar fighter fell within this ellipsoid. Some images of Galaxy class shields are much larger, some appear smaller. Often because positioning of the camera and/or only a section of the shields are visible where as in the model, the thickest points of the shields are shown as well. Either way, the shields would need to be shrunk to a point of only covering about 20% of the ship in order for the fighter to not be within their perimeter.

I have attached two renderings from different angles, one from the camera's and one head on.

[Mike DiCenso]

Great work, 359, thanks for taking the time to work this all out. I guess unless someone has something they want to add, the issue is largely settled here.
-Mike