Force field A force field is an energy barrier with many applications and varying degrees of strength . Composition and use . Although force fields had been in use for many years , Starfleet did not begin research on such a device until around 2147 , then referred to by Malcolm Reed as a " stable EM barrier . " By about 2152 , Starfleet hadn ' t found a method of controlling the particle density of the field . Reed nonetheless made use of such a barrier to save several crew members , including Jonathan Archer . ( ) By the 24th century , Federation Starfleet force fields were commonplace and were rated by intensity , ranging in strength from levels 1 through 10 . A level 10 force field was the strongest and was used , for example , during a scientific experiment of which the outcome was unknown , or known to be explosive in nature . Applications ranged from creating hologram s to sealing a hull breach to personal force fields designed to keep potential assailants at bay . ( ; ; ; ; ) The effects of a force field on its surroundings varied greatly . Contact with a force field could cause anything from a slight tingle to death . Most force fields were non - lethal , although some civilizations such as the Dominion preferred the lethal variety . If a force field was active , an object or transporter beam generally could not pass through it , although this was not always the case . The Borg were known to not be hindered by most force fields ; they could adapt and simply walk through the field . This was effected by having the cranial implant activate particular nanoprobe s to adjust the drone ' s bioelectric field . However , a Borg drone could be cut off from the Collective if it was surrounded by a Starfleet level 10 force field . ( ; ; ) Force fields could be activated from various locations . On Starfleet starship s there were emitter points at almost every junction along every corridor . The computer could be programmed to run a series of force field activations and deactivations within the ship , effectively creating a protected corridor which could follow a person . Commander Data used this technique with great control when he commandeered the on stardate 44085 . 7 . He also demonstrated another technique involving instructing the computer to implement a scan series of force field activations , initiated by his movements along a short distance of corridor , thus forcing the security team to back away from him . ( ) If part of a humanoid body was caught in a force field while it was activated , the person could suffer second - degree burns on the affected area . ( ) Tolian Soran ' s force field on Veridian III generated an output of fifty gigawatt s . ( ) When various security measures left over from the Cardassian occupation came on - line on Deep Space 9 , Elim Garak was recognized as a person of sufficient importance by the computer to have the force fields dividing the station drop when he approached . ( ) If necessary , a transporter platform could be completely enclosed within a force field , to , for example , contain an alien subject or prisoner during transport . ( ; ) Force fields were also capable of selective positioning , allowing the majority of it to cover a secure location , while a smaller portion was deactivated to allow transport of food , drinks , and other items . This method was used when it would be considered dangerous to deactivate the entire force field . ( ) Types of force fields . Cadderon force field . In 2369 , Major Kira Nerys created cadderon force fields to arrest the Klaestron s who kidnapped Jadzia Dax and secured the airlock to their starship . Ilon Tandro was able to override the system and deactivate the cadderon force field . ( ) Containment field . A containment field was essentially a force field used to prevent the escape of matter or antimatter . Containment fields were usually raised when cargo bay or shuttlebay doors were opened to keep them pressurized , although the containment field was partially disengaged when a shuttlecraft passed through it . Unfortunately , eighteen engineer s from the crew of the were killed when the containment fields in a shuttlebay failed after the ship was infected with an Iconian software transmission . ( ) A containment field could be manually activated and deactivated should the need arise . ( ) Containment fields would be used by Starfleet personnel to isolate an area for investigation , such as using a field to isolate a transporter room pad to beam aboard a sample of an object . ( ) Containment fields could also be used to reinforce antimatter containment , although they could not prevent an impending warp core breach . Lieutenant Commander Data raised a level 3 containment field around the warp core of the " Enterprise " - D in 2369 when the ship was facing destruction by a core breach . ( ) By 2379 , it was a standard procedure on the for the warp core to be reinforced by a high - level force field before engaging in battle . ( ) " In an alternate timeline Miles O ' Brien tried to create a sort of a containment field in sickbay to retain Benjamin Sisko on the station . He was unable to and Sisko went into the temporal displacement again . " ( ) Structural integrity and emergency force fields . The structural integrity of a starbase , starship , or shuttlecraft could be enhanced by force fields . This way the hull could absorb more mechanical stress . In the event of an outer hull breach , emergency force fields were automatically deployed to protect the damaged part from the influences of space ; at the same time they prevented decompression of the entire deck by keeping the atmosphere in . During critical situations , such as ship - to - ship battles , if the main defensive force field was ruptured and a section of the ship was destroyed , it took longer for the computer to re - establish the structural integrity field than usual because of the large energy demands already placed on the vessel . In this short space of time , sections of a vessel could indeed be exposed to the vacuum of space . Captain Kirk was lost to the vacuum of space in this way , in 2293 , when the was struck by the Nexus energy ribbon . ( ) A lieutenant aboard the " Enterprise " - E was blown out into space in 2379 before an emergency force field could be activated when the bridge front wall and viewscreen were destroyed by the Reman warbird " Scimitar " . ( ) A similar incident happened during the " Year of Hell " when an alien ship was disabled by the Krenim timeship ' s conventional weapons , and collided with the almost - already - crippled USS " Voyager " s bridge front / viewscreen and portions of her decks . Fortunately , Captain Janeway was not blown out into space , due to the quick activation of the emergency atmospheric force fields . ( ) A plasma leak caused by an explosion on the was covered by a level 8 force field , which Jadzia Dax then walked across in order to tend to Dr . Lenara Kahn . ( ) On stardate 49263 . 5 , the , under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko , descended into the atmosphere of a Class - J gas giant with 10 , 000 kilometer per hour wind speeds . The emergency force field that was erected to save the ship from decompression due to a hull breach was not able to withstand the pressure for more than a few minutes . ( ) Defensive shielding . Starbases , starships , shuttlecraft , and even advanced weaponry were often equipped with external force field emitters , which , when activated , produced a " bubble " around the generating object , known as defensive shields . ( ) These shields were variable , and could even be extended to encompass a nearby vessel or object . ( ) Defensive force fields could be penetrated in two ways . The most conventional method involved firing energy weapons at the shielded object , which weakened the field . The other method was achieved by matching the frequency of the shield to the weapon used . ( ; ) Chroniton torpedo es could not be stopped by normal shielding but required modifications to enable temporal shield ing . ( ) Other applications . Federation applications . On holodeck s , force fields were used to give objects substance so people could manipulate them like in real life . These force fields had no substance outside the holodeck . They could be configured to either allow passage of " real " matter , or appear solid . In sickbay , a force field could be used to separate a patient from the rest of the crew when a contagious disease was diagnosed or when a patient needed a specific environment to stay alive . ( ; ) The Emergency Medical Hologram and other variants ( Emergency Command Hologram and the slave Mark I ) used force fields to mimic solidity and to allow the manipulation of tools , manual computer access , and for social interaction . Force fields were used to contain prisoners inside the holding cells of various races , including Human s , Klingon s , and Cardassians . Cardassian technology was able to create a tubular force field from the ceiling to the floor in order to encompass an intruder ; however , during first contact with the Dominion , Jem ' Hadar such as Talak ' talan could walk right through them . The Federation had adapted similar technology by 2366 , and it was in use on the bridge of the " Enterprise " - D as well . ( ; ) Most Federation penal colonies had force fields to prevent escape . Examples included the Tantalus Colony ( where it was known as a security screen ) and the Elba II asylum . ( ) During emergencies in a Starfleet holodeck , a holographic force field could be created during a simulation . ( ) Captain Kirk attempted to use a force field to confine Charles Evans to quarters , in 2266 . Once the force field was rigged to the room ' s door and Evans entered his quarters , the force field was activated by Spock . When Evans then walked to the door , he was thrown backwards , onto the deck , by the force field . However , it was subsequently made to vanish , along with the bulkhead containing it , by Evans , who thereby managed to easily escape . ( ) In 2369 , Major Kira Nerys used a force field to prevent Chief Miles O ' Brien and Commander Benjamin Sisko from beaming onto the Valerian transport . ( ) The same year , the Bajoran engineer Neela created the program ANA , which granted her access through the security fields on Deep Space 9 after she attempted to assassinate Vedek Bareil Antos . O ' Brien found this computer program in a security field subsystem during maintenance work . ( ) In 2372 , Admiral Leyton told Federation President Jaresh - Inyo that Starfleet Security had been stockpiling personal force fields on Earth in case of a planet - wide emergency . ( ) By 2373 , a holo - projection system had been installed on the bridge of the USS " Defiant " , linked up to the communications system . In this way , a person could ' appear ' and speak to others . However , this form of holoprojection had no cohesion , and so people could not interact directly with the hologram . ( ) Holoprojectors of this type were also seen in the captain ' s office adjacent to Ops aboard space station Deep Space 9 . ( ) Jean - Luc Picard demonstrated to Lily Sloane a force field closing a hatch to space aboard the when Lily spotted no glass . ( ) During the late 2260s and early 2270s , a device known as a life support belt was used on board Starfleet vessels . This was a type of personal force field that supplied the wearer with the appropriate atmosphere and protected them from the vacuum of space . ( ) This type of technology has only been seen in one other application . In 2369 , Captain Jean - Luc Picard , Commander Data , Deanna Troi , and Geordi La Forge used subspace isolation field s , projected from modified emergency transporter armband s , that enveloped each of them in their own pocket of subspace . This isolated them from the effects of the temporal fragment that affected the " Enterprise " - D . This is an example of a " skin - tight " force field , rather than the conventional bubble geometry . ( ) Non - Federation applications . On the Akaali homeworld in 2151 , Captain Jonathan Archer and Commander Charles Tucker III , while secretly watched by Riaan , encountered a Malurian force field covering a wooden door . When touched , the force field flashed with blue light . Tucker reported that the force field was " some kind of magnetic barrier " , and he was about to try to disable it when Riaan intervened . The force field was operated via remote control , and once Archer obtained the device from a Malurian , he deactivated the force field . ( ) In 2154 , " Enterprise " encountered an Illyrian ship in the vicinity of the Azati Prime system in the Delphic Expanse . This small ship had a force field surrounding its warp coil , which prevented Commander Tucker from removing it easily . ( ) In 2267 , Apollo , from Pollux IV , used advanced force field technologies to create a gigantic hand to hold the " Enterprise " in space . This force field could be penetrated by M - ray s at carefully calculated frequencies . ( ) In 2346 , the Khitomer colony had a force field to help protect itself from attacks . The Khitomer Massacre could have been averted if the Klingon traitor Ja ' rod had not given the Romulan s the codes to the force field surrounding the colony . ( ) In 2364 , the entity known as Q used an immensely powerful force field to block the " Enterprise " s passage . ( ) Also in 2364 , the " Enterprise " - D rediscovered the planet Aldea . The Aldean s hid their planet behind a very powerful planet - wide cloak and a defensive shield . ( ) In the same year , the crew of the " Enterprise " - D encountered the Echo Papa 607 weapon on Minos . One of the weapon ' s special features was the ability to encase a target in a bubble force field . ( ) In 2367 , Captain Picard , Ensign Wesley Crusher , and a civilian shuttle captain , Dirgo , discovered a fountain of water surrounded by a force field on Lambda Paz . ( ) The storage locker s in the assay office aboard Deep Space 9 were secured by individual force fields . ( ) Dr . Tolian Soran used a high - power force field ( rated in gigawatt s ) to protect himself and his star - destroying weapon from Captain Picard in 2371 . ( ) The Borg utilized personal defensive force fields . The force field was sufficient to allow survival in space without a spacesuit . When in combat , Borg drones could be killed by phaser s but only for the first several shots . The phaser became ineffective if used at the same setting after multiple shots . The phaser ' s effectiveness could be extended though by adding a frequency modulation chip , but drones would eventually adapt to this as well . Borg drone shields appeared to be less resilient to projectile weapon s ; when the Borg attempted to assimilate the in 2063 , Jean - Luc Picard lured two drones into the holodeck and used a holographic Thompson submachine gun to kill the two drones . ( ; ; ) The Cardassians utilized force fields in their labor camp s to maintain the populace . The Hutet labor camp utilized such force fields . ( ) Contact with Dominion force fields is always lethal and they are even harder to see than those of the Federation , which are visible to the careful eye . Captain Sisko and Quark were held in a Dominion force field when they were kidnapped while on a camping trip with Jake and Nog . A similar force field was used to hold Chief O ' Brien and Doctor Bashir hostage when they were taken prisoner by a rogue group of Jem ' Hadar . ( ) The Hur ' q used a force field to protect the Hur ' q Central Museum from looters . A Vulcan mining team could not penetrate the field . However , in 2372 , Kor , Jadzia Dax , and Worf were able to bypass the force field by reversing the polarity on the field destabilizer s . The Vidiian s made extensive use of force fields to conceal their underground bases from intruders , making entrances appear like solid rock , even to tricorder s . This was described as a cloaking effect . Upon first encountering this technology in 2371 , the found that phaser fire could breach them . However , when they encountered such fields a second time later that year , they found them to have been adapted to repulse phaser fire . ( ) When the Cardassian Silaran Prin held Kira Nerys prisoner for a brief time , he enclosed her in a personal force field of sorts that prevented her from moving . ( ) By 2373 , the Breen had developed a hand - held weapon , the CRM 114 , which could penetrate force fields of up to 4 . 6 gigajoules . ( )