Watching and re-watching Trek as I have, it’s hard to ignore one large seeming oversight
from Starfleet. Something that Enterprise, the early films and even Discovery sort of
addressed in part and that is why doesn’t Starfleet use armour?
There are many species encountered by Starfleet that wear suits of armour to protect themselves.
Klingons, Cardassians, Xindi Reptilian, and arguably some of the most impressive, is that
donned by the Hirogen. It affords their soldiers a degree of protection and does in fact make
them look a little more intimidating so why does the Federation seem to resist wide spread
implementation of protective gear for combat purposes?
This is mostly speculation here, but I’d have to say as Starfleet is not primarily
a military organisation. They have ranks, weapons and a structure that strongly resembled
a military but the organisation is supposedly on of peaceful exploration that places combat
engagement at a the bottom of its list when encountering a new species, even a potentially
dangerous one. Wearing armour as part of the standard uniform
works for the Klingons whose culture is focused on the idea of combat, or the Cardassians
who for the longest time subjugated other species and needed to look imposing to quell
any dissent. But for the Federation? It sends the wrong message if an away team arrives
decked out in full armour. I mean at least you cannot see the large starship in geostationary
orbit above your capital city. Another reason is that where possible, Starfleet
tries not to operate in ground engagements. Starfleet Academy training includes phaser
training and squad based movements but overall, Starfleet operates in, you know… space.
Ship to ship combat is something far more in the Federation’s ballpark so it could
be that armour was just something of low priority for the organisation. Yet they do have ground
missions and away teams for reasons other than diplomacy and even during the height
of the Dominion War, Starfleet never equipped any of its soldiers on the front with protective
gear. They redesigned the uniforms, making them
of tougher material and a darker colour scheme to better resist wear and they also reduced
the bright division colours to make it harder to spot their forces, but still no actual
armour. So this leads me to theory two, …or three?
Perhaps armour just doesn’t help. We’ve seen many Klingons stunned and Jem’Hadar
downed by Federation phaser weaponry in numerous conflicts and these guys were wearing suits
that were much tougher than the replicated Xenylon of Starfleet uniforms. Equally let’s
take the standard disruptor of any flavour. A disruptor on its highest settings disrupts
the atomic bonds of molecules causing the struck matter to disintegrate rapidly. Whatever
is hit by it falls apart, often explosively or painfully. It’s quite possible that there’s
just no preventing this kind of damaging effect without energy shielding and personalised
shields is a whole ‘nother set of issues (Mostly power related).
Some materials, such as Neutronium are resistant to many energy weapons, however it is exceedingly
rare and considering it is forged in the cores of neutron stars or similar pressures, unbelievably
dense and probably far too heavy to wear. Polarizing the hull of a starship has proven
to be a viable way of diffracting energies to prevent damage somewhat but again, outfitting
a person in armour and then running a sci-fi current through it doesn’t sound safe and
this was only partially effective anyway. The Hazard suits seen in the game Star Trek:
Elite Force was created by the crew of the USS Voyager and included nanites that could
repair and replenish a layer of ceramic ablative armour but that required a power source and
was from a pretty cool game, but nonetheless an extra-canonical source. So who knows if
the Federation has the resources to widely make something like this?
So in the shows, what is it that we’ve seen Starfleet use? Well to begin with, before
Starfleet operating in any military capacity and before the formation of the Federation,
the United Earth had the Military Assault Command Operations and these guys wore a sturdier
protective uniform that at most may have had armour pockets like a flak jacket but even
these guys didn’t bother with any full on protective gear.
In Star Trek Discovery, we frequently see these vests worn by the crew on away missions
into dangerous territory with the idea that these would provide some form of added protection
against the Klingons, however, within the first two episodes this happens. So clearly,
this armour was superfluous to the uniform and probably why Starfleet eventually dropped
the idea. Moving on to the motion picture, we actually see some background security officers
wearing protective gear included a fetching helmet. Despite being the very panicle of
fashion, *coughs in sarcasm, these uniforms were dropped by Picard’s era. These were
reserved exclusively for security teams and worn from the early 2270s to 2290s, possibly
later before being phased out. Again there has to be a reason for it so I’m going to
assume that although they likely would provide protection against shrapnel, blades or maybe
a glancing blow, a full powered disruptor shot is going to be more than enough to atomize
the suit and its wearer. In all likelihood, because Star Trek uses
energy weapons, it’s likely that only energy defences will ever provide adequate protection
from them and until Starfleet develops power source small enough to power a portable shield
generator than can resist a fully charged disruptor, polaron beam, phaser (or whatever
colour directed energy weapon) then Starfleet officers just won’t bother donning any gear
that would slow them down. Instead they prefer to stay mobile, comfortable
and just try to avoid being seen or hit in the first place, relying on dampening fields
and deflector shields over a slab of ceramic that isn’t going to halt 2.99 gigajoules
of energy being poured into a less than a centimetre squared of redshirt.
So that’s my theory as to why Starfleet lacks in armour statistic. There may be specialised
suits out there in books but we never see much on screen from Starfleet. I honestly
cannot think of another lore reason why they wouldn’t invest in at least some limited
protection when I’m sure they have the technology to whip up something. Until the next video,
thanks for watching, I’m Ric and I’ll see you next time, goodbye!