The Layman's Guide to Goa'uld Shielding Technology
The Goa'uld have traveled throughout the galaxy collecting technology from the many races they have encountered and occasionally inventing their own. They pride themselves in their shield manipulation and expertise in shielding technologies beyond many other fields. This is a guide to identifying many of the Goa'uld shield systems in current use within the Empire, as well as their basic function and behavior.
Goa'uld Ship-
An old but extremely common model. Operates sonically, essentially molecularly disrupting a solid object on contact and radiating energy as heat. Goa'uld ships can broadcast "shield codes" to be allowed to pass through the shield without being destroyed. It is open outwards to energy and matter, including beaming.
How to Recognize:
Goa'uld Ship shields appear orange or yellow in color. If you see a Goa'uld spacecraft with a visible orange or yellow transparent bubble, then it most likely has Goa'uld Ship shields engaged. Impacts with the shield will flare the force field surface opaque in the section of impact. Solid objects may break up and smash on contact.
Asgard Ship-
Not of Goa'uld design at all, but from a species known as the "Asgard" in their native language, and the "Reenlokia" to the Goa'uld. Operates by disintegrating colliding objects and repulsing their atomic components. It will also treat photons and forms of radiation as sub-atomic particles, likewise attempting to repulse them. It is open outwards for energy, enabling beaming, but a solid object cannot be sent outwards from an Asgard-shielded ship.
How to Recognize:
Almost never used by the Goa'uld, these will only appear on ships of extremely large, highly unusual, and very recent make. They appear as a faint blue bubble around the ship that flares intensely more visible across its entire surface on impact. Solid objects may occasionally crush on impact, however, they tend more often to appear as if they are being disintegrated on an event horizon.
Anubis Ship-
Based on a mixture of Goa'uld and Asgard shield technology. Named for System Lord Anubis, the Goa'uld who designed and first utilized the model. Like Goa'uld shields it operates sonically, allowing coded ships to pass through, energy and matter to leave the shielded vessel, as well as disrupt solid objects. However, like Asgard shields, the sonic disruption has been intensified to allow total disintegration of impacting object. The shields have also been modified to use Asgard or Alteran power sources and absorb energy for extra power.
How to Recognize:
Anubis Ship shields cannot be distinguished visually from Asgard Ship shields, except the shield tends to flare less uniformly over the entire surface on impact and objects tend to crush on its surface more often. Sensors, however, will indicate it is very similar to Goa'uld Ship shields. It is known that the Sovereign's Flagship personally used by System Lord Ba'al uses these shields.
Goa'uld Personal-
Unlike Goa'uld Ship shields, Personal shields operate on a totally different basis- magnetic particle rather than sonic. They are formed of agitated particle fields that react violently to objects possessing a high level of energy. They are almost always engaged by a Goa'uld's kara'kesh ribbon device.
How to Recognize:
They appear as an extremely visible, rippling, and semi-transparent shield surface surrounding usually a Goa'uld wearing a glove-like kara'kesh ribbon device. They look like a constantly shifting and flowing energy surface of red, deep orange, or deep orange-yellow hue. Energy or objects traveling inwards with high kinetic energy levels are repulsed by the shield. Objects with low kinetic energy are allowed to pass both ways.
Anubis Personal-
Another shield type engineered and utilized by System Lord Anubis, the Anubis Personal shield is an Alteran-Asgard technology hybrid formed with materials readily available to the Goa'uld. It conforms to the shape of the object it is protecting. Energy is absorbed and is used for power.
How to Recognize:
This shield remains invisible at all times. It is usually accompanied with a cloaking device which can help mask its presence to sensors, however, the presence of the cloak is in itself slightly visible as a shimmering violet transparency when it is being used as a passive sensor block. Energy impacts spread across the invisible surface in a ripple, like a drop in water, and solid objects impact as if with a harder solid object.
Barrier-
Barrier shields are a form of wave shield, which emit a frequency that does not allow objects that cannot match that frequency to pass.
How to Recognize:
Barrier shields are invisible until struck. Both energy and solid objects are stopped by the barrier. Unlike regular Goa'uld shield technologies, barrier shields appear blue, and when hit they spider-web out like veins of ice. They can be pressed against continuously and still form a tangible solid wall. They can also be modulated to form through solid walls, and so penetrate levels deep and rooms wide to block access for a large distance. However, barrier shields consume massive amounts of power and are limited to truly enormous facilities. An object moving at a speed the same as the frequency waves can pass through without needing to transmit a shield code.
Repulse-
Repulse shields are formed as a high-power magnetic wave field, much like the barrier shields. Unlike barrier shields, no object or energy wave can pass through. This applies to both sides of the shield, and so a vehicle or generator using this shield form cannot fire, beam, or use communications other than sub-space. Their naming feature is the fact that they repel any object that impacts them back with a negative velocity squared.
How to Recognize:
The color of this shield is a brilliant red when struck, otherwise it is only dimly visible. Like a barrier shield is makes a shattering sound when impacted with and spider-webs, however it hurls the object back with extreme force. Energy is simply blocked. These shields require massive amounts of power, even more than normal barrier shields, and so they are used for smaller operations with energy to spare.
Holding Cell-
Like barrier shields, holding cell shields form solid walls for the purpose of detaining an individual. They are based on the sonic Goa'uld Ship shields, only the one-way is reversed. They can be fired into with both energy and solid weapons, but they block everything coming outward.
How to Recognize:
These remain visible at all times, though they flare brighter when touched. They are light orange or yellow, and look like a semi-transparent solid colored surface. Energy weapon fire transforms into heat, as well as transforms oxygen into ozone, making firing at the interior with an energy weapon highly undesirable. Projectile weapons ricochet, also undesirable.
High-Security Prison Cell-
A electromagnetic-wave shield type, High-Security Prison Cell shields allow no traffic in or out, energy or matter, and they charge anything that touches them with a high-voltage electrical charge. Communications do not work in close proximity to them and they cause unshielded devices to malfunction.
How to Recognize:
They appear as white or yellow rippling waves of energy, and they flash white on contact with any object. Unshielded electronics do not work in a room with these shields.
Panel
Panel shields are used to bar access to crystal terminals in Goa'uld facilities or ships being invaded or in danger of incursion. They form strong magnetic barriers that engage only when someone is attempting an unauthorized tampering of a technical panel.
How to Recognize:
Panel shields are activated only when the intruder is in the way of their engagement. They do not restrict the intruder's actions, however they do interfere with the body's natural electrical pulses produced by cellular activity and can cause a heart attack.
