Star Trek Watch: What is Ablative Armour? by Certifiably Ingame

Star Trek fans will want to watch this video by Certifiably Ingame.

We’re back with another Star Trek watch, this time going back to an old reliable in Certifiably Ingame. The point of highlighting these videos is to help expose new fans to some of the deeper myths and lores of Star Trek that may only be covered once in a series, if ever. There’s a lot of information out there, and of course there is, the series has been around for nearly 60 years. For new fans, that amount of information can seem staggering. Hence the videos. This week on Star Trek Watch, the good channel that is Certifiably Ingame covered Ablative armor, aka the shielding that repelled The Borg.

Long-time fans may not even know what this is, but it’s essentially the outer plating of any Starfleet ship, which was used to help reduce and negate the effects of heat on the ship. While it’s implied this helps enter and exit atmospheres, its primary job was to serve as protection from energy-based weapons that use heat.

Like Borg-based phasers.

Ablative armor and the U.S.S. Defiant were created to help combat the Borg

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The amount of Star Trek lore that has developed around the advent of the Borg is impressive, though some fans may be bored of the Borg by now. That’s simply not true in my case.

As the video states, the Ablative armor was placed on the U.S.S. Defiant, the ship that really helped make Star Trek: Deep Space Nine into the show that it was. The Defiant was popular, so popular that it even popped up in the film, Star Trek: First Contact.

Granted, the filmmakers wanted to destroy the Defiant, something the folks at DS9 said “no” to, emphatically I’m sure.

The Defiant itself was created to help combat the Borg threat but would find a new purpose during the Dominion War, and was essentially gifted to Captain Benjamin Sisko and the rest of the crew at the space station Deep Space Nine. The vessel would become a major player in the war until it was destroyed, and replaced by the same model of the ship. Which was, ironically enough, re-named the Defiant in honor of the original ship.

While the Defiant did eventually square off against The Borg in First Contact, it never did fight them during the events of Deep Space Nine.