Warning: I will be discussing how a starship and a Titan's shields work, using current Quantum mechanics theory. I have written it as simply as possibly. The explanation adds lore to the Titanfall universe, but does not forward the plot of this story. I will mark the explanation segment, feel free to skip it.

Please note that while I have tried to keep my description as scientifically accurate as possible in keeping with the hard science fiction theme of this story, there are likely many reasons for why this shielding system is downright impossible.

"Cut the chatter!" called the dropship pilot. "We'll be jumping to Alpha's spaceport in around about three minutes." He turned and grinned at his passengers. "Please ensure your seatbacks and tray table are in the upright positio-"

"SHUT UP JENKINS!" roared his squad. Aisling smiled, these soldiers were a close group.

"Okay, I'm serious now," Jenkins said. "Quiet in the cabin. Opening channel to Alpha Spaceport.

Alpha Spaceport, this is Dropship One of the TKY Shikinami. Requesting clearance to land."

"Copy that Dropship One. I'm going to have to ask you some questions first, though. Have you or any members of your crew visited a planet in the Lorack system within the last 500 hours? We've had reports of a viral outbreak there."

"Negative, Alpha."

"Do you or any members of your crew have any known genetic abnormalities or sicknesses?"

"Negative, Alpha."

"Very well then. Standby, Dropship One. Adding temporary exception for Dropship One in the automatic orbital defense grid... orbital railgun targeting systems updated... Dropship One, you are clear to enter our airspace. Have you decontaminated your crew?"

"Negative, Alpha. We will be using your facilities."

"Very well. In that case, please proceed to landing pad G-7 and follow the instructions of the warden."

"Copy that. Closing channel."

Meanwhile, a battle raged within and above a Hammond Robotics Spectre factory.

On the ground a team of six Militia pilots were attempting to secure hardpoints to allow their information specialist in orbit to hack into the Spectres nearby. Their job was made significantly more difficult by the six IMC pilots trying to stop them. One such IMC pilot, Journal Wilkes, was assaulting the Militia-held hardpoint Charlie.

If the Militia takes this facility, thought Journal, then out Spectre production is quartered. We're barely producing enough Spectres as it is. If production drops any further...

He didn't want to think about it. Since Demeter, the IMC had been forced to turn to Spectres as a replacement for the now non-sustainable human infantry. The other three Spectre production facilities combined couldn't produce a sustainable amount of Spectres. If this facility went down, the Militia would be able to sweep through the remaining IMC strongholds – and -

"Felicity," whispered Wilkes. She was a scientist from the Core worlds, hiding with the IMC forces at outpost 207. Her brown hair smelt like strawberries, her nose –

I shouldn't be thinking about her nose now, Wilkes thought, his arm flicking upwards slightly so that the last bullet of his C.A.R. SMG's magazine drilled a hole through an enemy Spectre.

Her nose was perfectly shaped – well, to him, at least. Not too big, not too small, angled downwards from her forehead at just under 40 degrees, tilting upwards slightly at the end.

And her eyes. Brilliant blue, shining brighter than the light from a falling Tita-

There was an explosion. His legs felt funny. Why am I on the ground? Why can't I move?

He turned and saw the gruesome mess that was now his lower body, saw a hulking mass of metal where they should be.

"I'll need some prosthetic legs," he giggled aloud. He tried to crawl towards his SMG.

"AhaahahHHAhahaHAA!" he laughed. "Look at me!" he called to a nearby Militia grunt who looked on at him, horrified and terrified. "There are... sausages coming from out of me! Isn't that fu-"

Then the Titan stood on him.

"Enemy Pilot eliminated," said the Titan's AI to the Militia Pilot inside.

"Pilot down!" screamed a combat specialist aboard the IMS Hercules, high above the Spectre production facility.

"Send the next one down!"

"I'm on it! Defrosting a Pilot from cryo!"

"Where's the quad rocket ammunition gone?!" an engineer asked frantically.

"We're all out!"

"Send them a triple threat instead! The Pilot needs the Titan NOW!" ordered the head of Titan supply.

"Gotcha! Standby for Titanfall!"

"Shields at 18%, Ma'am!" a battle technician called. "Next shot hits the hull!"

"Cycle the Ion supply on my mark!" his supervisor ordered. She pushed a button on her console. "Spyglass, requesting permission to take evasive jumps!"

"Permission granted," the AI replied. "I will inform the crew."

She turned to the chief of navigation. "Energize the jump drive!"

"Jump drive powered, Ma'am!"

"Pulse the engines randomly! We want to be dodging enemy fire while we replace the Ion supply! Battle technician, this is your mark!"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

High above the Spectre production facility two 900-metre long battleships were locked in combat. The MCOR Retaliatorand the IMS Hercules struggled to stay in orbit while trying to blow each into clouds of shrapnel. Both were traveling at 2700 metres per second east in geostationary orbit, both almost directly above opposite ends of the production facility. The Retaliator was firing its railguns west at the Hercules in the east as the IMC ship desperately avoided enemy fire while its shields' Ion supplies were replenished.

These battleships were both the largest and least agile ships of their respective fleets and thus hung back, hurling enormous slugs of depleted uranium and lead at each other from afar by use of their railguns. A direct hit to either ship would punch through its Borium hull, killing the crew in that particular part of the ship – if it weren't for each ship's shields.

Author's note: here comes quantum mechanics.

Newton's (incorrect) laws of motion state that we can predict with certainty the path a ball will take after it has been thrown by measuring its' speed, mass, the strength of gravity, etcera. However, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states, amongst many things, that we cannot predict the location of a quantum particle – an electron, for instance – only calculate the probability that an electron will be present at a particular location. It also states that quantum particles do not move smoothly through space like a ball would but rather teleport through space in 'quantum hops'. When a ball is thrown, the particles that make it up are simply hopping very short distances very quickly.

When an electron's position is known to be within a certain area, and the electron is known to be at rest, it is possible for it to make a hop to a point anywhere within the universe, but the likelihood of this happening is minute. Quantum interference – the reason why electrons do not randomly hop across the universe but rather stay more or less still – is greater when a particle is known to be within a certain area.

However, when a quantum particle's position is known exactly, there is no quantum interference at all and thus the quantum particle is just as likely to hop a centimeter away as it is to hop to the next galaxy across. The shielding systems of a starship make use of this principle. The position of an electron in an ionic atom is measured to an extreme degree of accuracy, increasing the probable distance of the electron's hop to a distance determined by the starship's shield operator. By use of this principle, starship shield operators can negatively charge a region of space in a sphere around the shield core for a short duration.

When a projectile is about to hit a starship, the shield system automatically uses some of the electrons within its' ion reserves to teleport electrons around the ship. These particles negatively charge everything – the ship, the crew, and the projectile traveling toward the ship. Because negative charges repel each other, every object within the region of space around the shield core will repel each other. This isn't a problem for the crew, who wear electrostatic wrist and ankle bands to discharge the shock – but it does cause the projectile to be repelled by the ship, slowing down or even changing course entirely to avoid the ship.

Author's note: The Quantum mechanics ends here.

But because a ship's shields consume ions from a limited supply of ions every time they are energized the ship's shields are only energized when something significantly fast and significantly large is detected to be on a course that will hit the ship. If a ship runs out of Ions, it is unable to deploy its' shields until it refills its' reservoir. Titan shields work in the same way, but because a Titan functions in an atmosphere, they can collect ions on the go; recharging their shield. When a shield is online, it doesn't mean it's energized – only that it will be energized should the ship be in danger.

These battleships were chewing though fuel, tritium and ions for one purpose – to support their ground forces below. Between them, fast-moving autonomous unarmed corvettes served as early-warning systems for enemy fire, detecting and relaying the movement of railgun fire to their respective fleet command AI's.

Slightly larger and slower were the frigates – smaller than a destroyer, like a corvette with weapons. They were designed to be fast, agile, expendable fighters capable of striking an enemy's weak points. Their onboard chemical weapons were capable of overheating crewed ships' life support systems. All ships had to vent their heat somehow or they would cook the crew inside first and melt the hull afterward. By very nature, the life support systems that vented the heat of a ship into space had to be exposed, and if a frigate could latch onto such a system they could reverse the flow of heat and kill the crew inside within minutes.

Protecting the larger ships from the frigates were the destroyers, slightly larger one-man ships armed with projectile weapons – capable of destroying a corvette in one hit, but difficult to hit with – and laser weapons – easier to hit with that destroyed corvettes by overheating them. These ships hung in a line in the middle of the battlespace, stopping the frigates or corvettes from getting past.

Then there were cruisers. Armed with a single heavy railgun, multiple smaller railguns and a small shield, these ships were designed to sit in front of friendly battleships, sniping enemy destroyers from afar with their small railguns and sniping enemy battleships and cruisers with their heavy railguns. They always fired diagonally through the battlespace, utilizing the recoil from their railguns to push them out of the way of incoming fire.

Sometimes fleets were protected by logistics cruisers. They were the same size as a normal cruiser, but were only armed with two small railguns. They sported jump drives instead, which they used to compress the space in front of them, allowing friendly corvettes and frigates to jump into battle. If they were given sufficient warning, they could even activate their jump drives to accelerate enemy fire away from friendly battleships

Finally there were the battleships. These enormous behemoths were designed to carry smaller ships, launch Titans, deploy ground forces and to kill enemy cruisers, battleships and capital ships. They were armed with missiles, heavy railguns, lasers (for self-defense against frigates) and large jump drives.

Aboard the IMS Hercules, an AI core commanded the IMC fleet.

"Commander Blisk, we are receiving a hailing signal on a private frequency," IMC Vice Admiral Spyglass said, voice devoid of emotion like the AI it was.

"Phone's for me, Admiral?" asked Blisk. It seemed the captain of the Militia's battleship wanted to chat.

And I know just who it is, thought Blisk.

"Only IMC officers would know the frequency," replied Spyglass, confirming Blisk's suspicions.

"Graves," blisk growled. "What do you want, Sir? Your call whether I take it."

"Patching him through," said Spyglass, making its 'mind' up. "Standby for a secure line."

"Blisk, this is Graves, can you hear me?" asked the Militia's Field Commander.

"What do you want?"

"I want to end the war."

Blisk rolled his eyes. Cutting straight to the point.

"Yeah? The fight harder. Maybe you will. Quickest way to end it is to wipe out everyone who stands against you."

Just then a titan on the ground decided that it was no longer capable of protecting the pilot inside it. Its vertical hatch opened and the pilot was ejected to safety as the Titan's nuclear reactor went supercritical and then exploded. The radiation from the detonation temporarily shorted both ships' communication systems.

"Damnnit. That was one of our Titans," groaned Blisk.

"Reports from grunts on the field say that its' detonation destroyed an enemy titan."

"Not too bad then, Sir. But we only have so many Titans." Blisk pressed a button at his terminal. "Hardpoint Charlie just went offline. All units, take Charlie back now!"

A moment later, an IMC Titan launched a cluster missile by Charlie's terminal, killing the two enemy pilots that had just been hacking it.

"Yes! We got Charlie!"

"We don't have to be against each other, Blisk," came Graves' voice again in Blisk's earpiece. "It could be us against the machines."

Oh yeah?

Screw you, Graves. I don't want to fight with someone with as weak a mind as yours.

"Then how we gonna ever know who's better?" Blisk asked.

"No person is better than another, Blisk," countered Graves.

"I disagree. You kill me, you're better. I kill you, I'm better."

There can be only one ruler of the frontier, Blisk thought. And that's not the Militia. Those lawless assholes could never hold this place. There'd be too much infighting, a civil war within weeks. They are not worthy of the frontier.

A beeping in his earpiece brought him back to reality. "We're losing Alpha!" he told his pilots on the ground. "Be advised, we're losing the fight but not by much. Don't underestimate these terrorists."

Graves' broadcast came through again. "Blisk, you fight alongside machines, but they believe in nothing. They have no loyalty. They're loyal only to their operator."

Blisk laughed. "You're gonna lecture me about loyalty!? You change your uniform like you're changing socks."

In a split-second decision, Blisk decided to abandon defending the electronic minds of the Spectres at Alpha and instead began focusing on assaulting Bravo with his electronic friends. With a single command, eight Spectres moved fearlessly and loyally toward Bravo.

"I'm disloyal!? I'm the one who hired you, Blisk! And I don't see you fighting by my side! That's the way it should be!"

"I am loyal to the CAUSE, Graves! You hired me to pacify the frontier and that's what I'm doing."

"The IMC cannot pacify the frontier -"

"If we can't, those filthy terrorists you fight with certainly can't!" roared Blisk. He took a deep breath.

"You want peace?" he spat. "The only way you can have peace is if you have a government to keep it. The IMC offered this region of space a government. We gave people transport here, we built their cities, we supplied their tools, and we would have kept the peace if they'd paid their bloody taxes. And you frontier dogs refused. You say you want peace? A world ruled by the militia is a world of anarchy."

"Blisk," growled Graves, "If what you say is true, then nobody can save the frontier. I believe it can be done. And you know what? In the end, against faceless machines and people like you who fight only for a paycheck, we will win."

"Ha, I'll fight you for free, Graves! Hope to find you on the ground soon aye."

Aboard the MCOR Retaliator Field Commander Graves ended his transmission with Blisk and turned to the battle technician. "How are we going down there?"

"We're in the lead, Sir. It won't be much longer before we'll have every Spectre on the assembly line set to self-destruct. Then we can take out this factory for good."

"Very well. Keep it up."

Soon afterward the facility was in flames and the IMC fleet was fleeing.

"All IMC forces, this is your Vice Admiral, Designation: Spyglass," Spyglass broadcast. "The destruction of Demeter and the loss of many robotics factories has put us on a defensive footing."

"You can say that again," muttered Blisk, his head in his hands.

"Although reinforcements from the Core Systems are unable to reach us, battle projections indicate we are still an effective fighting force. Our garrisons continue to maintain order on the frontier. Until we are relieved, we will remain vigilant. We will adapt, and we will prevail. All forces, set a course for outpost 207."