system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Trek] Is power the main bottleneck when it comes to how well your starship performs in a fight? I ask because battles always seem to be lost because "power to shields is failing"
gpt
The shields in Star Trek are not perfect absorbers of attacks.  They distribute at least some of their attack into the substructure of the ship.  Think of it like an umbrella, and pushing on the fabric part pushed down into the hand holding it.

Shields failing is probably a combination of several things: loss of power to recharge the shields, damage to the underlying shield generators and their connection to the ship (getting disconnected or broken away from power sources and structural supports), and too much heat from energy weapons preventing the ship from dissipating the heat into space.