On Sat, 26 May 2001 09:12:37 -0700 Steve Rogerson steve.rogerson@mcr1.poptel.org.uk writes:

Some thoughts on shields from a breakfast discussion at Eclectic.

The question is really do shields stand up to scientific analysis? I'm afraid my science isn't good enough to answer that, so we thought we'd throw it open to the list.

According to the book, The Physics of Star Trek, maybe. If I remember this right (and assuming I understood any of it in the first place, which I'm not sure I did), start with artificial gravity (and will the real physicists not laugh at me). Gravity is supposed to be a warping in space time caused by mass. Theoretically, you could make an artificial warping through various applications of large amounts of energy. This is also the idea the author went with for warp speed (which ties into the shields). If you just go by the basic three dimensions, faster than light travel is not possible. If, however, you go by four dimensions, including time as a factor, you'll find that light moves faster in some places than in others because gravity effects relativity - the one second that light travels at 186,000 miles in one corner of space is actually more time and, consequently, more distance relative to another corner of space. Hence, if you have artificial gravity, you should be able to create an artificial warping of space time where your light speed is actually faster than the light around you (or that's what the book said).

And, if you can create this artificial bubble of space time, you should be able to create an artificial bubble of space time where gravity - which does effect light - can create a kind of shield so that an energy ray or other weapon is not so much deflected as it is working on a different definition of a straight line than the rest of the nearby universe. Or something like that.

Oh, and this would take more energy than the Earth's used in its entire, 4 billion year history.

The other theory is just that you're able to somehow put energy up in some kind of shield that the bad guys' weapons can't get through. Exact rules unknown but it probably has something to do with the static that builds up on computer screens and TV sets (which means, even though they don't talk about it, Vila probably has to go out and clean off the dust every once in while, although how a shield would deflect weapons and collect dust is beyond me).

The first point is how do shields work? Also, different SF programmes vary on whether you can fire your own weapons when the shields are up. Could a shield be only one way in that it will stop incoming fire but allow outgoing fire to pass through?

Going with the static theory, sure. It's like magnets (I know, I know, it was like static a second ago. This is that unified field theorem thingy where all energy types flow together [which is the writer's way of saying "If it sounds good, use it and ignore the contradictions"]), the negative charge on one end repels the same magnet that the other end would attract. So, one end of the shield pushes away the energy weapons while the other end pulls them through.

Why don't they use weapons with a different charge? Hey, I didn't say this was an _exact_ metaphor, did I? It's just a comparison to make things easier for laymen. The real thing is much more complicated. There are good and solid reasons why you can't do that (such as no one ever thinking of it).

If it's the gravity thing, I guess you could always shoot at really weird angles.

We learn from Harvest that the Liberator has overlapping shields - what's that about? Why couldn't it have just one big shield? Is there an advantage to overlapping shields? Maybe to allow weapon fire?

I always thought it was shields being generated at different parts of the ship, but maybe it's extra protection in case Travis ever does think of shooting with a different charge (although how to shoot _out_ past the different charges, some pulling, some repelling, is a mystery. Maybe more weird angles are involved?).

It might also be that shooting is like a story I heard about WW I pilots. They used to shoot off their own propellers till someone synchronized the guns with the blades so they could only fire when the bullet would miss the blade. In other words, yes, if that's the case, they have to drop the shields instead of work on angles or mutilated physics. It would also mean that several ships able to keep up a continual bombardment would have the advantage over a single ship - a greater chance of getting in a hit during the fraction of a second the shields were down - which means three pursuit ships might be a real worry to the Liberator regardless of relative strength.

Ellynne

________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.