Shields?

[trekkerguy]

The most believable concept would be the one lifted from nature of course.
Could you imagine how awesome spacebattles could look if shields worked like this?
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/hurlbutt/Sun.gif

Well, the only reason it looks that way is because of the solar wind
pushing back on it, otherwise I do believe the shields would pretty
much be generated in similar waves but from all around the ship
where the generators are.



Does that looks like a Spider crawling toward the sun to you?

 

[DontFeedPhil]

Doesnt the Bubble shield make a little more sense when you think in terms of magnetic fields and stuff? I would think it would be easier to generate a spherical bubble shield rather than trying to shape it around all the nooks and crannies of a ship....

 

[Jeyl]

I prefer the bubble design myself, while not dissing at the skin-close shields. Take the shot from Nemesis for example when the Enterprise is getting hit from above after contacting the female romulan when she's disabled. It goes from shields to no shield in the same shot, but since it's so close to the hull, it's hard to make out if the shots actually hit the shot and not the shields.

And as a general rule, isn't it the best idea to keep explosions as far away from your ship as possible rather than just covering the hull?

 

[trekkerguy]

Doesnt the Bubble shield make a little more sense when you think in terms of magnetic fields and stuff? I would think it would be easier to generate a spherical bubble shield rather than trying to shape it around all the nooks and crannies of a ship....

It's not trying to shape anything, it automaticaly is shaped because
of the generators being placed around the hull like they are.
I would think it would take alot more energy to somehow magicaly
push the shields out in to space than to simply have the shielding
wrapped around the hull in a grid from generator to generator
and use that energy to strengthen the shields.

That's why the "skinned" shield makes more sense.
Because that's just how it would automaticaly be.

And in Nemesis some shots pass through the shields I assumed
because shields don't just block everything that they either have
to try and re-energize after absorbing a blow or that some shots
just match the frequency well enough to make it through.

They never seemed to be just a static unpenetrable wall to me.

 

[DontFeedPhil]

Doesnt the Bubble shield make a little more sense when you think in terms of magnetic fields and stuff? I would think it would be easier to generate a spherical bubble shield rather than trying to shape it around all the nooks and crannies of a ship....

It's not trying to shape anything, it automaticaly is shaped because
of the generators being placed around the hull like they are.
I would think it would take alot more energy to somehow magicaly
push the shields out in to space than to simply have the shielding
wrapped around the hull in a grid from generator to generator
and use that energy to strengthen the shields.

That's why the "skinned" shield makes more sense.
Because that's just how it would automaticaly be.


And in Nemesis some shots pass through the shields I assumed
because shields don't just block everything that they either have
to try and re-energize after absorbing a blow or that some shots
just match the frequency well enough to make it through.

They never seemed to be just a static unpenetrable wall to me.

No, that couldnt make any less sense. It would be much harder to project a shield (magnetic or something else) to curve around everything on a ship and basically take the shape of the ship than to just produce a spherical shield that conforms to what we know about magnetic fields. Sure it may look kewl to have skin shields but it would be much harder to do.
Then again I dont realy see the need to get into a technical debate about how shields should work considering they are Fantasy...You do know that right? That the Shields on Star Trek are NOT REAL and are just something that was made up...

 

[shapeshifter]

Just an FYI, History Channel has a special; Star Trek Tech. In the portion devoted to shields, a scientist demonstrates with an experiment how future 'shields' as seen in Trek could be skin hugging plasma.