The Star Trek Shield Impact Effect... WITHOUT Inertial Dampeners...

[Spacescifi]

On 1/31/2025 at 9:51 PM, boriz said:

 

I'm watching remastered B5 right now. Part way through series 2. Great TV. Far better than anything we have now, unfortunately. Harlan Ellison's influence was a factor. (He wrote A Boy And His Dog, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, and one of the best TOS stories ever, The City On The Edge Of Forever).

Energy shields, inertial dampers, artificial gravity, transporter beams, warp drives, phaser beams, all fantasy sci-fi tech with no real-world physics. Without a real scientific basis, your opinion is just as good as anyone's. Have at it friend. Nowadays, even the writers seem to have no clue and are, to be generous, inconsistent. They are exploiting the genius of Gene Roddenberry in any way they can. Creating something original, like Roddenberry, seems to be beyond TV exec's at the moment, sadly.

Personally, I imagine that any energy, kinetic or otherwise, gets splashed/deflected, and distributed around the shield. So that what was a concentrated point of energy is spread around a much larger area. Like this:

The ship moves (or rocks, which is common) because although the energy is now much more diffuse, the shield generators transmit the residual to the hull. But that's just how I rationalise Chekov and Sulu gripping their desk while leaning left and right : )

I speak in general terms. I have not watched much of new Trek, because when I do, it sucks. Ultimately, if your suspension of disbelief is broken, that's the fault of the writer/producer, don't blame yourself.

Suggestion: Try watching better written Trek.

It embarrasses the current IP holder of Trek, but the best recent Trek-like is The Orville. Before that, it was Enterprise (Intro theme notwithstanding). I suggest you test your suspension of disbelief on those.

Examples of non-Roddenberry exploitation would be Firefly and Stargate SG-1 and Farscape. All great in their own way, and although influenced by Roddenberry, proper attempts at new sci-fi writing.

I miss new sci-fi writing.

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Ya know, I tend to look at the logical application of any scifi technology in practice, and the results often surprise me, because it can be used in novel ways the source material does not use it.

For example if a deflector shield worked in that manner, by spreading mass around and off to the sides away from it, then why not modify it for air flight?

Seems to me that if you can deflect air behind you fast enough then all done is turn your massive shield bubble into a massive air propeller for flight.

Am I right or did I just fail in my understanding of air flight physics for the upteenth time lol?

If this works it will stall past a certain high altitude, but that's not really a problem since that is what rockets and external pulse propulsion drives are for as alternatives when air is thin or non-existent.

Edited 3 hours ago by Spacescifi