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I think you all know some examples of shields used by spaceships, often they are presented like a bubble around the ship.

My question is how does it form the shield energy into a bubble. The bubble also has to remain in place around the spaceship, how can I explain this?

Can somebody tell me some good ideas how it might work and are there any better ideas of shields for spaceships?

Last question: how does the ship generate its shield?

I don't mean ship armor like a new steel or other materials it has to be an energy shield. I don't mean real physics, I am looking for a plausible reason how shields could work in a fictional world.

a4android
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Xxy
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2 Answers2

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Don't try to explain this. Because realistically, you can't. There is no known physics that works anything like this, and plenty of good reasons why nothing like it can exist.

The idea exists because it's otherwise very difficult to have vehicles in a story that can stand up to the power of technologically advanced weapons, such as nuclear explosions. So it's something that you can get away with, provided you don't try to explain it and you aren't pretending to be writing "hard" science fiction. But that is all that it is, a genre trope.

John Dallman
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  • Yeah you are right, sorry i formulated it wrong i guess. I meant how could i explain something like that, a reason to make it believable. My ideas are something like, the ships have a boardcomputer which notice enemy fire and then it calculates where it would hit and in the right moment, the computer overload some energy on that spot so it will be a shield. I means answers like how could you describe a functioning shield. – Xxy Sep 15 '16 at 13:06
  • OK, so what you actually want is a defence against "beam weapons"? This wikipedia page will tell you about the kinds that could plausibly exist. I suggest you pick one and ask a new question, something like "How to defend against neutral particle beams" – John Dallman Sep 15 '16 at 14:30
  • No the thing with the overload energy was a example, how i would explain how a shield could work. And my question is meant to find other examples how a space shield(not vs a special kind of weapon) could work. – Xxy Sep 15 '16 at 14:42
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Eventually, a magnetic field placed around the ship could deflect shots if metallic ammo are used.

But this shield will invisible and block only metallic projectiles. Moreover, a perfect bubble is difficult to obtain with magnetic field.

Metushael
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