Yet another shield theory.

[Crazy Tom]

Here's how it goes:

The Crazy/Merlin theory:

Sheilds are not actual physical bariers, rather their like the ultimate point defence. Workign on principles similar to Merlin's Sangrahal, two waves canceling each other out. The shield is actualy a physical layer of subspace within realspace. Acting first as a sensor and second as a countermeasure. When any form of energy hits this layer computers instantly becoem aware of it and run the information through a filter program to determine if the enrgy is suficient to harm the ship. If yes then soem kind of energy projector draws power from the ship's buffers and splies as close as posibel to the amount of detected energy into the area where the energy blast is hiting in order to "cancel" it out.

The process is not perfect, ineficiencies in te cancelation process produce teh visibel "glow" when shields are hit. The shield may also let "slices' of the energy blast thru due to tiem delay in procesing information. THus causeing the familiar shaking of the ship even through the shields are stil up. Concentrsated fire on one area of the shield may confuse and overload sensors letitng through parts of he beam. And azmounts of enemy fire may rebound into the energy projector the same way the projector chanels it's energy cancelation wave.

Shileds could be programed to block out allenergy(light, etc.) but then our own sensors would be blind adn have to be extended outside the shield to see, thsu exposing htem to enemy fire.

Phew, any questions?

[Mister Oragahn]

Funny that you start a new thread, I was thinking about shields as well.

First, it's rather necessary to consider that shields can be calibrated to filter certain ranges of lights, and certain intensities (thresholds). This should take care of the "we see your ship but we still don't use lasers" problem.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of system they could be. For example, at some point they could create solid shells, made of particles kept in place with an artificial force, and the more energy that hits the shield, the more energy is needed to keep the particles at their place, otherwise the shield collapses. There are many variants on this basic idea.
One could theorize that the particles radiate energy away, and that's why the more intense the energy hitting the shell, the more it will spread over said shell.
Those particles could be anything. There could be something exotic stuff, akin to photons, but not photons, or a material, maybe "stabilized naqahdah particles" (totally made up) or else.

The trouble with particles, is that they'd be at pain against antimatter.

Or you have the electromagnetic forces.

I consider that shields, assuming a greater power consumption, could also act as barriers in subspace, and prevent object in subspace (hyperspace for example) from passing through them.
I expanded on this idea here, to see how it would apply to planetary shields.
Some have said that if that was true, then Jack could have never got through Anubis' shields. But that is why I say it requires energy, and Anubis probably didn't expect such an attack, even less from such a small ship, which he probably didn't think had an hyperdrive whatsoever. So he put minimal shields, most basic form on, and all the rest of the energy to the cannons, to destroy the planet.

[Crazy Tom]

My theory says that the "shield" is a 2d layer of subspace in normal space, wehn suficient energy hits it it trips an alarm and an equal amount of energy is chaneled through the subspace link to cancel out the incoming energy, wether kinetic, em, etc.

sort of, i'm sure it's much more complicated.

[ManiacMike]

that would have to be one HELL of a processor.

It would have to process information googol every nano second.

Is that even possible?


Also, Shields are not "physical", just energy. They are no different than energy guns, just projecting a wall instead of a blob.

[Zatnikitelman]

I actually think the shields are a passive and not active device. They only react to stuff that hits them and don't detect it, then channel the energy. Too much chance of an error.

[jonos101]

My head hurts

[Crazy Tom]

My head hurts

[iqbalg1]

Wow, those are some pretty great theories. I've always assumed it worked something like this:

Each shield generator converts energy to matter, thus forming a wall that is invisible but incredibly dense at the molecular level. The reason you see the shield when it is hit is because the matter is being regenerated, so the matter the shield is made up of "shimmers". The reason ships still feel a blast when the shield absorbs the hit is because while the shield stops the destructive force of the blast, the concussive force still hits the ship.

Thus, better shielding simply indicates either a better energy to matter conversion ratio, or a denser shield being created.

Pretty far fetched, and I'm pretty sure very impossible, but thats the way I like to think of it, helps me explain a few plotholes. Also, sustained beams would be alot worse, since the matter wouldn't have time to regenerate, significantly reducing the effectiveness of the shield

[Crazy Tom]

That would be insanely bad actualy, since ships poses high C velocities, if a shield only protected the ship from DEWs then all people had to do is get a Al'kesh or other worthless thing up to max speed and ring out at the last moment.

[Halzman]

My shield theory which is based on actual science, and to which I beleive TPTB use:

A shield generator consists of two components: a magnet field generator, which creates the shell of the shield, and plasma/RF emitters - both are capable of ionizing a gas.

Plasma is attracted to magnetic fields, hence the more plasma you can generate, the denser your shield becomes.

For example, the difference between the BC-304s hanger shield and defense shield is plasma density. For the hangers, enough plasma is emitted to maintain atmopsheric pressure, whereas the density of the shields for defense are much much higher - you could have a plasma shield as dense as the thickest steel sheet imaginable.

Lets use Atlantis as another example. In 'Echoes' when McKay is taking about expanding the shield to cover the surrounding area, he says that he can max the shield to X km, but it would be a thin shell. This is because the shields density is matched for its standard size. Therefore is you make the field bigger, the same plasma density would be distributed over the new area, which would attenuate the shields.

[XFire]

Where would the plasma come from? How can you Ionise gas that isn't there?

I think McKay means, that the amount of energy that they have would be stretched too much, think of it as a battery providing for 1 bulb, its going to be bright, add more then it will dim considerably.

[boberth2o]

This is how I thought the shielding technology in stargate works.

For me the shielding technology is an intensely dense energy field that conforms to the hull of the ship much like a magnet. Similar to a magnet when the field comes in close contact with anything it has an adverse affect on that object (incase of energy weapons, but for kinectic weapons such as missiles or bullets they stop/ or detonate due to impact).
When the energy impact on the shield becomes greater than the energy output of the shield generators then the shield collapses.

[Crazy Tom]

Exept plasma sheild won't stop bullets. maybe melt them, but they wuld still keep going. And energy weapons...we need a cear definition of what they fire before we engage in this discusion.

[jonty-comp]

I've definitely always considered the Atlantis shields to be different to the shields used on ships. Mainly because you can actually see it; I think it is like a projected wall of matter. I don't have a PhD in theoretical physics though.

[boberth2o]

Exept plasma sheild won't stop bullets. maybe melt them, but they wuld still keep going. And energy weapons...we need a cear definition of what they fire before we engage in this discusion.

It isn't plasma, it's energy. There is no ionized gas involved in the shielding