Deflector Shields: Difference between revisions

 

Compare and contrast [[Containment Field]] and [[Reinforce Field]]. See also [[Some Kind of Force Field]].

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* The sole reason ''[[The Big O]]'' is still standing is due to Big O's impossibly sturdy arm plating which, over the course of the series, repels lasers, punches, swords, missiles, machine guns, and giant drills. The entire city gasps when his enemy, [[Big Bad]] Alex Rosewater's robot, turns out to have a personal force field; the viewer is subsequently treated to a good five minute montage of Big O punching away uselessly from a variety of television sets.

* ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]'': The ''Macross'' gained a force field early in its mission. Atypically, for most of its journey, the field could not cover the entire ship, so crewmembers had to move three small shields around the ship to intercept enemy fire. Later, an "omnidirectional barrier" was invented, which overloaded when hit by too much fire, destroying an unnamed large city in Ontario. ''Macross'' also uses focused pinpoint barriers to penetrate said shields, as a justification for space melee combat by kilometer tall [[Humongous Mecha]] punching each other.

 

 

* Calvin's [[Cool Plane|box-plane]] in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series|Calvin and Hobbes The Series]]'' has one of these.

 

 

* In ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire]]'', the titular city has guardian golems which project an impenetrable protective shield over the city. This is why it sank mostly-intact into an air pocket rather than being trashed completely (though the outermost areas were out of luck, having been established after the shield system and were thus beyond its border). It was also called into service to protect the city from a volcanic eruption, and showed the ability to harden and crumble the magma that covered it.

 

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]'', where, unhelpfully, ground-based shields can be bypassed by landing outside their protective radius and ''slowly walking under them''. Ship shields, while capable of stopping physical impacts, work in sections, so a shield loss in one area means that the other areas are still protected. While this appears useful, it's also unhelpful when your bridge shield goes down and an A-wing manages to slip through your defensive fire and smash through your front window, and before anybody can react, your ship then smashes into a giant armored battlestation, killing your massive Super Star Destroyer in an [[Disaster Dominoes|exceedingly embarrassing manner]].

** Just theoretically, you know. [[Blatant Lies|Not thinking of any specific event here...]]

 

 

* Frank Herbert's ''[[Dune]]'' had both personal and ship-sized force fields that were good against fast-moving objects, but could be penetrated by slow-moving ones, could be brought down with a sufficient overload, and which exploded violently if struck by a [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser]] (and so did the laser, so it wasn't a useful offensive effect unless the shooter was suicidal or used an automated gun).

** An interesting effect of the lasgun/shield interaction in ''Dune'' is that the explosive power is random, a weak lasgun and shield may produce a giant explosion while a strong lasgun and shield may only destroy themselves.

* In ''[[The Chronicles of Professor Jack Baling]]'', a personal one is used at the end of the first episode to defend against Jack’s death ray. It’s “about the size of a fold-up highway map and the color of Windex.”

 

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has lots of shields and force fields. On ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]'', we even get to watch these get invented. ''Enterprise'' (NX-01) herself did not have shields (except in a [[Flash Forward]]), but appears to have had some kind of "navigational deflector" to avoid being pierced by space dust. According to Treknobabble, the solidity of holograms in the [[Trek Verse]] is the result of their being surrounded by a highly specialized force field. The abundance of [[Tim Taylor Technology]] coupled with the availability of force fields has led some to theorize that, in fact, ''all'' Federation technology is [[Reinforce Field|held together by tiny force fields]].

** NX-01 ''Enterprise'' instead had "polarized hull plating" which, though it was routinely charged before a battle, proved almost useless against advanced energy weapons. One wonders just how flimsy their hull would be ''without'' its hull plating polarized.

 

 

* An unlockable ship subsystem in ''[[Star Ruler]]'', though not available right from the start. Shields have the advantage of being far, far lighter than conventional ship armor, and will regenerate, whereas only one armor type can regenerate on its own. However, the shields need huge amounts of power to run, and as they run out of shield "health", damage can bypass the shields and hit the ship directly - which could destroy the shield generator, or kill the entire crew.

* ''[[Independence War]]'' ships have a given number of Linear Displacement Array (LDA) shields that can each track one target within a limited direction (the usual arrangement is one shield on top and one on the bottom; the rear is uncovered [[Justified Trope|because they would interfere with the engines]]) and need some time to recharge after taking a hit. They don't block missiles or other physical objects, though there is an aggressor shield variant in ''Independence War 2'' that can be used for ramming attacks. Because of these limitations, you can't really rely on them instead of dodging every shot that comes your way, but a few blocked PBC projectiles may very well make the difference between life and death.

 

 

* In ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'', [[Hive Mind|Mars']] "vector technology" functions like this (as well as being able to hold unconnected objects into a rigid frame).

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' has "unifield shields" that use [[Artificial Gravity]] to distort the paths of incoming attacks. Warships invariably use "breacher missiles" that emit a gravity pulse to try and push back. The author [[The Rant|expounds at length in a]] [[Foot Note]] about how shields would realistically be best portrayed<ref>since they are designed to obstruct energy attacks of all forms, including visible laser light, they should technically obstruct the view of the ships they enclose entirely, leaving battles fought between blobs of darkness where the stars are obscured</ref>, [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20071214.html and how he portrays them with a distinct amount of artistic license.] He's also suggested that, if he doesn't have time, he would portray them realistically...

 

 

* Averted in ''[[Orion's Arm]]''. Although some in-universe fictional stories refer to clarketech delflector shields which work like this, the jury is out on whether such things actually exist in-universe. Most relativistic interstellar ships are covered in a thick layer of rock in front to deflect debris when traveling at high speeds.

** There are deflector shields but they're active systems that use a powerful laser to ionize particles in front of the ship and then magnetic fields to deflect the ions.

 

 

* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'', the ghost shields are used to surround buildings or machines on numerous occasions, but only works against ghosts. Danny, as a half-ghost, has a special advantage against ghost shields in that he can pass them while in human form.

** Which doesn't ''quite'' make sense when you consider that he still registers as "ghost" on various equipment whether he's in human form or not... and that he can seemingly use almost all his ghost powers (minus flying) while in human form also.

 

 

* It has become apparent that DARPA employs ''[[Command & Conquer|Red Alert]]'' fans. You know the Iron Curtain force field from that game? [http://gizmodo.com/5417079/darpas-iron-curtain-detects-explodes-rpgs-from-a-moving-humvee They've made it a reality].

** HOWEVER, Red Alert had it right: the Soviets invented the system in the 70s, and even fielded it in Afghanistan (w/disastrous results - it worked too well, protecting the vehicle, but consistently blowing up shit'n'people all around it). Recently, the Russian army got its hands on version 2.0 (well, more like "dash-M", but that seems to be Russian military speak for 2.0 these days).

 

 

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', {{spoiler|one of Father's powers after eating God is to create a spherical barrier around himself which can instantly transmute anything that touches it.}}

* Yomi of ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'' has a barrier that deflects, and in some forms absorbs demonic energy, {{spoiler|although Yusuke gets around this by finally realizing to turn off the demonic transformation and use HUMAN Reiki. I guess Yomi didn't figure humans to be enough of a threat.}} Also Luka/Ruka in the Dark Tournament arc, when {{spoiler|after some foul play by a team owner, she poses as a nurse and traps Hiei and the Masked Fighter behind a powerful, painful-to-the-touch barrier; her main mistake is that the barrier works with her nurse masquerade by HEALING the people inside it, who at this point want to throttle her. It most notably heals Hiei's arm that was damaged in the first round, so she actually tips the entire tournament in the Urameshi team's favor by this accident. She almost dies when Hiei tries to bust out, and wisely leaves the force-field for hire business soon after.}}

 

 

* Sue Storm from the ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'' was originally just invisible, but she quickly gained the ability to produce force fields as well, making her ''extremely'' powerful.

* Brainiac 5 of the [[Legion of Super-Heroes (comics)|Legion of Super-Heroes]] compensates for not ''technically'' having any offensive powers by having an impenetrable personal force field which he invented for himself. The [[Legion of Super-Heroes (TV series)|animated version]] doesn't have one, but as he's a transforming robot he probably needs it less.

* During a time when his iconic shield was lost in the Atlantic, [[Captain America (comics)]] was provided with a photonic energy shield by Sharon Carter. Said shield, in addition to being an energy facsimile of his regular shield, could even be converted into various other forms, which included: a bo staff, sword, and even a larger force-shield. Unfortunately, the photonic shield didn't have the ricocheting ability that the regular shield had.

 

* Violet Parr's power in ''[[The Incredibles]]'' was invisibility and projecting force fields just like Susan Storm, but then, the Incredibles were in ''many'' ways deliberate [[Expy|expies]] of the Fantastic Four.

 

 

* [[David Lynch]]'s film adaptation of ''[[Dune]]'' goes against convention by depicting personal shields as boxy rather than bubble-like.

 

 

* One of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''[[Foundation]]'' series books has a man trading his personal shield -- resistant even to ray gun fire -- to one of the guards in exchange for a private viewing of the generator facilities on a planet. Oh, the shield works, all right, but only for one day.

** Not being stupid, he brought two, AND a gun that can shoot through it.

 

 

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': A number of force fields turned up, most spectacularly around individual Daleks in the new series.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'': A few races have personal force fields. When SG-1 ambushes Apophis, he single-handedly [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomps]] them, since they haven't figured out how to bypass it. They end up using darts (and once, a thrown knife), although these don't always work either. (see it's Large-Scale entry above)

 

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'': Like everything else in 40K, personal force fields are available in a wide variety of sizes and craziness. The Imperium, Tau and Eldar use force fields of varied effects, rarity and effectiveness to protect their higher ranking troops and Orks build "Kustom Force Fields" which they carry into battle to protect troops. [[Humongous Mecha|Titans]] have Void Shields, although that's stretching the definition of 'personal', while all large spacecraft have void shields or an equivalent, with the occasional possible exception of orks.

** The accompanying literature mentions "Gellar fields", which are used by Imperial ships to protect themselves while travelling through [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|the Warp]] (an alternate dimension which allows travel over great distances, but which also happens to essentially be the 40K version of Hell), in order to prevent their ships getting infested with/torn apart by malevolent (or in some cases just plain bored) daemons/damned souls. It's never well mentioned how other races such as the Tyranids, the Orks and the Eldar manage to prevent this kind of occurrence, although the fact that the Eldar essentially built ''roads'' through the Warp might have something to do with their particular race's habit of escaping death by daemon. Orks tend either not to care, [[Blood Knight|and find a daemonic invasion entertaining]], or to use a [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe]] psychic effect to repel them.

 

 

* Robo Manus in the Battletoads Arcade game had one of these. The last level is a shoot'em up of sorts, and you have to fight him by [[Boom! Headshot!|shooting him in the head]]. Eventually you will crush through his cranial armor leaving his brain exposed, making him creating a deflector shield with whatever energy he finds, so your job is to shoot him until he is unable to keep the shield running.

* The "kinetic barriers" from ''[[Mass Effect]]''. Capable of deflecting small, fast-moving objects (i.e., bullets) but will yield to slower-moving objects ("so the subject can sit down without knocking away their chair"-gametext). These are the game's equivalent to "second chance armor" in the sense that it offers total protection from enemy fire, but only until the barrier's very small amount of power is exhausted and the shield cuts out.

 

 

* In ''[[Drowtales]]'' potentially all fae, depending on their skill and strength in mana. [http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive//20070731c0p018.jpg Seen in the last panel here].

 

 

* In the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'', not only do some mutant powers (like some Enegizers or PK supermen) have them, but other mutant powers (the devisers) may be able to make personal, portable force fields.

 

 

* Eric the Cavalier in the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' cartoon has an invulnerable magic shield; he usually has to physically deflect threats with it, but occasionally for things like a rockslide it'll generate an actual force field.

* One of [[Danny Phantom|Danny's]] many ghost power is a shield. It usually comes in two varieties, a wider, weaker one or a smaller, deflective one.