Deflector Shields: Difference between revisions

 

=== Live-Action TV ===

** 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.

** And as to the speculation, it's arguably supported by canon. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeYrkdyW2Cw Watch] ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis]]'' some day if you dare). ''Enterprise'' with shields up? A sizable chunk of Romulan ship just bounces off it. ''Enterprise'' with shields ''down''? A few heavy blasts from the main beam weapons of a ''gigantic Reman supership'' smash the front windshield.

** The novel ''Federation'' features a wonderful interplay of cloaking, shields, antimatter containment fields, and Captain Picard that results in Picard taking out a Romulan ship by flying the ''Enterprise'' through it, sustaining almost no damage, and watching as the Romulans [[Critical Existence Failure|suddenly stop being there]].

** Almost every ship also has a structural integrity field, which holds the ships's structure together, necessitated by the size of some of the larger ships and also to minimise structural stress from acceleration and damage. This, however, qualifies not as a Deflector Shield but as a [[Reinforce Field]].

* 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.

** Also lampshaded when the commander of a Terran battlecruiser (a powerful yet unshielded warship) says: "Shields up, weapons online!"—only to correct himself when clicked again -- "... not equipped with shields? Well then, buckle up!"

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': Heavy-duty force fields, of both [[Precursors|Prothean]] and geth {{spoiler|vis-a-vis Reaper}} origin, pop up throughout the game. An amusing interlude occurs when you first find Liara, who has managed to get herself locked inside a Prothean force-field bubble while trying to avoid a small army of geth and krogan mercenaries.

** In ''Master of Orion 2'' ship design allows devices buffing shield properties, like "Hard Shields" (resists shield-piercing weapons and nebulae, increases level), "Shield Capacitors" (increases recharge rate between combat turns), and "Multiphased Shields" (50% greater shield strength). The shields are segmented into 4 arcs and each turn they regenerate an amount based on the strongest arc, though enveloping weapons hit all four at once. There's also "Personal Shield" technology that gives major bonus in ground combat and boarding.

** [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum|Exotic technologies]] include "Damper Field", which replaces standard deflector shields with an energy field that reduces any incoming damage by 75% and has 50% chance to kill teleporting boarders. "Reflector Field" is compatible both with shields and Damper Field and gives a chance to reflect weapons fire back at the shooter.

* ''[[Star Ocean: Till the End of Time]]'' explains ship-based deflector shields has shunting energy to a theoretical dimension based on imaginary numbers.

* Shields feature prominently in ''[[Supreme Commander]]'', where they were originally reverse-engineered from an alien race by the Aeon, then stolen and copied by the UEF and Cybran Nation. All three factions have powerful stationary shield generators that project a spherical shield around their area, but the Aeon take things a step further with a number of units sporting personal shield generators that conform over the unit. The UEF also gets in on the personal shield idea with their siege bot and Fatboy-class [[Military Mashup Machine]], then adding in a naval-based shield generator in ''Forged Alliance''. The sneaky Cybrans only use shields in stationary defensive installations.

 

=== Tabletop Games ===

** 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.

** Actually it does mention that Ork ships use huge "TEEF!" as decoration on their ships to make them look like bigger demons, to scare away lesser demons, this appears to work either because demons don't find Orks to be appetising, clap your hands technology or due to large numbers of orks together causing a psychic gestalt. The fact that Imperials often seem to believe the Gargoyles and statues of imperial saints do much the same thing to enhance the protection of the Gellar field is amusing.

*** Shimmershields (Eldar) project a wide-area energy field (sufficient to cover an entire squad) that interferes with melee attacks. Shimmershields offer no protection against ranged attacks, implying that they are only effective against slow-moving weapons.<ref>Given Eldar mastery of [[Artificial Gravity|gravitic technology]], Shimmershields may be generating an effect that locally reduces the effective mass of any object within it with a velocity above a fairly low threshold. This would reduce the effectiveness of melee weapons, which tend to rely on mass to do damage, but would leave fast-moving projectiles, which get the majority of their energy from velocity, largely unaffected.</ref>

*** Shield Generators (Tau) appear to function similarly to Imperial Refractor Fields, projecting a spherical energy field around the wearer that glows and crackles as it spreads the energy of an incoming attack across its entire surface.

** Also an item called Bracers of Armor. They come in eight different strengths and while considerably more expensive than normal armor of the same protective quality they serve the same role without inhibiting mobility in any way. They are also considerably lighter, weighing only [[American Customary Measurements|one pound]].

** [[Mind Over Matter|Telekinetic]] power "Kinetic Control" absorbs impacts ''while storing the energy'' so user can be battered and shot without any harm, then deliver all this abuse or part of it to some poor sod or piece of furniture instantly with a touch. If not discharged, it kicks even worse upon deactivation, though.

* The title character from ''[[The Guardian Legend]]'' is protected by a personal force field, which only materializes briefly when she gets attacked. When her life meter drops to zero, the shield can no longer protect her, and she will get destroyed if attacked again.

* [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Personal_energy_shield "Personal energy shields"] in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe. They're canonically inconvenient, expensive, and not used often, to explain why the characters [[Forgotten Phlebotinum|don't carry them all the time]], but personal shields are featured much more prominently in the video games, where just about every protagonist seems to have one. Examples include ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' and ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight]]''.

* ''[[Perfect Dark]]'' has personal deflector shield pickups, though they do not regenerate except in the old-fashioned way: by picking up another shield. They can make thrown weapons like the Combat Knives bounce off, and any weapon that would normally be a [[One-Hit Kill]] exhausts the shield entirely without doing any health damage, giving the wearer a half-second greater lifespan, possibly more.

** There's the [[Turtle Sim]] in the Combat Simulator mode, which spawns with a shield stronger than any human player can get, but also moves much more slowly.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' has the "Force Field" buff set, which is a straight use of this trope, however, there are also many other protective powers, such as [[Make Me Wanna Shout|sound waves]] (whu...?), [[An Ice Person|ice]] (hey wait...) and [[Incendiary Exponent|FIRE]] (AAAAGH!?). There's also a personal armor set called Energy Aura which is technically this.

* [[Kirby]], in his Mirror form, gets a ''[[Attack Reflector|Reflector Shield]]''.

* One of the powers available to the protagonist in ''[[Advent Rising]]'' is the "negate" power, which manifests as either a carryable or placeable rectangular force shield or a player-encompassing bubble that blocks all attacks for as long as the protagonist has the energy to sustain it. Alas, this isn't all that long.

* The Assassin in ''[[Monday Night Combat]]'' has a deflector shield in the form of a smoke bomb, yes, a smoke bomb.

[[Category:Combat Tropes]]

[[Category:Tropes in Shining Armor]]