[Starhawk]

Well I don't know what you would call a beam that creates a fusion reaction with just about any solid object it comes in contact with? (basically turning hull plating into a micro fusion explosion)

As far as "null space" goes basically think about it like this the GFGs focus a "wavelength" of subspace around the ship to create a "void" around the ship. Basically it's kind of like putting a bubble of subspace around the ship to absorb impacts.

Now why would solid shots not work? Simple because the solid impact would simply break apart on the shield, it's a matter of kinetic force vs something that negates the kinetic force. NOW why does the energy weapon work? Becuase of the fact that when the two energies mingle you get a hell of a lot of force released eventually burning out the shield generators, however unfortunately due to the nature of the interactions there are shield "burn throughs" that take place every so often resulting in some of that energy striking the ship's hull directly causing damage and killing people.

Why then do ships have armor? Because ablative armor causes the fusion "bomb" to be shot off of the hull before it can actually cause the blastwave to go directly into the ship.

Why fight broadside? Simple because their shields are not "directional" like the shields on star trek where you can take a hit on the nose and just turn your side to the bad guy to releive that shield point until it regenerates a hit on the nose in the Icaranverse reduces the overall shield effectiveness, also due to the nature of shields weapons can not be fired "through" it either way which means that if a ship tried to fire through it's shields it would just be hurting it's own shields.

So the weapons are laid out mainly broadside so that when the ship opens "ports" in it's shields it's maximizing firepower while at the same time making sure it's getting more worth out of it's shield-to-fire ratio (basically why fire two weapons forward and lose the same amount of shield when they fire back when you can unleash 18 or more cannons?)

Now does this tech work with modern physics HELL NO but are the Icarans nearly two thousand years more advanced then us Yeppers and I am taking creative liscence given that 100 years ago no one thought powered flight would make sense, and given that only about 70 years ago some scientist said there was not enough fissionable material in the world to make a reactor or a bomb I figure who knows how far two thousand years worth of advancement will bring our knowledge of physics and technology.




(re: Magazine vs reactor)
The Icaran quantum reactors in the main turrets are rather small comparitavely speaking and you can get nearly unlimited fire out of them while the more rounds you wanted to fire with a solid shot weapon the bigger the magazine would need to be.

basically a reactor for an energy weapon could give you 1 shot or 1,000,000 for the same size while a magazine for a solid shot weapon would need to grow with every few rounds you add to the capacity of the ship.