Shield frequencies

Phoenix-D · #1 February 5th, 2005, 03:20 PM

Just keeping this out of the SE5 thread.

"Damn that Star Trek for perpetuating so much junk science... There would be no such thing as shield frequencies in reality. There is no reason for an energy field to have to shut completely off and back on again so many times per second as Star Trek implies. Certainly, you could design your shields to do this, but it would be monumentally stupid... Read this site for more information: *link* "

Its never specified -what- frequency they are talking about, and there is another rather important frequency type you aren't mentioning.

Namely, electromagnetic radiation's frequency. Each photon has a characteristic wavelength and frequency. Each object reflects or absorbs certain photons in a certain way, giving it its color. White reflects most of the photons hitting it, black absorbs most of them (most because if it reflected all you'd never see it!)

ALL of Star Trek's beam weapons are visible. If those weapons are using light as a weapon, then the frequency of the shield becomes critical. A white shield will reflect the most energy, by nature, but ST shields might not have enough power to reflect light from all ends of the spectrum. So they cover specific areas they expect the enemy to use, leaving 'gaps' in others. The shield's color is a combination then of all the energy it reflects and absorbs.

The frequency setting won't do anything against non-photon weapons or physical impacts, though.

Kamog · #2 February 5th, 2005, 03:46 PM

Please check that link. I can't get it to work.

geoschmo · #3 February 5th, 2005, 03:52 PM

What sort of person complains that Star Trek is "junk science" because an imaginary shield that we don't know the process behind allows imaginary beam weapons that we don't know the process behind to penatrate them? Why is their idea of how imaginary beam weapons and imaginary energy shields any more technically correct then mine, or the writers of the show?

This is the sort of person that would get into arguments about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

EDIT: Ah, of course. Fyron. Why am I not suprised. Fyron would argue about how many buttons are on the shirt of the 14th angel from the left dancing on the head of a pin.

Fyron · #4 February 5th, 2005, 04:13 PM

Ahem... if you go back to the thread, the classic "match your weapon frequency to shield frequency to get complete shield piercing" garbage in Star Trek was suggested for SE5... This is why I posted the link, to keep it away. Do you want to see SE5 filled with Star Trek technobabble?

I wasn't trying to start an argument over it, and don't have any interest in one, just trying to spread the joy...

*link that really does work*

Phoenix-D · #5 February 5th, 2005, 04:23 PM

SEIV -is- technobable. Just not Star Trek technobable.

Anything much over a single-system setting is going to run into that issue.

brianeyci · #6 February 5th, 2005, 04:32 PM

Actually frequencies do make sense. The normal justification is that the Fed must open holes in their shields for their weapons to fire through. If you read the whole article, you'll see that is the only justificaton for frequency.

And there is a distinct community of people who debate sci-fi for fun, that is why they nitpick things like that =D.

SE:IV is not technobabble. Technobabble is trying to use pesudoscience to explain the mechanism behind technology. SE:IV leaves the mechanisms undefined... we don't know how ripper beams work and we don't care, only their effects, that they do 250 damage with heavy mount on a weapons platform =D.

<edit>Actually that is not exactly right. The normal justification is that the Fed doesn't possess advanced enough forcefield technology to open up holes in their shields to allow weapons to fire, like syncing a propeller with a machine gun to allow forward firing guns in WWI. Therefore, they have to use frequencies so that their phasers and photons can shoot through their shields. Needless to say, SE:V should not have this stupid frequency thing, because SE:V ships are advanced enough to have this weapons-forcefield syncronization technology</edit>

Brian

Fyron · #7 February 5th, 2005, 04:38 PM

Quote:

brianeyci said:
SE:IV is not technobabble. Technobabble is trying to use pesudoscience to explain the mechanism behind technology. SE:IV leaves the mechanisms undefined... we don't know how ripper beams work and we don't care, only their effects, that they do 250 damage with heavy mount on a weapons platform =D.

Exactly. So adding in technobabble like shield frequency matching is going in the wrong direction.

Nodachi · #8 February 5th, 2005, 07:20 PM

But it would be nice to be able to mod this effect!

Nitpicking the science in science-fiction is part of the fun but just because I don't know how something works doesn't lessen my enjoyment of it.

geoschmo · #9 February 5th, 2005, 09:57 PM

My point Fyron, which suprisingly you seem to have totally missed, is that you can't say shield frequencies are junk science, or technobabble, or unrealistic. Since energy shields are totally imaginary and a fabrication of the authors of the particular science fiction, you cannot say exactly how they will or wont work in reality, and so you can't say that any particular authors version of them is unrealistic. In Star Trek shields have frequencies that can be matched to penatrate them. This is totally reasonable and realistic from the perspective of the Trek universe, because that's how shields work in the Trek universe.

You are free to say this is stupid or poor writing if you want, but don't try to tell us it's junk science. Doing so removes any usefull meaning from the term junk science.

You could call it Junk Science Fiction if you want.

brianeyci · #10 February 6th, 2005, 01:22 AM

Geoschmo, the problem with that is that you view shield frequencies an an intrinsic part of a shield. They are not. A frequency is a weakness and shows that your technology is not advanced enough to open up a hole for your weapon to fire through, and therefore you need to have a frequency your shield works on so your weapons can fire through your shield. The only analogy I can think of is a machine gun shooting through a propeller in WWI. SE:IV ships, and SE:V ships don't necessarily have to have shield/weapons frequencies if they have enough forcefield mastery to open a hole in the shield exactly when the weapon fires.

The argument is not that shield frequencies are unrealistic, or junk science, or technobabble. The argument should be that you have SHIELD SKIPPING weapons that accomplish the same thing, and adding a frequency to your shield is not necessary since shield development should be advanced enough to open small holes in them rather than have the shield on a frequency to shoot your weapons through.

Shield frequencies would add a totally unnecessary component to SE:V, because there's shield skipping weapons. If you want, you can imagine shield skipping weapons as weapons which match the frequency in a ST Mod for example... but other universes with advanced shield manipulation need not have frequencies in their shields.

No shield frequencies in SE:V, please. SE is not about the how of things work, but the effect. Shield frequencies is something anagalous to knowing how the engines, or the weapons, or the hull "works" -- totally useless and unnecessary. The "what" can be represented by shield skipping weapons, the how is useless, which is what a shield frequency is.

Plus the fact that certain universes have enough forcefield mastery so that they don't need to rotate their shields on a frequency. SW Mods don't need shield frequency, since SW shields are not a cloud of exotic particles and are a field effect... but this is getting too much into the details so I digress.

No shield frequencies. Please.

Brian