The origin of shields

[hongi]

Does anyone know where the idea of shields came from in science fiction? Who was the first to use them in their books?

[Stofsk]

I think I remember hearing something equivalent to shields or force fields in an E.E. Smith book. Asimov had personal force fields to protect against blasters in Foundation, but I'm willing to bet the idea predated him.

[Simon_Jester]

Smith published a story featuring a variety of types of shields, Triplanetary (the original magazine serial version), in 1934. He also used shields in Skylark Three,* I believe, and that was published in 1930.

Both stories predate anything by Asimov or Heinlein; at the time, both were merely fans reading Smith's work, rather than authors in their own right.

*Which featured among other things the "zone of force," an interesting shield that was impermeable to all 'normal' forces including gravity; the first guy to turn one on found himself drifting away from the Earth in an impenetrable black sphere because neither light nor the Earth's gravity affected him.

[Ford Prefect]

Honestly, if someone could find a 'shield' predating Doc Smith, I'd be pretty impressed.

[Ilya Muromets]

I have this fuzzy memory of a "circle of energy" protective field from an old novel written around WW1 or something. But I can't remember what that was.

EDIT: Ah, found it on Wiki. The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. Published before WWI (1912), not during.

[BLACKSUN2000]

I could've sworn Jules Verne's works although at the moment I am strapped for time, I think it was the one where they went to the moon....

[Sarevok]

I could've sworn Jules Verne's works although at the moment I am strapped for time, I think it was the one where they went to the moon....

No. Jules Vernes works did not touch upon DET weaponry or shielding technology. In Earth to the moon what he featured was an unrealistic giant spring system to absorb the force of sudden acceleration to escape velocity.

[Stark]

If it counts I've read 20s supernatural rubbish full of shields that ran on vibrational nonsense to do all sorts of rubbish.

[frogcurry]

If it counts I've read 20s supernatural rubbish full of shields that ran on vibrational nonsense to do all sorts of rubbish.

It sounds like they'd count if they were sci-fi, but you imply that they are some sort of badly written fantasy? Maybe the idea transferred genres.

[Stark]

I think the idea is the same source; once we got electrical theory and 'fields' of 'vibrational energy' were pop physics (like in the 20s) shields were a common element. Shit, you could argue there are 'shields' in Lovecraft, and Carnaki certainly uses shields.

[Simon_Jester]

True. Doc Smith's shields were likewise electrical in character, at least to some extent and by implication: you'd get arcing and sparks flying off them when they were shot at and such. "Vibrational" was a pop word referring to the wavelike properties of electromagnetism and, by implication, to whatever weird stuff made shields possible.

[Axiomatic]

I seem to remember that in Lovecraft's case, at least, he didn't use the word "Shield", although some aliens employed "envelopes" that functioned in the same way.