Explanation on the nature of Star Wars shields?

[Battlehymn Republic]

This site goes into a very fascinating examinationof how Star Trek shields (and shields in sci-fi in general) may operate.
However, what is the accepted consensus of how Star Wars shielding goes? Are they forcefields? A wall of energy? Or a cloud of manipulated exotic particles, as Wong theorizes Trek shields are?

Or none of the above?

[Lazarus]

There was a thread about this sort of thing a bit ago, specifically concerning the DS shields, and IIRC the two main points of view were of 2D shields of some kind, either skintight or bubble, and a field which becomes harder to move into the further you go into it, reversed from the hull.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

They've basically been described as energy forcefields.

[Winston Blake]

IIRC the structure that best fits is that of a 3D forcefield that fills the space around the ship, dropping smoothly to zero on the outside, but cutting off sharply on the inside. Like a fuzzy blob with the centre cut out.

I think the current model is still that they have a heat sink and a power dissipation rate, such that an average input power (i.e. enemy weapons fire) less than or equal to the dissipation rate can be deflected/sustained indefinitely. If exceeded then the heat sink starts filling up with the excess energy, until it reaches its limit and fails, and the shields drop.

Uses of shields: personal shields, theater shields, ship shields, planetary shields, and the sort that simply separate air from space/water. There are ray shields and particle shields, and these are usually used together.

Ray shields deflect blaster bolts but not physical objects, and if stationary for a while the sharp side of ray shields heats/excites the air in it, making a glowing surface. Objects that touch it are scorched. Particle shields don't scorch stuff, and can stop objects like projectiles/water/air, but blaster bolts easily penetrate them.

A shield system includes a shield generator (provides operating power), shield projector(s) ('projects' the shield itself), a heat sink and a heat dissipation system.

I think that's a brief overview of the qualitative model, built up over a long time based on hammering out known events.

[Alan Bolte]

I believe the part that really lacks an explanation right now is remotely projected shields like the one around the second Death Star. How do you create force fields shaped like that?

[Lazarus]

If I'm right, forcefields are described as becoming denser the further you move into them, and so are quite 'thick': the more energy an object of some form has, the further it can travel into the forcefield, enough will penetrate it. I don't see how this can be reconciled with what we've seen of SW shields. A random example would be ROTJ, the duel between a Neb-B frigate and the Executor; the turbolaser shots were stopped very suddenly either at the hull or shortly before it, there was no dissipation effect etc. If the idea is that the forcefield description is used for particle shields, and the shields in this example were ray shields, then why are the particle shields in TPM which stop the solid kinetic projectiles fired by TF AAT's shown as a very thin wall, and the projectiles suddenly stopped, rather than slowed down?

[Mad]

A random example would be ROTJ, the duel between a Neb-B frigate and the Executor; the turbolaser shots were stopped very suddenly either at the hull or shortly before it, there was no dissipation effect etc.

Why would there need to be a visible dissipation effect?

If the idea is that the forcefield description is used for particle shields, and the shields in this example were ray shields, then why are the particle shields in TPM which stop the solid kinetic projectiles fired by TF AAT's shown as a very thin wall, and the projectiles suddenly stopped, rather than slowed down?

The AotC:ICS mentions that the shimmering we see when shields are in an atmosphere is due to air reacting with the shield. The shimmering will be seen where the field is strong enough to cause that reaction with the air, and further out we won't see anything.

[His Divine Shadow]

A random example would be ROTJ, the duel between a Neb-B frigate and the Executor; the turbolaser shots were stopped very suddenly either at the hull or shortly before it, there was no dissipation effect etc.

Why would there need to be a visible dissipation effect?

He is expecting the shot to become weaker and weaker and gradually dissapear the closer it gets to the ship and the more intense the shield "radiation" is becoming.

Anyway if it works on the inverse square law then it drops off like this:


As opposed to gradually dropping off, which I think he believes is how it works.

[Darth Wong]

Of course, it's important to remember that there may be more than one type of shield system operational in different situations, or even in the same situation. There's really nothing to say that a SW ship's shield is not several system working in concert, each with different characteristics.

[Death from the Sea]

Ray shields deflect blaster bolts but not physical objects, and if stationary for a while the sharp side of ray shields heats/excites the air in it, making a glowing surface. Objects that touch it are scorched. Particle shields don't scorch stuff, and can stop objects like projectiles/water/air, but blaster bolts easily penetrate them.

so why did the ray shields on the Invisible Hand in episode III trap our heroes then?

[Isolder74]

Ray shields deflect blaster bolts but not physical objects, and if stationary for a while the sharp side of ray shields heats/excites the air in it, making a glowing surface. Objects that touch it are scorched. Particle shields don't scorch stuff, and can stop objects like projectiles/water/air, but blaster bolts easily penetrate them.

so why did the ray shields on the Invisible Hand in episode III trap our heroes then?

Because flesh burns real well when hitting a wall of energy. Or how much pain can you handle before passing out?

[Cykeisme]

Not only might the shields consist of a number of different systems each operating on vastly differing physical principles, it might also be that the amount of power (or other resources) directed toward the various systems might be varied (perhaps even automatically) depending on the type of threat a craft is facing.

For one thing, I think it's evident that Gungan shielding is quite different (possible completely different) from the other shield effects we see in the movies.

Hangar bay shields, too, don't seem to be a force field effect. The bay aperture appears to be ringed with projectors of some sort, which work in concert to create a thin, flat surface that covers the opening.


Another interesting thing I noticed is that the splinter effect that looks like blaster bolts "flak bursting" only occurs near the boundaries of smaller ships. Capital ships don't seem to exhibit this effect even when weapons fire passes near their hulls, perhaps due to their use (or emphasis) on a different type of shield subtype.


I got the impression that the Invisible Hand's ray shields weren't actually physically blocking the trio, but rather would be harmful to touch. Out of universe, the way the visuals for the ray shield looked.. destructive (at least in my opinion).

[nightmare]

We noted already back in TMP that forcefields are not to be trifled with.