Registered: Dec 2002
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quote:

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Originally posted by FlakBait
In Fall of Night weapons hits to the the Cantauri cruiser seemed to strike some form of shield.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jokoto
I still think the "web" means something fired in an interceptor's shot to intercept incoming beam energy...

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quote:

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Originally posted by IceFire
Aside from a few exceptions, there are no real shields on Babylon 5 but the presence of a type of passive defense seems probable.

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Yeah, it sounds reasonable and quite probable that there's more than just the plain hull plating (in some ships) taking care of protecting the ship. It would be stupid to assume there's simply a relatively fragile shell on a warship riding fire... Too bad we have limited information on the specific methods in use.

For example in the game Homeworld the manual contains some very nice stuff for reading... it describes the hull structures having "multiple layers of redundancy". The first layer is an ablative layer designed to vaporize instantly (this dissipates, deflects or interferes with incoming fire, protecting underlying layers by sacrificing itself - a little like modern active reactive tank armour, covered in explosive tiles that interfere with armour piercing projectiles). Next is a power absorbing layer and then a very hard but flexible composite shell. It even mentions the "fantasy of an all-powerful energy shield" (none present in the game)...
Something along those lines would very probably be in use, along with some other intelligent, actively reacting systems to keep the precious hull glued intact. Sensoring systems to analyze situations etc... Breaches would be automatically sealed with some kind of sealant (a canon reference on an Omega is in the Crusade episode Path of Sorrows; Gideon's team is sent out to check a breach because the automatic system was down) etc. etc.

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Likely the 'energy web' is something like a very powerful magnetic field that defocuses particle based weaponry. As these beams are defocused, one might get a shield-like effect.

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Well, when speaking of 'particle beams' and 'plasma turrets' I'd guess it is about a stream of high-energy particles. High energy means 'overexcited' state of the electron cell (providing that we're speaking of full atoms here, not e.g. neutrons). This unstable state means that ionization is almost obligatory at some point, e.g when hitting the target's hull. Ionized particles (read: plasma, electrons or protons) obey magnetic and electric fields because of their electric charge (photons don't, of course ). This means that a charged particle flow can be dispersed or directed off course by relatively simple electromagnetic systems. The "force shell" effect mentioned by ShadowBoy may be caused by the particles trying to follow the field according to their mass, charge and velocity.

I'd guess at least some of us have sometimes bumped into low-energy (meaning non-relative energies here) particle physics in a physics course, at least in Finland this a rather standard thing in high school physics course nr. 8. There one of the most used examples is a tandem- van de Graaf- particle accelerator. It's naturally perfectly powerless for dealing with photons, e.g. X-rays, but any charged particle flows are rather easy to control with this device. If we can do this now, why won't we be able to use similar (yet open-spread and more powerful) technology 260 years in the future?

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With the accidentional destruction of the Hyperion I meant, that the Captain of the Alexander ordered to disable the attacker. But in the fire it got destroyed!

And the thing with the shields seem to be an translation error because one of the brige crew (the one convincing the Captain to open fire) said the Clarkstown has lowered its forwars shields.

And I know I shouldn't mention this site here but on B5-Tech there are Defencive Generators mentioned in the ship describtions!

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I believe they translated "fighter screen" with "shields" in the german version.

That one wooed for much confusion.

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quote:

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With the accidentional destruction of the Hyperion I meant, that the Captain of the Alexander ordered to disable the attacker. But in the fire it got destroyed!

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quote:

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Originally posted by WyattMax
I believe they translated "fighter screen" with "shields" in the german version.

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Oh no!
This is too horrible...
First they ruin the actors' performances with dubbing and then they change their lines, ruining scenes, tech and plot!

quote:

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Originally posted by -Norbert-
With the accidentional destruction of the Hyperion I meant, that the Captain of the Alexander ordered to disable the attacker. But in the fire it got destroyed!

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The acting captain of the Alexander (Major Ryan) knew full well that if he opened fire the Clarkstown would be destroyed. He knew he couldn't jump without leaving their fighters behind, and he knew they couldn't pull them in without losing their fighter cover and would then be destroyed themselves. It was not an accident, the moral dilemma was the whole point of the scene! Could they destroy more of their own ships?

quote:

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Originally posted by -Norbert-
And the thing with the shields seem to be an translation error because one of the brige crew (the one convincing the Captain to open fire) said the Clarkstown has lowered its forwars shields.

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No kidding? Lesson of the day: Cram the dubs where the Sun doesn't shine!
Dubbing is a crime. Nothing less!
Those nations dependant on dubbing should learn to grow up and read. Learning english wouldn't be too bad either, but there's nothing wrong with subtitles (as long as they're translated right too - and if they're not, the original lines are still clearly there in the original audio!)
The reason small children's movies, like disney's, are dubbed with international award winning quality is that we don't stand half-a$$ed work here. We know how to read, and if the original audio is to be replaced it better be done at the same quality as the original work, nothing less is acceptable.)

Tar-Palantir: Yeah, the first officer asked the acting captain (Major Ryan) to allow him to 'take the gloves off of the firing team'. I bet they weren't comfortable just sitting there (proverbial gloves on) waiting for death either, even if defending themselves meant killing their own...

Last edited by Jokoto on 04-10-2003 at 05:47 PM

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quote:

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Originally posted by IceFire
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/find/Usenet/jms97-02-usenet/61.html - That seems pretty authentic in terms of show canon. Its probably a type of eletromagnetic technology that is run in conduits along the shield. In this way, its a web...to prevent piercing by weapons without actually stopping them. Like a bulletproof vest for capital ships.

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There is a simple explanation to why the Alexander would be destroyed if she stuck around to pick up the fighters. In order for the fighters to land safely Alexander would have to travel fairly slowly and in a straight line.
Evasive action-though it may not dodge all fire would at least cause impact to be spread out and hit less critical areas. Such manuvers would also make docking impossible.

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quote:

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Originally posted by karajorma
My guess would be a superconductor web built into the hull of the ship designed to disapate the impact. That fits in better with EA tech than any kind of energy shield.

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I think it's taken as a given that the thirdspace aliens were the only things in the B5 universe that ever figured out how to make shields (and even then only the vorlon gate ever got one).

If the vorlons and shadows didn`t have them I can`t imagine EA coming up with it for a few hundred thousend years.

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Vorlons acctually have shielding.

I dont know the episode number, but the episode where sheridan asks the favor of Kosh.

The Vorlons attacked the Shadows in a remote sector directly, the battlecrabs were swiftly dispatched , but one managed to hit a vorlon cruiser, wich clearly had a shield system.

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Found it ,

Season 3 , Ep 15 , Interludes and Examinations

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kurare
electrons or protons) obey magnetic and electric fields because of their electric charge (photons don't, of course ).

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Last edited by Edwin on 04-10-2003 at 11:58 PM

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ok add another perpective or two - first the axlenader in taht scene hm interceptors and screens - i dont know i never seen a beam being intercepted infact the only thing that comes close is that a fighter pilot had his ship between himselve and the alexnader fromviding a defencsive scren a costly one though since he died instantly perhaps though fighter pilots if nessary are to give there lifes to protect teh largest ship by getting in teh way

for palsma weapons a magnetic shiels entirely possible would need ot be very power ful though so i would imagine it would only be over cruical areas again useless agaisnt an neutrally charged particle beams weapons liek the minbari use and similarly aginst electromagnetic lasers

as for intercptiong plasma bolts well just a small slug would be best enough to give the palsma somethign to burn up and dispate over

vorlons the best example of there shilds comes from teh third space film that device was a vorlon construction and it had very good star trek style shields similarly yes a vorlon cruiser sustained a direct hit from a faily large battle crab and suffered no damage

vorlons also have second layer of defence from the bio engineered skinwhihc learns from experiance and can then deflect the enegy of an impact then only have to suffer the physical impact

final note int eh pilot epsiode of b5 when the vorlons arrive to attack b5 with a huge armada and b5 is getting ready to fight (clearly vorlons weren't as advanced in teh pilot ep since a vorlon fighter could take b5 later =) anyway the second in command calls for the shields to be raised =) strongly implying b5 had star trek style shields but they were lost for the production episodes

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oh for lack of a better definaition photons are energy partles light is made up of photons so is x-ray radiation, radio waves - gamma rays infra red all those the entire electromagnetic spectrum is made up of photons and yes the neutral particle in an atom is called a neutron

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Typo squad attacks!

I checked Interludes and Examinations. In that vorlon-shadow battle the vorlon dreadnought is hit twice: first head-on producing that strange light show, and just a little later from behind. The second hit doesn't produce any shield-like effects, it's just a hull hit. That first one is a mystery... I think I previously accounted it as the dreadnought's firing effect (it happens at the point where it's beam fires from). I don't have a non-shield explanation for it yet... maybe it just fired too, at the same time, somehow countering the shadow beam? The second hit doesn't speak on behalf of any shields either.

KillMeNow: In the pilot Takashima (lieutenant commander) says: "activate defensive grid, screens to (/at?) maximum". She does not talk about shields either! I'm not certain what the 'screen' meant in that context, could be anything from a reference to the resolution of targeting systems to something else, but a fighter screen simply means fighter cover (and it does not work by fighters going in the beam's way, that would be... infinitely stupid ).

The only shields seen in the show is in the Thirdspace movie, that had countless other strange things too (and is, btw, called 'turdspace' and considered by many to be best left out of the B5 universe due to all those unexplainable problems - and they weren't tech issues, mind you). The portal device had a thirdspace alien shield, it wasn't vorlon tech like the portal itself. Vorlon hulls learn, evolve and adapt to enemy fire to better withstand it - as Lennier explained in War Without End part 1, when shadow fighters fired at the White Star: "most of the energy is reflected away, leaving only the physical impact". Even the shadows don't have shields, and they were the oldest race in the universe! I find it very annoying that so many are desperate to force the inclusion of stupid fantasy shields when there are so many better ideas on offer.

I've been thinking about the "energy web" thing, and maybe it could be something in the hull construction to disrupt beams - and minbari beams would so effective because they don't care about magnetic interference. On the other hand, neither do photons, so the X-Ray lasers of EA wouldn't have any more difficulty either! If the beam defenses are something that conduct the heat away from the single point though, how could they be called "interceptors" and be "down" then, enabling easy penetration? How could we disrupt a flux of photons or other magnetically neutral particles like neutrons anyway?

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the magic of J.M.S ?

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