Wednesday 30 September 2009

Trans-reflective force fields

Often in science fiction you see a force field protecting something. The heroes shoot at it just to establish that it's really there, and the energy blasts or bullets seem to be absorbed or disintegrated. So I started wondering what would happen if the force field reflected anything you propelled at it right back where it came from. Throwing a rock would be a bit of a bad idea, but shooting such a force field would be like shooting directly at yourself. Makes for a much more effective defence, in my opinion.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - The good guys should be in control of such a force field first.
PPS - Otherwise good guys die just finding out that the force field is there.

9 comments:

Erin Marie said...

So you're suggesting that we perhaps go up and hug the forcefield? Give it flowers perhaps?

John said...

Yes, it's a hippy force-field. It can only be defeated by love, not hate.

Miv said...

Fantastic, I can just imagine an army full of stoned out san franciscans from the 60's floating out to the death-star and trying to cover it in flowers.

Man, I have to lay off the coffee!

John said...

And I can imagine an army full of stoned San Franciscans thinking they're floating out to the Death Star to cover it in flowers, while they're actually just lying in a field.

Erin Marie said...

It's the Jesus forcefield.

So five hundred years in the future when they ACTUALLY invent a forcefield that can only be overcome by love and not hate, and they name it the Jesus forcefield, I want it to be known that I thought of it.

John - you're in charge of that. I expect that you will be a head in a jar, Nixon-like. I'll be killed in the first revolution of robots for trying to hug a chainsaw into sanity.

Kammorremae said...

Well, a curved barrier would rarely yield that effect, but a field with a flat surface might cause such a thing to occur (of course, after deflecting, most projectiles has less velocity, maybe this barrier speeds them up?).

I imagine your odds of being hit by your own projectile are the same as the odds when firing at a Tarrasque.

John said...

Okay, if I'm a head in a jar after 500 years, I promise to tell everyone that Erin thought of the name "Jesus force field".

And to reflect things back where they came from, the shape needed is corner reflectors, though I'm not sure how you'd get them arranged to make a force field.

Erin Marie said...

I didn't just think of the name, I thought of the force field. The love one.

I expect my descendents to get a cut of the profits.

Beard said...

lots of movies make use of reflective force fields, cant think of one right at this point in time. but i know they have been used before.