How do deflector shields work in Star Trek? Or indeed, any sci-fi? Is there any factual basis for them, and if so, is any military division working on shield technology? There are worse things to spend your funding on, I imagine.
For that matter, any answer for the above, with Tractor Beams in place of Deflector Shields. Any chance?
This looks like a job … for the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual!
How do they work?
Fairly well, except where the plot says otherwise.
Plagiarism.
You stole that from Michael Okuda.
Shame.
Okuda said that too?
Cool.
Enterprise makes a whoosing noise in TOS.
When asked “How do the Heisenberg compsensators work?” Okuda replied, “Very well, thank you.”
Forcefields in general, Navigational deflectors, and tractor beams as explained by ditl.org, my favorite treknology site.
Answered (at least tangentially) by a Staff Report on this very site. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this technology to become reality.
Huh … and I just noticed a couple of glitches in that staff report, too. I think I’ll dig up an old grave here, so to speak, and post my nitpicks on the Comments on Staff Reports forum.
Ah. From the staff report:
The Romulans do, in fact, use black holes to power their ships.
How they get power out of a black hole is, of course, not explained.
Technically, it’s called a quantum singularity. Or is that just a fancy technobabble name for black hole?
Somewhere I read that in Trek scripts, they would actually write in “technobabble” during some engineering dialogue, which meant the writers would come up with something sufficiently geeky-sounding later.
A singularity is the heart of a blackhole. Not sure if a quantum singularity’s real or technobabble though.
I believe Patrick Steward said they used “tech” as a placeholder in their scripts:
“Shields down!”
“Mr. LaForge, your assistance would be deeply appreciated at this time.”
“No problem, Captain! If we tech the tech, tech the tech, and tech tech the tech, I can give you Warp 9 for seven seconds!”