message 0534

• Shields for spaceships

>Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 09:13:36 EDT
>From: davis@licre.ludwig.edu.au
>Subject: cherryhlist

In regards to shielding of relativistic starships, especially during high 
risk transitions like the Urtur system, I found this in _Chanur's 
Homecoming_:  (DAW, p231-2)

"...a hellhole for inbound ships, where dust and rock could break down a 
starship's defensive bubble and strip away its V.  Hit the thick of it at 
their present velocity and they would make a UV glow, particles accelerated 
by the contact with virtual particles they brought with them, exotics 
shooting off in ricochet fashion and creating an accelerated maelstrom of 
reactions that would bleed away their energy.  Ships had to dump when they 
reached a gravity well; but cloud like Urtur's had ways of doing it for a 
ship....
   ...getting through the V shield, chewing away bit by bit in pyrotechnic 
decay, until it got to vulnerable realspace metal and quasimetals, and got 
the vital vane-surfaces, and gnawed away at the hull till it began to glow.
..."

(p245): "Urtur dust screamed over the hull, shields downed during the low-V 
of their turn and reacquisition, dust abrading the vanes."

The references to "realspace" and the ability to turn the shields on and 
off during manoeuvring imply that the shields may be some type of 
projection, possibly related to vane technology or hyperspace itself.

Ian Davis                          davis@licre.ludwig.edu.au