Force field (science fiction)

For other uses, see Force field (disambiguation).

In science fiction and fantasy literature, a force field or protective shield is a barrier made up of energy to protect a person, area or object from attacks or intrusions. The idea may be based partly on the concept of a vector field, though in character it resembles the "warding spells," defensive magic claimed to be used by the Druids and shamans of the ancient world. In the physical sciences, the term also has several specific meanings (see force field (disambiguation)).

Fiction

Science fiction venues postulate a number of potential uses for force fields, especially in Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Babylon 5, Independence Day, and other science fiction works:

• A barrier to allow workers to work in areas that can be exposed to the vacuum of space, keeping the atmosphere inside while allowing certain other objects to pass through.
• Emergency quarantine of an area afflicted by some sort of agent (eg. poison gas) to prevent it from spreading.
• The extinguishing of a fire by forcing the reaction to use up all the available oxygen in the confined space.
• As a shield (in some cases large enough to cover an entire planet) to protect something from damage by natural forces or enemy attack.
• To create a temporary habitable space in a place not usually suited to sustaining life.
• As a security method to direct someone in a particular direction for capture.
• For cell doors in jails and prisons.
• In Star Trek: The Next Generation, sections of the ship have internal force field generators that allow you to put up transparent energy walls that prevent any matter or energy from passing though them. This has been used for starship windows to separate the vacuum of space and the room atmosphere, defense and sealing off parts of the ship where hull has been breached or destroyed.
• In the Anime show, Neon Genesis Evangelion, the AT field (the wall that encloses minds and limits individual entities) can be physically expressed by both Angels and Evas, and has both defensive and offensive uses.
• In Arthur C. Clarke's novel The Lost Worlds of 2001, The Monolith aliens had perfected the use of force fields to such a point that they were used as the hulls of their ships.
• In the video game EarthBound you can cast PK (PSI) Shield which protects you from physical and or special attacks as fire, ice or electricity, which works exactly as a force field for the characters.
• In the video game Warhawk, the APC features an 'E-POD' shield which is impervious to weapons fire and aircraft, but does allow troops and ground vehicles to pass through.

Non-fiction

The plasma window is a technology that partially recreates the functionality of a force field, providing a separation between vacuum and gas that allows some radiation and energetic particles to pass through. However, there is currently only one actual method of creating an energy shield: the use of electromagnetism to affect the movement of metallic objects. No power sources currently exist that can create a field of sufficient strength to function as depicted in science fiction. It is likely, howerver, that it may be refined to the point of resembling the internal halway and window field generaters of Star Trek Next Generation.