Saga Shields?

Any explanation of why shields in Star Wars don't reflect blaster bolts back? A lightsaber can do that...

 

Because they're not lightsabers- they don't glow brightly when active.

Now, there is a scene where a blaster bolt reflects off something that's "magnetically sealed"- the interior of the Death Star trash compactor- but I don't think it's possible to shield the exterior of something in quite the same fashion, otherwise they would already have shown us reflecting bolts.

 

The Gungan shield glowed brightly.

 

Not as brightly as a lightsaber does though.

 

Lightsabers don't absorb laser bolts. Shields can do that.

 

But wouldn't deflecting them be better? They could hit a person

 

Or something else. Either way, it's irrelevant. Just because lightsabers behave in a certain way, doesn't mean shields have to do the same.

 

A shield would deflect blast fire indiscriminately at allies, innocents and foes alike, whereas a lightsaber practitioner can direct them at a specific target.

 

A lightsaber blade kinda *is* a blaster bolt in concentrated form. It's like repelling like. Make of that what you will.

 

That makes sense. A mag sealed bolt of plasma is essentially the same as a mag sealed blade of plasma.

 

Didn't we see blaster bolts bouncing off the shields of Anakin's fighter in TPM while he was in the battleship's hangar?

 

The Gungans' hand-held shields seem to work that way.

 

The bigger question would be why are most shield generators outside of the shield?

 

The Rebel display puts the shield generator for the DS2 inside the shield it's creating- and the shield needs to be lowered in order to land at the platform on Endor.

When A-wings take out one of the Executor's shield generator/sensor dome things, it's after Ackbar has ordered the fleet to "concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer" - maybe the shield was weak enough for the A-Wings to punch through at that point.

 

A shield essentially creates a giant bubble around the ship. When the shield is damaged enough, some holes can briefly appear in the energy field, allowing fighters to sneak through. That's why the A-wings were able to get in and take out the generators.

 

IIRC, it was the bombardment from the Rebels that short-circuited the shield on the Executor, allowing the A-Wing pilot to kamikaze the bridge.

Bubble? I always thought that the shield hugged the surface of the ships, and outlined the exact contours, which was the reason that allowed fast moving ships to still do this:

 

The Falcon is still a fair distance away from the Executor's hull in that shot, probably 50 meters or more.

 

Some shields deflect blaster bolts, others deflect solid objects (projectiles)

 

That is true. I forgot that distances become harder to discern on scales this large. Still, the above image doesn't exactly conjure up the notion of a bubble as illustrated here:

This image makes it appear as if the shield projects hundreds of meters out from the surface of the Executor, implying that the Falcon shouldn't have been capable of flying as close as it did.

 

Two possible reasons:

1) The Executor may have been running with particle shields down to use the tractor beam

2) The above image could merely be artistic license.

 

Huh, hadn't considered the first reason before.

 

My impression of shields is that they absorb energy. There are Shields and Particle Shields stop solid objects, and the former stops energy weapons

 

There are 3 basic types of shields in Star Wars:

Ray shields, which protect against laser weapons.
Particle shields, which protect against solid objects.
Energy shields, which disintegrate anything that strikes them.

 

So why would anyone use the two former when Energy shields do it all?

 

Probably because energy shields are more expensive and/or require a greater power source, making it not worth using except in the most exceptional of circumstances. Protecting the second Death Star was one such case.