No respectable house leader or space craft would be caught without a shield. Shields are the most common protection measures in the Dune universe. They prevent any fast moving object from passing through their field. Shields function because of a Holtman field.

Warriors employ the use of shields in combat from protection from enemy projectiles and bladed weapons. Fighters too employ shields when practicing for combat. This way they may strike their sparing partner without fear of harming them. Shields however, will allow slow moving particles to pass through. So whne attacking a defender with a shield, one must slow the motion of her blade just before striking the target.

Shields have two downsides:

1) They allow energy to pass through. So explosions and fire will harm the wearer or craft employing them. Likewise lasgun beams would also pass through, not that it matters because,

2) whenever a lasgun beam interacts with a Holtzman field, the result is Hiroshima.

The two energy fields violently annihilate each other, producing an atomic weapon like explosion. Unlike an atomic detonation, lasgun/shield explosions do not leave residual radiation. These explosions are permitted under the great convention, although they are greatly discouraged!

As a side note, shields cause all Arrakis giant worms within 100 km to go into a killing frenzy. With their first target being whatever is generating the shield!

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Dune reviews are © 2004  Ryan Bechtel.
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Dune names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of Sci-Fi Channel, New Amsterdam Entertainment, and the assorted publishing companies who own the rights to the various Dune novels.