THIS time I agree with you Empyrean, lol. No hard feelings

The main delector on Star Trek creates a "bubble" of sorts... or maybe a " eliptical/triangular shaped cone the pierces the spaces infront of it... a shield of sorts is projected infront of the moving vessel... hence the vessel moves forward, and no sideways... no such protection on the side.

In B5, the average creature travels in hyper space... a short cut between two points.. not as fast as a wormhole, but faster then normal space travel.. that is way the ships fly in a 3d universe.. and can maintain speed through their momentum. Personal shields don't exist.. so nukes are very effective....

ok in my lst post i gave two different reasons for why mass drivers dont work as you think they should, the first half was in a hypothetical 'future' and the second was based on todays reality. ill try again

first in the 'future'.

in order for a ship to travel at close to light speeds it will need to have some form of shielding against normal interstellar matter (rocks, dust, asteroids, comets, and so on), that was my point by saying that there would allready be SOME form of particle defence built into any future space craft.

once you reach the light speed then ALL forms of particles are in effect allready 'mass drivers' since a mass driver functions based on speeds of the projectiles. then it becomes only a question of angle of attack, an object behind a light speed craft could never catch up(sinse light speed is the fastest you could move in this universe), but an object in front of a light speed craft becomes in effect a mass driver even if its stationary, the ultimate mass driver in fact, because the targets own speed is used against it.

the concept is that your dealing with a fixed speed limit in this universe, and sinse the defending ship in our future can reach the speed limit of the universe then a mass driver would only be useful from a forward angle of attack.

now make the leap to hyperlight speeds, that removes all the caps, but NOW you have to have the ability to have a mass propelled into hyperlight speeds, that will require some form of constiant propulsion sinse the natural speed limit is light speed you will need to use un natural means to get a mass driver to hyper light speeds like a 'warp engine' THEN it becomes a missle not a mass driver.

the above is all theory mind you but based on sound principals. now let us examin the facts.

with my comments about using missles vrs guns today, the reason that plaes are still armed with guns is for air to ground support, the guns are used for fixed target destruction, since plaes can and DO dodge gunfire, or simple fly faster than the guns speeds, once the 'jet age' started the Axis powers found that their planes were shooting themselves down because they were moving faster than the bullits their guns were firing, THAT is what caused the switch from guns to missles, the projectiles they were using needed to have their relitave speeds boosted in order for the shooting plane not to outrun its own gun fire.

now after a bit of research into a better gun they eventualy developed a high enough caliber gun that could atleast be marginaly effective against mach plus planes but its still a VERY close range weapon. it has to be, since even at mach plus speeds the bullit is still not moving that much faster than the plane in front of you, and the plane in front of you is under continuis accelleration the bullit isnt, that means that during the 'window' that the bullit can hold its overtake speed it must hit the target or it will simple bleed off all its speed and fall to earth, and that is a very very small window, now allready starting from a handycap you now also have to factor in things like vector changes of the target (dodging) and angle of attack (front head on, or rear chase)

THAT is why missles were introduced and are still being developed and why guns arent, guns are a dead end path in a ship to ship fight. with no way to guide the projectile its far to easy for the attacker and defender to dodge bullits, or out run them, or simple avoid the very small cone of attack that a gun allows you.

now attack against fixed targets a mass driver would be an outstanding weapon. since objects at close to light speed carry tremendious destructave power, the problem is hiting what you aim at, if an object is fixed or even moving slowly enough to not be able to dodge then you have something. hiting a 10 story building with even a 20 MM object at light speed would cause total destruction of that building, but buildings cant dodge. allow that building to move at light speed itself and you would need a miracle to hit it.

Not true. Guns are used in aerial combat all the time,

aye as an air to ground weapon, but seldom used in air to air combat.

You're forgetting that speed is relative; if your ship is moving at the speed of light, and your target is moving at the speed of light, you could throw a rock by hand and it would be moving faster than the enemy ship

and your forgeting that once you reach light speed you have reached the speed limit of this universe, that rock you 'throw' at light speed would either never leave your hand since your allready moving as fast as possable, or it would pop into 'hyperspace' since it would have broken the light speed of this universe and thus no longer be able to effect anything IN this universe.

Dodging a projectile can involve a tremendous amount of g-forces, depending on the size of the ship under attack (larger ships need to move further to get out of the projectile's path) and the flight time of the projectile. Figure out a way to move a 100m ship out of the path of a projectile that will be arriving within 1/1000th of a second without killing everyone on board and/or ripping the ship apart through the g-forces involved and you'll have an argument.

in order to even move a ship at light speed to begine with you will have had to work out all those factors since as ive pointed out more than once now, ANY object becomes a mass driver when the ship is moving at light speeds. YOUR motion relitave to ANY object is what causes that object to take on the properties of a mass driver, YOUR speed is used against you in the reverse, your ship IS the mass driver projectile. you talk about not being able to hit a bullit with a bullit, once your ship reaches light speed you BECOME that bullit. now tell me again how your going to shoot it down with another bullit?

if my ship is at C and you fire an object at me at C then that object will never hit me, assuming a tail chase aspect, if its a head to head encounter........... well the simple answer is that i know better than to go head to head with you. i figure out your cone of attack and avoid it, since your ship has the same trouble turning as mine does and the ONLY way you can hit me at light speed is if i comeing head on at you then i dont come head on at you. cant get a much better counter measure than that can you?

your dealing with a hard law of the universe, nothing in this universe is faster than the speed of light, once you reach that speed thats it. there is no overtake speed possable, there is only the ability to set up a split second window from a head to head aspect that will alow you to use an light speeds objects own speed against it. and in that case you may as well seed a mine field out of rocks and just let the ship your trying to attack to fly through it and destroy itself , for if you miss the shot with your gun then the ship is past you and you cant catch up.

how do you the shooter AIM a gun when you have 1/10000th of a second before your target is past you?

I want to point out here that while light speed is called the speed limit of the universe, it's also impossible to reach. Plain and simple, it can't be done. However ask a physicist(my bro has a ph.d in astro-physics) if going faster is possible and they will say no however its not as impossilbe as the speed of light itself. Weird huh? Oh yeah, also say I am going the speed of light and a friend is right next to me who is also going the speed of light, if I were to look at my friend then to me he would be going the speed of light and would reach our destination faster, obviously though the same thing applys to him looking at me.

The point to what I'm saying is the speed of light is an EXTREMELY tricky and confusing thing to talk about and we hardly truely know anything about it, thus all arguments using or pertaining to people using the speed of light should be thrown out, I hope I made sense, thank you.

Wow, the last few posts are some of the dumbest things I have ever read.

Here's a tip: we're talking about a video game in which things like warp engines are part of the technological landscape. If you have a problem with pretending that something can exceed the speed of light, you're in the wrong place. Either way, an argument based on lightspeed as the absolute upper limit is utterly misplaced here.

And ERHALL01, you should ask your brother about the speed of light in more detail. What is actually considered impossible is *acceleration* to and beyond the speed of light in a vaccuum. There is nothing which prohibits motion in excess of the speed of light, provided that object has always moved faster than the speed of light. There is also nothing which prohibits exceeding the speed of light in some as-yet-unidentified medium other than a vaccuum -- and I'll remind you again, we are, after all, playing a game here.

The speed of light actually isn't that confusing, and it is very well understood by those of us who spent our formative years simply paying attention and educating ourselves. Save the video games until you know something about the real world. The investment of time is well worth the effort.

I'm not going to embarrass anyone by quoting Paramount on the non-canon status of Star Trek novels. They're all worthless, and who cares who wrote them, or helped? Paramount says they're not part of continuity, the end. Even those two VOY novels written by Jeri whatever have been de-canonised.

5.1MW per emitter... compared to gigaton medium turbolasers... hmmm. No competition there. PS, turbolasers aren't lasers, they behave nothing like lasers, and the name of a weapon means nothing anyway. GalCiv is hardly the only game with retarded 'lolz lasers are t3h suck' tech trees, but all that matters is output. Do you want a 5kT plasma gun, or a 500kT laser gun? The answer is obvious.

Borg adaption is not a no-limits proposition. Clearly, the limit to their ships is between the Wolf 359 fleet and the First Contact fleet. Since when did the Borg move at ~c in realspace? The idea of the Borg dodging ANYTHING is absurd to anyone who has ever watched Star Trek.

I always thought the Thraddash were worthless... until I found someone who could use it. I *hate* the damn things now. They're like 5 bucks and they can cripple a Chmmr.

SpathiDiscriminator,nice name however,
I can't write a thesis on the speed of light for obvious reasons
About going faster than the speed of light though. Things go faster than the speed of light ALL THE TIME! Take a particle that's close to the speed of light then have it enter water instead of open air or space. Then all of a sudden the particle is going faster because the speed of light in water is slower, for obvious reasons. The particle will no longer retain the speed of light, speed, if you will. Rather, it "explodes"(for lack of a better term) in special type of radiation that occurs only during this type of decomposition. Therefore the force pushing the particle has not changed and for practical purposes the drag hasn't really changed either. So we see that a particle that exceeds the speed of light does not stay like that, but the instant it goes faster than the speed of light it decomposes because it can't retain itself.

Here's a tip: we're talking about a video game in which things like warp engines are part of the technological landscape. If you have a problem with pretending that something can exceed the speed of light, you're in the wrong place. Either way, an argument based on lightspeed as the absolute upper limit is utterly misplaced here.

no one was arguing that the speed of light was the upper limit, in fact i devided my last post into two parts, the 'future' aspect where its assumed that the speed limit of light will be broken, and the 'now' where there is as yet no way to break that limit. and ive made the case that in EITHER senario mass drivers would be of extream limited use.

mass drivers in the game give a semi plausable 3rd tech tree. i have no real problem with that. we are after all as you say, playing a game, and we can make crap up. my post is more to inform people who might take this GAME more serious than intended and go off half cocked telling everyone they know that the Army are morons because they dont build mass drivers to kill Sadam. just because the drengi wiped them out using them the last time they loaded GS

The speed of light actually isn't that confusing, and it is very well understood by those of us who spent our formative years simply paying attention and educating ourselves. Save the video games until you know something about the real world. The investment of time is well worth the effort.

actualy its very confusing.

i ask you this. if you can answer me then ill agree that the light speed question is simple. if you travel at C, and look behind you what do you see?

I'm not going to embarrass anyone by quoting Paramount on the non-canon status of Star Trek novels. They're all worthless, and who cares who wrote them, or helped? Paramount says they're not part of continuity, the end. Even those two VOY novels written by Jeri whatever have been de-canonised.

my mistake.

i didnt mean to say that the books were cannon, but rather to say the books were writen BASED on cannon.

all the books dealing with the Borg were written by an author that is involved and collaberated with Mike Okuda, in actualy writing Star Trek cannon (ghost author to TNG technical manual). Mike okuda is the guy AT Paramount who makes the cannon.

in short, untill they write the 'borg technical manual', then the books written in consultation with the guy who makes ST cannon will have to due.

5.1MW per emitter... compared to gigaton medium turbolasers... hmmm. No competition there

id agree, now where did the 'gigaton medium turbosasers' information come from? i ask this not because i think your wrong or because i want to argue, but if you have some official source for those numbers id like a link to it. it would help settle long standing debates on alot of fronts for me. just keep in mind that the term gigaton is a measure of mass, while megawat is a measure of energy

ive been a Star Wars fan since i was a child. and ive found nothing anyplace in official cannon that tells the relitave power of SW weapons. even my statment that the DS 2 was 180 KM was taken from a MIT study on the theory of the size of the death stars, and based on movie stills they came to an estimate of between 160 and 200 KMs. and even THAT was based on an assumption that an SSD was 8 KM long.

id LOVE any kind of official source for this kind of information reguarding the Star Wars universe.

Borg adaption is not a no-limits proposition. Clearly, the limit to their ships is between the Wolf 359 fleet and the First Contact fleet.

well im not sure what you mean here. the first contact cube had never delt with the new weapons that the Star Fleet used in the first contact fight, such as tuned phasors and quantom torpedos. they were defeated but will adapt to them the next fight.

in order to adapt they need to have met the weapon in question to begine with. and im not sure that you could call the cubes destruction a loss anyhow. the mission was to launch a time capsule into earths past. that mission succeeded. the loss of the cube could have been nothing more than the 'loss' of an ejection seat, or tossing out the carton once you drank the milk. the cube could have been nothing more than a casing for the capsule and intended to be destroyed in the process.

Since when did the Borg move at ~c in realspace?

all ships of both the Star fleet and all the major Star Fleet enemys have the ability to move at C. the order "3/4 impulse' IS an order for 3/4 C, when the captian calls for full impulse they are calling for full C.

there is a whole section in the technical manual dealing with impulse drive, i could, i suppose, write it all here but i hope you will just take my word for it. the post is long enough as it is

The idea of the Borg dodging ANYTHING is absurd to anyone who has ever watched Star Trek.

i dont disagree. but then again no one was saying the Borg were going to dodge. though i made the case very clearly that mass drivers wouldnt be an effectave weapon against the borg simply because they COULD be dodged. i have no doubt that the Borgs shields alone would be enough to stop ANY mass driver weapons no dodging required. that was just the most BASIC defence to mass drivers that could be implimented on a nanoseconds notice

i ask you this. if you can answer me then ill agree that the light speed question is simple. if you travel at C, and look behind you what do you see?

Nothing. Duh. If something were moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light along with you, you'd see it dimly with a reddish tint due to the wavelengths being effectively lengthened relative to you.

Nothing. Duh. If something were moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light along with you, you'd see it dimly with a reddish tint due to the wavelengths being effectively lengthened relative to you.

ahhh but i didnt say "significant fraction' i said AT the speed of light. and in order to see anything behind you , what you were seeing (photons) would have to be moving faster than you. if you were moving AT the speed of light then no photons could possable overtake you so you couldnt see anything.

now having established this, i ask you what happenes to a universe that you cant see? *steps into the unknown*

the universe that is behind you no longer exists to you since nothing that happenes in that universe could ever effect you. nothing OF that universe could ever catch you. not even photons. do you dissapear or does the universe? you 'should' be able to act on the universe thats behind you since your actions can be slowed enough to effect that universe, but theirs can never be FAST enough to effect you

is say THAT was kinda 'confusing' wouldnt you?

I just bought GalCiv2 yesterday and have only played a couple of games so far. I have also noticed a significant Star Control influence. The basic game concept seems inspired by Star Control... from Precursors to Dread Lords to navigating your ship across a space map. And, yes, the term "Dread Lords" was used in SC2... the Ur-Quan captains were named Dread Lord 1 through Dread Lord 999,999 (or whatever).

I'm not criticizing the practice of "borrowing" good ideas. On the contrary, I'm happy to see it as long as there are new ideas too. In SC2 I loved driving my ship around the galaxy and choosing which stars and planets to visit. I applaud Stardock's development of the idea. I hope they use their space map technology to build a Star Control-esque adventure game.

BTW, there might be a new Star Control game in the offing. Link

Um, the Ur-Quan captains were just called "Lord X," not "Dread Lord X." I've got "Ur-Quan Masters" open in a window right now (this thread inspired me to open it up again for some supermelee action).

But there are plenty of other indicators of influence which prove your main point...

Um, the Ur-Quan captains were just called "Lord X," not "Dread Lord X." I've got "Ur-Quan Masters" open in a window right now (this thread inspired me to open it up again for some supermelee action).

Fun fact: they were named "Master X" in SC1. SC2 used a bigger font, so they couldn't fit "Master 999" in the box, so they settled for "Lord X".

I preferred "Master".

Hey, that's right! Forgot about that, Alfonse. Yeah, "Master" was better.

By the way, this thread seems to have split in two: one, a discussion of Starcon 2 influences, and the other, a discussion of the relative power of sci-fi weaponry. To add to the second "mini-thread," the in-game description of Titanium Armor mentions that Mass Drivers are fired from a "hyperdrive assisted gun." This might affect how we understand the concept of mass drivers in the GalCiv universe.

Incidentally, the other major use of mass driver technology that I can think of in sci-fi lore is in Babylon 5, where mass drivers are used for massive planetary bombardment (Centauri cruisers pummel Narn with mass drivers while Londo watches). This usage seems pretty typical of what other people think of mass driver weaponry: they're slow and powerful, but essentially useful only against (relatively) stationary objects. The GalCiv concept seems to be a pretty new one for sci-fi, unless I'm forgetting something (which I probably am)...

The GalCiv concept seems to be a pretty new one for sci-fi, unless I'm forgetting something (which I probably am)...

When people talk about mass drivers, they're generally talking about planetary siege weapons.

For smaller-scale projectile weapons in Sci-Fi, you're generally talking about Rail Guns or Gauss Rifles (or just chemical explosives like modern guns, that can burn without an atmosphere). In general, there aren't that many Sci-Fi universes that consider space-born projectile weapons to be terribly viable as capital-class weapons, the new BattleStar Galactica being one of the few (and the HomeWorld series, though Ion Cannons are considered superior, but slower firing). Now, for smaller-scale weapons, as mounted on fighters or perhaps corvettes, projectile weapons are more common in Sci-Fi.

The real problem with projectile weapons isn't Einstein: it's Newton. The third law, specifically. If you accelerate a small bullet to, say, 0.1%C, the amount of force required to do so would probably destroy the gun itself, whether it's an explosive, rail gun, or gauss rifle. Projectiles have to be quickly accelerated to their velocity, unless you're going to have a very long muzzle, so the projectile assembly needs to be able to stand up to tremendous forces. Missiles, by contrast, don't need that. They accelerate themselves, so they don't need a powerful assembly that can stand up to extreme forces.

Now, I don't believe that combat at speeds approaching C is ever going to be possible in space. I actually wonder if combat in space would ever be truly viable for large capital ships. Look at it this way. Near-relativistic velocity projectiles are impossible. And slower projectiles (across decent distances) can be avoided relatively easily. So they're out.

Missiles have a gigantic light emitter on the back of them, making tracking them disgustingly easy. A short-range gun system (point defense) could easily take out any warhead long before it becomes a threat.

And energy weapons can be defeated through reflective armor. Or mostly so.

Actually, as I write this, something occurrs to me. It seems obvious that, in such a circumstance, combat would therefore have to take place at ranges where balistic weapons would become viable again. So you would probably be fighting in orbit around a planet, or approaching orbit.

SC2 I found very, very difficult... I tended to die, well, all the time really. It did have a lot of personality though, moreso than GC2.

For example, those crazy robots that constantly babbled "WE COME IN PEACE!" before blowing your ship to bits.

Or the completely intimidated races that would quake in fear even though you were just saying hello. Very well scripted game, full of inventive ideas, but very ridiculously over-the-top difficult.

dthought: the difficulty of the probes is considerable, but an answer is provided on Pluto - namely, Fwiffo and his Spathi Eluder (which you can convince to join your fleet, but be sure to stock it with troops at the starbase). A well-piloted Eluder can defeat a Slylandro probe with minimal or no casualties. You have to be patient with this battle, though. Much of the time you will be firing BUTT missiles only to see them fail. The trick is you have to let the probe get a little bit close to you (still outside the range of its lightning blast), then turn tail and run, unleashing a hail of missiles (special weapon fire). Usually 1 or (if you're lucky or daring) 2 missiles will strike. Continue the dance until the probe is gone. The game is worth completing if you can get past some of the initial difficulties.

On the issue of mass drivers and the speed of light, you have not considered one thing and may not know another. First is if current theory (relative theory that is) is correct, you cannot even reach the speed of light as Einstein says that mass increases with velocity. As you approach the speed of light, mass approaches infinity which requires infinite energy to accelerate which is obviously impossible. So even reaching the speed of light cannot happen. The other part you miss out on is that if FTL is possible, it is likely by moving into another dimension of some type. Moving to this dimension would probably not require you to speed up to the speed of light and then pop into the other dimension. There will be a way to do that from lower speeds. This and the first point mean that you will have upper speed limits in this universe of fractions of c and then mass drivers might be effective if their speed is high enough.

you cannot even reach the speed of light as Einstein says that mass increases with velocity. As you approach the speed of light, mass approaches infinity which requires infinite energy to accelerate which is obviously impossible. So even reaching the speed of light cannot happen

and yet we can see, and we can measure the speed of light (photons). if anything at all can reach the speed of light than everything can, with enough effort.

now i dont presume to argue with Einstein, however. i susspect that both you and i neither have a full grasp on what his theory really means.

The other part you miss out on is that if FTL is possible, it is likely by moving into another dimension of some type. Moving to this dimension would probably not require you to speed up to the speed of light and then pop into the other dimension. There will be a way to do that from lower speeds. This and the first point mean that you will have upper speed limits in this universe of fractions of c and then mass drivers might be effective if their speed is high enough.

i dont see how. if we can jump to supra light speeds even from a standing start you could still outrun mass drivers.

think of it this way, you will be traveling in either "A" space (normal) or "B" space (hyper light) in EITHER event all you have to do is to change your speed relitave to what ever space, A OR B the mass driver is fired in to evade it. if its fired in A then you go hyper light and out run it, if its fired in B then you go sub light and avoid it since you will no longer be in that "other demension" anymore and can be effected by anything still in it.

now assuming you choose to stay in that other hyper light demension the speed limits will still apply it will just be in that other demensions rule set is all.

what ever rules govern what ever demension you care to talk about will apply to ALL objects in that demension. now we can of corse go off into a 'what if' senario, such as 'what if, mass in the hyper-light universe is inverse to the mass to speed relationship in our demension and the slower an object gos the more mass it has". interesting theory ( read up on tachyon's if you care to know more) all makes for interesting speculation. but not really relevent to the topic since a 'mass driver' in that kind of a demension would have to be too slow to hit anything.

photons have no mass

The split among Drengins resembles Ur-Quan doctrinal war, and "Kohr-Ar" looks like "Korath".

The Thraddash was great vs Chmmr because its afterburners could destroy the zapsats and give it the speed to keep away from the tractor beam. A skilled Chmmr pilot could keep away from most afterburner blasts, so it was not a done deal (except versus the computer - you could beat the computer Chmmr almost every time with the Thraddash), but it could be a very close battle. Often the Chmmr would win but be weakened for the next battle due to loss of 2 or 3 zapsats.

Actually, with a single Thraddash I could take out about half of an AI fleet (of random distribution). There were some ships it wasn't built to handle, but otherwise it was basicly a superweapon (Along with the Spathi... who would be masters of the universe if they had developed a backbone... but then again, I guess they are mollusks, afterall)

I ask you this. if you can answer me then ill agree that the light speed question is simple. if you travel at C, and look behind you what do you see?

According to relativity, the concept of *you* traveling *at C* and *looking behind* is *frumple*. You are implying that you have an absolute frame of reference from which to measure your velocity. This is clearly a violation of the fundamental principle of relativity.

Besides that, *you* can not travel AT the speed of light. Your speed relative to another object is always a fraction of that speed (0 <= |v| < c), and in order for this to all be mathematically possible, space/time itself must be different for every different frame of reference!

Therefore, your question is not in the framework of relativity and so you must either redefine your thought experiment or present a new hypothesis which revises/invalidates the theory of relativity.  

Experiment: Stand on Earth, *20 meters* from your best buddy (not friend, buddy - you'll see why in a moment). Pull out your 7.62 mm Browning and shoot him in the leg. Make sure he uses a stop watch to record exactly how long it takes the bullet to reach him. (If he protests this is impossible, just mention you'll have to shoot him again if he messes up the first time). Now, help him limp to the nearest UFO (helps if you start in Rosswell, NM, which shows you why its always a good idea to read EVERY step of the directions before beginning). Accelerate away from Earth to 99.99% the speed of light. (I recommend getting an interstellar pilots license first... If a Vogron cop pulls you over, he *will* make you roll down your window and hand it to him). Now, stand in the main corridor, with your buddy *20 m* closer to Earth, and shoot him in the other leg (shooting against your path of travel). Then repeat the experiment with your buddy *20 m* farther from Earth (shooting along your path of travel). As you have run out of legs, you'll need to choose another target, but I'll leave that to your imagination. Now, if your buddy doesn't report the same times for each event (although the experiences themseleves may differ, perhaps vastly depending on your third target), then you'll have room to complain about the theory of relativity. (but not as much room as your poor buddy, I'm afraid...)

I was thinking about this thread the other day.

In Sci-Fi, if you go long enough, you'll end up having similarities that seem glaring.

Let me give you some examples:

Babylon 5: We have the "first ones"
SC2: "The Precursers"
Stargate: "The Ancients"
GalCiv II: "The Precursors"
In Lord of the Rings: "The Valar"

another

In SC2: The Ur-Quan and the other guys go to war with each other over a difference in philosophy.

In Bab5 you have the Vorlons and Shadows go to war with each other..

In Stargate you have the Ori and the Ancients go to war with each other...

In GalCiv you have the Arnor and Dread Lords go to war with each other..

In Lord of the Rings you have the Morgoth vs. the other Valar or Sauron vs. other Maiar

And in GalCiv II: DA the Drengin and the Korath...

and more..

In Babylon 5 Earth gets put behind a shield while a cure is found for a plague..

In GalCiv II Earth is put behind a shield while an answer to the Drengin menace is found

In SC2 Earth is put behind a shield to imprison them by the Ur Quan

In Stargate they keep trying to put earth behind a shield (but give it time, it will happen)

In LoTR Valinor is taken from the rest of the world to keep the scum (middle earth) from going over.

..

In short, give a sci-fi or fantasy genre enough time and the same things come up over and over.