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In SciFi great ship tech, what is the general lore behind why shields start at 100% and lower when confronted with any type of weapon or physical blow? Most shields deflect objects (not electrify/torch them) in SciFi. This infers more of a mag field or gravity. If that were so, a mag field wouldn't weaken when a non-mag force is applied.
It's fiction...I know...but so many ships have been needlessly blown up.
Force Shields starting at 100% and being gradually worn down by hostile weapons fire is a standard feature of scifi, I'm not sure who originated it. The repulsors and Ray screens of Doc Smith's Skylark series do not operate this way.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#id--Force_Fields--Considerations
The current standard is the Langston Field that originated in Niven and Pournelle's The Mote in God's Eye. It was invented by Dr. Dan Alderson as per spec the limits desired by Niven & Pournelle. It was specifically designed in order to allow dramatic space opera combat scenes in scifi stories, but with interesting rules making interesting limitations.
For that reason it is also used in some scifi war games.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardefense.php#langston
Fascinating... this is making me want to re-read Mote, as I didn't recall this element of the story.
I did remember the term "Alderson Drive" though!
Apparently Dan Alderson appears in-world as the discoverer of the "Alderson force" that enables the interstellar drive: https://fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Alderson_Drive
I am trying to remember my sources. Some of this is in the essay "Building the Mote in God's eye"
https://archive.org/details/Galaxy_v37n01_1976-01/page/n95/mode/1up?view=theater
Some is in the short story "Reflex", the original first chapter of Mote in God's Eye that was removed during editing, and later published as a short story.
Some is in "The Science and Technology of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium/Empire of Man Universe" by Doug McElwain