just realized that schild's ladder is the solution to langoliers. the novo-vacuum and the langoliers describe one and the same problem; so does the "twisted" episode from voyager season 2 (and many more): a field is going to go through us, and it will certainly be deadly.
but the responses are different:
langoliers: get the fuck out
twisted: do nothing, it will be fine
schild's ladder: build a compatibility layer, it will be fine