SG Question: Zat'ni'katel, the craziest gun ever.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-07-19 11:34am

Alright, what's the deal with the Zat guns? It's pretty obvious WHAT they do... but has there been even a slight explaination of why 1 shot hurts, 2 shots kill, 3 shots vaporizes the body?

The effects of a hit are described frequently as similar to being electrocuted. In 'Family', Jack shoots whats-his-face for trying to turn them in, and stuns him. He holds him for about ten seconds, before he cries for help from the guards, and Jack shoots him again. This time, it kills him. Then of course, he vaporizes the body.

But why after ten seconds, is he still 'vulnerable' to killing? Is there any time-frame on how long each shot's effects 'last'? Why the hell DOES the body disappear after the last shot? It's slightly bugging me each time I watch the show...

Falkenhayn · Post by **Falkenhayn** » 2005-07-19 11:47am

Don't try to understand the technobabble. Just run with it.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2005-07-19 01:40pm

Scroll down this page to read a theory on Zats.

Augustus Caesar · Post by **Augustus Caesar** » 2005-07-19 02:10pm

Don't try to understand the technobabble. Just run with it.

That's what I like about Stargate. You don't get a long-winded explanation Data could have given.

The tech just works..

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-07-19 02:24pm

The going theory is that the Zat destabilizes the victim's cell structure, and each successive shot does more damage. This doesn't explain why that bounty hunter guy is only tickled by a Zat shot, though.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2005-07-19 02:45pm

I believe the bounty hunter's suit was responsible-- somehow or other it soaks up the zat blast, likely also transfers some of the zat's energy into batteries or something (he was wearing a pack on his back?).

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-07-19 09:45pm

Funny how the "third shot vaporizes" was dumped (ie. never heard from again IIRC) shortly after the Zat made its debut, and it was taken the piss out of in the Season 5 episode Wormhole Extreme.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-07-19 11:52pm

The 3rd shot "vaporizes" features later, it just is a part of the background stuff.

It gets used in the 1963 ep for example.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2005-07-20 12:30am

Pcm979 wrote:The going theory is that the Zat destabilizes the victim's cell structure, and each successive shot does more damage. This doesn't explain why that bounty hunter guy is only tickled by a Zat shot, though.

Doesn't explain how they managed to vaporize that metal chest when SG1 went back in time. It also has a effect on electronic as seen from several episodes

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-07-20 01:27am

That Zat is still used to vaporize things from time to time, the SGC just has little reason to bother for the most part.

Winston Blake · Post by **Winston Blake** » 2005-07-21 05:25am

Hooray! I am useful! *ego expands

The part The Nomad mentioned before was thought up by me some time ago:

The theory i emailed to SGTC was:

Let's say zats fire nuclear-disruption-force-associated-particles (zat particles) which remarkably have a similar mass/size/charge as electrons. When you pull the trigger, the zat ionises a channel of air with say, a 'weak' UV laser. This might seem ad hoc but look at these: [Source 1, Source 2]. Then the 'zat particles' are projected and follow this weakly ionised path to the target. Modern laser-taser concepts use two ionised paths so current can flow through a circuit, however, one weak path would probably make the electrical discharge look more like lightning. When the particles hit the target, they are conducted through human tissue the same way as normal electrons, causing pain, neuromuscular paralysis and unconsciousness. As this is happending, some of the particles interact with nuclei in the target's matter through the NDF and lower the energy of the nucleus ever so slightly in some way (i don't know much about nucleonics). The energy is released in the form of another zat particle so now there are two. This chain reaction propagates throughout the target, but instead of such rapidly decaying particles as in Wong's phaser theory, let's say they are only short-lived. This means air gaps such as across someone's shoes and the floor are too good insulators to allow the zat particles to leave the target (rather than them decaying so fast they can't get across), but they won't stick around forever in the target. The second zat blast kills through the same ordinary electro-neurological disruption as the first, but this time the nervous system is already weakened, so the target dies (cardiac arrest perhaps?). The same chain reaction occurs, lowering some weird energy state of the nuclei once again. In the third blast the electric effect just electrocutes a dead body, but this is where the NDF really comes into play. As the zat particles interact with the nuclei again, it is easier for the nucleons to decay into neutrinos than to shift into an even lower energy state, so the nucleus breaks up into a cascade of harmless neutrinos (and also must release more zat particles). This chain reaction propagates through the whole target, disintegrating it just like a phaser set to vapourise. NOTES: the electrons in their body would not be affected by the NDF-disintegration, so you would have a negative static charge left over after disintegrating someone. I think that would just dissipate into the surrounding air and/or quickly be grounded. Also, electronic devices would be disabled by the electrical nature of the zat blast, and the blast would be conducted along metal it hits.

Note that i didn't expect my email to be put up 'as is', but was expecting some discussion/criticism first. There's some good commentary from Aly/ChrisO on that page. However i soon noticed that the 'leftover static charge' wouldn't actually happen and sent a followup to SGTC:

I recently found a glaring (but not critical) problem with the NDF theory. Nucleons can't simply decay into neutrinos due to the positive charge of the protons. The atom's electrons must somehow be involved to neutralise the positive charge, or conservation of charge is simply considered not to be fundamental enough even if it does apply to black holes. Under the zat gun entry, I've said: "Notes: the electrons in their body would not be affected by the NDF-disintegration, so you would have a negative static charge left over after disintegrating someone." However, that can't be true, because otherwise we started with a neutral body, and ended with a net charge. When i asked Mike Wong about this, he replied: "Bulk matter is electrically neutral. The protons have positive charge and the electrons have negative charge. Ergo, it works out on paper, but there's no known mechanism." I replied "perhaps the mechanism could be similar to electron capture decay, except that after the lower shell electrons are used up, all the other electrons drop to lower energies and are similarly consumed, shell by shell. Although, this would probably release unobserved amounts of energy, we could assume this is used up by the neutrinos, or the creation of new phaser particles, or the reaction is endothermic." So it seems NDF disintegrations must be more complex than i thought, with some kind of Special Electron Capture preceding the neutrino conversion.

However, IIRC i never got a reply and that part (and the typo highlighting) were never changed on the page.

(Btw, yes, my real name is Chris Andrews. Why am i Winston Blake then? Because i wasn't really into BBSs back when i signed up for SDN, merely wanting to post a few replies here and there, but i eventually became entrenched in this username. 'William Blake' (the poet/painter) was the first thing that came to mind, but was already taken, and the next thing was 'Winston Smith' (from 1984).)

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-07-21 09:34am

Strange...I never got that update. I'll put it on the list. Alyeska is first though, otherwise he'll never stop nagging