How useful is Time Dilation field from Stargate?

[IvanTih]

Interested since I see gaters using it in debates.

[Sarevok]

Very useful. The ability to build up thousands of years worth of industry and technology in a few mere moments of compressed time can not be understated.

[Arachnidus]

Very useful. The ability to build up thousands of years worth of industry and technology in a few mere moments of compressed time can not be understated.

This. It's got obvious uses. It can also be good for it's use in containing things (I.E. replicators). However, it's not meant to be used forever, more like a last ditch type of thing or tool of necessity.

[Xon]

It has also been shown to require titanically powerful energy sources to operate. The energy requirements for even testing it at any usable level would be completely out of the reach of Stargate-Earth till they get ZPMs or more Asgard power cores. And despite all thier advances, they have not yet developed the capacity to create new ZPMs.

The only reason the SGC could in theory use it, is they have the complete developed technology from the Asgard and a few spare ZPMs. But it would be a last ditch thing as those ZPMs are literally irreplaceable. Something like the "subspace tap" alt-Rodney developed could power it, but as stated in the episode it was introduced didn't come with an off switch. Also, if you could create ZPM's there is no way in hell you would want todo so in an inhabited solar system or within a few hundred lightyears of one. Industrial accidents take a whole new meaning when the energy sources are starting to rival star's going nova.

[adam_grif]

If it can be got up and running, invaluable. Even a 10^1 dilation field (3 orders of magnitude less powerful than the 10^4 that the Asgard Replicator trap) gives you a 10x advantage in one area. That means 1 day of industry outputs more than a weeks worth under normal conditions. The bottlenecks will be getting supplies into the area, meaning you probably can't plausible operate it for more than two-to-three days at a time in the "real world" before you need to send in more materials to work with and food / water.

If they can get a 10^1 field up and running over a large area (which definitely should be trivial given what they have), they could crank a new 304 out every month and a bit assuming no supply line problems.

If they were really serious about a threat, they could throw up a 10^3 field around Area 51 52 with Carter, Rodney and Zelenka inside. Every day in real time gives them 2.7 years to work on the threat. Given what they crank out in a week under stressful conditions...

It has also been shown to require titanically powerful energy sources to operate. The energy requirements for even testing it at any usable level would be completely out of the reach of Stargate-Earth till they get ZPMs or more Asgard power cores. And despite all thier advances, they have not yet developed the capacity to create new ZPMs.

Ballocks. The ZPM's output was necessary to power the weapons chair in Atlantis, until they got the "overloading" Naquadah generators which were (iirc) 6x more powerful than standard ones. They also burned fuel much faster, but this implies that 6x regular naquadah generators can match ZPM output to a solid degree, even if they have none of the longevity of a ZPM.

The ZPM in the SG-1 Finale held out for something like 50 years before being nearly depleted from the strain, at a dilation level orders of magnitude higher than the 10^4. If 50 years passed with 5 seconds outside, that's on the order of 10^9 dilation.

If power scales linearly with dilation factor for a given size, then the same area dilating at 10^3 or 10^4 would have been possible with a power source 1/1000th as powerful. A naquadah generator should trivially be able to power a low-dilation factor field given the scaling assumption.

[adam_grif]

Cursed edit timer!

I should clarify for those that are not aware, time dilation fields are reversible, i.e. they can speed up an area locally or slow it down locally.

Anyway, with standard vs scenarios, assuming the SGC can act fast, it can dump a 10^4 field around the wormhole that joins the two universes. This will prevent large armies from coming through quickly, and ships that enter the field suddenly get "stuck" in time until they realize what is causing the problem, target, and shoot it. Assuming the field has enough fuel, and assuming they take 5 minutes of subjective time to realize what is going on, find the source, and blast it to bits, that will take ~1 month of real time.

Tactically, lobbing a naquadah generator powering a meager 10^2 field at an enemy ship and bursting around them gives you an enormous advantage assuming your weapons are capable of damaging the opponent. This is undesirable given that as far as I know you need an Asgard Core to power the field (although presumably they could be built separately), but it's a last resort if the need arises and you're fighting overwhelming odds.

When you combine slow-dilating bottlenecks to buy you time with fast-dilating your ship yards and R&D facilities, the Tau'ri have an enormous strategic and (potentially) tactical advantage over foes.

[Starglider]

The energy requirements, supply bottlenecks and maintenance issues rule out employing it for any large-scale industrial applications. However it would be very useful for top R&D centers and maybe specialist high-value component manufacturing. Probably in the context of a total war only though, as I doubt many staff would be prepared to lose years of their life (effectively) stuck in a bubble otherwise. Tactically it would probably be very useful for command centers trying to cope with 'information overload' situations in a hot war; even a modest x10 multiplier would make a huge difference when trying to co-ordinate hundreds of air/space/ground units.

[Metahive]

It's been a while since I last saw Unnatural Selection, but what exactly fuels the dilation field the Asgard "trap" the Replicators in on Halla?

[Xon]

Asgard plotdevicium. A powerfully energy source only rivaled by Ancient plotdevicium and then later Alteran plotdevicium as they turn the dial on the operating principles of the ZPM upto 11(and almost blow up the fucking universe).

The energy requirements, supply bottlenecks and maintenance issues rule out employing it for any large-scale industrial applications. However it would be very useful for top R&D centers and maybe specialist high-value component manufacturing. Probably in the context of a total war only though, as I doubt many staff would be prepared to lose years of their life (effectively) stuck in a bubble otherwise.

Actually, if you can duplicate Asgard power sources you could run a time dilation field covering a sphere with a radius of something like 1/16th of a lightyear. That is actually big enough to cover the entire solar system.

[adam_grif]

Actually, if you can duplicate Asgard power sources you could run a time dilation field covering a sphere with a radius of something like 1/16th of a lightyear. That is actually big enough to cover the entire solar system.

I'm willing to bet that said field took significant resources on their part, given that Asgard ships don't deploy such devices tactically in battles to trap every concentration of Replicators and obliterate them, prior to that battle and after it. I suppose it's possible that they use it industrially, but there's no way to know for sure.

The energy requirements, supply bottlenecks and maintenance issues rule out employing it for any large-scale industrial applications. However it would be very useful for top R&D centers and maybe specialist high-value component manufacturing. Probably in the context of a total war only though, as I doubt many staff would be prepared to lose years of their life (effectively) stuck in a bubble otherwise.

Assuming they were planning for it, they can get workers to do a ~10 hour shift (with breaks inside obviously) in an industrial facility at 10^1 acceleration, then swap out the workers for another shift. They could easily do more than a work-week's of normal production every normal work-day, before the sun goes down.

The biggest challenge would be keeping the place refueled and with a constant stream of raw materials to work with. This can happen.

Of course, if the tech ever got out commercially, it would ruin the several industries. Thousand year old scotch for everyone!

[Xon]

Depending on the limitations of a time dilation field, and the durability of your computers, it would have massive implications on solving NP problems. When you can suddenly add orders of magnitude more time, to already mindboggling powerful hardware, problems we easily consider unsolvable would be solvable.

I'm willing to bet that said field took significant resources on their part, given that Asgard ships don't deploy such devices tactically in battles to trap every concentration of Replicators and obliterate them, prior to that battle and after it. I suppose it's possible that they use it industrially, but there's no way to know for sure.

There is also the small matter that at the time the Asgard didn't know it was posible or even how to have a fast-time dilation field. We only see the Asgard technology been capable of it when Carter uses the Asgard Legacy on the Odyssey to prevent the ship being destroyed. That was a lot of time for the Asgard to figure out what the Replicators had done in that time.

Of course, if the tech ever got out commercially, it would ruin the several industries.

Throw it onto the pile of all the other industries Stargate hypertech makes completely pointless. IE any power generation which isn't naquadah based or better.

Thousand year old scotch for everyone!

At least you would know when they say storage media is rated for "x years in y conditions" you know it's actually true and not the result of artifacial aging which is generally completely off the mark.

[adam_grif]

Necronlord or someone should compile The Official List Of Stargate Wanktech. I mean, people talk up Trek's technobabble devices of the week, but SG-1 is probably the all-time-champ, now that I think about it. The fact that Earth actually keeps all of the goodies for studying helps

There is also the small matter that at the time the Asgard didn't know it was posible or even how to have a fast-time dilation field.

Oh? I haven't seen the episode in many moons, I didn't realize it was some sort of prototype :S

Depending on the limitations of a time dilation field, and the durability of your computers, it would have massive implications on solving NP problems. When you can suddenly add orders of magnitude more time, to already mindboggling powerful hardware, problems we easily consider unsolvable would be solvable.

The Asgard core already comes with Advanced A.I. that can and does help with science stuff. Locked up with Earth's best talent for a year of subjective time, and they could probably come up with some pretty nasty weapons

[Solauren]

The power of a Time Dilation field can't be overstated.

Imagine this -
Drop on in a Starsystem, and burn the star in it down to the point it's a 'Black Dwarf'. No thermal reactions going on at all. Basically, a big ball of matter in space.

Use Asgard transporters to rearrange the matter in the star into a fleet of warships, and cloning facilities.

Drop the field.

Unleash your super-fleet on invaders. Watch invaders curl up and cry.

[Eternal_Freedom]

That would probably require several ZPM's worth of power. But it's an interesting idea.

Incidentally, do the SGc even have any idea how to make ZPM's? Obviously they can't do it now, but I would imagine they would mention it if they found the design specs in the database.

I wonder if you can re-charge ZPM's if they plugged them into that Project Arcturus thing, or thing Rodne and his sister built. Rodney did say it would make ZPM's look like alkaline batteries in comparison

At any rate, you can quite easily solve the raw materials bottleneck problem for time-dilated manufacturing. If you have that much power kicking around, ue it to power the asgard transporters in their matter-replicator function seen in "Unending." Or if that dosn't work, stick a similar time dilation field around the mining facilities

[Xon]

Necronlord or someone should compile The Official List Of Stargate Wanktech. I mean, people talk up Trek's technobabble devices of the week, but SG-1 is probably the all-time-champ, now that I think about it. The fact that Earth actually keeps all of the goodies for studying helps

The Stargate technobabble devices of the week also have an amazing habit of being reused almost have a decade later and then consistantly used when applicable. That and the character's actually have a working memory(and ability to write & read), so when confronted with something that looks like Problem A, they try using the solution which worked the last time.

Oh? I haven't seen the episode in many moons, I didn't realize it was some sort of prototype :S

The Asgard device generated a slow-time dilation field. The replicators(which run on extra-strong plot-hax) made it into a fast-time dilation field.