SGU FTL questions

[adam_grif]

I remember a while back people were speculating that the Destiny's FTL was far slower than the later Lantean hyperdrives and hyperspace in general. But each episode, there are only a couple of Stargate in range. In previous SG series, a Stargate has been able to dial every other gate in it's Galaxy. Has this been explained?

So two questions:

- Why are the Stargates so wimpy in SGU?
- Has there been any way to quantify FTL speeds versus hyperspace travel?

[NecronLord]

1. Handheld power source vs DHD?

This has been discussed in some of the threads for SGU, but it may be that the stargates are an older, more limited design. It may also be that it's a failsafe - certainly we've been all but told that Destiny could dial Earth if she were fully operational, so doubtless her actual range is far greater than it seems, but the limitations for outgoing wormholes are either accidental (damage, power) or by design (she doesn't dial a planet until she's scanned it in a flyby?). She could doubtless dial far across the universe at full power. Conversely, the Ancients have no reason to want the Bugblatter Beasts of Traal dialling into their colonies from across the universe, and may have deliberately limited the range of the planet-emplaced stargates spread by seeder ships.

It should also be remembered that the seeders are only depositing stargates on interesting planets. Pegasus and 'Avalon' have been extensively terraformed by the Ancients, allowing many Vancouver planets with stargates. It may be that inhabitable 'wild' planets are orders of magnitude less common in other galaxies.

2. The average speed of FTL has been calculated as having a lower limit that is less impressive than Atlantis' drives, and probably other later period Lantean intergalactic drives. The upper limits of FTL are not known. A BC-303 could (if fuel and components held out) travel across the known universe in a few centuries at most. Atlantis is faster still.

[Stargate Nerd]

Pegasus and 'Avalon' have been extensively terraformed by the Ancients, allowing many Vancouver planets with stargates.

Not that I doubt what you're saying, but has this ever been outright stated in any of the shows, or is it a logical assumption?

[Gramzamber]

Pegasus and 'Avalon' have been extensively terraformed by the Ancients, allowing many Vancouver planets with stargates.

Not that I doubt what you're saying, but has this ever been outright stated in any of the shows, or is it a logical assumption?

I know Teal'c stated on in the first season of SG-1 before there were any Ancients or Ori crumbling starships called Destiny or whatever that many planets were terraformed by the Goa'uld to expand their dominions, as they used human hosts and slaves who all like Canadian forests.
Since anything the Goa'uld can do, the Ancients can do better it's logical that they'd do it even if it isn't said.

[Kingmaker]

Pegasus and 'Avalon' have been extensively terraformed by the Ancients, allowing many Vancouver planets with stargates.

Not that I doubt what you're saying, but has this ever been outright stated in any of the shows, or is it a logical assumption?

I'm not sure about the Milky Way, but I'm pretty sure the first episode of SGA states that the Lanteans terraformed and seeded many of the galaxy's planets.

[NecronLord]

Pegasus and 'Avalon' have been extensively terraformed by the Ancients, allowing many Vancouver planets with stargates.

Not that I doubt what you're saying, but has this ever been outright stated in any of the shows, or is it a logical assumption?

The Dakara Device was said to be a life-seeding machine used after the plague by the Ancients. Similarly, it was said that the Ancients found no life in Pegasus when they arrived.

[adam_grif]

Handheld power devices? I thought the Stargates were self sufficient and those things were just remotes? Absence of DHD makes sense but I don't really see why they wouldn't have put DHDs on the planets unless that's the job of some followup ship.

If calcs on FTL range from a bit below to possibly above hyperdrive, is there any explanation for why they bothered using FTL instead of hyperdrive, or why later ships don't uise it at all? Does Hyperspace just not work on stuff that's really big? Is FTL slower but more power efficient etc etc.

[Luzifer's right hand]

If calcs on FTL range from a bit below to possibly above hyperdrive, is there any explanation for why they bothered using FTL instead of hyperdrive, or why later ships don't uise it at all? Does Hyperspace just not work on stuff that's really big? Is FTL slower but more power efficient etc etc.

Hyperdrive was used to move an ~ 137 km long Asteroid , also Hiveships are afaik way bigger than the SGU ship.

[Batman]

Um-how exactly is hyperdrive NOT FTL? FTL means Faster Than Light, nothing more, nothing less. Which means hyperdrive, Stargates and every other gimmick the Stargate universe came up with for faster than light travel ARE FTL (du'h).
Unless SGU decided to redefine what FTL means? (It won't air in Germany til February and I'm not sufficiently interested to see it before by ...other means. )

[Gramzamber]

Handheld power devices? I thought the Stargates were self sufficient and those things were just remotes?

The SGC's stargate has always had an external power source, and in the episode where SG-1 visits that Heliopolis place they have to power the gate using a lightning rod when the DHD is lost.

Absence of DHD makes sense but I don't really see why they wouldn't have put DHDs on the planets unless that's the job of some followup ship.

Maybe that's the Destiny's job but it's too bange up nowadays to do it?

[adam_grif]

Um-how exactly is hyperdrive NOT FTL? FTL means Faster Than Light, nothing more, nothing less. Which means hyperdrive, Stargates and every other gimmick the Stargate universe came up with for faster than light travel ARE FTL (du'h).
Unless SGU decided to redefine what FTL means? (It won't air in Germany til February and I'm not sufficiently interested to see it before by ...other means. )

Of course Hyperdrive is FTL, but "FTL" is the term given by the people stranded on it to the specific mode of FTL travel that the Destiny employs, which is different to the Hyperdrive seen in all other SG series. So when we're discussing SGU, "FTL" = "Realspace FTL that the Destiny uses" and "Hyperdrive" is what everything else uses.

Since it operates on an obviously different principle and looks very different, there are questions to be raised as to why Destiny uses FTL and why every other Lantean ship seen uses Hyperdrives instead.

The SGC's stargate has always had an external power source, and in the episode where SG-1 visits that Heliopolis place they have to power the gate using a lightning rod when the DHD is lost.

I know the MW and Pegasus gates were DHD powered, but it made more sense to me that the SGU ones were self-powered because those things are remotes. It would have to be teleporting power to the gates.

[NecronLord]

Handheld power devices? I thought the Stargates were self sufficient and those things were just remotes?

If my notion that Rush is going to get out of that planet using the stargate, we'll likely know if the pedastal contains a power source or if it's all in the remote soon enough.

Absence of DHD makes sense but I don't really see why they wouldn't have put DHDs on the planets unless that's the job of some followup ship.

Why would you? They're intended to be Ancient-explorers' only at this stage. A DHD would just help unknown aliens use it.

If calcs on FTL range from a bit below to possibly above hyperdrive, is there any explanation for why they bothered using FTL instead of hyperdrive, or why later ships don't uise it at all? Does Hyperspace just not work on stuff that's really big? Is FTL slower but more power efficient etc etc.

It may be earlier. It may be anything. The only things we know are that it may be slower (for all we know Destiny has looped back around many times) and that it has one advantage; you can dial in to a ship carrying a stargate in FTL. In hyperdrive, and normal operation, that seems difficult. Destiny still has to drop out
of FTL to recieve of course, but you can get a lock and start dialling on it. That does not seem possible to a ship in hyperspace.

[NecronLord]

I know the MW and Pegasus gates were DHD powered, but it made more sense to me that the SGU ones were self-powered because those things are remotes. It would have to be teleporting power to the gates.

Wireless power transmission is quite feisable. Easy compared with building a stargate. Hell, stargates are said to absorb neutrinos for power where possible, IIRC. It could simply fire a beam of them at it.

[adam_grif]

Steel seems bizarre and complicated. If the power source is so small they may as well just integrate it into the gate design itself. If it's supposed to be some kind of security system to prevent unauthorized use then it can still function like that without containing the power in the remotes with simple access controls.

[Xon]

In hyperdrive, and normal operation, that seems difficult. Destiny still has to drop out
of FTL to recieve of course, but you can get a lock and start dialling on it. That does not seem possible to a ship in hyperspace.

At one stage we get told that Hyperspace is just a part of Stargate subspace, and the Stargates themselves utilize a subspace wormhole. In all likelyhood the subspace wormhole needs to be properly anchored to the end-points or things go very very wrong, after all you would be dealing with FTL relative velocities.

Destiny's FTL is likely the precursor to both the Hyperdrive and the Stargate's subspace wormhole component. Conceptionally, a Stargate is afterall a dramatically scaled up Ring transporter which slings the energy packet through a stupidly highspeed Hyerspace window.

[saveyour]

Destiny's FTL is likely the precursor to both the Hyperdrive and the Stargate's subspace wormhole component. Conceptionally, a Stargate is afterall a dramatically scaled up Ring transporter which slings the energy packet through a stupidly highspeed Hyerspace window.

While this seems logical when trying to work within the boundaries that SG canon has set up, i don't see how time could pass in a linear fashion for both Destiny and Earth if their FTL drive didn't use some sort-of wormhole gimmick trickery.

For example, IIRC in an episode of SGA a Lantean ship from Pegasus was trying to get back to Earth and their hyperdrive was down from a battle or something, so they improvised by chugging along at ~99% speed of light. Thousands of year had passed for the rest of the universe but to the them journey was pretty short (by the time they slowed down and noticed Daedalus atleast). If Destiny's FTL is an extension of that type of technology, shoulden't it be bound by the same relativistic time problems?

[Xon]

You managed to mangle that quote quite well.

The Lantean ship from Pegasus's hyperdrive burnt out and they couldn't repair it with the onboard resources, or it was easier to just go into temporal stasis and take the long way home. The relativistic time dilation is purely from the extremely high velocities, not the FTL method.

[Zac Naloen]

I've been working on the understanding that the Destinys FTL is some sort of Warp Drive.


This is seems to be supported by the visuals which show light bending when interacting the "field" that surrounds the ship at FTL speeds.

Or that could just be the visual effects people thinking that looks cool.

[Xon]

It is quite reasonable Destiny's FTL interacts more strongly realspace if it is a precursor technology.

Normal hyperdrives appear to interact with gravity waves(which can induce crippling power feedback onto the hyperdrive) and effects which bend spacetime to an amazing extent (1:1000 time dilation field doesn't stop an Asgard Hyperdrive). Stargate wormholes take even more extreme conditions before stuff goes wrong.

I've seen one fanfic which has Startrek mistaken as a fictionalized documentary by agressors against the SGC-Earth, and honestly it is quite a reasonable assumption given how strongly Stargate is inspired by Startrek.

[Sarevok]

Do Stargate hyperdrives interact with realspace matter ? Is it possible to hit planets or stars while in hyperspace ?

[Crazedwraith]

Do Stargate hyperdrives interact with realspace matter ? Is it possible to hit planets or stars while in hyperspace ?

No. This is most evident in Season 5's 'Fail Safe' where the solution to the standard asteroid impact heading to Earth is to jerry rig a cargo ship's hyperdrive to zap the lot through The Earth in hyperspace. (They couldn't just nuke it; it was made out of high explosive naquadah.)

[Xon]

They couldn't just nuke it; it was made out of high explosive naquadah.

They where talking about it flash-evaporating the oceans.

Do Stargate hyperdrives interact with realspace matter ? Is it possible to hit planets or stars while in hyperspace ?

It is a major plot point that they can bypass physical matter in realspace.

However, we have seen gravitational effects and time-dilation of Sufficient Magnitude affecting a hyperdrive. The Prometheus had it's hyperdrive dump a massive surge of power into the power distibution grid which caused the original Naquadriah reactor to go critical. We also know SGC-Hyperdrives are dramatically slower in galaxy compared to thier galaxy to galaxy trips.

It takes 3-4 days to travel across the milkway galaxy, a few weeks between galaxies and then a day or two to get from the edge of Pegasus to Atlantis. When you actually crunch the numbers, the hyperdrive is orders of magnitude slower in-galaxy. This makes sense as there is vastly more "stuff" to emit gravity in the way, and the faster you go the more feedback the hyperdrive recieves.

This suggests it is possible to extract energy from subspace by exploiting differentials in energy levels from the "tides" in subspace anchored to something in realspace. Something like say a ZPM, or more accurately the Subspace capacitor used to power the Alternate Reality drive. Except ZPMs have the advantage of the all important off switch

[saveyour]

You managed to mangle that quote quite well.

I know, it's a gift.

Slightly off-topic but the *ahem* "wormhole" drive in SGA's last episode.. Any speculation on whether that was an outgrowth of hyperdrive or developed independently like Destiny's FTL?

[Xon]

It is explicitly stated to be derived from Stargate wormhole travel. Which is slinging a quantum scale wormhole through subspace (~2.5-4 seconds to travel from Atlantis to Earth). The energy requirements for the wormhole drive are some of the more insane for Stargate FTL we have seen, and also shows Atlantis was truely obsense power transfer capacity between the ZPMs and the FTL drives, it drained 3 ZPMs practically dry!

The Hyperdrive is opening a passageway through subspace, and traveling a shorter path. It appears that you can generate the initial window and coast down the generated path (Goa'uld Hyperdrives used to be called a hyperlaunch window generator, and this was seen in the X302 fighter) or have the hyperdrive continiously operate to keep the passageway open allowing course and speed changes.

[Solauren]

I wonder if the Destiny's FTL is used for a reason beyond 'it's cool'.

The only reason I can think of are;

#1 - This is the FTL they had BEFORE Hyperdrive, and the Destiny is simply that old. Could be this is the system that took them from the Ori Galaxy to the Milky Way, and Hyperdrive was developed some time after the Destiny was sent off.

#2 - It's hard to detect the Destiny in FTL, versus standard Stargate Hyperdrive. This could extend all the way to ascended beings not noticing it. AFter all, they probably didn't want the Ori going after it.

#3 - It could be this model of FTL is more energy friendly then Hyperdrive, and more durable. I mean, how old is this ship?

#4 - The FTL on the Destiny is NOT the original system. Maybe sometime in the past, it's Hyperdrive broke down, and some friendly aliens refitted it with their FTL technology, and sent it on it's way.