Retrospective Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe Question

[AndroAsc]

Was watching some reruns, and there's an obvious inconsistency in the power requirements for dialing other galaxies... which is appalling since I haven't noticed this earlier.

It begins with the earlier episodes of Stargate SG-1, where Jack got his head suck into that Ancient knowledge device. He constructs a power source, using the liquid naquadah from Teal'c staff weapon to provide the extra power to dial the Asgard homeworld in another galaxy. I believe the on screen evidence quote from Capt. Carter is "the Stargate is drawing 10 times more power".

But then... suddenly in Atlantis, it appears that they now need a ZPM to dial the Pegasus galaxy.

Big WTF here... obviously the ZPM outputs orders of magnitude more power than the device Jack modified. I would also surmise that the modified power device would output the same order of magnitude as one of the Naquadah generators the Atlantis expedition brought along with them, after all both devices are powered using Naquadah. Plus, in a later episode in SG-1, Sam got it to work again in that alternate reality episode, so it's not a one-shot thing.

So why is it that in post-Atlantis there is such tremendous power requirement for dialing other galaxies?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Well a ZPM isn't required, since the Asgard (and future humans, as sen in 1969) are able to dial intergalactic wormholes with a device work on their hands. I think the main advantage of having the ZPM was that it was reliably able to dial another galaxy.

As for that cobbled-together device Jack built, he built it with Ancient knowledge, Carter had no idea how it worked and it went dead after one use, although it was later refurbished. I suspect he used that Ancient knowledge to exploit some advantage that the current humans aren't aware of.

Additionally, that device was only able to dial one place, Othalla/Thalla or wherever it is in Ida. By the season 6 mid-season two parter that planet had been overrun by replicators and trapped in a time-dilation field, and later collapsed into a black hole. So I don't think the device could be re-used.

Finally, I have an idea how that device worked while only drawing 10 times the power. They established in 48 hours in season 5 that the DHD of the receiving gate could sustain the wormhole, so perhaps Jack built that dialing device to establish a very brief connection, knowing that the Asgard power sources woudl be able to sustain the wormhole after the connection was made. It would explain, along with the one-address-only part I mentioend above, it was not used elsewhere. When dialing Atlantis they could not be sure of having power at the other end to sustain them.

[InsaneTD]

Could it have to do with how far away the galaxies actually from us? The greater the distance, the greater the power needed to open a wormhole?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Then you have the fact that liquid Naquadah is, supposedly, much more powerful than the run of the mill stuff you normally see. Its supposedly unstable (IIRC, I could be misremembering the episode in question) which is why you never see it used beyond powering Staff's and presumably Zats.

As for the ZPM comparison, I assumed a ZPM is used because it can keep a wormhole open, and do it multiple times. The device Jack built lasted one dialing, and only held it open long enough for him to go through to the Asgard.

[Grumman]

Then you have the fact that liquid Naquadah is, supposedly, much more powerful than the run of the mill stuff you normally see. Its supposedly unstable (IIRC, I could be misremembering the episode in question) which is why you never see it used beyond powering Staff's and presumably Zats.

There are two different isotopes - Naquadah and Naquadria. Naquadria is the unstable one.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I know. Like I said, I might have been misremembering the episode and there is some other reason Liquid Naq isn't used beyond weapons (hard to produce? Inefficient in large quantities?)

I'll have to dig up my SG-1 DVD's and watch it tomorrow to be sure.

[Lost Soal]

Was watching some reruns, and there's an obvious inconsistency in the power requirements for dialing other galaxies... which is appalling since I haven't noticed this earlier.

It begins with the earlier episodes of Stargate SG-1, where Jack got his head suck into that Ancient knowledge device. He constructs a power source, using the liquid naquadah from Teal'c staff weapon to provide the extra power to dial the Asgard homeworld in another galaxy. I believe the on screen evidence quote from Capt. Carter is "the Stargate is drawing 10 times more power".

But then... suddenly in Atlantis, it appears that they now need a ZPM to dial the Pegasus galaxy.

Big WTF here... obviously the ZPM outputs orders of magnitude more power than the device Jack modified. I would also surmise that the modified power device would output the same order of magnitude as one of the Naquadah generators the Atlantis expedition brought along with them, after all both devices are powered using Naquadah. Plus, in a later episode in SG-1, Sam got it to work again in that alternate reality episode, so it's not a one-shot thing.

So why is it that in post-Atlantis there is such tremendous power requirement for dialing other galaxies?

There is a massive difference in distance involved. An Asgard ship can travel to Earth from home in minutes, but takes 2 weeks to travel from Earth to Atlantis.
The ZPM also has far more power than actually necessary for the journey, the only reason it was a one shot to get to Atlantis is because it had been vertually drained in the battle against Anubis. Once Atlantis got hold of a fully charged ZPM they had regularly scheduled connections to Earth and never expressed any concerns about draining it.

[Elheru Aran]

I did note that the Asgard have some completely bonkers travel-time, especially in that episode 'Point of View' where it can't be more than like... ten minutes? from the time Carter-2 goes through the gate to Othala and the Beliskner appears over the mountain. True travel between galaxies in a matter of minutes? Atlantis must be somewhere on the other side of the entire frickin' universe.

On the Jack-reactor: It was obviously an one-shot device, it took two Carters to figure out how to turn it on again. It's nowhere near the power level of a fully charged ZPM. Kind of like pissing in the gas tank versus topping it up with premium-- it *might* get you where you need to go, but it won't really do the job very reliably.

Do ZPM's use naq (either isotope) or is it some fancy exotic-matter black hole or whatever? I honestly cannot recall, I'm still going through Season 3 after not watching Stargate for the past seven years or so...

[Ahriman238]

ZPM's create an independent space-time bubble, essentially a mini-universe, inside and devour it for all it's energy. They're less like power generators and more like really potent batteries.

[Eternal_Freedom]

As for Asgard travel times, we never see an Asgard ship fly from Earth to Pegasus, we see Earth ships using Asgard-designed hyperdrives which is not the same thing. We do have grounds for comparison though.The Odyssey travels to both Ida and Pegasus. The Daedalus class can make the Earth-Pegasus run in 18 days on standard drives or 4 days with a ZPM plugged in. The Odyssey, with a ZPM, took three weeks to reach Ida in "Unending." However, after the Asgard upgrades it was a matter of days at most to get back to the Milky Way.

Oh, and ordinary Naquada isn't exactly stable, you mix a tiny amount with potassium and you get a large bang and lethal flood of radiation. Also IIRC if the electron flow in a naquada reactor isn't exactly right it goes boom whichI tihnk is how they make them go boom. Naquadria is just even worse.

[Skywalker_T-65]

EF hit the nail on the head as far as travel times go. Human travel time to Pegasus is different to Asgard time from Ida, simply because they have more advanced ships/more powerful generators (since SG does function on the 'more power=faster ship' thing). Even with the upgrades from Unending, a 304 just isn't big enough to get the same power/speed as a true Asgard Mothership.

As for distance...Pegasus is supposedly the Irregular Dwarf Galaxy of the same name. That is 3 million light years away. Ida, presuming its the Galaxy they ended up in after blowing up the sun to destroy Apophis' fleet, is about 4 million light years away. So they are roughly the same distance, though (at least according to the wiki) on the opposite sides of the Local Cluster.

EDIT: Not quite sure how one million extra light-years ends up with such a different travel time compared to Pegasus though.

[Lost Soal]

As for Asgard travel times, we never see an Asgard ship fly from Earth to Pegasus, we see Earth ships using Asgard-designed hyperdrives which is not the same thing. We do have grounds for comparison though.The Odyssey travels to both Ida and Pegasus. The Daedalus class can make the Earth-Pegasus run in 18 days on standard drives or 4 days with a ZPM plugged in. The Odyssey, with a ZPM, took three weeks to reach Ida in "Unending." However, after the Asgard upgrades it was a matter of days at most to get back to the Milky Way.

Can't name the episode but there was a line where it was stated that the SGC were considering asking the Asgard to bring some people back to Atlantis meaning the journey would take "2 weeks instead of 3", that was the quote.

[Eternal_Freedom]

EF hit the nail on the head as far as travel times go. Human travel time to Pegasus is different to Asgard time from Ida, simply because they have more advanced ships/more powerful generators (since SG does function on the 'more power=faster ship' thing). Even with the upgrades from Unending, a 304 just isn't big enough to get the same power/speed as a true Asgard Mothership.

As for distance...Pegasus is supposedly the Irregular Dwarf Galaxy of the same name. That is 3 million light years away. Ida, presuming its the Galaxy they ended up in after blowing up the sun to destroy Apophis' fleet, is about 4 million light years away. So they are roughly the same distance, though (at least according to the wiki) on the opposite sides of the Local Cluster.

EDIT: Not quite sure how one million extra light-years ends up with such a different travel time compared to Pegasus though.

That's a pretty weak assumption really. The only evidence is the presence of the Replicators, but we know they were advancing in our direction since they turn up en masse in season 8. Also, we have the vastly different travel times.

However, I will concede that in the Unending example on the outbound trip it is possible that they did not use their ZPM to power the drive, meaning 21 days to Ida and 18 days to Pegasus which would make the 3 million/4 million figure just about work. However, the ASgard told them it was urgent so I expect they did use the ZPM, since using the ZPM to power the hyperdrive is not a major drain apparently (the Ra ZPM they found dialled an intergalactic wormhole, then spent 4 days driving Daedalus at flank speed and then lasted about 18 months of Atlantis shield use, regular intergalactic dialing and so

[Skywalker_T-65]

It's possible that the 'Enemies' Galaxy isn't Ida, the main assumption there is that it is supposedly the same distance as Ida (according to the wiki. I can't remember off the top of my head where they said Ida is 4 million light years away).

[Eternal_Freedom]

I don't recall them specifying how far away Ida is. All we know is that Asgard ships can make the trip very quickly indeed and human ships with Asgard-designed drives take a lot longer.

We can also use Unnatural Selection as an example. Thor states that towing Prometheus significantly slows down his ship's speed, yet they travel the estimated 1200 light-years back to Earth from their stranded position in (literally) less time than it takes O'Neill to finish a sentence. Then, at that same reduced speed they are able to tow Prometheus to Ida in a matter of days at most, assuming they took a long time for Jonas to practice loading a P90 and eat all the ice-cream before it melted. So, at a significantly reduced speed Asgard O'neill class battleships can travel 1200 light years in two or three seconds. That is a lot faster than Earth ships, since Prometheus took ~20 minutes to cover 50 light years in "Prometheus Unbound."

[StarSword]

There was a bit of technobabble in "Nemesis" that Beliskner-type ships are powered by "four neutrino ion generators", not a ZPM or any of the other power sources SGC ships use. Given that Stargateverse tech has a tendency to run on "more power in" = "more result out", I posit that Asgard ships simply have better power sources and power transmission tech than the Daedalus-class (which uses naquadah reactors, and probably large-gauge copper wiring to move energy from generator to engines).

[Murazor]

I don't recall them specifying how far away Ida is.

At least one datapoint given in the show suggests something along the lines of 100,000 light years or so, although that's probably contradicted several times.

[StarSword]

I don't recall them specifying how far away Ida is.

At least one datapoint given in the show suggests something along the lines of 100,000 light years or so, although that's probably contradicted several times.

Um, that's impossible. The Milky Way itself is about 100k LY across. I think you're misremembering something.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Quite definitely, that would put Ida somewhere around the Magellanic Clouds, and given that Stargates using naquada reactors can dial gates on the other side of the Milky WAy (~100,000 ly) you wouldn't need a ZPM/special power source to dial them.

[NecronLord]

There is a massive difference in distance involved. An Asgard ship can travel to Earth from home in minutes, but takes 2 weeks to travel from Earth to Atlantis.

Err, no? No Asgard ship ever went to Atlantis. Human ships have asgard designed hyperdrives, but there's no reason to think they're as fast as the actual real deal that an asgard ship would represent.

Traveling to the Asgard Galaxy takes a long time for a ZPM equipped Deadalus-class:

VALA
Being stuck on this ship is worse than being stuck at the SGC. I-I-I tell you, the last time I was this bored, I took hostages!

DANIEL
(without looking back)
I was there.

Which by the way is an argument that the galaxy of Ida is further away than Pegasus, as the ZPM-powered Daedalus in The Siege Part III took a day to arrive, while it's unlikely Vala would go that spare in a day.

An Asgard ship wouldn't take weeks to get to Pegasus from the Milky Way. It'd take minutes, as it takes minutes to get to Ida.

[Eternal_Freedom]

To be a bit nitpicky, as I said earlier, Daedalus with ZPM travels from Earth to Atlantis in 4 days while it takes Odyssey with ZPM three weeks to reach IDA. Then once they have their upgrades they can make the return journey much faster.

[NecronLord]

As for that cobbled-together device Jack built, he built it with Ancient knowledge, Carter had no idea how it worked and it went dead after one use, although it was later refurbished. I suspect he used that Ancient knowledge to exploit some advantage that the current humans aren't aware of.

This is correct. In Point of View the carters say that it uses an unknown field to keep the naquadah from overloading:

CARTER
You know, I had a hard time trying to figure out how to make this work the first time, let alone make it work again.

SAMANTHA
If it's powered by the energy module of a staff weapon, why doesn't it…?

SAMANTHA and CARTER
(in unison)
Blow up.

CARTER
My best guess is that the device creates a modulated dampening field around the liquefied naquada cell.

SAMANTHA
Which controls the energy transfer to the capacitors. So maybe the modulation is thrown out of whack each time it's activated.

CARTER
That's exactly what I thought. But how to you even begin to recalibrate a field that you can't generate in the first place…?

It's worth noting that the device is not present in the 'Points of View' ending where they return to the regular reality, so it was left behind, and as it's a kind of field they can't generate. IE it's a more efficient naquadah reactor.

Regular generators, albeit several of them (I think the Atlantis expedition brought six? It's mentioned in an early episode) can activate a wormhole briefly. All it really needs to do is this:

McKAY: I think we can send a message back to Earth through the Stargate.

BECKETT: Excuse me?!

WEIR: I thought we didn't have enough power.

McKAY: Not to send a person, no. We'd never be able to maintain the wormhole long enough. But I think if we were able to tie together all of our power-generating capabilities, we might -- and I emphasise might -- be able to establish a wormhole long enough to send a message.

SHEPPARD: How much time are we talking about?

McKAY: Well, approximately, uh, one point three seconds, give or take.

BECKETT: That's not much time.

FORD: Time enough to say, "S.O.S."!

McKAY: Don't be so analogue! One point three seconds is more than enough time to send a message if it's in the form of a high compression data burst. Now, I helped refine the encoding for the US Air Force a few years back. Colonel Carter should be able to, uh, decipher it on the other side.

And as previously described the asgard power generators - logically already configured for intergalactic dialing - could pick up the slack after that.

[NecronLord]

To be a bit nitpicky, as I said earlier, Daedalus with ZPM travels from Earth to Atlantis in 4 days while it takes Odyssey with ZPM three weeks to reach IDA. Then once they have their upgrades they can make the return journey much faster.

I actually think Colonel Everett is underestimating it's speed as IIRC only two nights pass at most in the episode and possibly one, certainly everyone is taken by surprise in Siege Part III when the Daedalus arrives, kind of implying it's early. But you're quite right, "inside four days" is the better figure.

I am not sure there's ever a figure given in Unending though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

When Mitchell and Teal'c are sparing, Mitchell says something about "three weeks cooped up on this ship." That would allow enough time for Vala to go crazy and plan at least two birthday parties (one for Daniel, and at least one for herself, since she says "but they won't believe it's my birthday...again."

[Lonestar]

]Err, no? No Asgard ship ever went to Atlantis. Human ships have asgard designed hyperdrives, but there's no reason to think they're as fast as the actual real deal that an asgard ship would represent.

Doesn't McKay call Tauri hyperdrives as "human with a Asgard Twist" that episode where the Vanir/Pegasus Asgard raid Atlantis and set up the device to make the hyperspace spectrum Wraith ships use unsafe?