How many shots can you get out of a Goa'uld staff weapon?

[Mister Oragahn]

I'm just wondering how long a single staff can last with a vial of (fluo yellow/green) liquid naqahdah.

We know that it made a difference when used by O'neill to reach the Ida galaxy.

So even if the weapons doesn't seem to be able to extract lots of energy per bolt, it seems that this vial has a lot of potential.

With a proper "reactor", lots of energy seem to be harvested from such a small vial.
It could be possible that the staff weapon is not particularily efficient at outputting more than kilojoules per bolt.

That said, is there any reference to how long certain staves have been in service?

I don't know, bits of dialogue like "this staff was used by a great warrior in thousands of battles", or "this staff is hundreds of years old, and has seen many battles"... ?

[gopher65]

In The Fifth Race, where O'neill travels to Ida, Carter says "The gate is drawing ten times the normal amount of power!" So all you have to do is figure out how much power the gate normally draws, multiply it by ten, and then multiply it by the amount of time the gate was active (which was quite a while).

If you want to look at the *minimum* amount of power the gate can operate on, look at that episode where they travel back in time to 1969. They hook up the gate to the alternators on a few army trucks for like 30 seconds and it is able to dial out.

I'm sure there is someone on these forums who knows how much energy one of those old alternators gives off. This seems a tad on the small side though. I wonder if this episode is still considered Canon?

In one episode they also powered the gate from a bolt of lightning. According to the Wiki: "An average bolt of negative lightning carries an electric current of 40 kA (kiloamperes), although some bolts can be up to 120 kA, and transfers a charge of 5 coulombs and 500 MJ (megajoules), or enough energy to power a 100 watt lightbulb for just under two months."

That is obviously a lot more energy than a few trucks could provide. But 500MJ isn't necessarily beyond what a large military base could provide. I don't know if any base *does* use that much energy, but you could build a couple nuclear reactors nearby and power it that way if you needed to.

To me that makes a lot more sense. Cause if the gate does require ~500MJ to operate for a few seconds, then they would have one heck of a time supplying the 5GJ necessary just to dial Ida. Never mind maintain a wormhole for any significant length of time. That would explain why they needed the power device in both The Fifth Race and... uh... what was it called. The one with the 2 Carters and the Quantum Mirror.

[Rudy Pena]

In The Fifth Race, where O'neill travels to Ida, Carter says "The gate is drawing ten times the normal amount of power!" So all you have to do is figure out how much power the gate normally draws, multiply it by ten, and then multiply it by the amount of time the gate was active (which was quite a while).

If you want to look at the *minimum* amount of power the gate can operate on, look at that episode where they travel back in time to 1969. They hook up the gate to the alternators on a few army trucks for like 30 seconds and it is able to dial out.

I'm sure there is someone on these forums who knows how much energy one of those old alternators gives off. This seems a tad on the small side though. I wonder if this episode is still considered Canon?

In one episode they also powered the gate from a bolt of lightning. According to the Wiki: "An average bolt of negative lightning carries an electric current of 40 kA (kiloamperes), although some bolts can be up to 120 kA, and transfers a charge of 5 coulombs and 500 MJ (megajoules), or enough energy to power a 100 watt lightbulb for just under two months."

That is obviously a lot more energy than a few trucks could provide. But 500MJ isn't necessarily beyond what a large military base could provide. I don't know if any base *does* use that much energy, but you could build a couple nuclear reactors nearby and power it that way if you needed to.

To me that makes a lot more sense. Cause if the gate does require ~500MJ to operate for a few seconds, then they would have one heck of a time supplying the 5GJ necessary just to dial Ida. Never mind maintain a wormhole for any significant length of time. That would explain why they needed the power device in both The Fifth Race and... uh... what was it called. The one with the 2 Carters and the Quantum Mirror.

He wants to know how many times you can fire a staff weapon before it dies.

[gopher65]

yeah, I know. And the power source O'Neill used was from a STAFF WEAPON. If you know how big the power source is, you can estimate how many shots you'd get out of it.

[Rudy Pena]

yeah, I know. And the power source O'Neill used was from a STAFF WEAPON. If you know how big the power source is, you can estimate how many shots you'd get out of it.

Your post does not make sense(to me).

[Mister Oragahn]

In The Fifth Race, where O'neill travels to Ida, Carter says "The gate is drawing ten times the normal amount of power!" So all you have to do is figure out how much power the gate normally draws, multiply it by ten, and then multiply it by the amount of time the gate was active (which was quite a while).

If you want to look at the *minimum* amount of power the gate can operate on, look at that episode where they travel back in time to 1969. They hook up the gate to the alternators on a few army trucks for like 30 seconds and it is able to dial out.

I'm sure there is someone on these forums who knows how much energy one of those old alternators gives off. This seems a tad on the small side though. I wonder if this episode is still considered Canon?

In one episode they also powered the gate from a bolt of lightning. According to the Wiki: "An average bolt of negative lightning carries an electric current of 40 kA (kiloamperes), although some bolts can be up to 120 kA, and transfers a charge of 5 coulombs and 500 MJ (megajoules), or enough energy to power a 100 watt lightbulb for just under two months."

That is obviously a lot more energy than a few trucks could provide. But 500MJ isn't necessarily beyond what a large military base could provide. I don't know if any base *does* use that much energy, but you could build a couple nuclear reactors nearby and power it that way if you needed to.

To me that makes a lot more sense. Cause if the gate does require ~500MJ to operate for a few seconds, then they would have one heck of a time supplying the 5GJ necessary just to dial Ida. Never mind maintain a wormhole for any significant length of time. That would explain why they needed the power device in both The Fifth Race and... uh... what was it called. The one with the 2 Carters and the Quantum Mirror.

Tough.

There's the fact that things were souped up through the years.
For example, what is necessary to destroy a stargate. It requires a bit of retconning of some sort.

Same with power requirements.
A couple of lightning bolts to power a stargate?
Ten times that... it's just one order of magnitude up, to reach another galaxy. This is a feat that is easily within range of our own technology, and needless to say, largely doable with a nqahdah generator.

There would be no need to get access to the vastly more powerful ZPMs for that.

Besides, using 1969 as evidence, while there was some time travel involved... I don't know, but I hate doing that.

We've also had that episode were Thor dialed up the stargate, to his own galaxy, just with a device fitting in his palm.

Besides, what's the normal amount of power? We know that the more distant the target, the more it requires. Dialing Abydos, in SG-1, requires less energy than dialing the most distant planet in the Milky Way.

I'd rather have a simple line of text that tells us how long a staff can be used.

Isn't there any official and canon literatture that gives us clues about this?

[gopher65]

It's mentioned that as the distance between galaxies increases, the power requirements increase as well. Ida is very close by, while pegasus is much farther.

Was there a staff weapon in Enemy Mine? Those would have been at least a few hundred years old. And what about the other episode with that Unas? The human who held him prisoner had a Gou'ald torture device. It possibly uses the same powersource as a staff. Did they also have Gou'ald weapons?

[Ouroboros]

There is a quote from Teal'c in one episode, though I'll be damned if I can remember which one, where he says that one power cell is good enough for either thousands or hundreds of years of "standard use".

[gopher65]

There is a quote from Teal'c in one episode, though I'll be damned if I can remember which one, where he says that one power cell is good enough for either thousands or hundreds of years of "standard use".

Hmm. I don't remember that. Maybe that episode... um. The one with Lord Yu and ... that guy. Teal'c gets capture... or something. I don't really remember it. But they compared staff weapon use to P90s in it by firing at a log.

[Ripple in Space]

I don't really remember it. But they compared staff weapon use to P90s in it by firing at a log.

Yeah, that demonstrated the practicality of the P90. The P90 is lightweight, precision, and can hypothetically take down dozens of enemies within seconds on a single clip, ans a single pull of the trigger.

While a single staff shot is more powerful than one p90 bullet, in battle, the p90 dominates. Col. O'Neill reasons that this is one of the reasons that 4-member SG-Teams can handily take down small armies of Jaffa Soldiers.

Back to the Staff Question, the answer is "a relatively infinite number of shots." Even if it hasn't been stated we know that Staff power sources don't wear down with age, and that they don't run out of shots within years (stated by the Unas trader).

But all-in-all, since the P90's armor-piercing rounds go through Jaffa armor they pack enough punch to make staff use rare.

[Jimbo-DR]

Yeah, that demonstrated the practicality of the P90. The P90 is lightweight, precision, and can hypothetically take down dozens of enemies within seconds on a single clip, ans a single pull of the trigger.

While a single staff shot is more powerful than one p90 bullet, in battle, the p90 dominates. Col. O'Neill reasons that this is one of the reasons that 4-member SG-Teams can handily take down small armies of Jaffa Soldiers.

Back to the Staff Question, the answer is "a relatively infinite number of shots." Even if it hasn't been stated we know that Staff power sources don't wear down with age, and that they don't run out of shots within years (stated by the Unas trader).

But all-in-all, since the P90's armor-piercing rounds go through Jaffa armor they pack enough punch to make staff use rare.

Never makes sense to me that they use P90's against the Jaffa. Full Rifles with Hollowpoint rounds would be so much more effective at getting through the armor. I say this because it shouldn't take 20 rounds to bring down a single Jaffa, but it does with the P90.

[jenks]

yeah, I know. And the power source O'Neill used was from a STAFF WEAPON. If you know how big the power source is, you can estimate how many shots you'd get out of it.

Yeah, if you know how much power it takes for one shot, but do we?

[wise one]

well they can last for 100's of years i think

but i always wondered how cool it would be if they didnt have the reload thing on them so it only shoots out a stream of energy like a total yellow orange laser.....

[Mister Oragahn]

There is a quote from Teal'c in one episode, though I'll be damned if I can remember which one, where he says that one power cell is good enough for either thousands or hundreds of years of "standard use".

Woah, that would be priceless, if you could remember it.
We need boobilicious Anise here!

Back to the Staff Question, the answer is "a relatively infinite number of shots." Even if it hasn't been stated we know that Staff power sources don't wear down with age, and that they don't run out of shots within years (stated by the Unas trader).

Mh, I've been reading the episode transcripts, and couldn't find what you speak of. However, here's the stuff that's relevant:

BURROCK
I have been to one other place. Just one time so far. I had to press seven different symbols to get the Chappa'ai to open.

DANIEL
And how did you learn those symbols?

BURROCK
(Laughing)
I paid dearly for them. They have been passed down through the lineage of certain families since the Beast Wars.

O'NEILL
Beast wars?

BURROCK
Generations ago, the beasts enslaved our forefathers through terror and oppression. They served the one with the glowing eyes.

DANIEL
And what happened to him, her?

BURROCK
No one knows. One day he went away, did not return. Our forefathers, they learned how the beast's weapons worked, and led an uprising. The war was bloody, waged for many years. But eventually the slaves triumphed, and the masters became the slaves. Since then, the Beasts have served us.

So basically, they still use the weapons their ancestors used to free themselves from the Goa'uld Lord.
They say generations, and speak in such a way that implies many of them.
Being conservative, however, would require the assumption of only two generations, the basic minimum plural.
Since they were human slaves, and not Jaffas of any kind, we can expect a typical lifespan of a pre-industrialized civilisation. they can't make the Goa'uld healign devices work either, even if they had any.
So I guess that for a good template, we've have to look at how many years a generation represents in cultures, on Earth, which didn't pass the premises of an "industry" which seems fairly medieval (they can build houses, metal door locks and sturdy metal bars for the prisons).

[Burrock pulls the trigger, but the gun just clicks. It's out of ammunition.]

BURROCK
Impressive weapon. But not as efficient as a fire stick. It seems to stop working after it's been fired for a while. I assume that's what these are for.
(He indicates a clip of ammunition.)
Tell me how to make it work again.

Implies that they never saw a "fire stick" fail since they possessed them.

More clues about how long these people were free from the Goa'uld opression:

BURROCK
No one has come through the Chappa'ai for as long as anyone can remember.

No memories of the Chappa'ai being used, despite the fact that a Goa'uld Lord was there. This speaks of very ancient times.

CARTER
(As O'Neill and Daniel approach)
So, what's going on?

DANIEL
They're using Unas as slaves. They've been inbreeding them so long, they've become untrainable. They needed new blood, and they have Chaka—and they're not giving him up.

Genetic anomalies kick in after several interbred generations. With solid beasts such as the Unas, it could take even longer.

DANIEL
I was wrong! Chaka—Chaka isn't different! These Unas may have been born into domestication, but they still know what freedom means. They know it enough to want it.

Unas are tough creatures. They're likely to live longer than humans. Two generations of Unas could correspond to three or even four generations of humans.

At the very least, we'd be, in that case, looking at something like 50 years - I know, it's very low, the dialogue really makes it clear that this situation of "freedom" existed for a while.

BURROCK
Tell me of the places where the Chappa'ai can go. I do not understand why you take such risks for this Beast. He's very valuable to me, but certainly you can replace him with one of equal lineage.

DANIEL
Because they're not beasts. They're self-aware, intelligent beings, and you have no right to use them as slaves or treat them like you do.

BURROCK
They used our forefathers as slaves, and treated them much worse than we treat our Unas.

BURROCK
Our forefathers could have slaughtered them all, wiped them from the face of the planet. But instead, they saw a way to use their strength to our advantage. A way to co-exist. For that, we thank them.

Don't reveal much, but still putting it here. Just in case.

Hmm. I don't remember that. Maybe that episode... um. The one with Lord Yu and ... that guy. Teal'c gets capture... or something. I don't really remember it. But they compared staff weapon use to P90s in it by firing at a log.

The Warrior, with the Goa'uld Imhotep.
Not much to learn from that one. The same old stuff about how stavse don't need ammo, or so, suggesting a long service.

[l33telboi]

One interesting tidbit of information that could be relevant is what Carter says in "Torment of Tantalus". She says Teal'c's staff is insufficient to power the gate.