Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

About Prometheus' hyperdrives and the Replicatored Halla

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    About Prometheus' hyperdrives and the Replicatored Halla

    In the episode titled Prometheus, a bunch of terrorists hijack the ship and menace to destroy it if the USAF don't let them escape.

    Scene: Sam's room
    She is finding some useful equipment. You can see a plan formulating as she looks it over. She goes to work by first taking the cover off the communication panel.

    Meanwhile with Al's help, Crewman 2 has been successful at stopping Jonas' diagnostic program.
    Jones (to herself): "There we go."

    Julia (as she hears a new sound): "What's happening?"

    Jonas: "They're activating the hyperdrive generators.

    Julia: "While we're on the ground? Is that such a good idea?"

    Jonas: "No, it's not." (Jonas sees that Crewman 2 has been successful at activating the engines.) "Unless you're deliberately trying to create an overload."

    Julia: "I don' t understand."

    Jonas: "The hyperdrive generators create an enormous amount of energy and if it's not channeled into creating a hyperspace window it can cause some serious problems."

    Julia: "You mean it could explode."

    Jonas: "With enough force to turn the entire state of Nevada into a smoking crater, yes."

    Smith: "That's right, but I wouldn't worry about it. As long as our demands are met, it won't come to that."
    If the hyperdrive generators, they turn the entire Nevada into a smoking crater.

    Looking at wikipedia, quickly, we see Nevada has the following dimensions:

    - Width 322 miles (519 km)
    - Length 490 miles (788 km)

    Say it would create a 519 km wide crater.

    The chicxulub crater is 180 km wide only (haha), and was created by an asteroid impact which released 100 teratons of energy.

    I have been toying with this calculator.

    One thing that seems sure is that the depth of a crater is only worth a fraction of its radius, actually.
    Example, the Lonar crater. Depth is 10% of the width.
    Another example, the Barringer crater, is 1.2 km wide, and 170 m deep.
    These are deep craters. There are many other craters which are actually flater than those, but erosion could also be a reason of such a flatness.

    On Mercury, nearly all craters show that they're particularily flat, which means a very limited depth, inferior to the ratios we have for the examples I cited above 1).

    Same deal for Mars, they're extremely flat.

    So 10% of the width, for the depth, is an acceptable basis.
    With the calculator, it proves to be a good method, as using a radius of 900,000 km, based on chicxulub, 180 km / 2 x 10, we obtain figures in the 2-3 digit teratons, depending on the nature of the terrain.

    So with a radius of 259,500 meters (we need to input 2,595,000 into the calculator), let's see what that calculator gives.

    Cratering Energy: 3.16 e6 gigatons and 8.25 e7 gigatons, for hard granite and nickel-iron respectively.


    In the next part, Unnatural Selection, the replicators have turned Halla into their sweet home. They have leveled the planet's surface, and covered it with blocks.

    SG-1 wonders what they can do to destroy that thing.

    TEAL’C: Perhaps we can take advantage of the situation.

    CARTER: Detonate the hyperdrive, you mean. An overload would cause a pretty big explosion.

    O’NEILL: Big enough to be worth it?

    CARTER: I honestly don’t know, Sir.

    O’NEILL: Go.

    Sam leaves.

    O’NEILL: Get a message to Thor. Let him know how massively he screwed up.

    Jack gets up and Jonas follows. They walk along the corridors towards the room where Sam went.

    JONAS: Hey Colonel. Colonel, I don’t think this is going to work.

    O’NEILL: If Carter says she can do it….

    JONAS: Yeah, but if explosives and weapons worked, the Asgard would have won their war.

    O’NEILL: I suppose you want to talk to these bug people?

    JONAS: Don’t you?

    O’NEILL: No.

    JONAS: Maybe we can reason with them. If we blow this ship, then we lose that option altogether.

    O’NEILL: If we blow the ship, I won’t care.

    JONAS: Colonel, I don’t think that you fully appreciate what they’ve become.

    O’NEILL: Replicators who look like we do.

    JONAS: More than that. Sir, this is a huge leap in their evolution.

    O’NEILL: Jonas! They are replicators.

    They enter the room where Sam is and see Fifth standing there with her.

    O’NEILL: Carter? What’s going on?

    CARTER: Everything’s fine, Sir. We were just chatting. He carried us back here, Sir. One at a time. So we’d be more comfortable.

    JONAS: Thanks.

    FIFTH: It was not difficult.

    CARTER: Apparently Sir, we’re invited to dinner.

    FIFTH: At his request.

    O’NEILL: Who’s?

    FIFTH: First.

    O’NEILL: And you are?

    FIFTH: I was Fifth. The others are merging with our replicator brethren but they will return soon.

    O’NEILL: Yeah, you wanna let him know we’ve made other plans?

    FIFTH: Exploding your vessel would only serve to feed energy to the replicator blocks on the surface of the planet. Your food stores have already been taken to the temple.
    So, hum, that planet could deal with an explosion worth of several hundreds of teratons, maybe even one petaton, and that would just feed the blocks with energy?

    This is not meant to prove that the Prometheus could generate that much energy.

    It would, on the contrary, simply reinforce what I've been considering nearly a given, being that hyperspace, for some reason or another, is a formidable source of energy, and anything related to hyperspace multiplies yields tremendously.

    Sure, the generator was going to explode before an hyperspace window would be opened, but with so much energy and an hyperdrive ready and just asking for a flux of energy to actually open a window, we can pretend that there would have been a weird side effect caused by the hyperdrive anyway.

    The other solution would be that there's a huge amount of naqahdah on the Prometheus.

    The last solution is that the character just threw a figure like that. However, many gigatons worth of energy is hugely likely, considering the amount of energy naqahdria can release, for the sheer absurd small size of a warhead, and naqahdria is only an isotope of naqahdah. I wouldn't say more than one order of magnitude of energy above naqahdah, max.

    All in all, this would just feed the replicators with energy. These neutronium eating buggers are really tough beeyatches.
    The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

    #2
    Originally posted by Mister Oragahn View Post
    All in all, this would just feed the replicators with energy. These neutronium eating buggers are really tough beeyatches.

    *cough* were *cough*
    Visit my Website

    Comment


      #3
      IMO the "smoking crater the size of Nevada" was a exageration.

      We saw that when the Hyper-drive malfunctions it is a big explosion but not enough to destroy a planet. (which would have happened if a explosion the size of chicxulub).

      The only explosive element is the Naquardia.

      And the Replacators are tough buggers.

      Would'nt all those buggs add to the mass of the planet and change the pull it puts on objects(weight)?

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Lord batchi ball View Post
        IMO the "smoking crater the size of Nevada" was a exageration.

        The only explosive element is the Naquardia.
        Maybe a little, but isn't Naquadria the most powerful element in the Stargate-verse? Even a little was somewhere equal to some uber-power sources. The problem was that the power output increased exponentially under certain situations.

        But yes, I agree, the hyperdrive itself would inly be a contributor and catalyst to the explosion, the Naquadriah was the "boom."
        sigpic
        "Most of our John Sheppard impressions sound more like a demented Jimmy Stewart than Joe Flanigan."
        ~David Hewlett

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Lord batchi ball View Post
          .

          Would'nt all those buggs add to the mass of the planet and change the pull it puts on objects(weight)?
          No really since most of those blocks would have been made with material from the planet itself thus its overal mass would stay the same
          the only mass increase would come from rep blocks that came from other planets
          The overall diameter could increase by a fraction but this would only be a kilometer at most i think since a planet has a very large surface area and the rep's where covering very square meter of it
          They would need a lot of blocks to increase it just a kilometer

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Lord batchi ball View Post
            IMO the "smoking crater the size of Nevada" was a exageration.

            We saw that when the Hyper-drive malfunctions it is a big explosion but not enough to destroy a planet. (which would have happened if a explosion the size of chicxulub).

            The only explosive element is the Naquardia.

            And the Replacators are tough buggers.

            Would'nt all those buggs add to the mass of the planet and change the pull it puts on objects(weight)?
            I'm not sure what you mean, but remember the naqahdria core they jetisoned?

            It was particularily big in comparison to a mark IX.

            The amount of energy this thing would have liberated would be enormous.

            I remember that the naqahdah generator on the Prometheus was particularily big.
            The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

            Comment


              #7
              I thought they only ever showed the Naquadriah generators on Prometheus, not their Naquadah generators.

              At any rate, while yes, overloading the hyperdrives would unleash a massive energy wave in the explosion, replicators are created of pretty superconductive materials that could absorb the brunt of it. That's why projectile weapons worked so well on them. They couldn't absorb the kinetic energy nearly as well as they could electrical energy.

              Comment


                #8
                This is one of those times when I think A: the Replicators are tough little monsters and B: never kick the Prommie's hyperdrive.
                To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield- Tennyson
                http://darthtimon.wix.com/meerkatmusings
                http://meerkatmusings.co.uk/

                Comment


                  #9
                  Difference between the Mark IX and the Hyper Space Generator.

                  The Mark IX is meant to go BOOM! whilst the generator makes the hyper space field thing. Logically, you wouldn't build it with a chance of exploding. Imagine a nuclear reactor in comparison to a Nuclear bomb
                  Disliked a recent episode?
                  Hate the current season Stargate Atlantis or SG1?
                  The writers killed off your favourite character?

                  Well suck it up Cupcake. It is only a Television Show.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Master_Templar View Post
                    Difference between the Mark IX and the Hyper Space Generator.

                    The Mark IX is meant to go BOOM! whilst the generator makes the hyper space field thing. Logically, you wouldn't build it with a chance of exploding. Imagine a nuclear reactor in comparison to a Nuclear bomb
                    The reactor was overloading. Ergo, it gathered a lot of energy, and it did go boom. That, and what was left of reactive naqahdria inside.
                    The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Yes, but even though it did go boom, it was built to explode.

                      Sorry, my point was a bit muddy and unclear. The reactor is built creating energy and is optimised towards this, whilst a Mark IX is optimised towards big BANGS!

                      You dig?
                      Disliked a recent episode?
                      Hate the current season Stargate Atlantis or SG1?
                      The writers killed off your favourite character?

                      Well suck it up Cupcake. It is only a Television Show.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        We have seen regular Naqahdah generators inside the Prometheus, in "Ethon" just before the Prometheus got destroyed, Carter was trying to reroute power and was accessing the Naqahdah generators of the ship.

                        Vala,

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Master_Templar View Post
                          Yes, but even though it did go boom, it was built to explode.

                          Sorry, my point was a bit muddy and unclear. The reactor is built creating energy and is optimised towards this, whilst a Mark IX is optimised towards big BANGS!

                          You dig?
                          Yes, but we know that both naqahdah and naqahdria enhance explosions. Even a stargate, which is a sturdy piece of technology, and very stable, will actually enhance an explosion if it blows up.

                          A reactor full of energy, with probably still very energetic naqahdria left inside, would lead to a significant explosion.
                          The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Yes, but not as much as a Nuclear Bomb. We have seen a Naquadah Generator go off before, and it was big, but it wasn't huge in comparison to say a Mark 8 or 9 going off.
                            Disliked a recent episode?
                            Hate the current season Stargate Atlantis or SG1?
                            The writers killed off your favourite character?

                            Well suck it up Cupcake. It is only a Television Show.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Master_Templar View Post
                              Yes, but not as much as a Nuclear Bomb. We have seen a Naquadah Generator go off before, and it was big, but it wasn't huge in comparison to say a Mark 8 or 9 going off.
                              This is missing the fact that we don't know at all how much naqahdah these portable reactors contain.

                              We know that certain forms of naqahdah, which can still be used to extract energy, can be made less potent and dangerous for their users.

                              That way, we have the liquid cells for staves for example.

                              Naqahdria is a problem, because Earth never managed to control it. Which proves that they couldn't even produce a stabler variant or so.

                              In turn, it supporst the concept that the reactor, when blowing up, would release a huge amount of energy. The whole question would be how much naqahdria there could be in that reactor.

                              We can see how explosive a naqahdria enhanced nuke can be, and yet the nuke is hardly bigger than the mere kiloton device they used back during their first encounter against Ra, or when Hammond wanted to send another one to get the stargate definitively destroyed.

                              It shows that the quantities put in those Mark IXs would have been minimal.

                              Yet, remember the size of the reactor they jetisonned.

                              EDIT: Talking about the naqahdah inside a portable naqahdah generator, I'd actually point out the fact that it is easily portable.

                              Hardly the crate that required two struggling Jaffa in Upgrades.

                              That should tell a lot about the low amount of naqahdah carried in those small generators, and yet the huge output they can provide.
                              Last edited by Mister Oragahn; 01 November 2007, 03:12 PM.
                              The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X