Okay, the X-699 pisses me off.
Not the item itself, but the reaction to it here on the forum. Most people, for some strange reason, seem to be under the misguided impression that it was a real, SERIOUS piece of hardware. I constantly see posts like, "they should mass produce the X-699", or "the X-699 will replace rail guns eventually".
What people seem to be missing the point of is that the X-699 was a JOKE. Or at least, it was a joke for us - the viewers. The X-699 was a enlarged, inefficient version of technology we already have (like the ARG, for example), which the RAF were demonstrating to the public in order to show a "natural" progression towards the technologies we already have, rather than having to explain the fact we got the technology through contact with alien races.
We've already shown that we can quite easily produce working energy weapons (the ARGs, the Kull disruptors, etc); the X-699 was NEVER intended for use by the SGC, merely for demonstration to the public. As for those of you who've linked it to Felger's weapon, I should point out that Felger himself was a comic relief character, and therefore anything he was working on should be considered with almost joke-like status. If they WERE working on Earth-built energy weapons, it most likely would've been Carter or DECENT scientists who were doing so, not someone who had as much failure in his career as Felger.
Not to mention that we have enough prowess working with Naquadah and crystal technology we'd be easily able to produce Earth-equivelants of Staff weapons, Zats, etc; IF WE NEEDED TO. But the reality is we have such massive stockpiles of Goa'uld and Wraith weaponry that energy weapons designed and manufactured by us are really on the back-burner, so to speak. If we DID produce something, it wouldn't be as big, clunky or unreliable as the X-699 (I should point out that it was DESIGNED to misfire so as to give the public the impression the technology hadn't been perfected yet).
Not the item itself, but the reaction to it here on the forum. Most people, for some strange reason, seem to be under the misguided impression that it was a real, SERIOUS piece of hardware. I constantly see posts like, "they should mass produce the X-699", or "the X-699 will replace rail guns eventually".
What people seem to be missing the point of is that the X-699 was a JOKE. Or at least, it was a joke for us - the viewers. The X-699 was a enlarged, inefficient version of technology we already have (like the ARG, for example), which the RAF were demonstrating to the public in order to show a "natural" progression towards the technologies we already have, rather than having to explain the fact we got the technology through contact with alien races.
We've already shown that we can quite easily produce working energy weapons (the ARGs, the Kull disruptors, etc); the X-699 was NEVER intended for use by the SGC, merely for demonstration to the public. As for those of you who've linked it to Felger's weapon, I should point out that Felger himself was a comic relief character, and therefore anything he was working on should be considered with almost joke-like status. If they WERE working on Earth-built energy weapons, it most likely would've been Carter or DECENT scientists who were doing so, not someone who had as much failure in his career as Felger.
Not to mention that we have enough prowess working with Naquadah and crystal technology we'd be easily able to produce Earth-equivelants of Staff weapons, Zats, etc; IF WE NEEDED TO. But the reality is we have such massive stockpiles of Goa'uld and Wraith weaponry that energy weapons designed and manufactured by us are really on the back-burner, so to speak. If we DID produce something, it wouldn't be as big, clunky or unreliable as the X-699 (I should point out that it was DESIGNED to misfire so as to give the public the impression the technology hadn't been perfected yet).
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