This thread is basically me listing my thoughts and reasons for believing Neutrino Ion Generators e.g. the power source the Asgard used on their mother ships is vastly inferior to a single ZPM.
1) In 'Revelations' an Asgard mother ship powered by 4 NIG's (from now on I shall refer to Neutrino Ion Generators as NIG's) was defeated by 2 Anubis Ha'taks upgraded with Ancient technology. It should be noted that its weapons had minimal effect on said Ha'taks. We don't know how long the battle lasted after this but judging by the fact that Anubis was still able to be challenged by the other system lords such as Lord Yu we know his Ha'tak were not 'so' much more powerful than a standard Ha'tak. If an Asgard ship was able to be defeated so easily by these Ha'tak that shows me its shields, weapons and therefore power souce could not be ZPM. This is because we have seen Atlantis' shield can withstand days of continuous weapons fire from 10 Hive ships + at least 20 cruisers. This shows a massive difference in shield strength. IMO the shields do operate in different ways, Atlantis powered by a ZPM will not lose shields until the ZPM us depleted. Asgard ships use buffers as far as we have seen. This in itself shows their generators have not the output needed to power such a powerful shield under heavy bombardment.
Conclusion - Asgard ships powered by 4 generators have shown to be vastly inferior in shield strength to Atlantis powered by 1 ZPM. This shows that a ZPM can output vastly more power than 4 NIG's at least in the short term. How long a NIG would need to be active to match a ZPM is unknown but likely to be very very high.
2) This reason is based purely on size. A ZPM is thousands of times smaller than a NIG. It is also much more powerful. Clearly it is vastly superior in this respect.
3) My third reasons comes from the episode 'Small Victories'.
From this we know that the 4 NIG's aboard an Asgard mother ship fail to produce the power needed to both enter hyperspace and power shields. Something Atlantis with a single ZPM is capable of. It should be noted that Atlantis takes a lot of power to get the ship off the ground while using its shield which is quite ridicules but the fact of the matter is that it can power shields in hyperspace. Something replicator infested Asgard ships couldn't do (these ships themselves are superior to the Asgard controlled versions).
Conclusion - Atlantis is very large vessel with the internal volume of every building in Manhattan. It can both enter hyperspace and maintain its shields. Something a much smaller ship powered by 4 NIG's + Replicators is incapable of. The struggle Atlantis goes through to take off might be due to the massive drain of the Asuran energy beam plus its massive size. Either way a ZPM is definately superior.
Those are all my reasons taken from comparison. Between NIG's and ZPM's I will now give my thoughts on an argument I have seen time and time again in favor of NIG's.
We know from 'The Siege part III' I believe that the Deadalus takes 4 days to travel from Earth to Lantea when powered by a ZPM. We also know that an Asgard ship takes 4 days to travel from Earth to Lantea (this was said in the season 3 episode Misbegotten). Can people please refer to this episode for any quotes I have no desire to post quotes from it every time someone questions this.
Now IMO there are several problems with this argument. One is assuming the Asgard hyperdrives on both ships are the same and when used on our ships it is as efficient as on an Asgard ship. That is a minor problem with this argument but still enough to raise doubt. My major problem with it is that this assumes the Asgard hyperdrive speed is limited by nothing but power! That is to say that if you continue to add more generators it will get faster and faster and faster. Now this may be true to some extent (an episode of Top Gear comes to mind involving a battery powered car and a mustang lol) but there has to be a limit to how fast a hyper drive can be. Without knowing how faster hyperdrives are achieved we can't know for sure, but to assume because they have the same travel time they must have equal power sources is flawed. It is my opinion when weighed against other examples that 4 days is simply the fastest an Asgard hyperdrive can go between Earth and Lantea and that adding more power souces wouldn't be able to change it.
Another possibility is that the Asgard ship which carried Weir to Atlantis was powered by something other than NIG's something much more powerful. But that is speculation and would require IMO a massive massive jump in power generating ability. One that is too big to be assumed.
What comes next is me just bigging up ZPM's;
1) We've had them be described as containing planet busting levels of energy on a few occasions. Not only that but they've also been said to be able to destroy an entire solar system! (though I don't necessarily believe that)
2) Project Arcturus in 'Trinity' was said to be capable of practically limitless power. Yet Mckay said;
So we have a device capable of generating enough power to obliterate 5/6th of a star system and at 50% power thats only 12 ZPM's. That gives each ZPM easily enough power to destroy a planet many times over. While an Asgard ship goes down from 2 Ha'tak.
3) Numbers of ZPM's have power generating ability comparable to a black hole. Now I have no idea how energy would be harnessed from a black hole but suffice to say it would be massive! The forces a black hole exerts are so big its easy to see if power could be taped from it it would be massive. And yet ZPM's have been seen to do what black holes have done. Examples are ZPM's (working in concept) keeping a stargate open for unlimited amounts of time and a ZPM powering the Supergate to a galaxy too far away to reach with hyperdrives without indication it lost significant power!
Those are basically my thoughts on ZPM's when compared to NIG's I am not passing them off as facts although I believe IMO canon supports me. Please offer counters but base it on evidence or you can simply green me and agree.
Note: This thread is for comparing Asgard power sources and ZPM's. This is not an 'Asgard beams own!!!!!!!' thread or an 'Ancients are supreme!!!!!!!!" thread this is a comparison of power sources. Anything relevant to this may be referenced including other technologies, for example someone can bring in a piece of Asgard technology to show superior power generating capabilities but it must be linked to power generation.
1) In 'Revelations' an Asgard mother ship powered by 4 NIG's (from now on I shall refer to Neutrino Ion Generators as NIG's) was defeated by 2 Anubis Ha'taks upgraded with Ancient technology. It should be noted that its weapons had minimal effect on said Ha'taks. We don't know how long the battle lasted after this but judging by the fact that Anubis was still able to be challenged by the other system lords such as Lord Yu we know his Ha'tak were not 'so' much more powerful than a standard Ha'tak. If an Asgard ship was able to be defeated so easily by these Ha'tak that shows me its shields, weapons and therefore power souce could not be ZPM. This is because we have seen Atlantis' shield can withstand days of continuous weapons fire from 10 Hive ships + at least 20 cruisers. This shows a massive difference in shield strength. IMO the shields do operate in different ways, Atlantis powered by a ZPM will not lose shields until the ZPM us depleted. Asgard ships use buffers as far as we have seen. This in itself shows their generators have not the output needed to power such a powerful shield under heavy bombardment.
Conclusion - Asgard ships powered by 4 generators have shown to be vastly inferior in shield strength to Atlantis powered by 1 ZPM. This shows that a ZPM can output vastly more power than 4 NIG's at least in the short term. How long a NIG would need to be active to match a ZPM is unknown but likely to be very very high.
2) This reason is based purely on size. A ZPM is thousands of times smaller than a NIG. It is also much more powerful. Clearly it is vastly superior in this respect.
3) My third reasons comes from the episode 'Small Victories'.
CARTER
So why are the bug's ships traveling so slow?
THOR
In order to generate the subspace field required to travel at hyperspeed, full power of the generators is required. Presently they are using that power to replicate.
CARTER
So, if they did decide to go to hyperspeed it would also mean no shields or weapons.
THOR
Yes. But remember the replicators do not care about time as we do.
So why are the bug's ships traveling so slow?
THOR
In order to generate the subspace field required to travel at hyperspeed, full power of the generators is required. Presently they are using that power to replicate.
CARTER
So, if they did decide to go to hyperspeed it would also mean no shields or weapons.
THOR
Yes. But remember the replicators do not care about time as we do.
Conclusion - Atlantis is very large vessel with the internal volume of every building in Manhattan. It can both enter hyperspace and maintain its shields. Something a much smaller ship powered by 4 NIG's + Replicators is incapable of. The struggle Atlantis goes through to take off might be due to the massive drain of the Asuran energy beam plus its massive size. Either way a ZPM is definately superior.
Those are all my reasons taken from comparison. Between NIG's and ZPM's I will now give my thoughts on an argument I have seen time and time again in favor of NIG's.
We know from 'The Siege part III' I believe that the Deadalus takes 4 days to travel from Earth to Lantea when powered by a ZPM. We also know that an Asgard ship takes 4 days to travel from Earth to Lantea (this was said in the season 3 episode Misbegotten). Can people please refer to this episode for any quotes I have no desire to post quotes from it every time someone questions this.
The argument is basically as follows;
Asgard ship + Asgard hyperdrive + Asgard power source = 4 days
Earth ship + Asgard hyperdrive + ZPM = 4 days
Therefore the power sources are equal
Asgard ship + Asgard hyperdrive + Asgard power source = 4 days
Earth ship + Asgard hyperdrive + ZPM = 4 days
Therefore the power sources are equal
Another possibility is that the Asgard ship which carried Weir to Atlantis was powered by something other than NIG's something much more powerful. But that is speculation and would require IMO a massive massive jump in power generating ability. One that is too big to be assumed.
What comes next is me just bigging up ZPM's;
1) We've had them be described as containing planet busting levels of energy on a few occasions. Not only that but they've also been said to be able to destroy an entire solar system! (though I don't necessarily believe that)
2) Project Arcturus in 'Trinity' was said to be capable of practically limitless power. Yet Mckay said;
McKAY: So we don't operate the generator at anywhere near its potential. Look, there's no need to be greedy. Even operating at fifty percent, it'll still generate the power of a dozen ZedP.Ms.
3) Numbers of ZPM's have power generating ability comparable to a black hole. Now I have no idea how energy would be harnessed from a black hole but suffice to say it would be massive! The forces a black hole exerts are so big its easy to see if power could be taped from it it would be massive. And yet ZPM's have been seen to do what black holes have done. Examples are ZPM's (working in concept) keeping a stargate open for unlimited amounts of time and a ZPM powering the Supergate to a galaxy too far away to reach with hyperdrives without indication it lost significant power!
Those are basically my thoughts on ZPM's when compared to NIG's I am not passing them off as facts although I believe IMO canon supports me. Please offer counters but base it on evidence or you can simply green me and agree.
Note: This thread is for comparing Asgard power sources and ZPM's. This is not an 'Asgard beams own!!!!!!!' thread or an 'Ancients are supreme!!!!!!!!" thread this is a comparison of power sources. Anything relevant to this may be referenced including other technologies, for example someone can bring in a piece of Asgard technology to show superior power generating capabilities but it must be linked to power generation.
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