How long would the superhive's ZPM have lasted?

[jds1982]

Anyone willing to speculate on how long the supehive's ZPM would have lasted if they hadn't got blown up? I know the Wraith ship had other powersources and the ZPM wouldn't have been supplying all the energy, but it still provided some radical upgrades which must have been very energy intensive to implement. We've seen the Atlantis team deplete or nearly deplete ZPMs doing things that would seem to be less costly to the ZPM than growing an 11 km long ship (flying Atlantis, sending Rod back). How much juice do you think was left in the ZPM when the hive was destroyed, and how long would it have lasted?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Anyone willing to speculate on how long the supehive's ZPM would have lasted if they hadn't got blown up? I know the Wraith ship had other powersources and the ZPM wouldn't have been supplying all the energy, but it still provided some radical upgrades which must have been very energy intensive to implement. We've seen the Atlantis team deplete or nearly deplete ZPMs doing things that would seem to be less costly to the ZPM than growing an 11 km long ship (flying Atlantis, sending Rod back). How much juice do you think was left in the ZPM when the hive was destroyed, and how long would it have lasted?

Well it's been said by some on Gateworld that Wraith tech is very efficient and makes good use of the power it consumes.
As the ZPM was the sole thing boosting the systems of the Hive and they probably would have gone to cull other planets than Earth then it'd have to last some time, seeing as once the hull was grown power would only be needed to regenerate from battle damage and travel in hyperspace, more power hungry things like the boosted hyperdrive (if they'd even use that for galaxy travel) and weapons are probably only a fraction of what's needed from the ZPM.
I'd say it'd be at least a few hundred years maybe a thousand if they were only adding to the power generators already on board the ship.
That Wraith who developed the Hive may have had plans to wipe away any threats from our galaxy and start a new Wraith faction of his own once a beach head and new ships had been grown.
With constant use having to keep regrowing the hull, use of weapons and intergalactic hyperdrive it could be knocked down to just a few years and then those Wraith would have been stuck in our galaxy with a regular hive probably and that wouldn't be enough on it's own to maintain power over this galaxy.

[Guest750]

Who says it was only one ZPM?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Who says it was only one ZPM?

It's never actually stated in Enemy At The Gate that the Hive has more than one, whenever the characters mention the ZPM they always say 'a ZPM' or something to that effect, but it's never implied that it has more than one.
Todd did of course have more than one ZPM in his possession but that doesn't mean he provided the scientist that built the Super Hive with anything more than one and I'd guess if that Hive hadn't been stolen then he would have wanted to use the other ZPMs to make more of those ships and dominate every other Wraith faction not too mention the Milky Way and Earth if he could gain access to knowledge of our home and home galaxy.

[Major V1125]

ehhh that episode....could have been sooo much better...but if you say so...

Earth could have mounted a MUCH better defense in sense that a simple plan such as using a cloaked jumper to denonate a nuke on the HIVE could have done the trick....let alone if Atlantis sent out its Marine force it could have taken over the ship because the kill ratio of that battle would be for every marine takes out about 5 wraith...suckas! and since its close quarter combat, theres no way a force of 100 Marines or less cannot take the Hive since there werent that much Wraith, and if there was, perhaps a few Drones from the Puddle Jumpers can take a few systems out XD

[TheLastAncient]

I would think otherwise. Even though the hull was much stronger, it was still biological. It would've needed even more maintenance (more energy) to keep it alive and productive. Just like people being born, we don't stop eating once we are adults.

[Ouroboros]

I'd say it would depend entirely on what they were doing with it. If they were sensible and kept the normal reactor as well then they could use that to carry the load of most of the day to day mundane stuff.

They'd only really need to call on the zpm to make up the difference that's required to move around a ship that much denser than a normal one. So basically you're going to need the ZPM to boost the engines and maybe inertial dampners when you want to move and you'll need it to enter hyperspace. You might also be able to conserve it more if you were just willing to move slower, like in non combat situations where speed isn't really important. You'll still need to use some of the power to hold the hive's increased mass together but you don't need to fly so fast that you get where you're going in pegasus in ten minutes. Aside from that though you can probably pretty much save it for combat. It would probably last a pretty long time as long as the hive wasn't constantly fighting for long periods of time.

[jds1982]

I agree, it does depend on many things. How much power was in the ZPM to begin with? How much power does it take to grow a hive, and was the growth of this one sped up? How do they allocate their power resources? How much ZPM power did they use to improve this ship and get it to the MW? Was the superhive bigger than a regular hive or just stronger? It's hard to even guess how long it would last without knowing some of these variables.

[Major V1125]

probably a fully charged one XD

i wonder if the ZPM was destroyed...and wouldnt it make a bigger explosion??

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I think if a ZPM overloads then it makes a big bang, but if it gets vaporized or whatever then I don't think it would make a bigger bang than the explosion we saw going off in EATG.

[wise one]

well im guessing it stops growing at some point and growing somthing organic wouldnt take alot of power than going into other dimensions or realities

[Buba uognarf]

It would probably last quite a while

[AVFan]

My current belief is that better power generation was part of the hiveship's upgrades. I mean, it's an organism- why would it have upgraded it's own hull, weapons, and regenerating ablilities, but not it's power generating capacity?

So as soon as the upgrades we're complete, there would be no more need for the ZPM (or possibly even sooner had the power generation upgrades finished a lot sooner than the rest of the upgrades).

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Even if the ZPM grew more power generators on board the Hive in EATG, being a living organism it would still need a food source of some kind.
I thought it was also said that the Hive was actually powered by the ZPM.

If the Wraith could build this kinds of powerful warship Hives then they wouldn't need the greater numbers to defeat the Ancients as even grounded city ships using 3 ZPMs to power their shields, firing off countless numbers of Drones wouldn't have been a match for the Wraith.
They may have had Hives with more power generators and no hibernation chambers, but the Super Hive's powers I don't think so, seems like a ZPM is needed for that too me.

[Quadhelix]

If the Wraith could build this kinds of powerful warship Hives then they wouldn't need the greater numbers to defeat the Ancients as even grounded city ships using 3 ZPMs to power their shields, firing off countless numbers of Drones wouldn't have been a match for the Wraith.
They may have had Hives with more power generators and no hibernation chambers, but the Super Hive's powers I don't think so, seems like a ZPM is needed for that too me.

Of course, that discounts the possibility of a middle ground: ships that, while not anywhere near as powerful as the "Superhive," are still strong enough to avoid being oneshot WTFPWNED by an Aurora-type ("No Man's Land"). In fact, such a ship type is almost necessary if we are to explain the Wraith's victory: if even a badly damaged Aurora-type could destroy a Hiveship in one salvo, then how did the Ancients loose? Did the Wraith simply have more ships than the Ancients had Drones?