Pitiful main weapon. (possible epilogue spoilers)

[Ouroboros]

So 60% of Destiny's main weapon amounts to about what, maybe a small artillery shell.

Not quite as bad as Ha'taks dropping hand grenades on O'neill from orbit but pretty close.

Stargate: The universe where you can make a 1000 megaton bomb with a fission warhead and some stuff dug directly out of the ground... but everyone fights with fireworks.

Putting out eyes and starting inconvenient grass fires since 1997.

[DaDigi]

I haven't posted on here in ages, but just this once I will.

That was ONE of the barrels shooting at limited power. Not all of the barrels. It was mentioned that the door was EXTREMELY reinforced. There are too many variables to figure out just to say "that weapon sux!!!".

[Trinary]

That wall must be made out of Naquadriah if C4 and the shuttle weapon can't even penetrate them. The shuttle weapon itself could destroy drones and the blues fighter ship, imagine how strong is the destiny main weapon.

[thekillman]

yup they presumably had a door made of some very tough weapons.


oh and we have known that weapons don't cause nuclear level explosions since SG1 S1.E1

must be really advanced weapons then that they only hurt shields

[Ouroboros]

Watch the city shot from the air when it hits. The explosion is absolutely tiny, though not quite as tiny as I remembered. Probably more like a battleship shell or large bomb. Nowhere near nuclear level though.

Spoiler:

The real telling shot is the next one though. Slightly larger than man-sized hole and the ash piles right next to it aren't even disturbed at all.

Spoiler:

Reminds me of the Ori bombardment of that villiage in SG-1. Pitiful.

[thekillman]

give me 1 example where planetary damage lined up with actual damage? cause i can't think of one. even staffweapons have variable damage.

[Ouroboros]

I know, that's kind of my point. Why after so much time does this still happen. Not sure what you mean about "actual damage" though.

Why not just write them to use one of the other gun turrets? The ones that are all over the ship and meant for shooting down fighters/small things. But no, they make sure we know it's the main anti ship weapon before they light off the fireworks.

Then they tell us that they have to turn it down to only 60% because an explosion not even twice that powerful would collapse the whole structure somehow.

No way it would have. I doubt it would even have gotten rid of the whole door based on what the 60% shot did.

This is same universe where one of the least advanced aliens can blow up an entire fortified underground bunker with a bomb small enough to attach to a human heart, or 1990s America can make 1000 megaton missiles with a sprinkle of something dug out of the ground.

Consistency, we don't need to stinkin' consistency.

[s09119]

How is it pitiful? It was 60% of one of the lesser guns on the main weapon firing at a door presumably made of some incredibly advanced alloy. If we had 100% power to the main barrel firing at that thing, I'm confident in saying it would have leveled a few buildings.

[garhkal]

I would love to see how a 100% shot would have faired on the planet!

[morrismike]

TPTB have frequently screwed up weapons yield. There are some that think goald blasts are in the megaton range but actual damage is more on the line of "daisy cutters". There are others that think drones are anything more than a really smart 500 pound bomb with matter disentigration tech.

It is quite possible that daisy cutters or bunker busters wouldn't scratch the paint on the door.

[Nth Chevron]

Lets face it, a smaller bore cannon firing at 60% power, INTO atmosphere?

Who knows what the diffusion would be, it could be 60% power is enough to put a 1km deep 500m wide crater in a moon with no atmosphere.

Also, factoring in the door and it what it was made off and the weapons effectiveness could have been reduced to 45% on impact.

N.C

[Puddle-Jumper]

All that atmosphere, plus extremely durable door.. plus that 60% might not be 60% of what the weapons were capable of when Destiny was launched, that might be 60% of what they are capable of now, everything on the ship is falling apart afterall... it would make sense that their weapons 100% capacity isn't what it used to be.

[Pond Hopper]

ARRGhggh! Stop complaining! It was a minor detail so obviously the CGI and continuity guys didn't put much thought into it, nor did they think it was worth troubling whoever is in charge of deciding how powerful Destiny's weapons should be.

The focus of the episode wasn't on them blowing a door open.

[Furliciousy2k9]

I'd like to add a few things to this thread.

We don't know how the weapons on Destiny work, except that they are energy based, this doesn't mean that a decrease to 60% power means that the weapon is firing with a 60% decrease in "strength". That scale could be exponential or logarithmic, it doesn't have to be linear.
Also as have been mentioned, it was only one barrel and one shot. Firing two shots doesn't mean the damage is increased by a factor of 2. It was also a bunker that went deep underground, made in the case of nuclear war (iirc) and they very precise in order to "open the door" not to destroy it. etc..

[Crias]

I'd like to add a few things to this thread.

We don't know how the weapons on Destiny work, except that they are energy based, this doesn't mean that a decrease to 60% power means that the weapon is firing with a 60% decrease in "strength". That scale could be exponential or logarithmic, it doesn't have to be linear.
Also as have been mentioned, it was only one barrel and one shot. Firing two shots doesn't mean the damage is increased by a factor of 2. It was also a bunker that went deep underground, made in the case of nuclear war (iirc) and they very precise in order to "open the door" not to destroy it. etc..

Well like you said, the door was built to withstand nuclear weapons. Opening it would be a little bigger than shooting a firecracker at it. Also I think the weapon charge would be exponential, I thought that was how energy weapons worked. please correct me if I’m wrong people.

[Ouroboros]

I think the only alternative now is that it's some kind of disintegration weapon. It's not a direct energy transfer type deal.

It's not unheard of for the ancients to use weapons like that either. The Satellite beam was powered by a naquada reactor but could still cut a hiveship in half in seconds, where as a direct contact nuke doesn't even knock one out of the battle.

Such a shame they didn't decide to give destiny something other than "glowing blobs of doom" for all it's weapons. Such an improvement virtually everywhere else with this series but this old annoying goblin still trods on.

[garhkal]

Maybe thats all the weapon tech they had back then..

[Crias]

Well the reason the weapons look pethetic is because there is no camera shake when the blob goes flying past. I think if they added this it would make the weapon seem more powerful.

[Ouroboros]

All they needed to make the main weapon here seem more powerful was Eli saying something like "Are you trying to kill us all, no just use one of the smaller guns, that'll be more than enough, in fact turn it down to 60% just to be on the safe side."

I mean should you really need the main weapon to open a door that's smaller than it is.

[morbosfist]

You do when they clearly say the shuttle's guns couldn't dent it. That's an ungodly tough door.