ZPM vs. naquadria planet

[thekillman]

Theory-
Because that was probably just some sort of chemical reaction, and the chemical reaction would have been based on interactions with the make up of the crystal.

Naquadah fission reactors would be more efficient and powerful.

i think you misunderstood me. If the stuff Camulus added to the ZPM was responsible for the big explosion, even pure E=mc^2 wouldn't cover half the released energy. It would be many orders of magnitude more powerful than Naquahdah.

In short: it can't be the element. The stuff Camulus added was purely a trigger for electricity. The trigger would uncontrollably release the energy.

[Gormagon]

I think we might be on the same page here....

[thekillman]

page 1, yes

[rgritt]

The blowing up of a solar system only happens when they are drawing from their own space-time, ZPMs are "a universe in a bottle" and pose a much less risk.

[dboy-2007]

No blowing up a solar system happens when you release enough energy to blow up a solar system.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I think SGU makes it pretty clear that the Naquadria planet was the only thing known to Earth that could dial a stargate Destiny's distance from the Milky Way, Pegasus or any galaxy within easy reach of the Tauri.

It was never outright established exactly how powerful the explosion on the Icarus planet was, though to dial Destiny's gate seemed to only require a fraction of the energy stored within the Naquaria ore on the Icarus type planets.

The writers may have simply ignored ZPMs for the sake of making an interesting plot and keeping the crew of Destiny on Destiny.
Although it was never established that ZPMs were capable of more than blowing up a planet and even that may have been a stretch, given that in an actual event where the team of Atlantis needed to blow up an Asuran city ship they couldn't, it took 3 ZPMs to do that.
Of course it's possible that Asuran ZPMs aren't capable of the same level of energy tapping as Ancient ones are, especially given that Asuran Auroras don't appear as powerful as Ancient ones and despite having a massive city complex in Be All My Sins Remembered the Asurans couldn't easily wipe away more than one or two Hives whilst the Allied Fleet was near orbit.

Killman has made an excellent point regarding the Naquadah Asteroid in SG1's episode Failsafe, that was not pure asteroid of Naquadah ore yet it would have likely destroyed more than Earth if it had struck, Naquadria being several times as powerful should be considerably more powerful than a ZPM if we're talking about a ZPM vs an entire planet with a Naquadria core and veins of the mineral.


Regarding the Camulus element it makes no sense for it to be more powerful than a ZPM, again like Killman said if it was more powerful then the Goauld would have experimented in using to for a source of power, whether that be as a fuel for a generator or as an explosive element for a bomb/missile in certain situations.
What seems more likely is the ZPM imparted energy into the element and that's what gave it the explosive energy release, it's quite possible such a thing may be destructive when it comes into contact with the drone chair but it was a guess on Carter's part after taking a look at someone else's math, it's certainly not a conclusive example of a ZPM's destructive capabilities, not considering a device that at 12 times the power level of a ZPM could destroy 2 thirds of a solar system (Re: Arcturus in Trinity SGA) a ZPM in this case can't be capable of Supernova levels of energy output.

[dr.chrismckay]

IIRC, there has never been an episode in any sg show where a zpm blows up. Carter makes mention O'Neill, that Bill's calculations may have underestimated the potential explosion. In trinity, the harvesting of power from our own space-time creates an overload within the reactor which then goes critical, causing an explosion which destroyed 5/6 of the solar system.

[whyistheskyblue]

um compare blowing up a nuclear power plant to a very large coal power plant the nuclear one has a bigger boom but the coal would produce more power (in this situation bieng much larger)

[thekillman]

What seems more likely is the ZPM imparted energy into the element and that's what gave it the explosive energy release, it's quite possible such a thing may be destructive when it comes into contact with the drone chair but it was a guess on Carter's part after taking a look at someone else's math, it's certainly not a conclusive example of a ZPM's destructive capabilities,

When a ZPM normally blows, it's possible that the explosion itself disrupts the connection to the micro-universe. the explosion simply cuts off the power transfer to our universe.

A second possibility is that the ZPM has failsafes which prevent such an explosion (not electronic, but actual mechanical systems that can't be magi-hacked), so even an overload like the one used to blow up the asuran cityship does not release the full potential.

This essentially means that Camulus rigged the ZPM as such, that an explosion would actually leave the "valve" open and cause a complete outpour of all energy within.

The last option is that Carter and Billy only used the contained energy as their calculation and did not account for failsafes or blow-backs, as the asuran cityship blowing up was the first instance where the ZPMs were actually blown....(rather than an academic excersise)