Why did it take to S2 to think of Langara??

[garhkal]

I am almost done with a 2nd rewatch of the entire S1-S2 of SGU and was wondering.. why did it take till the events of "seziure" before the SGC even thought of trying to use Langara as a base point for dialing into the Destiny..

[McClance]

I imagine the political situation between Earth and Langara had something to do with it. That, and they probably wanted to be sure that the same instability problem wouldn't occur as it did on the two Icarus-type Planets.

And, it's not like two years have actually transpired in story time. In the last episode (or the episode before that), Rush mentions that 1 year had passed since he recruited Eli. So, Seasons 1 and 2 take place over the span of 1 year (which isn't hard to believe considering that many episodes take place between a few hours to a day or two after the previous episode).

[thekillman]

I am almost done with a 2nd rewatch of the entire S1-S2 of SGU and was wondering.. why did it take till the events of "seziure" before the SGC even thought of trying to use Langara as a base point for dialing into the Destiny..

Because in reality advanced technology is insanely complex.

Other factors that contribute are the fact that the power extraction facilities have to be built and tested. And the margin for error has to be insanely small? i mean, the core of a planet is not what i call a safe and reliable source of power. A millionth deviation is enough to vaporize a good part of a continent. a billionth could wipe out the city.

The very moment Homeworld Command set it's best and brightest to work on getting the Destiny home, langara was likely thought of. The same meeting would likely have concluded that it's a very difficult thing to do and that the Langarans would be even less willing to cooperate when they figure out what happened to Icarus.

[Aesop]

I am almost done with a 2nd rewatch of the entire S1-S2 of SGU and was wondering.. why did it take till the events of "seziure" before the SGC even thought of trying to use Langara as a base point for dialing into the Destiny..

That's a great question. You'd Langara would almost a knee-jerk response to the situation considering their long known history with Naquadriah.

[McClance]

But wasn't Naquadriah discovered to be somewhat less stable than Naquadah? I believe something like that was mentioned in either "Meridian" or "Redemption".

[thekillman]

But wasn't Naquadriah discovered to be somewhat less stable than Naquadah? I believe something like that was mentioned in either "Meridian" or "Redemption".

a LOT less stable.

Basically, the Langarans live on top of a gigantic nuke and what Earth would propose is poking that nuke. hard.

[akren]

I agree with a lot of whats been said here, but still wonder why the Langarians don't let the SGC use the Langrian stargaze to dial 8 chevron addreses to other galaxies like Ida (hello possible left over Asgard tech! and dialling to Pegasus (perhaps one way worth Atlantis on Earth in canon at the moment - or a new secure gate bridge system?) without draining a ZPM(s)); which by extension, is probably a lot safer than dialling Destiny/9th chevron?

No other civilisation bare the Tau'ri and perhaps the Tollan (who are assumed destroyed) would have the power requirements to dial such places without a ZPM or external aides/tech (in spite of the fact the Langarians are technically 1920's tech but are said to learn quite fast); which puts them in a powerful bargaining position politically with other worlds/civilizations (also makes them attractive to threats, aka Lucian Alliance).

For that matter, why they haven't made their own version of the SGC et al Earth and the Galarians is beyond me.

Thoughts?

[thekillman]

I agree with a lot of whats been said here, but still wonder why the Langarians don't let the SGC use the Langrian stargaze to dial 8 chevron addreses to other galaxies like Ida (

The fact that even that might put their planet at risk, or at the very least cause serious environmental problems

[garhkal]

But would it? Would just say dialing Pegasus cause any instabilities?

[Aesop]

a LOT less stable.

Basically, the Langarans live on top of a gigantic nuke and what Earth would propose is poking that nuke. hard.

Ha, great—and probably accurate—analogy.

But would it? Would just say dialing Pegasus cause any instabilities?

I have a feeling if the show had continued, McKay's program/formula/algorithm/safeguard that he developed to prevent a cascading failure like before would have worked and Langara would have been fine in the event of a nine-chevron dial.

[thekillman]

I have a feeling if the show had continued, McKay's program/formula/algorithm/safeguard that he developed to prevent a cascading failure like before would have worked and Langara would have been fine in the event of a nine-chevron dial.

Well naquahdriah becomes exponentially more unstable the more power you draw from it. Which means that it can be predicted, and quite frankly i think that's exactly what Mckay's algorith did.

[Xaeden]

But would it? Would just say dialing Pegasus cause any instabilities?

Under less than ideal conditions... probably. Meaning, naquahdriah is so unstable that a mechanical failure or the planet coming under attack while you're tapping into the core would likely set it off. Hell, the planet coming under attack when you're not tapping into the core could cause a chain reaction, but I can't imagine it would be good if the site you're using to regulate the control of power is blown up while active.

Dealing with such dangers and the uncertainties involved is one thing on an unpopulated planet manned by volunteers, but it's a completely different matter on a planet with a very large industrial society - ZPM power may be rare, but it's not so rare that it's worth risking billions of lives given Earth's track record with trying to safely utilize naquahdriah (it's not just powering gates where it's gone wrong; they even had to abandon it as a power source for shields/hyperdrives and have thus far only figured out how to reliably weaponize it).

[Mister Oragahn]

But would it? Would just say dialing Pegasus cause any instabilities?

Intergalactic wormholes require levels of power on the range of ZPMs. Even the shortest ones.
These levels of powers have always poped the threshold that makes naqahdria boom-boomy.

Power extraction is the problem. The X-302's unique stable window was already showing signs of instability and it *only* threw the ship 3 million miles away.
Prometheus was flyign steadily with her naqahdria core until she passed close to a blackhole, which due to gravity required an increase of power and made the naqahdria unstable.
For hyperspace, the bigger your ship and the faster your speed, the more energy you need. Gravity multiplies power requirements as well.
For wormholes, I suppose the size matter as well, and since speed seems fixed, distance makes the difference, since apparently you can't open the wormhole to the wanted destination until you really are capable of producing or delivering to the stargate a given amount of power.
Plus with wormholes, the increase of power requirements regarding distance doesn't even seem plain linear.

The only way a civilization could harness the required power would be through the use of a massive core, either antimatter of naqahdah based.
If we were to look at nukes for a quick and dirty comparison, we see that naqahdah ones deliver something on the order of a couple gigatons worth of energy (it's the nq that provides the energy, but it needs to be triggered hard). Naqhdria nukes might very well be capable of delivering several hundred times that amount of energy (although a portion of it might be due to exotic causes, like a release of very odd particles, which no one could really harness... but it's not like it matters when it comes to a bomb -- naqahdah already bends laws of physics).

Still, in the end, a naqahda core would might need to be about hundreds of times bigger tops, with a very conservative figure being at least dozens of times bigger.
And you of course need a power grid and all the systems in between which could handle all that energy.