Naqahdah, superconductor, armor and energy buffers

[Mister Oragahn]

In a discussion about the way armor works on advanced starships, I put the following thought forth:

"Seriously, with all the super strong and super conductive materials in Stargate, wouldn't all ships actually come with such systems to syphon any energy hitting the hull?"

We know that naqahdah is a very conductive material. So much that a stargate acts like a superconductor.

Therefore, it would seem logical that any ship using naqahdah as part of the make up of the armor would be able to absorb such an energy and dispatch it, either towards radiators, or to energy buffers which the energy would be dumped in.

[VSHARMA]

Wasn't the Asgard Ship O'neil made from a Alloy from Naqahdah, Trinium and Carbon?

But I know what your saying. If a Stargate can take a make IX Nuke and survive why can't we build ships out of them?

[Dutch_Razor]

Because they are so strong you can't turn them into ships.

[Keeper]

stargates can't be melted down - but naquadah can be used in manufacture. but does earth have the knowledge/equipment for manufacturing something defensive from the material? and if they do, can they make it as strong as a gate?

also - how much is too much? assuming a whole ship can be made of naquadah, what the hell do we do with all the energy it absorbs? it would need to be possible to return it as a weapon, since that could potentially double our fire rate (assume our ship has the same fire rate as the enemy ship) but the energy will dissipate and build up across the whole ship - it then needs to be directed on the hull. additionally, some energy will be wasted - we might be firing back a blast less than half what was fired at us. the problem is we might not be able to direct the energy sufficiently to remove the risk of instability. if we put the naquadah onto the hull to form pathways for energy, we have the problem of damages to the hull due to other materials being included that won't absorb the energy. and with less energy absorbed, the returns to the enemy will be even more reduced.

i'm making the assumption that the naquadah hull wouldn't be used for internal power - maybe it could, i'm just not sure that it would be reliable enough, or even necessarily compatible enough with the internal systems.

the potential problems are greater, in my mind, than the potential benifits.

[TheBigFlush]

Doesn't Naqadah also have a habit of exploding rather violently when confronted with just the right amount of energy? Also, you might be able to create a weapon that would convert the naqadah into naqadriah and then explody time again.

[Buba uognarf]

Doesn't Naqadah also have a habit of exploding rather violently when confronted with just the right amount of energy? Also, you might be able to create a weapon that would convert the naqadah into naqadriah and then explody time again.

that's what i was thinking....hit the ship hard enough and it will explode big time, the ship would have to be made of a naquadah alloy maybe with the strength and some of the conductivity but not the habit of blowing up

[Mister Oragahn]

Doesn't Naqadah also have a habit of exploding rather violently when confronted with just the right amount of energy? Also, you might be able to create a weapon that would convert the naqadah into naqadriah and then explody time again.

This bit always bothered me. It either appears that past a certain percentage, the naqahdah has more advantages, and make it worth the risk, if there's any left.
However, the naqahdah used for hulls, like on Ha'taks for example, could be another form, again.
But generally, even Ha'taks which have been severaly damaged, such as in Camelot for example, don't explode nova style because whoe chunks of their hull has been destroyed.
Of course, that's to ask how ori weapons work.
But generally, it takes a ship's core going critical and using the naqahdah mass for self destruction to really produce a big boom.

[Mister Oragahn]

stargates can't be melted down - but naquadah can be used in manufacture. but does earth have the knowledge/equipment for manufacturing something defensive from the material? and if they do, can they make it as strong as a gate?

also - how much is too much? assuming a whole ship can be made of naquadah, what the hell do we do with all the energy it absorbs? it would need to be possible to return it as a weapon, since that could potentially double our fire rate (assume our ship has the same fire rate as the enemy ship) but the energy will dissipate and build up across the whole ship - it then needs to be directed on the hull. additionally, some energy will be wasted - we might be firing back a blast less than half what was fired at us. the problem is we might not be able to direct the energy sufficiently to remove the risk of instability. if we put the naquadah onto the hull to form pathways for energy, we have the problem of damages to the hull due to other materials being included that won't absorb the energy. and with less energy absorbed, the returns to the enemy will be even more reduced.

i'm making the assumption that the naquadah hull wouldn't be used for internal power - maybe it could, i'm just not sure that it would be reliable enough, or even necessarily compatible enough with the internal systems.

the potential problems are greater, in my mind, than the potential benifits.

Those are good points.
Now, I think it can be used for good. A stargate, for example, has often been said to largely be made of naqahdah. Yes, a supercharged gate can explode, but it requires such a level of energy to do so than most ships in stargate will be dead before that.
See, if you consider the size of stargate and the amount of energy it can absord before going boom, imagine what happens when now we talk about a volume akin to a whole starship's hull.
That's literally huge, and if anything is proportional, then the amount of energy to defeat that sort of hull would be equal or superior to what's necessary to take down shields.

Besides, a stargate, even when extremely charged, barely radiates any harmful energy. Though we're again touching on that sensible contradiction between Redemption and Beachhead.
Still, at the levels of energy necessary to make a stargate glow, most known shields would already be under extreme strain.

Let's see. A Ha'tak's hull is largely made of naqahdah. Pre-Anubis Ha'tak shields are rated around several hundreds gigatons of total punishment (and a bit above the single digit low teraton level for the highest end values).

Then, a stargate, depending on either Redemption or Beachhead, either needs a couple of gigatons or literally a near full contact teraton level to be destroyed.
Somehow, I believe we can mesh this with a Ha'tak's hull composition and abilities.

[Purple Yin]

Ablative armour could be made then- the naquidah doesnt just superconduct it, it also acts as a capacitor, so when too much power goes through it, it unloads all the power reserves.

If you set up scales of naquidah on your hull, then they can be flecked off when they almost reach critical energy density, to detonate away from the hull, after absorbing massive amounts of energy from whatever attack they were syphoning energy from.

[immhotep]

Your definately right that Naquadah is a superconductor and can absorb massive amounts of energy, and we know the gate is capable of using many different kinds of energy(lightning, colud fusion, hakwins radiation from black holes, living water/air energy) and so yes it should thoeretically be albe ot be used as a hull, and i think our ship do use it as the hull. Otherise i cant see why we need to mine it "to build battlecruisers". Everyone else is also right that theres a point when naquadah has too much energy and a chain reaction starts and it will explode, we saw that in redemption. We could however use the energy to power the shields. We could have Naquadah plates on the outside which will absorb incoming energy and convert that in o power for the shields, we might be able to do that. But if theres too much energy hitting the Naquadah then it would just explode.

[Purple Yin]

That's why it should be made ablative, if the power level gets too high, the panel in question would be ejected off the hull.

[TheBigFlush]

I don't think we know enough about the properties of this fictional material to come to any definite conclusions.

[Buba uognarf]

That's why it should be made ablative, if the power level gets too high, the panel in question would be ejected off the hull.

the explosion would still be great enough to damage the ship...this of course depends on how far the panel flies but we know even small amounts of naquadah can have explosive results

[Ouroboros]

That panel thing would go against the whole point of a superconducting hull. The advantage to having a superconducting hull surface is that any incoming energy would be rapidly spread out through the entire hull rather than just buring at, at potentially through, one spot.

If it's superconducing it's also possible, like mr oragahn suggested, to hook up some sort of radiator or storage device to it to collect and vent the energy.

If you were a real ******* you could even have the energy hitting your hull redirected to power your weapons,engines etc.

[Spirit of disturbing music]

Wait, if temperatures created by multi-gigaton nukes don't cut it how are they creating alloys with naquada in them?