Annoying thing thing about ZPM's - unending spoilers

[pocketchange]

They can can power a city ship shield under constant pressure from an ocean for 10k years but can only power a small ship in a time dilation field for around 50 years with the help of an asgard power core. doesn't make much sense

[Ehecatl]

That was using a rotation of three zpms for 10,000 years its different.

[Ltcolshepjumper]

Remember, the Ori beams were hitting the Odyssey, which did drain much of the power. Also, the ZPM was powering the other systems as well.

[talyn2k1]

Remember, the Ori beams were hitting the Odyssey, which did drain much of the power. Also, the ZPM was powering the other systems as well.

Actually the Ori beam was not in contact with the Odyssey the whole time they were in the field (if thats what you mean), plus the shields were down anyway.

But personally I would imagine powering a field that SLOWS DOWN TIME would take a hell of alot more power than a shield. Besides, they didn`t say how much power was required to reverse the field, I would imagine that it would be ALOT!

Plus, as you say, the ZPM was powering the other systems aswell whereas when Atlantis was underwater for 10k years it was hibernating, only essential systems. It probably didn`t even have life support active except for when Elizabeth was awake.

[RogueEntity]

Actually the writers have never been consistant with the power capacity of ZPMs how much power certain things require.

We know that it requires a lot of power to cloak the earth in another dimension, 80% of the US energy generation.

We know that a ZPM can power a City Ship Shield for about 3000 years on the floor of an ocean, though it hasnt been elaborated as to weither this is just the emergency forcefields, or the entire shield itself, when they arrived on Atlantis, the shield was said to have collapsed to minimum levels, so I would hedge a bet that the main shield failed after the second ZPM was depleated leaving the remaining one to power the emergency forcefields, and when the team arrived and the power spiked, some of these collapsed to reduce the strain on the ZPM, when the levels were critical, the city rose to the surface and the shields failed completly, ZPM depleated.

We know that a ZPM can last under a week when bombarded by weapons from a fleet of wraith ships, and that a ZPM can boost the Daedalus shields enough to withstand a C.M.E from a Sun as well as allowing the Daedalus to travel 300m LY in 4 days.

We also know that a ZPM can power a time dialation field for nearly 10k years on a planet surface and an EM Dampening field covering a good portion of a continent for about the same lenght of time.

Without the ZPM, the Odessy shield cannot withstand fire from the Ori weapon for more then two hits, and we know that the Odessy made a round trip from the MW to Ida Galaxy, and got into a firefight, so that could have skimmed 5-10% of the total capacity their and then, then the additional attack on the shields and powering the weapons during the second and last encounter would have taken another 5%, not to mention the time they had to cloak the ship twice when Danial/Merlin had it could have taken another 5% of its power, so lets say for argument sake the ZPM was at ~75-80% Capacity when Carter engaged the dialation field. It then had to power the field for 50 years as well as the rest of the ship systems. Even with that, the ZPM should have at least 40-50% capacity by then.

[Gala]

I think what the other guy means is the shields were drawing power directly from the ZPM and when it got hit the ZPM got drained, it was unlikely the ZPM was ANYWHERE near full. And like was mentioned 3zpm's for atlantis.

[immhotep]

I think the ZPM was kind of glassed over in unending because the ZPM is far more powerful than an Asgard core and Sam said they had no powersource capable of reversing time, thats a load of crap, they had an Asgard Generator and ZPM, plus the origional generator, all three combined and you could probley power the shields to sustain dozens of hits from the Ori, even at a minimum the normal deadalus can sustain 2-3, with an asgard generator it should be able to survive at least 10 and with the ZPM on top of that 30-40, so combined output of all three, im surprised they even scratch the shields, they had enough power on that ship combined to do practically anything, they could have gone anywhere, in practically no time, why didnt that just fly somewhere they knew 100% they would be safe, or where the ori would have other targets, a Jaffa world, or in to pegasus, take thier chances with the wraith, and let the ori fight the wraith for us. Withthe Asgard technology and ZPM the Oddesey might just be the most powerful ship that we have ever been in command of, including Ori motherships, wraith hives, Aurora's, Oniels, Beliskners, and Hataks. if it can take out an Ori MS in 4-6 hits then its more powerful than any other ship in the MW, and its shields/power source and new weapons are far more powerful than anything the wraith have. The only thing that might give it a fight would be an aurora or atlantis. If we have a fleet of ships with the Legacy specs then the ori and wraith are history.

[FreakyMcD]

Exactly right, the Odyssey's shield strength was ridiculously low considering how many power sources were hooked up to the ship.

[immhotep]

i counted a total of 7hits, 4 shots missed. If that ship which has 2 of the most advanced power source ever on board then its a joke, if a ZPM and Neutrino generator only adds 4 health points on to what we already had then either we had a seriously advanced unknown source of power or they were skipping over the fact that it should have never dropped it shields below 70%

Also another nitpick on the power requirements. the origional DTF used on the replicators put out of phase an area the size of a planet. it was massive, but it had no power source, it was just a box right? So how can powering an area 0.001% of the size cost so much power, it shouldnt. The power requirements in this episode were seriously flawwed.

[tendomentis]

Bear in mind that Carter said that the hyperdrive was acting unstable (giving off bad readings) after their initial fire fight with the Ori, so that's why they couldn't take the ship "anywhere" (my thought had been they should fly to Atlantis and let the drones keep the Ori busy while the Odyssey regroups). They HAD to drop out of hyperspace and make repairs (or at least make sure the hyperdrive wasn't going to blow up).

Just because we now had the best of the best installed on that ship does NOT mean that any of it had been optimized for our lower level of technology. Like trying to fit a space shuttle booster into a '92 civic, our ship may simply not have had the full technological means to fully take advantage of the Asgard tech.

Just my thought.

[Betelgeuze]

The ZPM not lasting very long might also have something to do with its intergration with non-lantian technology, because the time dilation field in Epiphany has problably been powered by a ZPM for 10000 years.

[Vala_M]

I think what the other guy means is the shields were drawing power directly from the ZPM and when it got hit the ZPM got drained, it was unlikely the ZPM was ANYWHERE near full. And like was mentioned 3zpm's for atlantis.

Are you serious? That was a brand new ZPM built by the Asurans to power Atlantis's stardrive so it was probably near 100% full.

The ZPM not lasting very long might also have something to do with its intergration with non-lantian technology, because the time dilation field in Epiphany has problably been powered by a ZPM for 10000 years.

It was never stated how many ZPM's were powering the field, it could have been 4 or 5 or more.

Vala,

[Integrabyte]

Stopping time is a bit more complex than holding water . Thor said the ZPM worked in parallel with the asgard "zpm". Both power sources did more than enough. Poor Odyssey was blasted so many times with a very powerful beam. Ori tech is still...ori tech....

[IcyNeko]

McKAY: At which point the ZedP.M. which undoubtedly powers this beautiful place will be ...

Note the singular use. That means 1.

[Londo Molari]

I think maintaining a time dilation field is much more impressive and power consuming than a shield to keep water away.