Stargate - the greatest weapon?

[Artemiy]

This has probably been asked before, but I'm still in doubt why Stargate-like tech can't be a weapon. The Ancient tech, I think, could control the 'swoosh''s length in terms of elongation, so it could work like a short-range ebergy weapon which, as we've seen, could easily penetrate even an Ori shield. It could come in a 'hand-version' too, making it easy to break through any obstacle...

I probably sound too weird, but that's just what I was thinking about lately...

[Dr. Who]

The Stargate needs a ton of energy to operate, even a small one would probably need a quite a lot of energy

[Artemiy]

Well with the ancients' mass ZPMs that shouldn't be a problem...?

[.jolinar.]

I understand what you mean. But it would be difficult to control the "Unstable vortex" even if enough power was avaliable

[Womble]

I understand what you mean. But it would be difficult to control the "Unstable vortex" even if enough power was avaliable

Actually, the vortex's pattern seems very consistent, and I don't think it'd be too difficult to control. The real problem is range. The vortex seems to be directly proportional to the diameter of the Stargate's event horizon. A typical Stargate vortex only extends for a few meters, so to make a weapon with the same range as a handgun you'd need a HUGE event horizon.

[Artemiy]

Yes, that is the main technical problem. But from the point of logics, the unstable wormhole is the excess from the stable wormhole (dunno if it is so, just probability), so potentially it could be pretty large. The problem was to make it as short as possible relative to gate's diameter to make the gate safer and more compact...

[Prior_of_the_Ori]

I can see a tonne of problems with such a tactic:
1) its short ranged depending on the size of a gate
2) one will need to constantly connect to another gate to form a wormhole
3) it would have to be constantly opened and closed and opened to use it as a weapon
4) its a transportation mechanism, not a weapon, its like saying we should use trains as battering rams when thats not their purpose

[Artemiy]

1) That's what my post above was about... But I don't say it is this way, just suggesting...
2) That won't be much of a problem. One can have similar gates either on the ship, or, if my theory is right, on some other well-guarded planet.
3) Yes... But it can be done without dialing an address as it could just have a fixed gate (see 2) - so the open-close would be quite fast. No dial...
4) Trains were widely used during WW II in Soviet Union as battle machines. They're very effective mobile battlestations, as there's no problem in moving them - railroads are quite effective method of transportation of large constructions.

[Womble]

4) Trains were widely used during WW II in Soviet Union as battle machines. They're very effective mobile battlestations, as there's no problem in moving them - railroads are quite effective method of transportation of large constructions.

Armored trains were widely used in Russia (mainly during the Civil War of 1920-s), China (also in 1920-s, they got the idea from the refugee Russians from the White Guard) and Poland (during the German invasion of 1939) as mobile artillery batteries. Last use of armored trains was in the Serbian-Croatian war in 1990, I believe.

[ablevins425]

This has probably been asked before, but I'm still in doubt why Stargate-like tech can't be a weapon. The Ancient tech, I think, could control the 'swoosh''s length in terms of elongation, so it could work like a short-range ebergy weapon which, as we've seen, could easily penetrate even an Ori shield. It could come in a 'hand-version' too, making it easy to break through any obstacle...

I probably sound too weird, but that's just what I was thinking about lately...

I thought of this a while back as well, but my idea was to open an extremely small stargate. You only need a small kawoosh, so that it may travel farther. Once you even make the smallest hole in a ship, your talking about a great deal of damage, a couple of shots with that, and maybe hitting a shield generator or two, this could be the greatest weapon of all.

[PG15]

How does small kawhooshes travel farther? As said above, the size of the kawhoosh appears to be related to the size of the gate.

Unless the important part of the ship is all plastered on the outerhull, this idea is not going to work.

[Melak]

The Stargate needs a ton of energy to operate, even a small one would probably need a quite a lot of energy

Well, we do have the minigate that Orlin made that was hardwired to dial one planet, made from "spare parts and a tooster" and orlin had more than enough power to run it temporarily

[mburrows]

that small gate orlin made, the kawoosh seemed pretty big for the size of the gate(a bout the size to fit like 2 human bodies threw...in a laying down position...)

[Womble]

How does small kawhooshes travel farther?

Perhaps if the stargate is mounted on a rocket as a warhead and dialed before impact?

[O'Neill4prez]

Well, we do have the minigate that Orlin made that was hardwired to dial one planet, made from "spare parts and a tooster" and orlin had more than enough power to run it temporarily

That gate only worked once and required a huge amount of energy. Even though the ancients had plenty of ZPMs, to turn gates into any sort of effective weapon in a war would require an incredible amount probably more than they could make quick enough, otherwise they would have done it themselves. not to mention the gate requires a few seconds to open, plenty of time to get out of the way and the vortex only destroys the part of the ship it touches, to do any sort of damage it would have to be huge probably too big for a ship to carry and what happens if they get a busy signal