Asgard Tech vs. Ancient Tech

[Mike.]

atlantis is like the Burj Khalifa. it bigger and better than everything else but this does not mean Dubai is greater than New York and in the same way atlantis does not mean that over all there shield tech is better than the asgards.

I don't see how this is relevant in any way. Ancient shields > Asgard shields. And if we were to debate the height of buildings, then yes, Burj Khalifa would be better than anything else in NY.

for the last time. I am not saying there is evidence just some points that can swing poeples opinions

I'd never persuade people with empty rhetoric if I didn't have anything to back it up. As the jaffa would say, it's not honorable.

all as we no is the asgard core was made to stop the ZPM from been drained. so at the very least it must be on the same level. a ZPM is is way to much of a ship. you probly only need a small faction of it to fully power a ship. so as long as the asgad core is powerful enough to do that it does not matter.

Where did this come from ? Proof ? I suspect there is none.

[mickhhh]

In a war time situation where your extremely outnumbered by your enemy putting your best shields on a ship may not be practical, we know the Ancients are capable of building shields as powerful as those of Atlantis. Therefore they have the best shields.

the Ancients might be able to best shield but if they cant build there fleet with these ships then they could loose. if they get pushed back to atlantis then there defeat is pretty much inevitable.
I am not saying the asgard are more advanced but there warship shield are the best we have seen so far. plus the asgard beams are the best weapons we have seen on a war ship at taking down shields. so even if you are right and the Aurora shield are just as powerful it probly would not matter cos they would be facing asgard beams. to some up i think the asgard might be able to build stronger fleets.

Forgive me I forgot what the initial point was, there is no evidence either way. My first point was that it's incorrect to make such a radical statement and then pass it off as likely to be true. For all we know the Ancients use lots of small shield generators on their ships either way there's nothing to suggest they had MASSIVE shield generators.

if your ever going to compare these ships you have to assume things like they both use the same % of resourses on there shield generates. if we dont assume things like this then we cant really say anything.

Why is the high end the best? That's just dishonest. We should go by what's most consistant. So you're telling me the Asgard gave us their best tech and then we improved it even further in a few months? What rubbish. For all we know it could have been the replicators who increased the shield power we've seen them improve Asgard shields before.

Regardless Atlantis > Odyssesy, and the Odyssesy's performance could be solely due to the Ancient ZPM powering it anyway.

the asgard did not have much tme to install everything. they may not have had the ships running at full and when they got to earth they could have finished.
true that the reps have done this b4 but these reps could not have the knowleage that the rep army had.

You're wrong. I've already showed their ships aren't the same, my job is done. Infact I've showed that their ships are vastly inferior in offensive power the burdon of proof is on you to show why their shields would be equal while other systems are dramatically sweaker. Larrin's Aurora wiped out an Asuran Aurora with 2 drones, if the Traveller Aurora had similar shields it wouldn't have survived the engagement.

no i am not you are. now its you who has no evidence. they had 1 thing weaker and this could eaisly be explained with lack of drones. the fact that they were going to attack atlantis with there city ship must mean they were expecting to win. also that satellite did not have weak shields.
what suvives and what does not is for the plot of the show.

Atlantis would have shields litterally hundreds to thousands of times stronger than their ships if a few Cruisers could take out a ZPM powered Aurora, seems unlikely doesn't it? Not only that but the Ancients even believed their ships were invincible and thus sent them deep into Wraith territory, we also have multiple statements saying that the Ancient vessels were vastly superior to the Wraiths. Also the level of technology the Ancients have displayed time and time again points to your claims being bogus.

In the episode which first introduced us to the Travellers a damaged 10,000 year old Aurora with 20% of it's shields was able to repel a Cruiser for minutes. It also destroyed said Cruiser in seconds with a volley of drones, based on that alone it would take a large number of Cruisers to take down even a normal Aurora let alone one with a ZPM.

Time and time again your claims are proven to be unfounded. Your underestimation of the Ancients is quite astounding.

well its what she said.

So you admit you have no evidence, good. Basically you like to make up silly claims to make the Ancients appear weaker then when you're called up on it you hide behind the 'I'm just saying' excuse, a debate typically has evidence involved. I've seen Ancient underestimation from you and others on this forum for quite some time, so forgive me if I'm being a little coarse with you.

I have no evidence just like you. I am simply making an educated guess. because its fiction and they have not told us enough thats all we can do. if there was evidence for both sides i would accept it.

That's quite a leap, Thor said the Core wouldn't take power from the ZPM that's it, your making up this same level rubbish.

When the Asgard Core or the Asgard in general build and power the type of technology the Ancients have displayed then we can talk about them being in the same league.

THOR: The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ships ZPM…However…when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated in to all the ships systems.

infinge means weaken/invade. the fact it was mentioned must mean it was going to take a measurable part of the ZPM. and if the asgard core can power this then it must be powerful

[mickhhh]

I don't see how this is relevant in any way. Ancient shields > Asgard shields. And if we were to debate the height of buildings, then yes, Burj Khalifa would be better than anything else in NY.

cos I am not comparing just the atlantis shield cos it is not mass produced. having a more effective warship shield is better than have 1 good shield

I'd never persuade people with empty rhetoric if I didn't have anything to back it up. As the jaffa would say, it's not honorable.

its an educated gess.

Where did this come from ? Proof ? I suspect there is none.

THOR: The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ships ZPM…However…when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated in to all the ships systems.

[Mike.]

cos I am not comparing just the atlantis shield cos it is not mass produced. having a more effective warship shield is better than have 1 good shield

Atlantis' shield is not unique. There's another city ship in Pegasus ("The Tower"), the Praclarush Taonas Ancient outpost had one ("Lost City"), also the Ancient facility sitting on a caldera ("Inferno"). And those are just the ones we know about. We were told that the Ancients had spread throughout MW and PG, they could have built many other cities.

THOR: The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ships ZPM…However…when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated in to all the ships systems.

The quote says that that the power source only takes care of the core, not that it's equal to the ZPM.

[...]
no i am not you are. now its you who has no evidence. they had 1 thing weaker and this could eaisly be explained with lack of drones. the fact that they were going to attack atlantis with there city ship must mean they were expecting to win. also that satellite did not have weak shields.
[...]

Nope. Asuran Auroras are weaker than Ancient Auroras.

This is a short clip from "Be All my sins remembered" showing the Battle of Asuras:

You may jump to about 4:15 - note how Larin's Aurora (with Shepard in the chair) completely destroys an Asuran Aurora with just a couple of drones. Video evidence. I love this episode.

[Buba uognarf]

the Ancients might be able to best shield but if they cant build there fleet with these ships then they could loose. if they get pushed back to atlantis then there defeat is pretty much inevitable.
I am not saying the asgard are more advanced but there warship shield are the best we have seen so far. plus the asgard beams are the best weapons we have seen on a war ship at taking down shields. so even if you are right and the Aurora shield are just as powerful it probly would not matter cos they would be facing asgard beams. to some up i think the asgard might be able to build stronger fleets.

Well seeing as you have no evidence to say Aurora shields are inferior to Asgard ones your points are mostly moot.

The Asgard beams being being the best is debatable as well.

if your ever going to compare these ships you have to assume things like they both use the same % of resourses on there shield generates. if we dont assume things like this then we cant really say anything.

Why should we assume that? The point is we don't know what a fully powered Aurora could do, we don't know how big or how many shield generators it is. Your speculation is utterly baseless and there's no reason to assume two differently races put the same resources into their shields.

the asgard did not have much tme to install everything. they may not have had the ships running at full and when they got to earth they could have finished.
true that the reps have done this b4 but these reps could not have the knowleage that the rep army had.

There was no statement about unfinished shields. We should assume the shields are the same seeing as no statement was given. The reps could have improved power transfer etc...

Either way it's dishonest to continue using AOT and ignoring Unending and the strength of the Odyssesy's shields could be soley due to the ZPM anyway. Infact until shown otherwise we shouldn't count that as a pure Asgard shield feat simply because it was using an Ancient powersource.

no i am not you are. now its you who has no evidence. they had 1 thing weaker and this could eaisly be explained with lack of drones. the fact that they were going to attack atlantis with there city ship must mean they were expecting to win. also that satellite did not have weak shields.
what suvives and what does not is for the plot of the show.

They did have drones though...

So what you're saying is that the Asurans didn't have drones, a technology millions of years old and the staple of Lantian military tech but they had the very best shields? Give me a break.

Perhaps mass producing those ships so quickly meant they couldn't instal the very best?

I've already demonstrated how easily Larrin's Aurora dispatched of an Asuran one, like for like the Travellers wouldn't have lasted long.

well its what she said.

She never specified the number of Cruisers and the circumstances of the engagement. And obviously from your response you have no counter for the detailed response I gave. I'll take that as a concession.

Unless you have details don't pretend to know what happened and don't use it was evidence because I've shot it down enough times.

I have no evidence just like you. I am simply making an educated guess. because its fiction and they have not told us enough thats all we can do. if there was evidence for both sides i would accept it.

I do have evidence. You just ignore it because you can't refute it. Your guesses are far from educated.

THOR: The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ships ZPM…However…when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated in to all the ships systems.

infinge means weaken/invade. the fact it was mentioned must mean it was going to take a measurable part of the ZPM. and if the asgard core can power this then it must be powerful

So all we know is the core would draw power from the ZPM, it doesn't say how much. When any Asgard tech causes galaxy wide affects come and talk to me about power generation.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I don't wanna get into this whole discussion, argument or whatever it is that's going on here because I think it's clear the Ancients are the most advanced race on the show.
I'm just gonna make a comment about the Asgard core/power source thing.

Thor says:

THOR: The Asgard computer core is equipped with its own power source that will not infringe on your ships ZPM…

Seems this should only be interpreted as Thor saying like a laptop only having an internal battery, using it would not drain the ZPM.

However…when the upgrades are complete the core will be fully integrated in to all the ships systems.

You wouldn't expect the computers used in modern Nuclear Reactors to be powering the reactor itself would you?
Coz that's what your basically saying when you state the Asgard core's power source to be powering every system on the ship at an equal level to the ZPM.
The core appears to control/coordinate many, if not all the systems on the ship, so it's power source allows it to do that, but nothing more.
There's nothing more ephasised by that quote.

[mickhhh]

Atlantis' shield is not unique. There's another city ship in Pegasus ("The Tower"), the Praclarush Taonas Ancient outpost had one ("Lost City"), also the Ancient facility sitting on a caldera ("Inferno"). And those are just the ones we know about. We were told that the Ancients had spread throughout MW and PG, they could have built many other cities.

and look what happened to those places.
the Praclarush Taonas Ancient outpost had a shield thats all we no. we have no idea what the Ancient facility sitting on a caldera had and the 1 in the tower may have had 1 but look what what happened to that.

The quote says that that the power source only takes care of the core, not that it's equal to the ZPM.

it says the core would infinge meaning weaking. so any power sourse that can power this for a long time must be powerful.

Nope. Asuran Auroras are weaker than Ancient Auroras.

This is a short clip from "Be All my sins remembered" showing the Battle of Asuras:

You may jump to about 4:15 - note how Larin's Aurora (with Shepard in the chair) completely destroys an Asuran Aurora with just a couple of drones. Video evidence. I love this episode.

Larin's Aurora destorys it with better fire power.
the Asuran Aurora got supprised and were not ready.
I dont remember Larin's Aurora been hit therefore is untested

[mickhhh]

Well seeing as you have no evidence to say Aurora shields are inferior to Asgard ones your points are mostly moot.

The Asgard beams being being the best is debatable as well.

lets make my point very clear. I have never said the asgard are more advanced. just i think they would have been able to build a better mass produced warship and regarding the point on the shields I am going to have to agree to disagree cos we are never going to change the others mind.

so what about the asgard beams are they a better weapon for warships. against must enermys they should be. mainly because they ae fast. whats your thoughts?

Why should we assume that? The point is we don't know what a fully powered Aurora could do, we don't know how big or how many shield generators it is. Your speculation is utterly baseless and there's no reason to assume two differently races put the same resources into their shields.

if we take into every factor then we can not compare any to ships on stargate because there are to many unknowns

There was no statement about unfinished shields. We should assume the shields are the same seeing as no statement was given. The reps could have improved power transfer etc...

Either way it's dishonest to continue using AOT and ignoring Unending and the strength of the Odyssesy's shields could be soley due to the ZPM anyway. Infact until shown otherwise we shouldn't count that as a pure Asgard shield feat simply because it was using an Ancient powersource.

even if we go in between it's still very impressive.
the reps could not have improved anything because they would not have known how.

its not dishonet if someting gets better then its logical to assume some changed.

They did have drones though...

So what you're saying is that the Asurans didn't have drones, a technology millions of years old and the staple of Lantian military tech but they had the very best shields? Give me a break.

Perhaps mass producing those ships so quickly meant they couldn't instal the very best?

I've already demonstrated how easily Larrin's Aurora dispatched of an Asuran one, like for like the Travellers wouldn't have lasted long.

in that episode they only used drones once and it was not even on any ships. i am not saying they did not have drones just tehy did not use them as a main weapon like the ancients.

if mass producing them was the course then they must have done it this way because its more effective right. so why would the ancients not have did the same.

also we did not see Larrin's Aurora take a hit. so we dont no what it could have taking.

She never specified the number of Cruisers and the circumstances of the engagement. And obviously from your response you have no counter for the detailed response I gave. I'll take that as a concession.

Unless you have details don't pretend to know what happened and don't use it was evidence because I've shot it down enough times.


I do have evidence. You just ignore it because you can't refute it. Your guesses are far from educated.

you have no evidence. this and allies is the only time we have seen or heard anything of an Aurora's shield. face it you know no more than i do!
and what counter do you mean? i probly never thought it was worth commenting on it.

So all we know is the core would draw power from the ZPM, it doesn't say how much. When any Asgard tech causes galaxy wide affects come and talk to me about power generation.

no weaking the ZPM!!!

as far as we no these galaxy wide affects did not require a ZPM.

[Mike.]

and look what happened to those places.
the Praclarush Taonas Ancient outpost had a shield thats all we no. we have no idea what the Ancient facility sitting on a caldera had and the 1 in the tower may have had 1 but look what what happened to that.

The power source ran out (ZPMs) or became unstable (the caldera) and left the shield inactive. The idea is that the Atlantis class shield (covers a whole city|impenetrable while operational) is not unique. The Ancient built several of them.

Ancient shields > Asgard shields.

it says the core would infinge meaning weaking. so any power sourse that can power this for a long time must be powerful.

Not on a ZPM level, no. Seriously, if the Asgard had such power sources we wouldn't need to keep finding ZPMs. And they wouldn't have had such problems with the replicators - just protect whole planets and cities with a massive shield.
Thor's ship got blown up by a lame Hat'ak...

Larin's Aurora destorys it with better fire power.

According to you the Asuran and Ancient Auroras should be identical, that would include the offensive systems. That is obviously not the case.

Ancient Auroras > Asuran Auroras in every way.

the Asuran Aurora got supprised and were not ready.

Nope.
The Asuran ship was coming towards them at maximum sub-light. Rewatch the clip. Also considering the attack had already started for a while - I doubt any of the Asuran ships were ignoring it to still be caught by surprise.

I dont remember Larin's Aurora been hit therefore is untested

The Daedalus, Wraith and Travler ships were taking plenty of damage. Considering the number of replicator ships in orbit and the amount of drones flying everywhere you'd think they'd get hit by a few. Also the Asuran ship heading towards them did fire drones.

[Buba uognarf]

lets make my point very clear. I have never said the asgard are more advanced. just i think they would have been able to build a better mass produced warship and regarding the point on the shields I am going to have to agree to disagree cos we are never going to change the others mind.

Okay and my point is your point is baseless.

so what about the asgard beams are they a better weapon for warships. against must enermys they should be. mainly because they ae fast. whats your thoughts?

Fast compared to what? Drone swarms can take out entire fleets in seconds. Two drones took out an Asuran Aurora just as easily as the Asgard beams. On a one shot basis the Asgard beams are obviously more destructive but Drones have other benefits;

- They can seek.
- Line of sight isn't required.
- In small numbers they can be just as damaging as the Asgard beams. Examples...In the SGA episode 'The Queen' 6 Drones caused critical damage to a Hive, a single Drones caused large damage to a Cruiser in 'Condemmed' etc...
- They're also easily powered and can be equiped to ships as small as PJ's.

if we take into every factor then we can not compare any to ships on stargate because there are to many unknowns

Not really. We compare what we've seen the ships do, in this case we haven't seen fully functional Ancient Aurora hence we can't compare.

even if we go in between it's still very impressive.
the reps could not have improved anything because they would not have known how.

its not dishonet if someting gets better then its logical to assume some changed.

It's not logical because it requires us to have improved the Asgard's best shields several fold in months, not only that but there was no statement to indicate this.

Like I said the super shield power of the Odyssesy is quite possibly due to the ZPM anyway, basically any use of the Odyssesy is dubious because of the contradictions and the ZPM. Regardless the Odyssesy's shields even in AOT are still no where near Atlantis' so the Ancients still hold superiority.

in that episode they only used drones once and it was not even on any ships. i am not saying they did not have drones just tehy did not use them as a main weapon like the ancients.

if mass producing them was the course then they must have done it this way because its more effective right. so why would the ancients not have did the same.

also we did not see Larrin's Aurora take a hit. so we dont no what it could have taking.

They used drones more than once, you could see small groups of them floating around, however they weren't swarming and burrowing like they normally do.

Well for one they ended up with inferior ships, two perhaps they still couldn't hope to overwhelm the numbers of the Wraith anyway and preferred to go for quality or three they didn't think of it.

So you're assuming that in the entire battle Larrin's Aurora didn't take a single hit? Despite the fact it proved itself every bit as dangerous as the 304's?

you have no evidence. this and allies is the only time we have seen or heard anything of an Aurora's shield. face it you know no more than i do!
and what counter do you mean? i probly never thought it was worth commenting on it.

Other examples of Ancient technology and shields makes it seem extremely unlikely their warship shields are of such low caliber.

Half your posts are recycled rubbish but I comment on everything anyway.

no weaking the ZPM!!!

Even if it took .000001% of a ZPM that would still count as a drain. Obviously our 304's can't transfer as much power from a ZPM (per second) as Atlantis can, perhaps from the small percentage we can take the Core would require something signficant. However since we know neither of those too numbers your point is worthless.

as far as we no these galaxy wide affects did not require a ZPM.

Attero was powered by something more powerful than a ZPM, Daniel Jackson commented that it's power supply was beyond anything he'd even seen.

Either way the Ancients crush the Asgard power generation wise.

[mickhhh]

The power source ran out (ZPMs) or became unstable (the caldera) and left the shield inactive. The idea is that the Atlantis class shield (covers a whole city|impenetrable while operational) is not unique. The Ancient built several of them.

Ancient shields > Asgard shields.



Not on a ZPM level, no. Seriously, if the Asgard had such power sources we wouldn't need to keep finding ZPMs. And they wouldn't have had such problems with the replicators - just protect whole planets and cities with a massive shield.
Thor's ship got blown up by a lame Hat'ak...


According to you the Asuran and Ancient Auroras should be identical, that would include the offensive systems. That is obviously not the case.

Ancient Auroras > Asuran Auroras in every way.



Nope.
The Asuran ship was coming towards them at maximum sub-light. Rewatch the clip. Also considering the attack had already started for a while - I doubt any of the Asuran ships were ignoring it to still be caught by surprise.


The Daedalus, Wraith and Travler ships were taking plenty of damage. Considering the number of replicator ships in orbit and the amount of drones flying everywhere you'd think they'd get hit by a few. Also the Asuran ship heading towards them did fire drones.

if the atlantis shield was so easy to build they would have give there ships them. they should never have ran out cos the ancient would never have had to hold off for days cos they would have had the means to attack and destory the wraith.

we cant build all asgard tech yet. they clearly had power sources that were much more powerful than naq and this is a fact because they had no problem reaching super speeds and traveling to other galaxys via stargate.
Thor's ship was old. we know the Oniel class was vastly superior.

I did not say there offence systems were identical cos they did not fire swarms of drones. 1 inferior system does not mean all are and if you think it does dont bother replying cos I have no more to say.

I ment at the begining of te vid. that Asuran ship could have been damaged or there shield may not be able to stop drones.

there was not drones firing everywhere. the only drones the Asuran ships fired was when they fired to try and stop Larin's Aurora's drones

[Buba uognarf]

mickhhh for the last time the burdon of proof is on YOU.

I've shown that the Asuran Aurora's are inferior in offensive systems and you have rightly acknowledged that, but your assertion that I need to prove the shields are inferior is false. The ships are clearly not the same based on the fact that they have different weapons, ergo I have proved that Asuran Aurora's are not the same as Ancient ones. Now seeing as I've proved the ships are not the same I no longer have an obligation to show why their shields would be different, I can simply say the ships are different.

There's also the fact that Ancient tech is incredibly advanced, we've seen that they have advanced and powerful shields, (among other things) their warships having weak shields doesn't really make sense.

Edit:

You can see drones if you look closely in the battle. At the 4:38 mark the Asuran ship to the left of the Asuran vessels destroyed by Larrins Aurora fires a small group of drones. There are probably others.

[lordofseas]

Besides, the Asurans would have had to be absolute morons if they weren't going to use drones against the ships.

[mickhhh]

mickhhh for the last time the burdon of proof is on YOU.

I've shown that the Asuran Aurora's are inferior in offensive systems and you have rightly acknowledged that, but your assertion that I need to prove the shields are inferior is false. The ships are clearly not the same based on the fact that they have different weapons, ergo I have proved that Asuran Aurora's are not the same as Ancient ones. Now seeing as I've proved the ships are not the same I no longer have an obligation to show why their shields would be different, I can simply say the ships are different.

There's also the fact that Ancient tech is incredibly advanced, we've seen that they have advanced and powerful shields, (among other things) their warships having weak shields doesn't really make sense.

Edit:

You can see drones if you look closely in the battle. At the 4:38 mark the Asuran ship to the left of the Asuran vessels destroyed by Larrins Aurora fires a small group of drones. There are probably others.

I really cant repeat my self any more. let forget about who hasthe best warship shields.

the asgard have improved on beaming tech so its possible they could have on other systems to.

yeah your right I missed that. but they still dont use them like the ancients do for some reason.

Fast compared to what? Drone swarms can take out entire fleets in seconds. Two drones took out an Asuran Aurora just as easily as the Asgard beams. On a one shot basis the Asgard beams are obviously more destructive but Drones have other benefits;

- They can seek.
- Line of sight isn't required.
- In small numbers they can be just as damaging as the Asgard beams. Examples...In the SGA episode 'The Queen' 6 Drones caused critical damage to a Hive, a single Drones caused large damage to a Cruiser in 'Condemmed' etc...
- They're also easily powered and can be equiped to ships as small as PJ's.

they dont move as fast as drones.

the ancient out post took out a fleet but Aurora's dont have he ability to fire like this. they just over kill hives.
I wont say they do not have benifits cos i no they do but they have there cons to.
- they run out
- if a shield is powerful enough they will bounce off

and regarding the power source thing. do you really think the asgard cant fully power there own ships. they can travel just as fast as us when we use ZPMs and they have huge ships. plus they can diel galaxys and this is ment to take enough energy to destory a planet. so dont tell me power is going to be a weakness for there warships.

Attero was powered by something more powerful than a ZPM, Daniel Jackson commented that it's power supply was beyond anything he'd even seen.

Either way the Ancients crush the Asgard power generation wise.

I have only seen this episode the only and dont remmember him saying this. could find it on youtube or post some script for evidence

either way I am not saying the asgard have more powerful power sources just they can power there ships fully

[Mike.]

I have only seen this episode the only and dont remmember him saying this. could find it on youtube or post some script for evidence

either way I am not saying the asgard have more powerful power sources just they can power there ships fully

ALIEN LAB. Rodney is gazing thoughtfully through a window in the lab which looks into another room which has a large device in it with large antennae either side. After a while he turns around and walks back to the main console and looks down at it. Daniel, standing by another console near the opposite wall, turns around.

JACKSON: This facility's tapped into some pretty serious power generation. I've never seen anything like it before.

(Rodney has realised something.)

McKAY: You'd need a lot of power.
[...]
McKAY: It's an end game machine.
[...]
McKAY: If it works the way I think it does, it would mean the end of the Wraith once and for all.
[...]
McKAY: It creates a very specific sub-space static ... uh, turbulence is probably a better way of looking at it.
[...]
McKAY: OK, look. Um, although they're all based on a fairly similar technological premise, each race has a slightly different type of hyperdrive. Ours are based on the Asgard drive with our own little twist; the Ancients had their own particular system; and the Wraith, again, have their own separate hyperdrive technology.
[...]
McKAY: OK, so at its base level, a hyperdrive allows you to travel great distances by entering and exiting sub-space.
[...]
McKAY (leading him back to the central console so that they can see the device in the next room): OK, so, if this machine is capable of actually functioning safely, it disrupts the very specific sub-space frequencies the Wraith use.

JACKSON: So they wouldn't be able to engage their hyperdrive.

McKAY: Well, that's the genius. They would be able to engage their hyperdrives. It's just that their particular channel of sub-space would be destabilised and their ship would be ripped into a million pieces.

JACKSON: When this device is turned on, every time a Wraith ship enters hyperspace, it self-destructs?

McKAY: Yeah!

JACKSON: It's a pretty effective idea.

http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s5...ipts/510.shtml

Most episode transcripts are available right here on GW.

As a side effect it caused any gate being dialed to overload and explode, killing millions of people.

ZELENKA: Mmm. The Gates are made of naqahdah. When they become unstable, the size of the explosion is unimaginable.