"Counterstike" the aftermath[spoilers]

[ziga1980]

jesus....the ori shields were lowered when the blast from dakara weapon hit them. in 1st ep we saw daniel and vala beamed out of the ship on ground....they lowered shields. and in counterstrike it was also on ground and with lowered shields. and the second time when it was in the orbit sam lowered them so they could be beamed out. odessy jumped into hyperspace before the wave got to it.

so that claim that ori shield do not withstand an ancient blast is more or less absurd....

[Ouroboros]

I think you’re underestimating the power of a multi-gigaton blasts, even if they were out by hundreds of miles if the hive is firing thousands of multi-gigaton bolts it would probably kill everything on the planet.

I can understand why you'd think this. Gigatons sounds like a huge number and indeed before I started looking into this stuff I would have had a similar "gigatons, yeah bull****" type reaction.

Consider that impacts in excess of what the Wraith did in Misbegotten here have happened historically, right here on Earth. The KT event, which was the asteroid that caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs has been estimated to have been in excess of 100 million megatons or 100,000 gigatons.

Despite this some species still survived and their evolved descendants exist even in present day. Michael and his buddies aren't going to need to survive anything near that bad and they're only going to need to survive it for a few minutes before that other hiveship pics them up so they won't have to worry about nuclear winter effects or any of that jazz. If the SGA operated hive missed by over 500 or so kilometers the effects on the Wraith encampment would have been survivable.

The nuke calculator I posted earlier says that third degree burns would only occur at a range of 310 km from a 3000 megaton (3 gig) blast. This is once again using a nuke which is more omni directional than a Wraith blast and it's assuming humans not Wraith are getting crisped. Things like intervening mountain ranges/cliffs and high low land would potentially shorten the distance even further.

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Nuke.html

The point is that multi gigatons isn't as bad ass as it initially sounds.

There's also the implications for the fictional universe to consider. Some people would protest the number based on the fact that it should "kill Wraith ships in one hit" or whatever. Is this really the way they've been doing it in the show though?

In the context of the show Earth was able to build a 1 gigaton missile 10 years ago just by slapping some naquada into an existing nuclear warhead. They were able to build multiple 1200 megaton space mines again in siege, mines small and light enough that marines could carry them around without assistance, quite unlike the gargantuan Tsar Bomba. I'd submit that starting with the assumption that the vastly older and more technolgically advanced society of the Wraith wouldn't be able to accomplish similar or better with it's own weapons technology is difficult to justify in terms of the story. Are we really going to end with the conclusion that Earth can build weapons millions of times more powerful than those on the warships of aliens who're supposed to be more advanced and powerful than us. Does that seem right or realistic in any way? I mean ****, millions.

If a hive can fire a bolt more then 40 times as powerful as the tzarbomba it would be able to vaporise another hive in one shot yet every time we’ve seen a hive fire its been in the <kiloton rang. If you ask me it’s a plot hole, if they make energy weapons weaker our nukes would be too effective but if they made them as strong as they say there meant to be every battle would result in everything being vaporised in the first shot.

This whole point deserves an explanation for everyone's benefit I think.

Oh if we're talking out of story context it is so totally a plot hole. I think just about anyone with half a brain can figure that one out... I hope. The true yield of Wraith weapon batteries is measured in "scriptoftheweekatons". Unfortunately that doesn't work as an in story answer though so if we want to try and figure out what the number would be "in real life" or in the context of "which ship would blow up the other" with some other deciding factor that which one we think is coolest, we have to turn on the tapdancing machine.

The reason I go for the highside here is because, like I've explained a few times before, it's easier to explain why something looks like it's only 10% as powerful in one scene than it is to explain how it suddenly seems to go up to 1000% more effective in the next. They just turned it down or weren't/couldn't use full power for whatever reason.

So when we end up with a bunch of inconsistant nonsense like we do in stargate, the best way I can see to explain it is to take the highest number that seems reasonable in story context (as opposed to something like the petaton level Wraith v Atlantis shield calcs) and assume that the other stuff was them turning down their weapons or something. It sounds sort of stupid at first, and it is a cop out of sorts, but in the long run it's better than any alternative I can think of. It even works especially well with the Wraith since we know they're so fixated on catching human food alive and feeding that it's not much of a leap to suggest that they might want to capture/board hostile ships rather than atomize them to. If we've got to explain why their guns look like fireworks one week and nuclear bombs the next that's the best way I can think of to do it.

Now granted, in a perfect world where the show creators actually gave a **** about technical consistancy none of this elaborate tap dancing to try and make it make sense would even be necessary.

I want to live in that world.

[Ouroboros]

Ok shrod without getting into another point by point with you (I'll shave my balls with acid before I put myself through that again) There's a few things that do merit comment.

Size of the Planet/explosions

There's no reason to think that the planet was anything but roughly Earthlike in size. It seemed to have Earth like gravity and obviously held an Earth like atmosphere. That places some hard limits on how large or small it could have been.

Since we know the size of the planet it's not hard to get the size of the explosions from that and the yields come from the size.

You could probably also figure out the distance from the planet if you were really good but that's not really necessary to get the yields of the explosions.

The Calculator

The Calculator just runs a calculation that is used to determine nuclear blast effects. The guy who owns that website is also a mechanical engineer who does this vs **** as a hobby himself so I have no problem at all accepting it as a valid source. This is only for the purposes of a rough approximation here. We don't need everything after the decimal point to know that something is in the gigaton as opposed to kiloton order of magnitude which is what I mean when I say "low gigaton range". He also lists his source at the top of the page.

http://web.archive.org/web/200111151...faq/Nfaq0.html

...and here's a way backmachine link to the page so you can't moan about it being down.


Targeting

All that would be required for them to miss in the fashion I described would be some alignment error in whatever targeting computers they use. This would mean that the aim was actually off by X degrees and thus when the computer thought it had locked onto a given target the guns would actually still be pointed slightly off. All the shots then go flying into that area.

This is acedemic for the time being anyway since it is still unknown if Michael even survived.

[Avatar28]

BTW, according to the SW calculator, a 1 kiloton weapon will generate a fireball with a 30 meter radius. Judging by the size of the fire ball you see in the alley, what do think that the yeild of the weapons in the alley should be?

I'm pretty sure that's NOT right. Here is a picture of the Little Feller I nuclear test of the W-54 "Davy Crockett" nuke. The yield in this test was a "mere" 18 tons of TNT equivalent, about .018 kilotons. Still WAY bigger of an explosion than we see from any of the hive ships.

[Arania]

Plot devices all around!

I actually took the time to calculate the Wraith cannon weapon yield from a few factors a while ago...
Ok, we know that the ZPM overload can destroy a planet (Season 2 of Atlantis, Critical Mass. Rodney states that), which requires an energy level on the order of 4X10^32 Joules of energy, which we will put into the ZPM
and, we also know that the Cityshield of atlantis can withstand about a week of sustained fire from the 10-hiveship fleet before collapse, meaning that the Wraith ships need to produce about 10^32 Joules of energy to counter that.
Now, if we assume that a Single wraith hiveship can fire about 50 maximum-yeild shots per second (Excluding the cruisers), and there were 10 hiveships, that puts the hiveship fleet at producing about 302 million shots over the course of a week. In order for this total barrage to produce enough energy to bring down the shield, each shot has to have an approximate energy of 3.3X10^23 Joules
Placing the shot in the range of 239005 Gigatons. One shot. And given the rather WIDE figures i took, this is actually the MINIMUM amount of energy a wraith hiveship shot can have, given those tickets.
Somehow i dont think they are that destructive...
I just go for plot device, and think of it as a TV show.


As for the name of the Ori ships, i remember that i called them Ori 'Crusaders' at one point given the nature of the Ori invasion...

[Schrodinger82]

Consider that impacts in excess of what the Wraith did in Misbegotten here have happened historically, right here on Earth. The KT event, which was the asteroid that caused the extinction of the Dinosaurs has been estimated to have been in excess of 100 million megatons or 100,000 gigatons.

Despite this some species still survived and their evolved descendants exist even in present day.

Yes, things like rodents and bugs and ocean dwellers who would have been thousands of miles away from the explosion, and which can feed on dead and decaying plants and animals. Does any of that apply to the Wraith?

Even then, the survival rate probably wasn't very high, For instance, you might kill off 99% of everything beyond a 10,000 mile radius, and there would still be enough life on Earth to continue reproducing according to the rules of natural selection. While SOME life might survive, the vast majority would not.

Michael and his buddies aren't going to need to survive anything near that bad and they're only going to need to survive it for a few minutes before that other hiveship pics them up so they won't have to worry about nuclear winter effects or any of that jazz.

No, they just have to worry about the immeadiate shockwaves and massive doses of radiation, which is so much easier to withstand. :rolleye:

http://stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Nuke.html

The point is that multi gigatons isn't as bad ass as it initially sounds.

Uh, yeah, it is.

In the context of the show Earth was able to build a 1 gigaton missile 10 years ago just by slapping some naquada into an existing nuclear warhead.

Yes, back in storyline where two shots killed and a third shot distinegrates.

Since then, the numbers have gotten considerably lower (e.g., Pegasus Project.), and their military arms have been subjected to international scrutiny and non-proliferation treaties (e.g., Disclosure, Origin, Scourge, Misbegotten, Lost City, and the Real World.).

They were able to build multiple 1200 megaton space mines again in siege, mines small and light enough that marines could carry them around without assistance, quite unlike the gargantuan Tsar Bomba. I'd submit that starting with the assumption that the vastly older and more technolgically advanced society of the Wraith wouldn't be able to accomplish similar or better with it's own weapons technology is difficult to justify in terms of the story.

Apples and oranges, different weapons for different things. That's like saying, "Pakistan and India have been able to develop low yeild nukes in the past, and the US is at least as advanced as they are. Therefore, all our P90s must be at least as powerful as a low yeild nuke, because it's difficult to justify that our weapons wouldn't be able to do something similar or better."

Maybe when the Wraith want to do something "similar or better" than a nuke, they actually, you know... USE A NUKE. (e.g., the Jaffa revealed they had weapons similar to nukes in season ten). Your assumption is that they would have to come up with something "similar or better" than a nuke in the form of standard weaponry (the earth equivalent of rail guns), is completely unsubstantiated, vastly illogical, and entirely contradicted by the show.

Are we really going to end with the conclusion that Earth can build weapons millions of times more powerful than those on the warships of aliens who're supposed to be more advanced and powerful than us.

More powerful than their standard ordinance? Sure. I really don't see why not. ESPECIALLY when the EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE seems to support it. Again, it's like comparing a Daedalus railgun to a Pakistan nuke. The Daedalus might be far more advanced than Pakistan in general, but in this particular case...

Now granted, in a perfect world where the show creators actually gave a **** about technical consistancy none of this elaborate tap dancing to try and make it make sense would even be necessary.

I want to live in that world.

No you don't. You want to live in a world where the Wraith ships fire in the petaton range, regardless of what the show has actually displayed. The idea that the Wraith fire in the Amram range is entirely consistent based on the fact that we've actually seen them fired on the surface of planets, and there's absolutely nothing to invalidate them.

Size of the Planet/explosions

There's no reason to think that the planet was anything but roughly Earthlike in size. It seemed to have Earth like gravity and obviously held an Earth like atmosphere. That places some hard limits on how large or small it could have been.

We've had episodes where O Neil is teleported from a planet to a moon, and makes no comments about decreased gravity or a different atmosphere. Could simply be a part of the ancient terraform process. (It's doubtful that this planet would have developed earthlike foliage on its own.). However, we know that they have to be different in size, because that's the only way a planet and moon could operate. If that can be true for a planet and moon in the same system, then why can't it be true of two completely different planets in two completely different systems in two completely different galaxies?

How do you explain how two different sized celestial bodies can have the same gravity? Well, the technology required has already been displayed on the show. Gravity is a simple matter of mass and distance, and we already know that the Ori possess technology that can compress a planet into singularity. By comparison, the technology required to decrease the radius of, say, a Mars sized planet by a mere 30% so that its gravity matches of the Earth's would be relatively simple.

The Calculator

The Calculator just runs a calculation that is used to determine nuclear blast effects.

1) Wraith weapons aren't nuclear blasts.

2) You still haven't actually explained how you got any of the numbers to punch into the calculator in the first place, again, making this whole conversation moot.

The guy who owns that website is also a mechanical engineer who does this vs **** as a hobby himself so I have no problem at all accepting it as a valid source.

Mechanical engineering is different from nuclear physics, which is different from wraith weaponry. Personally, I wouldn't even trust the guy who owns that site on his understanding of star wars philosophy (he once used Darth Vader as an example to argue that force chokes were acceptable within the Jedi Code, because Darth Vader is apparently a light sider), much less on the physics of a hive ship weapon which he never claims to understand in the first place.

Even with that aside, however, it doesn't matter if you trust him, because he's not the one making the guestimate on Wraith weaponry. You are. So please go ahead and show us how you measured the numbers. For instance, how exactly are you measuring the fireball? Are you measuring the fireball itself, or are you simply measuring the radius of the light being emitted? Because there's a difference.

Targeting

All that would be required for them to miss in the fashion I described would be some alignment error in whatever targeting computers they use.

If it was an allignment or targeting error, then McKay would have mentioned it. e.g., "We're having trouble locking onto the right target!" or "I'm still getting life signs from the camp, something else is intercepting our fire!"

He didn't. The burden of proof is now on you.

This would mean that the aim was actually off by X degrees and thus when the computer thought it had locked onto a given target the guns would actually still be pointed slightly off.

Again, "Slightly off" would have to be "upwards of 90 degrees."

This is acedemic for the time being anyway since it is still unknown if Michael even survived

No, but it just helps to show just how far you'll go at refusing that you're ever wrong.

[Schrodinger82]

Plot devices all around!

I actually took the time to calculate the Wraith cannon weapon yield from a few factors a while ago...

You weren't the first, and it's already been debunked.

Ok, we know that the ZPM overload can destroy a planet (Season 2 of Atlantis, Critical Mass. Rodney states that),

Only if it's channeled through a Stargate, ala the weapon from "Redemption." OTOH, three ZPM's on their own were unable to destroy a single Puddle Jumper, much less an entire planet.

The definition of the word "destroy" includes "to render ineffective or useless; nullify; neutralize; invalidate". Currently, the only useful things on Atlantica are Atlantis itself and the mainland crops. Hence, anything capable of destroying both Atlantis and their current crop production would meet that standard.

which requires an energy level on the order of 4X10^32 Joules of energy, which we will put into the ZPM

On the show, it only requires 2-3 gigatons (Redemption.).

In order for this total barrage to produce enough energy to bring down the shield, each shot has to have an approximate energy of 3.3X10^23 Joules

Wrong, since you're assuming that the shield has 100% efficiency in terms of the energy it has vs. the amount of energy that it can protect against. The second law of thermodynamics say otherwise. I'm also curious as to where said weapons energy gets released after impacting the shield, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed according to the first law.

Placing the shot in the range of 239005 Gigatons. One shot. And given the rather WIDE figures i took, this is actually the MINIMUM amount of energy a wraith hiveship shot can have, given those tickets.

Empirically denied by Sateda, where a direct hive ship blast fails to even so much as knock John and Co off balance from less than 20 feet away. Quite strange, for a 239005 GT shot, minimum.

Obviously, your calculations went astray at some point. I have already pointed to suggestions as to where.

[satnamboll28]

Well since they are Ascended, I think that they could find out how to make a stable Trinity device.

Being ascended doesn't mean you know and can do everything. here is a straight rip from one of my own posts about the ori power source;
Remember, in Trinity, Radek did say that the very act of trying to contain vacuum energy from our own space time creates an environment where the laws of physics cease to apply.
As power output increases, new and exotic particles are continuously created and destroyed inside the containment chamber, interacting with each other and with the field itself. Eventually particles are created that cannot be predicted in this space time, and they breach the containment field as hard radiation.
You cannot predict something that is inherently unpredictable.

Now, you are saying that the Ori have managed to predict the inherently unpredictable, and have managed to design and build fail safe systems that can automatically compensate for such unpredictability, with no breach in the containment chamber, and no hard radiation?
Doubtful.
Watch Trinity again, when the Arcturus device powers up. Check out the distance between the containment field, and the power generation/extraction.
With the Ori ship, the ball of energy can be seen to visibly glow and diminish. Get bigger, and smaller. And there appears to be a shield of some kind around it.
My guess, would be a micro singularity. After all, the Ori are known for such technology already: such power sources power the supergate. It wouldn't be such a stretch to say that their ships are also powered by such energy sources.
Also watch how the energy is transferred. The Arcturus device does not have any kind of energy flow in any particular direction that can be seen. The Ori power source, however, flows in one direction, that can be seen.
Ori ships powered by Zero Point Energy extracted from our own space time? Nope. If the writers say the Ori ships possess a working version of Arcturus, it would be a massive cop out in my view. Contradicting their own canon.
The only way to really control something like this (in my view) would be if an ascended being was there, controlling everything coming in, so to speak. That might work.
Whilst such power sources are as powerful as the scope of our own universe, our universe is limitless, and who is to say that our understanding of physics will ever end? I'm sure that there are more bits and pieces to be found.

[JanusAncient]

See, the fact was that these particles are inherently unpredictable to people living inside the universe, restricted by the space/time that they inhabit. But, the Ori exist outside space/time, in a separate dimension altogether, so what they can, or can't predict, would only be limited by the dimension that they themselves inhabit.

[Flux.]

^lighting from space. Ouroboros using your methods wouldn’t lighting be in the multi-gigaton rage because of the size of the flash?

[JanusAncient]

Correct! The Arcturus device doesn't have any energy flow, in a particular direction, probably why the thing failed to function properly.

[Avatar28]

Empirically denied by Sateda, where a direct hive ship blast fails to even so much as knock John and Co off balance from less than 20 feet away. Quite strange, for a 239005 GT shot, minimum.

Obviously, your calculations went astray at some point. I have already pointed to suggestions as to where.

I think you guys are sort of on the same side here, Schodinger, or at least not really at odds. He even said at the end that that's what the calculations indicate but that they obviously aren't that destructive.

[Arania]

Only if it's channeled through a Stargate, ala the weapon from "Redemption." OTOH, three ZPM's on their own were unable to destroy a single Puddle Jumper, much less an entire planet.

Note my source of information. Atlantis, Season 2, Episode 13, 'Critical Mass'. Rodney Specifically States these words: 'we’re talking catastrophic overload. I mean, the explosion would destroy not just the city, but, uh, most likely the entire planet.'. I took this interpretation literally and assumed he meant that it would blow the planet up (Further evidence points to the fact that the ZPM has higher energy. SG-1, Season 8, episode 4, 'Zero Hour'. Carter States: 'I was reading Doctor Lee’s report about the tainted ZPM. I think he may have underestimated the explosive potential. It could have actually destroyed the entire solar system.'. That would increase the figure by at least 4 orders of magnitude)

On the show, it only requires 2-3 gigatons (Redemption.).

Actually, the ACTUAL amount of energy required to COMPLETELY destroy a planet (i.e. cause it to explode with enough force to overcome its own gravitational binding energy), IS 4X10^32 Joules. Destroying the life on the planet is childs play compared to destroying the planet completely (See above point on ZPM energy sources)

Wrong, since you're assuming that the shield has 100% efficiency in terms of the energy it has vs. the amount of energy that it can protect against. The second law of thermodynamics say otherwise. I'm also curious as to where said weapons energy gets released after impacting the shield, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed according to the first law.

I already knew that. Using basic force principles we can rule that the Wraith weapon can be (temporarily) classed as a kinetic weapon, and thus the shield is a device that will decellerate the particle, and thus must provide AT LEAST that amount of energy back into the particle. Same principles. It doesnt effect the overall answer unless the Atlantis cityshield is grossly inefficient (I.e. a few orders of magnitude either way)

Empirically denied by Sateda, where a direct hive ship blast fails to even so much as knock John and Co off balance from less than 20 feet away. Quite strange, for a 239005 GT shot, minimum.

You will note, as Avatar28 has pointed out above me, That i am trying to prove the point that the show mathematically contradicts itself on many occasions. (And, these figures are for a maximum-strength shot, not a piddly potshot of the like in 'sateda')

Obviously, your calculations went astray at some point. I have already pointed to suggestions as to where.

Perhaps. However, these extra explanations should offer some evidence as to how i arrived at these figures.

@Avatar28: Thank you for getting the point exactly as i indended it to be put across!

[Ouroboros]

^lighting from space. Ouroboros using your methods wouldn’t lighting be in the multi-gigaton rage because of the size of the flash?

Lightining is a completely different thing from shooting something at the ground and making an explosion. The reason it looks so big is because it flashes through and lights up the raincloud that's already there in the atmosphere. The Wraith blasts have no clouds over them aside from the large debris/dust cloud them themselves have apparently created.

No, they just have to worry about the immeadiate shockwaves and massive doses of radiation, which is so much easier to withstand.

Only if we conceed to your scenario of the bolts landing all around them as opposed to the entire salvo simply missing them by miles. I have done no such thing I can can see no rebuttal to that more than valid idea from you either.

McKay says that they can't hit the broad side of "huge flying barn" nothing about what he says supports your theory over mine.

Size of planet

Oh so you think it's a tiny little moon do you. Ok prove it. Since you can't the logical assumption that it will need to be of aproximately Earth size to have Earthlike gravity, bodies of water and atmosphere stands.

Calculator

I already adressed the differences between nukes and a Wraith weapon battery. That calculator will certainly not inflate the yields by assuming that the Wraith bolt is an omni directional explosion. It will in fact reduce them.

Mr. Oragahn did the scaling work on the planet here. I've messaged him about this thread but since I think you already debated this point with him in another thread and were made familiar with this scene I suspect that, as usual, you're attempting to waste more of my time getting a second whack at the tee here.

If he doesn't show up I'll rescale it myself however.

Again, "Slightly off" would have to be "upwards of 90 degrees."

No it wouldn't. A 90 degree deviation from that distance would have missed the planet entirely. Look at the pics I posted.

No you don't. You want to live in a world where the Wraith ships fire in the petaton range, regardless of what the show has actually displayed.

Desite my specifically saying, in my last post no less, that I reject those numbers out of hand for being way too over the top. Interesting.

No, but it just helps to show just how far you'll go at refusing that you're ever wrong.

This is a frankly hilarious statment coming from someone who would resort to claiming hiveship hulls are constructed of explosives just to undercut dart firepower yields by an insignificant amount. Or who has once again, right here, insisted that 3 gigatons is all that's needed to destroy a planet despite the fact he's been corrected on this countless times in countless different ways. Of course we mustn't leave out that you've also, once again, insisted that the Wraith hive batteries fire in the amram yield range, even now despite examples of nukes being used against them in no mans land, this example here, and the black hole example from Pegasus project. I guess we're supposed to believe that they can take shots from nukes, weapons that make these large explosions on this planet and fly near black holes but still destroy each other with amram level weapons right.

I don't suppose posting this picture of a Wraith hive bolt that is nearly a kilometer long will do anything to disuade you from continuing to claim that the whole thing only contains as much energy as a tiny amount of modern chemical explosive.



I know you have elaborate and increasingly ridiculous house-of-cards excuses to explain all these, but that just highlights the irony in the hilarious level of desperation which you possess and are attempting to shift onto me here.

All I'm going for is a fairly logical balance between the various forces here.

Earth can make gigaton level nukes that fit on missiles with late 90s era technology and acess to naquada and various sampelings of alien materials. The Wraith however, who defeated the all powerful ancients and their planet destroying level power generation, are limited to amram level yields. That's what we're supposed to beleive according to you? Anyone should be able to tell that's ludicrous just with a half hearted glance. Don't you think if this were true that in all this time someone would have commented on the idea that WW1 tube artillery is significantly more powerful than a hiveship cannon.

You're not just throwing rocks from a glass house shrod, you're firing off cannons.

[Schrodinger82]

I took this interpretation literally and assumed he meant that it would blow the planet up

"Interpretation." Progeny happens to show otherwise.

'I was reading Doctor Lee’s report about the tainted ZPM. I think he may have underestimated the explosive potential. It could have actually destroyed the entire solar system.'

Yes, after being tainted by a Goa'uld compound.

It doesnt effect the overall answer unless the Atlantis cityshield is grossly inefficient (I.e. a few orders of magnitude either way)

And so what if it is?

Lightining is a completely different thing from shooting something at the ground and making an explosion. The reason it looks so big is because it flashes through and lights up the raincloud that's already there in the atmosphere. The Wraith blasts have no clouds over them aside from the large debris/dust cloud them themselves have apparently created.

And what's you're point? The size of the flash is determined by the amount of photons being released. The presense of a rain cloud does not increase the amount of photons, it simply changes their their direction. Flux's point was that even something as simple of a lightning bolt could generate the necessary amount of photons, without having to be on the gigaton scale. We have other examples saying that things like highways and dams are visible from space as well. In short, your point fails.

And no, you don't need rainclouds to scatter photons. Trace amounts of dust and vapor can do it as well. Both of which will be readily present in the atmsophere, since you DO see other clouds nearby. For instance, there are handheld green lasers you can buy that can be used for pointing out stars and planets (e.g., visible on a "clear" day) and which are capable of blinding the cockpit of an airplane from ground level, even though lasers distribute their energy in a straight line: http://www.megalaser.com/ . For something like a Wraith weapon, which distributes its photons omnidirectionally, this becomes even easier.

Only if we conceed to your scenario of the bolts landing all around them as opposed to the entire salvo simply missing them by miles.

Hundreds of miles, actually, which would require them to be of by upwards of a 90 degree arc. From the looks of it, the hive ship is firing down, which makes sense, because they were able to detect the life signs from the camp using the Wraith computers. John was then able to swoop down and find Beckett from it (again, suggesting that they weren't that far away.). Now granted, the PJ has a lifesigns detector of its own. However, you would expect that if John was expect to fly staight down, only to discover that the camp was 45 degrees to the side, he would have mentioned that to someone.

McKay says that they can't hit the broad side of "huge flying barn" nothing about what he says supports your theory over mine.

Sure, if you take that quote completely out of context. The conversation you posted was in reference to a moving hive ship.

McKAY (interrupting): A giant, flying barn! We couldn’t hit that.
SHEPPARD: What about hitting a stationary target?
McKAY: All motion in space is relative.
SHEPPARD: I’m talking about on the planet.
McKAY (raising his head): Well, that I might be able to do.
SHEPPARD: Target the camp.

The only problem that McKay has mentioned was a) accuracy, and b) moving targets (which, again, affects accuracy). He doesn't mention anywhere that the targetting systems themselves are the problem. In fact, he suggests the exact opposite of that.

Size of planet

Oh so you think it's a tiny little moon do you. Ok prove it.

Sorry, it's impossible for me to prove a negative (that the weapons aren't multi-gigaton, that the planet isn't Earth sized). Therefore, it's your burden of proof to do.

Anyway, I don't have to prove anything, because I'm not the one making the assertion. You are. You're insisting that you have absolute facts that the Wraith are in multi-gigaton range, which means that you need to prove it by showing that your evidence is reliable.

So is your evidence reliable? Well, we already have concrete evidence from the show that different sized celestial bodies can have the same gravity, and we have concrete evidence of the technology necessary to make it possible (Which apparently doesn't even take that much effort in order to power). The burden of proof is now on you to prove that this planet was in fact Earth sized, despite the fact that we have absolutely no guarantees of this, in order to show that your assumptions on scale were accurate.

Otherwise, what we have is another case of Occam's razor. You try to explain the "discrepency by saying "The Wraith bolts are billions of times more powerful than any time we've seen them up close, on a solid target!" I try to explain the "discrepency" by saying, "Maybe the planet wasn't Earth sized." Both assumptions explain the same observation.

The difference being, I have actual evidence of non-Earth sized bodies resulting in Earth-like gravity, thus making my assumption neccessary (or else previous episodes of SG-1 wouldn't make any sense). OTOH, you have no evidence whatsoever as that the Wraith bolts can be billions of times more powerful than what we've observed them to be, thus making your assumption unncessary.

Since your explaination requires at least one unnecesary assumption and my explaination requires zero, my argument therefore wins out according to the standards of Occam's razor.

Since you can't the logical assumption that it will need to be of aproximately Earth size to have Earth like gravity, bodies of water and atmosphere stands.

It's funny how your "logical assumption" isn't in anyway supported by Newton's law of gravity, where the force of gravity is dictated solely by mass and distance, rather than "size." We already have canon evidence from the show that definitively proves that your "logical assumption" is false, yet you still stand by them. How telling.

I already adressed the differences between nukes and a Wraith weapon battery.

Then the calculator isn't a valid source. Which is good, because you didn't actually bother to post any calculations to begin with.

Mr. Oragahn did the scaling work on the planet here. I've messaged him about this thread but since I think you already debated this point with him in another thread and were made familiar with this scene I suspect that, as usual, you're attempting to waste more of my time getting a second whack at the tee here.

Yes, because obviously if someone has debated something before, then they must by definition be wrong. I'm struggling to understand how in your world, a complete failure to present convincing arguments the first time through automatically makes you right.

No it wouldn't. A 90 degree deviation from that distance would have missed the planet entirely. Look at the pics I posted.

Mr. O has admitted in the past that the scale on the show is incredibly poor. In this case, it's a combination of scale + angle. We see similar shots in "The Siege," even though we know the Hive ships can't be more than 100-200 km away based dart ships.

We already have numerous pieces of evidence showing that the Hive ships are relatively close to the surface, regardless of the pictures. The plot and the writing seem to show otherwise. (e.g., the dart speed in Siege, the time it take the bolts to reach the planet in Sateda, and actively attempt to track the puddle jumper to boot, the time it takes for the for the hive bolts to reach the planet in Misbegotten, etc.).

This is a frankly hilarious statment coming from someone who would resort to claiming hiveship hulls are constructed of explosives

Once again, stop making accusations that aren't true.

Of course we mustn't leave out that you've also, once again, insisted that the Wraith hive batteries fire in the amram yield range,

...with pictures from Sateda to back it up.

I guess we're supposed to believe that they can take shots from nukes,

In space, yes, since nukes will distribute their energy differently than from how a Wraith weapon will. Not to mention that we still don't know what the yeild was, only that SGA is subject to international oversight, and therefore subject to the same non-proliferation treaty that Weir herself fought so hard to push through.

I don't suppose posting this picture of a Wraith hive bolt that is nearly a kilometer long will do anything to disuade you from continuing to claim that the whole thing only contains as much energy as a tiny amount of modern chemical explosive.

Well, that's a new one. Trying to use motion blur as an argument. Any idea of what the shutter speed on that shot was?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tj_pullingout.jpg

Hey look, in this picture, we have car head lights that are over ten feet long!

Earth can make gigaton level nukes that fit on missiles with late 90s era technology and acess to naquada and various sampelings of alien materials. The Wraith however, who defeated the all powerful ancients and their planet destroying level power generation, are limited to amram level yields.

{Mod Snip}

• "Earth railguns are to Earth as Ha'tak blasts are to the Jaffa" is valid
• "Earth railguns are to Earth as hive blasts are to the Wraith" is valid.
• "Earth nukes are to Earth as Jaffa bombs are to the Jaffa" is valid.
• "Earth nukes are to Earth as Hat'tak blasts are to the Jaffa" is not valid. They don't need for their blasts to be equivalent to Earth nukes, that what their bombs that they already have are for.
• "Earth nukes are to Earth as hive blasts are to the Wraith" is not valid. In order to make it valid, you would need to compare it to an equivalent Wraith bomb, just as we did with the Jaffa.

If you want to make a comparison, then try and make it a fair comparison. Otherwise, don't bother.

That's what we're supposed to beleive according to you?Anyone should be able to tell that's ludicrous just with a half hearted glance.

Circular reasoning, topped off with an appeal to ridicule. Wraith blasts are vastly superior to Earth nukes, because if they weren't, then they wouldn't be vastly superior to Earth nukes. Which of course, is ludicrus to believe!

Basically, what you're saying is that you know your assumptions are correct because... you know your assumptions are correct.

Don't you think if this were true that in all this time someone would have commented on the idea that WW1 tube artillery is significantly more powerful than a hiveship cannon.

It's amazing how often you present arguments that "X can't be true, or else Y would happen!" as absolute proof, even when reality or the show contradicts you.

We've already seen concrete examples where the hive blasts are in the sub-gigaton range at the end of Sateda, where they couldn't even destroy a fleeing PJ, or knock SGA off balance from less than 10 feet away. Apparently, no one on the team mentioned it, because they didn't find it very newsworthy. The only person who seems to find it newsworthy is you. Probably because you don't actually pay attention.