Shape of a cityship's shield

[Ouroboros]

But most of these ships have decent armor.
Atlantis has been described as remarkably fragile.

Plus only covering the top doesn't make sense, even when landed and siting like a duck, as a missing explosion of even one megaton will send quakes through the whole city and do lots of damage. Needless to talk about the effect of a nearby ground hit from multi megaton or multi gigaton weaponry, it's literally unthinkable to have a shield only protect the superior half.

It could be the case where the most delicate parts are the towers and things located on the top.

The bottem half of it seems to just be mostly chunky slabs of metal that the thing is meant to rest on when it's landed. I don't think I even see any windows.

It certainly seems to be up to spec with something like a bare 304 or asguard hull. Both of which have windows and do fly around with their shields down the vast majority of the time.

[Mister Oragahn]

I could grant the point about travelling in space and not necessarily having the shields on, but I couldn't concede the part about the city being under siege and only needing half a shield, especially since that shield does not extend far away beyond the city's own borders.
In fact there's going to be much more than mere quakes. It's also about the blast and the debris, plasma, etc. All of which will damage all inferior structures, engines included.
In The Tower, the city was already crumbling under the single mass of soil and whatever. And that was while being immobile. Imagine if, for example, Wraith hiveships were so fragile...

[PSp2gamer]

I belive the shield is a half bubble, only the top is protected( As seen in the pictures posted above). This would explain why the ancient did not fly the city to earth during the wraith War. Once the city takes off they would have been shot down. Think about it



I don't belive there are multiple modes for the shield, only one type which protects the city in the water or during flight. None of the episodes we have seen so far support your statement. We only heard the Stargate team say shield up or shield down( maybe not the down part).

Well they havent been able to even take off, and they still dont really know that much about Atlantis even after being there as long as they have. You may be right, but basied on all of the photos it looks like there could be multiple, or FX errors.

[Ouroboros]

I could grant the point about travelling in space and not necessarily having the shields on, but I couldn't concede the part about the city being under siege and only needing half a shield, especially since that shield does not extend far away beyond the city's own borders.
In fact there's going to be much more than mere quakes. It's also about the blast and the debris, plasma, etc. All of which will damage all inferior structures, engines included.
In The Tower, the city was already crumbling under the single mass of soil and whatever. And that was while being immobile. Imagine if, for example, Wraith hiveships were so fragile...

That's a good point. I'd forgotten about how easily the city crumbled when underground in Tower.

Given that it's obvious that a proximity hit from something like a Wraith weapon battery while it's buried in the seabed would completely crunch it, making the protection of the shield essentially meaningless.

Maybe it's got some sort of startrekish "structural integrity field" or hull conforming shield down there instead.

The bubble all around creates the same problem. If you're landed flush with the ground you can't put your sheild up down there, so proxy hits next to you are still going to screw you up by including your hull in the new crater.

[FallenAngelII]

actually its never been established that shields cant be used in hyperspaces.

the only thing that was ssaid that that the asguard power generator on thier ships wasn't powerful enough to run both the shields and the hyperdrive at the same time. So when they are in hyperspace, thier shields are down.

but this doesn't mean its the same for the ancients, with a few zpm's powering the city it will have alot of power to engage both the shields and the stardrive

This is important to remember, people.

I personally think the "Progeny"-shield was just there to protect the fragile city from breaking apart in hyperspace because the Asurans are machines. They have no need for an atmosphere (after all, Niam is probably still alive).

The fact that the Atlantis expedition happened to be in the city at the same time and survived thanks to the shield was just a coincidence.

[Nightgod]

That's a good point. I'd forgotten about how easily the city crumbled when underground in Tower.

Given that it's obvious that a proximity hit from something like a Wraith weapon battery while it's buried in the seabed would completely crunch it, making the protection of the shield essentially meaningless.

Maybe it's got some sort of startrekish "structural integrity field" or hull conforming shield down there instead.

The bubble all around creates the same problem. If you're landed flush with the ground you can't put your sheild up down there, so proxy hits next to you are still going to screw you up by including your hull in the new crater.

What makes you think Atlantis can land on ground? Forget about the tower ep. we don't know what happen to that city and the people of that city was long gone. If you look at the bottom of Atlantis IT IS NOT FLAT which means the city could never land on ground.

[spook123]

isnt the part that sticks out the bottom an outpost like the one left on earth?

[Ouroboros]

What makes you think Atlantis can land on ground? Forget about the tower ep. we don't know what happen to that city and the people of that city was long gone. If you look at the bottom of Atlantis IT IS NOT FLAT which means the city could never land on ground.

Well it was landed on the ground on Earth when it was in Antarctica. Antarctica is an actual continent with ground under the snow and ice. Also the tower like you mentioned.

It's so huge and heavy that its more curved under portion would probably just sink into most surfaces it cared to try and land on.

Either that or it might have some sort of stabalizing legs it deploys when landed on something other than water.

The fact there's a giant hexagonal hole cut out of the center would probably go a long way toward stabilizing it to. When it was landed on dirt it would probably look more or less like the universe's biggest upside down umbrella.

[Halzman]

I actually had done a write up about the atlantis city-ship sheilds on another forum some time ago, but i dont remember the link unfortunatly lol.... so here goes:

Ok, I have concluded that City-Ships have 2 types of sheilds. A defence sheild and an atmospheric sheild. I noticed that while looking at the shields and there shapes, they dont match. The full atlantis' shield midpoint is alitle higher then midpoint of atlantis's center spire. However, when looking at the shape of the upper atmospheric sheild, you can clearly see that it start and extends upwards, beginning from the midpoint of atlantis.

Here are the pics:

002 - Atlantis Full Hull Sheild
- http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/882/002rv4.jpg

004 - Atlantis Atmospheric Sheild
- http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/9307/004uj9.jpg

005 - Full Hull Sheild
- http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/9354/005jp1.jpg

006 - Clear View of Atlantis Atmopsheric Sheild
- http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4931/006lk5.jpg

Now, as for the hyperspace window. I dont recall which episode off-hand, but i do remember the asgard that shields could not be active while in hyperspace (now that i think about it, i think it was 'Small Victories', season 05 i beleive). Now, we all saw in 'Progency' that there was a shield active while in hyperspace. If you go back to the scence when the city-shup was leaving Asuras, you can kinda see the atmospheric sheild forming, cover the top. Its about 5 seconds before the scene ends. Then I beleive you see for a split second the un-sheilded lower half of altantis. Now, given the name, the sheild would only be required to maintain normal air pressure and keeping air in. Something that wouldnt require to much power, and it wouldn't interfere with traveling faster then the speed of light (Given that the Asgards hyperdrive was calculated to be 800,000 light years per/minute - so we can estimate that a city-ships stardrive with 3 ZPMs could be clocked at around the same speed or even greater). However, a defence sheild which is much more dense, in order to keep out any objects. The gravitational effects that would be excerted on the sheild would be tremendous... rapidly draining the ships power, or depleting the sheilds all together. And what good is having sheilds if by the time you drop out of hyperspace for battle or w/e, your shields need to be fully recharged... smooth.

The scene in the beginning of 'Rising' always bugged me until I came up with this 'city-ship sheild theory'. When Ayana is looking at the male ancient, in the background you see a jumper pass through. And given that Atlantis, at the time, was in Antarctica, where its freakin cold, they wouldnt need a defence sheild active all the time on a planet that has 'hunter/gatherer's strolling around. They would just need something to maintain a stable and comfortable atmosphere within the top portion. Its hard to see, but when altantis is in the air in that scence, just before its blasts off into space, you can kinda see the shape of it, and it looks asthough only the top portion has a bubble around it.

Anyways, thats my story Hope you all had fun reading.

[Halzman]

What makes you think Atlantis can land on ground? Forget about the tower ep. we don't know what happen to that city and the people of that city was long gone. If you look at the bottom of Atlantis IT IS NOT FLAT which means the city could never land on ground.

but there was an outpost right in the middle of atlantis. Smack dab in the center of the structural frame.