Superhive vs Ori Battlecruiser

[General_Finley]

I go with the super hive because of its overwellming power.

[Ouroboros]

Rise Of The Phoenix did it occur to you that the Ori beam being less focused would simply explode on the hull of the Hive and cause nothing but surface damage? If the armor can deal with a focused strike it will certainly be capable of dealing with a blast which is more spread out allowing more of the armor to take the brunt of the hit.

The armour even resists penetration from ancient drones, probably the most penetrative thing ever shown on the show.

That's the thing about armour. You can't really wear it down the same way you can wear down shields with successive hits. If what you're shooting is just bouncing off or exploding without penetrating that's basically all it's going to do for the duration.

You need a weapon that's at least powerful enough to make a dent/blast a chunk out, which evidently drones and asgard beams aren't. Even then though you're going to have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get through and even then if this thing is anything like a normal hive it can regenerate any damage you do cause to its armour mid battle.

Why would the Ori make such a shield at all just for the one purpose?

They might not be able to fit it on ships, either because it requires a gate to feed it, it only works when stationary or any number of reasons. The point is there's no proof the Ori ships used that shield, and plenty of indication they don't given by the fact none of the character familiar with that shield type comment on it.

Not really, the weapon wasn't fired directly down into the mountain in Counter Strike, but it did blast each part it was aimed at to pieces and a single blast tore straight through a Ha'Tak's shields vaporizing the craft in the process, how many other weapons in Stargate have been shown to do that with a single blast?
Most weapons that are effective against Ha'Taks stop inside of the craft like smaller Tollan Ion cannon shots, but the Ori's main beam pulse doesn't it carries straight on after it with some of the energy, plasma or whatever it's made of continuing to fly through space.
Any shield damage that's done to any enemy vessel looks to be through brute force.

I don't think you really appreciate the sheer size of even a normal Wraith hive here.



The fact the Ori beam can pierce a Ha'tak or blow pieces off a very small mountain isn't much when contrasted to the scale of the hive. Regular hives are 11km long, it's not clear if the upgraded one got any bigger, it did get bulkier though, and the normally empty center part filled in so a lot of extra armour mass was added. It's entirely possible that parts of that ship could have armour nearly as thick as the Dakara temple was high given the overall size of it. That plus the armour will certainly be much denser than dirt and rocks.

I'd think the brute force of the Ori Cruiser's main beam would be doing a lot more damage as it obviously carries more force shot for shot than the beams just look at the size of those blasts.
The Ori pulses probably use the majority of power from whatever is powering the Cruiser and considering they were built with Ascended knowledge, by a race that was related to the Ancients it would have to be comparable to a ZPM.

We know how much damage the Ori beam does to solid objects, we've seen it.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

The armour even resists penetration from ancient drones, probably the most penetrative thing ever shown on the show.

But the the Ori main beams obviously pack way more force behind them than both the Drones and Asgard plasma beams do per shot.

That's the thing about armour. You can't really wear it down the same way you can wear down shields with successive hits. If what you're shooting is just bouncing off or exploding without penetrating that's basically all it's going to do for the duration.

The Ori's beam weapons are a brute force weapon, they're shots are larger than Asgard beams and will be blasting big chunks out of the Super Hive's armor, if they were weedy and lacked any sort of power like you're making them out to then they wouldn't be able to cream a Ha'Tak with blast and still have force left over in the shot.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=222&pos=254

You need a weapon that's at least powerful enough to make a dent/blast a chunk out, which evidently drones and asgard beams aren't. Even then though you're going to have to hit the same spot repeatedly to get through and even then if this thing is anything like a normal hive it can regenerate any damage you do cause to its armour mid battle.

The Ori's main weapon would IMO pack enough force in each of it's shots to blast chunks out of that Hive, maybe not huge ones, but they wouldn't have to be that large to expose parts of the ship to space, they obviously have a high enough firing rate to repeatedly hit the same spot in quick succession and I doubt the Hive could maneuver to cover the damaged section from more weapons fire before the Ori Cruiser had carved several huge holes in that thing, it would of course regenerate, but if The Seed is anything to go by when using a ZPM it still takes time to grow material.

They might not be able to fit it on ships, either because it requires a gate to feed it, it only works when stationary or any number of reasons. The point is there's no proof the Ori ships used that shield, and plenty of indication they don't given by the fact none of the character familiar with that shield type comment on it.

I'll admit that there wasn't a whole load of details made apparent about those shields, but neither was it stated that the ships didn't use the shields and as far as the whole size of the tech thing goes and details for making it work I don't see it as being far beyond a race of ascended beings who thought it up in the beginning and had months to search for the answers of how to make it work on ships.
The defense was introduced in Beachhead as you know, just because those shields weren't mentioned again doesn't mean they weren't in play on the Ori Cruisers that made it to our galaxy and I've already explained as to why the characters may not have realised the ships were using those shields, I even did it in my last post but you didn't quote my explanation for some reason.
Take the Asuran Auroras in BAMSR, they were so obviously using energy cannons of some sort in that battle, but it was never said that they were in the whole replicator ark so I don't see how some lack of confirmation would mean an obvious technological advantage wouldn't be used, which could probably easily be incorporated into ships made with ascended knowledge.

I don't think you really appreciate the sheer size of even a normal Wraith hive here.

Spoiler:

That's the Super Hive and not a regular one.
Do you realise that Atlantis was already skimming the Earth's atmosphere at that point in the battle?
The Hive was several meters above the Earth's atmosphere so it doesn't really give us a fair size comparison for how big Atlantis is compared to it, it would probably appear much bigger than that if the two were at the same height in the pick.
I think the 304s are about the the size of one of Atlantis's piers a Ha'Tak is bigger than a 304 and Ori vessels are certainly larger than a Ha'Tak.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=198&pos=703

The fact the Ori beam can pierce a Ha'tak or blow pieces off a very small mountain isn't much when contrasted to the scale of the hive. Regular hives are 11km long, it's not clear if the upgraded one got any bigger, it did get bulkier though, and the normally empty center part filled in so a lot of extra armour mass was added. It's entirely possible that parts of that ship could have armour nearly as thick as the Dakara temple was high given the overall size of it. That plus the armour will certainly be much denser than dirt and rocks.

The beam doesn't just pierce a Ha'tak and it's shields it goes right through both with energy to spare.
I think Ha'Taks are bigger than one of Atlantis's piers as per my size comparisons made above.
Atlantis isn't as small as that picture you've posted makes it look when compared to the Hive.
It was never stated exactly what the Dakara mountain was made of, as it's on an alien planet it could have been anything, the top of it opened up to expose the weapon, so it could have been made by the Ancients, which doesn't seem beyond them and may not be only dirt and rocks just because it looks like a mountain.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=209&pos=533

We know how much damage the Ori beam does to solid objects, we've seen it.

Well then you should know that the Ori's weapons aren't exactly gonna be ineffective against the Super Hive.
I've never said that the Ori ship could destroy it in a single shot or anything (I know you didn't say I did, I'm just making a point here), it doesn't need to when it's weapons can be fired in a pretty rapid succession and do a lot of damage before the Hive can get a Daedalus shield killing volley fired.

I think you yourself have said that Atlantis probably didn't have a whole lot of power from even one of it's ZPMs available for the shields in that battle with the Hive (I believe this was in the Super-Hive's strength thread), the Ori ships have gotta have something which compares to a ZPM so their shields even without the energy shield replenishment effect could be tougher against that Hive.
Atlantis certainly is not all that efficient or a warship like the Ori vessels which would be much more maneuverable when compared to the Hive so they probably wouldn't have to take all of it's fire power.

[Ouroboros]

But the the Ori main beams obviously pack way more force behind them than both the Drones and Asgard plasma beams do per shot.

I don't think this is that "obvious" really. The drones sure, they've never been about raw power, the Asgard beam though. I don't see any reason to think the Ori beam is drastically more powerful than that, if at all.

The Ori's beam weapons are a brute force weapon,

I'd hope not because if they are they'd be sub kiloton in yeild based on their effects vs the ground in "Line in the Sand" and the Dakara mountain in "Counterstrike".

they're shots are larger than Asgard beams and will be blasting big chunks out of the Super Hive's armor, if they were weedy and lacked any sort of power like you're making them out to then they wouldn't be able to cream a Ha'Tak with blast and still have force left over in the shot.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=222&pos=254

I'm not making them out to be anything, the show's visual effects are, twice. They're depicting a weapon with a fairly low energy content that somehow still kills enemy ships, likely explanations include shield penetration + some sort of technobabble.

This is the aftermath of an Ori beam weapon that was used on a villiage in "Line in the Sand".

http://www.stargatecaps.com/sg1/s10/1012/index6.shtml

Not exactly knocking my socks off here. Notice how the grass on the hillsides facing where the explosion would have occured is still intact.

The Ori's main weapon would IMO pack enough force in each of it's shots to blast chunks out of that Hive, maybe not huge ones, but they wouldn't have to be that large to expose parts of the ship to space, they obviously have a high enough firing rate to repeatedly hit the same spot in quick succession and I doubt the Hive could maneuver to cover the damaged section from more weapons fire before the Ori Cruiser had carved several huge holes in that thing, it would of course regenerate, but if The Seed is anything to go by when using a ZPM it still takes time to grow material.

"It'll blow huge chunks out of the hive's armour that no other weapon could scratch" you keep repeating this. Tell me why it didn't blow a huge chunk out of that normal ground Vala's standing on.

I'll admit that there wasn't a whole load of details made apparent about those shields, but neither was it stated that the ships didn't use the shields and as far as the whole size of the tech thing goes and details for making it work I don't see it as being far beyond a race of ascended beings who thought it up in the beginning and had months to search for the answers of how to make it work on ships.
The defense was introduced in Beachhead as you know, just because those shields weren't mentioned again doesn't mean they weren't in play on the Ori Cruisers that made it to our galaxy and I've already explained as to why the characters may not have realised the ships were using those shields, I even did it in my last post but you didn't quote my explanation for some reason.
Take the Asuran Auroras in BAMSR, they were so obviously using energy cannons of some sort in that battle, but it was never said that they were in the whole replicator ark so I don't see how some lack of confirmation would mean an obvious technological advantage wouldn't be used, which could probably easily be incorporated into ships made with ascended knowledge.

The difference there being that we actually saw the asuran ships using energy canons in the show. We never saw an Ori ship carting around a beachead type shield. You can't really just give them a much more powerful shield type than normal and then focus on making explanations for why it's not entirely impossible that they could have it. You need to show that they actually have it, not list the reasons why it's not impossible that they potentially could. "They could" isn't the same thing as "they do". The hive "could" have silos full of exploding ZPM missiles with FTL drives for example. Nothing about that idea is strickly impossible. Todd got several zpms from the Asurans, the Wraith have small enough ftl drives in their scoutships to make hive launchable missiles out of them, and their grasp of AI and drone technology is more than adequate to construct a very competent guidance system. If I want to actually say the hive has these weapons that could destroy entire solar systems from lightyears away though then I think I should probably be held to a higher standard of actually proving it than "well it's not impossible it could have them, I can't prove it actually does but it's not impossible it could" with the implied end to that statment being "...and so it does, can you prove it couldn't?". Proving things doesn't work that way.

Also please don't respond to this point with reasoning why the hive couldn't have FTL system nuking missiles. It's an example to illustrate a point about what you can do when you're not required to actually prove things, not something I'm seriously going to try arguing for.

That's the Super Hive and not a regular one.

There's no real indication the superhive was signifcantly longer/wider than a regular one. It's bulkier yes, but the 11km quote from the VFX people was for a regular one and that pic is roughly in line with that size which is why I posted it.

Do you realise that Atlantis was already skimming the Earth's atmosphere at that point in the battle?
The Hive was several meters above the Earth's atmosphere so it doesn't really give us a fair size comparison for how big Atlantis is compared to it, it would probably appear much bigger than that if the two were at the same height in the pick.

I checked for this before I posted the pic. I capped that myself from the video source. Atlantis was slightly lower than the hive but not significantly so in the shot just before that one. That will make the city look slightly smaller than it really is but not to the extent as to make the top down comparison completely useless for getting a general idea of the comparative size between it and the hive.

The beam doesn't just pierce a Ha'tak and it's shields it goes right through both with energy to spare.
I think Ha'Taks are bigger than one of Atlantis's piers as per my size comparisons made above.
Atlantis isn't as small as that picture you've posted makes it look when compared to the Hive.
It was never stated exactly what the Dakara mountain was made of, as it's on an alien planet it could have been anything, the top of it opened up to expose the weapon, so it could have been made by the Ancients, which doesn't seem beyond them and may not be only dirt and rocks just because it looks like a mountain.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=209&pos=533

Unfortunately there's other things to consider in the scene where the mountain blows up. Super materials would be possible but seem to be ruled out by the fact that when the mountain does explode there's not even enough energy released by the Ori weapon to injure or even knock over the people on the ground nearby. Teal'c and Bratac watch it happen just before going through the gate as I recall, and obviously aren't killed by the force of the explosions.

That places a pretty hard cap on how much raw energy could possibly be in that beam.

I think you yourself have said that Atlantis probably wasn't using a whole lot from even one of it's ZPMs in that battle with the Hive (I believe this was in the Super-Hive's strength thread), the Ori ships have gotta have something which compares to a ZPM so their shields even without the energy shield replenishment effect could be tougher against that Hive.
Atlantis certainly is not all that efficient or a warship like the Ori vessels which would be much more maneuverable when compared to the Hive so they probably wouldn't have to take all of it's fire power.

I don't think an Ori ship is nearly as powerful as Atlantis myself and even if it were it would still lose as EatG showed. What you seem to actually be arguing for is an Ori ship that's actually significantly more powerful than the city.

[Mister Oragahn]

On the same hand I think it's not fair to measure those weapons on obviously totally screwed visuals and flawed plot.
It was really stupid on all possible points. Not only that, but from space, the flashes looked like multi-megaton strikes.

[Buba uognarf]

Why would the Ori make such a shield at all just for the one purpose?
It gives them an even bigger advantage over most of their enemies and would mean that less of their own power generating capabilities would be spent on reinforcing the barrier.
There is nothing that's been shown in the Ori ark to suggest that the Ori vessels don't use those shields, just saying "Oh no they don't use those shields" isn't exactly proof is it?
Just because the 4 Ori Cruiser's shields didn't expand to protect all of them from the energy gained doesn't mean they don't work that way.
All of the extra power would most likely be going to increase the thickness of the field, we've heard it said that they fluctuate which probably means damage is being caused but then the field reinforces itself with the power gained, the amount of power that shield draws from enemy weapons fire could have been regulated so that it doesn't have to expand to the size of a planet.

Sorry but thats a stupid argument, its not for me to prove they don't use it, its up to you to prove they do use it. The flucuations were do with the main weapon firing, it had nothing to do with our weapons.

The shield in Beachhead was powered by a blackhole and had who knows how much equipement on the other end of the SG making it work, possibly even Ori intervention. You can't assume the Ori Motherships use those shields, using your own arguments I could assume all Aurora's have those massive satellite weapons attached to them on that arm section...the evidence for both of these claims is about equal I'd say.

There's plenty to suggest they don't use them, no one noticing is a major one. Do you not think that after several encounters with the Ori it would have been realized that their own weapons were feeding the Ori's shields?

You have no proof that they use those shields, you cant' prove they do, so drop the point. Until stated in the canon otherwise we should assume the Ori use standard shields which would be pulverized quite easily by the Superhive.

As far as why they didn't realise not to keep poring power into the Ori's ship's shields in Camelot, if the shields weren't behaving the exact same way as the Beachhead ones it may not be so obvious that their weapons would deplete them, Carter wasn't on the Bridge of either of our ships during that battle, she was floating in space after tinkering around with the Supergate and what would you do just retreat and let the Ori go unopposed, the Jaffa certainly weren't willing to in Beachhead until they knew it was no use attacking the planet's shield, but then it was too late?

So on the one hand you're arguing that the Ori are using the Beachhead shields and on the other your saying it doesn't behave in the same way? You've contradicted yourself, basically you're saying even though it doesn't look or act like a Beachhead shield it still is one. There would have been scans made of the Ori ships, Carter isn't the only person capable of recognising it the people on those ships would have been briefed on encounters with Ori technology, they didn't spot it. There was also an Asgard ship there! Do you not think they would have picked up on the Ori shields getting stronger as they were fired on?

The shield didn't flucuate and grow in any form while being fired on, the characters didn't comment on it we also have no idea how practical installing the Beachhead type shield on an Ori ship might be so it could be impossible. Yet you still continue to argue that its the same shield but only different to try and explain to inconsistancies...

Not really, the weapon wasn't fired directly down into the mountain in Counter Strike, but it did blast each part it was aimed at to pieces and a single blast tore straight through a Ha'Tak's shields vaporizing the craft in the process, how many other weapons in Stargate have been shown to do that with a single blast?
Most weapons that are effective against Ha'Taks stop inside of the craft like smaller Tollan Ion cannon shots, but the Ori's main beam pulse doesn't it carries straight on after it with some of the energy, plasma or whatever it's made of continuing to fly through space.
Any shield damage that's done to any enemy vessel looks to be through brute force.

It didn't vaporize the Ha'tak, it blew a hole through it something even Ha'tak pulses have been shown to be capable of in a couple of hits. It continuing on after woulds stems from the fact its a beam and thus the intial impact blew the ship apart allowing the rest to pass through. Regardless a Hive ship is much tougher than a Ha'tak and much much larger, I haven't seen any evidence that the Ori beam is much stronger than the Asgard beams.

I'd think the brute force of the Ori Cruiser's main beam would be doing a lot more damage as it obviously carries more force shot for shot than the beams just look at the size of those blasts.
The Ori pulses probably use the majority of power from whatever is powering the Cruiser and considering they were built with Ascended knowledge, by a race that was related to the Ancients it would have to be comparable to a ZPM.

Why would it have to be comparable to a ZPM? The Ori ships were downed in 6 shots by the Asgard beams if they had powersources a fraction of the power of a ZPM do you think they would have failed so easily? Unless you want to argue that the shields are way inferior to Altantis' in which case your point about the Ori being related to the Ancients thus having equalivelent tech falls through the floor. The Ori and Ancients seperated over 50,000,000 years ago there's every reason to believe their technology would be different/developed in different ways.

Porve that the Ori beams have way more brute force than the Asgard ones, without basing it on size. Bigger doesn't mean better lol. If its less focused it will simply explode against the hull.

Not if the shields on an Ori mother ship aren't behaving in exactly the same way as the Beachhead one was.
They fluctuate right?
They don't need to expand to protect the ship as for a ship it would be better to increase the integrity of the field from the added power, expanding it's actual size isn't necessary and neither is gaining too much power from enemy weapons, perhaps the shields on the Ori Cruisers take a portion of the energy content of pulse weapons, like whatever is needed to compensate for damage inflicted to the field instead of all of that power content, so that way the shields don't have to expand in size and they'd probably be more than powerful enough to just absorb the rest of the excess power.

If it doesn't behave in the same way as the Beachhead (which it doesn't) you can't argue its the same shield or operates in the same way. They flucuate when the Ori fire not the other way round. The shield didn't change in size at all there is no reason to think the energy went anywhere else. You have no proof of any of this and quite frankly you're typing out BS to try and rationalize your wet dream of the Ori having Beachhead shields on their ships. They don't, every bit of evidence points to the contrary. If it looks like an Orange, smells like an Orange and tastes like an Orange its probably an Orange not an apple with a lick of paint.

I didn't say the Ori Cruiser's shields would be impervious to those weapons as the pulses from the Hive are probably fired with several times the force of a regular Hive, but they're not focused into such a small area as the Asgard's weapons, so the overall physical force of those blasts would probably still be spread across the Ori's shields, but the initial impact would probably still be quite a lot.

They're significantly more powerful than pulses from a regular Hive. You're right the Ori wouldn't be impervious to the weapons, they'd be slaughtered by them.

I see it behaving in a similar way to when Ha'Taks get destroyed by the beams.
The weapons power would IMO mostly travel and carve a chunk out of the Hive, with the rest being spread across the Hive's hull causing secondary damage and since that Hive has dense armor the initial impact force would have to travel further down into the armor.

You fail to realize the Superhives hull is much tougher and stronger than a Ha'taks hull. They're even more resistant to the Asgard weapons than the Ori shields themselves! Your opinion that the beam would mostly travel through the hull is tbh completely unfounded, I see no reason to think it would do anything more than cause minimal damage. Its certainly not going to cause major damage like you suggest.

I must also remind you that it's not like the Hive would have much time to regenerate from the blast's damage as the Ori Cruiser's beams are capable of being fired literally seconds apart and that Hive would be much bigger than the Ori ship, maneuverability isn't exactly on it's side.

I have not mentioned regeneration although if the Ori beam only does minimal damage it will have no need to regenerate. Maneuverability is also a none issue as the Hive can litterally fire dozens of shots a second and coat the Ori ship in large plasma pulses.

Your argument is based on 2 unfounded assumptions, the Ori ships use Beachhead shields (this has been thoroughly debunked) and the Ori beam is much stronger than the Asgard one (which has no basis whatsoever).

The clear conclusion to draw when looking at the examples of both ships and their capabilities is that the Superhive would win decisively. If you start bringing in fanwank idea's about Beachhead shields and Ori beams which are massively stronger than the Asgard ones it starts to become more even. However seeing as your arguments for both are flawed without any proof (as in clear evidence and demonstration) the original conclusion stands the Superhive would maul an Ori ship.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I don't think this is that "obvious" really. The drones sure, they've never been about raw power, the Asgard beam though. I don't see any reason to think the Ori beam is drastically more powerful than that, if at all.

The Asgard's weapons are clearly about finer focused force being shot at a smaller region of a target, where as the Ori's appear to be a larger blast across a larger region of it's target.
While I think the two weapons would most definitely defeat a Ha'Tak's shields with a single blast I doubt the APBWs could destroy that vessel with that blast unless it hit a critical system (which it probably would), I know I don't have any solid evidence like seeing the beams actually be fired on that ship but do you think we'd see the same thing happen with the APBW shot as we do with the Ha'Taks when they got destroyed by Ori Cruisers?

I'd hope not because if they are they'd be sub kiloton in yeild based on their effects vs the ground in "Line in the Sand" and the Dakara mountain in "Counterstrike".

I'd think with 'Line In The Sand' that ship probably wouldn't use the full force of it's weapons as wasn't it only a small village in that episode?
If it was there was no need to go overkill, although when it hits the ground it looks too me to be covering a pretty wide area, despite what's shown of the actual damage after.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=668
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=669
The first one may be the image to go off of.
I don't know anything about a nuke's blast radius or what it would look like from a bird's eye view in orbit or what it would be the equivalent of in whatever-tonnes of force, so you or someone else will have to educate me.

I'm not making them out to be anything, the show's visual effects are, twice. They're depicting a weapon with a fairly low energy content that somehow still kills enemy ships, likely explanations include shield penetration + some sort of technobabble.

This is the aftermath of an Ori beam weapon that was used on a villiage in "Line in the Sand".

http://www.stargatecaps.com/sg1/s10/1012/index6.shtml

Not exactly knocking my socks off here. Notice how the grass on the hillsides facing where the explosion would have occured is still intact.

Well like I've said above in this post perhaps the shot wasn't fired at full power and do you really think an Asgard beam shot would damage that much of the ground?

"It'll blow huge chunks out of the hive's armour that no other weapon could scratch" you keep repeating this. Tell me why it didn't blow a huge chunk out of that normal ground Vala's standing on.

I honestly didn't realise I was repeating myself.
As for the ground thing perhaps it wasn't at full power, "weapons to full" and other stuff like that or even when referring to shields is said on this and other Sci-Fi shows all of the time.

The difference there being that we actually saw the asuran ships using energy canons in the show. We never saw an Ori ship carting around a beachead type shield.

Regular shields from every other race on the show have never to my recollection been said to fluctuate when under stress, the Ori's do and that was I believe said in both Camelot and Unending, possibly other episode but I can't think of any others right now, and would go hand in hand IMO with say damage taken and replenishment from energy gained, since the Ori invented the shields in Beachhead or they at least used the Ascended knowledge they possessed I don't see it as wildly unbelievable that they'd have them.
Why does no other shield, on any other races ships do the fluctuating thing when under attack if the Ori's shields are just the regular kind?
If they're not using the enemy weapons to replenish then some other thing must be going on there, like maybe those ship's are using their own power generators to replenish damaged areas of the field during battle.

You can't really just give them a much more powerful shield type than normal and then focus on making explanations for why it's not entirely impossible that they could have it. You need to show that they actually have it, not list the reasons why it's not impossible that they potentially could. "They could" isn't the same thing as "they do". The hive "could" have silos full of exploding ZPM missiles with FTL drives for example. Nothing about that idea is strickly impossible. Todd got several zpms from the Asurans, the Wraith have small enough ftl drives in their scoutships to make hive launchable missiles out of them, and their grasp of AI and drone technology is more than adequate to construct a very competent guidance system. If I want to actually say the hive has these weapons that could destroy entire solar systems from lightyears away though then I think I should probably be held to a higher standard of actually proving it than "well it's not impossible it could have them, I can't prove it actually does but it's not impossible it could" with the implied end to that statment being "...and so it does, can you prove it couldn't?". Proving things doesn't work that way.

Also please don't respond to this point with reasoning why the hive couldn't have FTL system nuking missiles. It's an example to illustrate a point about what you can do when you're not required to actually prove things, not something I'm seriously going to try arguing for.

I thought the whole fluctuating thing, you know contracting and expanding under stress could mean the Ori's shields are getting replenished and the shields introduced in Beachhead just seemed like a logical cause of that when linked with damage taken from enemy weapons fire.
Does that not make sense?
I never actually

There's no real indication the superhive was signifcantly longer/wider than a regular one. It's bulkier yes, but the 11km quote from the VFX people was for a regular one and that pic is roughly in line with that size which is why I posted it.

Fair enough.

I checked for this before I posted the pic. I capped that myself from the video source. Atlantis was slightly lower than the hive but not significantly so in the shot just before that one. That will make the city look slightly smaller than it really is but not to the extent as to make the top down comparison completely useless for getting a general idea of the comparative size between it and the hive.

I don't think the city's central tower was at the same height as even the bottom of the Hive, just seemed like it would appear quite a bit larger if they were on the same level.

Unfortunately there's other things to consider in the scene where the mountain blows up. Super materials would be possible but seem to be ruled out by the fact that when the mountain does explode there's not even enough energy released by the Ori weapon to injure or even knock over the people on the ground nearby. Teal'c and Bratac watch it happen just before going through the gate as I recall, and obviously aren't killed by the force of the explosions.

I watched a shortened vid on youtube and it's Bra'Tak an Landry, they watch the side of the mountain get smashed, then they step through the gate, when the last explosion on screen happens it looks a lot larger, so some parts of the mountain could have been a lot denser than others, perhaps indicating portions of the Ancient structure being covered by some rocks and dirt to disguise the structure underneath.

That places a pretty hard cap on how much raw energy could possibly be in that beam.

There's also the possibility that the weapon wasn't being fired at full.
Adria knew it wasn't covering a huge area so may not have gone too crazy with what that weapon could do.
When I've said other comments here about weapon power being used at different rates I know it's speculation on my part, but I see it as a logical explanation (even if the show isn't always logical or consistent), like I've said above in Stargate they say things like weapons to full power and stuff like that, so I'd assume they can also be at half power or less, like the engines can be used at varying rates.

I don't think an Ori ship is nearly as powerful as Atlantis myself and even if it were it would still lose as EatG showed. What you seem to actually be arguing for is an Ori ship that's actually significantly more powerful than the city.

If say Atlantis was sitting on a planet with three fully functional ZPMs then no I don't think the Ori cruiser's shields would be anywhere near as powerful, Atlantis could most likely fire an Antarctica sized volley and do some serious damage to that Hive IMO, probably destroying it, but if Atlantis was in space using most of it's power for critical systems, engines, weapons and shields were thought of as a secondary system in the city's eyes (with it providing enough to keep an atmosphere in and maybe a bit more for extra protection from radiation) then I think it's highly possible that the Ori ship would come across to viewers as being more powerful, plus it probably wouldn't have it's shields being drained by the atmosphere of a planet.

I still think with it's rapid firing rate the Ori Cruiser could shoot enough fire power to put holes in the Hive, that's just my opinion.

On the same hand I think it's not fair to measure those weapons on obviously totally screwed visuals and flawed plot.
It was really stupid on all possible points. Not only that, but from space, the flashes looked like multi-megaton strikes.

I assume you mean 'Line In The Sand' and one of these picks:
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=668
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=669

[Myrddin7]

alright, the Super-Hive i think seems a bit insanely powerful even if its powered by a ZPM(Atlantis's sheilds dropped down by 30% in the first shots fired between them)

I can accept that the Ori Battlecruiser(or as i call it Origin class) would be insanely powerful, and that a Daedalus with the latest of Asgard tech is available...but thats not the point of this thread...

the point of this thread is more like what the topic says.

personally, i think the Origin should be more powerful, but then the Super-Hive defeated two (Non-ZPM) 304s and technically was set to defeat Atlantis.

then again, just how much worse is a 304 without a ZPM compared to one that does have a ZPM?

The problem with the comparison with Atlantis's shield is it shouldn't weaken under external forces, the power feeding the shield drains instead and the shield would still hold at 100% until it just collapses when there is not enough power to keep it raised, it's all or nothing with Atlantis's shield, but the concept of Atlantis's shield has altered. It behaves like a ships shield which weakens and leaks through some energy while under assault. Thus unfortunately it's an unreliable basis for comparison.

The main weapon on the Ori mother ship is extremely powerful and I think it could make a real mess of the Wraith super hive. The Ori shields should be able to take quite a few hits before they collapse in which time the Ori ship could fire a few good shots critically damaging the super hive. The power source the Ori ships use is unknown but it might be as powerful as a ZPM or three. It could also just be a matter of which one fires first, either way it would be one hell of a fight.

[Myrddin7]

To be blunt I believe the concept of the Super hive is poor. what kind of ship can withstand a swarm of Ancient drones and still keep comming? there's a reason shields were invented as armour can only stand so much befor it fails. Shields are the next step in protection and the most powerful and advanced race in the known universe thought so too. You have to admit it's a pretty big leap in technology for the Wraith, one they really shouldn't able to make in fairness. Ofcourse the story needed something to rival Atlantis and it's new weaker shield. A good episode if a little contrived if you ask me. I say Ori ship wins providing it gets in there first in a critical place.

[Ouroboros]

On the same hand I think it's not fair to measure those weapons on obviously totally screwed visuals and flawed plot.
It was really stupid on all possible points. Not only that, but from space, the flashes looked like multi-megaton strikes.

It meshes real good with the Dakara example though. It's actually pretty consistant and supported in multiple ways.

-Negligible damage to ground in Line in the Sand
-Negligible damage to Dakara Temple/Mountain
-Energy released from Dakara explosion to low to even knock people over on the ground next to it.

The last one is especially interesting. Even if you assume shields or super materials, then you'd still be looking at a massive energy dump to the surrounding area when it did finally blow. Then there's the whole weird way it actually gets destroyed, with some of the hits doing nothing then the mountain just popping all of a sudden when one of the beams is almost done hitting it.

It just screams technobabble. There's no way it's DET. I'd just write off the shot from orbit as some type of upper atmospheric effect or just discard it as inconsistant with the majority of the evidence.

One possible explanation I had myself for how the beam works is that it's more of a disintigration type weapon. In this sense it would be somehow related to drone weapons in that it gets rid of matter in its path more via technobabble instead of just burning/melting etc. I get this from the fact that despite the seemingly low yeild in the line of the sand pick there there's not a trace of the villiage left. Not a plank of wood, foundation of a house, random metal objects, nothing. The grass is still intact outside the effected area but everything inside it has just been erased. No debris is scattered outside of the area either. It's like the beam just made the villiage go away.

If it's the same sort of technobabble that makes drones work to thent hat also goes toward explaining why it blos through shields as easily as it does.

It doesn't work so good at explaining how Dakara was destroyed though, unless you assume that the last shot got penetration and the blasts were actually from internal systems exploding.

[Ouroboros]

The Asgard's weapons are clearly about finer focused force being shot at a smaller region of a target, where as the Ori's appear to be a larger blast across a larger region of it's target.

No they're not clearly about anything. You keep making this statements about things as if they were well know facts, they're not. It's possible that the Asgard beam gets some of it's penetration punch from being narrowly focused but it's hardly clearly proven.

While I think the two weapons would most definitely defeat a Ha'Tak's shields with a single blast I doubt the APBWs could destroy that vessel with that blast unless it hit a critical system (which it probably would), I know I don't have any solid evidence like seeing the beams actually be fired on that ship but do you think we'd see the same thing happen with the APBW shot as we do with the Ha'Taks when they got destroyed by Ori Cruisers?

Given that the Asgard super beams can blow apart Auroras and hives in a handful of shots it seems very likely that it would indeed one shot a Ha'tak.

I'd think with 'Line In The Sand' that ship probably wouldn't use the full force of it's weapons as wasn't it only a small village in that episode?
If it was there was no need to go overkill, although when it hits the ground it looks too me to be covering a pretty wide area, despite what's shown of the actual damage after.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=668
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/dis...um=214&pos=669
The first one may be the image to go off of.
I don't know anything about a nuke's blast radius or what it would look like from a bird's eye view in orbit or what it would be the equivalent of in whatever-tonnes of force, so you or someone else will have to educate me.

The visuals from orbit don't match with the visuals on the ground. With Dakara though we have the added bit of evidence that Teal'c and Bratac were very near the temple but survived the bombardment. This would have been entirely impossible going by the yeild shown in the oribtal shots. Logically then the orbital shots are to be either explaned away as some sort of technobabble side effect in the atmosphere or just discared entirely as inconsistant. Noramlly I wouldn't like to do this but the fact Teal'c and Bratac lived through watching the mountain blow up pretty much sticks a fork in any possability that the bombardment was really causing nuclear fireballs many miles wide at ground level.

Well like I've said above in this post perhaps the shot wasn't fired at full power and do you really think an Asgard beam shot would damage that much of the ground?

Having never seen one hit the ground I can't really say one way or the other.

Regular shields from every other race on the show have never to my recollection been said to fluctuate when under stress, the Ori's do and that was I believe said in both Camelot and Unending, possibly other episode but I can't think of any others right now, and would go hand in hand IMO with say damage taken and replenishment from energy gained, since the Ori invented the shields in Beachhead or they at least used the Ascended knowledge they possessed I don't see it as wildly unbelievable that they'd have them.
Why does no other shield, on any other races ships do the fluctuating thing when under attack if the Ori's shields are just the regular kind?
If they're not using the enemy weapons to replenish then some other thing must be going on there, like maybe those ship's are using their own power generators to replenish damaged areas of the field during battle.

I thought the whole fluctuating thing, you know contracting and expanding under stress could mean the Ori's shields are getting replenished and the shields introduced in Beachhead just seemed like a logical cause of that when linked with damage taken from enemy weapons fire.
Does that not make sense?
I never actually

You really need to drop this whole beachead shield thing for the reasons Buba uognarf and myself have already gone over with you.

You're still starting by just declaring that they have the beachead shield then trying to justify that baseless assertion without evidence but just more speculation. Proving things doesn't work that way. The fact that the shield was detected to fluctuate when they fire doesn't prove its a beachead shield for example, it just proves it fluctuates when they fire.

I don't think the city's central tower was at the same height as even the bottom of the Hive, just seemed like it would appear quite a bit larger if they were on the same level.

I'd post more pics of the scene right before this to show that it really wasn't that much higher but it's impossible to get the both in the same frame. The shot pans over though to the hive and you can see it's really not that much above the city at all. Maybe it's own width horizontally.

I watched a shortened vid on youtube and it's Bra'Tak an Landry, they watch the side of the mountain get smashed, then they step through the gate, when the last explosion on screen happens it looks a lot larger, so some parts of the mountain could have been a lot denser than others, perhaps indicating portions of the Ancient structure being covered by some rocks and dirt to disguise the structure underneath.

Ok so Landry instead of Teal'c then. It's the same problem though. The fact the beam caused an explosion sufficient to damage the mountain, thus releasing energy into the area, and they weren't killed caps how much energy is released in the beam. Even in the later explosion you don't see any kind of nuclear like effects. It just blows the mountain up.

There's also the possibility that the weapon wasn't being fired at full.
Adria knew it wasn't covering a huge area so may not have gone too crazy with what that weapon could do.
When I've said other comments here about weapon power being used at different rates I know it's speculation on my part, but I see it as a logical explanation (even if the show isn't always logical or consistent), like I've said above in Stargate they say things like weapons to full power and stuff like that, so I'd assume they can also be at half power or less, like the engines can be used at varying rates.

See my reploy to Mr. Oragahn.

If say Atlantis was sitting on a planet with three fully functional ZPMs then no I don't think the Ori cruiser's shields would be anywhere near as powerful, Atlantis could most likely fire an Antarctica sized volley and do some serious damage to that Hive IMO, probably destroying it, but if Atlantis was in space using most of it's power for critical systems, engines, weapons and shields were thought of as a secondary system in the city's eyes (with it providing enough to keep an atmosphere in and maybe a bit more for extra protection from radiation) then I think it's highly possible that the Ori ship would come across to viewers as being more powerful, plus it probably wouldn't have it's shields being drained by the atmosphere of a planet.

I still think with it's rapid firing rate the Ori Cruiser could shoot enough fire power to put holes in the Hive, that's just my opinion.

The Ori ships for the most part looked as bad ass as they did because they were always beating up on ships that were both a fraction of their size and technologically infearior.

[Mister Oragahn]

It meshes real good with the Dakara example though. It's actually pretty consistant and supported in multiple ways.

-Negligible damage to ground in Line in the Sand
-Negligible damage to Dakara Temple/Mountain
-Energy released from Dakara explosion to low to even knock people over on the ground next to it.

Although I'm also convinced that those beams are low energy, and do most of their work via plot magic, there's no possible denial that in two cases, one involving Dakara and the other whatever episode, blasts from space looked huge, but were not.

That said, I'm fairly sure it would take many hundreds of gigajoules to blast a rocky formation that way.
Heat, however, appears to be absolutely minimal at Dakara (which is a sharp contract with the "burn the lawn" one that hit that phased village (gawd the nonsense).

The last one is especially interesting. Even if you assume shields or super materials, then you'd still be looking at a massive energy dump to the surrounding area when it did finally blow. Then there's the whole weird way it actually gets destroyed, with some of the hits doing nothing then the mountain just popping all of a sudden when one of the beams is almost done hitting it.

One thing we can notice is that before bolts land on the temple, there is ample evidence that several beams hit around the temple. We see smoke raising from around the temple.

It just screams technobabble. There's no way it's DET. I'd just write off the shot from orbit as some type of upper atmospheric effect or just discard it as inconsistant with the majority of the evidence.

Yet, in Unending, the beam provided enough energy for the time reversal when both the ZPM and Asgard core were dead.
Go figure.

One possible explanation I had myself for how the beam works is that it's more of a disintigration type weapon. In this sense it would be somehow related to drone weapons in that it gets rid of matter in its path more via technobabble instead of just burning/melting etc. I get this from the fact that despite the seemingly low yeild in the line of the sand pick there there's not a trace of the villiage left. Not a plank of wood, foundation of a house, random metal objects, nothing. The grass is still intact outside the effected area but everything inside it has just been erased. No debris is scattered outside of the area either. It's like the beam just made the villiage go away.

Don't get me wrong, I have bad memories about this episode, but wasn't it the phase device which made the whole village go away?

If it's the same sort of technobabble that makes drones work to thent hat also goes toward explaining why it blos through shields as easily as it does.

It doesn't work so good at explaining how Dakara was destroyed though, unless you assume that the last shot got penetration and the blasts were actually from internal systems exploding.

The temple was obviously shielded. All bolts have always dealt damage the moment they touch their target. The only system that stalled such effect has been a shield.

What annoys me like hell is the amount of technobabble weapons. For one, I'd like to see old fashioned lasers, kinetic penetrators and other explosives.

[Mister Oragahn]

To be blunt I believe the concept of the Super hive is poor. what kind of ship can withstand a swarm of Ancient drones and still keep comming? there's a reason shields were invented as armour can only stand so much befor it fails. Shields are the next step in protection and the most powerful and advanced race in the known universe thought so too. You have to admit it's a pretty big leap in technology for the Wraith, one they really shouldn't able to make in fairness. Ofcourse the story needed something to rival Atlantis and it's new weaker shield. A good episode if a little contrived if you ask me. I say Ori ship wins providing it gets in there first in a critical place.

The concept is indeed very poor, but that's about the mediocre writing.
There's no fundamental reason why a ZPM would suddenly make a hull impenetrable, especially since in Seed, they have shown how even with a ZPM, structure didn't grow that fast, and there's a credible limit on how fast a structure can grow matter out of nowhere and resolidify everything.
Unless you start to argue about the existence of fields making the hull tougher, energy draining and possibly a material so stupidly dense that it would take enormous amounts of energy to move that ship around. Of course, it has a ZPM, but the engines don't become so powerful and tough out of the blue, so all systems would need to be made out of unobtainium as well, etc.
But anyway, fighting above Earth? ... again? ... pff.

[Guest750]

Easy, it had more ZPMs. As for the Ori beams, the ship parts were hand made by dark age people they're going to very from ship to ship.

[Ouroboros]

Although I'm also convinced that those beams are low energy, and do most of their work via plot magic, there's no possible denial that in two cases, one involving Dakara and the other whatever episode, blasts from space looked huge, but were not.

That said, I'm fairly sure it would take many hundreds of gigajoules to blast a rocky formation that way.
Heat, however, appears to be absolutely minimal at Dakara (which is a sharp contract with the "burn the lawn" one that hit that phased village (gawd the nonsense).

The Bratac thing is what seals it for me. If it was just a straight contraiction between visuals that would still be pretty bad but with him and Landry standing there and not dieing the low energy technobabble take is really the only way to go.

One thing we can notice is that before bolts land on the temple, there is ample evidence that several beams hit around the temple. We see smoke raising from around the temple.

Yeah, the orbital shots show some shots hitting already before they cut to the planet. The same shots that make the enormous, more logically consistant, but canonically impossible fireballs.

Yet, in Unending, the beam provided enough energy for the time reversal when both the ZPM and Asgard core were dead.
Go figure.

Well the beam runs on technobabble and they needed more technobabble so...

Don't get me wrong, I have bad memories about this episode, but wasn't it the phase device which made the whole village go away?

I didn't remember it very well either but now that you mention it I think so yes. Didn't they expand the field or something from that one building to save them all in typical technobabble happy ending fashion.

Guess we can forget about the debris then, other than th fact the Ori were too stupid to be curious about the suspicious lack of any. Still not as bad as seige III though.

What annoys me like hell is the amount of technobabble weapons. For one, I'd like to see old fashioned lasers, kinetic penetrators and other explosives.

Indeed, I'm really tired of constantly having to invoke these elaborate excuses for people who obviously don't have the first clue what the firepower these ships are apparently carting around should actually look like when it hits things like this. You've got to choose then. You make the technobabble explanations or you accept that in a universe where people can built tiny 1 gigaton nukes they all still fight with WW1 howitzers. Then you have the whole just sheer bad design evident in the weapons and ships. They're moaning about being outmatched for so long against powers like the Ori and Wraith hives pre beamz when they already have all the tech they need to create far more effective weapons systems than basically anybody in the series.

That's not how stargate works though. Better weapons aren't better because they're better designed to take into account real world factors of potential advantage like oh for instance range, they're better because they're "more advanced".

It works the same way for ships to, and even entire civilizations.