Superhive vs Ori Battlecruiser

[NoobTau'ri]

[QUOTE]

There's no way a single Ori ship is going to have any kind of a chance against that hive though. The over the top asgard beams did nothing to it and they're more powerful than the Ori beam.

Your rationale here is very flawed. Here is your rationale:

Asgard beam > Ori Motherships

Superhive > Asgard beam

Ergo, Superhive > Ori Mothership

The reason why the rationale is failed is because Asgard beams are designed especifically to cut through shields. The Ori shields can actually be much, much harder to overcome with the raw power weapons of the superhive than with the Asgard plasma beam. I think the superhive would win, simply because it's far more likely that the immense raw power of the superhive's weapons would eventually overcome the shield of the Ori Mothership than the shield-penetrating main cannon of the Ori Motherships, which packs very little raw power, would be able to cause any significant damage to the superhive, but trying to argue for the superhive's superiority by using the Asgard as proxy is just wrong.

[Ouroboros]

The reason why the rationale is failed is because Asgard beams are designed especifically to cut through shields.

This is really just a fanon myth. It's never actually stated on the show that I can remember.

The Ori shields can actually be much, much harder to overcome with the raw power weapons of the superhive than with the Asgard plasma beam. I think the superhive would win, simply because it's far more likely that the immense raw power of the superhive's weapons would eventually overcome the shield of the Ori Mothership than the shield-penetrating main cannon of the Ori Motherships, which packs very little raw power, would be able to cause any significant damage to the superhive, but trying to argue for the superhive's superiority by using the Asgard as proxy is just wrong.

I mainly do it this way now because it's a lot easier for people to understand a direct comparison like that and the tech consistancy on this show is so terrible that X>Y and Y>Q so therefore X>Q is more or less just as reliable.

I do agree that ordinarily though it is a very flawed way to go about things and I wouldn't normally do it if it was at all possible to actually get something like reliable consistant weapon yeilds/performance out of stargate.

This is the show that gives us gigaton level nukes alongside energy blobs that hit the ground and blow up like hand grenades though, with both being used against the same targets in space.

I gave up a while ago trying to make actual consistant sense of their off the wall bull****. I tend to just go by what beats what more now because trying to nail down individual performance for individual ships and then compare things that way (which would be the right way to do it) will have you ripping your hair out from contradictions in no time. I know, I've been there.

[NoobTau'ri]

This is really just a fanon myth. It's never actually stated on the show that I can remember.

How is it a myth? The Asgard threw their most powerful weapons available at the time and couldn't overcome the Ori's shields. They went back to the drawing board and created a weapon to overcome Ori shields. Since the power source for the weapons didn't change, then ergo the difference could only possibly be superior shield penetration effect and not raw power. This is simple deductive logic my friend. Facts:

The plasma beam works on different principles than the traditional Asgard pulse weapons; ergo, they must have different purposes.

- The plasma beam is focused, suggesting it is meant to overcome a specific barrier at all costs, unlike the traditional energy pulse weapon which is a large blob, suggesting it is meant to spread damage to the largest surface area possible.

The reason why you can't understand this is because you're an SGA fan and not an SG-1 fan. If you actually watched SG-1( a superior show to SGA, BTW), you'd get it. It's not lack of intelligence because you're clearly an intelligent guy and you know that I appreciate your posts.

I mainly do it this way now because it's a lot easier for people to understand a direct comparison like that and the tech consistancy on this show is so terrible that X>Y and Y>Q so therefore X>Q is more or less just as reliable.

I do agree that ordinarily though it is a very flawed way to go about things and I wouldn't normally do it if it was at all possible to actually get something like reliable consistant weapon yeilds/performance out of stargate.

This is the show that gives us gigaton level nukes alongside energy blobs that hit the ground and blow up like hand grenades though, with both being used against the same targets in space.

I gave up a while ago trying to make actual consistant sense of their off the wall bull****. I tend to just go by what beats what more now because trying to nail down individual performance for individual ships and then compare things that way (which would be the right way to do it) will have you ripping your hair out from contradictions in no time. I know, I've been there.

If you are arguing for the superiority of the superhive over an Ori Mothership, then count me in. I personally think that Ori Motership's shield would be better against the superhive simply because Ori shields are clearly superior to Alterran ones and the Ori ship is much smaller meaning that far more power can feed any particular point on the shield. Notwithstanding, the uber hive will win because it can probably overcome the Ori's shield with sheer raw power, something that even Asgard weapons couldn't, and also because the Ori main cannon would not even tickle the superhive. Hell, it would probably defeat even a top Asgard warship, and we know that top Asgard warships are superior to standard 304s, and that standard 304s are superior to Ori Motherships. So the power pecking order of Stargate ships would be this:

Superhive > top Asgard warships(without ZPM)/304 with ZPM > 304 without ZPM > Ori Motherships/Auroras > Anubis' super-ha'taks/inferior Asgard warships/hives/Auroras(I am undecided regarding Auroras, which might be as powerful as Ori Motherships or "only" as powerful as Anubis' upgraded ha'taks > regular ha'taks

[Mister Oragahn]

The idea that the Asgard beam is a revolutionary shield penetrating weapon just because it's a pseudo tight beam is poor.
It obviously take more than squeeze the width of your particle stream, be it a pulse or a long segment.
Goa'uld have been seen capable of beams as well. Zats. Tagging systems. Possibly orbital defenses (dream but based on knowledge), red beam finger weapon...
And damn, firing a "line" of particles is just that easy, as long as you limit sideway collisions and push all particles on parallel tracks forward.

[Character]

How is it a myth? The Asgard threw their most powerful weapons available at the time and couldn't overcome the Ori's shields. They went back to the drawing board and created a weapon to overcome Ori shields. Since the power source for the weapons didn't change, then ergo the difference could only possibly be superior shield penetration effect and not raw power. This is simple deductive logic my friend. Facts:...

It is a myth because its never stated or even hinted on the actual show. Power source doesnt mean as much as you think for weapons, the ancient satelite sliced a hive using our patheticly weak naquadah generator. The beams could have easily been simply stronger, or taking advantage of the particular type of ori shields, without actualy beeing meant to skip/pierce it, just deplete it much faster. Lastly for a weapon designed to pierce shields, the asgard beams kill monstrosities that are hive ships rather easily, in just some 3 hits. Oh, and the "facts" part i left out because thats actualy just your speculation.

[Ouroboros]

How is it a myth? The Asgard threw their most powerful weapons available at the time and couldn't overcome the Ori's shields. They went back to the drawing board and created a weapon to overcome Ori shields. Since the power source for the weapons didn't change, then ergo the difference could only possibly be superior shield penetration effect and not raw power. This is simple deductive logic my friend. Facts:

The plasma beam works on different principles than the traditional Asgard pulse weapons; ergo, they must have different purposes.

- The plasma beam is focused, suggesting it is meant to overcome a specific barrier at all costs, unlike the traditional energy pulse weapon which is a large blob, suggesting it is meant to spread damage to the largest surface area possible.

Character beat me to it but yeah it's fanon because it's not actually stated in the show yet a lot of people seem to believe and repeat it anyway. Nobody in the show however ever says anything about the Asgard beam being mainly good against shields and weak vs armour though, and like Character also beat me to, it also kills hiveships, hiveships that don't even have shields and use heavy armour instead. Additionaly unlike the Ori beam we don't have any shots of it hitting things like dirt and mountains and doing next to nothing to use as evidence to conclude it's most likely a shield penetrating weapon than a raw power one. All it ever hits is ships.

Also the idea of the beam being more focussed, if it is the case, would serve just as well to make it a better armour penetrator, not just a better shield penetrator.

The reason why you can't understand this is because you're an SGA fan and not an SG-1 fan. If you actually watched SG-1( a superior show to SGA, BTW), you'd get it. It's not lack of intelligence because you're clearly an intelligent guy and you know that I appreciate your posts.

I've actually seen all of SG-1, I just don't post in the SG-1 board here much because the later seasons just didn't really grab my interest enough for me to do so on any kind of regular basis.

I do agree that it's a better show to. SG-1 was about half good, a quarter so so in the middle then a quarter crap at the end. Atlantis had one so so season, the first one, then became largely late sg-1 style, sometimes becoming even much worse (I'm looking at you Lucius).

[NoobTau'ri]

It is a myth because its never stated or even hinted on the actual show. Power source doesnt mean as much as you think for weapons, the ancient satelite sliced a hive using our patheticly weak naquadah generator. The beams could have easily been simply stronger, or taking advantage of the particular type of ori shields, without actualy beeing meant to skip/pierce it, just deplete it much faster. Lastly for a weapon designed to pierce shields, the asgard beams kill monstrosities that are hive ships rather easily, in just some 3 hits. Oh, and the "facts" part i left out because thats actualy just your speculation.

Again, if it is merely a matter of raw power, then why are the weapons different in the principles they work with and why is one beam focused? if the beam managed to overcome Ori shields simply due to increased power, then the Asgard would have used a superior power source and the same weapon. The weapon would have been the same. it is the fact that the weapon is different that makes me think that it works under a different principle than regular Asgard weapons and is not merely a better weapon in terms of raw power.

[NoobTau'ri]

Character beat me to it but yeah it's fanon because it's not actually stated in the show yet a lot of people seem to believe and repeat it anyway. Nobody in the show however ever says anything about the Asgard beam being mainly good against shields and weak vs armour though, and like Character also beat me to, it also kills hiveships, hiveships that don't even have shields and use heavy armour instead. Additionaly unlike the Ori beam we don't have any shots of it hitting things like dirt and mountains and doing next to nothing to use as evidence to conclude it's most likely a shield penetrating weapon than a raw power one. All it ever hits is ships.

See above.

Also the idea of the beam being more focussed, if it is the case, would serve just as well to make it a better armour penetrator, not just a better shield penetrator.

No, this is what you don't understand. The theory behind a shield-penetrating weapon is that the structure of a shielded ship is very frail and the only hard thing to overcome is the shield. After you have overcome the shield, any decently powered weapon will gravely cripple and destroy the ship. The reason why a shield-penetrating weapon with low raw power wouldn't destroy a ship that is protected with heavy armor is because the structure of the ship itself is very though, meaning that the amount of damage the shield-penetrating weapon would cause to it would be extremely low and wouldn't endanger it.

I've actually seen all of SG-1, I just don't post in the SG-1 board here much because the later seasons just didn't really grab my interest enough for me to do so on any kind of regular basis.

I do agree that it's a better show to. SG-1 was about half good, a quarter so so in the middle then a quarter crap at the end. Atlantis had one so so season, the first one, then became largely late sg-1 style, sometimes becoming even much worse (I'm looking at you Lucius).

Seasons IX and X sucked, but I would still rate it slightly above most SGA seasons. Seasons VI-VIII were very inferior to the first five - the exception being the Replicarter arch, which I thought was incredible -, but were so still so far superior to any season of SGA that there is truly no comparison. Where I disagree with you is when you said the first seaons were half good. I'm sorry, but the first five seasons were incredible. That was the "golden age" of Stargate. Each episode was like a small work of art. The show really took a dive when Peter DeLuise stepped down as the creative consultant.

[Ouroboros]

See above.

You're assuming though that existing asgard weapons were able to utilize 100% of an Asgard power core's output everytime they fired a shot, making the ships powersource the limitation on their maximum firepower, this is pretty unlikely.

You can get a more powerful weapon out of the same power source just by increasing the amount of power that weapon can channel and handle from the ship. Say for example a normal asgard pulse cannon could only fire shots of 1 megaton because the internal projecters/lenses/barrels/whatever they use would melt and or otherwise fail or be unable to handle a shot any more powerful, even though the power core of the ship still had a lot more it could theoretically give.

You can then get a better weapon just by making those parts of the weapon the lenses/barrels etc able to handle more energy before they melt/fail whatever. Hence a more modern weapon could fire more powerful shots than an older one, simply because the modern design improved on some of the limitations that the older one had that limited its maximum firepower.

It's always going to be limitations like this that will ultimately cap how powerful a weapon like a beam/laser etc can be. You can't just keep increasing the power and expect the actual mechanical parts of the weapon to hold up indefinately, they won't. I very much doubt that any ship in the series has weapons that could actually physically survive having the ships entire reactor output dumped into them all at once.

No, this is what you don't understand. The theory behind a shield-penetrating weapon is that the structure of a shielded ship is very frail and the only hard thing to overcome is the shield.

For a minute there you actually sounded like you think this stuff is real and that you're an expert on how it works.

You're right though, that would be the theory behind it if you were going to make one. The thing is though, like I pointed out if you intend to do this by making the beam more focussed so it places more strain on a smaller cross section of shield and hence penetrates it better, a pretty good approach, but one that's also a perfectly valid forumla for boosting it's effectivness vs armour as well.

After you have overcome the shield, any decently powered weapon will gravely cripple and destroy the ship. The reason why a shield-penetrating weapon with low raw power wouldn't destroy a ship that is protected with heavy armor is because the structure of the ship itself is very though, meaning that the amount of damage the shield-penetrating weapon would cause to it would be extremely low and wouldn't endanger it.

Yes in theory, the trouble is the Asgard beam doesn't fit that theory. The Ori one does, which is why I also think that ones'a shield penetrator primarily, but the Asgard one doesn't, because it kills hiveships just as fast as Ori and Ancient ones.

If this were the case with the Asgard beam, a fairly low energy shield penetrator, then you'd expect it to be virtually useless against even a normal hive because even a normal hive can withstand a contact detonated nuclear explosion and a considerable number of weapon hits from other hives.

The fact hives hulls can take that kind of punishment yet still get killed in the same 3 shots from the Asgard beam as the Ori and Ancient ships do rules out shield cancellation as the primary reason for their huge damage.

[Mister Oragahn]

Just a note about culling beams as PD against drones: drones are self-shielded, and therefore likely couldn't be culled.

[Character]

Why do you think so? For one, It was never stated that drones have shields, and i wouldnt look at that "official" mgm stuff, considering it shows a zmp powered by a black hole. Also the gould even with their personal shields were very much afraid of asgard "culling" beams, so i would say its likely the wraith ones would also work.

[NoobTau'ri]

You're assuming though that existing asgard weapons were able to utilize 100% of an Asgard power core's output everytime they fired a shot, making the ships powersource the limitation on their maximum firepower, this is pretty unlikely.

Why is it unlikely? Your theory that the reason why our ships are inferior to the superhive is because the Asgard technology in it is inferior and not the power source is easily refuted by pointing out that Asgard shields and drives become vastly more powerful when you pump more power into them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have put a ZPM on board when they had to hold the entire solar flare of Lantea's star in that episode I forgot the name. The Daedalus with a ZPM travels from MW to Pegasus in a couple weeks with a ZPM whilst it would take years without one. You can't say that wraith weapons and drinves are superior to our Asgard ones because, when they have rought the same amount of power to work with, the Asgard stuff is more powerful. A ZPM gives out a trillion times more power than a NIG and a quintillion times more than a Naquadah generator. No comparison. The superhive is just a hive with a ZPM. Why wouldn't an Asgard ship with a ZPM be as powerful or more than a Wraith one with a ZPM if the Asgard one without a ZPM is superior to the Wraith one without a ZPM? It can't be because Wraith ships use energy more efficiently, because the Asgard weapons and drives of a 304, powered by inferior Naquadah generators, pawn the ship out of regular hives, and the power sources of hives cannot be inferior to our Naquadah generators, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to lift an 11 kilometer ship possesed of extremely heavy armor weighting possibly billions of tons from the surface of a planet. So Asgard weapons and es seem to actually use the octane they have available to them more effectively

Yes in theory, the trouble is the Asgard beam doesn't fit that theory. The Ori one does, which is why I also think that ones'a shield penetrator primarily, but the Asgard one doesn't, because it kills hiveships just as fast as Ori and Ancient ones.

If this were the case with the Asgard beam, a fairly low energy shield penetrator, then you'd expect it to be virtually useless against even a normal hive because even a normal hive can withstand a contact detonated nuclear explosion and a considerable number of weapon hits from other hives.

The fact hives hulls can take that kind of punishment yet still get killed in the same 3 shots from the Asgard beam as the Ori and Ancient ships do rules out shield cancellation as the primary reason for their huge damage.

According to Sci-fi Wiki, the Asgard beam shoots:

"An extremely concentrated stream of plasma capable of overcoming most shields"

You require ginormous amounts of energy to turn something into plasma, granted, but there is no evidence that it packs lots of raw power. In my opinion, both the Asgard and Ori beams are shield-penetrating weapons, but they work in different ways. The Ori beam probably shoots some kind of exotic particle or something that is devastating to shields but almost inert against solid matter - in relative terms. The Asgard beam, conversely, shoots concentrated plasma that is also devastating to shields, but also is exceptional at cutting through matter as well even though the amount of damage in terms of surface area it causes is minimal. If this is so, then how it destroys hives? Because it cuts through the dense armor of hives and destroys critical systems in the hives that leads it to blow into pieces. It is the raw power from the hive itself that destroys it, not the Asgard beam. If it weren't for the critical systems, all the Asgard beam would do would be to burn a tiny clean hole through the hive. It wouldn't generate those huge explosions we see onscreen. In this case, the Asgard beam works with the same principle of the Ancients' point defense satellite, slicing the hive's armor until the beam cuts through the engines, makes it unstable and it explodes.

[Character]

The Daedalus with a ZPM travels from MW to Pegasus in a couple weeks with a ZPM whilst it would take years without one. A ZPM gives out a trillion times more power than a NIG and a quintillion times more than a Naquadah generator. No comparison.

Actualy, without a zpm, the deadalus takes only ~20 days (said on the show), how do you think its constantly going back and forth? Also i'm curious why you thing NIGs are so much inferior to zpms? Dont tell me you relly on the figure in "Nemesis"?

According to Sci-fi Wiki, the Asgard beam shoots:

"An extremely concentrated stream of plasma capable of overcoming most shields"

Thats the problem with the wikis, it can be writen/edited by anyone, often by people like you, who have a strong opinion about something, but little(if anything) in the way of evidence, like the "most" in your qoute being what, 2 shields? or the "stream of plasma" part when all we have is a name, which only implies that plasma is somehow involved.

[NoobTau'ri]

Actualy, without a zpm, the deadalus takes only ~20 days (said on the show), how do you think its constantly going back and forth?

Ok, if you can prove that I will admit that I'm wrong, but doesen't a ZPM dramatically boost hyperdrive speed? I thought one of the reasons why they put a ZPM on the Odyssey was, besides for increased shield strengh, to increase hyperdrive speed. Anyways, that a ZPM dramatically increases shield strengh is not debatable, as that's straight from canon.

Also i'm curious why you thing NIGs are so much inferior to zpms? Dont tell me you relly on the figure in "Nemesis"?

What's wrong with the quote from "Nemesis"? It's straight from Thor's mouth. I hardly think there's a greater authority on Asgard stuff than their Supreme Commander. What canon has established vis-a-vis NIGs and ZPMs in terms of power generation is that a NIG provided one billion kilowats of raw power, and a ZPM can vaporize either one or two Earths according to Samantha Carter. ZPM >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NIG

Thats the problem with the wikis, it can be writen/edited by anyone, often by people like you, who have a strong opinion about something, but little(if anything) in the way of evidence, like the "most" in your qoute being what, 2 shields? or the "stream of plasma" part when all we have is a name, which only implies that plasma is somehow involved.

We know for a fact it shoots some form of plasma. Here is a quote from McKay:

"The Apollo has been retrofitted with the new Asgard plasma beam weapon which, I know, is very, very powerful."

I fail to see your criticism here. I didn't precisely establish what it shoots, only that it is some form of plasma, and it is concentrated because otherwise it would be just a huge ball of plasma and not a line. As for how many shields, I think the author said "most" because Atlantis' shield is probably able to take it. That would be pretty much the only shield that could take it since Ori shields are the best we've seen and they could not.

[Ouroboros]

Just a note about culling beams as PD against drones: drones are self-shielded, and therefore likely couldn't be culled.

I'm not sure if they are or if they just use some sort of disintigration tech myself really, might even be semi related to the ancient teleporter rooms.

Why is it unlikely?

Because the lights don't turn off, the shields don't go down, and the engines don't sputter out everytime they fire a shot?

Your theory that the reason why our ships are inferior to the superhive is because the Asgard technology in it is inferior and not the power source is easily refuted by pointing out that Asgard shields and drives become vastly more powerful when you pump more power into them.

This is not my theory and isn't even really the topic of the thread here. As I recall we were talking about why the Asgard beam seemed able to do next to no damage to the superhive's armour. You suggested it was because it's a primarily anti shield weapon with a low energy content like the Ori beam, and I pointed out there's not really any proof that that is the case.

I also don't think the idea of Asgard tech being superior to Wraith tech with equivalent power sources is as much of a sure thing anymore. If anything the opposite seems more the case now.

Also note that a ZPM doesn't actually put out supernova levels of power constantly, that's just to the total stored energy that's released it you destroy it in a specific way, since it's basically a giant battery not a generator. The supernova stuff is indicitive of overall energy capacity in other words, not maximum sustained output, which is something different. Sustained output is still a bit of a question mark for ZPMs. It's not really clear how they compare to things like the big Ori or Asgard generators but I wouldn't really say anything like trillions of times better, that seems more than a bit excessive.

Then there's also the question of how much of the theoretical maximum sustained output of a ZPM the tech it's feeding can actually use. It's the same issue I talked about before with points of physical failure in the systems themselves. Just because you could theoretically draw say 1,000,000 gigatons per second from a ZPM for example, doesn't mean that your weapons systems could actually fire a 1,000,000 gigaton shot without instantly burning out or destroying themselves in the attempt.

"An extremely concentrated stream of plasma capable of overcoming most shields"

You require ginormous amounts of energy to turn something into plasma, granted, but there is no evidence that it packs lots of raw power. In my opinion, both the Asgard and Ori beams are shield-penetrating weapons, but they work in different ways. The Ori beam probably shoots some kind of exotic particle or something that is devastating to shields but almost inert against solid matter - in relative terms. The Asgard beam, conversely, shoots concentrated plasma that is also devastating to shields, but also is exceptional at cutting through matter as well even though the amount of damage in terms of surface area it causes is minimal. If this is so, then how it destroys hives? Because it cuts through the dense armor of hives and destroys critical systems in the hives that leads it to blow into pieces. It is the raw power from the hive itself that destroys it, not the Asgard beam. If it weren't for the critical systems, all the Asgard beam would do would be to burn a tiny clean hole through the hive. It wouldn't generate those huge explosions we see onscreen. In this case, the Asgard beam works with the same principle of the Ancients' point defense satellite, slicing the hive's armor until the beam cuts through the engines, makes it unstable and it explodes.

I find the explanation you give for the Asgard beam here fairly likely as well. It's not a special anti shield weapon just a highly penetrative one that works equally well on shields and armour for largely the same reasons. This leads back to my original conclusion. The superhive's armour is far more resistant to being penetrated by weapons like this because of its much greater density and quanity compared to the armour on a normal hive.

It's like the difference between shooting something armoured with wood and something armoured with DU, oh and there's like 5 times the thickness of DU as well. A weapon that will penetrate the wood easily, like an assault rifle, will be stopped cold by the DU repeatedly.

That's another interesting thing about armour, it's not like shields, there are no "hitpoints" or "down by X%s" to gradually wear down. Your weapon either goes through a given thickness/strength or it doesn't, and if it doesn't the first time, it's very unlikely to do so the second third or fourth time as well, barring the "Ima gunna hit the same exact spot over and over again until I do get through" nonsense some people trot out, which is basicaly completely impossible in any practical sense, especially on a moving target that shoots back at you.

If that's one's only hope going into a battle then one should probably preorder their tombstone before they depart.

There is some wiggle room with explosive type weapons that can do damage but not quite enough to get through in one shot, gradually compromising the strength of a facing but but not as much as most people tend to think. In situations where you're seeing basically no obvious damage though, like with the "maximum power" Asgard beam, it's essentially pointless to keep using that weapon against that armour.