Ancient power problem

[lordofseas]

Logic is not allowed here. Good point though, poisoning a star a something a intragalactic spacefaring race should be able to pull off.

Hell, blow it up! That's well within their capabilities, even if they don't know how to put a random element into the star.

[thekillman]

build a naquahdah asteroid like the one anubis sent, then toss it into the sun.


if THAT does not blow it up... in fact, the asteroid would have the energy of a ZPM *roughly*

[Mister Oragahn]

I don't think Anubis built the asteroid. Most obviously, he picked one, and considering the amount of naqahdah and the size of the asteroid, he was rather lucky. Besides, he may have added more naqahdah to the core. I often see people saying such a thing, and I never verified this possibility.

[thekillman]

if those kind of asteroids just "happen to float around," i'd like to visit the place they come from

[tinerin]

well throughout the series i got the impression that naquadah is some very common element that occurs naturally outside of our solar system...so why would it be impossible for an asteroid to have it? if it was so obviously an artificial thing, the Asgard would have intervened...

[thekillman]

does not have to be obviously artificial.

also, that thing was largely naquahdah and only a bit nickel/iron.

seriously, if that stuff can be found naturally.

[Atlantean 7921]

Wow, you guys got way off topic! I shouldn't have stopped using gateworld and left you alone for so long. So getting back on topic, am I now the only one who thinks that my initial idea was better than TPTB's way? Yes, Mr. Smartypants with your 10^19 a single percent could power the cities minor systems just fine but what if you haven't gotten around to making any zpms for a while and your down to 50% of one when the wraith attack. Wouldn't it be nice to use half of your 10^19 toward shields and weapons? I can see how Atlantis being a city first and foremost it wasn't designed to use its power supply this way but after the war with the wraith got serious I would start to think about changing a few things. The Ancients being so wise could have/ should have anticipated the great siege and made Atlantis more efficient. (Assuming that the Ancients thought that this was just another battle and not a siege, they would not have evacuated right away. This means that they could have waited several months or longer before abandoning the city.) I would've liked to be able to use the systems all around the city in this case but all the rest of power is going towards holding the water back with the shields. Now with my plan the zpm's mighty 1% could be powering the city on any given day and then in times of crisis everything would be switched over to self-power mode, conserving power for critical systems.

[Quadhelix]

Yes Mr. Smartypants with your 10^19 a single percent could power the cities minor systems just fine

I don't think that you understand. The point isn't that you need less than 1% of a ZPM's power to run the minor systems.

Instead, the point is that even if only 1% of the ZPM's power output reached the city's systems (whatever system), that is still more efficient, in a way, than running the city off of any other sort of power supply, even if 100% of the output of that other power supply reaches each system.

Yes Mr. Smartypants with your 10^19 a single percent could power the cities minor systems just fine but what if you haven't gotten around to making any zpms for a while and your down to 50% of one when the wraith attack. wouldn't it be nice to use half of your 10^19 toward shields and weapons.

The problem with this objection is that the amount of energy drawn by the minor systems is literally inconsequential: compared to the ZPM's total output, it literally does not matter at all whether those systems are running or not. There very fact that those systems could be run off of a handful of Naquadah Generators proves this point.

Or, there is a noticeable difference in drain when the ZPM is running, they could just shut down the non-critical minor systems.

I would've liked to be able to use the systems all around the city in this case but all the rest of power is going towards holding the water back with the shields.

Okay, but what other power supply would they use?

Now with my plan the zpm's mighty 1% could be powering the city on any given day and then in times of crisis everything would be switched over to self-power mode, concerving power for critical systems.

By the way, when I set the low-end output of a ZPM at 10^19 J, that meant (because of how I derived it) that, in fact, 10^19 J made it to the shield during Atlantis's ten millennium submersion.

Therefore, that 10^19 J is predicated on the assumption that 100% of the ZPM's output that is directed toward the shields actually makes to the shields. If this is not the case, then the ZPM has even more energy than 10^19 J, as there is the 10^19 J that made it to the shields, plus whatever else was lost as waste.

[Mister Oragahn]

Quad, could it be possible to have a link to your post where you made that calc with the 10^19 J result, please?

[Quadhelix]

Quad, could it be possible to have a link to your post where you made that calc with the 10^19 J result, please?

Sure, it's about halfway down this post.