Destiny must have self repair.

[Mike.]

I had a feeling you'd say something like this...

Are you guys messing with me? You seriously do not understand the implications of the second law of thermodynamics? It is the formal statement of the more vernacular "nothing lasts forever".

Destiny is not "forever" old. Just a few million years. Saying it is would be ridiculous. A few million years is not forever.

The reason you cannot build a perpetual motion machine.

Destiny is not a closed system, it gets power from stars.

The reason that eventually, the entire universe will be a frozen dead expanse, with no stars, no planets, no black holes, nothing.

So far there have been plenty of stars for Destiny to recharge. . I don't see how this is relevant at all.

The decay of the universe doesn't have anything to do with Destiny, on a galactic timescale Destiny is brand new, its short existence could be considered negligible

Given enough time, even protons decay. While quantity remains the same (First Law), the quality of both matter AND energy deteriorates gradually over time. People around here talk about how it has been in empty, but that does not matter; the simple passage of time degrades matter. No system can be 100% efficient. You cannot go against the fundamental laws of the universe.

Are you saying that Destiny is as old or much older than the Universe ?

So far the strong force has had no problems whatsoever keeping quarks and gluons together to form the neutrons and protons, and no problems holding the netrons and protons together to form the core of the atom. The attraction between negatively charged electrons and the positively charged nucleus is also not going anywhere currently => the atoms are still intact. The electrostatic bonds that form molecules are also still very much here.

Regarding the "100% efficient" figure - as I said before Destiny is not a closed system, it gets its energy from stars. The internal systems have also degraded a bit and will continue to do so - but very slowly.(the "battery" can only go as far as 30-40% and one of the FTL engines was also showing its age)

And in a fictional universe that is patterned after our own, it is REALLY bad form to write plot lines that go against the fundamental laws. Do you get it? Or am I wasting my time here? The 3 laws of thermal dynamics are pretty basic. Nothing in the universe violates these three laws, they are fundamental.

I don't see what your problem with the show is. The timescales from the show are WAY too short for universe wide decay to set in so that matter itself would come apart.

Let me put this another way.
Razor thin beer cans can last 200-500 years. Plastic soda bottles- 450 Years.

If they're not exposed to oxygen, sunlight or water, plastics can last many more hundreds of years, even thousands.

Destiny hasn't had an atmosphere for most of its existence and is protected by an impenetrable shield (under normal conditions).

A glass bottle made with our crappy Earth technology lasts from 500 years to a million.

Styrofoam is practically immortal. It will outlast our sun (if it doesn't completely melt Earth's surface during the red giant phase). That's billions of years.

And this is just what we managed to make so far.

The Ancients with their superior technology are very capable of producing synthetic materials that can easily last millions of years. It's not even that much of a stretch.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

I had a feeling you'd say something like this...



Destiny is not "forever" old. Just a few million years. Saying it is would be ridiculous. A few million years is not forever.



Destiny is not a closed system, it gets power from stars.



So far there have been plenty of stars for Destiny to recharge. . I don't see how this is relevant at all.

The decay of the universe doesn't have anything to do with Destiny, on a galactic timescale Destiny is brand new, its short existence could be considered negligible



Are you saying that Destiny is as old or much older than the Universe ?

So far the strong force has had no problems whatsoever keeping quarks and gluons together to form the neutrons and protons, and no problems holding the netrons and protons together to form the core of the atom. The attraction between negatively charged electrons and the positively charged nucleus is also not going anywhere currently => the atoms are still intact. The electrostatic bonds that form molecules are also still very much here.

Regarding the "100% efficient" figure - as I said before Destiny is not a closed system, it gets its energy from stars. The internal systems have also degraded a bit and will continue to do so - but very slowly.



I don't see what your problem with the show is. The timescales from the show are WAY too short for universe wide decay to set in so that matter itself would come apart.

Let me put this another way.
Razor thin beer cans can last 200-500 years. Plastic soda bottles- 450 Years.

If they're not exposed to oxygen, sunlight or water, plastics can last many more hundreds of years, even thousands.

Destiny hasn't had an atmosphere for most of its existence and is protected by an impenetrable shield (under normal conditions).

A glass bottle made with our crappy Earth technology lasts from 500 years to a million.

Styrofoam is practically immortal. It will outlast our sun (if it doesn't completely melt Earth's surface during the red giant phase). That's billions of years.

And this is just what we managed to make so far.

The Ancients with their superior technology are very capable of producing synthetic materials that can easily last millions of years. It's not even that much of a stretch.

very well stated, Mike.
*looks around at the amount of glass and plastic things I'm surrounded with and feels a measure of shame*
Given that us simple humans can make things that can last, in our environment, it's really not a stretch to believe that some advanced race could go further. Science fiction tends to stretch what is already possible, posing what-if's on us and we suspend disbelief and play along. Given that we can make things that last, I have no problem suspending disbelief and believing that things can be made to last a very long time.

I;m kind of bummed that I can't green you for this, as I've apparently greened too much
Mental green okay?

[Puddle-Jumper]

Im going to hazard a guess that the OP has no formal education in science, but thinks his ph.D in wikipedia makes him smarter then the rest of us...

Not that you need a formal science education to discuss SGU, but on this particular subforum its certainly useful

[HaMm3r]

I;m kind of bummed that I can't green you for this, as I've apparently greened too much
Mental green okay?

I greened him for you, since his response was so much better thought out than mine.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

I greened him for you, since his response was so much better thought out than mine.

thank you!

[thekillman]

And well.. in this argument against you we can really say anything we like can't we.. There has never been any mention of a self-repair system

as the self-repair would be quite buisy, of all systems self-repair would be the first to fail. besides i actually think the Robot from Sabotage is (part of) the self-repair. anyway, if it's there, it was there, must've been quite buisy in all that time and it probably wore out.

And we can make some assumptions about when the ancients planned to board it. For example Ive been going on the fact that the people who designed it and built it would want to see it in action, so the ancients would plan to board it sometime within their own lifetime (which Im sure would have been considerable longer then ours) so from that Im estimating that the ancients intended to board Destiny after a few hundred years, without a doubt less than a thousand years... also if they waited longer then that, the technology aboard the Destiny would have more then likely been totally outdated, and perhaps even incompatible with the tech they were using at the time.
See how I made a logical assumption that is possible, though not known for sure, and not contradicted by established canon in the show?

that's not an assumption, that's stating the obvious. the ancients never intended for this long-term mission to be THAT long term. perhaps a few thousand years tops, not some 5-10 million years. it would have been dialled when it was within their ability to be dialled regularly. back then ZPM's were probably less powerful, perhaps non-existent. whatever way, from a logical POV they probably would've gotten onboard when it reached the next Galactic Supercluster, some 300 million lightyears from here ( if i remember correctly), and that would've taken between 300 000 (1000 LY/Year, using 10 million years ago and 10 billion lightyears) and 3000 Years (based upon the assumption that gates are seeded in a single, long corridor, and the destiny needs 1 year to traverse a MW-sized galaxy).

which obviously is nowhere near a million or ten million years. also, Mallozi said that the Odyssey can not reach Destiny within a relatively short amount of time, meaning that the Destiny is much further away than 10 billion lightyears.

[thekillman]

It's not that we don't understand, it's that it doesn't matter to anyone else and we don't really care. IT IS SCIENCE FICTION!

some laws can not be violated without destroying everything we know

[HaMm3r]

some laws can not be violated without destroying everything we know

They can in a fictional work, because it's NOT REAL! Besides, the alleged "violations" being discussed here are not even significant enough to alter anything that's been established in the older series.

[Puddle-Jumper]

They can in a fictional work, because it's NOT REAL! Besides, the alleged "violations" being discussed here are not even significant enough to alter anything that's been established in the older series.

And it doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics... the post by Mike. established that very well

[kwlafayette]

some laws can not be violated without destroying everything we know

As I have stated before, if you want it to actually be science fiction, there does have to be some science. Also, good science makes the fiction better. Glad at least one person can see that.

[Krazeh]

As I have stated before, if you want it to actually be science fiction, there does have to be some science. Also, good science makes the fiction better. Glad at least one person can see that.

There's nothing about the Destiny still being operational without a self repair system that in anyway violates, or even comes close to violating, the second law of thermodynamics. Neither is it bad science. As Mike has already pointed out we, with our primitive technology level compared to that of the Ancients, can create materials that last for extremely long periods of time. There's also naturally created materials that can withstand the passage of time extremely well. It doesn't take much of a leap of imagination to be able to concieve that the Ancients would have a far superior grasp of material science and would have no problem creating materials that could last easily as long as those onboard the Destiny have.

[Puddle-Jumper]

As I have stated before, if you want it to actually be science fiction, there does have to be some science. Also, good science makes the fiction better. Glad at least one person can see that.

Did you not read the post by Mike. that invalidates your point about the second law?

[kwlafayette]

Did you not read the post by Mike. that invalidates your point about the second law?

No, I stopped reading Mike's posts a while ago. But from what you say, he appears to prefer plain fiction to science fiction. I do not share that preference, I prefer the science in my science fiction to make sense. Especially in a universe that is clearly modeled on the real world.

[Krazeh]

No, I stopped reading Mike's posts a while ago. But from what you say, he appears to prefer plain fiction to science fiction. I do not share that preference, I prefer the science in my science fiction to make sense. Especially in a universe that is clearly modeled on the real world.

The science in SGU does make sense, just because you are unable to grasp simple concepts doesn't mean there's a problem with the show. And there's nothing in Mike's posts which imply anything like what you have stated about him, all they imply is that he has a better grasp of science than you do.

[Puddle-Jumper]

kwlafayette,

please answer these 2 questions will you...?

Why would you start a thread to discuss something if your not willing to consider, or even read other peoples posts?

Have you any formal education in science?