Super-Hive's strength

[SoulReaver]

The sparks came from the human equipment, not the Ancient equipment. In Lifeline the power conduits were unshielded when they were hit.

exactly. the "sparks" effect seems to be a human-only thing

maybe due to an inherent flaw in a "primitive species" tech
or maybe a deliberate feature due to humans having a taste for the dramatic :|

[Ouroboros]

Ok I want to see you guys prove with some actual evidence from the episode that the city used only 1/3 zpms in the final battle here.

You see it's not up to me to try and disprove all your speculations one at a time, rather it's up to the one making them to prove them to begin with. I've been doing it anyway but these posts are getting pretty long and I'm getting pretty bored here.

As of yet I've seen absolutely nothing to compell me to mentally rewrite what happened in this episode in order to fit with what you guys evidently think "should have happened" when atlantis was at full power. We've never even seen atlantis in space combat before this with all systems powered so I don't even know where you're getting the whole precident you're evidently working from here about how good it should be. Dr. Daedalus also just posted that the reason he thinks the ancients didn't fly the city home was that the Wraith seige fleet would have destroyed it before they had a chance to. So that would be what, destroyed in minutes? So remind me again then if a group of normal wraith ships can kill atlantis in minutes when its got 3 zpms exactly what's so wrong with what the zpm powered one did here again?

I'm all for making up theories, I do it myself all the time, in this thread even. But you make up a theory to explain how/why observed events occured as observed. You don't make up a theory the begin with "reimagining" what was observed in order to make excuses for why atlantis lost. "Why if it had been at full power things woulda been different let me tell ya...". If you think it's stupid fine, I can get behind stupid, but this whole "it only lost because *stuff I made up*" routine is just lame. It was stupid when the asgard beams nuked a Ori warship in 4 shots or so but going around trying to make up nonsense about 9/10 of the shield generators being off for "insert reason" in order to explain it certainly isn't helpful or honest.

If you still want to play it this way then have fun arguing against the equally ridiculous "the hive actually used 90% of it's zpm getting to earth" argument I posted last time. It's just as valid a "theory" as you guys saying atlantis actually lost the power of 2/3 of it's zpms when the episode never says this, and even suggests the opposite at the end.

Just to expand more on what was originally wrote, McKay directly states that a hive using normal power sources couldn't get into hyperspace with a hull as thick and dense as the sueprhive's, or even much denser than a normal hull is. Since McKay says they're using the zpm to make this all possible this means it requires ZPM level energies to move a hull that thick so, and for a long trip it'll logically require more than just the short hops Wraith ships normally make. How much more? Well I'm going to decide that since McKay made it sound like it was really going to take a lot of power just to get into hyperspace for normal wraith trips he was probably thinking of that it's going to require about 90% of the ZPM to make an intergalactic trip to Earth with such an extra dense and heavy ship.

So now are we going to have our 1/3 zpm city vs 10% hive slapfight or are you guys going to own up to how this type of "theory" is ridiculous.

[Dr. Daedalus]

Ok I want to see you guys prove with some actual evidence from the episode that the city used only 1/3 zpms in the final battle here.

Our theories are based on canon. Atlantis with one ZPM was able to hold out against 10 hives and their escorts for days. If you do the math the Super-Hive would have to be as powerful as 864 hives to defeat Atlantis in five minutes assuming that all of the (all three) ZPM's power output was taken by the shield. Prove to me from previous episodes why Wraith military tech is superior to Ancient military tech. You also did not answer my question in my previous post. How can a Super-Hive (with one ZPM) that was not originally designed to have a ZPM as its power source do better than a cityship (with three ZPMs) that was designed to run on ZPMs?

Also Carson states in the middle of the battle that he did not have enough power to pull the city up and fire drones. Power was the problem.

So that would be what, destroyed in minutes? So remind me again then if a group of normal wraith ships can kill atlantis in minutes when its got 3 zpms exactly what's so wrong with what the zpm powered one did here again?

About 90% of the ZPMs power output would have been taken by the stardrive. Atlantis was surrounded by a massive fleet of Wraith hive ships. Atlantis was all that remained of the Ancient domain. It makes sense that almost the entire Wraith fleet would be involved in the siege. The combined firepower of the Wraith fleet would have overwhelmed the shield before the Ancients could divert more power to it.

If you still want to play it this way then have fun arguing against the equally ridiculous "the hive actually used 90% of it's zpm getting to earth" argument I posted last time. It's just as valid a "theory" as you guys saying atlantis actually lost the power of 2/3 of it's zpms when the episode never says this, and even suggests the opposite at the end.

You are right. There is no evidence against that argument in the episode. However, my argument is based on what we have seen in previous episodes. Also I agree with you that the ZPMs were not depleted. However, if Atlantis was powered by all three ZPMs during the battle then they should have been depleted. They were not. The only option to preserve the ZPMs is my theory that most of their power was unavailable during the battle.


Dr. Daedalus

[SoulReaver]

Ok I want to see you guys prove with some actual evidence from the episode that the city used only 1/3 zpms in the final battle here.

you mean again ?


ok it's very simple

first off no one said 2/3 zpms, only that the zpms were drained (enough to make the cityship shields considerably weaker)
so I'll just sum it up instead of having to requote it : 1) carson saying he can't both lift the city and fire the weapons (despite full complement of zpms !) and 2) the wormhole drive, so energy-inefficient that the project became defunct (McKay)

second that wasn't the only possibility, the other one being that the hive had more than 1 zpm (btw we already know the wraith got their hands on several zpms in the past, so now it's up to you to try & prove that this time this wraith on this hive had only 1 zpm. which ain't gonna be easy since there was nothing in that ep which even hinted at this)

You see it's not up to me to try and disprove all your speculations one at a time, rather it's up to the one making them to prove them to begin with.

done, now your turn with the superhive having only 1 zpm instead of several

and I'm getting pretty bored here.

Well I'm going to decide that since McKay made it sound like it was really going to take a lot of power just to get into hyperspace for normal wraith trips he was probably thinking of that it's going to require about 90% of the ZPM to make an intergalactic trip to Earth with such an extra dense and heavy ship.

already addressed this, it takes a lot of power when you ain't got a zpm (the same applies to terran ships btw) but a zpm is enough for standard drives (just like it is enough for terran ships to make an intergalactic trip with 1 zpm ina matter of days, with each trip having little drain on the zpm. therefore it should be likewise for wraith hyperdrives, 1 zpm should be enough for many many PG <-> MW trips)
on the other hand the cityship was using a new drive - wormhole drive. not conventional hyperdrive. like I said, major powerhog. McKay said so himself

therefore it makes sense that the wormhole drive severely drained the zpms, you however cannot apply the same scenario to the hive with its normal hyperdrives

[Ouroboros]

So no direct evidence for the specific claims being made just some appeals to continuity with past episodes requiring that you amke stuff up and the canon of all things while you guys go about rewriting the actual canon of this episode, plus some bonus commentary on various side issues.

I'll answer the question though, because I'm just dumb enough to think doing so will actually get me anywhere.

How can a Super-Hive (with one ZPM) that was not originally designed to have a ZPM as its power source do better than a cityship (with three ZPMs) that was designed to run on ZPMs?

The city is

-not a warship
-was built as not a warship millions of years ago
-requires power for weapons shields and drives at the same time
-it's shields also failed without the zpms being drained to an exploding stargate

About 90% of the ZPMs power output would have been taken by the stardrive. Atlantis was surrounded by a massive fleet of Wraith hive ships. Atlantis was all that remained of the Ancient domain. It makes sense that almost the entire Wraith fleet would be involved in the siege. The combined firepower of the Wraith fleet would have overwhelmed the shield before the Ancients could divert more power to it.

Ok the only reason I quote this is as an example because this is exactly what I'm talking about again. You just pulled "it takes 90% of their power to power the stardrive" straight out of thin air didn't you, and you state it as if it was a fact. Correct me if I'm wrong and you actually have some sort of dialog to prove this but if you don't then you can't do that. You can't just say "oh the stardrive uses 90% of their power and therefore yadda yadda yadda" with no proof and use that to support another claim that's dependant on this one being true. If you can't see why this is unacceptable then I think we've gone about as far as we can go here.

You are right. There is no evidence against that argument in the episode.

Yep and that's why it's an unacceptable argument that shouldn't be taken seriously. I could just as easily claim 99%, 99.9% or 99.999999999% of the zpm was gone by the time the hive got to Earth. If there's no requirment for me to prove my claims I can claim whatever I want. I can claim Todd is actually a woman and tell you you have to prove to me to my satisfaction that he isn't. I could even provide some basic reasoning to try and justify it "he's got a lot of authority in Wraith society, he's also more independant, a natural leader, and other wraith seem to want to follow him. He also read sheppard's mind in Vegas, something only queens can do, therefore "he" is actually a Wraith queen in reverse drag."

Then we could have a big and really stupid argument about how he needed Teyla to impersonate a queen for him and whether this was because he's really not a queen or just because "(s)he's been living with the terrible secret for far too long to admit it now".

However, my argument is based on what we have seen in previous episodes. Also I agree with you that the ZPMs were not depleted. However, if Atlantis was powered by all three ZPMs during the battle then they should have been depleted. They were not. The only option to preserve the ZPMs is my theory that most of their power was unavailable during the battle.

Shields failed in "First Contact" when the gate exploded. There's no need for the zpms to lose all power for shields to fail.


Ok Soulre@ver now.

You mean again ?

No, that would imply you actually proved your claim the first time. You've proved that atlantis lost power to it's engines during the battle, no one ever disputed this. You've NOT however proved that this happened because 2/3 of the zpms were unavailable to be used, despite no one saying as much.

You've also not proved that the hive had more than 1 ZPM, again despite the episode saying that 1 zpm is what it had.

The common thread is both of your points here is that they go against the grain of what the episode appears to be showing us, that being the superhive (which has one zpm) defeating atlantis (which has 3). That's why I'm giving you such a hard time about proving it.

done, now your turn with the superhive having only 1 zpm instead of several

Do you want an actual clip of McKay saying it has "a ZPM" or can I just replay the episode and type out what he says for you?

already addressed this

Despite my daring you to do so you're not really suppossed to try and argue against my example bad argument, that I identify as a bad argument, as if it wasn't actually a bad argument. You're suppossed to explain why yours isn't likewise a bad argument despite the obvious similarities I pointed out to my example bad argument.

Even the rebuttal to my bad argument doesn't even defeat the bad argument because I can apply the same scenario to the hive's hyperdrive. The drive was not only moving a much larger denser mass but it was also moving it much faster and over and much larger distance and McKay even specifically says its because of the ZPM that this is possible.

[SoulReaver]

No, that would imply you actually proved your claim the first time. You've proved that atlantis lost power to it's engines during the battle, no one ever disputed this. You've NOT however proven that this happened because 2/3 of the zpms were unavailable to be used, despite no one saying as much.

of course I haven't proved that it was because 2/3 zpm were unavailable (it could be 3/4, 4/5 etc.)
point is insufficient zpm juice is the only possibility, given what carson said
remember that this has nothing to do with the engines specifically, he's saying he can lift the city, he can fire weapons, but not do both. meaning this has nothing to do with losing power to the engines (or the weapons) but only with not having enough power for two or more systems simultaneously. hence a power shortage prob

You've also not proved that the hive had more than 1 ZPM,

hey I said we know that wraith have got their hands on more than 1 in the past. that's enough, imo

The common thread is both of your points here is that they go against the grain of what the episode appears to be showing us, that being the superhive (which has one zpm)

no !

defeating atlantis (which has 3)

well yes...

Spoiler:

...and no !

well one of the NOs is correct :| maybe the hive did have only 1 zpm but in that case Atlantis didn't have the full power of 3 zpms (or maybe it did, but in that case the hive had to have more than 1)

That's why I'm giving you such a hard time about proving it.

actually right now it's the only thread that's warding off boredom on GW as far as I'm concerned, so no hard feelings :|

Do you want an actual clip of McKay saying it has "a ZPM" or can I just replay the episode and type out what he says for you?

sure. though you can just say at what time in the ep he said it so I can check it out myself
btw at that time Todd said the zpm was still being tested right ? the zpm<=>hive interface wasn't fully implemented, so obviously they would've had to test this with only 1 zpm to make sure it worked. but toward the end you still think they would've kept it at only 1 ?)

Despite my daring you to do so you're not really suppossed to try and argue against my example bad argument, that I identify as a bad argument, as if it wasn't actually a bad argument. You're suppossed to explain why yours isn't likewise a bad argument despite the obvious similarities I pointed out to my example bad argument.

bad argument

Even the rebuttal to my bad argument doesn't even defeat the bad argument because I can apply the same scenario to the hive's hyperdrive. The drive was not only moving a much larger denser mass but it was also moving it much faster and over and much larger distance and McKay even specifically says its because of the ZPM that this is possible.

mass is irrelevant, except in the first few seconds of the trip and possibly last seconds, when existing subspace. once at warp, the hive is moving at constant speed (without the need to slow down & reaccelerate, in the case of the superhive) and this is vacuum so there's no friction to compensate for. in other words once at constant speed mass no longer accounts for power requirements
ever tried moving a car ? it's quite hard at first, becomes easy as the car accelerates (it's still hard but only because of various counterforces due to friction, which is why it's hard to keep even a constant speed)
speed is also irrelevant (more speed = use more power, yes, but in a shorter time. for all we know this could also mean it used less energy overall)
in the end it's stil the hive's standard hyperdrive versus cityship's wormhole drive, the latter having been stated by McKay himself to use inordinate amounts of power to the point where the project was abandoned. so you can't apply the same thing to the hive

btw where d'you get the "larger distance" part ? it was a PG->MW trip, any difference would've been of the interstellar order & thus negligible

I'll answer the question though, because I'm just dumb enough to think doing so will actually get me anywhere.

the thing is, do you remember when you mentioned a "stupidity patch" to take care of all the holes & inconsistencies in the series ? well let's just say that if your scenario was right (hive 1 zpm vs atlantis 3 zpm) then not only would this not constitute such a patch, it would change the hole into a chasm, in fact it would give the final coup de grace to the series n terms of suspension of disbelief
see, basically I'm not saying your version is necessarily wrong, just saying that if it is right then this would make the finale the suckiest ep ever. I'm only trying to prevent this

now I guess even this won't convince you, however some folks on GW do visit JM's blog regularly so perhaps someone could ask him ? this would help you settle the question once & for all

[Mongoletsi]

After skimming the above posts, I'll just chip in with what I figured happened:

- Atlantis has 3 well-charged ZPMs
- The Wormhole drive massively depleted them
- Atlantis was sinking into the upper atmosphere, because;
-- The force of the Wraith assault was literally "pushing" them*
-- The shield was dealing with the atmosphere
-- The shield was dealing with the Wraith assault
-- The sheild was dealing with the vacuum of space
- Firing all those drones used up lots of power
and...
- The Wraith Hive was using edit: a ZPM, singluar.

So, with limited power available, the choice was to either use the engines to push back against the force of the Wraith assault, OR shoot the crap out of the Hive. There was no choice regarding the shield; dropping it was not an option.

Just my impression from what was said in the episode. I don't mind being wrong though.

Transcript here, obviously.

[SoulReaver]

sounds about right

[jrd231]

Im pretty sure Todd only gave them one. And like someone said we used the wormhole drive it pretty much depleted all our ZPMs. Thats one of the main reasons it was abandoned.


Also the Serrakins won't be helping anyone. The Ori destroyed them

Says who? It depleted the ZPM's? How do you know that? Did they say so in the episode? The answer is no, they said nothing of the sort in the episode. Saying the wormhole drive depleted the ZPM's is nothing more than fans making things up, there is absolutely no evidence of it. Fans love to make up reasons and pass them off as absolutes and canon. The only things you can take as canon are things they show or that they say in an episode.

The only thing they ever say is that the Hive is now powered by at least one ZPM which makes it much more powerful than any other hive. They demonstrate the power by crippling the Earth ships and by fighting Atlantis. The only thing you can take from this is with at least 1 ZPM, since they don't say how many the Hive has, that it's more powerful than Atlantis considering it was winning before it was destroyed from the inside out.

[Mongoletsi]

Question: Why didn't the Ancients build more ZPMs into Atlantis?

Answer: Probably because that would have made for boring TV viewing

[Quadhelix]

Ouroboros, how do you put up with this? Just reading what these people are saying makes me want to bash my head through a wall.

"fine" doesn't mean "full". just because a battery is almost depleted doesn't mean it's leaking its juices. it's more a question of power output than power levels, so even nearly empty zpms might allow them to perform one last takeoff (just like the nearly depleted module in the north pole allowed them to fire one last mega-salvo against anubis' fleet)

A. That was the South Pole.
B. We have seen that ZPMs can generate enough power to deplete themselves in minutes. If any of the ZPMs still had energy remaining, they could generate as much power as was needed.

but you're still assuming a vast, very vast difference in power efficiency between wraith tech & ancient tech. one could expect a race as advanced (type IV ?) to be able to develop better quality stuff even if the context hadn't given them a reason to optimize their power usage to the same extent as their enemies. basically even your scenario doesn't account for such a discrepancy

Not really. The Ancients had more power than they knew what to do with, so a lot of their technology was probably very inefficient. After all, if they had a decent supply of ZPMs, power would literally be a non-issue.

btw the goauld also have power problems yet they weren't in the same league as the wraith despite having exactly the same incentive as them to develop more efficient tech

The Goa'uld didn't have to wage war against the Ancients in order to eat.

moreover even the ancients had power problems (withstanding continuous onslaught against a foe that vastly outnumbered them)

Yes, but that was well after they had developed and built most of their technology. It is one thing to try to improve an existing technology to be more efficient. It is another entirely to design the technology from the ground up with power efficiency as one of the main goals.

Your bought up the example of the Wraith cruiser blowing a whole in the Ocean floor, well this was a Lantian war era cruiser. Your arguement is that Wraith ships including Cruisers were more powerful 10,000 years ago, well clearly the power generation of that particular cruiser wasn't within the magnitudes it would have to be to challenge a planet destroying power source. That cruiser was however damaged so its ability to self destruct may have been impaired somewhat.

True, but Ouroboros is not arguing that they Wraith had anywhere near ZPM-levels of power. Rather, he is arguing that their old ships had far greater power generation then modern ships, and that greater numbers and greater weapons efficiency made up the difference.

So a Super-Hive (with one ZPM) that was not originally designed to have a ZPM as its power source can do better than a cityship (with three ZPMs) that was designed to run on ZPMs? I have a hard time believing that.

Actually, the Super-Hive was designed to run on a ZPM. That is the entire reason that it was built. Also, power is power

We have never seen the shield "bleed through" effect with Atlantis' shields. Atlantis was damaged when they lost the shield near the end of re-entry, not during the battle. The sparks came from the human equipment, not the Ancient equipment. In Lifeline the power conduits were unshielded when they were hit.

Whether it was the human or the Ancient equipment, damage was still bleeding back through the shield.

yeah well my answer was already provided in the series : they have superior...numbers

If one Ancient ship could destroy dozens of Wraith ships, then "superior" numbers does not make a very good answer. There must be some level of technological parity before "superior numbers" can overcome "near god-like" technology.

it's as adapted to use a zpm as the odyssey was, albeit perhaps a bit better because it was a wraith who did the work instead of a mere human. all the same you're saying that the wraith are better at using ancient power sources than the ancients themselves..yeah exactly, why I ask you ?

Power is power. If Wraith ships are more power efficient than Ancient ships (not unreasonable, given the immense output of a ZPM effectively removing the need for efficiency), then they would be more power efficient with any power source used, be it Wraith, Ancient, Asgard, or whatever.

[SoulReaver]

Ouroboros, how do you put up with this? Just reading what these people are saying makes me want to bash my head through a wall.

hey feel free to do so

A. That was the South Pole.

my bad, that changes everything

B. We have seen that ZPMs can generate enough power to deplete themselves in minutes. If any of the ZPMs still had energy remaining, they could generate as much power as was needed.

well yeah that was my point, meaning shep's comment had nothing to do with the zpms power levels, they could have been nearly empty whilst still allowing the city to take off

Not really. The Ancients had more power than they knew what to do with, so a lot of their technology was probably very inefficient. After all, if they had a decent supply of ZPMs, power would literally be a non-issue.

yeah that was his argument too but the problem as I pointed out was they did not have a decent supply of zpms and power supply was a major issue for them particularly during the war hence their desperate ventures into new technologies (trinity, geothermal energy etc) so they had every reason to improve upon the power efficiency of their existing hardware

The Goa'uld didn't have to wage war against the Ancients in order to eat.

no they merely had to be the dominant power in an entire galaxy in order to enslave everyone & play god

Yes, but that was well after they had developed and built most of their technology. It is one thing to try to improve an existing technology to be more efficient. It is another entirely to design the technology from the ground up with power efficiency as one of the main goals.

well yeah that's the point why didn't they resort to the former then ?

True, but Ouroboros is not arguing that they Wraith had anywhere near ZPM-levels of power. Rather, he is arguing that their old ships had far greater power generation then modern ships, and that greater numbers and greater weapons efficiency made up the difference.

and it is that discrepancy between the [extreme] power efficiency of their hardware on one hand and their comparatively primitive power generation methods on the other hand that poses problem. hey if you're willing to put up with this kinda suspension of disbelief so much the better. to the writers' credit I suppose we should've got get used to it after 5 seasons

Actually, the Super-Hive was designed to run on a ZPM. That is the entire reason that it was built. Also, power is power

BS the superhive started out as a normal hive this is why they were trying to figure out how to "plug" the zpm into the wraith system (Todd said the interface wasn't complete) kinda the whole point of the superhive. besides you don't design a piece of hardware based on an unknown piece of alien tech

If one Ancient ship could destroy dozens of Wraith ships, then "superior" numbers does not make a very good answer. There must be some level of technological parity before "superior numbers" can overcome "near god-like" technology.

yeah, really really superior numbers ie. a ratio well above 1:12
btw wouldn't you expect said parity to apply to power production methods as well ? for consistency's sake u know, and also because no matter how efficient a piece of tech is you still need a decent power source that can follow. and so far to all but a *few*, 1 ship with 1 zpm pwning a cityship with 3 zpms doesn't make a lick of sense unless you make up a semblance of explanation such as yours which only serves to toss whatever little credibility is left in the series out the airlock

Power is power. If Wraith ships are more power efficient than Ancient ships

no one's disputing this, only you're making them out to be...infinitely more efficient. that's the problematic part, see

(not unreasonable, given the immense output of a ZPM effectively removing the need for efficiency)

most unreasonable as it wasn't quite "immense" enough to win the war

then they would be more power efficient with any power source used, be it Wraith, Ancient, Asgard, or whatever.

you're assuming complete mastery over the functioning of said powersource. this is like saying that a gasoline-efficient car will retain its efficiency if you replace the fuel tank with a battery or a bunch of solar powered cells
besides if the wraith were so much more advanced as your make them out to be then why didn't they simply reverse-engineer those zpms ? it's not like they'd be trying to develop a new piece of tech from scratch



edit> really, since there are people here who regularly post on JM's blog could they simply ask him to settle this matter once & for all ? at least then I'd know whether to bash the show like never before, or not :|

[SoulReaver]

Question: Why didn't the Ancients build more ZPMs into Atlantis?

Answer: Probably because that would have made for boring TV viewing

guess they had to give the wraith a fighting chance :|

[Quadhelix]

well yeah that was my point, meaning shep's comment had nothing to do with the zpms power levels, they could have been nearly empty whilst still allowing the city to take off

The argument runs both ways: if they could provide power for the ship to take, why couldn't they power the shield?

yeah that was his argument too but the problem as I pointed out was they did not have a decent supply of zpms and power supply was a major issue for them particularly during the war hence their desperate ventures into new technologies (trinity, geothermal energy etc) so they had every reason to improve upon the power efficiency of their existing hardware

By the time of the war with the Wraith, they had already designed must of their technology under the assumption that they would have access to the near limitless power of a ZPM. The problem only became apparent well after the war began, at which point it was too late to redesign just about every piece of technology they had.

no they merely had to be the dominant power in an entire galaxy in order to enslave everyone & play god

With no resistance even approaching the level of the Ancients.

and it is that discrepancy between the [extreme] power efficiency of their hardware on one hand and their comparatively primitive power generation methods on the other hand that poses problem.

Again, this is not surprising at all. The Ancients had access to ZPMs, which are hundreds (if not thousands) of times as powerful as even antimatter power. Efficiency was, for the most part, a non-issue once the ZPM was developed.

BS the superhive started out as a normal hive

My mistake. I had thought that the episode was more conclusive on this issue, but checking back revealed nothing enlightening.

this is why they were trying to figure out how to "plug" the zpm into the wraith system (Todd said the interface wasn't complete) kinda the whole point of the superhive.

The point of the super-hive was to use a ZPM, therefore they could not have grown a new Hive for that purpose? That makes no sense.

besides you don't design a piece of hardware based on an unknown piece of alien tech

If that piece of alien tech is a ZPM, then you certainly do! In any case, a ZPM is just a power source, and interfacing with it is simple enough that we could do it back in Rising. I figure that the main problem was enabling the Hive's power conduits to handle the immense output of the ZPM.

yeah, really really superior numbers ie. a ratio well above 1:12

Of course, in the case of Wraith against Ancients, the Orion's performance in "No Man's Land" would lead us to believe that the numerical advantage would have to be about 10 Hives or 50 Cruisers to each Aurora-type, which is clearly beyond the Wraith's ability to match.

btw wouldn't you expect said parity to apply to power production methods as well ?

Not when ZPMs get involved. The "next best thing" to a ZPM is antimatter power, which would not even provide a hundredth of the power output. There is nothing in the gap between the two, so even if the Wraith were "almost" as advanced as the Ancients, ZPMs provide a very decisive advantage.

no one's disputing this, only you're making them out to be...infinitely more efficient. that's the problematic part, see
most unreasonable as it wasn't quite "immense" enough to win the war

Again, this is because Ancient systems design to be powered by a ZPM would not have had energy efficiency as a consideration in their design. They could loose 99% of the energy put into them and still have enough left over to operate properly.

you're assuming complete mastery over the functioning of said powersource.

Power is power.

this is like saying that a gasoline-efficient car will retain its efficiency if you replace the fuel tank with a battery or a bunch of solar powered cells

Actually, we know that Wraith ships run off of some sort of power generation system, so the analogy is bad. A better analogy would be replacing the gas engine in a hybrid with a nuclear reactor.

besides if the wraith were so much more advanced as your make them out to be then why didn't they simply reverse-engineer those zpms ? it's not like they'd be trying to develop a new piece of tech from scratch

Technology does progress in absolute levels. Therefore, while the Wraith likely invested in technologies that could give them military advantages (plasma weapons that could disrupt Ancient shields, armor that could regenerate and provide some protection against drones, etc.), they were most likely not all that interested in purely "abstract" scientific concepts like zero-point energy fields and pocket universes.

Basically, the Wraith min maxed their technology in such a way that, while they could face the Ancients on somewhat even terms, they would not understand the concepts behind a ZPM well enough to reverse engineer one.

[SoulReaver]

The argument runs both ways: if they could provide power for the ship to take, why couldn't they power the shield?

three ways : if they could power the shield then why did the shield drop to 70% at the 1st few shots instead of, say, 99.9999% ? (latter figure being closer to what the zpm power levels should've been after the 1st volley)

By the time of the war with the Wraith, they had already designed must of their technology under the assumption that they would have access to the near limitless power of a ZPM. The problem only became apparent well after the war began, at which point it was too late to redesign just about every piece of technology they had.

which is quite a stretch, since the war itself stretched on for quite some time
this wasn't exactly a blitzkrieg

With no resistance even approaching the level of the Ancients.

with more than 1 race & far greater numbers to deal with. since we're talking "compensation"

Again, this is not surprising at all. The Ancients had access to ZPMs, which are hundreds (if not thousands) of times as powerful as even antimatter power. Efficiency was, for the most part, a non-issue once the ZPM was developed.

again, this is beyond surprising, this is plain preposterous. we'd expect at least some consistence within the technological capabilities of a civilization even within the context of TV sci-fi. this isn't DC comics. hell we don't even know if they had that many zpms to begin with, and everything points to the contrary (they were made out to be quite scarce throughout the show, and not even a few extras in atlantis itself, supposedly the last bastion of the besieged ancients) and it's not like zpms are just replicated (you need an enormous source of energy to begin with)

btw where d'you get the matter/antimatter being less efficient than zpe ? matter/antimatter was never even mentioned in the show, that's a star trek thing

The point of the super-hive was to use a ZPM, therefore they could not have grown a new Hive for that purpose? That makes no sense.

if by "grown a hive for that purpose" you mean "added a cylindrical-shaped slot with + - poles", then maybe. imo it's a little more complicated than that. to start with this presupposes they knew exactly how zpms work. otherwise this would be like building today's cars so as to be compatible with cold fusion cells. the equations for cold fusion may be known (partially) but this hardly suffices does it
in short it's not "the point of the super-hive was to use a ZPM" it's more like "point of the ZPM was to plug it into the hive" (and then adjust the hive systems accordingly)

If that piece of alien tech is a ZPM, then you certainly do! In any case, a ZPM is just a power source, and interfacing with it is simple enough that we could do it back in Rising.

I doubt it's as simple as + -. what wer do know is that wraith bloke didn't do it in a jiffy as it took quite some time to make all the necessary modifications in the hive systems

Of course, in the case of Wraith against Ancients, the Orion's performance in "No Man's Land" would lead us to believe that the numerical advantage would have to be about 10 Hives or 50 Cruisers to each Aurora-type, which is clearly beyond the Wraith's ability to match.

for the ancients to be so overwhelmed as they said this would imply a far greater ratio than this

Not when ZPMs get involved. The "next best thing" to a ZPM is antimatter power, which would not even provide a hundredth of the power output.

how d'you figure ?

There is nothing in the gap between the two

even matter/antimatter was not mentioned. it's a vast universe. the fact is the "spectrum" could be more continuous than what you think & there may be a host of power production methods unbeknownst even to the ancients, some (if not most) less effective (but not necessarily way less) and others possibly better
regardless, what I'm trying to say is that if the wraith had been so much more advanced (in terms of power efficiency) then I'd expect them to have either developed their own zpms (hell, even succeeded where the ancients failed : trinity !), or something in that league, or at the very least reverse-engineered whatever zpms they were able to capture

Again, this is because Ancient systems design to be powered by a ZPM would not have had energy efficiency as a consideration in their design. They could loose 99% of the energy put into them and still have enough left over to operate properly.

again, I expect at least some consistency (even outside the context of war). it's reasonable to assume that their hardware could've been somewhat less efficient than the wraiths (barring the ancient satellite !) but there's a difference between laxness and plain PIS worthy of DC or Marvel comics

Power is power.

at least we can agree on this :|

Actually, we know that Wraith ships run off of some sort of power generation system, so the analogy is bad. A better analogy would be replacing the gas engine in a hybrid with a nuclear reactor.

same kinda analogy actually. such a transition wouldn't exactly be a piece of cake

Technology does progress in absolute levels. Therefore, while the Wraith likely invested in technologies that could give them military advantages (plasma weapons that could disrupt Ancient shields, armor that could regenerate and provide some protection against drones, etc.), they were most likely not all that interested in purely "abstract" scientific concepts like zero-point energy fields and pocket universes.
Basically, the Wraith min maxed their technology in such a way that, while they could face the Ancients on somewhat even terms, they would not understand the concepts behind a ZPM well enough to reverse engineer one.

the same way the writers would've minimized credibility and maximized ridicule ? because in this case the "min" to "max" ratio looks more like something of the zero-to-infinity order
you seem to be making out that optimising technology is merely a matter of dialling up a bunch of parameters via a few mouse clicks. making something more (that much more) energy efficient can mean completely redesigning the thing from scratch. this means more blackboard work (in other words "abstract" thinking). actually everything relies on abstract concepts; 'regenerative armour' sounds simple when spoken doesn't it - on the other hand even humans can grasp the concept of zpe. not trying to say the former is 1337 and the latter sux, but you get the point. which is that zpe shouldn't been a toughie for such a race as the wraith (hell, mere humans could build such an "abstract" thing as their own stargate from scratch, and the earth's elite could even understand the equations behind the bloody Trinity device, surely it's not a stretch to say that a uber-human species such as the wraith should've been able to pull off something similar with a zpm, is it. all the more so if they already had several of those things in their possession)
and btw the wraith also had a damn good reason to invest in energy production tech since they had power shortage issues of their own (hives breaking down during warp, power hungry cloning facilities, fleet of hives taking days to overcome a city-shield, etc)
as I was saying it makes sense that their tech may have been of somewhat better "quality" than their enemies, but uber advanced wraith hardware backed by uber primitive power sources ? there's a limit as to how much suspension of disbelief the viewers should be willing to put up with, or how much the writers should be willing to befool themselves
(that's why I'm all the more curious to know Malozzi's take on this, just to see whose version he'll pick )

imagine the USS Enterprise E running on a diesel motor. lol