Did the Ori perfect project Arcturus?

[Grifff]

That's what I meant, if they're not bound by our space-time, why would they be using stargates? Or maintain a border in our space (ie the Milky Way), if they 'transcend' our space-time?

bad writing ?

[thekillman]

maybe a similar device drew power from the Ascended realm?

[SoulReaver]

I know I said it could be like a ZPM or an ST but why should we assume it would be anything close to the Ancient's power tech?
The Ancients and Ori separated some 50 million odd years ago, whatever power sources each group used may have been similar when they were all together, but years after the Ancients left, when the Ori had ascended and begun to use their followers they may have given them something very different to Ancient technology after years of Ancient research in the lower planes, it could be much lower or higher in output.

could be but unless specified, we only know that ori=evil ancients so via an ingenious & purely semantic extrapolation we can affirm with uncertain certitude that the powersources were roughly equal

Both the Ancients and Ori weren't all knowing even when both races had ascended and especially not before.
They could both only come up with what they could think of and understand.
Any shield or power transfer components they could make would only be as good as they could make them or their understanding would allow, it may take more time and research for these races to make something better than they had to start with.

unrealistic even for sci-fi. more so for this race in particular²
they had the uber-1337 powersources (that's the hard part), saying they couldn't come up with a way to use it well is kinda reaching :/

Atlantis wasn't able to transfer enough power from the three ZPMs in EATG to allow it to use all of the pieces of technology it was designed to use at the same time, of course they could have added better hardware, but only if they could improve on their original stuff, which while that is possible, we were never told the Ancients had anything better than Atlantis's stuff.

and yet it was able to empty an entire zpm in a matter of seconds. that's some serious power output

Perhaps the Ancients had already updated their tech in Atlantis and that was as good as they could make it.

sucky tech then. big guns with tiny barrels lol

It's not always that simple though.
You can only add so many power lines, improve them so much and fit a certain number into your ships and outposts.
What if you already have the best hardware that you can make?
More power isn't always the solution.
Auroras powered off of ZPMs had been captured and destroyed by the Wraith, who appear to have nothing approaching ZPMs in power generation capabilities.
If you can only make shield generators that can only make use of a fraction of the available power then you'd have to start making them bigger so they can use more and they could only get so large before you have to start making bigger and bigger ships.
If you add more shield components, then you'd have to add more power lines and once you've reached the limits of how many of those you can put into a ship well again you have to make bigger ships and during something like the Ancients Vs Wraith war I doubt they had the ability to just keep churning out more ships, let alone bigger ones, unless they planned on sending out what city ships they had left (Atlantis supported by what Auroras were left maybe?), since they could repel what regular ships the Wraith had I guess with the canon removing the need for drone ammo and ability to keep shields up in Hyperdrive those could probably turn the tide of the war I guess.
Unless the Wraith could make something closer to a Super Hive, with their regular power tech, but just bigger, better power sources.
Considering we never actually see any power generators on Hives, I guess it's pretty safe to say they don't take up much of the overall volume of those ships and considering what the Super Hive could do a fraction of a ZPM's worth of capabilities, like even a 1/100 worth would make a world of difference, with a fleet of a 100 Hives and support ships (with boosted power) a city ship would be dead in minutes, rather than days.
Of course more advanced races should be able to do much better than the Tauri, but they'd still be limited by how big they can make their power lines and how many they can put into a specific area, same goes for the components too.

sure it is that simple ! (in scifi anyway). if they have the knowhow to make powersources that tap energy from micro-universes then safe to say they can make better wiring (and if they already had the best wiring with their older powersources then why bother devising new powersources since they know they won't be able to make good use of it, kinda absurd)
I like the part about wiring taking space though lol
btw we don't know what auroras are powered with. not zpms (unlikely)

Advanced races can't break the rules of the Universe any more than we can.

strange, could've sworn this was commonplace in SG..

But if you wanna make use of what your power source(s) can churn out then you'd still need something adequate to send out what you need.
I did also mention sending power through a wireless system, but that would still have a limit.
TBH I'm surprised the Ancients or any of the advanced races don't just build their components to tap power directly from the source (Subspace), we know the Ancients did it with their long range communicators, I see no reason why they couldn't have just scaled it up for things like shield generators or anything else, but their tech would still be limited by whatever energy it could channel directly and what it was designed to make use of.

they said Arcturus would turn the tide of war

Obviously not, but like I said above it defeated a Wraith fleet, since Wraith ships take at least some time to defeat each other (I think couple of minutes is what's been shown), the outpost didn't seem to have any defensive shields, it would have to clear away the fleet really quickly, like a Hive per shot or two, that should have meant massive raw power, which a 304s shields shouldn't have been able to take for more than a few shots considering that 2 or 3 Hives can almost kill a 304 in only a few minutes.
I guess things just aren't gonna add up there, but it goes to show that their tech wasn't designed to use that kind of output, I doubt even the best possible shields and more cannons would have made much of a difference to prevent the overload happening.

was it even specified whether or not that cannon was ever used against wraith ships ?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

could be but unless specified, we only know that ori=evil ancients so via an ingenious & purely semantic extrapolation we can affirm with uncertain certitude that the powersources were roughly equal

Like I said in my last post, the Ori and Ancients separated some 50 million odd years ago, that's a huge time to be separated from each other, whatever similarities in the energy output of their power generation devices could have been similar before the Ancients left their original home, but it's very likely that changed millions of years after the Ancients had left.
Even if the two groups had only been parted for a few decades there could be major differences in what means they used to generate the energy they needed and any devices they hooked up to those power sources.
How much power Ori tech uses would probably dictate how much energy they need their power generators to produce, so energy output is almost certain to differ.

unrealistic even for sci-fi. more so for this race in particular²
they had the uber-1337 powersources (that's the hard part), saying they couldn't come up with a way to use it well is kinda reaching :/

After the millions of years since Atlantis was created it was still one of the only things standing after the war with the Wraith was finished.
The Ancients had sent out ZPM powered Auroras to attempt to deal with the Wraith threat, but that didn't work.
There was no mention that the ZPMs the Auroras used were drained dry, we know the Wraith used them for their cloning facility after they managed to somehow capture the Ancient vessels, so obviously the Ancient's tech wasn't perfectly able to use the best the Ancients had in terms of power generation even after those devices had existed for millions of years.

and yet it was able to empty an entire zpm in a matter of seconds. that's some serious power output

Massive output to one system, obviously the city couldn't use more than a few systems simultaneously and later Ancient tech, like Auroras can't last forever against Wraith ships even if those Ancient vessels are powered off of ZPMs.

sucky tech then. big guns with tiny barrels lol

The tech can't have been that sucky if it can tare apart a bunch of Hive or Cruisers in what would have to be a very short amount of time.

sure it is that simple ! (in scifi anyway). if they have the knowhow to make powersources that tap energy from micro-universes then safe to say they can make better wiring (and if they already had the best wiring with their older powersources then why bother devising new powersources since they know they won't be able to make good use of it, kinda absurd)
I like the part about wiring taking space though lol

No it's not, not even in sci-fi not if you're only able to make devices that can handle or make use of the amount of power you can currently produce, they'd probably improve their tech over time and to make use of more of the available power, it would just mean they wouldn't have to improve their power tech for some time.
BTW I didn't say the Ancients couldn't have made improvements to their most current and up to date stuff, I just said they couldn't make use of infinite power, simultaneously around all of their tech.
BTW yes they could make ZPMs, but nothing that's been shown of the Ancients shows they could make use of almost infinite/unlimited power, lots of power maybe into one thing, but not across more than a few things.

btw we don't know what auroras are powered with. not zpms (unlikely)

We know for certain that a number of Auroras were powered off of ZPMs and sent deep into Wraith territory alone, that was said in Spoils Of War (season 4 of SGA).
As far as general power generation goes I didn't say that was a ZPM, but obviously it would have to be far below a ZPM in output, if the Ancients couldn't instantly reproduce ZPMs for all of their remaining ships then installing something like an Arcturus into each of their vessels would still be useful and it still makes sense to create the thing.
Since the Ancients wouldn't have to keep replacing ZPMs in their city ships, which we know can keep their shields up against a Siege level/sized fleet as long as they have power, anything like a ZPM powered Hive or a bunch of them and IMO they'd still get beaten just like Atlantis almost did.

strange, could've sworn this was commonplace in SG..

The characters/races don't break the laws of their own universe, they may break the laws of ours though.

they said Arcturus would turn the tide of war

I checked in the Gateworld transcript to be sure and no they didn't say it would have done that, they said it could have changed the outcome of what happened on the planet Arcturus was installed on and it could have changed how history unfolded in the Pegasus galaxy.
Saying it could have done something, isn't the same as saying it's a certainty.

was it even specified whether or not that cannon was ever used against wraith ships ?

Yes, the weapon was used against a Wraith fleet, hence why there was a whole of debris made up of Wraith vessels in orbit of the planet Arcturus was on.

[thekillman]

it would not have changed the tide of the war. ancient advancedness was their weakness. they needed proper tactics and numbers, not more uber tech

[SoulReaver]

Like I said in my last post, the Ori and Ancients separated some 50 million odd years ago, that's a huge time to be separated from each other, whatever similarities in the energy output of their power generation devices could have been similar before the Ancients left their original home, but it's very likely that changed millions of years after the Ancients had left.
Even if the two groups had only been parted for a few decades there could be major differences in what means they used to generate the energy they needed and any devices they hooked up to those power sources.
How much power Ori tech uses would probably dictate how much energy they need their power generators to produce, so energy output is almost certain to differ.

differ maybe but not to the point of one being basically primitive compared to the other 'cause that's sure as hell what you're suggesting..

After the millions of years since Atlantis was created it was still one of the only things standing after the war with the Wraith was finished.
The Ancients had sent out ZPM powered Auroras to attempt to deal with the Wraith threat, but that didn't work.
There was no mention that the ZPMs the Auroras used were drained dry, we know the Wraith used them for their cloning facility after they managed to somehow capture the Ancient vessels, so obviously the Ancient's tech wasn't perfectly able to use the best the Ancients had in terms of power generation even after those devices had existed for millions of years.

if so why bother to make those uber powersources if they could only exploit a minute fraction of it ? they might as well have stuck to naquadah lol
anyway the real explanation (also the most reasonable one, incidentally) is that the wraith compensated their inferior tech with far far greater numbers so they basically wore down the ancients over time. like levelling an entire mountain with 1 pickaxe - takes [****loads of] patience but it works (eventually). the ancients obviously could make full use of their zpms but over time everything has to deplete
this was even stated in an ep btw

Massive output to one system, obviously the city couldn't use more than a few systems simultaneously and later Ancient tech, like Auroras can't last forever against Wraith ships even if those Ancient vessels are powered off of ZPMs.

um you do realize that module was depleted in a matter of minutes right ? with that sort of power output they'd have enough to divide it amongst hundreds possibly thousands of standard subsystems (ones that use nowhere near the amount of power that the interdimensional tunnel does) simultaneously, let alone just 3
o wait lemme guess - maybe the wires were so big that just 3 of those wires alone would've taken up the whole cityship ? -_-

The tech can't have been that sucky if it can tare apart a bunch of Hive or Cruisers in what would have to be a very short amount of time.

ah well if so then they really can make full use of their powasources then !! case closed

No it's not, not even in sci-fi not if you're only able to make devices that can handle or make use of the amount of power you can currently produce, they'd probably improve their tech over time and to make use of more of the available power, it would just mean they wouldn't have to improve their power tech for some time.

yeah and mankind's first nuclear power plants could only power a lightbulb ! (ok maybe 2)

BTW I didn't say the Ancients couldn't have made improvements to their most current and up to date stuff, I just said they couldn't make use of infinite power, simultaneously around all of their tech.

if only - but you're making out that they wasted their time developping those powersources to begin with lol

BTW yes they could make ZPMs, but nothing that's been shown of the Ancients shows they could make use of almost infinite/unlimited power, lots of power maybe into one thing, but not across more than a few things.

yeah I know, 25x more wiring does take a lot of space. hey who knows maybe for some reason the most advanced space-faring race was still using those bulky copper co-axial cables (the ones used back in the early 20th century here on earth)

We know for certain that a number of Auroras were powered off of ZPMs and sent deep into Wraith territory alone, that was said in Spoils Of War (season 4 of SGA).
As far as general power generation goes I didn't say that was a ZPM, but obviously it would have to be far below a ZPM in output, if the Ancients couldn't instantly reproduce ZPMs for all of their remaining ships then installing something like an Arcturus into each of their vessels would still be useful and it still makes sense to create the thing.

zpms are batteries, arcturus is a generator, big difference
batteries contain the energy source, generators don't. making several generators doesn't take much resources (energy-wise) whereas making several batteries does, because those batteries have to be charged to begin with, and this requires...another source of energy :|

Since the Ancients wouldn't have to keep replacing ZPMs in their city ships, which we know can keep their shields up against a Siege level/sized fleet as long as they have power, anything like a ZPM powered Hive or a bunch of them and IMO they'd still get beaten just like Atlantis almost did.

a big bunch of them yeah, not 1

The characters/races don't break the laws of their own universe, they may break the laws of ours though.

strange, could've sworn there were [almost] no laws in SG..

I checked in the Gateworld transcript to be sure and no they didn't say it would have done that, they said it could have changed the outcome of what happened on the planet Arcturus was installed on and it could have changed how history unfolded in the Pegasus galaxy.
Saying it could have done something, isn't the same as saying it's a certainty.

...
yeah it could have. as in, had the power to. as opposed to it couldn't have
as in, maybe it wouldn't have but this would've had nothing to do with a "power" thing (as in, maybe the enemy could've infiltrated the installation & sabotaged device, or the device could've ended up malfunctioning & blown up, or the arcturus maintenance workers could've gone on strike thus compromising the whole planet, or countless other mostly PIS-related possibilities that have nothing to do with a power issue)

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

differ maybe but not to the point of one being basically primitive compared to the other 'cause that's sure as hell what you're suggesting..

I didn't suggest any such thing, I merely pointed out the fact that two races had been parted for more than ages.
Anyway one group may have less power output in their energy source(s), but they may have significantly more efficient means of using that power and the other hand they may not, anythings possible, so we can't narrow their abilities (in the case of the Ori) down to anything.

if so why bother to make those uber powersources if they could only exploit a minute fraction of it ? they might as well have stuck to naquadah lol
anyway the real explanation (also the most reasonable one, incidentally) is that the wraith compensated their inferior tech with far far greater numbers so they basically wore down the ancients over time. like levelling an entire mountain with 1 pickaxe - takes [****loads of] patience but it works (eventually). the ancients obviously could make full use of their zpms but over time everything has to deplete
this was even stated in an ep btw

Well even on Atlantis a Siege sized fleet could have potentially drained 3 almost full ZPMs in around a month, access to the constant full power a working Arcturus could supply would have meant the Ancients could have left the shields up, on the surface of the planet's oceans indefinitely provided Arcturus didn't burn out or something.
Again using an Arcturus as your vessel's main power source would have meant all ships could have operated at full power.
It means unlimited available power, not limited as with ZPMs and Naqueda and endless scope for future developments, then there's the ability to use some intensely raw power weapons, which annihilates pretty much anything it hits, which probably couldn't have been installed with a lesser power source, even one as good as a ZPM.

um you do realize that module was depleted in a matter of minutes right ? with that sort of power output they'd have enough to divide it amongst hundreds possibly thousands of standard subsystems (ones that use nowhere near the amount of power that the interdimensional tunnel does) simultaneously, let alone just 3
o wait lemme guess - maybe the wires were so big that just 3 of those wires alone would've taken up the whole cityship ? -_-

Yes I do realise that, but like I said it was to one power hungry thing, I can't recall it being said how they transferred power from the ZPM, can you?
Anyway EATG shows that Atlantis can't use more than a few systems at once.
Of course it's possible the wiring or whatever the Ancients used in Atlantis wasn't the best they had, maybe it was too much of a pain for them to pull out everything arleady in use and install better wiring.

ah well if so then they really can make full use of their powasources then !! case closed

That's not proof at all it just means that weapon can make use of enough power to cream a bunch of Wraith ships quickly, case not closed, certainly not from that piece of evidence.
Acturus still overloaded, it was set to half power and the weapon still couldn't fire off enough energy to stop the overload from happening.

yeah and mankind's first nuclear power plants could only power a lightbulb ! (ok maybe 2)

Not exactly sure what your point is here.

if only - but you're making out that they wasted their time developping those powersources to begin with lol

No I'm not, I said above the Ancients could then have the uber weapon on each of their ships, fully powered shields.
It's not like I'm saying it wouldn't boost their stuff, but there's a limit to what even the Ancients and Ori can do.
You were the one making out like components can just get better and better with added power, I'm simply saying they can only get better to a point and can't do what they aren't designed to do, that means shields as powerful as they are designed to be, not becoming better just coz they have access to more power, conduits (of any kind) can only transfer so much power.
[QUOTE]yeah I know, 25x more wiring does take a lot of space. hey who knows maybe for some reason the most advanced space-faring race was still using those bulky copper co-axial cables (the ones used back in the early 20th century here on earth)[/.QUOTE]
Maybe not copper wiring, but advanced metals or subspace conduits have still gotta have a limti, even RF energy transfer would.
Even if it's drastically better than what we have in the real world it's still gotta handle massive energy in the first place and then improve to match the 25x power output too.

zpms are batteries, arcturus is a generator, big difference
batteries contain the energy source, generators don't. making several generators doesn't take much resources (energy-wise) whereas making several batteries does, because those batteries have to be charged to begin with, and this requires...another source of energy :|

You didn't need to give this point really as it's pretty obvious stuff, my point was Arcturus could be the standard and possibly easily availble for everything the Ancients needed it for.
Much easier than digging up Naqueda, about the same as a subspace tap, but maybe with a bigger output.

a big bunch of them yeah, not 1

Well one ZPM powered Hive, with one ZPM almost killed Atlantis with 3 ZPMs, a hundred slightly boosted Hives could likely do over Atlantis in the same way as the one Hive.

strange, could've sworn there were [almost] no laws in SG..

That's still basically the same thing really.

...
yeah it could have. as in, had the power to. as opposed to it couldn't have
as in, maybe it wouldn't have but this would've had nothing to do with a "power" thing (as in, maybe the enemy could've infiltrated the installation & sabotaged device, or the device could've ended up malfunctioning & blown up, or the arcturus maintenance workers could've gone on strike thus compromising the whole planet, or countless other mostly PIS-related possibilities that have nothing to do with a power issue)

Not if the Ancients didn't have a large enough number of ships to defeat the Wraith's ability to replace ships.
Tech limits are especially important like with the boosted Hives thing I mentioned above in this post.

[SoulReaver]

I didn't suggest any such thing, I merely pointed out the fact that two races had been parted for more than ages.
Anyway one group may have less power output in their energy source(s), but they may have significantly more efficient means of using that power and the other hand they may not, anythings possible, so we can't narrow their abilities (in the case of the Ori) down to anything.

ok so back to this :

How much power Ori tech uses would probably dictate how much energy they need their power generators to produce, so energy output is almost certain to differ.

since the ori are the warriors they'd need a helluva lot more power (for their weapons) meaning their powersources should be even better than those of the ancients

Well even on Atlantis a Siege sized fleet could have potentially drained 3 almost full ZPMs in around a month, access to the constant full power a working Arcturus could supply would have meant the Ancients could have left the shields up, on the surface of the planet's oceans indefinitely provided Arcturus didn't burn out or something.
Again using an Arcturus as your vessel's main power source would have meant all ships could have operated at full power.
It means unlimited available power, not limited as with ZPMs and Naqueda and endless scope for future developments, then there's the ability to use some intensely raw power weapons, which annihilates pretty much anything it hits, which probably couldn't have been installed with a lesser power source, even one as good as a ZPM.

I'm good with that part

Yes I do realise that, but like I said it was to one power hungry thing, I can't recall it being said how they transferred power from the ZPM, can you?

how does that matter ? if it could be done once it could be done again (unless you think it's a secret only Mckay knew and the ancients hadn't figured it out. Mckay may be earth's best but placing him above those who designed this **** would be stretching it a little, IMO)

Anyway EATG shows that Atlantis can't use more than a few systems at once.

it should be able to use all its [critical] systems at once (either that, or the ancients were primitive - or the writers are stupid - or both - take your pick -), so back to what started it all : *something* else was obviously using far more juice than what the usual cityships systems normal do and the ep gives a clear hint as to what it was

Of course it's possible the wiring or whatever the Ancients used in Atlantis wasn't the best they had, maybe it was too much of a pain for them to pull out everything arleady in use and install better wiring.

lol

That's not proof at all it just means that weapon can make use of enough power to cream a bunch of Wraith ships quickly

uh yeah that means a ****load of power

Acturus still overloaded, it was set to half power and the weapon still couldn't fire off enough energy to stop the overload from happening.

arcturus has the output of 25 zpms, it only blew up because those exotic particle thingies were building up

Not exactly sure what your point is here.

kinda similar to the scenario where ancients made what was possibly the universe's best powersources but couldn't even make decent use of them lol

No I'm not, I said above the Ancients could then have the uber weapon on each of their ships, fully powered shields.
It's not like I'm saying it wouldn't boost their stuff, but there's a limit to what even the Ancients and Ori can do.
You were the one making out like components can just get better and better with added power, I'm simply saying they can only get better to a point and can't do what they aren't designed to do, that means shields as powerful as they are designed to be, not becoming better just coz they have access to more power, conduits (of any kind) can only transfer so much power.

in that case the ori couldn't/wouldn't have been using arcturus because they'd have known that their current hardware wouldn't be able to make full use of it anyway (either that, or they'd have upgraded their hardware along with their powersources but this would've made them invincible which they clearly weren't), so this answers the topic's initial question

Maybe not copper wiring, but advanced metals or subspace conduits have still gotta have a limti, even RF energy transfer would.
Even if it's drastically better than what we have in the real world it's still gotta handle massive energy in the first place and then improve to match the 25x power output too.

can't be that hard to make a bigger hose to handle bigger flows. just...make the hose...bigger, u know :/

Well one ZPM powered Hive, with one ZPM almost killed Atlantis with 3 ZPMs, a hundred slightly boosted Hives could likely do over Atlantis in the same way as the one Hive.

yeah but the point is (and almost everyone agrees at least everyone who'd rather save what little credibility is left in the show) that the hive shouldn't have owned the cityship so easily, unless there were *reasonable* explanations (2 of which were stated several times in this topic & others)

Not if the Ancients didn't have a large enough number of ships to defeat the Wraith's ability to replace ships.
Tech limits are especially important like with the boosted Hives thing I mentioned above in this post.

ok with that part too

[lordofseas]

If the Ori had Arcturus down pat, why were the APBW able to penetrate the shields, and why wasn't the Oddysey destroyed in AoT?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

ok so back to this :
since the ori are the warriors they'd need a helluva lot more power (for their weapons) meaning their powersources should be even better than those of the ancients

Not sure where you got the idea they'd need more power, Ori weapons can cream a ship made of metal yes, but they seem to suck pretty hard against a small mountain and weak top soil on a planet's ground which doesn't exactly indicate massive raw power.
An ancient satellite weapon can slice a huge Hive in half in a matter of seconds, Hives appear to be many times the size of Ha'Taks and 304s.
The Ancient weapons can be powered off of a Mark 1 Naqueda generator, they're highly efficient, perhaps the Ori's weapon systems could be too, so there's no reason from what we‘ve seen on the show to think the Ori would need more power.

I'm good with that part
how does that matter ? if it could be done once it could be done again (unless you think it's a secret only Mckay knew and the ancients hadn't figured it out. Mckay may be earth's best but placing him above those who designed this **** would be stretching it a little, IMO)

If the power from the ZPM is being shunted through some dimensional bridge then the energy isn't going through the city's conduit's, since ZPMs tap their power from a region of subspace, if the region is then connected to the McKay Miller Bridge thing then the limits of the city's conduits wouldn't be an issue in that episode.
McKay and the others probably wouldn't have to figure out how to do that either as the Ancients had already built the tech and they probably left info on how to do the process.
Btw I don’t hold McKay up on some high pedestal or something, he was probably just using the Ancients tech in some way he knew it could work to accomplish the task at hand.

it should be able to use all its [critical] systems at once (either that, or the ancients were primitive - or the writers are stupid - or both - take your pick -), so back to what started it all : *something* else was obviously using far more juice than what the usual cityships systems normal do and the ep gives a clear hint as to what it was

The city was designed to go from A to B, there's no indication the Ancients planned on using it as a permanent transport/war ship.
What's critical to space flight for the city is the life support, engines and shields, maybe sensors, other systems like weapons were obviously designed to come into play when the city was on a planet's surface.

The Wormhole Drive is just another system like Hyperdrive engines, it's never been indicated that Hyperdrive engines use power when they aren't in use, neither was it indicated that the Wormhole Drive did.
An initial massive energy expenditure wouldn't explain why later ZPM output was limited and like I said before the only things that were mentioned to be low on available power were engines or Drones, that's not enough to say there was a general power shortage especially considering another important and potentially massive power hungry system wasn't mentioned to be short on power, I'm of course talking about inertial dampers.
Beckett's statement could have been an indicator of conduits in a critical, but common Drone, Engine area being unable to shunt power to both those systems simultaneously, so that power problem doesn't have to be to do with a general loss of energy contained within the source.

lol
uh yeah that means a ****load of power

Uh no, it just means the weapon could fire off a load of energy, it doesn’t mean it can fire off enough energy to indicate the generators output is all being used up, as in to it’s fullest.

arcturus has the output of 25 zpms, it only blew up because those exotic particle thingies were building up

Zalenka and I believe McKay both said the weapon was meant to vent excess power, the reason the overload happened was coz the weapon couldn’t discharge enough energy to prevent the overload. McKay even said he’d waited too long, the weapon couldn’t discharge enough power, it wasn’t said that the exotic particles were the problem there although of course exotic particles probably screwed with the whole system, but the excess energy was what created the overload in the end.

kinda similar to the scenario where ancients made what was possibly the universe's best powersources but couldn't even make decent use of them lol

Not really, unless you’re trying to make out like it’s impossible for the Ancients to not be able to make use of all of their energy sources available power output, they obviously can’t make use of a full ZPM power dump into their shields within 3 minutes, so why would they be able to do that with 25X that much power?

in that case the ori couldn't/wouldn't have been using arcturus because they'd have known that their current hardware wouldn't be able to make full use of it anyway (either that, or they'd have upgraded their hardware along with their powersources but this would've made them invincible which they clearly weren't), so this answers the topic's initial question

I’m not saying the Ori were using an Arcturus!
My reason for thinking that is it’s supposed to be impossible to make it work in the SG universe, mainly coz of the exotic particles, you can’t contain/control or even predict where they will be, there’d likely be no way to shift them to somewhere else as even using magnetic fields they’d probably breach through (the laws of physics were said to cease to exist when they were present) whatever channel you could make and gravity wouldn’t suck them away if you used a black hole or something.

Just because you can’t make full use of an energy source like Arcturus that‘s no reason not to make it.
Arcturus downgraded to equal a ZPMs output would have made sense on small vessels as it would never run out (no replacing ZPMs and dealing with their waste components), you wouldn’t have to store power in buffers for Auroras shields, you could just tie them directly to the source, make smaller energy sources and build them into the shield tech, Hyperdrive and weapons you’ve got.
An Arcturus would simply be less hassle than ZPMs for the Ancients or the Ori to deal with.

can't be that hard to make a bigger hose to handle bigger flows. just...make the hose...bigger, u know :/

It is if you’ve already built your hose as big as it can be.
A bigger hose could also mean less water pressure.
A set space could only accommodate a certain sized hoses.

yeah but the point is (and almost everyone agrees at least everyone who'd rather save what little credibility is left in the show) that the hive shouldn't have owned the cityship so easily, unless there were *reasonable* explanations (2 of which were stated several times in this topic & others)
ok with that part too

But why shouldn’t it have?
Obviously regular Wraith ships are just massively under powered, but even those can down a big A@@ Ancient shield given enough numbers and time.
Neither the wormhole drive thing or saying the Hive had more ZPMs are reasonable explanations as we have no indication they were the culprits in EATG.
McKay even says poor power tech is the Wraith’s problem, they didn’t have that problem with their new Hive and Atlantis is only designed to hold back something as strong as regular Hives and Cruisers.
That Hive was something entirely new and boosted several Hundred fold over regular Wraith ships, it’s that simple.

If the Ori had Arcturus down pat, why were the APBW able to penetrate the shields, and why wasn't the Oddysey destroyed in AoT?

Energy transfer and tech limits with Ori stuff.
APBWs can obviously deal a greater blow than Ori shields were designed to handle.
I don’t think they would have been using a device that taps power from the vacuum of our own space time, coz in SG that makes exotic particles that can’t be contained.

As for Ori weapons not destroying Odyssey in the first shot, well they were obviously only designed to deal a certain strength blow to their intended targets.

[Crazedwraith]

If the Ori had Arcturus down pat, why were the APBW able to penetrate the shields, and why wasn't the Oddysey destroyed in AoT?

Why shouldn't they? A different method of power generation doesn't guarantee better shields or weapons.

Besides Deadelus took multiple shots from the Arcturus weapon anyway.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Why shouldn't they? A different method of power generation doesn't guarantee better shields or weapons.

Besides Deadelus took multiple shots from the Arcturus weapon anyway.

Finally someone who understands what I've been saying, you sir can have some green.
Power is of course important, but the tech that's making use of that power source is also just as important.

[SoulReaver]

If the Ori had Arcturus down pat, why were the APBW able to penetrate the shields, and why wasn't the Oddysey destroyed in AoT?

hell even without arcturus the Oddy should've been owned in AoT (if the ori ships were firing @ full power)

Not sure where you got the idea they'd need more power, Ori weapons can cream a ship made of metal yes, but they seem to suck pretty hard against a small mountain and weak top soil on a planet's ground which doesn't exactly indicate massive raw power.

yeah that was weird but same thing with the asuran beam weapon which could deplete a cityship shields in a matter of hours yet took quite a long time to cut through a mere asteroid :/

An ancient satellite weapon can slice a huge Hive in half in a matter of seconds, Hives appear to be many times the size of Ha'Taks and 304s.The Ancient weapons can be powered off of a Mark 1 Naqueda generator, they're highly efficient, perhaps the Ori's weapon systems could be too, so there's no reason from what we‘ve seen on the show to think the Ori would need more power.

in that case the ancients wouldn't have needed so much power either

If the power from the ZPM is being shunted through some dimensional bridge then the energy isn't going through the city's conduit's, since ZPMs tap their power from a region of subspace, if the region is then connected to the McKay Miller Bridge thing then the limits of the city's conduits wouldn't be an issue in that episode.

oh good. then they could make more "bridges" then. no need for wires, go 4 wifi power transmission on steroids

The city was designed to go from A to B, there's no indication the Ancients planned on using it as a permanent transport/war ship.
What's critical to space flight for the city is the life support, engines and shields, maybe sensors, other systems like weapons were obviously designed to come into play when the city was on a planet's surface.

it had the same weapons as the warships no reason to bother doing some half-**** work & putting weapons if they allegedly can't make good use of them

The Wormhole Drive is just another system like Hyperdrive engines, it's never been indicated that Hyperdrive engines use power when they aren't in use, neither was it indicated that the Wormhole Drive did.
An initial massive energy expenditure wouldn't explain why later ZPM output was limited and like I said before the only things that were mentioned to be low on available power were engines or Drones, that's not enough to say there was a general power shortage especially considering another important and potentially massive power hungry system wasn't mentioned to be short on power, I'm of course talking about inertial dampers.
Beckett's statement could have been an indicator of conduits in a critical, but common Drone, Engine area being unable to shunt power to both those systems simultaneously, so that power problem doesn't have to be to do with a general loss of energy contained within the source.

hyperdrive engines are part of the city's standard equipment not some extra experimental addon. something doesn't have to be in use to be "online", latter is sufficient to have it use power
it's just about the only rational explanation that doesn't make the writers look foolish anyway
dang u really do hate the show eh ? ^_^ trying to kill it by sinking what little credibility is still left in it lol

Uh no, it just means the weapon could fire off a load of energy, it doesn’t mean it can fire off enough energy to indicate the generators output is all being used up, as in to it’s fullest.

as I said a ****load of power. it can fire huge amounts of energy in little time, energy/time ~ power output

Zalenka and I believe McKay both said the weapon was meant to vent excess power, the reason the overload happened was coz the weapon couldn’t discharge enough energy to prevent the overload. McKay even said he’d waited too long, the weapon couldn’t discharge enough power, it wasn’t said that the exotic particles were the problem there although of course exotic particles probably screwed with the whole system, but the excess energy was what created the overload in the end.

lol honestly. the exotic particles were the cause of the problem the overload was just a consequence thereof

Not really, unless you’re trying to make out like it’s impossible for the Ancients to not be able to make use of all of their energy sources available power output,

without PIS no it's impossible

they obviously can’t make use of a full ZPM power dump into their shields within 3 minutes, so why would they be able to do that with 25X that much power?

3 minutes ?

Just because you can’t make full use of an energy source like Arcturus that‘s no reason not to make it.
[...] you wouldn’t have to store power in buffers for Auroras shields, you could just tie them directly to the source,

nope not by going by what you previously said. if output was limited then they'd have to use buffers just like with zpms. so from a purely military p.o.v it would be a waste of time, and in Trinity it's made quite clear that it was their conflict with the wraith that prompted them to work on this new stuff

It is if you’ve already built your hose as big as it can be.
A bigger hose could also mean less water pressure.

um here we're supposing that the pressure's already there, that's kinda the point

A set space could only accommodate a certain sized hoses.

this isn't about puddle-jumpers :/

But why shouldn’t it have?
Obviously regular Wraith ships are just massively under powered, but even those can down a big A@@ Ancient shield given enough numbers and time.
Neither the wormhole drive thing or saying the Hive had more ZPMs are reasonable explanations as we have no indication they were the culprits in EATG.
McKay even says poor power tech is the Wraith’s problem, they didn’t have that problem with their new Hive and Atlantis is only designed to hold back something as strong as regular Hives and Cruisers.

k so the explanation is that the ancients were afflicted by extreme PIS & simply dumbed down the cityship (o wait the writers had already dumbed down the ancients a long way since SG s5 so why stop there)

That Hive was something entirely new and boosted several Hundred fold over regular Wraith ships, it’s that simple.

with only 1 zpm vs 3 zpms. going by your explanation you might as well state that the writers are lousy as ****. we're just helping them save face, u know

As for Ori weapons not destroying Odyssey in the first shot, well they were obviously only designed to deal a certain strength blow to their intended targets.

so the ori are as stupid as the ancients ? damn this show sure has its load of holes & inconsistencies (but wait - there are more rational explanations that avoid this - the priors didn't want to destroy the Odyssey)

Finally someone who understands what I've been saying, you sir can have some green.
Power is of course important, but the tech that's making use of that power source is also just as important.

in other words the most advanced race in the SG verse was also that primitive ? yeah that makes sense
why not have an gasoline-powered 304 defeat a arturus-powered ori ship while we're at it ?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

hell even without arcturus the Oddy should've been owned in AoT (if the ori ships were firing @ full power)

Odyssey basically was, saved by a plothole in the end.
Seriously though Oddy hadn't been seen getting a severe pounding without some huge planet blowing up nearby style interference.
After Orilla went up in smoke it's shields just seemed to drain quicker and quicker after each battle.
Maybe some 7X strength of a regular 304 was how tough Odyssey always was.

yeah that was weird but same thing with the asuran beam weapon which could deplete a cityship shields in a matter of hours yet took quite a long time to cut through a mere asteroid :/

Funky Gateworld beam, maybe it uses heat to cut through solid matter and the energy of it works far better against shields.
Whether you think the asteroid getting punctured was a quick thing or not is a matter of perspective I guess.

in that case the ancients wouldn't have needed so much power either

It's not the quantity, but longevity I think they were after.

oh good. then they could make more "bridges" then. no need for wires, go 4 wifi power transmission on steroids

I'd agree if it looked like the Ancients had used wifi-power, but Atlantis appears to use solid conduits of some kind.
Instant power through the air wouldn't negate components only being able to use a certain amount of energy or stop physical limits of design and materials.

it had the same weapons as the warships no reason to bother doing some half-**** work & putting weapons if they allegedly can't make good use of them

Atlantis appears to be much older than the Auroras.
I doubt the Ancients ever planned on moving the city again, or put it into a situation like EATG.
The outposts can fire at an awesome rate, maybe Atlantis can too on the ground, but it wasn't on the ground.

hyperdrive engines are part of the city's standard equipment not some extra experimental addon. something doesn't have to be in use to be "online", latter is sufficient to have it use power
it's just about the only rational explanation that doesn't make the writers look foolish anyway
dang u really do hate the show eh ? ^_^ trying to kill it by sinking what little credibility is still left in it lol

Online doesn't mean it was using the same amount of power as the jump would, just like with hyperdrive.
Standby certainly wouldn't explain the inability to re-strengthen the shield.

BTW no I don't hate the show, if I did I wouldn't be a member of Gateworld.

Stop using the poor argument of the credibility thing, it doesn't rationally deal with canon, neither does saying a system that was never said to use power past it's function of getting Atlantis from A to B is still using any once it's at it's destination.
That's your own made up fanon and it doesn't hold an ounce of weight here, nor does it actually deal with the topic.

as I said a ****load of power. it can fire huge amounts of energy in little time, energy/time ~ power output

The generator can output a set amount of energy at a moment, it's doubtful the weapon can use up that much energy as quick as the generator can provide more.

lol honestly. the exotic particles were the cause of the problem the overload was just a consequence thereof

Check out the Gateworld transcript of the episode, it's pretty easy to find and proves my point.
Not able to discharge enough energy=big boom.

without PIs no it's impossible

What's PIs?

3 minutes ?

I thought that was how long it took to drain the ZPM in that episode, anyway it's a pretty simple point, the ZPM can dump a certain amount of power in a certain amount of time, can the city's regular system (shields, weapons, engines, etc) make use of all of that power the moment it's made available?
Or 25x times that for that matter?

nope not by going by what you previously said. if output was limited then they'd have to use buffers just like with zpms. so from a purely military p.o.v it would be a waste of time, and in Trinity it's made quite clear that it was their conflict with the wraith that prompted them to work on this new stuff

Components/transfer limits aren't fixed.
Output had a massive limit and was adjustable to provide however much power was needed (to the crazy limit of 25 ZPMs worth).
To be able to fully power everything, along with a new uber weapon well yes then it is worth it.
Wraith = make better energy source, that proves nothing except the Ancients wanted more power, it doesn't mean they wanted it in an instant, like I said above Arcturus = longevity and would basically never run out.
Installed into a city/cityship the Wraith would never be able to drain the energy source and they didn't have the power to drop Atlantis's shields with a power source that could bolster their techs abilities.

um here we're supposing that the pressure's already there, that's kinda the point
this isn't about puddle-jumpers :/

Pressure has a limit (in the case of electricity speed of light?).
You can only send so much power in a moment.
To use up 25X a ZPM in an instant you'd need not only the best power transfer method, but a massive sized conduit and lots of them, probably more than you can fit into an Asuran city complex.

k so the explanation is that the ancients were afflicted by extreme PIS & simply dumbed down the cityship (o wait the writers had already dumbed down the ancients a long way since SG s5 so why stop there)
with only 1 zpm vs 3 zpms. going by your explanation you might as well state that the writers are lousy as ****. we're just helping them save face, u know

To hell with saving face for the writers.
That isn't even important to this topic, hell it's actually off topic so stop mentioning it.
Saying that doesn't prove anything.

so the ori are as stupid as the ancients ? damn this show sure has its load of holes & inconsistencies (but wait - there are more rational explanations that avoid this - the priors didn't want to destroy the Odyssey)

Ori don't want to destroy their enemy's most power ship?
Yeah that's rational.
Saying they'd even want to capture it doesn't seem all that rational either.

in other words the most advanced race in the SG verse was also that primitive ? yeah that makes sense
why not have an gasoline-powered 304 defeat a arturus-powered ori ship while we're at it ?

Primitive no.
We have dead static technologies made of inanimate metals that can't automatically improve past their design and construction limits.
BTW the Wraith's tech being alive could grow to accommodate extra power more easily, in fact we know it grows and we've never been told it had a limit past how much power is put into it.

The ZPM powered Hive is huge and could be using it's power up at a rate that Atlantis wasn't designed or made to do.

The Ori's fleet greatly outnumbered Earth's, the Ori could have just built their ships to deal with what threats they were aware of like Ha'Taks and maybe Asgard ships.
APBWs were new.

[SoulReaver]

Odyssey basically was, saved by a plothole in the end.

eeeey at least we can agree on that part
no really that's perhaps the most sensible explanation so far (apart from mine I mean)

Seriously though Oddy hadn't been seen getting a severe pounding without some huge planet blowing up nearby style interference.
After Orilla went up in smoke it's shields just seemed to drain quicker and quicker after each battle.
Maybe some 7X strength of a regular 304 was how tough Odyssey always was.

at least Unending made more sense - it took ~ 6 shots from ori beam weapon to bring down the Oddy's zpm-powered shield and roughly same number of hits from the asgard beam to bring down the ori shields (304 seemed a bit tougher but it did have an extra asgard core)

Funky Gateworld beam, maybe it uses heat to cut through solid matter and the energy of it works far better against shields.
Whether you think the asteroid getting punctured was a quick thing or not is a matter of perspective I guess.

lol outside on ep (that wasn't even in SG1 or SGA - in was in ST TnG) there's very little in the way of weapons specifically designed to drain shields (plenty of space games have this sort of thing though). so generally speaking if it's good against shields then it's equally good against what's behind the shield
besides if it's plain "heat" as u say then more of a reason for it to burn through matter like hot knife thru butter. heat is heat, as pure destructive energy as u get
anyway a weapon's primary purpose is to damage its target not what protects the target (unless it was specified that the asurans had a second weapon waiting to be fired thru the gate once the red beam had brought down the shield, but not so iirc)

It's not the quantity, but longevity I think they were after.

so no extra power for the weapons but enough to keep the matter replicators running indefinitely during wartime & have infinite supply of food & water ? ^__^

I'd agree if it looked like the Ancients had used wifi-power, but Atlantis appears to use solid conduits of some kind.
Instant power through the air wouldn't negate components only being able to use a certain amount of energy or stop physical limits of design and materials.

lol air takes space eh
those bridges can transmit enough power to empty a zpm in a matter of seconds & the whole device isn't that big anyway

Atlantis appears to be much older than the Auroras.
I doubt the Ancients ever planned on moving the city again, or put it into a situation like EATG.
The outposts can fire at an awesome rate, maybe Atlantis can too on the ground, but it wasn't on the ground.

at least that might some sense (basically they could do it but chose not to) but that would still be plain PIS especially considering the context (that cityship was the only thing that stood between them & extinction)

Online doesn't mean it was using the same amount of power as the jump would, just like with hyperdrive.
Standby certainly wouldn't explain the inability to re-strengthen the shield.

maybe the drive keeps recharging (for next jump) so unless it's "unplugged" it does keep using a lot of power

BTW no I don't hate the show, if I did I wouldn't be a member of Gateworld.

hehe believe it or not some ppl actually register here just to voice their hatred (that's why the mods had to create separate threads in the hope of shunting all the haters away from the normal parts of the forum. tough luck with that though)

Stop using the poor argument of the credibility thing, it doesn't rationally deal with canon, neither does saying a system that was never said to use power past it's function of getting Atlantis from A to B is still using any once it's at it's destination.
That's your own made up fanon and it doesn't hold an ounce of weight here, nor does it actually deal with the topic.

ok then stop making up completely unsubstantiated scenarios that only take away from said credibility to the point where it looks like the only rationale behind these is to kill the show (in ~subtle way admittedly)

The generator can output a set amount of energy at a moment, it's doubtful the weapon can use up that much energy as quick as the generator can provide more.

didn't it take out a whole hive fleet quickly

Check out the Gateworld transcript of the episode, it's pretty easy to find and proves my point.
Not able to discharge enough energy=big boom.

zelenka > "as power output increases, new and exotic particles are continuously created and destroyed inside the containment chamber, interacting with each other and with the field itself. Eventually particles are created that cannot be prevented in this space-time, and they breach the containment field as hard radiation."
it's the exotic particles that cause the overload

What's PIs?

Plot Induced Stupidity

I thought that was how long it took to drain the ZPM in that episode, anyway it's a pretty simple point, the ZPM can dump a certain amount of power in a certain amount of time, can the city's regular system (shields, weapons, engines, etc) make use of all of that power the moment it's made available?
Or 25x times that for that matter?

ok so the city is primitive tech then

To be able to fully power everything, along with a new uber weapon well yes then it is worth it.

but you said they couldn't..

Wraith = make better energy source, that proves nothing except the Ancients wanted more power, it doesn't mean they wanted it in an instant, like I said above Arcturus = longevity and would basically never run out.

so it was useless from a military p.o.v but useful to keep the toilets & food dispensers running forever ? ^^

Installed into a city/cityship the Wraith would never be able to drain the energy source and they didn't have the power to drop Atlantis's shields with a power source that could bolster their techs abilities.

no they'd just need to overload it. their whole fleet was a lot > 10 hives IMO

Pressure has a limit (in the case of electricity speed of light?).
You can only send so much power in a moment.
To use up 25X a ZPM in an instant you'd need not only the best power transfer method, but a massive sized conduit and lots of them, probably more than you can fit into an Asuran city complex.

of course everything has a limit. it's the alleged limit that's a little harder to accept, unlimited PIS can be amusing but there should be limits :/

To hell with saving face for the writers.

there we go

That isn't even important to this topic, hell it's actually off topic so stop mentioning it.
Saying that doesn't prove anything.

damn what was the original topic about again ?

Ori don't want to destroy their enemy's most power ship?
Yeah that's rational.

ori tech is primitive ? yeah that's rational

BTW the Wraith's tech being alive could grow to accommodate extra power more easily, in fact we know it grows and we've never been told it had a limit past how much power is put into it.
The ZPM powered Hive is huge and could be using it's power up at a rate that Atlantis wasn't designed or made to do.

same as b4, no reason thyey wouldn't upgrade their last ship to the best of their abilities. especialyl since they didn't even bother to put a phase-cloak on it, nox style (so at least they'd be able to run & hide)

The Ori's fleet greatly outnumbered Earth's

oh ?

, the Ori could have just built their ships to deal with what threats they were aware of like Ha'Taks and maybe Asgard ships.
APBWs were new.

k so they tuned down their ships to give the good guys a fighting chance. reminds a bit of the hidden conduit on the Death Star that led all the way to the core. guess the imperials wanted to give the rebels some hope (hence "A New Hope"). lol