Shield inconsistencies.

[garhkal]

Didn't the shuttle take a direct hit while docking (with no ill effect) but Colonel Young says fire only on my command then lets Destiny take 10 hits before opening fire? I guess that says the shuttle is in better shape/better shield than Destiny and that Young thinks a few mozzie bites are nothing to worry about - until consoles start exploding.

Remember the shuttle had just been returned fully remade. So it stands to reason it would be complete/fully functional.

[Quetzocoetl]

Plasma and laser weapons are actually hotter than the sun which in our case is only 6000k at the surface somebody did the math earlier last year I think? plus this sci fi suspend disbelief.

The air around a lightning strike is hotter than the surface of the sun for a brief moment, so weapons being hotter makes sense.
If we assume that Destiny uses a method of manipulating gravity in order to combat the tidal forces of the star, and combine that with the fact that Destiny draws it's power from stars, then it makes sense that weapons fire can drain the shields.

[The Destiny]

If I understand the wikipedia article about the sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun a star is nothing that SG ships shouldn't be able to handle.
If I understand corrrectly 1 m^2 at the surface emits 2x10^7 W, so 1 Km ^2 at the surface = 2x10^13W = about 5 kton / Km^2, so the sun surface it is not worse than a primitive nuclear bomb detonated for each Km^2 every second. The density isn't a big problem unless you get deep into the sun and the fusion reactions even in the core are actually very few.

Odly enough this would mean that ha'taks can handle a star, at least for a short moment anyway, as they can handle nukes ( SG-1 Season 1 finale ). In Exodus ( SG-1 season 4 ) all the ha'taks are destroyed almost on touch though. I believe the density of a supernova is even lower as it's the same amount of matter expanding many times it's size.

[morbosfist]

Odly enough this would mean that ha'taks can handle a star, at least for a short moment anyway, as they can handle nukes ( SG-1 Season 1 finale ). In Exodus ( SG-1 season 4 ) all the ha'taks are destroyed almost on touch though. I believe the density of a supernova is even lower as it's the same amount of matter expanding many times it's size.

It may be the same amount of mass, but the energy is far greater. A supernova is the combined output of a star over its entire lifetime expelled all at once at nearly 10% the speed of light. That's a lot of power.

Incidentally, SG1's Ha'tak sits inside a blue giant for ten hours in the following episode.

[Replicator Todd]

Am I the only one that wonders why Destiny can handle flying into the sun but can't handle a few ships?

Yes.

[Abiron]

I'm of the opinion that it's not the total energy that matters to the shields, it's the type of the energies impacting it.

Let us for a moment think of the Destiny's shield as a form of armor. Every form of human-worn armor has its strengths and its weaknesses. Physical shields - scutums, kites, rounds, bucklers, etc. - are localized defenses, and the area they aren't protecting is more vulnerable. They are also less effective against crushing weapons than blades and projectiles, as the crushing forces will eventually break them down edge-first. Various forms of metal armor - plate, chain, scale, etc. - are variously more or less effective against differing types of melee and projectile weapons. Modern personal armor like kevlar will take a single hit before becoming ineffective (at least in the segment hit), and heavier items like metallic plates will survive multiple impacts from directed fire, but are still less effective against explosive and fire damage.

In other words, all defensive systems have both advantages and disadvantages, and it's up to the designers of them to decide what they will be most effective against and what the tradeoff will be against other forms of attack.

In the case of Destiny, the shields were first and foremost designed to protect the ship from the natural dangers it was expected to encounter. Dipping into a star, micrometeors, cosmic radiation, errant pulsars...these were all things that the designers prepared Destiny for. But without knowing exactly what kind of energy weapons might be used against her, they had no way to ensure that her shields would be impregnable to them. So some enemies might fire weapons that the shields are perfectly capable of defending against for days, while others might have come up with something truly unexpected that can actually do significant damage to them. Thus, the little drones ability to wreak havoc on shields that can withstand the output of a star...it's just two different things, like a sword instead of a mace. Destiny might be able to handle a mace all day long...but a sword, not so much.

Yes, it's pretty much a cop-out sci-fi answer, but it also has an analog in the real world, and without a lot more knowledge of the way shields work in the Stargate universe I'm happy with my explanation.

[garhkal]

It may be the same amount of mass, but the energy is far greater. A supernova is the combined output of a star over its entire lifetime expelled all at once at nearly 10% the speed of light. That's a lot of power.

Incidentally, SG1's Ha'tak sits inside a blue giant for ten hours in the following episode.

Not as close as the destiny gets..

[UniverseSizePlotHole]

^Nice point Abiron about the Ancients expectations of what they would encounter.

Incidentally, SG1's Ha'tak sits inside a blue giant for ten hours in the following episode.

So how long did the Lucian Alliance Ha'taks survive in Air?

[The Destiny]

About 2 seconds

Incidentally, SG1's Ha'tak sits inside a blue giant for ten hours in the following episode.

Inside the sphere of it's radiation though, not inside the actual star Even then the shields could only withstand 10 hours of radiation.

[morbosfist]

Inside the sphere of it's radiation though, not inside the actual star Even then the shields could only withstand 10 hours of radiation.

10 hours is a long time, and they were in the corona. Destiny barely stays in for a few minutes at a time, and it has the benefit of a continuous power supply.

[VJC]

The worst thing for me is who build a shield that after 4 or 5 hits causes consoles to explode. Seriously? I'm fed up of watching sci-fi shows where the shield seems to trigger **** loads of pyrotechnics inside.

Yep - fuses appear to be some sort of lost technology to sci-fi. Imagine all the red shirts that would have been saved, all the injuries prevented had star-ships been fitted with fuses.

[Abiron]

Agreed about fuses (or circuit breakers). Why in TV sci-fi is the external hull somehow always directly connected electrically with the bridge consoles? Surely someone in one of these races has some kind of electrical engineering experience?

It's even more annoying when we consider that Ancient tech is supposedly crystal-based. Signals travelling via optical conduits should simply not have the ability to send showers of sparks across our heroes.

[sgc]

Destiny's shields were created primarily for keeping the ship safe while in a star, with the purposes of also defending from attack. However, it was intended first for keeping it alive while in a star.

Think of the Asgard Beliskner: It couldn't survive uncontrolled atmospheric entry because of the plating for the cloak. In Destiny's case, the shield doesn't defend as well against directed energy blasts from weapons as it does for a star refill.

You need to protect against heat and gravity while in a star. You are not being exposed to directed energy pulses while in a star, so Destiny does not protect as well against them.

[Rakhal]

Mind you, it certainly seems like the shields are pretty bad compared with what the ancients could do later.

A while back someone did a calculation that it would take between 10 and 100 ZPM's worth of energy to dial the Destiny. I assume it would take about the same amount to dial back, and apparently the power reserves of a seed ship and that of Destiny would be enough. So assuming just 10 ZPM's of energy to dial, and also assuming that the seed ship and Destiny have the same power capacity, then Destiny has 5 ZPM-worth of energy stored in it at full charge.
Atlantis, with one ZPM apparently can withstand a fleet of hive ships constantly bombarding its shields for a week! (And no sparks either ), so they must have got a whole lot better at shielding since the time of Destiny's launch
Mind you, given the frequency that they seem to need to recharge, I have to assume that FTL drive is an incredible power-hog! No wonder they moved to hyperdrives

--Rakhal

[Abiron]

Atlantis had the benefit of a full crew who could make changes and upgrades to the shields based on what was being directed against them. That, and a whole lot more hardware, and the ability to build more. I'm sure that with time, experience, and adequate resources, Destiny's shields could be modified to be more useful against directed energy attacks...but they haven't had the luxury of any of those so far.