Atlantis City Ship stardrive speed: possible spoilers

[2ndgenerationalteran]

Well one thing we did learn is that a partially powered Atlantis is faster than the Apollo, and presumably all 304s without a ZPM powering it.

[JSPuddlejumper]

Atlantis is slower because of sheer size and the power requirement IMO. Nothing to do with the lack of tech.

As for who's ship is faster, all relative and ever changing.

[Halzman]

Atlantis is slower because of sheer size and the power requirement IMO. Nothing to do with the lack of tech.

As for who's ship is faster, all relative and ever changing.

Actually, Carter while on the Midway Station in 'Adrift' stated that Atlantis should of beat the Apollo to the new destination planet.

The size of the ship has nothing to do with speed, considering the ships use anti gravity technology and that when in space, there in a zero gravity environment. The only thing that determines a ships speed is its sublight capabalities / type of hyperdrive and ultimately, how much power the ship has to play with.

Look up Ion engine if you want to learn about space propulsion systems.

[JSPuddlejumper]

Larger the ship, the greater the power requirement. Thus, with 1 ZPM, or even 3 ZPM it may be insufficient to out pace a warship with 1 ZPM.

Apollo has no ZPM, with one I would bet it can probably beat any ship aside from an Asgard one or a MW Replicator one (who are the fastest by the way, 3 million+ light years in around 1 hour, I believe it was seaon 5 of SG).

[Jarnin]

Atlantis was within 2000 light years of Asuras after it prematurely dropped out of hyperspace...

Pegasus is supposedly one of two real dwarf galaxies in the Local Group of Galaxies. Neither of the two are supposed to be any bigger than 3,000 to 3,500 light years in diameter. They're tiny galaxies compared to the Milky Way.

Without a ZPM, a Daedalus class ship can travel about 2 light years a second. That means that the Apollo should be able to cross Pegasus in about 25 minutes. With a ZPM it should make it in a little under 6 minutes.

In First Strike, Atlantis was traveling less than the diameter of the Pegasus galaxy (~3,000 LY), and it was going to take hours. Either the speeds of things aren't consistent, or Atlantis is a slow turkey.
If Atlantis is slow, it would be consistent with Aurora being a slow ship.

It's possible that very-fast hyperspace travel might have been a late discovery for the Lanteans. I mean, if they didn't discover it until the war with the Wraith, then it would jive with why Aurora wasn't a fast ship, but was being upgraded to be faster.

[Ltcolshepjumper]

It's probably an inconsistency. The Atlantis stardrive is suppose to be very powerful. And if the Aurora can travel that close to the speed of light, it's hyperdrives have to be powerful. The reason we haven't seen that is because all of the ones we've seen have been damaged. Well, the Aurora might have been one of the first ships, so...

[2ndgenerationalteran]

In Hyperspace doesnt the hyperspace engine just open the window and bring the two destinations closer, and the sublight engines provides the propulsion through subspace? If that is the case then, the aurora class would be capable of extremely fast hyperspace travel, the two types of hyperdrives may just be the ability of the hyperdrive to pull two places of 2D space closer together, so shortening the distance rather than making the ship faster.

In the case of the Asgard, their ships may have had the ability to travel at .99999c and combined with their IGHDs it could easily explain how they travel so quickly. And why the 304s go slower than asgard vessels even though they probably have the same HDs (if memory serves, our ships can reach .60c).

[Halzman]

Pegasus is supposedly one of two real dwarf galaxies in the Local Group of Galaxies. Neither of the two are supposed to be any bigger than 3,000 to 3,500 light years in diameter. They're tiny galaxies compared to the Milky Way.

Without a ZPM, a Daedalus class ship can travel about 2 light years a second. That means that the Apollo should be able to cross Pegasus in about 25 minutes. With a ZPM it should make it in a little under 6 minutes.

In First Strike, Atlantis was traveling less than the diameter of the Pegasus galaxy (~3,000 LY), and it was going to take hours. Either the speeds of things aren't consistent, or Atlantis is a slow turkey.
If Atlantis is slow, it would be consistent with Aurora being a slow ship.

It's possible that very-fast hyperspace travel might have been a late discovery for the Lanteans. I mean, if they didn't discover it until the war with the Wraith, then it would jive with why Aurora wasn't a fast ship, but was being upgraded to be faster.

And yet it took the Daedalus and the Aurora 13 hours to go from Atlantis to the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy during 'No Man's Land'. If Atlantis, according to Carter in 'Adrift' should of reached their destination before the Apollo, clearly their hyperdrive is faster.

Here are some facts:

- A light year = 9,460,730,472,580.8 km
- Speed of light = 1,079,252,848.8 km/hour
- Our solar system is 26,000 (plus or minus 1400) light years from the center of our galaxy
- Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter, 1000 light years thick, and contains 200-400 billion stars.
- A dwarf galaxy contains 10-20 billion stars (conservativly) and is roughly 7,500 light years in diameter

In 'The Return - Part 1' The Aurora wasn't traveling at .99 the speed of light with its hyperdrives - That was with its sublight engines. Hyperdrives are for 'Faster Then Light' travel, sub light is anything below the speed of light. So how did the Aurora do it - and how would any ship with an Ion drive/sublight engine do it? Power - and in the Aurora's case it was a ZPM that gave them the neccessary power. Heres how ion drives work, since no one took the time to read up about them. You have a vacuum chamber which has a gas (such as xenon) pumped in, while also pumping in electrons (via CRT or RF), and then this chamber is surrounded by a permanent magent which contains both the gas and the ions within the chamber. Then you have 2 grids (more recently 3, to increase grid life) - The grid closest to the chamber is positive and then grid at the end of the engine is negative. The gas and electrons become plasma/ions, and the difference ingrid voltages is what pulls those ion/plasma through and out the back, creating thrust (NASA's Ion engines use 2kw of power to acheive their thrust). THEREFORE, the more power you can supply to those grids, the greater thrust you generate. The Aurora's hyperdrive FAILED, as explained by Captain Helia in 'The Return - Part 2' and it was her decision to head back to earth with the sublights, seriously boosted by a ZPM.

That is exactly why in 'First Strike', Atantis's stardrive required so much power up front (30%). It needed to generate and maintain the thrust to take it out of the atmosphere. Even with anti-gravity, you still have to do something to move it and an ion engine is the best thing to use in a zero gravity environment. Once your in space and your traveling at the speed you want, you dont have to supply to drive with so much power. Now, I'm guessing people get confused with the term Stardrive, since it refers to Atlantis's sublight engines and hyperdrive.

It would seem that the hyperdrive is more of a design issue then power issue. Its been shown ( 'Critical Mass' ) that the daedalus's hyperdrive can be made faster with the risk of burning out the drive. This implies that the 304's hyperdrive was only built to handle certain speeds. If anything, the 304 using a ZPM for hyperspace travel is the inconsistency! In every other instance, we have seen that the hyperdrive can be made to go faster with the risk of it burning out ('New Order - Part 1').

And it is safe to assume that Atlantis had Intergalactic Hyperdrives several million years ago, when they left earth and moved to Pegasus. By the time the Ancient began their war with the wraith, which was 10,000+ years ago, they already had aurora-class and atlantis class ships ('The Tower', 'Progency', 'Before I Sleep')

[Zeltanar]

That is something that ABSOLUTELY pisses me off all the time. How the writers change the laws of physics of the show just to suite story line needs. I am TIRED of that. Why cant they be consistent with the technology of stargate. Hyperspace travel is just one of many.

And as for a map we already have it. Milky way and peguses are about 3.5 million light years apart. And peguses is a dwarf galaxy which means that it is ALOT smaller than the milkyway. Ida is most likely one of the small galaxies that are in orbit around our own.

The Stargate sg-1 episode titled "Unnatural Selection" (season 6) confirms the relative speed of the Asgard vessel. The Prometheus enters hyperspace, and comes out in the middle of nowhere, due to the instability of the naquahdria, and then Thor arrives and informs them that he has been tracking their movement since they left orbit. He then returns to earth with the earth vessel in tow, in about five seconds.

Earlier in the episode (or it may have been at the end of the episode right before this one) Sam states that they are about 1,200 light-years from Earth. So if the Asgard can travel 1,200 light years in five seconds, it would take approximately 4.05 hours for them to reach the Pegasus galaxy. And they may have been slowed down, do to the earth vessel being dragged along, so they may be able to accelerate even faster than this.

This obviously does not fit in with the episodes we've been presented though, unfortunately the writer's did indeed change the facts in order for it to be more convenient for them to write the stories.

[An-Alteran]

Well. . .

Spoiler:

We don't know how far away Asura is from Atlantis.

But speeds in Stargate have been frelled with so much that it's hard to say. An Asgard ship can travel from their home galaxy to Earth in minutes, but take a week to reach Pegasus.

It's a real mindfrell.

Dude?!

When have the Asgard travelled from their home galaxy to Earth in minutes?
Could you please show what episode this is from?

[An-Alteran]

The Stargate sg-1 episode titled "Unnatural Selection" (season 6) confirms the relative speed of the Asgard vessel. The Prometheus enters hyperspace, and comes out in the middle of nowhere, due to the instability of the naquahdria, and then Thor arrives and informs them that he has been tracking their movement since they left orbit. He then returns to earth with the earth vessel in tow, in about five seconds.

Are you taking into account TV-time vs. real story-time?

Earlier in the episode (or it may have been at the end of the episode right before this one) Sam states that they are about 1,200 light-years from Earth.
So if the Asgard can travel 1,200 light years in five seconds, it would take approximately 4.05 hours for them to reach the Pegasus galaxy. And they may have been slowed down, do to the earth vessel being dragged along, so they may be able to accelerate even faster than this.

This assumes that the time presented on screen corresponded to the time in the story.

[Zeltanar]

When Thor transported them back to earth, you saw space distort slightly through the window in the Bridge, and within seconds they arrived back at earth. The characters were stunned at the speed. Honestly, the signs point towards it being nearly instantaneous.

[Jarnin]

it is safe to assume that Atlantis had Intergalactic Hyperdrives several million years ago, when they left earth and moved to Pegasus. By the time the Ancient began their war with the wraith, which was 10,000+ years ago, they already had aurora-class and atlantis class ships ('The Tower', 'Progency', 'Before I Sleep')

Newflash! Any hyperdrive is capable of traveling between galaxies. Even ships without hyperdrives are capable of intergalactic travel. The only difference is the duration of the trip.

So, while Atlantis definitely had hyperdrive prior to their trip to Pegasus, it doesn't mean it is 'fast' compared to other ships, like the Asgard.

When Thor transported them back to earth, you saw space distort slightly through the window in the Bridge, and within seconds they arrived back at earth. The characters were stunned at the speed. Honestly, the signs point towards it being nearly instantaneous.

First, it was 8 seconds. In physics that's a lifetime.
Second, it was about 1,200 light years, which is, relatively speaking, right around the block.
If you do the math, with Prometheus in tow, an O'Neill class ship travels at ~150 lightyears a second, or about 8 times as fast as Daedalus (without a ZPM).

Hypothesis: Atlantis' FTL system is called a 'Star Drive'. Atlantis is millions of years old. Therefore, when Atlantis was originally built, it wasn't designed to travel quickly between galaxies, but was upgraded at a later time to do so. Once the Lanteans discovered the secrets of 'fast FTL', they deemed it "Hyper drive". Later they shared that knowledge with the Asgard, who improved the technology to what we see in current Asgard ships.

[from_orion]

we also dont know the distances travelled, may be to get from earth to pegasus we need to go all the way accross the mw and further i n the void then travel a fair distance in pegasus to get to atlantis, but to get to ida its like crossing the street, short trip to the void, shorter trip in the void than to pegasus. we havent been given an intergalactic map of the SG universe afterall.

Exactly like in Prometheus Unbound it shows that the route to atlantis goes through many hyperspace hours of milky way territory.

[Athosian Death facilitator]

We don't know it took a week to get to Pegasus with that, all we have is some vague comment from Wier about cutting down a couple of weeks of travel time, which is roughly two weeks via Deadalus. It may have been anything from 4 days to 4 minutes travel. It would have been helpful for all the 'Asgard hyperdrives aren't that great' crowd if she said "With their help, we'll be there in a week.", but she didn't.

Rodney said something like "We are stranded in the middle of another galaxy with limited resources Radek, the nearest Bob's Big Boy is 3million/thousand/hundred(i am unsure as to which.)

So if it takes 3 weeks to get to Earth via the Daedalus/Apollo/Odyssey can you guys extrapolate how fast the Asgard hyperdrives are? and from there we can most definitely say 'Atlantis is faster.'


The Wraith couldn't track the Ancients while in hyperspace and even if they could hyperspace radiation would cause them to stop and recover while Atlantis goes out of sensor range. derrr.