Did the Jaffa staff weapons have different settings?

[sgelite]

Your opinion in this context does not matter as it does not change the fact that the weapons are only powerful as the plot dictates. Guns being an exception to a poin

I hear what you are saying but my point is all through sg1 we knew about different zat settings as we were told about them so that facilitates the writers descision
as to how powerfull they could be as and when.
But we never got that with the staff, so how are we supposed to know if they are firing a weaker shot? not even a hint in the storylines, that's the issue.
Stargate usually went to great lengths to keep the audience informed on such things, why not this.
If it was down to the whim of the writers then why bother explaining anything.

[jelgate]

No they didn't Weapons have had a varierty of effectiveness on Stargate. Sometimes they kill you instantly and other times it only wounds you. The weapons are as deadly as the plot dictates

[DarkenLycht]

And again I agree with you, jelgate. It's really not for any logical reason than just for the plotline of the story...I have been rewatching few episodes and it's like that really which is confusing

[The Mist]

The power of a zat is directly proportional to direction to the writer wants to take a story

Also considering the dialogue and the visuals though? Dialogue suggests they are usually lethal(blast from a staff),the visuals have shown otherwise.I think they leave it to 'fandom' interpretation. I hate the whole set to stun BS. Weapons arent made to 'stun'.Except in call of duty black ops 2(if anyone wants to join a clan? :-D ) LOL

[DarkenLycht]

well, yes but leaving things to everyone's own imagination would ve a strange way of writing plots.
Then they just could say they give us a basic frame and let everyone make up their own rules, changing them as often as we want so we cannot rely on anything in the end.
That would be a bad basic of fights or explorations if you cannot be sure what will heppen next or that one thing you found out before will be the same, the next time you are confronted with it

[The Mist]

OK,so in that situation would you say the viewer must choose to go with either dialogue or visuals to determine the answer?

[DarkenLycht]

I would assume so, sometimes it's predictable which effect they will have, regardless of what we have learned before about it

[sgelite]

Actually it was a third zat shot that was supposed to disintegrate matter. Not a staff blast. However, from what I understand they stopped doing that on the show.

Can anyone think of a time when they used a third zat shot after that time in the episode 1969?

I was watching some old skool sg1 last night and saw carter use the 3 shots to disintegrate matter rule on a couple of Jaffa in the episode secrets. about 7 mins from the end.

[Peterking72]

I think the staff blast effect was retconned to absurdly, ridicolously weak towards the end of the franhise. They retconned the zat's disintegration on third shot because it made the weapon too powerful. If they left it to be that powerful then every time a need arised they would just destroyed all evidence or disappear stuff and nobody were the wiser, just them. I too remember O'neill blasting a hole in the foundations of that Castle and Teal'c surviving at least 3 shots in the episode "Talion". It may be possible to be explained away by settings, but when O'neill showed it to Hammond in "CotG" I only saw two buttons: the one that opened the panels on the front end and the one that made it fire.

[Sealurk]

You can still have multiple settings with just two buttons - hold the fire button down longer for more powerful blasts, for example.

[Peterking72]

Memoirs of the Unknown Jaffa:
The left out user's guide for the MKZ-X11 Blaster rifle, more well-known as "staff-weapon" among the Jaffa, Tauri and the countless inhabitants of the Milky Way Galaxy.
There should be kept one at Chulak in the throne hall of the Mighty Apophis and one at the Temple on Dakara. (Both destroyed when the Ori came, what a shame). Alas, one remains, in my head and if I force myself I can recall it one more time.

Users guide:

Noobs: Turn the weapon on. Not that button, the other! For Ra's sake! Not that either, that's not a button! For crying out loud,how
stupid you can possibly get?

Aim: Hold the weapon steady, take a breath, hold it in. Don't choke. Don't you dare choke on me boy! Aim at the desired target, not
a millimeter mistake or you will miss. I don't want to even look at you boy, you holding that staff inversely! My god! I want to retire.

Fire: Yes, that button. now you missed again. Start over, please.
Recoil: Very slow.
Damage to target, foe in case of succesful hit: Mild bruising.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Rookie: Turn the weapon on. Good.
Aim:Not bad. Seen worse. Practice makes the master. Probably you ain't gonna hit anything today either.
Fire:Just do it already.
Recoil: Slow.
Damage to target, foe: Bruising, mild bleeding.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Novice: Turn the weapon on. OK.
Aim: That'cha boy! You catchin on! Very good.
Fire:If you keep shooting long enough you will eventually hit something.
Recoil:Average to fast
Damage to target: Severe pain, Bruising and bleeding. Possibility of broken bones or death.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Adept: Turn on. Aim and fire. Nice shot ya' sport! You're a born killer boy!
Recoil: Very fast
Damage to target: Deadly ass hell. Bite, chew, spit it out!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Master/Godlike: Turn on/Aim/fire. Shoot to kill. You can't miss. Master of the blaster.
Recoil: No recoil!
Damage to target: Obliterated! Pulverized!
Just keep on shooting and your shots will find their way.

[Thoth89]

They retconned the zat's disintegration on third shot because it made the weapon too powerful. If they left it to be that powerful then every time a need arised they would just destroyed all evidence or disappear stuff and nobody were the wiser, just them.

This is correct, apparently the writers didn't like it which is why they joke about the idea in Wormhole X-Treme.

The only other time the disintegrate 'feature' was used after 1969 was in the season 3 episode Point of View.