Wormhole Drive

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Even if they COULD repair it, it would still be more valuable to keep it. Rescuing those eighty people isn't worth the possible loss of any ship at all. I know it sounds harsh but that's kind of how it is.

As it's been subjected to thousands of years of landslides etc it's almost certainly in a bad way. It's not going to be a massive loss to send it after destiny.

Even if it stayed here, if another enemy worked out how to defeat the ancient shields (eg like the asguard did when they took Rodney and Daniel) then two city ships wouldn't make much difference.

Better still, now rodney can create replicators that do as they're told we could start a new breed of them tasked to build city ships from scratch.

Better still, open a 9th chevron connection for a split second and send a few replicator nanites through to destiny with the sole mission of repairing the ship.

I prefer the idea of sending Piramess to unchartered space though. Beaten up and knackered like Atlantis, it then has to defend destiny and continue the mission alongside it before coming home.

Also on that note, when we see 'Atlantis' leave earth, it only has 3 engines under it. When we see it flying around with our people on it, it has six. How do we know that the city in the tower wasn't the one we saw leaving earth? - It's entirely plausible that the ancients built a new city and abandoned the old one.

[garhkal]

Earth wouldn't need to send Atlantis. Just dig up Piramesse (thats what I've named the buried city ship in the tower - based on a egyptian lost city lol). Send a ton of excavation equipment there, dig up the soil layer by layer until the city is uncovered, repair it and then send that instead of atlantis.

Repair it with what? How long would it take to dig it up on its own? And that IS assuming the locals even give us permission to do so.

[Xaeden]

As it's been subjected to thousands of years of landslides etc it's almost certainly in a bad way. It's not going to be a massive loss to send it after destiny.

What about the three ZPMs that they have to risk to power the thing? And if it's so bad off that it's not worth keeping, how much more dangerous would the effort to rescue the crew of the Destiny be? If that damage leads to the engines or shields failing they're screwed and those very hard to find ZPMs that are needed to power Atlantis would be almost as good as gone.

But, of course, this assumes once again that replicating the Wormhole drive would be easy to do. It was one of their last ditch experiments that they had almost completed by the end of the war, so it doesn't come standard on every city ship. That means they either have to figure out how it works well enough to build and incorporate it into other ships or they have to find a way to remove it from Atlantis and integrate it with another ship. While latter is probably a lot more feasible, that means they will no longer have the drive to study if they lose the ship that they install it on and that too is of extreme importance because of the tactical edge it can provide them with if they ever manage to do the former.

Even if it stayed here, if another enemy worked out how to defeat the ancient shields (eg like the asguard did when they took Rodney and Daniel) then two city ships wouldn't make much difference.

Yeah, but what are the chances that will happen? The Asgard somehow found the frequency that Atlantis' shield was operating on and used that to pass through the same way that jumpers do so. However, now that they changed the frequency, someone inside the city has to be working with an enemy to get around the shields, which has always and will always be a risk because someone could disable the ZPMs or crash the system. But, that possibility doesn't change the fact that Ancient city ships have the best and hardest to crack shields around. So why give that up when the alternative is to use lesser shielding for defensive purposes?

Also, it's not about having two cities on Earth; think of how great it would be to have such a powerful and potentially mobile platform to serve as a fortified off-world. Atlantis could go back to Pegasus, (which it has to according to the movie script) where it can be used as a base to continue exploring the galaxy and fight the Wraith while this other city ship could remain on Earth and, when Earth's defensive capabilities significantly improve, it too could be sent off to help secure another location in the galaxy. Assuming, of course, it's possible to repair the city, which I don't buy at all. With all those earthquakes I wouldn't be surprised if the city would completely fall apart if an attempt to move it is made. They'd be better off just cannibalizing it for parts and equipment.

Better still, now rodney can create replicators that do as they're told we could start a new breed of them tasked to build city ships from scratch.

Better still, open a 9th chevron connection for a split second and send a few replicator nanites through to destiny with the sole mission of repairing the ship.

Yeah there's no way Earth is going to risk unleashing the replicators onto the universe again to save a few dozen people. To save Earth, yes, to save a small group, no.

Also on that note, when we see 'Atlantis' leave earth, it only has 3 engines under it. When we see it flying around with our people on it, it has six. How do we know that the city in the tower wasn't the one we saw leaving earth? - It's entirely plausible that the ancients built a new city and abandoned the old one.

Yeah and sometimes space gates have 8 chevrons and other times they have 9. You're reading way too much into VFX goofs.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

What about the three ZPMs that they have to risk to power the thing?

ZPMs turn up all over the place. It may take a year or two but seeing as the crew of destiny are in stasis it won't really matter much will it. Eventually enough ZPMs will turn up.

And if it's so bad off that it's not worth keeping, how much more dangerous would the effort to rescue the crew of the Destiny be?

I never said it wasn't worth keeping. As for danger, as long as the critical systems pass the diagnostic tests the ship itself should be ok. You misunderstand my point. They don't need all the buildings, research labs etc to be intact just the basics.

If that damage leads to the engines or shields failing they're screwed and those very hard to find ZPMs that are needed to power Atlantis would be almost as good as gone.

It won't matter if they have enough for Atlantis too. Remember Atlantis can survive on just one ZPM. It only uses 3 for redundancy.

But, of course, this assumes once again that replicating the Wormhole drive would be easy to do. It was one of their last ditch experiments that they had almost completed by the end of the war, so it doesn't come standard on every city ship.

Good point! For all we know the buried city may have been one of their experimental platforms - they opened a wormhole and came out in a planet.

That means they either have to figure out how it works well enough to build and incorporate it into other ships or they have to find a way to remove it from Atlantis and integrate it with another ship. While latter is probably a lot more feasible, that means they will no longer have the drive to study if they lose the ship that they install it on and that too is of extreme importance because of the tactical edge it can provide them with if they ever manage to do the former.

See my point above. It's more likely that they tried the wormhole drive on this ship and screwed it up, coming out of the wormhole and reintegrating in the planets crust. Why else would they abandon an entire city ship? - It had no stargate so they could not go back to earth directly from it and would need to travel to the gate by foot. They never showed any missing PJs so it looks to me like a blunder with a wormhole drive experiment and they decided that rather than dig it up they'd abandon it.

Yeah, but what are the chances that will happen? The Asgard somehow need the frequency that Atlantis' shield was operating on and used that to pass through the same way jumpers pass through.

It's also possible that the Asguard had some sort of system setup with the ancients that would let them bypass the shield 10k years ago that our guys didn't know about.

Yeah there's no way Earth is going to risk unleashing the replicators onto the universe again to save a few dozen people. To save Earth, yes, to save a small group, no.

Doesn't matter - send nanites to Destiny they'll be so far away that they'll pose no risk to us. As long as they're programmed not to do harm and to rebuild the ship and have a command to be shut down they'll be safe. The one Rodney created to deal with the replicators did her job brilliantly despite everyone being twitchy about it.

Yeah and sometimes space gates have 8 chevrons and other times they have 9. You're reading way too much into VFX goofs.

I hadn't even noticed the 9 chevrons on space gates and you're saying I take too much notice of the VFX? Either way my idea is plausible because Earth already had a stargate. The buried ship doesn't. Go figure!

[Xaeden]

ZPMs turn up all over the place. It may take a year or two but seeing as the crew of destiny are in stasis it won't really matter much will it. Eventually enough ZPMs will turn up.

That is about the worst kind of way to plan a defense - "Here are these super powerful, rare modules that we can't replicate on our own and badly need to augment our defenses since the secret nature of our activities means we have little resources available to us. But, hey, we've gotten lucky in the past so why not throw them around like tic tacs and hope that we'll magically stumble on more of them." Why stop there? In the past last minute Dues ex machincas have saved them from doom so why bother with defenses at all? They should just forgo all ship building efforts on the basis that they've found so many Ancient devices that saved them in the final hour that it's better to assume that it will happen again than to build up their own efforts so they don't have to depend on luck to keep 7 billion lives safe.

This is especially horrible as all but two non-depleted ZPM that have been recovered since the expedition first stepped foot on Atlantis have come from the now extinct replicators and one of those two was found in the Milky Way's past. So they have had very little success finding ZPMs in the remains of the Ancient's Pegasus civilization but, unfortunately, that and whatever few ZPMs Todd's agents still have from the raid on the replicator planet are their last resources for ZPMs in the galaxy.

I never said it wasn't worth keeping. As for danger, as long as the critical systems pass the diagnostic tests the ship itself should be ok. You misunderstand my point. They don't need all the buildings, research labs etc to be intact just the basics.

And I never said that anything about needing the buildings or research labs in tact. I was referring to the likelihood of the shields and engines still being operational. Those engines and shield generators are exposed and so the earthquakes and landslides are likely to have done a number on them.

It won't matter if they have enough for Atlantis too. Remember Atlantis can survive on just one ZPM. It only uses 3 for redundancy.

No, it needs three to be fully operational. One ZPM is sufficient to partially power the city if it's just sitting on the ground. However, it is not sufficient to send the city to the other end of the universe. Trying to power multiple systems with a ZPM will drain it significantly in a matter of days. Hence, it could not power both the city's hyperdrives and shields for very long when they tried to move it with one ZPM, it would not have been able to sustain heavy bombard from Wraith ships for more than a few days with one ZPM, it couldn't get off the ground with one ZPM, etc. The latter isn't such an issue in your scenario as they could use three ZPMs to get it into space and then remove all but one. However, if they get into trouble and can't return right away, they're not going to last long with one ZPM and that's assuming they could even get there with one ZPM which isn't possible. As I said previously, if they can't power a Stargate's wormhole with a destination to the other side of the universe using ZPMs it's extremely unlikely that they could power a city sized wormhole to the other side of the galaxy. But, it's absolutely impossible they'd be able to do so with a sole ZPM.

Good point! For all we know the buried city may have been one of their experimental platforms - they opened a wormhole and came out in a planet.

See my point above. It's more likely that they tried the wormhole drive on this ship and screwed it up, coming out of the wormhole and reintegrating in the planets crust. Why else would they abandon an entire city ship? - It had no stargate so they could not go back to earth directly from it and would need to travel to the gate by foot. They never showed any missing PJs so it looks to me like a blunder with a wormhole drive experiment and they decided that rather than dig it up they'd abandon it.

Why would they test a wormhole drive on a city ship during a war that was heavily taxing their resources?

As to why they would abandon it - They abandoned all their remaining installations when Atlantis was evacuating everyone to Earth. This was explained in "Before I Sleep" where it was shown that last Ancient holdouts throughout the galaxy were converging on Atlantis and again in "The Return" where it was revealed that the crew of the Tria couldn't make it back to Atlantis in time so they decided to try to make to Earth on their own. Some Ancients probably gated into Atlantis before heading to Earth, but a lot were shown to have made the journey by ship and pushed their way through the Wraith armada.

As to the Stargate not being in the city; Atlantis is the only Ancient installation which has ever been shown to have an interior Stargate and only after moving to Pegasus (the Earth Stargate was some distance from the city and, no, that doesn't mean it was a different city ship). That's probably either because their ocean location would make it too much of a pain to transport everyone to the mainland by jumper to use the Stargate or because they moved the Stargate when the Wraith were coming. In general, it's safer for the Stargate to be outside of the city even if the gate is shielded and since every other gate to Ancient installations have been located away from the base, you shouldn't read too much into this.

It's also possible that the Asguard had some sort of system setup with the ancients that would let them bypass the shield 10k years ago that our guys didn't know about.

Unlikely since they came to the Pegasus galaxy while the Ancients were fighting the Wraith so they could do medical experiments on humans while the Ancients were too busy to stop them. More likely, they simply spent some part of the last 10,000 years raiding Ancient technology (hence the modified suits, control they had over the Attero base, and possibly the similarities between their ships and Ancient designs) and found the right frequency from another base or ship.

Doesn't matter - send nanites to Destiny they'll be so far away that they'll pose no risk to us.

If it doesn't matter, what's the point of sending them to the Destiny? You want them to repair the ship so it can't somehow be used to get back to Earth? If not then it absolutely is a danger to Earth as the same way the crew can get back, the replicators can get back and even if they aren't sent there with the intent to help the crew get back to Earth that doesn't mean they couldn't eventually figure out a way on their own. In the meantime, they'd be risking untold sentient life on the other side of the universe just to make the lives of a few dozen better. That's a rogue NID kind of plan and not one that that those currently in charge of the Stargate program would endorse.

As long as they're programmed not to do harm and to rebuild the ship and have a command to be shut down they'll be safe. The one Rodney created to deal with the replicators did her job brilliantly despite everyone being twitchy about it.

And attempts to create controllable replicators spectacularly got out of hand when the Ancients tried it and when Earth tried it in "The Ark of Truth." Just because they managed to complete their mission before things got out of hand one time doesn't mean that will always be the case. The more time that passes the more time things have to go wrong and whether you or I think it is a good/bad idea is irrelevant as past experience has shown that those in charge are so afraid of a occurrence of the replicators that they won't authorize more replicators to be built unless it's part of a hail Mary plan to save Earth.

I hadn't even noticed the 9 chevrons on space gates and you're saying I take too much notice of the VFX? Either way my idea is plausible because Earth already had a stargate. The buried ship doesn't. Go figure!

I said you were reading too much into, not taking too much notice. Meaning, you were making more out of the one you noticed than was reasonable and to emphasize that point I referenced another VFX goof that you may not have been aware of as a way of saying these mistakes happen all the time.

[garhkal]

Yeah there's no way Earth is going to risk unleashing the replicators onto the universe again to save a few dozen people. To save Earth, yes, to save a small group, no.
.

Agreed. Heck i can see the Destinites not wanting replicators there period.

ZPMs turn up all over the place. It may take a year or two but seeing as the crew of destiny are in stasis it won't really matter much will it. Eventually enough ZPMs will turn up.

Will they? How many has our team found/gotten to use?
1 from Camulus we could not use
1 on the world with those kids (not worth using)
1 full one held by those monks (the potentium)
1 from Ra, which is now more than likely almost used up
3 full ones from the replicators, drained quite significantly due to the war with the Asurans and against the super hive in EOTG
2 new ones from 'Todd"..

It won't matter if they have enough for Atlantis too. Remember Atlantis can survive on just one ZPM. It only uses 3 for redundancy.

The city can, but it ain't going anywhere on just one.

It's also possible that the Asguard had some sort of system setup with the ancients that would let them bypass the shield 10k years ago that our guys didn't know about.

That i agree with.

Doesn't matter - send nanites to Destiny they'll be so far away that they'll pose no risk to us. As long as they're programmed not to do harm and to rebuild the ship and have a command to be shut down they'll be safe. The one Rodney created to deal with the replicators did her job brilliantly despite everyone being twitchy about it.

True, "Fran" did well, but do we honestly know if fran can be used to repair stuff? Would giving them enough intelligence to repair the destiny, put them over the edge?

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Agreed. Heck i can see the Destinites not wanting replicators there period.

I see them wanting a chance to survive!

Will they? How many has our team found/gotten to use?
1 full one held by those monks (the potentium)
1 from Ra, which is now more than likely almost used up
3 full ones from the replicators, drained quite significantly due to the war with the Asurans and against the super hive in EOTG
2 new ones from 'Todd"..

So thats 7 already. More will turn up. Admittedly the one by the monks was lost again so technically 6 but even so we've still had enough to power two city ships.

The city can, but it ain't going anywhere on just one.

Well it has before!

True, "Fran" did well, but do we honestly know if fran can be used to repair stuff? Would giving them enough intelligence to repair the destiny, put them over the edge?

I think they could adequately be trusted to be honest. The replicators themselves said that the ancients gave them an unbearable aggression. Rodney can undo that and get the nanites to work in earths favour given enough time (which he's had).

[Mnikolic]

Agreed. Heck i can see the Destinites not wanting replicators there period.

Why not? The way I see it, at least a few dozen poeple at SGC/SGHW have come a long way of understanding how the Replicators came to be and exist, how they think and how they work, including Carter, McKay and anyone at SGC/SGHW/Atlantis that had their hands full with them.

Let's say that SGA wasn't cancelled and that it went on for a another full season or even two. McKay, Carter and probably a revived Wier (since the writers had plans to bring her back anyway, at least prior Ghost in the Machine) manage to crack all secrets about Replicators by using the Replicating table, seen on the show and eventually make human-like and animal-like Replicators that they would have full control of. Back on Earth, the technology is prefected and that sets up for the sloving of the problems of the Destiny crew. McKay, Carter, Wier and probably Gen O'Neill use the communication stones to let everyone on board Destiny know that they're going to attempt to use their modified Replicator technology and send a Replicator Queen trough the gate (from an Icarus planet, of course), which would produce as many little Replicators as needed to cover all damaged portions of the ship. Once they do their task, they would simply be programmed to shut down and disassemble. The whole procedure would be monitored by Wier and Gen. O'Neill on Destiny via the communication stones, while McKay and Carter would be monitoring the activity from the Icarus planet (which wouldn't be blowing up for a thrid time in a row).

Following this, the crew is finally able to access all of the ship, learn more about it, complete Destiny's mission and then simply gating back home. Problem solved, everyone's home, having a P A R T Y.

[garhkal]

I see them wanting a chance to survive!

A lot of that might depend on how many of the SGU crew know of the replicators and their history.

[QUOTE=Energizer_Vs_ZPM;14007618]So thats 7 already. More will turn up. Admittedly the one by the monks was lost again so technically 6 but even so we've still had enough to power two city ships.

Lets see. The one found in Ra's lair was used up along with the ones we got from the Asurans. The 2 we gained from Todd have been drained somewhat cause of the battle with the super hive. So of 5 of those 7, only 1 is left untapped and full.

Well it has before!

When? The time it flew off Lantea (s3 ep 20/S4 ep1) it had a full three ZPMs.

I think they could adequately be trusted to be honest. The replicators themselves said that the ancients gave them an unbearable aggression. Rodney can undo that and get the nanites to work in earths favour given enough time (which he's had).

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. All the times we have had incidences with reps (whether spider ones or the asurans) it has not turned out well, barr the "FRAN" situation.

Why not? The way I see it, at least a few dozen poeple at SGC/SGHW have come a long way of understanding how the Replicators came to be and exist, how they think and how they work, including Carter, McKay and anyone at SGC/SGHW/Atlantis that had their hands full with them.

They have had a lot of time, but i doubt they have had sufficient time to completely learn to control them totally.

[Gatefan1976]

When? The time it flew off Lantea (s3 ep 20/S4 ep1) it had a full three ZPMs.

You sure??
I thought it was powered from the geothermal station and the Naquadah generators.

[Mnikolic]

They have had a lot of time, but i doubt they have had sufficient time to completely learn to control them totally.

McKay created a FRAN body for Elizabeth's mind in Ghosts in the Machine. She (or better said: it) trusted Sheppard's team. So back on Earth and while Atlantis is/was still on Earth, McKay could have asked the IOA to transfer all Replicator technology to a safe area (perhaps a re-built Area 51). From there, they could just go the Robocop way and obtain an animal that is about to pass away and just transfer his/her mind to a Reaplicator Queen, perhaps make up some huge-ass coding program and with everything combined, the SGC/SGHW could've easily launched a rescue operation.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

[QUOTE=garhkal;14008892]

So thats 7 already. More will turn up. Admittedly the one by the monks was lost again so technically 6 but even so we've still had enough to power two city ships.

Lets see. The one found in Ra's lair was used up along with the ones we got from the Asurans. The 2 we gained from Todd have been drained somewhat cause of the battle with the super hive. So of 5 of those 7, only 1 is left untapped and full.

I did not say we still HAVE, what I said is that we HAD. Therefore we have HAD enough to power two city ships like I said previously. No doubt more ZPMs will slowly turn up too.

When? The time it flew off Lantea (s3 ep 20/S4 ep1) it had a full three ZPMs.

No it did not. It had one ZPM and the geothermal power mining station via the umbilical cord. If you remember correctly, the city would not take off until the shield was lowered to save energy for take off. Once the city had enough inertia, the shield was again raised. Don't judge me or my ideas based on your incorrect understandings / memory.

[Mister Oragahn]

The only real way I could see this actually working is for the Atlantis team to discover that Atlantis can also draw power from stars. At that point they could perhaps go sundiving with the great city (sheesh imagine how that would look!) and then open a wormhole but again it would have the same risk that destiny suffered.

I suppose to counter that atlantis could have some sort of super capacitors to store the energy, emerge from the star into normal space and then create the wormhole..

Well, the shield is part skin, part flow system that channels huge amounts of that nasty energy hitting the shield into a system that nullifies said energy.
I suppose the city's power source provides the energy in a way that nullifies the one collected by the shield: the shield is a system meant to hold 'nasty' energy in place so it can be nullified. It has to be an odd and complex system like that, even if naturally one would think that energy + energy = 2x energy. But in this case, magitech, like many shields in SF shows, has to be understood as + vs -, and somehow, you cannot recycle nor store any of that external energy.

Now, on to that collector system.
The collector system would use the same shield projectors also tuned to cast the invisibility field in order to collect energy from a star. Perhaps they'd have to stretch the shield into a new shape to do so.
However, I doubt the city could be ran that way, it's not built for that and not exactly as sturdy as the Destiny.
To spice things up, that collector system would work under ideal conditions with a steady input of energy. Any spike, like an explosion or an attack or a nuke, would largely tip off the curves and damage the collecting canopy, rapidly saturate capacitors in excess and burn them.

Besides, the city doesn't have much long term capacitors. The Storm and all other uses of ZPMs has shown that it uses power sources instantly.
The whole megacapacitor system would require a massive redesign that would somehow exploit the defensive shield tech to force it to prolongate its short term ability to channel and hold massive amounts of energy.
That's awkward.

[Xaeden]

I think they could adequately be trusted to be honest. The replicators themselves said that the ancients gave them an unbearable aggression. Rodney can undo that and get the nanites to work in earths favour given enough time (which he's had).

And what made the Milky Way humanoid replicators go postal? Simple betrayal. Do you think Earth would want to let this new group of replicators live in peace and freedom after they're done using them or do you think they'd want to eradicate them when they've out lived in their usefulness? It would most certainly be the latter (they didn't even want Weir and her group around), and how do you think the replicators would react if they were to learn that this was the plan?

They got very lucky with Fran; she didn't have time to experience the universe because they created and used her as a sacrifice when she was still in that trusting child phase. However, the longer replicators are allowed to exist and the more replicators that are created (every now and then you seem to get one that is exceptionally understanding), the greater the chance something will go wrong.

McKay, Carter, Wier and probably Gen O'Neill use the communication stones to let everyone on board Destiny know that they're going to attempt to use their modified Replicator technology and send a Replicator Queen trough the gate (from an Icarus planet, of course), which would produce as many little Replicators as needed to cover all damaged portions of the ship. Once they do their task, they would simply be programmed to shut down and disassemble. The whole procedure would be monitored by Wier and Gen. O'Neill on Destiny via the communication stones, while McKay and Carter would be monitoring the activity from the Icarus planet (which wouldn't be blowing up for a thrid time in a row).

Following this, the crew is finally able to access all of the ship, learn more about it, complete Destiny's mission and then simply gating back home. Problem solved, everyone's home, having a P A R T Y.

Another possibility: While this is going on the Destiny comes under attack and they're not able to issue the kill command before things get out of hand. The replicators then spread throughout (and possibly beyond) whatever galaxy the Density is flying through and start killing innocent species and/or they find their way back to Earth to once again wreck havoc on the advanced populations that inhabit the Milky Way. Only this time there's no Dakara Weapon (thanks to the Ori) so there won't be any galaxy wide anti-replicator field to save the day.

Of course, there's a good chance that it won't happen, but I don't see Earth willing to play the odds that something won't go wrong for 80 people and the Destiny. After all, they are extremely panicky when it comes to replicators and I think they know well enough that people like McKay are not infallible. So just because he says something is safe, doesn't make it so (blowing up a planet, claiming that his Midway program made an Iris unnecessary... the list just goes on and on).

No it did not. It had one ZPM and the geothermal power mining station via the umbilical cord. If you remember correctly, the city would not take off until the shield was lowered to save energy for take off. Once the city had enough inertia, the shield was again raised. Don't judge me or my ideas based on your incorrect understandings / memory.

And with that one ZPM it limped its way to a nearby planet (even if it didn't sustain damage that caused it to rapidly leak power, it wasn't going to get very far). That's a whole different matter than creating a city sized wormhole to the other end of the universe (not only would that itself require a tremendous amount of power, but don't forget that they need to have the shield up at all times in space so that's an additional drain) and hoping that nothing goes wrong that causes you to lose your sole city ship.

How long do you think those shields would last with one ZPM if the city came under attack and what could the city do to save itself if that happened? It wouldn't be able to go into hyperspace as powering the hyperdrive and sustaining the shields while it's being taxed by weapons fire would be too much for it to handle and it probably couldn't fire any drones either given what happened in the finale with three ZPMs powering the city. So there's a good chance they'd just be stuck there until the enemy depleted their shields and killed them all unless the Destiny could come to the rescue (in which case they'd still need to power the wormhole drive again to make another jump to the other end of the universe and, as I said before, they can't even power a small Stargate with a ZPM so two city sized jumps with one ZPM is definitely not going to happen).

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Now, on to that collector system.
The collector system would use the same shield projectors also tuned to cast the invisibility field in order to collect energy from a star. Perhaps they'd have to stretch the shield into a new shape to do so.

Invisibility field to enter a star like Destiny? Mate what are you on about?

However, I doubt the city could be ran that way, it's not built for that and not exactly as sturdy as the Destiny.

Why? How do you know it wasn't once run like that by the ancients before they developed ZPMs?

Sturdy depends on your version. Don't forget Destiny has cone in hot for an ocean landing twice. It's been through asteroid fields, survived for thousands of years under the ocean, protected an entire planet from a solar flare (in ancient times) etc. I think it's pretty sturdy to be honest.


To spice things up, that collector system would work under ideal conditions with a steady input of energy. Any spike, like an explosion or an attack or a nuke, would largely tip off the curves and damage the collecting canopy, rapidly saturate capacitors in excess and burn them.

Besides, the city doesn't have much long term capacitors.

Thats never been stated in the show. Don't forget they haven't explored it all yet either.

That's awkward.

Only for you because it's not mentioned in the show. If they suddenly threw in the idea into a show you wouldn't even bother to argue it you'd just accept it. You're one of the ones around here that likes to invent problems rather than solutions.