SG1-RPG Tollan Power and planetary destruction.

[Xon]

Hey, does it say anything about the Goauld having massive terratorming technology? Because I was thinking about this:

I think I hear Teal'C say somewere that the Go'ould oftwen did terraform planets with stargates (or move the stargate to planet which was already terraformed), but I need to hunt the exact quote down. Oh for Stargate episode transcripts all in 1 searchable place.

Sokar converted the planet he was on into a living hell, which it wasnt before.

SG-1 blows up a moon. Debris should hit the planet, turning it into an uninhabitable rock ala Endor. But Apothis is still using it as his base in the season 5 opener. One possibility is planetary shields, which explains some things, but raises way too many other questions as a result. So is there evidence of terraforming?

They can put up shields to selectively filter sunlight with to much UV to make it non-harmful to humans.

[Elheru Aran]

Sokar converted the planet he was on into a living hell, which it wasnt before.

Minor nitpick: it was the moon of the planet. Nevertheless, you are correct in that it certainly means some terraforming capacity for the Goa'uld...

[Solauren]

Suddenly, a SSD vs Gou'ald Mother ship brawl doesn't seem so one-sided

[NecronLord]

The Season One sourcebook confirms the existance of planetary shields. But not for the goa'uld. The Altairans (AKA the androids) have them, capable of withstanding assault by an entire goa'uld fleet.

[NecronLord]

Oh yes. Fleet numbers from the Season One sourcebook.

Pelops : Two Ha'tak and twelve Al'kesh
Raiden (Non System-Lord) : Seven Ha'tak and slightly under twenty four Al'Kesh

[SCVN 2812]

And the System Lords were able to destroy Anubis' flagship without wiping out at least the city Kelowna if not the planet...how?

[Murazor]

And the System Lords were able to destroy Anubis' flagship without wiping out at least the city Kelowna if not the planet...how?

Poor perfomance of shields in an atmosphere + two internal explosions beforehand + loss of the crystal core + god knows what shield piercing component have Goa'uld weapons.

[NecronLord]

And the System Lords were able to destroy Anubis' flagship without wiping out at least the city Kelowna if not the planet...how?

The same way Star Wars guys are able to shoot at the Invisible Hand over Coruscant without blowing things to hell. Namely the glorious inconsistancy of visual effects. Lest ye forget, Sokar did some very nasty shit to Netu.

[Connor MacLeod]

The same way Star Wars guys are able to shoot at the Invisible Hand over Coruscant without blowing things to hell. Namely the glorious inconsistancy of visual effects. Lest ye forget, Sokar did some very nasty shit to Netu.

Or maybe its dependent upon the power generation technology or fuel source. Something as volatile as antimatter would be very dangerous, whereas something like fusion would not neccesarily be (odds are hypermatter is not nearly as volatile as antimatter is, for that matter.)

The above, however, depends on how one figures the given technolgoy works (how and where it derives energy from, for example.) Fuel may or may not be a consideration as well (how much fuel is consumed, and so on.)

What really interests me is the apparent inconsistencies in the energy output needed to blow up a "planet", and the whole "fifty megaton" thing, which I would imagine complicates what one can consider the "accurate" figure.

[Murazor]

The SGC did blow a planet with a 1 GT nuke, because it was naquadah rich. Such planets in the Stargateverse are remarkably fragile.

[Xon]

The SGC did blow a planet with a 1 GT nuke, because it was naquadah rich. Such planets in the Stargateverse are remarkably fragile.

Not very suprising considering how much energy a few kg of naqudah produce, nevermind millions of tons of it.

[NecronLord]

What really interests me is the apparent inconsistencies in the energy output needed to blow up a "planet", and the whole "fifty megaton" thing, which I would imagine complicates what one can consider the "accurate" figure.

As mentioned above (with link no less), I did just go and ask one of the authors on their website. The Fifty Megaton figure is an error, and should be struck out as eretta.

[SCVN 2812]

And the System Lords were able to destroy Anubis' flagship without wiping out at least the city Kelowna if not the planet...how?

Poor perfomance of shields in an atmosphere + two internal explosions beforehand + loss of the crystal core + god knows what shield piercing component have Goa'uld weapons.

they were 40% less effective, not .40%.

In Full Circle, Anubis' flagship's shields were brought down temporarily by the barrage of at most 15 motherships. As tends to happen when ships attacking another ship are being destroyed at a very quick rate, some ships were able to fire more shots than others in this opening volley. Some got off as many 5 or 6, some as few as 2. 4 seems a nice middle figure since it didn't take that many shots impacting or that long to breach the shields.

So 60 shots total to breach the shields. 60 x 200 megatons = 12,000 megatons for the peak shielding of Anubis' flagship.

So 40% of that would be 4,800 megatons. The rate of fire, energy bolt firing locations on the ships and the size of the bolts suggest that these were the secondary batteries being used in Homecomming rather than the big anti-ship guns used against Anubis' flagship. The highest estimate I've seen for the total number of shots fired in that scene around 1500. Assuming each and every one of those shots hit, they would have to have done around 3.2 megatons of damage each before taking into account pre-existing damage to the ship.

So just how many orders of magnitude would the secondary guns' performance have to drop and the damage to Anubis' ship effect the operation of his shields before Kelowna (the city or the country) would survive this battle?

Also how many orders would hull integrity be weaker than shield strength - particularly seeing as Heru'ur's ship was not destroyed with the first shot fired by Apophis' battleship in 'Serpent's Venom?'

On the other hand, we know the Goa'uld are capable of fielding explosive devices capable of causing a Stargate to overload, small enough to be surgically implanted into a human being. (I seem to recall Nirrti having been accused of using this exact trick.) Seems to me that they could field a very potent ship launched version without much trouble.

We also know that when under siege in 'Lost City Part II' the US put ABL units into the air. (747s equipped with precision lasers for knocking down ICBMs) What do you think they were planning on having to intercept that would take a predictable enough course to allow an ABL to be even remotely useful?

We do NOT know what means the Goa'uld used to accomplish the various feats of planetary and solar scale destruction they are frequently credited with. We know they are capable of them but not how they do it.

And now of course, there is that little matter of a Goa'uld mothership camping out in close proximity to a star to avoid detection using minimal if not completely inactive shields. We also don't hear Jacob commenting on needing to do anything special to the ship to accomplish this. This seems to me to debunk the 200 megaton energy cannon theory in the opposite direction actually.

Personally I lean towards Homecomming being an accurate demonstration of the capabilities of Goa'uld weapons but wish I had a good explanation for the star thing as I tend not to favor dismissing things....except for nearly every mention of the word neutronium in SG-1 so far.

[Xon]

Say it with me now; "Non-DET weaponary".

Staff weapons sure as heck arent DET, and the large ship versions arent either.

[Chris OFarrell]

they were 40% less effective, not .40%.

Actauly the exact quote is:

"Anubis has superior shields but according to our intelegence, they're less then 40% effective within the atmosphere of a planet".

In Full Circle, Anubis' flagship's shields were brought down temporarily by the barrage of at most 15 motherships.

Um, no they were not. He never lost his shields.

As tends to happen when ships attacking another ship are being destroyed at a very quick rate, some ships were able to fire more shots than others in this opening volley. Some got off as many 5 or 6, some as few as 2. 4 seems a nice middle figure since it didn't take that many shots impacting or that long to breach the shields.

Say it with me. Anubis's shields never failed. Its all about N2 baby. Each Mothership only mounts a couple of heavy cannons. Anubis 'eye' weapon was able to reduce the firepower coming in at a steady rate as he kept zapping enemy ships. Meaning although the Goa'uld fleet might have burned his shields way down, they simply in the end lacked the firepower to make the kill and retreated before he killed them all.

They SHOULD have brought in more ships, a hoard of Al'Kesh as well for that matter.

[NecronLord]

Staff weapons sure as heck arent DET,

Why is that?

[Xon]

Staff weapons sure as heck arent DET,

Why is that?

For example the wrister blaster the Kull Warriors use(almost definitely from the same technology base as the Staffs):

In Evolution part 1, when they try and ambush the Kull warrior, Before:



After 2 rapid hits with no visible effect, the 3rd does:


Then you get the case with the wrist blaster not even blowing sand/rocks in Carter's face in Death Knell when landing 20-30cm in front of her face. .

[NecronLord]

Aside from the wrist-blaster/Plasma repeater not actually being the same as a staff weapon but being an enhanced variant of the same technology that is configured for greater penetration, these issues have been dealt with before when talking about sci-fi rayguns. See the popular argument about AT-ATs only making little pockmarks in the snow.

The majority of the wrist blaster's energy, unlike in the staff weapon, is thermal (see them melting their way through Alpha Site ). In the instance you have shown, it is hitting the armour of the jaffa. The energy is likely being used to melt the armour, before, in the third shot, it is vapourised and the resulting explosion throws the jaffa back.

Don't overcomplicate things by assuming any technology that doesn't make a big bang is a chain reaction.

[Xon]

The majority of the wrist blaster's energy, unlike in the staff weapon, is thermal (see them melting their way through Alpha Site ). In the instance you have shown, it is hitting the armour of the jaffa. The energy is likely being used to melt the armour, before, in the third shot, it is vapourised and the resulting explosion throws the jaffa back.

In that second shot, you can clearly see there is no thermal damage on the armour of the Jaffa. And that is after 3 hits.

[SCVN 2812]

Could have sworn one shot got through as the scene changed. No screenies to back it up though and deleted Full Circle off my computer some time ago. That particular part of it temporarily withdrawn.

And I was not implying the ship's hull withstood that only that the shields were weakened to the point that right before the scene changes it appears one shot makes it through, though when it cuts back to the battle the shields are fully effective and no suprise given that the amount of firepower being absorbed is considerably lessened.

As for the heavy guns, its at least 2 and between 6 and 12 depending on where one thinks the shots came from. I've seen it argued they came from the pyramid, the rectangular section that sticks out from the pyramid while to me it looks like they come from the half spheres on its hull.

Even if its less than 40%, if the 200 megaton heavy gun figure is to be believed, thermal or kinetic in nature, the point defense guns in Homecomming should have caused substantial damage to the area.

[Connor MacLeod]

What really interests me is the apparent inconsistencies in the energy output needed to blow up a "planet", and the whole "fifty megaton" thing, which I would imagine complicates what one can consider the "accurate" figure.

As mentioned above (with link no less), I did just go and ask one of the authors on their website. The Fifty Megaton figure is an error, and should be struck out as eretta.

I dunno. I'm not sure how this is handled SoD-wise. See, its not problematic for authors comments to be used to clarify something that is confusing or open to interpretation. However, at the same time I don't think the author is allowed to actually dismiss or ignore what is written arbitrarily, even if they created it. (Once on SB, I had a fiver claiming that JMS wrote back to him and told him that the Tim Earls size charts were canonical over what was stated or demonstrated onscreen, which would violate SoD. Further, there is the dispute over the 160 km "backstage" Death Star 2 plans, or the "five hundred mile" statement. I suppose the Alderaan shield in the "special editions" or Greedo shooting first is another example, or the Lucas commentary on DVD...)

I think that its quite possible that the "fifty megaton" quote also falls into this category - that is, I don't think it can be dismissed as an "error" (assuming that the source does indeed have authority to dictate such conclusions - see the Tim Earls example above.) even if the person is the creator of siad source.

On the other hand, on further reflection, one way you could treat it is to use it as an example of "lower" and "upper" limits. One interpretation is that the 50 megaton figure is accurate and the "wattage" rating is wrong (in a sense it could very well be - watts aren't neccesarily the same thing as joules.) which would be the "lower" limit. The other would be the "upper" limit (the "wattage" could go the other way too.)

Either way, you don't really lose out. 50 megatons for what is a backpack-sized device is pretty reasonable - and you could get awy with arguing that a starship reactor might be much larger (say 100 meters in diameter) which could suggest that the output of a starship is orders of magnitude greater.

[Connor MacLeod]

Even if its less than 40%, if the 200 megaton heavy gun figure is to be believed, thermal or kinetic in nature, the point defense guns in Homecomming should have caused substantial damage to the area.

Depends on how the energy is delivered. A fairly concentrated/narrow/penetrating blast might melt/vaporize/drill a deep/wide hole in the surface without neccearily causing a crater (depending on yield.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Note that for the moment I am ignoring the possibility of any inherent problems in a "backpack sized" power generation device (issues of fuel supply/consumption, the mass/density of the object, containment, heat dissipation, etc.)

[Chris OFarrell]

In reality, its just that the extra didn't have a clue WHEN TO FALL DOWN.

In universe, you can see the other guys next to this Jaffa are falling back, blown away by the first shots because unlike Bre'Tac, they have no idea what 'DUCK' means. Jaffa can be preaty stoic afterall trying to take the impacts for a half second to get one last shot off.

I mean a salvo of those bolts went right through a 2-3 CM thick wooden door and THEN through the body of poor Lt Glen and kept on going.

[Xon]

In reality, its just that the extra didn't have a clue WHEN TO FALL DOWN.

In this case it looks like they are jerking the extra up and back and then stopping with a wire.

They use this effect for the hand devices slam person into wall effect. And that is clearly a non-DET effect.

I mean a salvo of those bolts went right through a 2-3 CM thick wooden door and THEN through the body of poor Lt Glen and kept on going.

We have also seen staff blasts boil off 2-3 fist sized chucks out of the concret walls of the SGC, and not even baddly scorch tree trunks(case in point targetting practice on a suspended tree log..)