Let's talk about wiping out planets...

[Ko'or Oragahn]

First of all, I'd like to present you this page : Michael's Wong Planet Killers page.
You could learn more about him by visint g more of his site. He's a big fan of Star Wars and its expanded universe (no one is perfect ) and owns both a site and a board dedicated to Star Wars and Star Wars Vs Star Trek (like at ASVS), but also about other subjects that may have nothing to do with sci-fi.

Like Space Battles, it is those Versus debates which are reputed to be quite harsh and full flamed that mostly forced people to get calculation about the fire power and shielding of the weapons and ships of their favourite universe(s), you know, things like "my ship is bigger than yours and could crush your pityful vessel and its crew in one blink".

I'm not saying that Wong is the truth incarnate (I for one disagree on some of his ideas and his view regarding the EU), but his planet killer page is quite an interesting place to get informed about the various massive super weapons shown in sci-fi films and shows, though this is not always refering to fire power calculations.

Note that Wong defined a precise set of rules which must be more or less rigorously followed if a given weapon postulates to figure on his page. We're not going to debate about his rules, even if he doesn't himself respect them since he talks about SW weapons or their effects that were never shown onscreen, or when he takes Titan AE despite the fact that it is an Anime when earlier he said that no animes were allowed.
We're here to show that the stargate universe DO have weapons which deserve to be talked about and known by the public.

While I'm wondering why Wong didn't include the ships of ID4 (just a entertaining big boom film with cool ships but that's all but with some sickening pro-american propaganda - maybe the effects were far from sufficient ?), the conestoga-class ships of ALIENS (which carry tons of very powerfull warheads) nor the not very scientific alien ship at the beginnig of MIB2 which destroyed many planets (and yet Wong consider the bizarre and not serious LEXX universe as valid), I'm also intrigued by the lack of any reference to the Stargate universe, and that disturbs me. One may say that's unfair.

So just to show that Wong is wrong by not including any reference to Stargate, I'm simply asking you for help in order to list all the clues and proofs of the existence of such super weapons.

This shouldn't be that hard. So here we go.

***

I may be wrong, but since I can't remember seeing any major massive destruction of any planet, this is the occasion to officially ask the producers for such an event to be shown. Nearly each major and most popular sci-fi universe had its own cataclysm. It would be nice if Stargate would not depart from this rule. Now, if that has already been shown, just forget it.

I also learned that one of the episodes of season three that I missed showed a world called Netu (some hellish place) being blown away (http://www.theserpentslair.co.uk/episodes/sg1/season03/devil.html). From the pic, it looks like an Alderaan explosion btw. But I can't know if a ship literally fired at the planet and destroyed it without any help (by for example naquada present on the planet) or if Netu exploded because of other reasons.

First, I'd like to say that several times, I read that Ha'tak ships do have enough fire power to destroy a planet (like on this page for example). What is not clear is what is meant by destroying a planet. I may have missed an essential reference to such an event.
However, we know that Ha'tak ships are inferior to Cheops ships. So if we can shows that Ha'tak ships can actually wipe out a planet, it wouldn't be hard to suppose that Cheops ships can do the same, possibly faster.

Now, remember the bomb which grew inside of Cassandra. I remember that it was supposed to wipe out the base and was still fairly small.

What is interesting to note is that when Ra added naquada to the atomic bomb transported by O'Neil(l) on Abydos, and yet nothing apparent protruded from the device, which means that Ra was able to add only very little portions of naquada inside the bomb.
Now, when you look at the effects, it vaporized the entire Ha'tak ship. There were no wrecked pieces, no debris, safe a ring of what-you-want.
Now imagine what would happen with a missile fileld with naquada, or even better, naquadria. I tihnk that the X-302 was equiped with two missiles that contained naquada.

What is interesting is to think about the consequences of firing at the surface of a world full of naquada deposits. But well, this isn't relevant since the naquada needs to be part of the vessel's weapons in order to be accepted.

Anyway, Wong also took Star Trek's Genesis device as a valid case, so we're allowed to introduce the planet terraforming ship used by the Gadmeer on P5S-381 (S4). This ship literally destroys any carbon based eco-system to then produce a sulfur based one.
It takes time to do so, but the ship has all the power necessary to complete its mission, but its ressources can terraform a planet only once (which explain why it took so long to match the Gadmeer requirements).

 

[PTeppic]

Series 3 spoilers for "Devil You Know"

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The destruction on Netu was achieved by sending a Tok'ra supplied bomb to a sub-terrainean position before it blew, and Netu was only a moon, therefore by implication smaller than a planet.

What is interesting is to think about the consequences of firing at the surface of a world full of naquada deposits. But well, this isn't relevant since the naquada needs to be part of the vessel's weapons in order to be accepted.

We get this in S4's "Chain Reaction, and the effect is significant, even though it is effectively only trace naquadah in the soil, if I remember, and the naquadah certainly isn't part of the bomb...

Just for the record,

What is interesting to note is that when Ra added naquada to the atomic bomb transported by O'Neil(l) on Abydos, and yet nothing apparent protruded from the device, which means that Ra was able to add only very little portions of naquada inside the bomb.

The naqaudah WASN'T already in the bomb - you will recall that the whole final assault came to pass as Jack's team brought the naquadah into the base of the pyramid - since it went back outside with them (the team trapped outside hid behind it) there was no naquadah in the bomb when it transported.

 

[Ko'or Oragahn]

Originally posted by PTeppic
Series 3 spoilers for "Devil You Know"

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The destruction on Netu was achieved by sending a Tok'ra supplied bomb to a sub-terrainean position before it blew, and Netu was only a moon, therefore by implication smaller than a planet.

Are such weapons carried onboard ships as regular warheads for example ? Can they drill through a crust ?
Otherwise, I'm afraid that we couldn't use that as a proof of the power of the space pyramids.

We get this in S4's "Chain Reaction, and the effect is significant, even though it is effectively only trace naquadah in the soil, if I remember, and the naquadah certainly isn't part of the bomb...

I'm not sure I clearly understand what you mean but wasn't there a gate which was indeed detonated (SPOILERS SPOILERS !! I think that it is the episode where the SGC decices to destroy the Beta gate and use the other one found later in the show... SPOILER SPOILERS !!).

Just for the record, The naqaudah WASN'T already in the bomb - you will recall that the whole final assault came to pass as Jack's team brought the naquadah into the base of the pyramid - since it went back outside with them (the team trapped outside hid behind it) there was no naquadah in the bomb when it transported.

Râ added naquada to the bomb. We even saw the bomb dismantled.
Anyway, we still have to remember that nearly all the Goa'uld technology is based on the naquada, which means that the material used as the structure of the Ha'tak may have increased the explosion.

But that's weird, because we already saw Ha'tak and Cheops ships explode and never being literally vaporized to such an exgtent as it happened in the film.

Does the naquada needs to be properly refined to be be used as a reactant booster ?

************

I'm still wondering which episode can prove that Ha'tak or Cheops ships do have enough firepower to wipe out a planet. Some sources on the net say so, but I can't remember any visual evidence.

We know that the Goa'uld can built naquada bombs, bombs which are so technically advanced that they can even grow withing a body (Cassandra), butstrangely, most of the time, the Goa'uld prefer to use energy weapons like beams, salvos and things like that.

Now, note that even just a quote from the show would be enough.

Why ? Because I forgot that Michale Wong also added on his page the Vorlon planet-killer from Babylon 5, and yet such capacities were never shown on screen, which mean that the entry is only based on technical quotes and references from the show.

So any quote from the film/show would suffice to support the request.

 

[PTeppic]

The bomb in Netu was produced specially be the Tok'ra and was not any sort of "standard issue". It didn't drill, but was dropped down some sort of sub-terreanean vent.

I don't feel in "Chain Reaction" that it was ever made clear whether or not the destination gate was actually destroyed. It stopped after 38 minutes - but that's all.

In the episode with the Beta gate, it was being dropped into a sun, which was causing it to (presumably) be destroyed, since there must be a melting point for naquadah as a mineral to allow it to be worked and manufactured.

As for planet-killing bombs: what about the one on the naquadah metorite at the back of S5? But, that was a large bomb, even by earth standards, on top of a very large lump of naquadah. Hardly subtle or transportable be ship. In In episodes such as "There for the grace of God" they are said to have left a surface "radioactive" or similar, but it is unclear how. Similarly they appeared to have no problems at all in spreading biological weaponry in "Singularity", and without a trace. The bomb, in that episode, was only designed to destroy the gate itself, so something fist sized might well have been enough,

They don't seem to destroy planets, simply wipe out the population with orbit or glider based beam weapons, and then leave the planet unusable.

P.S. I still think Ra hadn't yet added the naq., but will take your word for it. Nah! I'll get the DVD out later on this morning...

 

[Svarog]

If vaporising the whole planets ecosystem and all lifeforms on it counts as destruction then the Goa'uld alone have enough weapons to fill a website.

Yeah the asteroid is a good example, although whether it could be counted as a weapon... I mean if you dragged a asteroid into the path of a planet and destroyed both would that be counted as a weapon?

I believe the Goa'uld are capable of wiping entire planets off the map, but why would they bother, its a waste of energy and you could do much better to simply break the military backbone of the inhabitants and enslave the remainder. That also mean you have another military base that you control.

What about Tollan? That planet was destroyed by the race, Tollan. They gave an infinite power source to a race in their own system who then blew up themselves and altered the planet Tollan's path enough for it to be destroyed in a few generations.

 

[Dave]

FYI: This site covers this subject of planetary destruction and it's feasibility:
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth was built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I (Sam Hughes) can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

 

[Fightin gobbo]

Lets kill the tokra!!