What's so special about the Destiny?

[David cgc]

Not necessarily. Destiny's pilot fleet was said to be dropping gates only on habitable, useful, interesting planets. Especially in the intergalactic voids, they wouldn't just be deposited in open space specifically at the intervals needed to make a gate bridge. There are probably massive gaps in the trail.

Still, if they could get enough ZPMs or other high-grade power sources together, they might be able gate-hope along the Destiny's path to and from the ship, even with the wider gaps.

 

[The Librarian]

Yep. The ship's been running non-stop for the better part of a million years, traveling at constant FTL speeds and possessing a shield that even a sun can't scratch. That's a lot of power. Far more than the ZPMs can dish out and, being self-sufficient, it doesn't run out and become useless after a mere 10,000 or so years.

That is a lot of power, except it's been constantly refueling. From what we've actually seen, a ZPM can dish out that much power as well. Destiny can't even maintain minimal shields around itself, while single largely-depleted ZPM can power a shield around a much larger object without any trouble, even under sustained bombardment.

So you're saying a Double A battery is superior to, say, a nuclear power plant? Solely because it's more convenient?

Well, given that the "Double A battery" has demonstrated considerably greater feats than the so-called nuclear power plant, I would have to say yes. It's handy that they're so much more portable, too, since you can just plug one into your ship, drone weapon, stargate, or city without having to plunge it into the sun.

Long enough to jump between galaxies without refueling, while maintaining its FTL speeds and shields. And, since you seem to have a mental block on the scale of these things, that's a really long time considering that a galaxy looks like a speck of sand compared to the distance between them.

You're right, I have no idea about the scale. Clearly since ZPM-powered ships can't cross between galaxies... oh, wait. The Daedalus did a four-day trip to Pegasus using one. And three-week trips without one on it's standard reactors. And the Asgard ships could make intergalactic hops in less than a minute. A replicator-enhanced ha'tak could do that trip in a couple of hours.

So, in short, your everyday starship engines can do intergalactic trips if you have an intergalactic hyperdrive, and do them much faster with a ZPM. So while it can clearly make an intergalactic hop, that still doesn't make it particularly impressive except in the extreme long-term.

I'm not aware of this episode. Not that it matters much since those ships were neither built nor designed by the Ancients. And regardless, if flying into a star was such a simple act, you'd think we'd hear about it more often. And people wouldn't be quite so worried about coronal mass ejections or flares.

So, what, now you're saying that the Goa'uld built better ships than the Ancients did? A standard mothership, not even an Anubis-upgraded one, sat in the corona of a blue giant for ten hours. Destiny was in the red dwarf for a few minutes at most. Yes, it's impressive, but not especially so.

As for the coronal mass ejection, that's a lot more concentrated and focused than the outer layers of a star. Also, a ZPM was able to deflect one - and three ZPMs was able to encompass an entire planet with a shield strong enough to do so.

 

[Checkmate]

That is a lot of power, except it's been constantly refueling. From what we've actually seen, a ZPM can dish out that much power as well. Destiny can't even maintain minimal shields around itself, while single largely-depleted ZPM can power a shield around a much larger object without any trouble, even under sustained bombardment.

Err, what do you think was protecting the ship as it entered the sun?

I'm not saying ZPMs are worthless. I'm saying that they are to the Destiny's power source (whatever it is) what a car battery is to a power plant. ZPMs are definitely awesome, but that doesn't make the Destiny's power plant any less amazing or technologically relevant. Especially since chances are high that they could reproduce the ship's plant more easily than they can a ZPM.

Well, given that the "Double A battery" has demonstrated considerably greater feats than the so-called nuclear power plant, I would have to say yes. It's handy that they're so much more portable, too, since you can just plug one into your ship, drone weapon, stargate, or city without having to plunge it into the sun.

What "considerably greater feats" are you referring to?

You're right, I have no idea about the scale. Clearly since ZPM-powered ships can't cross between galaxies... oh, wait. The Daedalus did a four-day trip to Pegasus using one. And three-week trips without one on it's standard reactors. And the Asgard ships could make intergalactic hops in less than a minute. A replicator-enhanced ha'tak could do that trip in a couple of hours.

Oh wait, completely different technology. No one's saying that hyperspace isn't a faster mode of travel or a more advanced technology than the FTL drive on the Destiny. But the ZPM only has to power the Daedalus's hyperdrive for four days. Destiny maintains FTL speeds indefinitely over vast, vast amounts of time and distance. Again, the better part of a million years and she's still ticking.

Show me a single ZPM-powered device or ship that's been constantly active that long and using that much power for the vast majority of its duration. If a device can refuel itself, that's a characteristic of the device. ZPM devices can't do that. Destiny can, which makes it far superior. Yet again: A device that's been going strong for a million years is absolute proof.

So, in short, your everyday starship engines can do intergalactic trips if you have an intergalactic hyperdrive, and do them much faster with a ZPM. So while it can clearly make an intergalactic hop, that still doesn't make it particularly impressive except in the extreme long-term.

Now imagine what a ship with a hyperdrive and Destiny's power plant can do. And no, the Destiny doesn't lack a hyperdrive because the power plant can't support it; it lacks one because the Ancients didn't have hyperspace technology when they built it.

Which, honestly, is probably one of the reasons they abandoned the project. They figured they could catch up to it with their more modern drives any time they wanted to, so the Destiny project fell into obscurity. But that was in their timeframe. This a milion years later. Destiny kept going strong, proved how powerful the technology was, and reached distances the Ancients would never have dreamed of during their age.

So, what, now you're saying that the Goa'uld built better ships than the Ancients did? A standard mothership, not even an Anubis-upgraded one, sat in the corona of a blue giant for ten hours. Destiny was in the red dwarf for a few minutes at most. Yes, it's impressive, but not especially so.

No, I'm saying the Goa'uld might have had one particular technology that was more advanced than the Ancients. (Guess what; different cultures and races excel at different technologies. I know, it's a difficult concept for a lot of sci-fi geeks to grasp; clearly everyone has to excel at exactly the same pace in all ways. But it's true nonetheless.)

I also noticed you haven't listed the episode this took place in. Again, I don't recall that particular scene but I admit I may have missed a few episodes. I'd like to check it out either way.

As for the coronal mass ejection, that's a lot more concentrated and focused than the outer layers of a star.

Wow, really? And here I always thought a coronal mass ejection was just the expulsion of some of the mass from the outer layer of a star. Go figure.

Also, a ZPM was able to deflect one - and three ZPMs was able to encompass an entire planet with a shield strong enough to do so.

Why do you assume the technology onboard the Destiny's couldn't do the same thing? Or perhaps even better? You'll note that the Destiny didn't need to sit in the sun for a great length of time. You'll also note that it was all but completely out of power as it did so. And you'll also note that there was absolutely no sign of stress on the ship whatsoever during the entire duration, despite the ship having been heavily damaged by the ravage of time.

Sorry, but you're just flat out wrong. The Destiny is chock full of all kinds of things humanity could take advantage of. Your inability to understand that doesn't make it any less of a fact.

 

[Jenee]

Not necessarily. Destiny's pilot fleet was said to be dropping gates only on habitable, useful, interesting planets. Especially in the intergalactic voids, they wouldn't just be deposited in open space specifically at the intervals needed to make a gate bridge. There are probably massive gaps in the trail.

Still, if they could get enough ZPMs or other high-grade power sources together, they might be able gate-hope along the Destiny's path to and from the ship, even with the wider gaps.

Perhaps the ship's computer tells how to ... "jump" across open space.

 

[Jax]

The ship is dam impressive though am suprised the ship never accidently dropped out of FTL due to lack of power in the void between galaxies ooo maybe a future 2 parter . I wonder what weps the ship carries Drones or something different.

 

[Brent]

I think the ship only ran out of power, and needed to re-fuel now because our team gated there and then tried to dial Earth, thus draining power and causing the AI to seek out a re-fuel stop.

 

[Kaijima]

In a way, I can't help but smile a little every time they marvel over how old the ship is. In the latest episode they fix up million year old space suits with a bit of patching and they work.

The problem is that people who write mainstream TV science fiction don't seem to understand how things fall apart over time; they've evidently never even read about how all the seemingly impressive artifacts of modern civilization would vanish in 100,000 years, dust to dust.

Now, the Destiny COULD be a million years old and even have usable space suits but I would have been impressed if the writers had actually kept up on their science-fiction technomagery: such durability would be possible with "smart matter" that repairs itself, using nano or even better, femto-machine technology. Stargate has never thought of ideas like though, save for more conventional and stereotypical pop culture uses of the idea of "nanites" such as evil killer nano robots (The Replicators).

If Destiny is made of dumb matter it should have fallen apart by now. If it was made of some special, advanced form of super durable but still dumb matter, it shouldn't be nicked, chipped, and rusty; it'd look unsettlingly pristine and perfect, ala the ancient alien artifacts in Forbidden Planet which were made of a matter that continually renewed its own atomic bonds in an incomprehensibly advanced way.

 

[Soar_Dude]

Okay folks.
1. The mission of the Destiny is to go to the end of the universe (Rush pilot episode)

2. Why lug a bunch of stored energy? That just adds mass and if you do not know exactly how far you are going it would be better to have a easily obtained source of power that is always going to be available.

3. The jaunts from the Milky way to Pegasus are just trips around the block compared to how far Destiny has gone billions and billions (Nod to Sagan) lightyears. Its appearent that Destiny uses a different technology for FTL then the others using hyperspace technology.

4. There is no way in hell that even if they get control of the ship they are going to make it home in their lifetimes on the ship.

5. The only way I see them getting home is some sort Mckay stargate macro plot.
On another aspect the Ancients must have had a way back from the ship that we do not know about.

 

[Meredith]

In a way, I can't help but smile a little every time they marvel over how old the ship is. In the latest episode they fix up million year old space suits with a bit of patching and they work.

The problem is that people who write mainstream TV science fiction don't seem to understand how things fall apart over time; they've evidently never even read about how all the seemingly impressive artifacts of modern civilization would vanish in 100,000 years, dust to dust.

Now, the Destiny COULD be a million years old and even have usable space suits but I would have been impressed if the writers had actually kept up on their science-fiction technomagery: such durability would be possible with "smart matter" that repairs itself, using nano or even better, femto-machine technology. Stargate has never thought of ideas like though, save for more conventional and stereotypical pop culture uses of the idea of "nanites" such as evil killer nano robots (The Replicators).

If Destiny is made of dumb matter it should have fallen apart by now. If it was made of some special, advanced form of super durable but still dumb matter, it shouldn't be nicked, chipped, and rusty; it'd look unsettlingly pristine and perfect, ala the ancient alien artifacts in Forbidden Planet which were made of a matter that continually renewed its own atomic bonds in an incomprehensibly advanced way.

Maybe the Destiny has a "Automatic repair system" Like the one that the Liberator (Blakes 7) had, but it is busy working on renewing another section of the ship and needs a lot of power to do so, or maybe the ship re-builds itself after every 10,000 to 100,000 years or so and we are in year 90,000. For the ship to rebuild itself maybe it activates the auto repair system and stays in a elliptical orbit around a star plunging periodically into the star for a few months while it's auto repair-o-circuits do their thing....

 

[Meredith]

Okay folks.
1. The mission of the Destiny is to go to the end of the universe (Rush pilot episode)

2. Why lug a bunch of stored energy? That just adds mass and if you do not know exactly how far you are going it would be better to have a easily obtained source of power that is always going to be available.

3. The jaunts from the Milky way to Pegasus are just trips around the block compared to how far Destiny has gone billions and billions (Nod to Sagan) lightyears. Its appearent that Destiny uses a different technology for FTL then the others using hyperspace technology.

4. There is no way in hell that even if they get control of the ship they are going to make it home in their lifetimes on the ship.

5. The only way I see them getting home is some sort Mckay stargate macro plot.
On another aspect the Ancients must have had a way back from the ship that we do not know about.

1. That would be cool if they found out the universe is closed and they looped back by going in a straight line.... Or maybe there is a large void past the matter from the big bang....... The universe's radius is(observable universehttp://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html) is 156 BILLION LIGHT YEARS. Destiny could be anywhere from 1 BILLION LY to 156 BILLION LY away.....

2. Indeed, they though use a power source that is where you are going! I wonder if the gate building ship does the same thing for power, I would assume so.

3. Maybe when it goes to a new Galaxy it fills it's energy tanks up to the brim and then crosses the void as quickly as possible.

4. If they ever get complete control of the ship it would be a bad thing as they would need a crew in the hundreds to manually run the thing....

5. Too bad the Asgard aren't still kicking around they would be able to retrieve them in a week to a month or so. Damn those Asgard ships were FREEKING fast! Gate macro might wotrk, but the voids between galaxies would be a major sticking point without a "gate-bridge" between each and every one of the galaxies out there. Maybe the old gates can't do a auto forwarding......they are old ass steampunk stargates....

 

[Snaploud]

It's also possible that Ancients (or Ancient off-shoots) periodically visit the Destiny to do repairs/replacements. Those spacesuits could be much newer than the ship as a whole.

...which brings up another possibility. Those spacesuits could be from a race other than the Ancients. They could in fact be Asgard suits (with special internal mechanisms to adjust to races of different sizes). It would be another explanation for the suits those rogue Asgard wore...

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

its tough and rough, its fast, faster than any ship before, its an antique and its origin is mysterious

plus when its power is on the blink it can fly into the heart of stars and come out re-freshened and re-fueled

 

[God Magnus]

I'm gong to just wind up echoing what others have said, but I'd say the first super special thing about Destiny is its sheer resilience. How many starships have we had in recent scifi (say the past 20 years or so) that are literally hundreds of thousands of years old and still functional? Sure some of its systems aren't exactly up to optimal spec, but the fact that it can even still move without falling apart amazes me.

I also like the way it seems to "know" where to go to get what the crew needs. It must have an incredible amount of knowledge stored away and I trust that is helping to guide it.

On a thematic level, it has the same special quality that Atlantis did at first. It's an ancient dwelling/device that has a lot of potential to reveal interesting stories down the line. With Atlantis they rarely took advantage of this, but with Destiny they seem to be trying to use that potential more.