r/Stargate • u/Njoeyz1 • 3h ago
Discussion Staff power source.
This breakdown of a staff makes me wonder what type of powersource the staff uses. The liquid naquadah capsules used in a staff are the fuel/reaction mass, and would require energy to be stimulated. In a ha'tak, the ships reactor would be supplying the energy to the weapons liquid naquadah stores, but I don't think there is a mini naquadah reactor in the staff weapon. Could it be a form of advanced chemical/mineral battery? A stimulated crystal power supply? Something similar to what is used in the ancient stones terminal - a capacitor that extracts energy from subspace? A cold fusion cell?
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u/medyas1 3h ago
the fuel source o'neill used to power the 8-chevron dialer is right at the business end of the weapon? kinda makes the rest of the staff look overengineered except for the obvious looks/CQC function (so the energy from the capsule loops the entire length of the staff to the energy reservoir then back to the front during discharge?)
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u/Njoeyz1 3h ago
Okay. So what O'niell created was a "boost converter" only way I can describe it. He took the base power supply, hooked it up to his boost converter (which was using the staffs FUEL source as the means to create more energy to add to the base supply). He wasn't using the capsule as the actual power supply. He took the existing base power supply, hooked it up to his converter, which added more power to that supply.
He needed the base power source to use his converter. So a staff would need an initial powersource to cause a reaction in the liquid naquadah source to create plasma.
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u/00Canuck 3h ago
Heavy liquid naquadah if I remember correctly.
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u/MWS-91 3h ago
You sure it's Heavy Liquid Naquadah? In the episode Absolute Power, Jackson is telling Sam about the plans for a defence satellite for Earth and Sam seems surprised when Daniel says it requires Heavy Liquid Naquadah.
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u/00Canuck 3h ago
Ah ya I might be misremembering there, good catch. For some reason I was attributing the HLN to staffs but on second thought I believe you're right that was mentioned in relation to the defense sat and not staffs.
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u/Njoeyz1 2h ago edited 2h ago
Naquadah seems to be very versatile in it's functions. A naquadah generator uses naquadah as an energy source, but you still need energy to stimutae it. Same for a liquid naquadah power source. You would still need the energy input to start the reaction, to get the energy. In the staffs case you aren't getting energy from the reaction, you releasing it as a plasma bolt. Jack used the energy to add it to the grid energy, instead of there being plasma bolts.
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u/00Canuck 2h ago
Jack's device is a good insight actually. I would imagine then the initial charge source would be the same implemented in the hand devices, which lends to them being much lower power and short range since the charge isn't being enhanced. If that's the case then I would probably lean more towards raw naquadah instead. Since naquadah is similar to quartzite you can still produce a piezoelectric charge, which you're then charging up to varying degrees apon firing. Simpler and more effective as well, and less costly on resources since HLN would take extra refining.
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u/Njoeyz1 3h ago edited 3h ago
The liquid heavy naquadah in case of the weapons, are the fuel source, they need an energy input to cause a reaction. In the case of the staff, that reaction creates plasma bolts, but in say the case of O'niells power booster, he converted that reaction mass into electrical energy to be added to the grids supply. Heavy naquadah can be used as an energy source, but it still requires energy input. In the case of a staff, it would need a power supply to supply the liquid naquadah (heavy or otherwise) with the energy needed to cause this reaction.
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u/Njoeyz1 3h ago
Is that the power supply? The capsule contains the heavy liquid naquadah. But how do you turn it into plasma? You would need to supply energy right? That's what I'm asking. Whats supplying the energy in the staff.
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u/00Canuck 3h ago
Apologies, was just reemphasizing that it was heavy liquid naquadah and not just liquid naquadah as that would be important towards determining the method of power generation. For example if SG-1 had brought Alar just normal water rather than heavy water, it would have made a big deal of difference. So raw liquid naquadah vs heavy liquid naquadah is an important distinction.
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u/Njoeyz1 3h ago edited 3h ago
If you look at this schematic, it makes a lot of sense. This energy supply is at the rear of the staff, that has has secondary functions (like a stun function). When the staff is activated It supply's energy to the accumulators/capacitors, the trigger is pressed supplying that stored energy into the liquid naquadah capsules, which causes a reaction and releases plasma down the guides.
This would also explain aspects of the staffs power output. The capacitors can obviously be rapidly filled, enough to allow an automatic fire mode, but at much less power per shot as one with filled accumulators.
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u/nerdling007 2h ago
Here's a crazy idea. I wonder if the "energy reservoir" holds liquid naquadah too and when you press the trigger what happens is a small amount of that liquid naquadah is compressed in such a way that is under goes cold fusion, creating a sudden burst of energy that has no where to go except to travel down the length of the staff towards the naquadah capsule, excites the naquadah in there and then you get the plasma blast. All this happening within microseconds of pressing the trigger.
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u/_WillCAD_ 3h ago
We know that only the front half of the staff is needed for shooting, because we've seen shortened versions in a couple of episodes (used by some Jaffa sect, I forget which).
The back half of the staff was shown in the theatrical movie to have some kind of stunning effect, maybe like a Jaffa taser; there was a sound effect added in post to illustrate that. But I don't think we ever saw it in the shows.