Wouldn't that make it the top of the volcano? Wouldn't that be where the most eruption would occur and then sink in on itself? I'm only asking because I'm not that knowledgeable about volcanoes.

You have to think about it like a huge crater, instead of a mountain, because it is not a mountain. Yellowstone is a large crater basically. Imagine the area of Yellowstone, and then imagine all of that area being ejected into the atmosphere with alarming power. It could create an ice age.

We usually think of volcanoes like Vesuvius and Mt. St. Helens... possibly Hawaii (Kilauea volcano)

The caldera is the 'bowl' at the top fo any volcano.

When a hot spot forms in the mantle, it forces the crust over it upwards, making a small mountain. Eventually, when the pressure has built up, it will either seep out or, usually, be ejected explosively. This will send ash everywhere and pyroclastic flows will start pouring down the sides of the mountain, building it up. This will happen repeatedly, making the mountain increasingly large. If it happens in the ocean it will form islands. Ring-shaped islands are in fact the caldera edges of an oceanic volcano. This is also what forms island chains. Tectonic activity moves the plate over the hot spot, forming multiple volcanoes over many years.

In rare cases, a large enough hot spot may form a magma chamber many many miles wide. This will eventaully be ejected into the atmosphere, blackening out the sun for many years, and possibly killing off indigenous life forms. The magam chamber emptied, the ground will sink slightly, causing a large 'bowl' to form. This is the caldera I spoke of. The entirety of Yellowstone Nat. Park is a caldera. The hot springs and geisers are caused by the large amount of geothermal energy just beneath the surface.

I kept thinking of Mt. Olympus on Mars. Its like hundreds of miles high and wide....anyway its huge. How in the heck did they get the ancient war ship back to atlantis. They have the hyperdrive, but don't they need sub light engines to slow it down, just like Apothis mother ship couldn't slow down in the Episode "Enemies " (First episode of season 5 apothis dies) Does anyone know what the ancient ship is powered by? Like are the hyperdrive engines as good as the asgard?

We dont know if they did take back to Atlantis but it is the most likely place. CHances are they were able to tow it with Asgard technology, like Thor used in 'Unnatural Selection'.


We know that there are two types of Ancient hyperdrive, an interstellar one (like Aurora had) that only allows travel within the boundaries of the galaxy and an intergalactic on that allows travel between galaxies. Since Orion is the same class of ship as Aurora, it is likely it only has the interstellar hyperdrive.

220 Spoiler re how they get it back to Atlantis

This was a great episode. I didn't think the Orion was going to be an Ancient ship when I heard of it, but hey good suprise!

This post has been edited by Historywiz: Mar 10th 2006, 8:49 AM

That is vaguely accurate. The Intergalactic Hyperdrive does not allow travel between galaxies, it makes it easy to do. Intergalactic drives are much more powerful... they allow for greatly faster speeds, thus making it easier to travel the long distances between galaxies. It would take a ship with an Interstellar drive hundreds of years to make the journey.

SGA 220:

Thank you! The explanation was very clear. So from what McKay said, then the gate was located in a major hot spot. Thus creating a major magma chamber and destroying things. Due to the ash everywhere they said that the planet would not be habitable for many, many years. From looking at the site of the gate, it appeared to me as if this had happened many years before creating the same type of thing you described.

I saw that show but I'm also on a Natural History group and they took pains (they meaning the geologists on the forum) to point out that they type of volcano is not like Pompeii or Mount Saint Helens. Those volcanos are caused by subducting plates melting. The Yellowstone caldera is a hotspot type of volcano. As it melts through the upper crust the magma will become more acidic but once is gets past that it would be much more like Kilauea in style (although possibly slightly bigger in magnitude). Yellowstone probably won't blow in either yours mine or even our great-grandchildren's lives but on the geologic scale it will be soon.

After talking with them and rewatching this ep, I am less convinced about the sulfuric dioxide. most everything else seems to be on par (except maybe the underlying force of the magma rising would have caused it to be slightly more explosive in coming up).

I somehow ge tthe feeling that they probably had a geologist (or someone that spent an extensive amount of time researching Yellowstone) was on the team that helped the scriptwriter (who I think did a beautiful job with the story).

Sorry if this post seems OT, but I thought it was both interesting an relevant to this story.

ETA: It looks like someone has also pointed out what I have said, thank you!

This post has been edited by AtheneBelle: Mar 13th 2006, 2:54 PM

Wow you guys are Geological geniuses!
Very interesting...but I have one simple question regarding the episode.

The facility appeared to be embedded into the side of the crater. The Stargate appeared to be in the middle of the crater. To what purpose was it located there? (besides the obvious plot development) One would think that Ancients would recognize the advantage of simply putting the Gate outside of the crater, putting a set of rings from the Facility to the Gate and be done with it...

Hmmmm...maybe the Ancients who hadn't ascended by the time of the war with the Wraith weren't as smart as we thought...

I think the facility was supposed to be on the edge of the caldera, or something.

This episode was amazing - drama, action and great humour. One question though. Shouldn't the Gate explode causing a violent eruption once enveloped by lava?

Placing the gate as they did would ensure it would continue to be powered for a long time. They had not forseen that somebody would draw as much power as they did by using the shield, thus liquifying the area under the gate where there was energy transfer.

The present Tyranians were obviously not aware of what they had gotten themselves into.

not neccessarily, if the heat was focused enough to do so, it would. but id doubt a lot of the heat energy was transfered to the gate or maybe it detonated after they got to atlantis.

Not really, the gate isn't just something that explodes. It was a different case in redemption energy was being continuously fed into the gate. There is no reason why it should explode if it is dumped in lava about 800'C. (As far as I know anyway.)
Also thefirstone the gate couldn't have exploded after they went to atlantis because it was right on top of the supervolcano!! Which exploded!

i just want to know how they boarded the orion from the viewing gallery?

also the hyperspace window opened quite a distance from where the volcano looked to have exploded.

best episode since the siege pt 3 i think.

What viewing gallery? They boarded the Orion through whatever entrance they could find.


What? We dont see Orion entering hyperspace, we only see it exiting hyperspace. If the ship hadnt exited hyperspace at a high enough altitude then it would have just been fallen back down to the surface.

When i saw the stargate destroy, i thought that the team was doom, but ofcourse Mckay will find away to get off the planet.
I thought that it was funny when Sheppard tryed to name the new ship "The interprise"

Oh yeah, "The Enterprise"... This name was mentioned by both O'Neill and Sheppard in both shows. When you already see it once, it's not the same the second time. Sheppard had a much better idea when he decided on "The Orion".

To me any of those names are pefectly exceptabe compared to Hippaforalkus

In SG-1 and SGA it was said 'We cannot name the ship the Enterprise'. O'Neill and McKay never got to ask...

Great episode! I missed the first showing, and had to wait to see it when it was re shown during a stargate atlantis marathon on scifi last month. And I was glad to see it! I guess the destruction of the prometheus won't be so bad when we have an ancient warship in our arsenal! Though I wasn't pleased with them mentioning they didn't like the original name, thought of renaming it, and just mentioned the ORION as if everyone knew the name ( that or my dvr box bugged out and I didn't hear it!) And they stole the riding the volcanic magma from the movie the Core, but it was a much cooler effect on this episode! Also, the native scientist seemed like an airhead, unable to assist McKay with anything. I guess she was eye candy for Shep and McKay to oogle over. The tectonic disturbance from the volcano was a nice touch, with an avant garde scene with a precarious positioning of the scientist's face near Shep's lower region! There is more to say about the episode, but I'm sure everyone else on this forum has mentioned it, as well as what I have said. Can't wait until the next season starts!