First of all, would someone post a picture of the drill head in fallout, I can't find one.

There is absolutely no way that it would do the job it was designed for. The individual cutting tools on the head were too far apart, look at the really bad picture of the head:

|______|
\_____ /
*\___ /*
...\__/
....\ /
.....*
..^...^
..|....|

the periods are spacers so it would look right, there is also 1 additional tool on the front and back that i couldn't draw well, but they are on the same level as the 2 side tools.

The '*' mark the individual tools, and they would need to overlap in order for the machine to go anywhere. None of the 5 tools would cover the sections pointed out by the arrows, and there may be other gaps as well, but they would be much smaller.

Remember that many of the possible gaps are covered by the fact that the entire nose spins.

Any thoughts?

but 3 words for you, Tok'ra Tunneling Crystles!

they used them to help the drill well Drill!

Have to agree with SyStEm_LoRd as they used Tok'ra crystals (a whole box of em) which would have increased the depth. You saw Jonus' girlfriend when she went down to plant the bomb that they looked quite small which would have effectively 'made a path' for the drill to slide into to carry out its functions. I thought it was a bit crappy though as they just happened to have the drill ready when they needed it most!

I am not asking how they got down as fast as they did, i am pointing out that the drill could not do what it was designed for with out a lot of help.

they apparently got 80m/hour without crystals, and this is the nitpick. it was not designed to use the crystals, a Goa'uld designed it!

Now I don't want this to degenerate into a discussion of whether the crystals were enough to fill in the gaps, but I strongly believe they wouldn't, the gaps are far too big.

You have basically answered your own question. How did they get down so quick? The goa'uld designed it!! Therefore it increased efficiency etc.. etc... and was able to dig at 80m/hour!! Simple! And then add the crystals to the nose of the drill and boom, you have yourself a fully working tunnelling machine as long as you have a goa'uld at the helm to pilot it!

I am just trying not to nitpick this episode because it will drive me crazy. The drill heads are strangely placed. If you look at the picture, the drills only cover the area in red, leaving a lot of solid rock that the machine is what--supposed to *push* through? And if the machine is drilling downwards, it would need a mechanism to move the rock to the surface so that there is room for the machine. I never saw anything capable of this function. And then there's the lava. If the machine drilled through a lava flow, the lava would have flowed into the tunnel left by the machine--meaning that they *couldn't* escape the lava once they penetrated the flow. So, I'm trying not to think about the tech on this one.

I didn't answer my own question! YOU didn't read this:

Or this:

I am pointing out here that it won't go anywhere with out crystals

In case you still don't understand what the question is I will repeat it:

There is NO POSSIBLE WAY that in the current configuration, the 5 drilling tools on the outside of the drill head could possibly come into contact with every piece of rock it needs to, to even get 20m underground. The whole thing will spin and spin, but it will be stopped by the fact that it is never in a position to cut a significant amount of rock on the surface area of the head.

The Goa'uld have an extremely limited knowledge of Tok'ra tunnel crystals, and the fact that a Goa'uld designed it GUARANTEES that she was designing it to work (though not as fast) without them, and she failed. It SUPPOSEDLY traveled at 80m/hour, but there is no way that it could go 1m/hour with its design.

In case there is any confusion: LEAVE THE CRYSTALS OUT OF THIS DISCUSSION.

Edit: thanks for the pic Lit Gal, It took me so long to write my post that you got it in way before I finished this one. You did a good job with the red stuff and explanation as well.

This post has been edited by andy4an: Jan 25th 2004, 1:08 PM

I've never seen such a solid nitpick go so totally unanswered. I figured by now a dozen of you would have come up with creative explanations to excuse some questionable tech.