How did the Ancients make ZPMs?

[BlobVanDam]

A ZPM is basically a battery to the Ancients. They have a giant city that relies on them. Surely Atlantis at some point had the potential to pump them out to remain self contained while fighting the Wraith. It's a full city, so they no doubt had the space for it.

I can't imagine the ZPM factory being any more compact than the other equipment they left behind (which seemed to pretty much all of the major equipment for the functioning of the city), so can we assume that the equipment is still on Atlantis, undicovered? I'm pretty sure there was still a large portion of the city left unexplored even after 5 years, so it's possible. They've never explained how ZPMs are created (as far as I recall), so this is all assumption on my part.

 

[RoJoHen]

Probably in one of those yet-to-be-explored parts of the city.

 

[The Wormhole]

They purchased them from the Furlings.

What? There's no canon proof they didn't...

 

[The Other]

Zero Point Modules are essentially the manipulation of an atomic system once it has reached absolute zero state. You would have to manipulate the system at such a low state because the zero point energy would still exist at such low temperatures but with little repercussion of creating disaster. It is theoretically impossible to reach absolute zero in a system artificially which may explain why there is a limited number of ZPM's. But assuming they did find a way to reproduce absolute zero in any sort of atomic model it would be far to powerful and risky to do so ON atlantis. For the same reason that McKay blew up almost an entire solar system with the furthering of work on that new power source the ancients failed at. It stands to reason that if they built an outpost for that and built another outpost manipulating the geothermic energy given off by that dormant supervolcano (remember that atlantis imitation city that kept the shield on for over a year consistently?) that they would probably build an outpost to manufacture ZPM's. Plus in addition if you think about it Zero Point Energy is the reaction of an electron state to it's surrounding vacuum which would mean to even get it going you would have to lower the system just below what a thermodynamic system is (Cold, Absolute zero) just to begin to manipulate it. Of course this is all based in Quantum Theory Model of Physics. The classical model of physics is bollocks and states something else entirely....stupid. It says that essentially Zero Point is basically an isotropic noise wave field that excites all the systems within the vaccuum and is therefore responsible for ground states.....classical physics can lick my black hole.

 

[KJbushway]

I thought I read somewhere that ZPMs get power from a small black hole or micro-singularity.

 

[AJ86]

McKAY: The Zero Point Module, General. The, uh, Ancient power source you recovered from Proclarush Taonas and that's now powering the outpost's defences. I have since determined that it generates its enormous power from vacuum energy derived from a self-contained region of subspace time.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

How did the Ancients make ZPMS?

Magic.

 

[JarodRussell]

Why didn't they bring ZPMs to the Destiny? They didn't know that the ship recharges itself before they went there.

 

[David cgc]

They didn't know it was a ship when they went there, nor did they have any time to get anything that wasn't in the gateroom, ready to go.

 

[BlobVanDam]

Why didn't they bring ZPMs to the Destiny? They didn't know that the ship recharges itself before they went there.

They also didn't know it was a ship before they went there.

They were on a planet specifically chosen for it's insane power generation potential, and ZPMs are still somewhat scarce. They had little need for it on the Icarus planet, I suppose.

 

[SmoothieX]

I thought the Ancients just pooped them out.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I thought the Ancients just pooped them out.

I can't decide which direction would be worse for them to come out... pointy-end first, or base first...

 

[Sindatur]

I thought the Ancients just pooped them out.

I can't decide which direction would be worse for them to come out... pointy-end first, or base first...

LOL, I don't think there is a better direction, both sound pretty danged unpleasant

 

[JarodRussell]

Each ZPM contains the soul of an Ascendant.

 

[Meredith]

Very Carefully.....

That is how they made them, one little mistake and BOOM!!!!!! Time to find another solar system to make them in.....

 

[Checkmate]

You give the creators and writers way too much credit if you think this was even a remote thought on their end.

They couldn't be bothered to give Atlantis -- the Ancient's capitol city -- its own power source. Nope, just toss a few batteries in and fo'get about it. Hell, no one ever even bothered to investigate what the puddlejumpers ran on either, or any of the other Ancient technology for that matter.

This franchise coming to an end is a spectacular thing. Let's just pray that in a few years when someone else decides to take a chance on it, they hire a creative staff who actually has a few brain cells in their head and actually think about some of these basic, simple things.

 

[JarodRussell]

You give the creators and writers way too much credit if you think this was even a remote thought on their end.

They couldn't be bothered to give Atlantis -- the Ancient's capitol city -- its own power source. Nope, just toss a few batteries in and fo'get about it. Hell, no one ever even bothered to investigate what the puddlejumpers ran on either, or any of the other Ancient technology for that matter.

This franchise coming to an end is a spectacular thing. Let's just pray that in a few years when someone else decides to take a chance on it, they hire a creative staff who actually has a few brain cells in their head and actually think about some of these basic, simple things.

The Ancients probably didn't need power sources because they did have ZPM factories. And ZPMs are really good batteries.

And if you will, a fuel rod of a nuclear plant is also just a battery. It only lasts a specific amount of time, and then you need to replace it with a new one. Otherwise you have no power. No difference to a ZPM.

 

[brian577]

Hell, no one ever even bothered to investigate what the puddlejumpers ran on either, or any of the other Ancient technology for that matter.

I think it's logical to assume they use (gasp), a rechargeable power source.
Considering a single hyperspace jump or a shield holding back several atmospheres of pressure will drain the jumper's power source pretty fast, it's clear it wouldn't last forever even under normal conditions.

 

[ngc7293]

You know that episode of Atlantis when the Ancients were being attacked by the Wraith and they were taking Ancients on Transports? I always assumed they came from other cities. I guessed that the ZPMs came from such a factory. Now that I have read the above, a space based factory that was destroyed in the war doesn't sound impossible.

It also doesn't sound impossible to find instructions somewhere on Atlantis on how to build such a factory again. Maybe because the Replicators were originally made to create ZPMs because it was so dangerous.

 

[BlobVanDam]

You give the creators and writers way too much credit if you think this was even a remote thought on their end.

They couldn't be bothered to give Atlantis -- the Ancient's capitol city -- its own power source. Nope, just toss a few batteries in and fo'get about it. Hell, no one ever even bothered to investigate what the puddlejumpers ran on either, or any of the other Ancient technology for that matter.

It makes sense to me that the humans had no idea how most of the Ancient technology worked. It was well beyond their level of technology.
The only time I remember them needing to address the power capacity of the puddle jumper was when they wired it up with a ZPM for hyperspace, but aside from that, was it really relevant to the story? I'm a scifi technology whore, so I'd be more than happy for them to spend all story showing these little tech details, but I felt they addressed it as much as was necessary for the story.

And from what I recall, ZPMs were mostly only used for Ancient structures, such as outposts and Atlantis. Considering they were only introduced in Lost City, end of the season before Atlantis started, and partially to set up the series, I'd say that almost counts as Atlantis having it's own power source.
If people are assuming that ZPMs were difficult to make, and so much more powerful than other power sources, it makes sense that the technology would be designed to work with this one power source. The Ancients' big attempt at harnessing a more powerful power source had to be abandoned because it was dangerous enough to wipe out 3/4 of a solar system, so if Atlantis can function on 3 D size batteries, sure, why not!