Naquadah generator

The Naquadah Generator is a powerful energy producing device developed by Stargate Command with the help of the Orbanians.

Functions
A Naquadah Generator is an advanced reactor unit, which produces tremendous amounts of clean energy from small amounts of Naquadah - a rare mineral not found in Earth's solar system. Later the Mark II generator is developed which achieves 600% of the power output of the Mark I. It however operates at a state of barely controlled overload and is quickly depleted. Nevertheless two of this devices can power an Ancient Control chair for a short period of time, something which formerly required a ZPM.

Naquadah Generators can also be turned into a powerful bomb, a function which is used by the Atlantis Expedition as a self-destruct device for the city. If such a reactor explodes it generates an electromagnetic pulse, similar to a nuclear weapon.

History
Earth was given Naquadah reactor technology by the Orbanians, and a workable prototype was developed at S.G.C. by Samantha Carter. It is onwards used to power many technologies from Earth and also by SG teams to power Alien technologies.

Uses of the Naquadah generator include:
 * Powering a gate without a DHD on another world for manual dial-out.
 * Generating the energy used on Earth ships.
 * A miniature Naquadah generator was used to power the X699 prototype plasma weapon, Earth own energy weapon.
 * Mark IIs are used to power the Ancient Control chair in Antarctica.

Naquadah generators are heavily relied upon by the Atlantis Expedition to power the Ancient city in the distant Pegasus Galaxy, especially in their first years in the city when they didn't have access to a ZPM. After one was installed on Atlantis the Naquadah generators remained as a back-up energy system.

When reinforcements were sent to Atlantis from Earth they brought with them the new Mark II reactors which were used to power Atlantis' control chair while defending the city from the Wraith. The two reactors doing so were however quickly depleted. Later several Mark IIs were used in the chair room as back-up energy source.

In an alternate future, a Mark XII Naquadah generator was able to power Atlantis's shield for about 400 years.