The Lantean Drone Weapon Discussion Thread

[TheWarrior]

It did look alot cooler.

I think it has to do with alot of elements all mentioned above ranging from weaker shields in It's Good To Be King and the fact the PJ was a newer PJ and the Ancients might have upgraded their drones while in Pegasus to take on the Wraith.

So on Earth we have the standard issue drones and in Pegasus they upgraded them to fight off the Wraith.
I think its a combination of everything really.

[airfro]

The drones on earth are 50 million years out of date and could have been used to clear land and such so maybe they had a different purpose to the ones in atlantis

[the daedalus project]

a theory i have about the igtbk drones is that jack, after many years fighting the go'auld knew where to hit a ha'tak to do the most damage, so the drone went to that target.

but that said a mixture of jack and the ancient repositry, should have known the weaknesses of the ha'taks, including the ancient hybrid shields. However, thousands of drones looks awesome and makes for a much better season finale!

As for the comment in atlantis they go boom cos the ships they hit explode, what about the wraith in the defiant one? the wraith generally dont explode unless you include suspicion

[YodaMate]

As has been pointed out, the hatak (it's Good to be King) would definitely have been an older model (the same type of hatak used by Apophis, not the really old type used by Ra which had a top speed at ten times the speed of light) and hence would have had older shields.

This is because the Goa'uld in question was fleeing Ba'al and hence not a part of his forces (only Ba'al and Anubis have the newest model hatak).

My personal theory on the difference between the shields is that Anubis used Ancient knowledge to make the shields work on ALL (or at least more) energy frequencies. Note that the Tollan ion cannon blast used to sail right through, seemingly unaffected by, the shields but it couldn't penetrate Anubis' ones. The Tollans grasp of science was beyond that of the Goa'uld, hence i suspect that the cannon's effectiveness was based on a better understanding of physical laws and the universe rather than sheer power. Thus, the ion cannon worked on a different frequency if you will to 'normal' weapons and could bypass the shields.

The Asgard, who also have a better scientific understanding than the Goa'uld, likely also incorporate that knowledge as part of their beam weapons. In the Season 5 finale, their sensors could penetrate the shields but their transporter beam couldn't. When Anubis ringed in, the hatak changed its shielding frequency to allow ring transport whilst still blocking the Asgard transport beam (presumably on a different frequency). Though they couldn't beam in, Jack and Teal'c used their own rings to penetrate the shield at this time. It is also likely that Anubis uses power more efficiently than other Goa'uld and his shields were physically more powerful as well, as the shields took some damage from the Asgard beam weapons but not enough to break them.

Now we come to the Ancient drones. Though they clearly have a physical 'normal' appearance, given the Ancients' absolute scientific superiority, they likely have components affecting other frequencies and maybe even sub-space (we have yet to see a shield capable of blocking sub-space communication, or so i think).

The upshot of all this is that Ancient drones are far more likely to be affected by Anubis/Ba'al's multi-frequency shields, hence reducing their effectiveness. Jack threw thousands of drones at the armada in order to overwhelm the shields and manage to have the desired effect of tearing all 30 odd vessels apart. When Jack sent a handful at a less-well shielded they easily bypassed the shields and were guided to the naquadah generators (or glider bays, or any other source of naquadah) and the subsequent explosion completely destroyed the hatak.

The case of the Kull warriors vs. the Wraith getting blown up by the drone is actually identical : the Kull wear energy-absorbent armour, so simply exploding is not going to cut it (and the armour also likely saps the energy of the drones as well) and it took a few to overwhelm their suits. Whereas the Wraith had no such protection.

So, the PTB have been consistent in their portrayal of the drones' power. To sum up, better protection (shields, armour) = more drones required. No good protection = single or handful of drones required.

[Wandering Tamer]

Interesting point. I agree with it and what others have said about it being Jack O'Neill. We know he's still himself to a degree even when his mind is falling appart, so he was probably just unloading all his frustration onto Anubis without mercy.

[Thor's Pal]

Ok, they said that there were x number of drones left in Altanis. Why did they use them against the darts instead of sending them against the motherships? We've seen that the drones have the ability to hit ships in orbit, and by taking out the motherships they would only have to take out the darts that were already flying around-and the wraith that beamed down, would have nowhere to reatreat to.

[Wass]

They may use them in Siege part 3, if remember correctly they did not have enough power to use the drones.

[Ganjaman]

No they used up all their drones on the first wave, they only had about two dozen drones left in the chair anyway. I think it was a case that Shep had no choice he had to stop the darts before they did too much damage. This used up their generator as well, it had no power left to control the puddle jumpers.

[iLemon]

What are Drones exactly?

[Qasim]

Yellow things that can fly

The dictionary says: Drones are male honeybees. They are produced when the queen bee lays unfertilized eggs. This type of reproduction is called parthenogenesis as the queen and drones share the same genes. Drones are haploid in its origin with 16 chromosomes.

I doubt that helps though

Perhaps this is better: An autonomous and automatic UAV carrying a mechanism to sustain stable flight on an uncorrected steady heading, and usually programmed to function as a target. Its course is pre-programmed and cannot be altered during flight.

or this: A flying robot. Often used to denote any semi-autonomous machine or program.

For more see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...ne&btnG=Search

According to the omnipedia http://www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/t...nancient.shtml

Extremely lethal weapon created by the Ancients that, when activated, will automatically seek out a target to destroy. Not unlike a squid in its dormant appearance, drones are controlled by the mind of an operator in a central chamber, or aboard a Puddle Jumper. Multiple drones often operate in tandem with one another, and they are able to operate in space or in an atmosphere, and can easily penetrate the most advanced Goa'uld shield technology.

[cozzerob]

yeh - that's basically it. small killin robots (that look like squid because when you can do anything, it's the style that counts...) that can either rip through enemies, disintergrate them or explode on contact.

They are often used in groups, ie, 2 or three at once, or a whole 'fleet' (?) of them to wipe out an incoming armada

[nimitz]

Drones can be used as a missile or as a superweapon when used with hundreds/thousands of others.When used as a superweapon they have the ability to dematerilse objects but when used on their own they explode on impact to create the maxumim amount of damage to the target.When used by a person of weak mind they start to think for themselves.Drones have advanced sheild penetrating abilites(best seen on stargate so far) and are exepctionally fast and maneuvarble.

[Indum'kra]

Hopefully they'll discover the secrets behind the drone and build some of their own.

[JanusAncient]

Building drones, fine and dandy, but if they make a zpm, I'll no longer watch the show, squids are just fine to see, especially when as in "Lost City, Part 2" they reach out like a hand, and destroy Anubis' fleet.

[iLemon]

They wont be able to make a ZPM, they're very advanced and we still barely understand them.
It'd be great if we could build drones though, we'd be almost invincible. All we'll need is a more powerful ship than the PJ.