Why does Wraith tech seem to suck?

[WhiteHelljumper]

I thought the Wraith were supposed to be this real powerful race whose powers and technologies rivaled the Ancients, why does it seem like Wraith tech is a little lacking in some areas, most notably Hyperspace Travel and Shields, why is that?

[Milleniumlance]

Spoiler:

because it is organic and is near impossible to upgrade

[Pasankoon]

I completely agree. I was surprised from the very start at why the wraith suck so much. Later on it was explained that it was wraith numbers were what defeated atlantis. But even that doesn't make any sense because they are only 60 hives as apposed to say the goa'uld who had several hundred mother ships. The Dudelus (before they jammed the beam frequency which even the Tau'ri have the technology to do) seemed to be able to knock down hives like flies. Surely the Ancients we know could do better.

An answer to this could be that the technology we see in Atlantis is no where near the level at which we know of the Alterrans in the milky way. In the SG1 series we always looked up to the Ancients as this mighty incredibly advanced race that left behind various technologies and weapons of incredible power. But when we see the technology level in the city of Atlantis and the fact that they were defeated by a race that sucked as much as the wraith all this is blown out of the water.

[pileofcrap]

It's purely numbers...that's all it was ever meant to be. The fact that they have space travel, hyper technology, ect... ect... is all they meant by rival. On top of that, it took them literally hours to figure out how to jam the beaming technology? Not so stupid if you ask me.

[ddovala]

We know that there are only 60 hives NOW, but who knows how many hives there were a long time ago. Way back in the day, they didnt need to "cull" (probably not) cause there would have been a lot of human worlds around fully populated. I bet they could have supported way more than 60 hives 10,000 years ago.

[WhiteHelljumper]

What doesn't make sense is how the Wraith won the war when the Ancients were supposed to be so much more advanced than them, were the Ancients really that stupid to let the Wraith get that many ships in the first place, with how good Ancient shields and weapons should have been you would think that 20 Wraith ships to every Ancient Ship would still have been a turkeyshoot.

[Pasankoon]

I completely agree. I was surprised from the very start at why the wraith suck so much. Later on it was explained that it was wraith numbers were what defeated atlantis. But even that doesn't make any sense because they are only 60 hives as apposed to say the goa'uld who had several hundred mother ships. The Dudelus (before they jammed the beam frequency which even the Tau'ri have the technology to do) seemed to be able to knock down hives like flies. Surely the Ancients we know could do better.

An answer to this could be that the technology we see in Atlantis is no where near the level at which we know of the Alterrans in the milky way. In the SG1 series we always looked up to the Ancients as this mighty incredibly advanced race that left behind various technologies and weapons of incredible power. But when we see the technology level in the city of Atlantis and the fact that they were defeated by a race that sucked as much as the wraith all this is blown out of the water.

As i said ^here^ it could have something to do with the difference in technology of Peguses lanteans and milky way Alterrans. Also it may be that they were once 10's of thousands of hives but now theres only 60.

[lethalfang]

Why does Wraith tech suck?
Because their technology is an extention and a representation of what they are as a race. As a race, the Wraith suck (using their hands).

[Auralis]

Maybe the 60 hives are whats left of the 10 million hives it toke to take down the ancients.
Maybe the ancient had only 3 ships and a few cities.
Maybe the ancients where crap back then in pegasus.
Maybe the ancients just got tired to fly swatting and just left.

[techjunkie]

I thought the Wraith were supposed to be this real powerful race whose powers and technologies rivaled the Ancients, why does it seem like Wraith tech is a little lacking in some areas, most notably Hyperspace Travel and Shields, why is that?

I say NAY BROTHER! BOW TO TECH, WHICH IS AT A DEAD END! (so to speak).

Technology is about adapting to change. If you sleep for 10,000 years between lunch and dinner, your tech has to be pretty damned good. It needs to self maintain, repair (perhaps grow?).

Hence the Wraith are a very refined species technologically. Why no 'planet cullers' - ships which cull form orbit? Because the darts reached a design pinacle which supplied the demand.

This is also thier weakness. Like other species which have adapted to thier surroundings / environments (in this case, battling ancients), they are unprepared for anything that involves 'outside of the box thinking'.

Think of the Gould this way - they didn't really advance for thousannds of years until we 'stirred the pot'.

<--SPECULATION OR OPINION BELOW, WITH POSSIBLE SPOILERS -->

It's likely that the 'great darkness' which was awakend by the Ancients were not the Wraith - but rather the progenitors of the wraith. The culture behind the virus that attacks humans. Think about it.

The Wraith were designed to destroy the Ancients, in a battle that would last millennia. What a perfect choice. A species which could resurface periodically. Add to the mix a virus, which essentially would destroy the work of the Ancients - the seeding the galaxy with life - and you lay the perfect groundwork for destroying the ancients.

This fits beautifully with the 'eternal conflict' motif which our stories lines seems to be following.


PAX

TechJunkie

[NakedJehutyV2]

they prolly made do with what they got. then beat down the alterrans and have had 10000 years of no need to upgrade with no powerful enemies around

[BlackBaron]

The ancients probably just got tired of destroying hive ships every day and left. They just didn't see an end to this conflict, but they knew that they could pretect them self from what ever the wraith would throw at them.

[Dutch_Razor]

I thought the Wraith were supposed to be this real powerful race whose powers and technologies rivaled the Ancients, why does it seem like Wraith tech is a little lacking in some areas, most notably Hyperspace Travel and Shields, why is that?

They don't use advanced tech, they use their sheer numbers. Kinda like the Chinese army (in C&C Generals that is)

[Bakhesh]

I may be wrong here, but when they first mentioned the 60 hive ships, didn't they say something on the lines of "There are 60 hive ships in this area of space"? i.e. not the whole galaxy necessarily.

I'm presuming they can't scan the whole galaxy, seeing as they only seem to detect hive ships when they are on approach, so there could be a whole lot more than 60 ships in the whole galaxy.

[Mister Oragahn]

I'd venture out and say that the tech doesn't really suck, but the people using it do.