Asgard cloning?

[Vala_M]

Has anyone wondered why the Asgard started cloning themselves to begin with? Were they just trying to "improve" on themselves or did they have something else in mind? It seems to me that if the Asgard never started cloning themselves, they would still be alive today.

And if it was for the perpose of living forever, that's not true. Because the original dies and a clone, even if he/she has the memories of the original is not the same person.

Vala,

[Xicer]

The Asgard didn't start cloning themselves until after they lost the ability to reproduce sexually. And the reason they started cloning was so that their race didn't become extinct. No offspring = no more Asgard, so they had to resort to cloning in order to survive.

[tainor]

I aways thought that they started cloneing to live longer(Unending Daniel says that they just wannated to live a bit longer) so they cloned themselves, the side effect of this was that after some thousand years they could not produce sexually, because of the prolong use of cloning. The second side effect was that their race was dying slowly because they were left with decaying bodies. The thing that bugs me is that if the ancient could creat a time machine and that even Carter managed to turn back time why can't they build a time machine and try to stop the prolong use of the cloning technology or even stop it from being created?
PS. Has anyone heard of an asgard names Odin? I think he should of been one of the most powerful one, since he was the skyfather in Norse mythology and the race that got their sun unstable because of SG1 called it the eye of Odin so he must be an asgard? Not a Gua'uld?

[Entreri]

Couldn't reproduce naturally.

Scenario:

Why aren't Asgard helping the humans against the Ori?

We are dying, and RIGHT NOW.

We DIE.

Bye bye.

You are the fifth race, and by the way, you are on your own.


TERRIBLE WRITING.

[starshineRoxie]

I don't recall a Go'uld named Odin. There may have been an Asgard Odin that lived a long time ago or he just doesn't fit into any of the writers storylines. Good point.

As for the question of the Asgard cloning, I'm not sure why they started in the first place. I do know why the Ancients or anyone from the SGC never went back in time. Because they believe that to affect anything in the past, might change the future in an unpredictable way. The future could end up worse or better, they don't know. So they don't take the risk. But whether the cloning was about reproduction or longevity, I'm not sure. This is a very good question.

[Xicer]

I pretty sure that cloning didn't cause the Asgard's inability to sexually reproduce. The cloning was only done in order to preserve their race until they could find a way to sexually reproduce again. Yes, their bodies were gentically decaying after each time their bodies were cloned, which led to the eventual downfall of their race when they realized that there was nothing they could do to survive, which is why they passed on their legacy to us. The Asgard only cloned because of the of their inability of cellular division through meiosis. How they lost this ability is still a mystery.

[Vala_M]

I don't recall a Go'uld named Odin. There may have been an Asgard Odin that lived a long time ago or he just doesn't fit into any of the writers storylines. Good point.

As for the question of the Asgard cloning, I'm not sure why they started in the first place. I do know why the Ancients or anyone from the SGC never went back in time. Because they believe that to affect anything in the past, might change the future in an unpredictable way. The future could end up worse or better, they don't know. So they don't take the risk. But whether the cloning was about reproduction or longevity, I'm not sure. This is a very good question.

Even if you changed the past, your past wouldn't change, an alternate universe would be created in which the past was changed, NOTHING would change for the SGC or the Asgard, just another universe, as demonstrated in "Moebius".

Vala,

[Master_Templar]

But yeah, I think it was just a bad mistake. I have a feeling they started doing it before they met the ancients, so they hadn't real heard much on the whole ascenscion thing yet. As they were a lot older than the 'Lantean' Ancients who formed the great race alliance, but younger than the original ancients. So just a bit of bad luck.

[2ndgenerationalteran]

The Asgard used cloning to reach a level of immortality, where natural aging no longer resulted in death. With everytime they cloned themselves their genetics became more and more decayed, eventually sexual reproduction could no longer take place. They probably became more feeble due to cloning, but they probably put great effort into preserving their minds rather than their bodies.