How many hive ship are there really in the Pegasus galaxy ?

[HyperspaceDaemon]

In short, the starting point of the SGA story is "thousands of years ago, the Wraith
have overwhelmed the Ancients, who eventually left the Atlantis and retreated to Earth
through the stargate".

At the beginning of the SGA series this idea made sense and was a very exciting one,
because we've found out more about the Ancients, about their fate and we had the
opportunity to see the amazing city.

Facts :
- a swarm of drones can easily destroy a hive ship
- Atlantis has many drones
- the Lantean battleships had drones as well
- the Ancients also had sattelites powerful enough to cut hive ships in half
- the Atlantis shield held for a while until the city was abandoned
- the Ancients knew how to build ZPM's and drones

According to the Omnipedia (Wraith hive ship) "There are at least 21 hive ships in
the same quadrant of the Pegasus Galaxy that Atlantis is in, and at least 60 in total."

Given the facts mentioned above , i find it hard to understand how come the Ancients
were unable to deal with those 60 hive ships ! all they needed was to stay behind the
shield and use the drones against the hives that came into orbit .

What do you think about this ? Are there in fact much more hive ships (thousands
or tens of thousands), or the starting point of the SGA plot is flawed ?

[Prior_of_the_Ori]

I think it was speculation on the 60 hiveships and there is the real possibility of there being more though this might have dminished by the Wraith Civil War.

The only other explanation is that there used to quite a lot but most were destroyed in the war against the Ancients and the Wraith simply never made more as they had a limited food source and more Hive-ships means more mouths to feed... or hands to feed... whatever....

[Ouroboros]

The 60 hiveships are just what that device they found was tracking apparently. Now that we know the Wraith are broken up into factions it seems really unlikely that the device would have data on every ship. Every ship that belonged to that faction maybe, but their competitors aren't exactly going to allow that particular faction to place tracking devices on all their ships to.

[Wraith_Boy]

The simple fact is that Atlantis wouldn't have enough Drones in it's armoury to take out 60 Hives, as well as all the accompanying Cruisers. Then the added fact of the few ZPM's you would need to fire them as well.

However in reality there are so many ways that the Lanteans could have taken out the Wraith that it isn't even worth thinking about.

We saw them cloak PJ's. We saw the Asurans cloak their warship in 'Lifeline'. Why didn't Lanteans cloak their ships. Sneak up undetected to a Hive, then launch a sudden & unexpected attack. The Hive(s) go boom & it immediately jumps into hyperspace.

Atlantis could have used the 'Trinity' weapon. This way it doesn't need to worry about running out of ammo etc. The Lanteans sit back, Hives come into orbit over Lantea. It fires from safely behind the shield & takes them all out.

As long as Atlantis' shield has power, nothing gets through it. Therefore why didn't they equip the exact same shield on their ships & power them with ZPM's. It took days for the Wraith (10 Hives) to drain a single ZPM. So once a Lantean ship jumped in, it could open fire & take the Hives all out within minutes, never mind days.

They could have used explosives. Set up a trap with a few decoy ships that were remote controlled. Lure a dozen or more Hives into battle, then blow the ships up. Say with a tainted ZPM or whatever. Boom, every single one in the region is gone.

They could cloak PJ's, then fly them remotely inside Hives, then detonate them taking out the Hive easily.

They could have used Nanites in their basic form. Say as a projectile. It gets into the hull of the Hive, then starts eating it from the outside in & replicating. Once the ship is immobilized, the Lantean ship comes back a few mins later. Then blows it up with the nanites still inside. It takes care of them & stops them from spreading or evolving further than their simplest form.

Then the other regarding the Asurans. We saw the Lanteans try to wipe them out because they wouldn't do what they wanted. Yet McKay simply turned the on switch & away they went to start fighting the Wraith.

I understand that if the Lanteans had won the war, then there could have been no Stargate: Atlantis, but they could have done a few things better to make such a defeat much more plausible, rather than making the Lanteans out to be morons that didn't know how to do anything right. Still, what's done is done, nothing can be done about it now!

[Xaeden]

All in all we know for sure that the current Wraith fleet stood no chance against the Ancients, so obviously they would've had to have lost a great deal of ships between then and now. We also know from Reunion that:

Spoiler:

After the Ancients left the Replicators attacked the Wraith with their own ships. It's very well possible that they did a massive amount of damage and fought with them for years before the Wraith figured out that it would be possible to reprogram them.

Given that the Wraith burned through their food supply during the Ancient war in an attempt to keep them pressed against more and more Wraith and probably did so during what was said happened in Reunion it got to the point where they couldn't sustain a higher population so after losing so many ships during those two events they didn't build more. It's also possible that a civil war was fought between them when their food source got low and they lost quite a few ships that way before deciding to hibernate. 10,000 years is a long time and it has not been kind on the race that once "defeated" the Ancients.

[mizzoueng]

The way the Wraith took over Pegasus so quickly, there had to be more than 60. It should have been more in the 1000 range for that quick of a take over.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a larger class of wraith ship, we still haven't seen a wraith "home-world" or a ruling heiarchy. Granted there are Queens on the Hives, but I see that more like a Captain Abe than a ruler.

For Atlantis to not be able to lift off and escape, there had to be bigger guns in the sky to prevent it, maybe we will finally see something like a Wraith command ship or breeding ship this or next season.

[MechaThor]

In short, the starting point of the SGA story is "thousands of years ago, the Wraith
have overwhelmed the Ancients, who eventually left the Atlantis and retreated to Earth
through the stargate".

At the beginning of the SGA series this idea made sense and was a very exciting one,
because we've found out more about the Ancients, about their fate and we had the
opportunity to see the amazing city.

Facts :
- a swarm of drones can easily destroy a hive ship
- Atlantis has many drones
- the Lantean battleships had drones as well
- the Ancients also had sattelites powerful enough to cut hive ships in half
- the Atlantis shield held for a while until the city was abandoned
- the Ancients knew how to build ZPM's and drones

According to the Omnipedia (Wraith hive ship) "There are at least 21 hive ships in
the same quadrant of the Pegasus Galaxy that Atlantis is in, and at least 60 in total."

Given the facts mentioned above , i find it hard to understand how come the Ancients
were unable to deal with those 60 hive ships ! all they needed was to stay behind the
shield and use the drones against the hives that came into orbit .

What do you think about this ? Are there in fact much more hive ships (thousands
or tens of thousands), or the starting point of the SGA plot is flawed ?

There must have been Alot more! Whats left are the survivers of the wra and millions of years since then!
Remember in the Seige (I belive) Sheppard shows the hologram of part of the history of the battle for Atlantis. That hologram shows LOADS of wraith ships (mostly all hive) hyperspacing to Atlantis non stop! Inwhich every one hive ship destroyed another took its place! Watching that one section of the battle recorded its clear there was alot more than 60!

Plus in a time of war I am sure they grew/built lots of ships! In a time of "peace" I am sure when were decomissioned or abaondned, Lost in battles for terratory, and in battles with the once advanced (nojn ancient) Humans and other races of the P Galaxy!

[kymeric]

It has been pretty well established that the Ancients were space hippies that ran from any fight they encountered.

Rather than take on millions of wraith they left for greener pastures. Getting them to stay and fight would be like convincing ralph nader to use nerve gas on 3rd world countries....

[Buba uognarf]

It has been pretty well established that the Ancients were space hippies that ran from any fight they encountered.

Rather than take on millions of wraith they left for greener pastures. Getting them to stay and fight would be like convincing ralph nader to use nerve gas on 3rd world countries....

They fought for a hundred years! Yeah they gave up and ran away at the first sign of trouble

They ran away after they lost an entire galaxy, they only had Atlantis. Victory was impossible by that point, you know no access to resources to rebuild and all that.

[kymeric]

They fought for a hundred years! Yeah they gave up and ran away at the first sign of trouble

They ran away after they lost an entire galaxy, they only had Atlantis. Victory was impossible by that point, you know no access to resources to rebuild and all that.

A hundred years is nothing to a race whos members live thousands of years. And they could have exterminated the wraith with the nano virus, they could have made arcturus bombs and wiped out entire solar systems, they could have made a dakara doohickey and liquified all life in the galaxy but them, but they chose to leave.

Since the 50s the us goverment has had scorched earth plans for their nuclear missles. If another country launches their nukes at us we launch ALL of ours, enough to wipe out all life dozens of times over. The ancients never had those kinda BALLS. In the same situation they would all move to the moon or mars or something and say sorry to their home.

[Buba uognarf]

A hundred years is nothing to a race whos members live thousands of years. And they could have exterminated the wraith with the nano virus, they could have made arcturus bombs and wiped out entire solar systems, they could have made a dakara doohickey and liquified all life in the galaxy but them, but they chose to leave.

Since the 50s the us goverment has had scorched earth plans for their nuclear missles. If another country launches their nukes at us we launch ALL of ours, enough to wipe out all life dozens of times over. The ancients never had those kinda BALLS. In the same situation they would all move to the moon or mars or something and say sorry to their home.

Since when did ancients live for thousands of years? Your point was that the ancients just gave up and left, I'm saying you are clearly wrong as they got their butts kicked for a hundred years before sinking the city and running.

The nano virus killed humans. The Arcturus project happened late in the war and do you have no concept of resources etc...You talk as if they could build these experimental power sources out of thin air. Plus those Arcturus power sources could seriously damage the fabric of our universe. Yeah so they kill every human in the galaxy with a dakara device

LOL so you're saying that if say Iran launched a nuke at the US, the US would retaliate by wiping out all life on Earth?

[MechaThor]

A hundred years is nothing to a race whos members live thousands of years. And they could have exterminated the wraith with the nano virus, they could have made arcturus bombs and wiped out entire solar systems, they could have made a dakara doohickey and liquified all life in the galaxy but them, but they chose to leave.

Since the 50s the us goverment has had scorched earth plans for their nuclear missles. If another country launches their nukes at us we launch ALL of ours, enough to wipe out all life dozens of times over. The ancients never had those kinda BALLS. In the same situation they would all move to the moon or mars or something and say sorry to their home.

I think They invented the Dakara super weapon after the Wraith war. They may not have know how to build it back then. The Nano Virus did not work! The Wraith turned it off then the nano virus turned on the Ancients. As for destroying Solar systems! You got to remember the Ancients have morals, They where on their way to accention and had most likly developed past being a culture of killing each other with nukes and other races like we do!

[wise one]

there would of been loads more hives at the time of the war, since it was a hundred year and it mentioned that the ancinets won nearly every war suggest that they destroyed a heck lot of wraith ships and eventaully was overcomed by superior numbers and maybe lack of materials since all the wraith took over every planet

[Wraith_Boy]

There must have been Alot more! Whats left are the survivers of the wra and millions of years since then!
Remember in the Seige (I belive) Sheppard shows the hologram of part of the history of the battle for Atlantis. That hologram shows LOADS of wraith ships (mostly all hive) hyperspacing to Atlantis non stop! Inwhich every one hive ship destroyed another took its place! Watching that one section of the battle recorded its clear there was alot more than 60!

Just like we saw a dozen ships heading for Atlantis in 'The Siege III'. It was shown in the very first few eps that there were at least 60 left in the galaxy. Since then they've gone to civil war & are probably well less when you include the ones that Atlantis have blown up. However I doubt that there are 100's that the device failed to pick up because the Genii got that device while the Wraith were all still hibernating. There realistically should still be 100's left & that would partially show why the Lanteans decided to just give up. However 60 of them!!!!! Take 5/10 304's equipped with the same stuff as Odyssey. With the right tactics to ambush Wraith ships, they could wipe out the Wraith easily!

There hasn't been millions of years since then, only 10,000 years maximum!

I think They invented the Dakara super weapon after the Wraith war. They may not have know how to build it back then. The Nano Virus did not work! The Wraith turned it off then the nano virus turned on the Ancients. As for destroying Solar systems! You got to remember the Ancients have morals, They where on their way to accention and had most likly developed past being a culture of killing each other with nukes and other races like we do!

Nope!

It was specifically stated in 'Threads' that the Dakara device happened over a million years ago. While the Wraith war ended 10,000 years ago.

The nano-virus did work because we saw in S3 that it goes right after Wraith cells when it detects them close by! The Lanteans did not need to let them evolve the way in which they did. Nor did they have to abaondon the nanite plan. All they needed to do was keep them in their simplest form such as in 'The Hot Zone'. Load them inside a warhead & cloak it. Either that or load nanites on Drones. Fire them into the Wraith ship then jump away into HS. The nanites impact the hull, then start eating the ship from the outside in. Very quickly the ship becomes disabled. Hives don't have shields, so the nanites couldn't have raised one for protection even if they wanted to. After a couple of mins, the ship jumps back to the Hives location. It's dead in the water, they simply blow the crap out of it using whatever they want. The Hive goes up in a bang & the resulting explosion & shockwave destroys every single nanite in the area. They could even have used their version of an EMP on the basic form if they wanted also.

Janus was willing to help Weir, he even knew they needed ZPM's etc. Then he built the Time Jumper. So could have easily went back through to Atlantis if he had wanted, then left a ton of stuff for the team to find on their way through the gate 10,000 years later etc.

In SG-1 we have no idea what caused the great plague, when it happened & all the rest of it. Let's face it, storytelling isn't any of the writers strong points!

[HyperspaceDaemon]

Some people are suggesting that there were much more hives - for example 1000. And
that most of those were destroyed during the war with the Ancients.
This doesn't seem reasonable : if the Lanteans had managed to destroy 940 of 1000
hive ships they wouldn't have had real reasons to run away when they were so close
to get rid of them ...

Perhaps there are still much more than 60 hives . Or maybe "something" has
happened to the Wraith after the Ancients ran away : civil war , or famine . Or
maybe it's just a huge plot hole.