One thing thats been annoying me about the Asgard...

[SubZero]

Right.
So, the Asgard met their demise as their clone forms were suffering genetic degradation through the fact that they were 'copies of copies of copies' etc...

Well, wouldn't such an advanced civilisation have realised that would be been the end result and figured out a way to create clones from a single base 'blueprint' thereby negating the need to copy from each aging and failing clone?

The Asgard have the ability to transfer their consciousness and minds from clone to clone and obviously reproduce their clones technologically, so I don't buy it that they couldnt just have a good, master blueprint saved on file and just keep pressing 'print' when and as they needed another clone...


Or am I missing something?

Just seems like a bull**** stupid way to kill of a vastly intelligent race.

thoughts?

[Rosehawk]

I just look at it this way...just because they are more advanced, doesn't mean they have the answers to everything. Their technology got them as far as it could go. Who knows, they could have had a blueprint and it could have been lost over time which I suspect is what happen. There was an episode of SG1 where they did find an Asgard that had found an old Asgard body and was trying to learn from it. I wish they would have explored that more with the Asgards instead of eventually killing them off.

They most likely did not realized the end because at that point no one had any data or experience on what happens over a millennia of cloning.

I believe it was the cloning process over a very long period of time is what was causing their genetic degradation so if it was the process itself that was breaking down, they would not have been able to continue. They decided as a race that they would commit suicide rather than watch everything they built just go away and I would suspect they didn't want mechanical bodies either.

Though I am with you, I didn't like the fact that the Asgard were killed off in that manner.

[Aesop]

The Asgard had blind spots when it came to their intelligence. It seems like when facing a problem they approached it exclusively through a technical perspective and sometimes failed to consider more creative or sensible solutions. Hence the result of their cloning operations, or why they needed to recruit Carter to address the replicator issue on their home world.

I kind of see it as a modified version of Jack's Ancient Repository experience, the more intelligent he became, the more of "himself" he lost. I think the Asgard may have also lost some aspects of themselves as they grew more intelligent over the ages. I think Thor even acknowledged this when explaining why they needed Carter.

[escyos]

I always figured that by the time they realized what was happening, they had already lost their original DNA and that, as we were told, their former bodies brains were incapable of housing their consciousnesses anymore so they were stuck.

[thekillman]

thoughts?

My first thought is that there are literally a dozen threads on this, some of which pretty recent.

Secondly, the best answer i've been able to distill from all these threads is the following:

*It was a combination of factors, not one single thing that made them fail
*The replicator war likely eradicated huge amounts of data on this research and may have destroyed the originals.
*the asgard consciousness increases with size, but the body is the same. Thus, at some point an old clone won't be able to hold an asgard mind. It's likely that the Asgard frequently messed with their DNA to fix this.
*The asgard may not have been aware of the cloning problem until it was way too late, believing that they could stay ahead of the problems with genetic modification.
*The asgard were low on numbers and thus would not have had the manpower or time to properly fix this stuff.
*The asgard probably had significant cultural problem with any other form of technology fixing (especially android/replicator solutions), considering that relying too much on technology was what got them in this mess in the first place.
*None of the above factors would've been a problem on it's own, but combined (low on manpower, ever ticking clock, war going on) likely ensured that the asgard were never able to properly pick a path. After all, they were on the route to an ARG tech of their own but had to abandon it, signifying a lack of resources (manpower/time).

Lastly, remember programming. Someone may write a program, but without comments in the code it may be hard to figure out of the creator dies and someone else takes over. Now imagine a 10 000 year old program being worked on, filled with thousands of millions of modifications, patches, additions and retractions and hundreds to thousands of contributors, some of which are long dead. Oh and halfway the database storing various snapshots of this program start blowing up so your history is riddled with holes and trying to figure out why someone did various things causes your eyes to bleed.

After all, Earth did possess the Asgard DNA but we couldn't do much about it. Seems to me that the Asgard turned their DNA into an unreadable, barely coherent mess with no time or manpower to fix it or do it "right". Because they never *had* time to do it right.

To me, it seems that the Replicator war, however long it lasted, was a major catalyst in their demise. The asgard left alone for 10 000 years seems to have fixed their problems, after all.


EDIT:
It's essentially a classic short term : long term investment problem. Invest too little in the now (increasing brain size, fixing immediate problems, winning the war) and lose now. Invest too little in the future (doing aforementioned things properly) and you lose in the future. Either causes defeat.

[pscard]

Given time, the Asgard could have developed the tech to transfer their consciousnesses into humans or other compatible life-form, or created a genetic human-Asgard hybrid.

[thekillman]

Given time, the Asgard could have developed the tech to transfer their consciousnesses into humans or other compatible life-form, or created a genetic human-Asgard hybrid.

They already had that technology. I think it falls under "not wanting to rely on more technology" / "ethical problems". Remember, experimenting on human was considered wrong by the Asgard.

[hellbender14]

Thekillman pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter. My other thought was pretty much covered by Aesop. I think that with the Asgard's increased intellect they became incapable of creative thought as Thor points out more than once. Most notably in "Small Victories" where he explains that they're incapable of thinking as humans do when discussing gunpowder technology.

Side note; I really would've loved to have seen more of the Asgard in Stargate: Atlantis, given that they had a lot of potential as a new enemy or possibly a potential ally given some time and moral guidance from the Tauri...

[thekillman]

Thekillman pretty much summed up my thoughts on the matter.

It's not weird considering it's pretty much what all the other threads were about

My other thought was pretty much covered by Aesop. I think that with the Asgard's increased intellect they became incapable of creative thought as Thor points out more than once. Most notably in "Small Victories" where he explains that they're incapable of thinking as humans do when discussing gunpowder technology.

I don't think it was a lack of *creative* thought, it was a lack of *simple* thoughts. The Asgard were used to solving problems through technology. Tactics (like simple diversions) weren't really their thing. Even grand strategies (like the black hole) centered around technological solutions.

Side note; I really would've loved to have seen more of the Asgard in Stargate: Atlantis, given that they had a lot of potential as a new enemy or possibly a potential ally given some time and moral guidance from the Tauri...

Same here. We only ever saw the Asgard as a race at the end of their breath. Imagine what -with such technology- an Asgard Empire would've looked like, or what 10 000 years of different history would've done to the pegasus asgard and their ideas and technology.

In the end, i think Stargate became too Ancient-centric. Even Lost Tribe was essentially about the ancients despite featuring asgard.

[Aesop]

They already had that technology. I think it falls under "not wanting to rely on more technology" / "ethical problems". Remember, experimenting on human was considered wrong by the Asgard.

Yep, Loki was busted for going rogue on human experimentation.

[jfarrell327]

What I never got was why they always reproduced themselves in new organic bodies... They could've made inorganic bodies like the other SG-1 from the first season and the second to last episode of the fourth season. The Asgard could've easily created them and a longer battery (power source) although the Asgard never really used the Stargate, like we did. Only when they had no ships available did they use the Stargate. Other than that their inorganic bodies would last forever, and should it get destroyed or whatever, no biggy they could've gotten another one easily without degradation with the organic bodies.

[thekillman]

What I never got was why they always reproduced themselves in new organic bodies... They could've made inorganic bodies like the other SG-1 from the first season and the second to last episode of the fourth season. The Asgard could've easily created them and a longer battery (power source) although the Asgard never really used the Stargate, like we did. Only when they had no ships available did they use the Stargate. Other than that their inorganic bodies would last forever, and should it get destroyed or whatever, no biggy they could've gotten another one easily without degradation with the organic bodies.

Last time they chose to extend their lives through technology, they got into the mess they were in right now. Also, after spending possibly centuries fighting the Replicators, i'm not sure most Asgard would be happy becoming the thing they were fighting.

[jestermon]

The funny thing is with their technology they could have just made a life form and put their minds into it.

Anubis made those Kull warriors from something that wasn't even alive then brought it to life, there is no reason they couldn't have fired up the Asgard Core, fed in the data from that one unaltered Asgard body they found and made more.

Surely, it would have contained dna in it's reproductive cells for both sexes of the race.

I have to agree with the others though, if they can't think of making a projectile weapon to simply shatter an object you know there has to be some issues with their though processes.

I mean they didn't even think of a wave type weapon until Jack built it, you think if they didn't think to use projectiles they could at least made some kind of sonic weapon that tore the blocks apart, even if it wasn't permanently like the one Jack built.

Also, they would have had to learn how to talk, walk and function again altogether if everyone got a new body made fro the dna of the frozen Asgard they found and it had parts they didn't have anymore.

They pretty much were replicators, they moved to new planets replicated new bodies and kept on doing it over and over, they just weren't made out of metal.

[thekillman]

The funny thing is with their technology they could have just made a life form and put their minds into it.
.

If the part about their brain is true then no, they couldn't.

I mean they didn't even think of a wave type weapon until Jack built it, you think if they didn't think to use projectiles they could at least made some kind of sonic weapon that tore the blocks apart, even if it wasn't permanently like the one Jack built.

They did. They explicitly mentioned in the episode that they HAD thought of such a weapon but couldn't make it work. Considering the work put into the cipher, it seems they simply couldn't find the frequency to disable the links.

Also, they would have had to learn how to talk, walk and function again altogether if everyone got a new body made fro the dna of the frozen Asgard they found and it had parts they didn't have anymore.

Once more, it seems the size of their minds prohibited them from easily transferring.

They pretty much were replicators, they moved to new planets replicated new bodies and kept on doing it over and over, they just weren't made out of metal.

True, but that may have been the one distinction that ensured the Asgard didn't become just that.

[jestermon]

The brain part has nothing to do with it, if they can clone an entire Asgard body they clearly have the schematics for making their brains, they could just write the program and make a completely healthy Asgard brain in that old style Asgard body.