The fate of Asgard ships

[Aesop]

Are we to believe that there were no Bilskirnir-class or O'Neill-class ships left in existence by the time the Asgard destroyed themselves? It seems that if the Asgard thought it was sufficient to give us everything they had, it would've made sense to throw in any ships they might've had left too.

Despite our ships having the newest versions of everything the Asgard developed, it seems as though our hyperdrive speeds are still inferior to theirs, even with a ZPM. Which also has me wondering, shouldn't the core have the specs for their neutrino-ion generators? Whether or not they're superior to a ZPM, they're certainly superior to Tau'ri Naquadah generators... it seems like either O'Neill-class ships and/or neutrino-ion powerplants would've been huge assets in our operations.

Just the idea of using an O'Neill-class ship to ferry supplies to and from Atlantis seems much more efficient than the Daedalus...

[thekillman]

Are we to believe that there were no Bilskirnir-class or O'Neill-class ships left in existence by the time the Asgard destroyed themselves?

It's likely everything was recalled to their homeworld in order to be blown up.

[Krisz]

I feel that the Asgard gave their knowledge only to the 'Fifth Race' for them to use as they evolved to understand and use it wisely. Any technology the Asgard shared with the Tau'ri was always used under their constant supervision. Giving Earth their ships and technology outright wouldn't really help as the Tau'ri wouldn't really understand the complexity of it. It could be open to being used as weapons of destruction, hence why I agree that they recalled all their ships to be destroyed along with Othala.

They must have known that it would cause the same problems the Ancients tried to avoid when they made the mistake of giving their technology to a society that was not ready to understand it in the belief they were helping.

[Aesop]

It's possible that the Tau'ri wouldn't be competent enough to use the Asgard ships, but if we can come up with interface systems for Ancient ships I would think we could do the same for Asgard ships as well. It just seems like if there's no risk involved in bequeathing us their knowledge, there's no risk in giving us their fleet either. It could've gone a long way to help us maintain peace in the Milky Way and Pegasus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as of the premier of SGU, Earth had four ships (Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo and the George Hammond). Five if the Chinese were ever able to repair the Sun Tzu. Even though our ships are incredibly powerful, the Lucian Alliance has a sizable fleet of their own which could be a threat... Having an armada of Bilskirnirs and O'Neills would certainly help, at least a bit.

[Xaeden]

Despite our ships having the newest versions of everything the Asgard developed, it seems as though our hyperdrive speeds are still inferior to theirs, even with a ZPM. Which also has me wondering, shouldn't the core have the specs for their neutrino-ion generators? Whether or not they're superior to a ZPM, they're certainly superior to Tau'ri Naquadah generators... it seems like either O'Neill-class ships and/or neutrino-ion powerplants would've been huge assets in our operations.

Note that the power source is not the only determining factor in that situation. Yes, absolutely, Asgard generators are superior to naquadah generators and being able to build them will give 304s a boost in shield power and hyperdrive speed. However, their ability to benefit from an advanced power source is restricted by their ability to transfer power from it to critical systems. 304s were not designed to funnel massive amounts of power and therefore they will never be able to use a ZPM as efficiently as, say, Atlantis. We've seen that Atlantis has a system of large tubes that transfer power, which contrasts radically to the small wires that we once saw Mckay hooking up to a ZPM and feeding into the presumably similar small wire system of the Daedalus.

Similarly, we can reasonably assume that the Asgard did design their ships to efficiently transfer large amounts of power around because they were designed not with low powered naquadah generators in mind but with their own high powered generators. Thus you can't determine which is a superior power source based on things like observed shield strength or hyperdrive speed in a 304 versus an Asgard battle cruiser. As evident of that, look at how much more powerful Atlantis' shield is when it is powered by a single ZPM (under strain from trying to power a larger system mind you) versus an Asgard battle cruiser. Atlantis' ability to efficiently transfer power is almost certainly superior and their shield technology is apparently also more advanced so it's again not an equal comparison. However, that is the point.

I'm sure someone will now think to point out now that Asgard hyperdrives are so much superior to Ancient hyperdrives since the Asgard can travel between galaxies in hours. It should, however, be noted that that is either an example of them failing to account for realistic time lapses in the writing/editing process (like how in the new Star Trek movie they have the Enterprise zipping between Earth and the Klingon homeworld in what amounts to about a minute and a half of movie time without a time lapse cut) or it's something that they decided to retcon because they realized they went too far. Later, in the Atlantis episode, "Misbegotten" we get a more toned down estimate:

WEIR: I know they don't have a lot of ships to spare right now, but that will shave almost two weeks off our travel time.

Traveling to the Pegasus galaxy on a 304 would have taken them 18 days, so that means it was believed that the Asgard could take them to the Pegasus in a little over 4 days. Since Weir rounded up, the actual travel could be 5, 6, 7, 8 days. A ZPM powered 304 can make the trip in 4 days, so here they are essentially telling us that a ZPM powered 304 can travel slightly faster than a regular Asgard ship. Note that, based on the dialogue, they are not factoring in the time it will take the Asgard to send a ship to the Milky Way because Weir refers to "our travel time" being reduced and not their wait/overall time. So, assuming this is not the flub, it's as close as we get to being able to compare their speeds since it tells about how long it would take them to cross the same distance that 304s have crossed with and without a ZPM.

[jfarrell327]

It's possible that the Tau'ri wouldn't be competent enough to use the Asgard ships, but if we can come up with interface systems for Ancient ships I would think we could do the same for Asgard ships as well. It just seems like if there's no risk involved in bequeathing us their knowledge, there's no risk in giving us their fleet either. It could've gone a long way to help us maintain peace in the Milky Way and Pegasus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as of the premier of SGU, Earth had four ships (Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo and the George Hammond). Five if the Chinese were ever able to repair the Sun Tzu. Even though our ships are incredibly powerful, the Lucian Alliance has a sizable fleet of their own which could be a threat... Having an armada of Bilskirnirs and O'Neills would certainly help, at least a bit.

You have a point but the last episode of season 3, SG-1 learned how to operate Asgard Ships. They were also on the ships many times, I wouldn't think that would be the reason. Why didn't they give us a ship, who knows but if it was real, I am sure they would've. But the writers were extremely conservative and never gave SG-1 a great advantage like that.

[pookey]

It would have been better if the Asgard had given us a ship with all their knowledge on that. To easy?

[Aesop]

It would have been better if the Asgard had given us a ship with all their knowledge on that. To easy?

It would've been nice, but I can understand why they wanted to put one of their cores on our ship - that way we could understand how best to integrate their tech with ours. Nevertheless, having even a handful of their ships would've worked wonders in our subsequent engagements.

[destiny khan]

Note that the power source is not the only determining factor in that situation. Yes, absolutely, Asgard generators are superior to naquadah generators and being able to build them will give 304s a boost in shield power and hyperdrive speed. However, their ability to benefit from an advanced power source is restricted by their ability to transfer power from it to critical systems. 304s were not designed to funnel massive amounts of power and therefore they will never be able to use a ZPM as efficiently as, say, Atlantis. We've seen that Atlantis has a system of large tubes that transfer power, which contrasts radically to the small wires that we once saw Mckay hooking up to a ZPM and feeding into the presumably similar small wire system of the Daedalus.

Similarly, we can reasonably assume that the Asgard did design their ships to efficiently transfer large amounts of power around because they were designed not with low powered naquadah generators in mind but with their own high powered generators. Thus you can't determine which is a superior power source based on things like observed shield strength or hyperdrive speed in a 304 versus an Asgard battle cruiser. As evident of that, look at how much more powerful Atlantis' shield is when it is powered by a single ZPM (under strain from trying to power a larger system mind you) versus an Asgard battle cruiser. Atlantis' ability to efficiently transfer power is almost certainly superior and their shield technology is apparently also more advanced so it's again not an equal comparison. However, that is the point.

I'm sure someone will now think to point out now that Asgard hyperdrives are so much superior to Ancient hyperdrives since the Asgard can travel between galaxies in hours. It should, however, be noted that that is either an example of them failing to account for realistic time lapses in the writing/editing process (like how in the new Star Trek movie they have the Enterprise zipping between Earth and the Klingon homeworld in what amounts to about a minute and a half of movie time without a time lapse cut) or it's something that they decided to retcon because they realized they went too far. Later, in the Atlantis episode, "Misbegotten" we get a more toned down estimate:

WEIR: I know they don't have a lot of ships to spare right now, but that will shave almost two weeks off our travel time.

Traveling to the Pegasus galaxy on a 304 would have taken them 18 days, so that means it was believed that the Asgard could take them to the Pegasus in a little over 4 days. Since Weir rounded up, the actual travel could be 5, 6, 7, 8 days. A ZPM powered 304 can make the trip in 4 days, so here they are essentially telling us that a ZPM powered 304 can travel slightly faster than a regular Asgard ship. Note that, based on the dialogue, they are not factoring in the time it will take the Asgard to send a ship to the Milky Way because Weir refers to "our travel time" being reduced and not their wait/overall time. So, assuming this is not the flub, it's as close as we get to being able to compare their speeds since it tells about how long it would take them to cross the same distance that 304s have crossed with and without a ZPM.

First of, i think they would have improved their power conduits... atlantis could handle unbelievable amounts of power and even more so if you used the walls of the halls and rooms as conduits as well as they were all made of naquadah... which is a super conductor and also a technology available to them. They are already on crystal tech of goauld(backward engineered from ancient thech by them) and just like them they should not use wires anymore now. They have the capability to use giant naquadah conduits. Even ancient conduits can overload(it was a secondary conduit but still). I am sure mckay was not using copper wires with a zpm while getting punched by the sun. Anyways, they should fine tune their production of stuff very quickly... they really are low tech compared to advanced races to it will take a decade or especially when naquadah is not easy to get...

ZPMs are the best power sources around... the thing is that they changed it. They made the asgard drives as quick as travelling from one galaxy to another in mere couple of hours and then slowed them down considerably in atlantis so it takes days(yes they changed the mythos). Both the ancient and asgard hyperdrives should be on the same level after all, asgards take their stuff from ancients too.

Coming to shields... ancients have the best shields easy but a zpm powered 304 is so slouch either(4 ori ships bombarding constantly in the movie for like 20 minutes or so). Atlantis has better shields as it is on the ground most of the time. When a shield is hit the massive energy of the missile or energy fire has plenty of kinetic energy that transfers directly into the shield emitter and then to the whole ship's structure. The fires and electic sparks that we see on the ships are simply due to severe shaking as not much leaks through the shields till they are depleted. Atlantis being on the ground has the great advantage of channeling that momentum directly into the ground or ocean without taking it on its own structure. That is why when it was between earth and the wraith mega hive, it started those electricity sparks in the control room and started to deplete(shields down to 70 percent and stuff). And even then the conduits of the city couldn't handle giving too much power to the sublight engines or the weapons while fighting the wraith ships.

They change their "facts" quite often in the series... e.g anubis's base was in the milky way but teal'c say that his base is millions of light years away... sam says that the earliest stargates in the milky way is atleast 50 million years old(the one in antarctica). And in SGU they say that destiny has been flying for a million years which is not possible as it had the prototype gate which means it was older than 50 million years... which they built after getting to the milky way from the ori galaxy. They left for pegasus 5-10 million years ago after the plague, so destiny must be before 50 million years ago... they changed it all and i don't like it...