Ancient Weapons

[Wrai'uld]

You might class what I'm going to say as spoilers for The Siege part 2. So please do not read on if you havn't already watched TS2 yet and want to watch it without knowing a thing....





Ok, so ancient weapons. To races such as the jaffa (and I would agree) our weapons (P90s etc) have been heavily criticised for their lack of 'endurance'. Meaning that ammunition is required for them unlike zats etc.

Now in the PJ's, in the outpost and on Atlantis the main weapons are drones. Which are basically (very basically) extremely powerful bullets. Why did the Ancients decide to use a weapon that could run out when they obviously could have made weapons with still alot of power, that never ran out.

We saw this great weakness in the siege part2 when Atlantis was sucked dry of drones and Atlantis was left to weapons brought in by us to defend itself.

Any thoughts on why they used drones, when the chances are they could have made energy weapons that are better than that of the extremely power asgard weapons?

[aAnubiSs]

I don't think the drones were meant to be used as weapons primarily. I believe they're remote scientific probes used to gather data from the planets core. They're probably also used to destroy asteroids that might endanger the outpost/Atlantis.

[Wrai'uld]

I don't think the drones were meant to be used as weapons primarily. I believe they're remote scientific probes used to gather data from the planets core. They're probably also used to destroy asteroids that might endanger the outpost/Atlantis.

So then why would they be in the puddle jumpers? And when they were ripping into Anubis's fleet they didn't seem too sciencey?

Also why would the Ancients only defend their great city with science probes?

[aAnubiSs]

I said primarily. They obviously knew they could be used as weapons too. However The Ancients had several dozens of satellites and warships. They probably have other plasma-based weapons on atlantis too. I can't see the Ancients not using all that water around them to arm Ion Cannons I mean with ZPM:s powering Ion Cannons and the unlimited amount of resources for the plasma they could destroy a billion Hive ships per second

About the PJ. The PJs don't have shields or a hyperdrive, so I doubt they were meant for combat. If they were made for combat they would atleast have some sort of an energy weapon besides the drones.

[Atlantis1]

There may be weapons we haven't seen yet. From Sanctuary

Spoiler:

the energy pulse we saw may have been the ancended Ancient herself

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I believe they may have more for us yet to see. Part of the reason the Ancients were losing was because there were less of them. Maybe they needed more of their people to man the weapons then they had.

[Wrai'uld]

There may be weapons we haven't seen yet. From Sanctuary

Spoiler:

the energy pulse we saw may have been the ancended Ancient herself

.
I believe they may have more for us yet to see. Part of the reason the Ancients were losing was because there were less of them. Maybe they needed more of their people to man the weapons then they had.

You would think with all there tech they could invent a computer based weapon, all they would have to do would be to flick a switch or something.

[sarge]

You would think with all there tech they could invent a computer based weapon, all they would have to do would be to flick a switch or something.

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Wasn’t that basically what the satellite weapons platform was? Seemed to me that all grodin had to do was power her up and that’s that. At least till the wraith wasted it….

It still boils down to numbers. The satellite took out one hive ship but the other two took it out. With a seemingly endless supply of wraith the ancient didn't stand a chance (but that's a bit off topic)

[ColonelWilliams]

maybe they (GJOD's) are reproductive, we just haven't found the regenerate switch or they're not being made due to lack of power. I still hold on to hope that PJ's have fully operational sheilds and they haven't been activated for some other reason...

[cobraR478]

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Wasn’t that basically what the satellite weapons platform was? Seemed to me that all grodin had to do was power her up and that’s that. At least till the wraith wasted it….

It still boils down to numbers. The satellite took out one hive ship but the other two took it out. With a seemingly endless supply of wraith the ancient didn't stand a chance (but that's a bit off topic)

I think he meant something in "cyberspace" that would attack a ships computers and disable them.

[sarge]

I think he meant something in "cyberspace" that would attack a ships computers and disable them.

ahhh, but where's the fun in that? big weapons need big bang

[immhotep]

maybe they (GJOD's) are reproductive, we just haven't found the regenerate switch or they're not being made due to lack of power. I still hold on to hope that PJ's have fully operational sheilds and they haven't been activated for some other reason...

i think the amount of power is diectly proportional to the output of drones, we only had a crap naquada generator whereas they had three ZPM's, they can churn out millions we can barlyey churn out 50.

[immhotep]

to add to that, i think the other reason ure seaching for is simple but two fold, 1 the atlantis team have a short memory and havent come to the logic of ' the wraith made a shield out of the PJ, we should try that', and that the power requirement are probey the same as thecloak and only 1 can be used at any one time- the ancients programed the PJ to operate in stealth mode as default and shields secondary, the team havent discovered the 'secondary' bit yet.

[Macilnar]

Who is to say that the drones just need to be put back in the luncher? For all we Know drones can be used over and over and over...

[NORCALJJ]

so why didn't the ancients build a weapon with the same type of energy blast as the satellite weapons platform? i'm hoping that there is a weapon like it somewhere on atlantis... it just seems to make more sense.. what would you rather have, a thousand drones or an energy weapon that acts like the satelite shooting a huge blast of energy.. its basically choosing between having a weapon that needs a big power generator thats ammo can run out or an energy weapon that just needs a big power generator.... i dont know....

[YodaMate]

*Spoilers for all of Season 1*




A cannon or other such weapon would have a fixed, or at least straight line of fire. As such, the drones (which act more like guided missiles) are a vast improvement as they can chase the enemy all day long.

It is quite possible that the Ancients do have cannons or beam weapons, but they simply put them away in storage when they submerged the city (who needs cannons underwater anyway ?). If they did have them, they would have to position them outside the shield somehow, or open small windows in the shield to fire. From a defensive point of view, much simpler and safer to keep the shield on then to maintain holes in it to allow weapons to fire out.

The Altantis Expedition does know about the PJ shield, after all, Sheppard ran straight into it It is almost definitely a PJ shield since the Wraith looks like he presses the cloak shield remote to activate it and he was fiddling with the PJ's wires when he heard Shep's flare go off. But so far, the Expedition only has needed to use the cloak, as they have no intention of sending their few PJs against a large number of Wraith ships. Much better to stay invisible and avoid pointless fights, particularly on recon missions.

I'm still holding out for PJs to have transporters aboard. I reckon Shep will set off the nuke in the hive ship and the PJ will automatically beam him down to Atlantis. He will appear in a transport chamber, have a brief 'huh' moment (like Rusty seeing his car blow up in Ocean's 12) before shrugging and continuing the battle