Why not more Ancients?

[Apogeal Alpha 01]

This is probably rhetorical as there is no answer, I don't think. One thing that puzzles me is why there were not after millions of years, more Ancients. One thing that humans do, especially when there are the necessary resources, is multiply. If I remember correctly, it has been about 60 generations since the time of Julius Caesar of Rome. In that time, the human race has gone from millions of people, to nearly 6 Billion.

The ancients seeded the Pegasus galaxy with life, so I guess that says they value it, yet when they left Earth after millions of years, all their kind could fit in a city the size of Manhattan. Were they self-obsessed hoarders? Is there more than one ship?

[MartoufMarty]

Oh, just wait...

They'll get into it more as the season goes on.

I think there's at least two episodes that have anicents this season

[Steve_the_Wraith]

Well the Ancients who went to Pegasus were those who survived a plague that killed an entire Galaxy. Their might have been only a hand full.

Ancients live a LONG time. In Avalon Part 1 we find out that Merlin was one of the survivers of Atlantis - that means he was over 9 thousand years old! Imagine how long an ancient generation is.

BTW I don't think the Ancients were the kind of people to have tons of kids, but then again there race was almost extinct so there might have been alot of pressure to reproduce

[James_the_Wraith_Sympathiser]

Maybe they were so technologically advanced, they thought the act of reproducing was too "primitive" .

In regard to Ancients living a long time - are you sure of this? Unless I've missed something, I haven't seen anything to indicate this, necessarily....Merlin may have been in stasis like Weir was, or, the Ancients simply lived on Earth after they fled Pegasus and their numbers dwindled....we do know that they posessed stasis technology......which raises an interesting question...could they all (or some of them) be in stasis somewhere?

[JanusAncient]

The Ancient civilization, had to be a lot like that of the Nox, families of four or five, each living for hundreds, even thousands of years. Still, some of the surviving Ancients could have went to another galaxy, after seeding life in Pegasus, if they seeded life in two galaxies, there is no reason not to assume that couldn't have done the same thing in others.

[Stricken]

There taking a nap

[MarshAngel]

Well one thing we can learn from examining ourselves is that the longer you live and the the more successful you are, the more likely you are to put off having children. If what we learned from Avalon,

Spoiler:

that Arthur was 75 when he went to battle,

that could mean that the process of ascension and all the steps therein could add countless years to your life. Add to that a more advanced biology and the ability to heal any wound and any disease and the number of years an ancient could live stretches well into the hundreds of years.

If I knew I was going to live for a thousand years I would probably spend the first hundred educating myself on a few subjects. The second hundred exploring. the third hundred experimenting, the fourth.....

The point is, I might not choose to have children for seven hundred years. Even if you had a population of a few million, that could mean one child born every two hundred years. That means that every time a group of people go off to a far flung corner of the galaxy to do a one hundred year experiment and like it so much they decide to stay, you lose population you don't replace. Then there's that plague business so I'm guessing that most could probably fit all who wanted to leave into Atlantis. Especially since they probably didn't plan to stay on it forever, and had unlimited resources with which to supply it for the time they lived on it.

[Tezzador]

But what about before they reached this technological standard? I'm sure they would have a fairly large population like earth?

[hades]

I'm digressing sorry, but, what if the big bad virus side effetc was an inability to reproduce which forced the ancients to ascend or die.

[MarshAngel]

But what about before they reached this technological standard? I'm sure they would have a fairly large population like earth?

Not necessarily. When the ancients left their home galaxy, they were already very advanced. Even if they were not as long lived, they were on a journey for a long time to get to the Milky Way so space probably limited their reproduction. Also they were refugees of a sort so I doubt that they were in the millions at the beginning.

If you use the humans on Earth as an example, our medical technology outpaces our space travel tech. We find newer ways to heal ourselves much faster than we find ways to explore space. If the ancients were advanced enough to have left in a space ship that could travel to other galaxies then they were most likely already so advanced they could heal most of their physical ailments, and as a result lived long healthy lives and could reproduce when it was most convenient for them. As a result their population probably didn't expand much until they got to the Milky Way.

In the US and other Western countries, people reproduce at replacement rate. For every two parents, two children. Because of delayed reproduction financial strains, desire and necessity. If the Ancients did the same, or given their good health and long life, less, I don't think they would ever compare to us in numbers.

[@Li3n]

I'm digressing sorry, but, what if the big bad virus side effetc was an inability to reproduce which forced the ancients to ascend or die.

Unlikely, as atlantis was in pegasus for a very long time, and the ancients there must have had children!

[@Li3n]

Well one thing we can learn from examining ourselves is that the longer you live and the the more successful you are, the more likely you are to put off having children. If what we learned from Avalon,

Spoiler:

that Arthur was 75 when he went to battle,

that could mean that the process of ascension and all the steps therein could add countless years to your life. Add to that a more advanced biology and the ability to heal any wound and any disease and the number of years an ancient could live stretches well into the hundreds of years.

If I knew I was going to live for a thousand years I would probably spend the first hundred educating myself on a few subjects. The second hundred exploring. the third hundred experimenting, the fourth.....

The point is, I might not choose to have children for seven hundred years. Even if you had a population of a few million, that could mean one child born every two hundred years. That means that every time a group of people go off to a far flung corner of the galaxy to do a one hundred year experiment and like it so much they decide to stay, you lose population you don't replace. Then there's that plague business so I'm guessing that most could probably fit all who wanted to leave into Atlantis. Especially since they probably didn't plan to stay on it forever, and had unlimited resources with which to supply it for the time they lived on it.

Aren't there alot more factors then just "the longer you live and the the more successful you are"?
I think also religion, the type of education you receive, how birth control is viewed by society (even if u do want to spend most of your first 100 years studying, it's unlikly that you would go without *** for so long), how artificial reproduction is viewed etc.

Just because in our society well of people have few children doesn't mean in other, more advanced ones, it would be the same.


What if the Ancients chose 2 limit their numbers in Pegasus so that normal humans could eventualy replace them? They were reserching ascension!

[MarshAngel]

Aren't there alot more factors then just "the longer you live and the the more successful you are"?
I think also religion, the type of education you receive, how birth control is viewed by society (even if u do want to spend most of your first 100 years studying, it's unlikly that you would go without *** for so long), how artificial reproduction is viewed etc.

Just because in our society well of people have few children doesn't mean in other, more advanced ones, it would be the same.


What if the Ancients chose 2 limit their numbers in Pegasus so that normal humans could eventualy replace them? They were reserching ascension!

You have to work with what you know not what you don't. We know how our own society works. We know the ancients are essentially human. That's the only basis by which we can extrapolate what they might do. We also know they travelled for a long time. Under those circumstances one can reason that they they had to practice some form of birth control or they'd run out of space and resources. That pretty much debunks objections to contraceptive unless you're suggesting they just didn't have sex.

Also following our own society, advancement means societal control of some kind; that is it to say the advent of birth control has contributed to the success and advancement of our society. It means women can explore other options and that families aren't subject to poverty because of the number of children they have. It also means that our wealth isn't limited by having to digvert resources to a large population. Population control is also vital to the maintenance of a healthy planet. Unless you're going to suggest the Alterans, being basically human all decided to stop having sex rather than inventing birth control....


Education... I'm not sure this is particularly relevant to the Ancients. It's relevant to our current situation. Differences in education occur by choice, politics, money or isolation. I'm not sure how this would affect an advanced society at all. By nature of being advanced, they're highly educated.

[@Li3n]

You have to work with what you know not what you don't. We know how our own society works. We know the ancients are essentially human. That's the only basis by which we can extrapolate what they might do. We also know they travelled for a long time. Under those circumstances one can reason that they they had to practice some form of birth control or they'd run out of space and resources. That pretty much debunks objections to contraceptive unless you're suggesting they just didn't have sex.

Also following our own society, advancement means societal control of some kind; that is it to say the advent of birth control has contributed to the success and advancement of our society. It means women can explore other options and that families aren't subject to poverty because of the number of children they have. It also means that our wealth isn't limited by having to digvert resources to a large population. Population control is also vital to the maintenance of a healthy planet. Unless you're going to suggest the Alterans, being basically human all decided to stop having sex rather than inventing birth control....


Education... I'm not sure this is particularly relevant to the Ancients. It's relevant to our current situation. Differences in education occur by choice, politics, money or isolation. I'm not sure how this would affect an advanced society at all. By nature of being advanced, they're highly educated.

Birth control is so important in our society because of STD (heck the ancient egyptians had birth control), overpopulation and other things. There are other societys on earth that don't see it as important (and most religions don't like it.)

By education i mean type of education (what they are taught), not quantity or quality.

In a society that was as advanced as theirs having children would not necesarly mean that women would have to take care of them all the time, or that they would live in poverty if they had many (do they even have money, jobs etc), or wouldn't be able to be workaholics. (do u notice how there is a trend to give people more free time).

There are many other types of societys on the Globe, just because the West is the most powerfull at the moment doesn't mean it should be taken as the norm for humans or advanced!

P.S. Never said that they din't have contraceptives, but that they did not necesarly used them.

[MarshAngel]

Birth control is so important in our society because of STD (heck the ancient egyptians had birth control). There are other societys on earth that don't see it as important (and most religions don't like it.)

Not to be rude but where do you come up with this stuff? There are more than a half dozen methods of birth control and only one of them protects against STDs. Birth control was devised as a means of preventing unwanted pregnancies not STDS. The Egyptians didn't want babies, not STDS. The pill, the IUD, the diaphragm, the douche, the .... I could go on but only a condom protects against STDS and most women who do not want to get pregnant and can afford it, choose other methods instead of and in additon to the condom.

Why didn't women want babies? Because unmarried pregnant women are a stigma. Unmarried women with children have less income. Pregnant women do not get jobs. Pregnant young women do not get the best education...

Religious objections to birth control rarely hold up in the face of more practical concerns. Even religions change over time to reflect changing population needs. Many people who practise their religions overlook some older ideas because they know they cannot live their lives that way. Give us another thousand years and we'll see where religion stands on birth control. By the time we can explore the galaxy in giant ships, I seriously doubt religious objections will overcome the more practical issue of where you put them once you have them.

By education i mean type of education (what they are taught), not quantity or quality.

I'm still not sure what you're getting at. Are you saying an advanced society would choose not to give their children a thorough education because....?

In a society that was as advanced as theirs having children would not necesarly mean that women would have to take care of them all the time, or that they would live in poverty if they had many (do they even have money, jobs etc), or wouldn't be able to be workaholics. (do u notice how there is a trend to give people more free time).

The references to poverty and child care do not refer to an advanced society but to the question of what they did before they reached their current level of technology. It speaks to the path it took for them to become advanced and it quite obviously doesn't apply once they become advanced. If you breed yourself into oblivion you never get to build the giant ship since you're too busy feeding the people and cleaning up their mess.

Once again, using ourselves as an example, there is a certain balance any economy hopes to acheive where demands do not exceed your ability to supply. An uncontrolled large population would throw the balance off. Ask China.

There are many other types of societys on the Globe, just because the West is the most powerfull at the moment doesn't mean it should be taken as the norm for humans or advanced!

Power has nothing to do with it. the fact is, if other countries could maintain similar population growth they would. It's not a matter of merely culture and choice. It's a matter of economics. They do not have the money to educate and culture sometimes works against what they desire to accomplish. There is an ideal population for a balanced economy and everyone, not just the west wants to acheive that type of balance because it's best for their economy and their future. Just because they can't do it as yet doesn't mean that they're current situation is exactly what they want. If that were true China wouldn't be trying to control population growth, they'd be enjoying it.