Fundemental Questions

[thedoctor]

Hi All, Im new on this forum so please dont destroy me if this has already been covered

Atlantis, i just watched the Tower, superb episode, but it brought up some old demons from the past and i wanted to air them in the open and see if i can make some sense?

3 Points, ZPM's, Drones and for want of a better term, phasers!!

Atlantis came on its own from Earth, plonked down on this planet and began building ships and other good stuff to populate the Pegusus Galaxy, they succeeded, building sister citys, etc

My questions are, why cant Atlantis build its own ZPM's, and Drones or at the very least have a tech manual of how to in the database? or if this is to much a map to the ZPM / Drone factory whereever that may be? its never been mentioned of even broached in any episode ive seen, yet is so important? anyway thats 2 of 3 thoughts?

last question, whay have we never seen any of those cool 'phasers' from the Aurora episode on Atlantis?

ok over to you all... what do you think?

[Naonak]

why cant Atlantis build its own ZPM's, and Drones or at the very least have a tech manual of how to in the database? or if this is to much a map to the ZPM / Drone factory whereever that may be? its never been mentioned of even broached in any episode ive seen, yet is so important?

Well, they haven't explored all of the city yet, and the Ancient database is HUGE.

[BigBadBob]

and I would think it would an extremely complicated and tedious job of building a ZPM. And they have those pesky enemies always distracting them.

Also like the above poster said. The place is huge. They are still finding new things in their own (now it is) city.

[thedoctor]

Both fair comments, but seeing as the fundemental defence of the city relies on ZPM's we havent heard a thing about, or even a sniff at the possibility that they might be able to build there own, or that the designs or plans for items such as ZPM's are in the database! even possibly. For me it is like a city the size of London loosing power, wouldnt that be the priority along with defence? anyway im sure it will be a cool story one day when we find the Ancients corner shop, complete with ZPM's and a how to build more manual, oh and a few thousand Drones for good measure :-) I see Atlantis is now stocked up on Drones, cough maybe for a big battle ahead?

[BigBadBob]

were the ancients (or who built Atlantis) the ones who built the ZPMs in the first place?

[Jarnin]

were the ancients (or who built Atlantis) the ones who built the ZPMs in the first place?

Yes. The ancients did everything first, which is why they're called "the ancients".

As for why Atlantis can't just make their own ZPMs, consider it a weak plot device; if Atlantis had a ZPM factory hidden somewhere, Janus would have told Weir about it in Before I Sleep instead of giving her 5 addresses to planets that had ZPMs.

Sorry folks, ZPMs have to be rare, as do the drones. If they're not rare, the team will become too powerful and the Wraith will be gimped. If that happens, then they'll have to introduce a new "big bad" to fight, like they did in SG-1: The Goa'uld were gimped in season 8, so now we have the Ori.

[thedoctor]

Good point about the Janus thing, oh well we will have to wait and see, one thing worth pointing out, the Citys hyperdrive engines are a lot more prominant than ever before in the credits and general screensots of of Atlantis, i wonder if we are being conditioned to see the City moved or flown somewhere.... me hopes

[Heaven]

the fact is we really don't know how the ancients built stuff, maybe they had a huge construction fleet for stargates rings drones etc but for now it's still a mystery.
I can imagine building more drones as a future possibility but not building a zpm
making a zpm is not just putting together a nice yellow crystal its an artificial region of subspacetime.
for all we know it could take centuries to generate something like that.

[Blitz]

Yes. The ancients did everything first, which is why they're called "the ancients".

That doesnt actually prove anything....we think of them as first because we've heard nothing about before them..who's not to say their wasnt a race here when the Alterans arrived, and they killed them....we thought we were the first form of humanity...and were not. (in SGuniverse anyway)

[syyid]

I finally graduated from lurker status, since this thread addressed some of my major gripes, will throw in some more.

1) The drones were used in earths defence presumably 3+ million years ago, especially given the proximity of the old stargate from SG1 and ancient frozen lady, one would presume that still wouldnt have been their state of the art
2) Same for Atlantis, 3 million year old tech, one would presume they did something in the intervening period?
3) The Tower was able to use drones to defend itself from Wraith ships? If so the wraith should've decisively been beaten, simple drone factory extraordinaire + the 5 ZPM's janus mentioned to power the chair for an extended period would've knocked them out.
4) If the drones were actually a scarce commodity wouldnt be used as commonly on most of their weapons platforms (puddle jumpers/earth's tiny outpost)
5) The puddle jumpers not having shields is ridiculous, the race that can build ZPMs AND personal shields (Rodney...) didnt equip their all purpose ships with shields?
6) The Glass cracking on the Jumper because of depth, we as humans have made continuous progress on material science and the ancients ship cracked at around the same depth as a nuclear sub? Giving ourselves a tad too much credit (yes i know metal hull vs transparent glass like material , still doesnt change the diff of a race that built atlantis 3+ million years prior to the last jumper iteration)
7) The wraith are pathetic, imagine a species that could go toe to toe with the Orii and kick the **** out of them? Doesnt seem particularly real. The ancients had telekinetic capabilities, could mind read stop bullets and the like, we havent seen the wraith with remotely as advanced level of physical prowess so , drones kill wraith ships and 1 on 1 the ancients own the wraith, regardless of numbers confers huge advantages.
8) Regarding critical mass, the tainted earth zpm from season 8 could blow up more then half the solar system according to Carter but the Atlantis one going critical would only take out the planet? Whats that about?
9) This is the race that built the weapon/device @ Dakara, could they not attune it to a specific aspect of the Iratus bugs physiology and use that against the Wraith?
10) The 60 wraith hive ships seems pathetic, again the race that defeated the ancients on sheer number alone WOULD have production facilities somewhere regardless of disuse over 10,000 years they're virtually immortal and should be able to have the place patched up w/plenty of time before we were any real threat.
11) If they're outta drones, couldnt they borrow some from Earth or vice versa?
Biggest gripe which i'm repeating 3 million years of technological development gave them nothing??? Imagine us being as advanced as the Ancients when they jumped galaxies, would you honestly presume that the change in tech wouldnt be mind boggling, heck i'd be willing to wager that if we didnt kill ourselves, 3 million years later we'll be developing all sorts of cool ancient-like tech

[syyid]

That doesnt actually prove anything....we think of them as first because we've heard nothing about before them..who's not to say their wasnt a race here when the Alterans arrived, and they killed them....we thought we were the first form of humanity...and were not. (in SGuniverse anyway)

That's what I'm hoping, not exactly that but in any case, here's to hoping the ancients awoke the nano virus folk who created the wraith to be foot soldiers. Wasnt whole iratus bug / ancient mixing thing the Atlantis teams conjecture? (i.e. not from the ancient database)

[Jarnin]

That doesnt actually prove anything....we think of them as first because we've heard nothing about before them..

Except it's not just humans that thinks of them as the first sentient species. The Asgard (and apparently the Nox and Furling as well) thought of them as the first "race".

who's not to say their wasnt a race here when the Alterans arrived, and they killed them....we thought we were the first form of humanity...and were not. (in SGuniverse anyway)

When tthey show some evidence to support that the ancients were, in fact, not the first sentient species in the Milky Way, then I think you might have an arguement.

I finally graduated from lurker status, since this thread addressed some of my major gripes, will throw in some more.

1) The drones were used in earths defence presumably 3+ million years ago, especially given the proximity of the old stargate from SG1 and ancient frozen lady, one would presume that still wouldnt have been their state of the art

Defense from whom? If the ancients were the only ones around at that point in time (which appears to be the case), then who were they defending Earth from? This is yet another inconsistancy that has never been addressed by the writers.

2) Same for Atlantis, 3 million year old tech, one would presume they did something in the intervening period?

They were apparently too busy seeding planets and making humans to worry about upgrading their weapons.

3) The Tower was able to use drones to defend itself from Wraith ships? If so the wraith should've decisively been beaten, simple drone factory extraordinaire + the 5 ZPM's janus mentioned to power the chair for an extended period would've knocked them out.

I think the point was that the ancients saw no end to the battle; they never saw the Wraith ending their attack, which is why they left Pegasus.

Technically, you're right of course, but who wants to be trapped in their city by a blockade of enemy ships forever?

4) If the drones were actually a scarce commodity wouldnt be used as commonly on most of their weapons platforms (puddle jumpers/earth's tiny outpost)

Again, it's an inconsistancy with the writers. The ancients had to have some way to manufacture ZPMs and drones, but we'll probably not see it for a long time.

5) The puddle jumpers not having shields is ridiculous, the race that can build ZPMs AND personal shields (Rodney...) didnt equip their all purpose ships with shields?

Well, the jumpers were obviously not designed as offensive vehicles. They were around long before the Wraith-war, which leads me to think that they were upgraded with drone launchers and the cloaking device after the war began.

6) The Glass cracking on the Jumper because of depth, we as humans have made continuous progress on material science and the ancients ship cracked at around the same depth as a nuclear sub? Giving ourselves a tad too much credit (yes i know metal hull vs transparent glass like material , still doesnt change the diff of a race that built atlantis 3+ million years prior to the last jumper iteration)

As Professor Farnsworth pointed out in Futurama, it's a spaceship, so it's designed to withstand a pressure difference of 0 and 1.

7) The wraith are pathetic, imagine a species that could go toe to toe with the Orii and kick the **** out of them? Doesnt seem particularly real.

The Ori are ascended. I think you mean the Ori followers.

The ancients had telekinetic capabilities, could mind read stop bullets and the like, we havent seen the wraith with remotely as advanced level of physical prowess so , drones kill wraith ships and 1 on 1 the ancients own the wraith, regardless of numbers confers huge advantages.

Not all ancients had those superpowers, only the ones who were "on the path to ascension".
Also, the Wraith have telepathic abilities, and can apparently make suggestions which weak minded humans can't defend themselves against. For example, the Wraith queens can forcibly make a person kneel before them and answer their questions, just by using their telepathic powers.

Also, as has been stated many times, the Wraith outnumbered the ancients in Pegasus. The ancients could win every 1 on 1 fight, but the Wraith used Zerg tactics which overwhelmed the ancients defenses. That's why they lost the war.

8) Regarding critical mass, the tainted earth zpm from season 8 could blow up more then half the solar system according to Carter but the Atlantis one going critical would only take out the planet? Whats that about?

I think the tainted ZPM was less depleted than the one they have in Atlantis. Also, whatever Camulus used to taint the ZPM supposedly would have amplified the explosion, which would explain why the tainted one would be more destructive.

9) This is the race that built the weapon/device @ Dakara, could they not attune it to a specific aspect of the Iratus bugs physiology and use that against the Wraith?

Deus Ex Machina! Again, technically you're absolutely right. The problem is that that would have exterminated the Wraith, which means there would be no "big bad" in Pegasus for our heroes to battle.

How exciting would Pegasus be without any Wraith?

10) The 60 wraith hive ships seems pathetic, again the race that defeated the ancients on sheer number alone WOULD have production facilities somewhere regardless of disuse over 10,000 years they're virtually immortal and should be able to have the place patched up w/plenty of time before we were any real threat.

It's 60 known hive ships, not 60 total. There are probably alot more than we know about. Then there is the fact that each hive ship is accompanied by 3 cruisers.

Also, the Wraith technology seems to be grown, not built. The writers have avoided talking about how the Wraith went from a planetary power 10,000 years ago to the galactic superpower they are today. Hopefully they'll elaborate on this in future episodes.

11) If they're outta drones, couldnt they borrow some from Earth or vice versa?

That's another inconsistancy with the writers. In Siege II, Colonel Everett said that the chair on Earth controlled "thousands of the damn things", which would seem to indicate that there were many drones in the outpost on Earth. However, we don't know how many were left after O'Neill took out Anubis' fleet. I'm guessing that the writers are saying there were none left.

Biggest gripe which i'm repeating 3 million years of technological development gave them nothing??? Imagine us being as advanced as the Ancients when they jumped galaxies, would you honestly presume that the change in tech wouldnt be mind boggling, heck i'd be willing to wager that if we didnt kill ourselves, 3 million years later we'll be developing all sorts of cool ancient-like tech

Realistically speaking, we'll have surpassed ancient technology in a few hundred or thousand years.

There's this problem with science fiction called the "technological singularity", which basically means that human technological advancement is so fast paced that there's really no way to predict what kind of technology will be around in 50-100 years.

If you think about alot of the technology we have today, like cell phones and satellites, not much was predicted 100 years ago by science fiction writers. In fact the idea of a satellite came from Arthur C. Clark, and cell phones may very well have come from Gene Roddenberry.

[PG15]

Ok, imagine you've found the tech manual for building the ZPM, would you actually be able to understand it? And more importantly, would you risk yours and many others' lives to build something that has enough power to blow up a planet (or more)

Or, would you rather go to a random planet and pick one up? You choose.

[syyid]

Ok, imagine you've found the tech manual for building the ZPM, would you actually be able to understand it? And more importantly, would you risk yours and many others' lives to build something that has enough power to blow up a planet (or more)

Or, would you rather go to a random planet and pick one up? You choose.

I'm reasonably certain most of humanity, if not at least the scientific community would use that as an opportunity to learn and experiment and certainly choose the former. The whole analogy of giving a man a fish vs teaching him to fish. Also even w/o SG spaceflight, current world situation if we had a tech like a ZPM (world power needs being met) wouldnt the investment be worth it? heck even using current tech we could probably staff a lunar or martian base (the reason we dont is Return On Investment, which ZPM research would more then adequately provide).

Understanding the tech is a whole different problem though

[PG15]

I suppose, but given that the expedition's time was limited (in season 1), I doubt they wanted to experiment with the material when they could've just stepped through the gate.