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    The ever changing scales of Stargate...

    Is it just me or has there been a profound rescaling of the Aurora-Class ships this season?

    Up until very recently it has been widely assumed and excepted that the Auroras are approximately 1,400m in length. But then comes Season 4 (and most notably the episode "Be All My Sins Remember'd") and then all the sudden the Auroras have been scaled up to anywhere from 50% to 90% of the length of a Hive ship, depending on exactly which FX shot your looking at.

    As I see it there are four possibilities:

    1. Early estimates for the Auroras were WAY off, and these ships are in fact more like 4,000m to as much as 10,000m long (depending on exactly which measurement you use for the Hive ships).

    2. Its not the Auroras' lengths that have been changed, but rather its our estimates for the Hive ships' lengths that were way off. Maybe we've all gotten it wrong, and Hive ships are really a mere 2,000m (or less) in length.

    3. What we think are Hive ships in "Be All My Sins Remember'd" are really some other type of Wraith ship - ones that are larger than a Cruiser, but smaller than a Hive ship (despite looking EXACTLY like Hive ships and being directly referred to as a "Hive ships")

    4. "Be All My Sins Remember'd" is basically nothing more than a repeat of "Camelot", and another prime example of the Stargate FX department's propensity for ignoring little things like scale if it gets in the way of their artistic license. As such, we should largely ignore this episode when discussing ship scales, and should stick to the original estimates of 1,400m for the Auroras.

    Personally I would go with option 4. What do you all think?

    #2
    Originally posted by Raven_CWG View Post
    Is it just me or has there been a profound rescaling of the Aurora-Class ships this season?

    Up until very recently it has been widely assumed and excepted that the Auroras are approximately 1,400m in length. But then comes Season 4 (and most notably the episode "Be All My Sins Remember'd") and then all the sudden the Auroras have been scaled up to anywhere from 50% to 90% of the length of a Hive ship, depending on exactly which FX shot your looking at.

    As I see it there are four possibilities:

    1. Early estimates for the Auroras were WAY off, and these ships are in fact more like 4,000m to as much as 10,000m long (depending on exactly which measurement you use for the Hive ships).

    2. Its not the Auroras' lengths that have been changed, but rather its our estimates for the Hive ships' lengths that were way off. Maybe we've all gotten it wrong, and Hive ships are really a mere 2,000m (or less) in length.

    3. What we think are Hive ships in "Be All My Sins Remember'd" are really some other type of Wraith ship - ones that are larger than a Cruiser, but smaller than a Hive ship (despite looking EXACTLY like Hive ships and being directly referred to as a "Hive ships")

    4. "Be All My Sins Remember'd" is basically nothing more than a repeat of "Camelot", and another prime example of the Stargate FX department's propensity for ignoring little things like scale if it gets in the way of their artistic license. As such, we should largely ignore this episode when discussing ship scales, and should stick to the original estimates of 1,400m for the Auroras.

    Personally I would go with option 4. What do you all think?
    5. Is it so hard to believe that the Ancient Auroras were smaller and that the Replicators made them bigger?
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      #3
      I don't care, the battle looked cool and if the sfx guys made it slightly bigger for the battle to make it look better I'm not so worried. Perhaps it was all just a perspective thing.
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        #4
        The Asurans made the everything to specs, way better than the Ancients ever could, because they are machines.

        This size difference is due maintly to perspective in space. I see many space battles on various shows, same thing.

        Admittedly at times the Hives looked small, but whatever.

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          #5
          Originally posted by JSPuddlejumper View Post
          The Asurans made the everything to specs, way better than the Ancients ever could, because they are machines.

          This size difference is due maintly to perspective in space. I see many space battles on various shows, same thing.

          Admittedly at times the Hives looked small, but whatever.
          And yet, the Asuran vessels were inferior to the ancient ones...
          Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

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            #6
            "And yet, the Asuran vessels were inferior to the ancient ones"

            Only logical reason would be it lacks a ZPM.

            They/Asurans stuck with the 'later' Aurora's, which the Ancients took out the ZPM so that the Wraith will not get one.

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              #7
              Option 4. The hiveships were to be 11 km, by the very guys who created the models.
              That said, I have found an old SGA artwork, which shows the darts being considerably big in comparison to hiveships, up to the point where hiveships are actually 304 sized, at best.

              The rare times they got the 11 km scale right was in Allies, No Man's Land, Misbegotten, and maybe The Hive.

              They screwed up with Sins, they screwed up in Spoils (as the hiveships crashing on the base shows that the hiveship is very small, since we've already how big/small that kind of wraith base was in comparison to darts, back in that Reunion episode).

              Having 11 km long spaceships in Sins would have been better. It's like having plenty of Executors.

              The idea that there are hiveships which are 1 km long is absurd. Ship designs can't be scaled down and look like the mini counterparts of the big ones.

              It's just a big screw up, like in Camelot.

              It's a pity that such amateur mistakes are made. Being exactly 11 km long isn't required, but literally dwarfing ships to such an extent that even watching 10 seconds of a video is enough for you to know that something's wrong is downright terrible.

              Again, why can't they just simply fax the papers with the correct scales to VFX studios?
              The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

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                #8
                Originally posted by JSPuddlejumper View Post
                "And yet, the Asuran vessels were inferior to the ancient ones"

                Only logical reason would be it lacks a ZPM.

                They/Asurans stuck with the 'later' Aurora's, which the Ancients took out the ZPM so that the Wraith will not get one.
                The Orion did not have a ZPM and it was vastly superior in weapon capabilities to the Asuran Aurora's. The Orion also clearly didn't have a ZPM as caldwell made the comment about Aurora's not being powered by ZPMs.

                Do you deny that the combat abilities of the Aurora's was severely nerfed compared to other episodes such as No Mans Land? The reason is that Asuran Aurora's are less powerful than the real Ancient ones, you can kick and shout about machines being better at building than the Ancients but its clear that the Ancient Aurora's are better.

                Besides its not like the Ancients built the Aurora's by hand they would have had machines building them. Its possible to get as many Aurora's out into battle against the Wraith the Asurans made inferior models hoping the larger numbers would nail the Wraith.
                Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

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                  #9
                  ^^That was even said by JM in his blog, the asuran auroras just were'nt the originals.
                  Best quotes ever:
                  O’NEILL: I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for food.
                  Jack O'neill: I hope you diplomatically told him where to shove it.
                  Teal'c:If you once again try to harm me or one of my companions, my patience with you will expire.
                  Carter: You know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
                  Thor:I like the yellow ones
                  O´Neill:Hey, if you had been listening, you´d know that Nintendos pass through everything.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by TDgamer View Post
                    5. Is it so hard to believe that the Ancient Auroras were smaller and that the Replicators made them bigger?
                    Actually, yes, it is. And it is just as equally difficult to accept the idea of a Wraith ship that is visually identical to a Hive ship but only a fraction of its size, for exactly the same reason. For an in-depth discussion on why, check out this page http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/scaling.htm. Granted this page is about the scaling of ships in Star Trek, however the basic concepts discussed there apply to the gross rescaling of ships in any show.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by umopapisdn View Post
                      I don't care, the battle looked cool and if the sfx guys made it slightly bigger for the battle to make it look better I'm not so worried. Perhaps it was all just a perspective thing.
                      PS. Welcome to gw
                      Thank you for the welcome!

                      I do have to agree with you that it was a really cool battle scene; and so part of me would much rather just sit back, shut up and enjoy the ride, and not spoil the moment by over-analyzing it. But I have to admit that I've always been something of a stickler for detail, so when I see something that just doesn't fit, it really kind of bugs me. I know that TV and film production is a creative process that is often more about art than technical accuracy, and therefore there is certainly room for some artistic license. Virtually all space-based, sci-fi shows fudge on scale, every now and again, to some degree or another. But both Stargate series have been consistently the worst at maintaining scaling accuracy of ANY show I have ever seen--bar none! Artistic license is one thing, but in this case the Auroras appear to have been scaled-up by perhaps a whole order of magnitude! That’s WAY more than just "slightly bigger", it just down right absurd.

                      As to it being just a perspective thing, I wish we could dismiss it that easily; however there are several shots where we see a Hive ship passing between two Auroras (the best one of these shot occurs just before the planet blows up, when all of the ship are making their jumps to Hyperspace. We see a Hive ship passing directly over one Aurora, with a second Aurora directly above the Hive ship.) These kinds of shots allow us to all but rule out perspective distortion, and leave little doubt that the Auroras were intentionally being portrayed as nearly the exact same size as a hive ship. So as I said before, either we have to just except that everything we've seen before is incorrect, or choose to simply disregard the whole episode for the purpose of trying to determine scale. I choose to do the latter.

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                        #12
                        The Auroras have been made a tad bigger, it's possible, but really, the ships were suffered the most from this are the hiveships, which did get shrinked by one order of magnitude.
                        That is absurd, again, because if you cared for coolness, the huge 11 km space ships would have certainly been even cooler to watch.
                        The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

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                          #13
                          hives are biological right?

                          who's to say they dont vary in size the same way people vary in size? (i mean from baby to adult etc)
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                            #14
                            Originally posted by AvatarIII View Post
                            hives are biological right?

                            who's to say they dont vary in size the same way people vary in size? (i mean from baby to adult etc)
                            Met many guys that were 0.6 feet tall have you?

                            Like Oragahn up there said to you can't just arbitrarily scale things down and expect them to continue working properly. If you wanted a smaller house would it do to just shrink your current one down to an exact copy half the size, or would that just result in a lot of 4 foot ceilings and doorways too small to even fit through.

                            4 is the correct answer. The ships got scaled wrong here because no one working on the show ultimately gives a **** about things like ships being scaled correctly.

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                              #15
                              ship scaling is worse and worse
                              Stolen Kosovo
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