Asgard Cloning Problem....

[norriski]

OK, after watching Fragile Balance from season 7 and having seen season 6 espically the Metamorphosis (I think that was the name of the ep)....I started thinking about where the answer to the Asgards problem might lay....
(OK for some reason I can never get the spoiler shortcut to work so I'll say here highlight to read - spoilers for S6 and S7) In Fragile Balance Loki tries to use O'Neill to help solve the Asgards cloning problems, but while O'Neill is a great step forward in the human race his "brain" is still not large enough to hold the Asgards superior minds...so it won't work...OK that said, all through season 6 we are lead to believe that Jonas has superior mind, his ablility to learn and retain things is much more than what any earth humans is, then this is even more pointed out in the Metamorphosis (sp?) episode....so my question is could Jonas be the answer the the Asgards problems? Would his advance mind/brain be able to hold the Asgard consciousness?
So anyone think that's something that could or should be explored?

[Lord Zedd]

the problem is they kept on cloning.The Asgard can't reproduce themselves by having sex like humans do.The Asgard clone the body's instead.But they have cloned so many times now.Compare it to a zeroxmachine.From the original you make a copy nr 1.Very good than you make a copy of copy nr 1,you'll get copy nr 2. Well by the time you good at copy nr 1000 the quality of what is on the piece of paper has become that bad that it isn't worth copying.And this is also with the Asgard.They are a dying race unless they can come up with a solution.Now the last episode of Season 5 with the Asgard Heimdahl and where we get to see Anubis,they have found a perfectly preserved ancient Asgard.The body is so old backthen sexual reproduction was still possible.Now we haven't recieved any other news about that.I hope this answers your question.

[norriski]

Anubis,
I understand the Asgards Cloneing problem dealing with the "xerox theory" and the lack of their ablility to physically procreate. May question has more to do with if anyone else thinks that Jonas has the "brain capacity" that could hold the Asgard mind.

You do bring out a good point, what ever did happen with Heimdell (sp?) and he's specimen?

[Jprime]

I don't know. It seems to me that Jonas (as Nirrti explained) represents a signifigant step forward in human evolution, but no where near that of the average Asgard. The Asgard have huge heads for a reason!

[greytop]

Couldn't they use new DNA from species similiar to the Asgard, if there is one?

[Erik Pasternak]

Couldn't they use new DNA from species similiar to the Asgard, if there is one?

There probably isn't one, but the ancient Asgard (as seen in "Revalations") could count, depending on how you look at it.

[caes4]

i dont get it.
why don they just get the dna from a single asgard and keep it in stasis and then whenever they want to clone a new asgard, they just take that dna.
Thus, they would be "photocopying the original document everytime" instead of "photocopying the already photocopied document everytime"

[Star Adrael]

Technically the theory that the azguards dna is breaking down due to too much cloning, is scientifically unsound. A clone is a direct copy, identical in everyway.

Therefore when you copy the original, and then copy the copy, you are still copying the original.

The Xerox theory is all good for photocopiers, but for biology I dont think the theory is valid, unless the process of cloning is interfered with by genetic manipulation. A human twin is virtually identical physically to his/her brother and therfore niether twin is a copy. A Twin is just natures answer to cloning.

As far as Jonus goes, and the ancient azguard found with heimdahl, im sure the writters will work it in somewhere along the line. As in Atlantis where SPOILER (ATLANTIS):Maj SHepard has the genes to operate Ancients technology, maybe jonus has similar more advanced genes as well.

There are so many great storylines the crew could go back to, and as we all know from watching and listening to the directors commentary on DVD's etc, the crew does read the forums online, so feel free to leave them a note

[caes4]

Actually, If you clone somoene, that clone will not be EXACTLY identical. The clone will not live as long since everytime a cell undergoes mitosis, a small part of the DNA isnt able to be duplicated (luckily nature has answered this problem by having reptitive DNA at the ends of the strands where the duplication does not occur). However, as we age these repetitive sections get shorter and shorter and eventually, non repetitive (important parts) DNA is reached and important genes are cut out, which leads to death (by old age). Therefore, if you keep cloning a clone, the DNA will break down.

However my answer to the problem (which i posted above) still seems to apply.......unless somoene else can prove me otherwise?

Technically the theory that the azguards dna is breaking down due to too much cloning, is scientifically unsound. A clone is a direct copy, identical in everyway.

Therefore when you copy the original, and then copy the copy, you are still copying the original.

The Xerox theory is all good for photocopiers, but for biology I dont think the theory is valid, unless the process of cloning is interfered with by genetic manipulation. A human twin is virtually identical physically to his/her brother and therfore niether twin is a copy. A Twin is just natures answer to cloning.

As far as Jonus goes, and the ancient azguard found with heimdahl, im sure the writters will work it in somewhere along the line. As in Atlantis where SPOILER (ATLANTIS):Maj SHepard has the genes to operate Ancients technology, maybe jonus has similar more advanced genes as well.

There are so many great storylines the crew could go back to, and as we all know from watching and listening to the directors commentary on DVD's etc, the crew does read the forums online, so feel free to leave them a note

[Jarnin]

However my answer to the problem (which i posted above) still seems to apply.......unless somoene else can prove me otherwise?

30,000 years ago, they looked like humans; grey-blue, balding, naked humans. Then, sometime after that point in their history, they began cloning themselves in order to prolong their lives. Since cloning would allow them to live for thousands of years, they added some controlled mutation in the mix to keep their clones from degrading.
The problem was, the controlled mutation apparently limited their reproduction systems slowly, and eventually, about 1000 years ago, the Asgard lost their ability to reproduce. In other words, the mutation evolved them away from natural reproduction because they had other means to reproduce themselves.

As for your question, they probably cannot transfer a consciousness of one being into another beings clone. That's why they can't just use the same DNA from that specimen to make themselves new clones that can reproduce.

[xrayz]

i dont get it.
why don they just get the dna from a single asgard and keep it in stasis and then whenever they want to clone a new asgard, they just take that dna.
Thus, they would be "photocopying the original document everytime" instead of "photocopying the already photocopied document everytime"

I always wondered about that, too. When they first started cloning, why didn't they take thousands of samples from the original and store them, instead of just taking one?

[Kamce]

I think it s only a TvShow and there is no solution as there isn't any problem in fact.
don't you think ?

[ancient_phoenix]

I still don't get it....
If the asgard are losing their DNA strand after cloning the clone....then why not take the DNA of a couple Asgards and use that to create clones and not lose DNA strands to eventually kill them earlier....

[Freyrs]

If the asgard are losing their DNA strand after cloning the clone....then why not take the DNA of a couple Asgards and use that to create clones and not lose DNA strands to eventually kill them earlier....

I believe the problem with that is that most of the Asgard are nearly identical they don't have enough unique information in their genome for that to work. And even if they did sharing that information on the next clones would only produce a next generation of clones which was even more identical.

I think it s only a TvShow

Only a TV Show Stargate is so much more.

[pyao]

Can't they use android/mechanical bodies until they solve their biological/evolution problems. They can possess machines (osiris's mothership was possessed by thor).