Seriously they couldn't mount a better defense?

[Archaeis]

Already, I;ve been biting my tongue for weeks on this since I first saw the episode.

1) Firstly, there is no way that any of the IOA member nations would have allowed the Chair to be moved from Antarctica into sole US possession. And speaking of which, does that mean that ZPM is gone now too?

2) Bring Sheppard back from Pegasus to operate it? They've got Oneill, and who knows how many more that could work it.

3) There should have been hundreds of fighters that could have defended Area 51. f-22s, stealths, and who knows how many more. It's frickin' Area 51! Instead they just use a single group of 302s.

4) Isn't prevent stuff like this from happening what the SGC has done for the last 10 years? Where were all the SG teams/offworld allies/Cam Mitchell craziness? (I know, it's SGA).

Any others?

[Starsaber]

3) There should have been hundreds of fighters that could have defended Area 51. f-22s, stealths, and who knows how many more. It's frickin' Area 51! Instead they just use a single group of 302s.

Yeah, I was wondering why they didn't have any normal fighters in the dogfight with the Darts.

[Hermiiod]

And they didn't even try to move the chair out of 51? How hard is it to move?

[JAFFACREE563]

good point but for one Stargate activity is still classifed so no stealth, and no other fighters because they would have to reveal the stargate to all those people.Second Gen O'Neil is proboly doing something else proboly heading some base but we don't know he could have evan retired again.And thirdly the wraith attacked way to fast for them to evan call any allies plus it would take any kind of attack from the allies because they would have to come by ship a long time to get to earth. The wraith had a stargate on board so no dialing out to tell them and no dialing in well atlast no into earth.OO i almost forgot that the IOA proboly just agreed to move it to area 51 because it was Sg1 who found it and area 51 is one of the safest locations on earth. Plus i am sure that the united states kinda offered them a huge sum of money to keep hold of it.

[The6thRace]

It's all a matter of the show suffering from a finale that is much to big for its usual hour time slot. Money is definitely a factor too. If they had a few million to produce this, you'd probably see something more epic in look like something out of Independence Day.

[Hermiiod]

Yeah what's with the 45-minute time slot anyways? I would've been just fine with a hour and a half long finale. In fact, I would have given MGM money to double the length of the finale.

[jelgate]

Yeah what's with the 45-minute time slot anyways? I would've been just fine with a hour and a half long finale.?* In fact, I would have given MGM money to double the length of the finale.

Such a thing is not MGM's call. They could only make it longer if SciFi said yes.

[Dmichael]

I think money is a big deal with a lot of it. Also, the only aircraft that would have been of any use would have been the f22's and they would have had only 5 at most in that area. Although the f22 is a great aircraft, it would not do as well as the darts in a dogfight.

Also, taking the chair out of area 51 would be a big ordeal, probably a lot of work and time they don’t have.

[Hermiiod]

Yeah....I know.

[Starsaber]

good point but for one Stargate activity is still classifed so no stealth, and no other fighters because they would have to reveal the stargate to all those people.

Let's see... Let a few more people in on the secret and possibly save our best weapon or keep the secret and increase the chance of the Wraith culling the entire planet. Choices, choices.

[AncientsRGods]

I agree with the whole defense thing, I was disappointed to say the least, it appears that a few days pass between when the Daedalus first encounter the super hive and when they get back to atlantis. In that time Earth should of had time to gather up more then one or two ships.

Also the way they destroyed Area 51 was a little to easy I thought. Wouldn't a51 have missile defense systems to shoot down ONLY two darts.

Not to mention that Atlantis, which had at least 2 zpm's was almost defeated in 10 shots by a wraith hive with only one zpm. Even though the ship did seem more formidable, I mean they took the weapons that defeated the ORI, ships built with the knowledge of ascended beings and made them useless against a Wraith ship with a zpm.

I have always been a big stargate fan but I just found this episode to rushed and under-developed. I hope for better quality in SGU

[Dmichael]

Area 51 has no defense, that is not what area 51 is about. I really wanted to see some Goa'uld ships and earth ships just waiting for them.

I would have sent MGM or scifi money just to make this two hours!

[berlin88]

A better defense was sacrificed for the sake of writing the ending they wanted.



1. Even though they don't have security clearance, we could have launched whole squadrons of fighters. The problem, is that then they would have saved Area- 51 from attack, this saving the drone chair.

2. Area 51 was not completely destroyed, they just showed the building housing the drone chair getting blown up. Its likely that most of the base survived, just not the section housing the drone chair.

3. The USA claimed the drone chair rather then leave it in the hands of the other IOA nations. Why the writers/ IOA 5 years to object to an Ancient weapon being in Antarctica is a mystery, but part of the plot line.

4. Destroying the drone chair was part of the plot, its just the details were poorly worded/ scripted. Moving the chair to Area 51 at the last minute makes no sense, surely China or Russia would have objected? Wouldn't they want it for themselves? Lack of defenses at Area- 51 was again so they could take out the chair.

5. Sheppards whole suicide thing was possible because there was no drone chair left for him to operate, thus prompting his suicide mission.

6. The Deadalus did not go back on Atlantis because there was no guarantee the plan would work, and they had to go save the Apollo and Tsun Zhu. Having the Deadalus around would just complicate the story.

I am guessing the Tsun Zhu was repairable, the venting atmosphere was just temporary trouble and something they could fix.

As was explained, the Odyssey was out on a vital mission and could not come back, most likely a random last minute decision by the writers to explain why Earth is about to fall and the Odyssey can't help save the day.

7. Lastly, why didn't the hive fire away at some US cities? They seemed to spend a long time powering weapons. They should have gotten off some shots before the Nuke blew it up.

8. I am willing to overlook the fact a single naquadah enhanced nuke took out the hive, but that hive was bigger and stronger, should have taken multiple nukes.

9. Placing Atlantis by San Francisco? did the writers think this out?

SF is not very friendly to the military and is a vital port of entry for commerce, having a cloaked city blocking the harbor is not going to go over well. I somehow doubt the far left residents of SF would be receptive to the idea of a military quarantine zone off the coast of their city. The cover story wouldn't last long once the environmentalists and activist start legal action.

10. Lastly, does Atlantis have the ZPM power to get back to Pegasus? Would the IOA try to convince world leaders that Atlantis should stay on Earth?

11. The first Atlantis movie will most likely deal with the issues of whether Atlantis stay on Earth or goes back to Pegasus, and what happens in Pegasus while we are gone. They may also address the secrecy of the stargate program as well, since numerous commercial vessel saw the fireball that was Atlantis, and surely someone saw the Wraith ship explode in orbit or Atlantis show up.

[Jimbo22]

I thought this episode was a total rush job. So much so I had to make an account on here and make this my first ever post. The amount of things that were utterly crammed into it were insane. What was the point of having Ronin die and then come back to life? You didn't even care he died because everything was moving so fast. Everything was so convenient. I mean Todd shows up to tell them about everything and supply not 1 but 2 ZPM's that basically just get dropped off. Earth only holding in reserve one squadron of F-302's? That is so stupid. In the past these major earth invasions always involved the President and now everything goes through Col. Carter?

There was absolutely no drama, for there to be drama there must be suspense and since they crammed in finding out about an invasion of earth and 8 count them 8 different ways to save the day into one episode doesn't leave time for it.

Oh and the 8 ways
1) Intercept with Daedalus
2) Intercept with remaining Daedalus class ships when Hive stops to regenerate
3) Intercept with Atlantis with help of 2 extra ZPM's
4) Send Shepperd through to use earth defense chair
5) Mount nukes on F-302's and fly to moon to engage hive
6) Fly F-302 into dart bay and blow up nuke
7) When Atlantis stalls send the Atlantis team through Stargate to hive to sabotage
8) Create something called Wormhole drive to get Atlantis to earth in time to save the day.

Now usually you take any 3 of these ideas and they make a show, but packing 8 of them into one just ruined it.

[Orion Antreas]

You can only do so much in such a period of time. Yeah, they could have done more, but would have required more show time and el dinero. $$