why the ancients lost the war

[borarem]

well, what if the ancients never conducted any offensive operations in their war with the wraith.

best way to lose a war. never going on the attack. aways defending.

any other ideas are welcome.

[greytop]

There is another thread out about this and it is here.

[Lexx]

In "Before I Sleep" it was said that the Ancients sent a fleet of their most powerful warships to fight the Wraith, and they lost. So they were offensive at least in the beginning.

[Lord Osiris]

or they didnt havent got good tactical advances against the wraith

[Qasim]

They could have defended atlantis indefinately but couldn't be bothered anymore

[keppiezbt]

They could have defended atlantis indefinately but couldn't be bothered anymore

as said in the seige and before i sleep, they could win any better but there was just too many of them and they saw no way to win the war.

[MrBojangles]

It was a numbers game.

Wraith vs. Ancients

458765498674 to 1.

[NORCALJJ]

They definately WERE out numbered BUT: They were also far too cocky to even put a dent in the wraiths numbers. If they would have set traps, ambushed attack through the gate AND in ship they might have done ok..
They never really had to worry about getting wiped out because they probably were never faced with an enemy that is as advanced or even more advanced.. I believe that that is what the atlantis exedition has in their favor. They can scrap for a victory. they dont believe that they can easily win.

[Baun]

also the fact that their was a deadly plague attacking the ancients...

[Lord Osiris]

or maybe the havent got much ships because of the plague many ancients have ascendent to the higher plane and there werent many others left

[Atlantis1]

I thought it was said in Before I Sleep that the Ancients sent out a fleet to try to negotiate peace with the Wraith.

[aligator_am]

What i cant figure out is why the Ancients didnt build some kind of droid army? or maybe a clone army? I still think that the gene splicing machine from the ep with Nirti and Jonas will play a role in a future storyline, i dont think it will be to do with ascension, perhaps this will be the basis of the SPOILER modifications made to Lt. Ford, Im still musing all the reasons why the Wraith would intentionally engineer humans to feed off them??? crossbreeding?

If the Ancients were so advanced (and i appreciate that they may not have the same warlike MO as us) how they didnt simply devise a way to totally anihilate the Wraith, some kind of weapon that would totally decimate them, actually come to think of it why didnt they use the weapon from threads and configure it to kill only wraith? maybe they hadnt invented it yet?

[Lexx]

Atlantis1: They sent the negotiators along with the fleet, but the Wraith attacked them and there was a huge uber battle, which the Wraith one. And after that first giant battle it was only a matter of time before the Wraith would destroy the Ancients.

[aligator_am]

A bit like the battle of Jutland, where the German fleet gave as good as they got, but the British won by a slight margin... let's put it this way, the German fleet stayed in port for the rest of WWI (until they mutinied that is)

[Torrent]

I like Norcaljj's point. It could have been a long enough of time since the ancients had to work for their victories that maybe they has a culture had forgotten how to really fight. Add that they may have spent too much effort and resources defending an area larger than they could adequetly cover out of an unwillingness to sacrifice worlds and you could have a very large disadvantage.