wraith must have shields

[dboy-2007]

if the wraith dont have shields then they would not have the dart bays the way they are the at least have atmospheric shields. The only way i can think of they dont have them to protect the ships is power requierments.

excuse the spelling

[jnadreth]

Another theory is that the Wraith do have shield technology, but it is so unadvanced that they were completely ineffective against Ancient drones that the wraith saw no point in using them as their regenerative hulls provided superior protection from weapons fire

[tainor]

Actually the wraith have very advance shields capable of trapping Asurans and making unusable. The only reason they dont use it, is the power req. It takes a zpm to power the shield of Atlantis, which is only around 3km wide. The Hives are around 11km now imagin the power req for it just making it move though hyperspace is great fead .

[2ndgenerationalteran]

also the canopy for the darts, their ships probably cant generate enough energy to power shields, keep in mind a cruiser is the size of the daedalus and the hive is 11 km long. They would need a ZPM or ZPM equivalent for the hives.

[jnadreth]

That may be the case-there also might be a problem with the shields and the organic hull, perhaps the hull has problems with the shields like it does with the hyperdrive??????

Maybe the shields were resource intensive to add to their ships remembering they were going for the numbers approach-maybe shields only for lead ships

[2ndgenerationalteran]

Though i would love to see the surprise on a captain's face if he ever came in contact with a hive with shields. I think that would be a great story line, maybe a hive finds a ZPM and uses it for shields and weapons. So you kno that there is one ship out there that is a significant threat.

[tainor]

Even if the wraith hive ships have shields and ZPM power source(mind that single ZMP I bet will not be enough to surround the whole ship as Atlantis is only 3km and uses 1 zpm, hives are 11km so maybe 2 at least?)
I some how doubt that they can come up with shields stronger then the Ori or Asgard as Asgard's shields are the strongest one known after Atlantis. I bet it's either that their ships organic hull is not compatible with shields tech or the power source is just not enough to make it work.

BTW after 4 years we still have clue what the power source of the wraith it, but whatever it is it's clearly no way as powerful as ZMP as seen in This Mortal Coil.

[Wraith_Boy]

Hives being bigger than Atlantis doesn't matter!

In 'Grace', Carter expanded a hyperspace bubble out & around the huge alien ship & tractored it out.

In 'Lifeline', we saw the PJ expand an anti-replicator field way outwith the PJ.

In 'Grace Under Pressure', we saw Zelenka expand the PJ's shield on the ocean's surface to include McKay's crashed PJ.

We saw in 'Echoes', that Atlantis could extend their shield out to cover part of the ocean as well.

So a single ZPM would easily be enough to cover a Hive! It would probably take days at least before the thing went down if being under constant bombardment. However Hive battles are usually very quick. So if one had a shield, it would destroy the other Hive easily.

That comes to the reason they don't have shields.

Either:

1) They do have it, but simply can't integrate the shield emitters into their old organic ships.

or

2) They don't have enough power to run everything at the same time using the standard power source. So if a ship went out with shields going. It may not be able to run the engines or fire the weapons. Sustain life support etc.

Then again, it could potentially be a combination of both!

[!!??]

Hives being bigger than Atlantis doesn't matter!

Yeah but the shields just get weaker the more you cover it. So the shields would be so weak that drones would go through it making there no point for the shields to be there wasting energy. If they find a bigger power source then the shields wont be as weak and maybe they will add them.

[umopapisdn]

Perhaps it's due to the inefficiency of the sheilds, they could hold the asuran because it was a very small sheild and a generator would be enough to power it, but an entire ship would waste too much energy. Or their power conduits can't handle the power required to keep up a sheild, a technological limitation with respect to power transfer rather than generation.

[P-90_177]

i prefer the theory that they don't use shields because drones can penetrate them.

[Hyperwarp]

Wraith ships are "Organic". Fundamentally different from the other races (Maybe with the exception of carbon-composite materials. But still, thats a very long stretch). Could this have something to do with it?

[Varrok]

Shields that are bigger simply require more power. For example take the episode (season 3, 2nd part of the season) where a solar flare was about to hit the planet. The shields couldn't be large enough to encompass the entire planet. McKay stated that with 1 ZPM they could stretch the shield so that it would encompass a 11km radius and it'd be incredibly thin.

So if hives are really that big, they wouldn't be able to sustain such a shield against any kind of weapon.

Then the next question that comes up, wraith transport vessels and cruisers dont have shields aswell.. That indicates that they don't have large shield capability at all. It might be just too difficult. Note that every race with shields we've encountered, had contact with the ancients one way or another. Even the gua'uld just stole those technologies from the ancients.

The little forcefield we saw might be a start, but keep in mind that a forcefield (for say a door..) or an entire shield generator system is a whole lot different.

As for the atmosphere thing, I dont think the writers actually thought about it, but an explanation could be some gravitational field. We know that they at least have the ability to generate artifical gravity.

[dboy-2007]

but then how do they keep the air in the dart bays

[JSPuddlejumper]

Remember the shield like stasis that they built to hold the Replicator?

They no doubt can built shields on a small scale. But to equip and entire 11km Hive would require massive energy (ZPM level and beyond).

Hell, they can't even equip a Cruiser with shields.