Why Doesn't The Jumper Have Defense Shields?

[Lord Pink]

Ever since I first began watching Stargate Atlantis I have wondered why the Ancients didn't install shields on board their Puddle Jumpers. As soon as the war with the wrath started that would have been the logical thing to do. I know that the cloak can be converted to a shield but that drains a lot of power of the ship and obviously wasn't apart of the original design.

I'm not sure if this topic has been talked about yet and it would be great if someone here can give a reasonable reply!

[SaUr0n]

Wow, good one.Never thought of that.They were build long before the war with the wraith(ex: first ep of Atlantis, shows it existed even before the Lanteans left Earth), so it's possible they decidec to build the Auroras as a batlleship not upgrade older technology. I have no idea if i'm right)

[Jeffala]

It's a minimal personnel transport for shuttling between stargates and short-range space travel. It's not a combat vessel so why would it need shields?

[thekillman]

all shields drain a ton of power. obviously a cloak is less powerconsuming than a shield. and a jumper doesnt have a very significant powersource (though for it's size, it can do alot), so it cant have dedicated shields. also, being invisible is better than having a bit of protection

[boyd22]

same reason why they never installed other weapons besides a few drones on them...they weren't exactly ment for combat...

[guppy338]

i think they have done well in combat 1 of them took out a ha'tak so they would be an efective but dont they have strong armor on them it is able to take 1 hit from a super hive

[thekillman]

it never took a superhive hit. look better, the plasma trail behind the ball of plasma hits them, hell they barely hit the bolt at all, it was just a "scratch".

a single Superhive bolt would've instantly vapourised the ship. nobody would ever find a trace again.

i think Jumpers are good "shuttles"

also, a jumper never took out a Ha'tak. drones did. that's like putting a nuke on a car and saying the car can devastate a city!.

the jumper is good offensively due to drones. if we strapped an APBW to it then yes, the JUMPER would kill a hive. a missile or drone is an autonomous weapon.

[Steelbox]

Also, the Jumpers does not have lots of space, so the only practicable power supply for them would be ZPMs whit weren't all that numerous back on the days.

[knowles2]

Ever since I first began watching Stargate Atlantis I have wondered why the Ancients didn't install shields on board their Puddle Jumpers. As soon as the war with the wrath started that would have been the logical thing to do. I know that the cloak can be converted to a shield but that drains a lot of power of the ship and obviously wasn't apart of the original design.

I'm not sure if this topic has been talked about yet and it would be great if someone here can give a reasonable reply!

Because the ancient never invented a power supply which was small enough to fit to the puddle jumper and yet powerful enough to power a shield to defend against a sustain attack by darts over a long period of time.

[Dragon_Heart]

it never took a superhive hit. look better, the plasma trail behind the ball of plasma hits them, hell they barely hit the bolt at all, it was just a "scratch".

a single Superhive bolt would've instantly vapourised the ship. nobody would ever find a trace again.

i think Jumpers are good "shuttles"

also, a jumper never took out a Ha'tak. drones did. that's like putting a nuke on a car and saying the car can devastate a city!.

the jumper is good offensively due to drones. if we strapped an APBW to it then yes, the JUMPER would kill a hive. a missile or drone is an autonomous weapon.

Well the principle of the weapon destroying the enemy applies to every single ship in that case. It is also like saying that a 304 did not destroy a hive, which is often said on these forums, but the APBW did and the 304 only served as a firing platform.

[Lord Pink]

It's a minimal personnel transport for shuttling between stargates and short-range space travel. It's not a combat vessel so why would it need shields?

The Puddle Jumpers have drones with indicate they might have been used (at least in a limited sense) as a fighter.

[lordofseas]

The Puddle Jumpers have drones with indicate they might have been used (at least in a limited sense) as a fighter.

Or the drones could have been put there for defensive purposes, as in if they were fired upon immediately, and the cloak mechanism is damaged, then they can fire drones to help them.

[comperius]

Well in Season 3, Episode 11 I think McKay modified the jumper so instead of cloak jumper had a small shield. So it's possible to have shields on the jumpers, but it's probably very complicated to transform from shields to cloak and stuff like that.

But maybe it's possible that if we find additional damaged jumpers we can use the electronics from that jumpers to install additional cloak generator on every jumper of ours for them to have shields and cloak. Regarding power I think that one of our power generators could do the job without any problems, because at the end jumper is a small ship...

[Mister Oragahn]

all shields drain a ton of power. obviously a cloak is less powerconsuming than a shield. and a jumper doesnt have a very significant powersource (though for it's size, it can do alot), so it cant have dedicated shields. also, being invisible is better than having a bit of protection

I'm not sure shields drain a ton of power, especially when not put under stress (actually Atlantis' shield consumed almost no energy if not bothered).

Nevertheless, Lantians were not warriors. They came with powerful warship classes (at least three) and even some interesting combat suits -and if the elevator capsule the Asgards used was of Lantian design, that's really totally awesome as well- but they really didn't think in a brutal enough way, and their cockiness also had them lose ships to the Wraith at first, so they probably got a bit nervous about spreading their tech left and right.

[thekillman]

Well the principle of the weapon destroying the enemy applies to every single ship in that case. It is also like saying that a 304 did not destroy a hive, which is often said on these forums, but the APBW did and the 304 only served as a firing platform.

read what i said. a drone and a missile are autonomous weapons and the ship or plane is a launch platform. in case of APBW's, it draws upon the power of the ship, so it's not like a drone or a missile. just as guns are not and just as any normal energy weapon is not.