Earth wraith attack fleet

[thekillman]

And if we then grow a ship I doubt ALL tech is growable so

all wraith tech is growable, or made by organics. so an organic blob can build the circuitry aswell. then form into a pistol, or so.

With all the automated things on-board a ship like you suggest, the ship will still be easy to infiltrate. Also it would make the ship HACK ready, Cylon style.

EVER hear of a firewall? encryption (in chinese or so, or annother language they never encountered)?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

For that thing about the Pegasus, if it had Asgard shields it could dominate a Hive without any additional weapons. It would be able to withstand fire for like 5 minutes from what we've seen, and in that time it could chew a hole right through the Dart's armour in no time, not to mention launch a barrage of nukes from itself or from it's what... 120 Vipers?

Building a BSG style ship would be far easier then the designs they have on Stargate. The Galactica and Pegasus look like they were meant to kick ass, not a toilet or a pyramid flying around lol.

I'm partial to BSG ships, but that's only because they actually thought about designing the ships militarily and have well-thought designs. In SG they went for the wow factor in making weird ships that look like abstract art with guns strapped to it. I know that the Base Stars are kind of like this, but Base Stars look pure evil and they are awesome designs lol.

I don't doubt BSG ships are tough, I do agree with shields and adding APBWs or Asgard pulse weapons they'd own regular Hives pretty easily, but not something close to being as tough as a ZPM powered one.
With Stargate materials like Trinium would that make them even tougher?
What exactly are Colonial Battle ships made of steel or Titanium alloys or something?

What I've been talking about is getting a Hive, adding a bunch of extra power as there's a ton of space on board Hives where you could just install either hundreds of Mark 1 or 2 Naqueda Generators, or use a few huge ones and grow ZPM powered Hive style hull armor, maybe not as strong as that but many times the strength of a regular Hive.
If you grew a Hive from scratch with enough power you could probably complete it in a few weeks or maybe even days so replacing them would probably be a doddle if you had the power needed to do it.

with that I agree.

With all the automated things on-board a ship like you suggest, the ship will still be easy to infiltrate. Also it would make the ship HACK ready, Cylon style.

Have you ever seen anyone hack into any Wraith ships? coz I haven't.
If you've an impenetrable hull no one could brake through that, then just add in internal defense controllable from the bridge or a few security stations in secure locations, Asgard computer cores seem pretty hack proof.
You could just have internal beaming transport intruders to a holding cell or into space if you really don't like them.

Also why would Mindless clones be unethical? It is the best solution, it infact is not more then a shell, it is not even CLOSE to an animal (mentally), and definitely not a human

Coz they'd be alive, I know it's mindless but it's still got a face, someone would have to watch it get consumed like the pretty faced Keller.
My point mainly was that we can build computers that can hold a consciousness, an Asgard computer core would more than likely be capable of dealing with what a organic brain has to to grow the Hives/Cruisers and you could probably build a core quicker than it woudl take for the clone to grow.

And why we have the right to kill off the Wraith, that's easy, they are our enemy, our NATURAL enemy, also if we follow my plan of evacuation, the Wraith will HAVE TO consider an alternate food supply. Other whise they'll get extinct.
They were also the first to attack us. We have the right to defend ourselves, which made them our enemy, and given the Wraiths attitude, they will not stop being our enemy, so even if we kill off their ships, they'll grow new ones, so they stay our enemy. All they need to rebuild their fleet and soldiers is power and a queen. The threat will still be there, even if we kill their ships in time and in time again, thus the only solution to get rid of their evil is total annihilation. Or conversion, which is the least likely thing to happen. (OK OK but Todd is different, he is smart moth Wraith are not)

We in no way have the right to kill off another species that is intelligent just because their actions seem unethical to us, from the Wraith's perspective they have to eat, yes they may not treat their food with the respect that we do, but that in no way means we have the right to tell them how to behave when we are the invaders.
Starving them almost to the point of death is entirely unethical.
I must remind you that I didn't disagree with transporting the Humans that want to leave the Pegasus galaxy to go to our galaxy, but many may not want to leave their homes, even though they risk getting culled.

When you think about wiping the Wraith out, have a think about it from their perspective, they are alive, intelligent and they're doing what they need to to survive and BTW they are not our natural enemy, we only made it so by entering their territory.
Give them another solution to their lack of food, or it being a problem for us and they may take it up gladly.

This whole discussion right here is not what the topic of this thread is about, we have a thread to discuss the moralities of the Wraith feeding on Humans, the simple fact is it's about perspective, from ours it seems immoral from the Wraith's it's not, but there are other solutions than each of us blasting the other into extinction.

all wraith tech is growable, or made by organics. so an organic blob can build the circuitry aswell. then form into a pistol, or so.

EVER hear of a firewall? encryption (in chinese or so, or annother language they never encountered)?

Good points.

[ianjones1246]

lol, is it me - or am i the only one who thinks using our enemies ship designs to form a combat fighting fleet is a sure way to get wiped out?

Remember when Earth found the ancients in the void between the 2 galaxies? The first thing they did when returned to atlantis was activate a control device earth didn't have a clue about, and retake back the city.

The same could apply to Wraith and their Hives. We have a insignificant grasp on Wraith Hives to even consider that we can out-design the original designers of the Wraith Hives. Whoever came up with the original designs for the Hives almost certainly gave some serious thought into every possible weakness and ways to rectify those weaknesses in their designs - if Earth starts flying around in modified juiced up Wraith Hives hammerring the Wraith Civilisation, you can garantee some of the Wraith's tech caste - the keepers i think they are called? - would be able to develop weapons capable of posing a very real and significant threat to the Wraith Hives - simply in that they would know the in's and out's of the most basic components of the technology making up the Hives.

Using advanced Wraith Hives = really really really bad idea.

As for the pegasus suggestion i put up - i sort of had in mind basically a carrier class of vessel very very similar to the BS Pegasus - just made of SG materials and with SG tech. If Earth is ever seriously going to go toe to toe with the Wraith civilisation in an all out war - its going to need not just advanced warships - but lots and lots of fighters and smaller craft.

A BS Pegasus design would be the optimum approach to this (other than a hive ship - which has its own weaknesses) - to get sufficient fighter and smaller craft to actually fight the Wraith, you d eithier need increased hangar capacities for the X304's - and lots of them - or a carrier class. It would probably be cheaper and quicker to build a specialised carrier class - which carries large amounts of fighters and support craft - than adapt the design for the X304's.

I.e. the X304's would serve as the escorts and battleships of the fleet - each carrying their 16 or so F302's. A BS Pegasus class carrier would serve as the heart of the fleet - in full blown fleet engagements, the X304's would engage the Hives and Cruisers, along with all their own F302's - and the BS Pegasus carrier-class would provide the addittional fighters and bombers needed to eliminate what would be the 100's/1000's of darts - and for fighters and bombers to aid in the attacks upon the enemies capital warships.

If rather than just having a fleet carrier - mainly unarmed - you went for a Battlestar Pegasus class design - so basically a carrier, combined with the battleship role - it means in full blown fleet engagements you would have even more firepower to add against the enemy capital ships, and would have what would be your most vulnerable ship transformed into your strongest ship - the very bastion of firepower, upon which your entire battle strategy and battle line would hinge.

Eitheir way though - to go toe to toe with the Wraith, Earth will need some sort of specialised carrier - i.e. even if you had a fleet of 20 X304's - each carrying 16 F302's - thats still only 320 F302's between them - so barely enough to take on probably 1 or 2 Hive's fighter screens.

Future Earth Battlefleet: 4 - 5 X304's, operating in conjunction with 1 BS Pegasus Class Carrier (able to carry ideally 200+ F302's) - with its own production facilities to replace lost F302's, and training facilities for new pilots - since we would be talking about waging a full blown interstellar war in a different galaxy, resupplying F302's and pilots which would have typically high attrition rates would be a very real issue - partly resolved by fleet carriers having their own production lines (like BS Pegasus does in BSG for vipers )

When fighting small - medium scale battles, a single battlefleet would be all that is needed to get the job done. When engaging larger Wraith Hive fleets (i.e. probably 10+ Hives + escorting cruisers), you could bring 2 or more battlefleets together - so 8 - 10 X304's, with 2 BS Pegasus Carriers to provide the addittional firepower - and more importantly fighter components - though in reality 2 battlefleets combined could probably go toe to toe with 20 - 30 Hives + escorts lol.

Maybe also develop a jump-capable small transport/ scout craft to operate from the carrier (i.e. a "raptor" class vessel) - and you d have a pretty versatile and capable fleet.

I seriously think using the same class (but modified) of ship, based on the same technological principles as the enemy's own ships - is a really really bad idea... its just inviting the enemy to think up every single possible weakness that design and technology has, and to make use of these weaknesses with likely huge and great results (for the enemy). lol

Anyway - to resummarise my views on why Earth needs a specialist designed warship for the carrier role:

20 X304's carrying 16 F302's each = 320 fighters, 0 bombers

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

15 X304's carrying 16 F302's each = 240 fighters, 0 bombers
3 BS Class Carriers carrying 200 F302's each, 50 bombers = 600 fighters, 150 bombers

Total Fighters: 840 fighters, 150 bombers.

Fighter/ Bomber ratio wouldn't be exact... but you get my general drift on the potential impact having a specialised carrier design would have, rather than just relying upon a single class of battleship.

Building a carrier class, if it means less X304's, but a lot more fighters/ bombers would potentially strengthen Earths future fleet considerably - even more so depending on the armaments and improvements to the fighters and bombers - i.e. if of those 200 fighters a carrier would carry, 150 were fitted for dog-fighting, while the other 50 were fitted with nukes - it would be possible to order the carriers fighter's in conjunction with the X304's fighters to break through the Wraith Hive fleets own fighter/ dart screen - or otherwise keep the fighters/ darts busy - while the 50 nuke carrying fighters close on the Hives and lob a ton of nukes at the Hives - likely vapourising a large chunk of the Hive fleet

Lots of fighters and bombers in a future Earth fleet shouldn't be underestimated in their importance - and could well be the deciding factor in any engagements between Earth and the Wraith.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

lol, is it me - or am i the only one who thinks using our enemies ship designs to form a combat fighting fleet is a sure way to get wiped out?

Remember when Earth found the ancients in the void between the 2 galaxies? The first thing they did when returned to atlantis was activate a control device earth didn't have a clue about, and retake back the city.

Maybe this could be a problem if the Wraith had ever been shown to have that capability, yet they haven't.
Hives are out in the Pegasus galaxy fighting each other every day, yet know one overrides any secret protocols and prevents the other faction's Hives from functioning, they simply blast each other to pieces.

The same could apply to Wraith and their Hives. We have a insignificant grasp on Wraith Hives to even consider that we can out-design the original designers of the Wraith Hives. Whoever came up with the original designs for the Hives almost certainly gave some serious thought into every possible weakness and ways to rectify those weaknesses in their designs - if Earth starts flying around in modified juiced up Wraith Hives hammerring the Wraith Civilisation, you can garantee some of the Wraith's tech caste - the keepers i think they are called? - would be able to develop weapons capable of posing a very real and significant threat to the Wraith Hives - simply in that they would know the in's and out's of the most basic components of the technology making up the Hives.

I wasn't considering trying to out design the Wraith, just use their tech and beef it up with adding power to grow stronger hull armor, possible increase the power of their weapons in line with the Super Hive's, tack on a few individually powered APBWs and you've got a mobile fortress that will kill most enemies we've seen on the show.
If there were keepers out there that knew about any weakness in their own tech then we would have seen some signs of Wraiths using this to their advantage but we haven't, not a clue, so the only weakness must be the one that was mentioned in the episode Aurora and whatever that was hasn't been made apparent on the show.

Using advanced Wraith Hives = really really really bad idea.

Not really as there are no apparent things factions can do to mess with their enemy's Hives, I would imagine that some faction members join larger ones to guarantee their survival and take ships with them, yet we've found no evidence of unusual failures in Wraith ships.

Earth capturing a few Hives and Cruisers could drastically help with our fleet's size, making them tougher could give us an edge over the Wraith and we wouldn't have to wait 2 or more years to increase the size of our fleet by one or 2 ships.

As for the pegasus suggestion i put up - i sort of had in mind basically a carrier class of vessel very very similar to the BS Pegasus - just made of SG materials and with SG tech. If Earth is ever seriously going to go toe to toe with the Wraith civilisation in an all out war - its going to need not just advanced warships - but lots and lots of fighters and smaller craft.

IMO a huge vessel that takes much longer than a 304 to build is not a great idea, Hives we could probably grow, along with Cruisers if we could get our hands on the Pathogen, if not we could orchestrate some plans to capture them, infect a Wraith ship with the retro virus and leave the crew on a random planet, then we've got a ship we can upgrade with our tech.
Maybe the Wraith would eventually add some kind of Apophis type recall device, or an Ancient override but not before we'd stolen a few of their ships and whatever we manage to get our hands on and improve would help greatly.

IMO in order to get a proper warship we should just add some more power generators to 304s, add extra shield emitters and each of our ships could be at an Odyssey level shield strength wise, build some better missiles with shields to make sure they make it to their targets and we've got a good backup weapon when/if the beams go offline.

Earth could probably build a smaller ship about a third the size of a 304, like I mentioned in a previous post in this thread, so that could be built in a third of the time it takes to make a 304.

A better fighter would be a good idea, especially if a better propulsion system like on the Death Gliders can be added, maybe a small shield generator that can protect against a whole mess of Dart attacks and possibly take a few hits from Cruisers and a direct hit from a Hive, which may be a stretch but could be possibility if it's researched for long enough.

[thekillman]

what i think is that we need to fight the wraith as we do now and build a fleet back at home, and then do a fullscale invasion.

or make a wraith-killing dedicated warship.

mutating wraith hives seems like a bad idea whatsoever. its all possible and it can be safe, but the last thing i'd want is some stunnukes to go off onboard and when we wake up there's wraith swarming all over the ship.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

The Hive thing was just meant as a way to supplement whatever ships we can produce now, when the Stargate Program goes public building a unified fleet for attack and defense will be much easier than it is now in secret.

As for the possibilities of Wraith being able to get on board, well that could happen right now with the 304s if we were actively going out, seeking out Wraith to destroy, they'd capture our ships if we sent them out alone just like they did with the Ancients.
IF we got hold of a Hive to do what I'm suggesting we'd be growing the armor stronger, if we were capturing Cruisers (which may be an easier prospect) then we could probably install shield emitters, along with strengthening the armor, tweaking other systems, adding APBWs and improving the Hyperdrive Engines.
Whatever we do in the future better precautions/defenses against enemy infiltration would definitely be a must, with Hives/Cruisers and Earth built ships.

[thekillman]

only the wraith cant capture our ships. we would blow them up before they could

[locutes]

and BTW they are not our natural enemy, we only made it so by entering their territory.

They ARE the natural enemy of the human species. We are their food, and that is what is then called a natural enemy.

We may have never ever had the wraith as an enemy before, but now they are our too. But looking at the food chain, the wraith are now up top. We sit below them.

[locutes]

Maybe this could be a problem if the Wraith had every been shown to have that capability, yet they haven't.
Hives are out in the Pegasus galaxy fighting each other every day, yet know one overrides any secret protocols and prevents the other faction's Hives from functioning, they simply blast each other to pieces.

The Goa'uld did the same thing, yet their ships were designed by one designer. And as far as I know that designer was part of Sokar's forces, which could be why Sokar was not often at war as far as we know.

Just because not all tricks are SHOWN, does not mean they do not exist.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

only the wraith cant capture our ships. we would blow them up before they could

If you get three Hives up against one 304 the Wraith can own it (The Last Man), if the Wraith were able to capture ZPM powered Auroras when they were sent deep into Wraith territory then they could easily capture a ZPMless 304 if our ships were doing the same.
All the Wraith have to do is knock the APBWs offline, disable our hyperdrive engines and ur ships are pretty screwed.

They ARE the natural enemy of the human species. We are their food, and that is what is then called a natural enemy.

We may have never ever had the wraith as an enemy before, but now they are our too. But looking at the food chain, the wraith are now up top. We sit below them.

You wouldn't call a chicken or a potato your natural enemy would you?
Just because you have to eat a certain living organism that doesn't make it your natural enemy.

The Goa'uld did the same thing, yet their ships were designed by one designer. And as far as I know that designer was part of Sokar's forces, which could be why Sokar was not often at war as far as we know.

Just because not all tricks are SHOWN, does not mean they do not exist.

The Goauld were established in canon to have the recall device as were Ancients with their override thing, the Wraith have only been shown to have the ability to control their ships by thought when on the bridge, but they have to actually be on the ship to do that.

In canon until something is discussed or shown on the show it doesn't exist and anything else is simply speculation by fans or whoever thinks these things up.
If you could stop the Wraith from getting on board, or created a new Asgard/Tauri style ship interface then they couldn't control their ships unless they learned how to get around our security measures, as Todd and his guys have shown in First contact and The Lost Tribe the Wraith can control Earth ships, even repairing them so they could probably control anything Human built or messed with.

[ianjones1246]

In canon until something is discussed or shown on the show it doesn't exist and anything else is simply speculation by fans or whoever thinks these things up.
If you could stop the Wraith from getting on board, or created a new Asgard/Tauri style ship interface then they couldn't control their ships unless they learned how to get around our security measures, as Todd and his guys have shown in First contact and The Lost Tribe the Wraith can control Earth ships, even repairing them so they could probably control anything Human built or messed with.

My point about the ancient master-control device on Atlantis was that despite the expedition being there for several years... they still had no idea it existed - The atlantis expedition is generally still scratching the surface of Wraith technology and ship design - realistically its likely there would be issues in repairing, maintaining and simply running a Hive and its vast amounts of sub systems over a prolonged time - throw on top of which Wraith's who have had 10,000+ years of experience in dealing with their own tech (i.e. the keepers who were responsible for the maintaince of the Wraith fleet through those 10,000 years) are going to know a lot of tricks and weaknesses with their own techs which we couldn't predict.

The moment Earth begins to mount aggressive offensives against the Wraith, or if the Wraith learn generally of Atlantis's continued existence (remember only a handful of Wraith know about Atlantis surviving even now...), its entirely possible they would reunite as a species to fight the common enemy -the atlantis expedition and earth.

About the only thing holding the Wraith's ships and their capabilities back currently is that the specialists (the keepers) in maintaining and designing their tech have formed their own alliances with various factions. Most of the factions we ve actually met (certainly the faction in allies and No Mans Land) has had to make do with what the "grunts" know about their technology - i.e. the unspecialised personalle are forced to maintain and repair their hives where previously specialised personalle were needed - impacting upon the capability of their ships, and their general effectiveness.

Any faction with Wraith Specialists in their own tech could more than likely make mince meat out of any Hive Earth manages to capture, and juice up. Why do i say this? Remember the database of Wraith hives and their technology sent to the atlantis expedition in "allies?" - sheppard with 1 F302 missile was able to knock out a entire Hives Hyperspacedrive - simply because he knew of a weak point highlighted in this database.

If the Wraith face their own technology in battle, its pretty much certain they ll be more effective in destroying it than say, if they were facing "unfamiliar" Earth technology and warship designs, simply in that they ll know all its weak points. More than that - the Wraith's specialists in their ship designs and technology are spread across the various factions currently. If Earth fights the Wraith in any serious way, and the Wraith unite again - all these specialists will be able to come back together again, and collectively examine (if they don't already) every weak point in their technology - finding fixes to these weakpoints (improving their ships and technology) and designing some sort of massively effective weaponry to exploit these weaknesses which likely wouldn't be fixed in Earth's Super-Hive(s).

Using enemy ship designs is a really bad idea. They know every single weakness your ship and its technology has - and how to exploit these weaknesses - that will have a major impact on their ability to blow Earth Hives to pieces.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

My point about the ancient master-control device on Atlantis was that despite the expedition being there for several years... they still had no idea it existed - The atlantis expedition is generally still scratching the surface of Wraith technology and ship design - realistically its likely there would be issues in repairing, maintaining and simply running a Hive and its vast amounts of sub systems over a prolonged time - throw on top of which Wraith's who have had 10,000+ years of experience in dealing with their own tech (i.e. the keepers who were responsible for the maintaince of the Wraith fleet through those 10,000 years) are going to know a lot of tricks and weaknesses with their own techs which we couldn't predict.

Well we wouldn't send a ship such as that into battle until we'd properly studied the technology, simply capturing a Hive or Cruiser, managing to subvert the Stargate Universal law of "no one can keep a ship that their race didn't build for more than five minutes" would be something.
IF we could build our ships at a decent enough rate for combat application then I'd probably agree we wouldn't need to use this idea, but even if we captured a Wraith ship simply for studying it then it would be worth getting our hands on one.
Since right now we can only build a few ships it would be worth taking a Wraith vessel, both times we've had a Hive in our possession no Wraith have used any tactic different than shooting at each other, if they had a method to control them or board them simply then they would have yet we've seen nothing to suggest they can, so your concerns are not based around viewable canonical evidence about the Wraith.

Why exactly would they need a special override when they can simply control a ship with their thoughts when they reach the bridge?
BTW to reiterate if it's possible we'd deactivate the standard control consoles the Wraith use and install a device that any authorized personnel can use to control the ship, maybe with a Earth Human DNA key to grant access.
Finger print access, retinal IDs and DNA records for all those who are authorized could work as a better way to prevent intruders from using our tech.

The moment Earth begins to mount aggressive offensives against the Wraith, or if the Wraith learn generally of Atlantis's continued existence (remember only a handful of Wraith know about Atlantis surviving even now...), its entirely possible they would reunite as a species to fight the common enemy -the atlantis expedition and earth.

Which gives us all the more reason to learn as much about their technology as possible, especially their main warships, the only way to do that is to get our hands on some, even a single Hive and Cruiser would help.
BTW I didn't say anything about engaging them before we have a large enough fleet to do so or military toys to get the job done.

About the only thing holding the Wraith's ships and their capabilities back currently is that the specialists (the keepers) in maintaining and designing their tech have formed their own alliances with various factions. Most of the factions we ve actually met (certainly the faction in allies and No Mans Land) has had to make do with what the "grunts" know about their technology - i.e. the unspecialised personalle are forced to maintain and repair their hives where previously specialised personalle were needed - impacting upon the capability of their ships, and their general effectiveness.

No the main thing holding the Wraith's ships back from being at their fullest potential is power generation.
Our people have come into contact with numerous different factions of Wraith, among some of those there must have been Keepers, Todd himself appears to know a lot of his people's tech as did Michael.
Factions engage each other every day in Stargate, so there must be some that have to fight another faction that has Keepers in their ranks, yet they still appear to defeat them the same way, by blasting each other to pieces.
If we had a Hive to use for military missions in PG then we already know the two main danger areas on a Hive, those are the Dart bays and the Hyperdrive engines and we could easily shield those areas with Asgard emitters.
Using Wraith ships that we'd captured would also mean we don't have to risk the ships that have taken us a year and billions of dollars to build.

Any faction with Wraith Specialists in their own tech could more than likely make mince meat out of any Hive Earth manages to capture, and juice up. Why do i say this? Remember the database of Wraith hives and their technology sent to the atlantis expedition in "allies?" - sheppard with 1 F302 missile was able to knock out a entire Hives Hyperspacedrive - simply because he knew of a weak point highlighted in this database.

No Sheppard knocked out the ships Hyperdrive because Michael told him where to target (that was in No Man's Land), but we now know that weakness, besides that area and Dart bays, which we already figured would be a good place to hit with our weapons there are no other weak points which different factions have hit on each others ships.
Improving the Wraith's own tech with added power to grow thicker armor and adding power to their weapons would mean we would be owning enemy Hives and the factions who find out there are newer, tougher Hives/Cruisers destroying their ships would just think a faction has made improvements to their tech.

If the Wraith face their own technology in battle, its pretty much certain they ll be more effective in destroying it than say, if they were facing "unfamiliar" Earth technology and warship designs, simply in that they ll know all its weak points. More than that - the Wraith's specialists in their ship designs and technology are spread across the various factions currently. If Earth fights the Wraith in any serious way, and the Wraith unite again - all these specialists will be able to come back together again, and collectively examine (if they don't already) every weak point in their technology - finding fixes to these weakpoints (improving their ships and technology) and designing some sort of massively effective weaponry to exploit these weaknesses which likely wouldn't be fixed in Earth's Super-Hive(s).

We'd be adding a bunch of weapons that can cream their ships in seconds (APBWs), so they won't be able to stand toe to toe with us for long, if we're using Cruisers then we could probably add shields and still have the added benefit of stronger hull armor underneath those shields (coz we'd grow it stronger than any faction can with our smaller, better power generation tech).
We'd be souping their tech up with our own stuff and checking for weaknesses in the Wraith's to improve it for our own uses.

We wouldn't actually be engaging the Wraith on the whole until we had a large enough fleet to do that, but these improved Wraith Cruisers and Hives would be used to fill out our forces.

Using enemy ship designs is a really bad idea. They know every single weakness your ship and its technology has - and how to exploit these weaknesses - that will have a major impact on their ability to blow Earth Hives to pieces.

In your opinion it's a bad idea, if we added APBWs we'd be blasting Hives and Cruisers to pieces before they realise Humans are using their ships in each battle they meet us in.
Right now we appear to bet better and faster at destroying Hives and Cruisers with our own tech, than the Wraith are, if we add some of that tech to a Wraith vessel we'd kick the Wraith's butts.

BTW I'm not talking about using this idea as the sole means to bolstering our fleet's size, I've mentioned other things in previous posts, but this point is a good idea IMO while we can only make a ship a year and it would mean we could waste these Wraith vessels in PG rather than using ours in risky situations.

If we were to use your idea of building a several thousand feet long Galactica style ship then we'd probably only be making a ship each decade, every five years or something.
Galactica vessels are meant for BSG, where weapons appear to be much weaker and slower moving vessels at sub light speeds are fine, but in Stargate are ships really do need to move.

Do you realise that we'd probably need a lot more power and many more shield emitters to properly protect a Galactica style ship when putting them up against the Wraith?
If we based our entire fleet around using these vessels we'd never get a large enough fleet before the Wraith can make a run for Earth, especially when we can only build one 500-700 foot long ship (not sure if that size for a 304 is right, it's just a guess) a year.

[ianjones1246]

Well we wouldn't send a ship such as that into battle until we'd properly studied the technology, simply capturing a Hive or Cruiser, managing to subvert the Stargate Universal law of "no one can keep a ship that their race didn't build for more than five minutes" would be something.
IF we could build our ships at a decent enough rate for combat application then I'd probably agree we wouldn't need to use this idea, but even if we captured a Wraith ship simply for studying it then it would be worth getting our hands on one.
Since right now we can only build a few ships it would be worth taking a Wraith vessel, both times we've had a Hive in our possession no Wraith have used any tactic different than shooting at each other, if they had a method to control them or board them simply then they would have yet we've seen nothing to suggest they can, so your concerns are not based around viewable canonical evidence about the Wraith.

Why exactly would they need a special override when they can simply control a ship with their thoughts when they reach the bridge?
BTW to reiterate if it's possible we'd deactivate the standard control consoles the Wraith use and install a device that any authorized personnel can use to control the ship, maybe with a Earth Human DNA key to grant access.
Finger print access, retinal IDs and DNA records for all those who are authorized could work as a better way to prevent intruders from using our tech.

Which gives us all the more reason to learn as much about their technology, especially their main warships, the only way to do that is to get our hands on same, even a single Hive and Cruiser and study their tech.
BTW I didn't say anything about engaging them before we have a large enough fleet to do so or military toys to get the job done.

No the main thing holding the Wraith's ships back from being at their fullest potential is power generation.
Our people have come into contact with numerous different factions of Wraith, among some of those there must have been Keepers, Todd himself appears to know a lot of his people's tech as did Michael.
Factions engage each other every day in Stargate, so there must be some that have to fight another faction that has Keepers in their ranks, yet they still appear to defeat them the same way, by blasting each other to pieces.
If we had a Hive to use for military missions in PG then we already know the two main danger areas on a Hive, those are the Dart bays and the Hyperdrive engines and we could easily shield those areas with Asgard emitters.
Using Wraith ships that we'd captured would also mean we don't have to risk the ships that have taken us a year and billions of dollars to build.

No Sheppard knocked out the ships Hyperdrive because Michael told him where to target (that was in No Man's Land), but we now know that weakness, besides that area and Dart bays, which we already figured would be a good place to hit with our weapons there are no other weak points which different factions have hit on each others ships.
Improving the Wraith's own tech with added power to grow thicker armor and adding power to their weapons would mean we would be owning enemy Hives and the factions who find out there are newer, tougher Hives/Cruisers destroying their ships would just think a faction has made improvements to their tech.

We'd be adding a bunch of weapons that can cream their ships in seconds (APBWs), so they won't be able to stand toe to toe with us for long, if we're using Cruisers then we could probably add shields and still have the added benefit of stronger hull armor underneath those shields (coz we'd grow it stronger than any faction can with our smaller, better power generation tech).
We'd be souping their tech up with our own stuff and checking for weaknesses in the Wraith's to improve it for our own uses.

We wouldn't actually be engaging the Wraith on the whole until we had a large enough fleet to do that, but these improved Wraith Cruisers and Hives would be used to fill out our forces.

In your opinion it's a bad idea, if we added APBWs we'd be blasting Hives and Cruisers to pieces before they realise Humans are using their ships in each battle they meet us in.
Right now we appear to bet better and faster at destroying Hives and Cruisers with our own tech, than the Wraith are, if we add some of that tech to a Wraith vessel we'd kick the Wraith's butts.

BTW I'm not talking about using this idea as the sole means to bolstering our fleet's size, I've mentioned other things in previous posts, but this point is a good idea IMO while we can only make a ship a year and it would mean we could waste these Wraith vessels in PG rather than using ours in risky situations.

If we were to use your idea of building a several thousand feet long Galactica style ship then we'd probably only be making a ship each decade, every five years or something.
Galactica vessels are meant for BSG, where weapons appear to be much weaker and slower moving vessels at sub light speeds are fine, but in Stargate are ships really do need to move.

Do you realise that we'd probably need a lot more power and many more shield emitters to properly protect a Galactica style ship when putting them up against the Wraith?
If we based our entire fleet around using these vessels we'd never get a large enough fleet before the Wraith can make a run for Earth, especially when we can only build one 500-700 foot long ship (not sure if that size for a 304 is right, it's just a guess) a year.

In the short run, using captured enemy vessels to fill in for the lack of earth-ships i would agree with you - simply in that the logic is "something is better than nothing".

My main point is basing a *permanent* fleet construction strategy upon beefing up enemy Hives and Cruisers. By permament, i mean the sort of logic going something along the lines of "we need ships able to carry lots of fighters - but we have Hives, so lets not bother designing a aircraft carrier"

In the short to medium run Earth should be focusing on increasing its X304's numbers - so have hives operating in conjunction with these ships to make up for the lack of numbers would be a cheap and efficient means to do so.

However this topic asked about an "Earth Wraith attack fleet" - which to me at least, translates as "a earth fleet we can use to fight and defeat the Wraith with" - i.e. an offensive fleet.

Concentrating on X304's, and Wraith Hives is a good plan as it means Earth at least has some ships (the more the better) to not so much use for engaging the entire Wraith Civilisation - but rather for keeping the Wraith off balance i.e. engaging the Wraith where absolutely necessary to screw up their plans to get to Earth.

But, if Earth is to go into a full scale war with the civilisation which fought the single most advanced race in the known universe (ancients) for 100 years.... i think a handful of X304's and a couple of retro-fitted Wraith Hives simply won't cut it.

IF and WHEN Earth finally decides to take the Wraith on in open combat, its a fair assessment to say the fleets size will be a lot larger - and more than likely adequate industrial backing would be given to Earths space forces for the largest war they ll have ever fought.

In this event, a dedicated carrier class of warship would be needed (16 F302's per X304 - even a fleet of 10 X304's would only have 160 F302's between them) - something like the "Pegasus" would be ideal - if its roughly 3 - 4 times the size of an X304, and carries a adequate fighter compliment (200+, ideally 300+), coupled with the production lines to replace lost F302's, and train new pilots (since we d be talking about operating in a different galaxy - so replenishment and resupply of crucial components such as F302's would be time consuming!), and of course with the ship as heavily armed as possible (so preferably with the firepower of 3 - 4 X304's) - then it would be well worth the investment - simply to provide something able to carry a significant amount of F302's/ Bombers/ scout ships/ puddle jumpers.

The carrier class ideally would act like a US/ Royal Navy carrier battle group does in the real world - with the carrier combined with 5 - 6 escorts (X304's) - or if going into more intensive/ dangerous situations, a "reinforced" battle group with normally as many as 10 escorts.

Finally - remember, we know for a fact just how massively powerful the Wraith Civilisation's industrial/ ship replacement capability is. We have 2 examples of their ridiculously brilliant ship construction rate - the first being the Ancient/ Wraith war 10,000 years ago, where from the general gist of what we get, is that the Ancients fought the war for 100 years - piling up a massive amount of Wraith Corpses and enemy ship kills throughout this war, but simply due to the enemy's overwhelming numbers, and cruicially their ability to *keep* overwhelming numbers, they were eventually crushed.

The 2nd example is the current atlantis time line - the arrival of earth, resulting in first all the enemy ships earth's accounted for being wiped out. Then we have all the ships michael potentially destroyed. Then we have all the ships the asurans wiped out - and finally we have the ongoing Wraith Civil war being fought between numerous factions - which has been going on for probably 1 or 2 years now? We know the Wraith can wipe each other's hives out in a matter of seconds, or at the outside a matter of a minutes. Does anyone want to guess just how many Hives the Wraith Civilisation must have lost - both to outside threats, and destroyed in its civil war.

I d guess realistically (if the ease with which hives can blow one another apart is anything to go by - coupled with 1 - 2 years of continous multy-faction warfare) that the Wraith must have lost at least potentially several dozen Hives during the civil war - potentially a LOT more (100+). Yet with these sort of losses... they are still the single dominant power of the galaxy.... this points to one hell of a replacement/ construction rate - which is consistent with what we know which happened with the Ancients, and the way a Hive is grown/ formed.

If Earth ever fights the Wraith in a open conflict, the Wraith would almost certainly unite.... so if Earth wants to actually win the war (as oppossed to getting thrown out of Pegasus) they are going to need a hell of a lot of ships - thus a bull blown massively powerful space fleet - at least several dozen strong... its this sort of scenario where i d envision a much larger and more capable "proper" carrier class (Pegasus) replacing the X304's as the deep space carriers - with the X304's instead becoming cruisers/ battleships (perhaps get rid of the hangar bays, and stick some power generators in the empty space to beef up the shields and weapons once Earth starts getting fuly formed fleets with carrier/escort combinations?).

Plus... there is very real risk (more than likely infact) that in a open war, eventually the Wraith would manage to capture a X304 intact (like they did with ancient ZPM powered aurora's - nicking their ZPM's)... if they did that, they could potentially backward engineer the X304's hyperdrives... and since we know from No Mans Land that all hives are actually capable of inter-galactic hyperspace travel, but just need their engines modified.... this would be very bad.... hence a full blown Earth offensive against the Wraith can never and should never be launched with a small fleet (below 20 X304's) - and realistically should be several dozen strong at least.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

ianjones1246 I'm glad you've finally seen my point, I get what you mean by using the carrier class, but still think they'd take too long to build for any meaningful war uses, I mean if say we lost a dozen then it could take decades to replace them.
IMO any dedicated Earth built warship should be on the 304's size, maybe by now we could actually start properly powering our ships, the 304s power generator(s) aren't visible, so may not take up much space on the ship and it could be possible to add 1 or 2 more of them or newer upgraded models with better power output, some more buffers, even improving the shield power by half would be something, then add in some extra emitters and it'd be stronger still giving the fleet greater endurance when it's really needed.
If we need a carrier I think we should make more smaller vessels, maybe something the size of a 304, but with a couple of times larger fighter bays, cut down on the crew quarters having bunks instead, that way if you need to use masses of fighters per mission you can have more carriers, which would mean more targets for the Wraith to aim for, you could then launch an offensive from multiple points surrounding a target when you need to and those carriers could then be supported by 304s or a smaller class of ship that's using the best of what Earth can make.
The smaller support ship would be like I mentioned in a previous post, you know take off some of the things that aren't for a smaller ship like much of the neck of the 304s design, shrink down the fighter bays or remove them (considering it's a support class it wouldn't really have much need for them), use bunks instead of individual rooms for crew quarters and you'd practically be there, with a ship that could be built in half or a third of the time, but as you'd be shielding an area much smaller than a 304 has to and keeping the same level of power generation as a standard 304 has now the shield strength and other toys could keep the same level of performance.

As far as fleet size goes I think 50 ships would be a place to start with our engagement and those vessels would need to IMO stay united in groups for support.
IF we can't replace are ships at a decent rate then we've got know hope so we need to reveal the Stargate program so that vessels can be built and crews trained without risks of disruption fi the secret were to get let out.
Along with a fleet I think we also need some kind of automated MALP(s) that we can leave on worlds to track for Wraith activity and a sensor network in PG to give us up to the second Wraith fleet movements, both of these things I think we can make and they would essential if we want to win.

[locutes]

yuk, massive posts, im not even gonna TRY to read it all