Asuran Ships w/ Drones == Yep

[sg8man]

The drone therefore somehow draws power wirelessly, the main power source behind it being the ZPM.

More likely that a drone is 'charged' by whatever power source is available before firing.

It is even possible that drones fired from a ZPM - powered source have more damage potential than an identical drone fired from a jumper, because it can be 'charged' further.

[dboy-2007]

Asurans attacking Atlantis is more likely.

But is it too obvious? We saw only 1 ship and the Replicator's have large armada's which are annihilating the Wraith.

Atlantis did not have any shields on, drones were not attacking the Aurora class ship. Either the ZPM was completely drained or Atlantis was taken by complete surprise.

Cloaked Aurora class ship built by the Asurans? Travelers for some reason attacking Atlantis. Why would they attack Atlantis? Could it be because their settlements/ships were wiped out by the Replicators, who were repgrammed by McKay?


As for the damage caused by the drones to Atlantis, that is of course inconsistent. Taking out what, 100 metres or so of the centre spire on impact??? That is computer effects, which the CGI people are always inconsistent on.

maybee its the asurans playing with the expeditions heads like they did with the wraith attacking the city

[geeksandlies]

Its an interesting concept i agree. Forgive my ignorance and thanks for the spoilers because i am one episode from the end of season 3!

Anubis's shields were just an advanced adaption of the current Goa'uld technology. He had used his knowledge to advance them not change them specificaly. His shields were also less affective when in the atmoshpere of a planet as well remember! This was true of all Goa'uld shields and was there main vunreability. Thus not the same shields as the acients. As mentioned previously the Ori shields were able to withstand drones and as such meant that the shields are far more advanced.

Also as mentioned earlier the drone weapons are most likely charged before firing the only other consevable power source for them could be that they them selves draw power direct from subspace (vacum energy) this would also give them the destructive power they seem to produce. "Energy beam" Weapons are directional. They can only be fire in a specific direction and once fire a target need only move from the "firing line" to avoid being hit. Granted soething that is not very possible to do but still is worth mentioning. Perhaps this is why the Ancients favoured the drone as a weapon over them as a projectile they have the ability to follow there target. Combine this with the "beam energy" that they must have judging by there glow makes them a formidible weapon. They may not be as destructive but are more acurate and as such more "battle" effective. Handy also against small agile craft which are by nature harder to hit!

Drawing power "wirelessly" is the best thing for drones. Although the term wireless is perhaps a bit stretched. As i said i think they are more likely to be drwaing power direct from subspace as if you recall in the episode Tower (at least i am sure its that one) McKay fires a drown from his laptop without the use of a ZPM!

[umopapisdn]

Maybe the asurans found a way to remotely control the shield in the same way that Rodney was able to override the gate shield in 'The Return'. If they could this would explain the lack of shield.

[Vala_M]

Drones draw their energy from the ZPM, not from subspace, that would open up a lot of problems if they did that, also in "The Tower", the drones shut down when the ZPM was depleted indicating that was were they were getting their power from.

Vala,

[geeksandlies]

Drones draw their energy from the ZPM, not from subspace, that would open up a lot of problems if they did that, also in "The Tower", the drones shut down when the ZPM was depleted indicating that was were they were getting their power from.

Vala,

Not wishing to stir up trouble but this does not mean they drew there power from the ZPM purely that they were controlled by the tower. We know drones can operate without one (ZPM that is) but the rely on the nural interface of the chair to control them (unless you happen to be mckay or firing one from a jumper! you get what i mean). Could it be that without instructions they no longer operate? I say this because there is no physical way for power to transfer from a ZPM to a drone once free of its presence! Also why can they not draw there power direct from subspace? Subspace=vacum energy=zero point energy=what a zpm draws? I never said they drew as much just that they potentially could!

[kymeric]

Carter: God i wish that pwarw was working, why back when i was in sg1 i actually TOUCHED one, god youd think we could make our own cuz we got their whole database when they all died in the last episode of my old show!

Crowd blink

I swear this is what some of you are asking for!

[DarkSullivan]

i just watched the scene from lifelin in slow motion they are drones

Ok one they are not drones, and two that ship is LifeLine was another type of ancient warship(i guess), and well they are imitateing the ancients after all, so it was more then likley they must have up-graded there drones some how.

[Vala_M]

Not wishing to stir up trouble but this does not mean they drew there power from the ZPM purely that they were controlled by the tower. We know drones can operate without one (ZPM that is) but the rely on the nural interface of the chair to control them (unless you happen to be mckay or firing one from a jumper! you get what i mean). Could it be that without instructions they no longer operate? I say this because there is no physical way for power to transfer from a ZPM to a drone once free of its presence! Also why can they not draw there power direct from subspace? Subspace=vacum energy=zero point energy=what a zpm draws? I never said they drew as much just that they potentially could!

And remember, you get exotic particles form when you draw Zero Point energy from our universe, thus the artificial mini universe that ZPM's use and I think that would be too much work to make a mini ZPM inside of every drone, we don't know what the Ancients know about science, maybe there is a way to draw power without actually having to be connected by a wire or cable or something. Plus, drones don't have safeguards like that, remember in "Rising, pt. 1"? Dr. Beckett activated the drone and it was going on auto ("We have a rogue drone that can take a target on it's own") and if they didn't draw their energy from the ZPM but from their own power source, then this is what would have happend in "The Tower" after McKay depleted the ZPM, it wouldn't have stopped them. And before you say that they could have just unplugged the ZPM from the outpost so that the drone would deactivate, here is why they couldn't/wouldn't have done that:
1. They had so many systems connected and disconnecting the power (At least for Earth computers is bad if it's sudden) and they wouldn't want to risk damaging the Ancient systems (They still didn't know enough about them to risk it)
2. In "The Tower", they were desperate to stop the village and the villagers from being destroyed so it was worth the risk there plus they did know more about Ancient tech then than they did at the start of the show.

Plus, drones are relatively small for being such an effective weapon, I doubt that there's room for a power source inside of them.

Vala,

[SoulReaver]

Plus, drones are relatively small for being such an effective weapon, I doubt that there's room for a power source inside of them.

well they ain't much smaller than zpms...

[Halzman]

Alendra - actually we do know how the Asgard and Ancient shields work - Shield emmitters. There have been two seperate instances were shield emmitters are mentioned, which make up the given ships shield.

The daedalus on 2 occassions has made refernce to it (and the 304's shields are Asgard shields) - during the battle against 10 wraith ships in 'Stargate Atlantis The Siege - Part 3' and 'Stargate SG-1 Company of Thieves'.

During the Stargate Atlantis episode 'The Return - Part 2' it is stated that Atlantis has 10 shield emmitters which make up the cities shields.

As for the goa'uld frequency oscillator shield technology - something I have completely disregarded. For one, it was only mentioned I beleive twice and it was very early on in the series.

If you look at how REAL plasma shields work, you can easily understand how they work in the Stargate Universe, which is what I beleive they are based on. Simply put, a magnetic field attracts and holds plasma = the more plasma density you have, the stronger the shield will be, the plasma 'sticking' to the magnetic field is what makes up the shield. And so there is no confussion, a plasma is just an ionized gas. You have solid - liquid - gas - plasma. Lets say you have a pot of water - the water is a liquid. Put the pot on a stove and set it to boil, some of that water turns into a gas, and thus you see steam before you. If your stove had the option to really jack up the temperature, and you got that gas hot enough you would ionize it - turn it into a plasma.

Air is a perfect example since we see it so often. Every time you've seen an electric arc or a lightning bolt, that is the air becoming ionized. Why do you think plasma cutters are used to cut through steel? Plasma is the only thing hot enough to do the job. All the emmitters would have to do is pump out plasma for the magnetic field until a desired density is reached. It all comes down to how much power to you have to work with.

When you look at the various ships in stargate, power is what usually decides who is the boss. We couldn't do a think against Goa'uld ships = we had little power. The asgard and tollan had more power generating capabilities then us = having the ability to blow up goa'uld ships. Tollan / Asgard weapons having no effect on goa'uld shields = Anubis uses his ancient knowledge to give himself more power. ZPM powering drone weapon system = Anubis being completely beat on power.

SoulRe@ver - Looking back on the episode, no, no shields were shown on Anubis's flagship when the first drones began to impact the hull. However, beyond that point we dont see how the drones interact with any of the other ships prior to impacting there shields. Whiles its no the best arguments, it looks to be more of a plot hole/cg error. It was the first time they introduced the drones.

Even the 303 makes refernce to forward shield emmitters (however, they were called shield generators)

The beam from the Ori satellite holds on the shield for several seconds and then cuts through. By the time the next fire is shot against the 303, there is no shield.

And the hataks shields did fail during the Camelot battle, I'm fairly familiar with the scene. The Ori battlecruisers beam literally touch the hataks shields for a second, thus completely depleting them, and then blows the ship up, since the beam is still firing at this point.

Looking back at shield emmitters, its obvious in the show that energy is stored and then supplied to the shield at a controlled rate. Lets use atlantis as an example. 10 building along the outer edges of all 6 peirs serve as my shield emmitters. Each building contains massive capacitors (which store electrical potential) which will then be used to evential supply power to the plasma generators, which will in then create the shield. At the center of Atlantis we have the main tower, with the ZPM outlet room sitting at the base. Obviously there is a power line for each of the 10 buildings (ZPM - Line Cord - Capacitor - Plasma Generator - Magnetic Field x 10 = City Shield). Like any other battery/capacitor, each building capacitor takes a certain amount of time to recharge and can only be charged to a certain point. Lets say it takes 10 seconds to fully charge each capacitor. If a energy beam hits my shield it will drain some power. For an example, lets say each beam hit causes my capacitors to need 2 seconds before fully recharged again. So long as the amount of beam hits doesn't increase and the rate stays fairly consistent, I dont have to worry about my shield failing. However, if my enemy was able to jack up there energy beam, which with 1 hit would be able to drain all of my capacitors at once, it wont be another 10 seconds before my shield are fully recharged.

The 304s and hataks may very well be powered by mere naquadah generators, but how much power is each ship storing for shields, and how much energy is being deticated to recharging them? Look at 'No Man's Land' from Stargate Atlantis. Hermiod was able to turn off all non essential systems in order to ensure longer shield strength. He was able to provide more energy to be deticated to recharging the shields. There have also been numerous times were more power is given to the front shield emmitters, or enemy fire is drawn away from weak sheild emmitters.

thekillman - If the Ori had drone proof shields, the drone weapon platform wouldn't of been able to destroy an Ori ship like it did during 'The Road Not Taken'

sg8man - If that were the case then why would the ancients have build thousands of drones for there outposts, atlantis, warships, etc. Think about it - if it was that easy were they would just power a drone up to a desired level, they could just use 1 for each ship (if we can detect our enemies shield strength we can determine how much energy we need to use against them) that they encountered, and maybe only keep a few hundred laying around and build more as needed. It would be far more practical to build one universal type of drone and then just build as needed to stock up.

geeksandlies - Why is the term 'wirelessly' a bit stretched? RF (radio frequency) energy has been shown to provide wireless power. Or how about powering nearby flourescent lamps wirelessly? Look up tesla coils and you'll see what I mean. It is clearly not stretched, in fact, thats were I got the idea from

[Xaeden]

Plus, drones don't have safeguards like that, remember in "Rising, pt. 1"? Dr. Beckett activated the drone and it was going on auto ("We have a rogue drone that can take a target on it's own") and if they didn't draw their energy from the ZPM but from their own power source, then this is what would have happend in "The Tower" after McKay depleted the ZPM, it wouldn't have stopped them.

That's not necessarily true. Beckett could've given it the command to seek out its own target without knowing so. Where as in The Tower their only command was to do what they were told. That said I do agree that they draw power remotely, I'm just pointing out that we really don't know enough about what Beckett did to use that as proof of anything.

thekillman - If the Ori had drone proof shields, the drone weapon platform wouldn't of been able to destroy an Ori ship like it did during 'The Road Not Taken'

It was not said that the Ori ship was destroyed. What was said was that they "fought them off" with the chair. The use of the word off would indicate that the Ori ship managed to escape. In which case it's unlikely that they could escape if their drones went right through their shields. More likely the drones were doing a lot of damage to the shields and they couldn't hold out much longer so they left to go get help (hundreds of those drones exploding against a shield at the same time should do a lot of damage). Of course we don't know exactly what happened one way or another though so it's all speculation at this point.

[SoulReaver]

SoulRe@ver - Looking back on the episode, no, no shields were shown on Anubis's flagship when the first drones began to impact the hull. However, beyond that point we dont see how the drones interact with any of the other ships prior to impacting there shields. Whiles its no the best arguments, it looks to be more of a plot hole/cg error. It was the first time they introduced the drones.

good ole plot hole again eh ? guess the plot hole struck again a full season later (Moebius part 2), when 2 drones fired by the pj slipped through the hatak's shield (and destroyed the ship)

=> no plot hole, more like

Even the 303 makes refernce to forward shield emmitters (however, they were called shield generators)
The beam from the Ori satellite holds on the shield for several seconds and then cuts through. By the time the next fire is shot against the 303, there is no shield.

wrong

here's a cap from the 1st time the 303 was hit by the beam :



you can see the (forward) shield is still up. and to confirm this, the transcript :

WOMACK: Forward shields at 40%
PENDERGAST: Divert all shield power to forward generators

they were at 40%, thus still up when the beam cut through the ship

later on :

PENDERGAST: We don't have it Sam, I'm sorry -- it's over. Give me as much power as you can. Re-route it from the shields and give me all functioning internal Asgard beam sensors back online.

at this point he knows the shields are useless (as the beam goes through them) so he has power rerouted from shields to more useful subsystems

also that's why Carter a few minutes later wondered how those beams could cut through the asgard-designed shields, if the shields were depleted (ie. if the beams used mere raw firepower) then she wouldn't have said this. nope, those beams are a lot more sophisticated than standard energy beams, they have a double effect of both draining shields and cutting through (some) shields

And the hataks shields did fail during the Camelot battle, I'm fairly familiar with the scene. The Ori battlecruisers beam literally touch the hataks shields for a second, thus completely depleting them, and then blows the ship up, since the beam is still firing at this point.

nope, watch carefully - the hataks' shields are still up when the beams hit the hulls. exactly like what happened to the 303 in Ethon

The 304s and hataks may very well be powered by mere naquadah generators, but how much power is each ship storing for shields, and how much energy is being deticated to recharging them? Look at 'No Man's Land' from Stargate Atlantis. Hermiod was able to turn off all non essential systems in order to ensure longer shield strength. He was able to provide more energy to be deticated to recharging the shields. There have also been numerous times were more power is given to the front shield emmitters, or enemy fire is drawn away from weak sheild emmitters.

possible but purely speculative. besides you'd expect the hataks to manage their energy supply the same way, why assume only the humans did so. the only thing we do know is that both types of ships had the same kinda power supply, therefore equivalent shieldsstrength. the only advantage the 304s had was that the new asgard shields were more advanced than the goauld ones (and the older asgard ones)

[from_orion]

More likely that a drone is 'charged' by whatever power source is available before firing.

It is even possible that drones fired from a ZPM - powered source have more damage potential than an identical drone fired from a jumper, because it can be 'charged' further.

Very incorrect because in the tower when the zpm depleted the drones lost power instantly and fell dead from the sky, definitely wirelessly powered.

[Alendra]

They probably carry a small charge (they don't all fall instantly), but they are powered wirelessly by the ZPM that's 100% sure.