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    Designing a 'perfect' Ancient warship?

    I've been reading quite a few threads of why/how the Ancients lost to the Wraith which is pretty much summed up as plot induced stupidity or lack of imagination as there were so many ways the Ancients could have easily won. But because of how there society was as a culture being more focused on discovery, research, understanding, and innovation they were ill equipped to fight this war with a military mindset. Hence why the Atlantis expedition has had so much success.

    But the focus of this post is how the Ancients could have easily designed a unsinkable ship. Here is a few things I thought of based off what technology we know they have.

    1. Have a stargate on board a capital ship. That way they can easily resupply or change out crew on the go. As shown in SGU, stargates can be specifically keyed to another stargate no matter where it is. Thus the ship would have a solid supply line and can't be accessed from another gate.

    2. Repair bots. If it's going to be on the front lines you'd think it would have these. You see them in SGU as they were repairing Destiny on the fly. I'd think after a couple million years this technology would have advanced and be possible for their capital warships.

    3. Solar power. As seen in SGU, they possessed technology to harvest energy from a star. I'd like to think they could have figured out some clever way to use it to have 'infinite' energy when engaging the Wraith near human worlds.

    4. 'Infinite' energy. Combining point 1 and 3 while using the Asurans satellite idea. Powered by a star and using a trick with the stargates then as noted 'infinite' energy for their weapons and shields.

    5. The Asurans as logistics. They may not have been the ideal weapon but they could have been the perfect logistics team. As mentioned by many and even written in many fics, they build really fast. So if they needed to get ships up and rolling or needed repairs to a current ship they could have easily done so.

    There might be other ideas or technology, but these were some of the ideas I had in which the Ancients could have had an unsinkable ship that the Wraith couldn't contend with no matter how many hives or darts they threw at it. Just my thoughts anyways.

    #2
    Originally posted by Rohan View Post
    I've been reading quite a few threads of why/how the Ancients lost to the Wraith which is pretty much summed up as plot induced stupidity or lack of imagination as there were so many ways the Ancients could have easily won. But because of how there society was as a culture being more focused on discovery, research, understanding, and innovation they were ill equipped to fight this war with a military mindset. Hence why the Atlantis expedition has had so much success.
    I would argue that the Atlantis crew really did not have that much "success" due to a military mindset, but a combination of military and diplomatic power. For all of the ancients advancement, much like the Asgard, they simply did not play well with others.
    But the focus of this post is how the Ancients could have easily designed a unsinkable ship. Here is a few things I thought of based off what technology we know they have.
    Tech, sure.
    Mindset?
    Total failure.
    1. Have a stargate on board a capital ship. That way they can easily resupply or change out crew on the go. As shown in SGU, stargates can be specifically keyed to another stargate no matter where it is. Thus the ship would have a solid supply line and can't be accessed from another gate.
    Except, you can only have one gate per system as one takes over as the "master"gate. You COULD change the coding to have a capital ship immediately take over as the master gate, but it will block any use of the local gate for evacuation or any other purpose. SGU showed an ever expanding map of stargates, not repeats of a "local" network, so they are not really the same.
    2. Repair bots. If it's going to be on the front lines you'd think it would have these. You see them in SGU as they were repairing Destiny on the fly. I'd think after a couple million years this technology would have advanced and be possible for their capital warships.
    The problem with this is, how much of the sheer "practical" tech of the Destiny still exists in the later stages of the ancients evolution? Let's face it, Ark of Truth showed that the Ancients COULD have destroyed the Ori even before they left, or even felt they had to leave their home galaxy, but it was a MORAL choice that made them not use it and escape to the MW instead. In many ways, the Ancients are very much the embodiment of "just because I can does not mean I should" view of thinking.
    3. Solar power. As seen in SGU, they possessed technology to harvest energy from a star. I'd like to think they could have figured out some clever way to use it to have 'infinite' energy when engaging the Wraith near human worlds.
    Assuming that the tech of the Destiny was still in use, or even known millions of years later. SG-1 and SGA NEVER showed such a tech existed in the, umm "modern" version of the Ancients. This is the issue with creating "better" tech in a "older" universe. This is the problem with going backwards but having better tech, even more with a bad story explanation. The Destiny was supposed to be launched long before the existence of stargates, yet a main part of the story is the seeding of stargates.
    It's an inherent continuity screw up.
    4. 'Infinite' energy. Combining point 1 and 3 while using the Asurans satellite idea. Powered by a star and using a trick with the stargates then as noted 'infinite' energy for their weapons and shields.
    Are you sure you are talking about the Asurans?
    They are the Pegasus version of the replicators, not the Asgard.
    Stargates cannot supply "infinite energy". Yes they could provide a stupidly large amount of energy, but it is timed to an abilty for the gates to supply and manage that power.
    5. The Asurans as logistics. They may not have been the ideal weapon but they could have been the perfect logistics team. As mentioned by many and even written in many fics, they build really fast. So if they needed to get ships up and rolling or needed repairs to a current ship they could have easily done so.
    Now that's a fair argument, but what ancient built computer and attached "replicator/ 3D printer" could not to the same thing without enslaving a "race" to do what the ancients were not willing, or now incapable of doing?
    Once more, we are going in to the philosophy of the ancients, not just what they are capable of doing.
    There might be other ideas or technology, but these were some of the ideas I had in which the Ancients could have had an unsinkable ship that the Wraith couldn't contend with no matter how many hives or darts they threw at it. Just my thoughts anyways.
    I think your real issue is not the tech, but what they would morally allow.
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      #3
      Originally posted by Gatefan1976 View Post
      I would argue that the Atlantis crew really did not have that much "success" due to a military mindset, but a combination of military and diplomatic power. For all of the ancients advancement, much like the Asgard, they simply did not play well with others.

      Tech, sure.
      Mindset?
      Total failure.

      Except, you can only have one gate per system as one takes over as the "master"gate. You COULD change the coding to have a capital ship immediately take over as the master gate, but it will block any use of the local gate for evacuation or any other purpose. SGU showed an ever expanding map of stargates, not repeats of a "local" network, so they are not really the same.

      The problem with this is, how much of the sheer "practical" tech of the Destiny still exists in the later stages of the ancients evolution? Let's face it, Ark of Truth showed that the Ancients COULD have destroyed the Ori even before they left, or even felt they had to leave their home galaxy, but it was a MORAL choice that made them not use it and escape to the MW instead. In many ways, the Ancients are very much the embodiment of "just because I can does not mean I should" view of thinking.

      Assuming that the tech of the Destiny was still in use, or even known millions of years later. SG-1 and SGA NEVER showed such a tech existed in the, umm "modern" version of the Ancients. This is the issue with creating "better" tech in a "older" universe. This is the problem with going backwards but having better tech, even more with a bad story explanation. The Destiny was supposed to be launched long before the existence of stargates, yet a main part of the story is the seeding of stargates.
      It's an inherent continuity screw up.

      Are you sure you are talking about the Asurans?
      They are the Pegasus version of the replicators, not the Asgard.
      Stargates cannot supply "infinite energy". Yes they could provide a stupidly large amount of energy, but it is timed to an abilty for the gates to supply and manage that power.

      Now that's a fair argument, but what ancient built computer and attached "replicator/ 3D printer" could not to the same thing without enslaving a "race" to do what the ancients were not willing, or now incapable of doing?
      Once more, we are going in to the philosophy of the ancients, not just what they are capable of doing.

      I think your real issue is not the tech, but what they would morally allow.
      1. As shown by Baal, a gate can make 'multiple calls'. So supposedly one gate can call all those corresponding ships at once. Though true it would probably lock up a gate near a planet needing an evacuation.

      2. I thought it was more of a worry that they couldn't win with their technology as they were few while the Ori were many. The use of the Ark of Truth would violate what they believed in.

      3. You don't just abandon older technology. You build on top of it or further develop it when it has purpose again. But then it's extremely debatable when it concerns the Ancients mindset. But the idea of the stargate came before the Destiny project as a minor easter egg in the Ark of Truth film. So the continuity should still be intact.

      4. It was season 3 finale of SGA 'First Strike'. The Apollo nuked several Asuran warships. Thus the Asurans in retaliation sent a weapons satellite which consisted of a stripped down hyper drive, shield generator, and stargate right to Atlantis and fired a concentrated beam at it. It was noted by Mckay in the same episode that so long as energy was being shot through the gate it would remain indefinitely opened. Also noted in the season 6 episode of SG-1 'Redemption' that so long as direct power was being applied the 38 minute time limit didn't matter. Thus my idea about the 'infinite' energy combining the multiple gate calls and solar collectors it could've been done.

      5. Fair enough I suppose.

      6. There views on morals is kind of questionable. Like the Asurans who gained sentience and begged the Ancients to remove the aggression from their programs only to refuse and then proceed to glass their world when they deemed them a failure. Even the beginnings of the Wraith species when they were kept as lab rats and were to be terminated only for them to escape. What was with that social construct episode in SGA 5x13 with Mckay and Sheppard? Why would the Ancients make a device to control the upbringing of a civilization? These cases kind of contradict there whole talk of free will. Hence why the Ancients lost was pretty much due to plot induced stupidity.

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        #4
        Building ships that could use the energy of a sun to recharge would indeed have been a big help. I get the impression that it would give them more of a boost than a battleship's standard power sources, so they could have been more effective against the Wraith. Plus, the Wraith can't figure out how to integrate that technology if they capture an Ancient ship as their organic ships cannot survive such close proximity to a star, so it's less dangerous if the Wraith capture one of those ships than if they capture one with a ZPM aboard.

        Regarding placing a gate on the ship: If the Ancients can get to hyperspace, they can pretty easily make it to a nearby Stargate and ask for replacement drones. Having the ability to restock in battle may not help them very much unless they are using a ZPM to augment their shield strength as I suspect that those battleships have a large enough drone supply that their shields are likely to fail before they run out, so a steady supply line is not going to keep them in a single space battle longer. After all, the Orion was in bad shape when the Ancients abandoned it and it still had enough drones to significantly resupply Atlantis and go into battle.

        Is it then worth the risk? Yes, they can lock out all but one address, but is that something the Wraith can't get through? Janus successfully used that trick to keep Atlantis safe for 10,000 years, but the Wraith didn't know Atlantis survived, so they didn't have a reason to persistently try to get through. After seeing them crack Mckay's gate bridge and knowing how successful their viruses can be, I have some concerns. Particularly given that we know from "Stargate Universe" that all you really have to do is know what the incoming gate address is supposed to be. If you're hacked into the DHD, you can then fool it into thinking you're dialing from there.

        A more pressing concern is that the Ancients were resource strapped toward the end of the war, quite possibly because the Wraith targeted their production capabilities, so it seemed that at some point there were no more factories to produce more drones to resupply ships with. This also happens to be what made the Wraith capable of beating the Ancients. They could grow ships on hundreds, possibly even thousands of worlds at once with nothing more than a power source on hand, while the Ancients needed shipyards and mines that took time to construct. If you destroy an Ancient shipyard, you're not only obliterating perhaps dozens of in-production ships that will take weeks to months to rebuild, you're eliminating all the infrastructure that existed to construct those ships, thus setting the Ancients back even further. The same applies if they lose a ZPM or drone factory. Meanwhile, if the Ancients found a Wraith growing ship site, it's next to meaningless because the Wraith would maybe lose one or two ships and they can easily send power sources through the Stargate to a new site to start growing more on other worlds.

        The Wraith won because they could keep sending endless waves against the Ancients, while slowly eating away at their production capabilities. A better designed Ancient warship won't help with that. At the least, what they needed to do was either find a way to safeguard their production capabilities or make them as dynamic as the Wraith's. Also working out a way to effectively target the Wraith's production and having the ability to replenish their numbers as quickly is also important. The Asurans could have helped a little there, but do you really want highly intelligent, self-aware machines who think they should be considered your equals reduced to building ships and serving as fodder? That seems a recipe for disaster, and I don't know that they would have sped up production all that much.

        According to "First Strike," it took months for the Asurans to build complete battleships. The Apollo took pictures of the areas the Asurans flattened in preparation to build them two months prior and then again three weeks prior when the ships were at some stage of production. The episode didn't make it seem like they were ready to go, just that they didn't have time to wait on the in-development anti-replicator satellite, so they may have had weeks yet before the Asurans were done. After starting over, it then took them half a season to have new ships ready to launch. I doubt the Ancients were building their ships by hand. If they were already using machines to construct their ships, using Asurans shouldn't have made it significantly faster. What it might do is make it easier to restart production after a shipyard had been bombed because the Asurans can reform, while simpler machines and robotics would need to be rebuilt from scratch. Assuming, of course, that the Asurans actually use their nanite bodies to build ships and don't also employ simple machines.

        Again, though, they're incredibly dangerous to have around. The Wraith stopped them with a virus after the Ancients left, but if the Ancients were still around, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they instead made the focus of the virus to turn the Asurans against the Ancients and it proved successful. I also don't know if it's possible to protect humans from the Asurans. The Ancients were able to protect themselves by having the Asurans acknowledge their ATA gene, but they never did the same with humans. As hybrids, the Wraith are genetically similar to the humans, so that may have been part of the problem, but I think it's more likely that the true issue is that you can't have the Asurans target the Wraith without them also being okay with killing humans since the Wraith keep humans onboard their ships for food. If they're programmed to not attack anyone and just serve as slave labor for ship production, that's no longer a problem, but then you're keeping intelligent beings as slave labor and trusting that the shackles you created for them never break.
        Why would the Ancients make a device to control the upbringing of a civilization? These cases kind of contradict there whole talk of free will.
        Their talk of free will was in relation to the power disparity between ascended beings and corporal lifeforms. They never said they subscribed to staying out of human affairs prior to their ascension and, in fact, they are fine with descended Ancients interacting with humans as much as they like. They don't want them to do so with the knowledge they gained while ascended, but they also don't stop someone from using ascended knowledge if they managed to hold on it when they returned to a physical state.

        Regarding "The Game," the Ancients were experimenting with ways to rapidly advance human civilizations. I suspect the reason was perhaps because they knew their time on this plane was short and were trying to prepare humans to become their successors, but they also helped humans on Earth develop civilization after fleeing Atlantis.
        Last edited by Xaeden; 29 April 2021, 07:55 PM.

        Comment


          #5
          I'm under the impression that Ancient shield technology is almost next to impenetrable so long as the power source is uninterrupted. Only reason such as Asgard beams weapons would work is because they were more or less designed to punch right through it. Thus so long as the energy demands are met, the shields will never fall. Thus why Wraith used swarm tactics to overwhelm the energy requirements of their shields. In the case of ZPM powered ships, I'm under impression they were surprise attacked while there shields were down. As explained by Todd, they were entering their territory and the Ancients were too overconfident in their technology.

          But as smart and impressive as Mckay is, I don't believe him to be on par with an Ancient who knows the ins and outs of stargates. So in terms of programing the gates, the Ancients should easily lock out possible Wraith hackers.

          Fair enough about the difference in shipyards between the Ancients and Wraith. But nothing can be definitely said about drones or ZPM. Up till now, no one still knows how they are made or the size of the facility needed to make them. For as many people thought, a city ship like Atlantis could possibly house such technology but the expedition hasn't discovered it yet or know how it works.

          There was no doubt about the Asurans potentially being a threat greater then the Wraith. The Asurans had already developed into a artificial super intelligence. If let off the leash and combined with Ancient knowledge they would have completely surpassed the Ancients in knowledge and technology. Just thinking that if they were like the Replicators of the Milky Way galaxy, the Wraith would have been beaten into the ground like it was nothing. More so is they ignored an inefficient bipedal form and adopted something with more utility (i.e Matrix franchise machines). But what I find frustrating about the Asurans was that even after 10,000 years after their creators left they had not taken a step beyond being better only choosing to emulate them trying to be recognized as their equal. The things they could have built and/or discovered in 10,000 years could have made the Ancient go green in envy.

          About the Asurans tactics, the Ancients could have just programmed them to only attack those with the Iratus bug gene. Even if they took human hostages, it could've been a matter of the Ancients creating scenarios about what to do in those events or having the Asurans create strategies to minimize human casualties. But yes, as noted by many debates and media, a fully autonomous A.S.I. is just way too dangerous to let loose.

          The free will talk was even before that. In the first scene in the Ark of Truth film when they were still in their home galaxy, a group of Ancients were talking about it as they respected free will too much to use the ark against the Ori. But when it comes to the rules of ascended beings, it makes me wonder if the Ancients and some humans are not the only ones up there. When Daniel was talking about it, they are only referred to as 'the others'. So there might be other beings up there too.

          In regards to 'The Game', then why have two different consoles and two different countries that can get different information? If it was a matter of leaving knowledge behind they could have done what they did in the Milky Way galaxy and just leave repositories just hap haphazardly lying around but more adapted to regular human physiology.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Rohan View Post
            that Ancient shield technology is almost next to impenetrable so long as the power source is uninterrupted.
            That's only been shown to be true for Atlantis. The Tria, Orion, and Traveler ship were battle damaged, yet had enough energy to limp away, so that does not appear to be true for their smaller ships. Atlantis can also maintain shields while in hyperspace, which is something no other ship has shown capable of, and damage cannot slip through their shields while they're up, which, at the least, is not true for Ancient battleships sans ZPMs. I would posit its larger size means the Ancients could install technology that they were not able to miniaturize for use elsewhere.

            From "Travelers:"

            NEVIK: They were attacked by the Wraith. They lost communication and the shields were failing. The engines were damaged as well but they managed to escape into hyperspace, then they realized that their main drive was giving off deadly radiation. They were forced to abandon ship.


            Their loss of communication and engine damage while their shields were failing (meaning, still up), suggests that their shields did not offer 100% protection to battle damage. Nevik also describes these systems separately; the shields were failing, but they still had enough energy to escape into hyperspace and for the Travelers to get the shields back up after beginning repairs. There was then this exchange...


            NEVIK: Shields are down.

            SILAS: Can't you re-route any more power?
            Nevik couldn't do so, but because this didn't mean that the ship was out of energy, Sheppard was shortly thereafter able to use the drones to destroy the Cruiser. Maybe it's a different case when ZPM power is applied to a shield, but it's not when 304s use ZPMs. That's not definitive, but it's the closest parallel we have since we've never seen a ZPM powered Ancient battleship in a fight.

            of ZPM powered ships, I'm under impression they were surprise attacked while there shields were down.
            What Todd said was that the Ancients believed their ships were "unbeatable," so they sent them deeper and deeper into Wraith space trying to "weed" out the Wraith. He went on to say that it took months, but they were finally able to capture 3 that were powered by ZPMs. To me, that sounds like they were captured in battle. For Todd to critique the Ancients for thinking their ships were unbeatable when what really happened was that the Ancients were caught with their shields down seems odd. That would mean the Ancients never learned from their initial mistake and were caught with their shields down on multiple occasions or a fleet of Ancient ships were sitting around without shields up while deep in Wraith territory and the Wraith somehow managed to capture 3 at once... even though the Wraith would've had seconds to perfectly disable both shields and weapons on multiple targets simultaneously.

            Todd's comment would make sense if the Wraith beat those ships with a virus, so it may not be that they actually drained those shields, but it seems farfetched that the Ancients simply didn't have their shields up while deep in Wraith territory and didn't react fast enough to stop the Wraith from taking multiple ships.

            But as smart and impressive as Mckay is, I don't believe him to be on par with an Ancient who knows the ins and outs of stargates. So in terms of programing the gates, the Ancients should easily lock out possible Wraith hackers.
            Yes, but the Wraith invented virus tech over 10k years ago for a reason, and one of their viruses did work on Ancient designed nanites to switch off their attack code. Also, 21st century humans cracked Ancient DHD tech on multiple occasions. They did so not only to bypass safety protocols, but to dial the Destiny from the Icarus base even though it was set to only accept a connection from Earth. That's what Janus did to protect Atlantis and presumably all they're capable of doing to lockout a hypothetical ship gate.

            If the Wraith figure out what point of origin a ship gate will accept, the Wraith should have no problem hacking into a DHD and tricking it to accept a foreign point of origin when dialing out.

            nothing can be definitely said about drones or ZPM. Up till now, no one still knows how they are made or the size of the facility needed to make them. For as many people thought, a city ship like Atlantis could possibly house such technology but the expedition hasn't discovered it yet or know how it works.
            There's much we don't know, but we do know they had a power deficiency problem toward the war's end. This was cited many times and explains the drilling platform, the "Inferno" outpost's reliance on geothermal power, the Arcturus Project, and why they sank the Atlantis after trying to defy the Wraith for years.

            This suggests either they couldn't make ZPMs as fast as they used them or they lost their ZPM factory or both. Atlantis was a research center with scientific facilities and residential space. Devoting more space to production facilities means diminishing their limited research and living areas and tying up the Stargate. The gate is a bottleneck. The best way to efficiency supply cities and outposts throughout the galaxy with an assortment of technologies is to ship them from an isolated production center.

            That's not a huge problem with ZPMs (although building them near pop. centers and hoping nothing ever goes wrong might not be a great idea) as they don't need to ship very many of them. For much everything else; Atlantis is a big city with a lot of people coming/going. They don't need to devote valuable gate time to shipping out drones, replacement parts, crystals, etc. In a time of crisis, when large, well fortified population centers are likely to serve as destinations for refugees, that's even more problematic. If you have multiple sites that badly need be resupplied with drones while people also need to use that gate, lives are going to be lost.

            That Atlantis didn't keep firing a steady supply of drones at the Wraith during the siege suggests a supply problem there, too. There's also the issue that no factory was ever found on Atlantis in the 5 years Earth was stationed there and Janus, who told Weir where she might be able to find ZPMs throughout the galaxy, never mentioned a ZPM factory.

            There was no doubt about the Asurans potentially being a threat greater then the Wraith. The Asurans had already developed into a artificial super intelligence. If let off the leash and combined with Ancient knowledge they would have completely surpassed the Ancients in knowledge and technology.
            Sure, but the bolded bit is concerning. The Asurans began as nanites that they hoped to be able to direct/control however they saw fit. Once the Asurans evolved into a highly intelligent life form, capable of surpassing the Ancients, they had the potential to became even a greater threat to the Ancients and humans than the Wraith were.

            the Ancients could have just programmed them to only attack those with the Iratus bug gene. Even if they took human hostages, it could've been a matter of the Ancients creating scenarios about what to do in those events or having the Asurans create strategies to minimize human casualties.
            Maybe, but Ancient sensors cannot distinguish between Wraith and human life signs, so I don't know that they can program nanites to do that. However, if so, the Wraith could have started injecting humans with Wraith genetics. If they created an aerosol and started deploying it on human worlds, that's a level beyond simply taking hostages.

            However, I'm more concerned with the Asurans going after humans and Ancients because someone tampers with their programming.

            In the first scene in the Ark of Truth film when they were still in their home galaxy, a group of Ancients were talking about it as they respected free will too much to use the ark against the Ori.
            That reference to free will was in the context of a brainwashing machine. Saying you're for free will because you're opposed to forcing people to think as you do is different than saying you're opposed to any kind of interference.

            The problem the ascended Ancients had was that their power was so great that they thought if they did interfere it would create a temptation to deprive lesser beings of free will by using them as the Ori did. Thus, they created a strict non-interference policy. This is different than the moral line that would have existed for non-ascended Ancients.

            In regards to 'The Game', then why have two different consoles and two different countries that can get different information?
            Why not? If it was indeed an experiment, seeing how different groups develop in proximity to one another would provide them with a lot of data. It could be that their goal was to use that data to efficiently elevate humans elsewhere.

            If it was a practical tool to help humans on a particular planet develop rapidly, the Ancients may have wanted to direct humans over a larger area than they could have with one device. McKay and Sheppard used it to pit those two groups against each other because they thought of it as a game, but the Ancients may have intended them to be used to direct both groups to develop concurrently. Having multiple Ancients feeding information to multiple devices is more efficient than one Ancient directing a growing population across an increasingly vast distance.

            It might just have been to help them get started, though:
            ZELENKA: Yes, yes. It is an amazing piece of technology. It appears to be a sociological experiment designed by the Ancients to help them as they were seeding various civilisations throughout Pegasus. I've had a chance to look at it further and it's interesting: there are many more civilisations in the game's database.

            WEIR: Really? I thought Rodney said there were only two.

            ZELENKA: That's what he thought. The actual countries that he and Colonel Sheppard are controlling are on this specific planet but I've been able to access the codes to unlock additional levels to the game ... (Elizabeth gives him a look) ... I mean, to the experiment. I discovered countries on planets throughout the galaxy. Some have been idle for the past ten thousand years -- I guess awaiting instructions from the Ancients -- but some have managed to develop on their own, even flourish. Some have been destroyed by war, and others have been completely wiped out.

            If it was a matter of leaving knowledge behind they could have done what they did in the Milky Way galaxy and just leave repositories just hap haphazardly lying around
            My argument wasn't that it was a means to leave information behind; it was that it may have been a way to train humans to become their successors (or, at least, been an early step toward that goal if it was meant to be abandoned once humans reached a certain level of technological development). Imagine if, instead of humans finding the remains of the Ancient's civilization thousands of years after the Ancients were gone, the Ancients were able to turn over the reigns of everything (knowledge, technology, etc.) to humans as the last of them were ascending.

            What happened in the Milky Way was a mess because creating a second evolution of their form was a desperate attempt to allow their species go on by a group of Ancients who were rapidly dying from a plague. The Pegasus Ancients, however, may have foresaw that their time on the physical plane would eventually be coming to an end and wanted to prepare for that eventuality by setting up humans to take their place until they too ascended tens of millions of years later.
            Last edited by Xaeden; 31 August 2020, 07:54 AM.

            Comment


              #7
              Fair enough about the Ancients shields.

              However you seen this case across the franchise with ship shields apparently being down. It's probably due to it being quite energy taxing to constantly keeping it on. But then it could also be extreme plot induced stupidity to why it happened in the first place.

              But the stargate network has been running without maintenance or repair for 10k years since the Ancients left. And it was designed to be pretty user friendly for younger races to be able to use to which it's probably why it's so easily hacked. But I'd imagine that if the Ancients were more hands on, the Wraith would not be able to override their administrator access.

              Also fair enough about energy generation. But this is a city ship were are talking about here that was designed as a mobile research outpost and possibly a colony vessel for new worlds. You'd think it would have the facilities necessary to be pretty self-sustaining in the event something happened such as being stranded or a gate malfunction.

              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
              If you have multiple sites that badly need be resupplied with drones while people also need to use that gate, lives are going to be lost.
              That's an good point. But I'd then question why not combine it with beaming technology? Things like radio signals can pass through the gate regardless on which side. I'd imagine a matter stream can do the same. So if it's mass transportation supposedly this should work.

              "Before I Sleep" is one of those episodes that bothered me with so many questions. If Janus was going to be so helpful, Weir should have squeezed him for more information like specific instructions on drones, ZPMs, or at least suitable replacements. More so, you'd think that outposts were mapped out somewhere or outposts were capable of finding other outposts.

              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
              but Ancient sensors cannot distinguish between Wraith and human life signs
              I'm not sure if this was a goof or not. But the first time they used the life signs detector in the "Rising" pilot episode, it could distinguish between humans and Wraith. So far from what we've seen, it does what it's supposed to do with seeing life signs with only counter measure being either not alive or in hibernation with the Wraith.

              But if the Wraith really could so easily hack the Asurans, they could have easily made them their slave race considering how much of a valuable resource they are. But at most all they did was turn off there attack program. If they viewed the Atlantis expedition as such a threat or wanted to dominate the other hives then they would have taken Asuras a long time ago. But then I'm also questioning the sophistication of their programming if Weir with will power alone was capable of stopping them.

              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
              the Ancients may have wanted to direct humans over a larger area than they could have with one device
              Does anyone really know the Ancients policy when it comes to younger civilizations? Like in the episode "The Return", that's the only real reference we have in regards to sharing knowledge and technology.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Rohan View Post
                However you seen this case across the franchise with ship shields apparently being down. It's probably due to it being quite energy taxing to constantly keeping it on.
                Yeah, it happened to the Asurans in "Be All My Sins Remember'd." The Wraith, Earth, and Traveler fleet took the Asurans by surprise, so they didn't have their shields on. The Wraith managed to get some hits in before the Asurans could react, but if you slow down the speed you can see it didn't take long to do so. There was a moment where the camera follows some darts attacking the closest battleship and before they could make a complete pass, the shields came on. That's with no expectation that Earth would be able to attack them. Had they been in a more dangerous area they may have been on higher alert and thus reacted a few seconds sooner.

                Aware or not, it's still not a whole lot of time to perfectly disable three ships.

                I'd imagine that if the Ancients were more hands on, the Wraith would not be able to override their administrator access.
                Maybe, but there's not precedent for it. What we have seen of gate lockout measures is easily hackable and just because the Wraith are not the Ancients doesn't mean none of the technology can compete with Ancient tech. Their viruses and hacking skills appear to be very advanced, so I see no reason why, given time, they couldn't overcome an Ancient lockout. Again, they hacked the Asurans and protecting a single gate or even the whole gate network is less important than safeguarding Asuran programming, so if the Wraith could get through that, I'm disinclined to believe that the Ancients could have perfectly protected anything from Wraith viruses. It may have taken them a good long while, but I think it's possible.

                What I would do in terms of safeguarding gates on ships is to "bury" them. On the wall, build a capstone that perfectly fits into the Stargate, then build a track that moves the Stargate onto and off it. When dialing out or having someone dial in, the Stargate can be moved away from the wall. For dialing in, this should be coordinated either via subspace or, if there's a problem with that, by dialing out first. Just in case a foe is always dialing that address as quickly as possible in the hopes of beating them to the punch, a shield and/or lockout program can be added for extra protection.

                I don't know that this is particularly useful for the Ancients for the reasons cited previously, but before Earth had beaming technology, this would have been a game changer for them as they could have brought in their complement of jumpers to fire drones at a Wraith ship from the safety of a 304's bay and then returned to Atlantis to wait for their next assignment. It's a low risk, high reward situation.

                this is a city ship were are talking about here that was designed as a mobile research outpost and possibly a colony vessel for new worlds. You'd think it would have the facilities necessary to be pretty self-sustaining in the event something happened such as being stranded or a gate malfunction.
                I don't think that's true. I think the Ancients knew their civilization would span tens of millions of years and, in that time, environmental conditions on planets (and war) would create change, so they designed their cities to be moveable when conditions necessitated relocating them. I think they also wanted to disperse their population throughout the galaxy with cities and outposts centered around a planet's Stargate. Since they weren't, it seems, in the business of settling entire planets, it's more efficient to have a central production center that pumps out these cities and sends them off to a particular planet than to bring all the machinery and resources needed to build one to each planet one by one.

                The genius of the gate network is that not only could it link all these populations together so closely, but it could link together all manner of industry. The Ancients didn't need to build every service and function into every facility. Instead, they could create specialized facilities that were connected by the gate network. Nothing is days, weeks, months, or years away; it's all seconds away.

                Could the gate malfunction? Not on its own, it seems; the things have been in service for tens of millions of years and were built so well that they continue to function on their own millions of more years after Ancients died of the plague. Something would have to act upon one to cause a problem, like an enemy or an operator's own incompetence. The latter is unlikely to happen to the Ancients (although the Attero device did have an unexpected side effect), and no attack on a gate that we've seen thus far is indicative of an issue that the Ancients couldn't have solved rather easily.

                If something did happen, an Ancient ship could reach them in days, at most, and resolve whatever problem they have rather quickly (prior to the Wraith using overwhelming numbers to converge on a single location). That's too short a period to need more ZPMs (they can keep the shield running for years while under fire) or drones and quite possibly too short a span to build them in.

                I'd then question why not combine it with beaming technology? Things like radio signals can pass through the gate regardless on which side. I'd imagine a matter stream can do the same. So if it's mass transportation supposedly this should work.
                I don't know that the rings were capable of doing that or whether obelisk tech was created by Merlin or an earlier population of Ancients, so they may not have been able to. Also, while that would speed up transport, it doesn't solve the problem of there being only so much they can do at once. Even if they dial multiple gates simultaneously and are able to transport things to/from all those gates en mass, they still need to pack things around transporter technology and move it away. If you have refugees coming in from one world, specialists/soldiers you need to send to another, and drones that have to go to several different sites because the Wraith mobilized a large offensive against multiple targets, there's still a bottleneck.

                "Before I Sleep" is one of those episodes that bothered me with so many questions. If Janus was going to be so helpful, Weir should have squeezed him for more information like specific instructions on drones, ZPMs, or at least suitable replacements. More so, you'd think that outposts were mapped out somewhere or outposts were capable of finding other outposts.
                I assume Janus gave Weir the locations of outposts that he knew to be equipped with ZPMs, but they were later destroyed and only two ZPMs remained on those worlds. The only surviving outposts that the expedition found in their entire 5 years in Pegasus was one that used an experimental form of energy as power and another that used geothermal energy.

                Outside of the 2 ZPMs from Janus' list and the 3 initially powering Atlantis, they only encountered 6 Ancient built ZPMs in Pegasus, as I recall. One was depleted and in the hands of the Genii, one was on the Tria (for all we know, they could have taken that from one of the addresses on Janus' list), one was in the sanctuary from "Epiphany" and likely moved there by Ancients who stayed behind after the others fled to Earth, and three were in the sister ship from "The Tower." Presumably, Janus thought that city was destroyed. So while he didn't tell them about every outpost and piece of Ancient tech in the galaxy at the time, there's nothing to indicate that he held back any knowledge about surviving ZPMs.

                I'm not sure if this was a goof or not. But the first time they used the life signs detector in the "Rising" pilot episode, it could distinguish between humans and Wraith. So far from what we've seen, it does what it's supposed to do with seeing life signs with only counter measure being either not alive or in hibernation with the Wraith.
                Yeah... https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/di..._display_media Later they're all shown as blue dots.

                It could be a case of the prop department not knowing that the writers didn't intend for it to be able to distinguish between different species or the writers not having figured that out yet. I don't know; they do clarify later, though, that it can't, so it's either a retcon or a goof.

                But if the Wraith really could so easily hack the Asurans, they could have easily made them their slave race considering how much of a valuable resource they are. But at most all they did was turn off there attack program. If they viewed the Atlantis expedition as such a threat or wanted to dominate the other hives then they would have taken Asuras a long time ago. But then I'm also questioning the sophistication of their programming if Weir with will power alone was capable of stopping them.
                I wouldn't say it was easy. They spent months trying to get the deactivation virus to work again and, even with Earth's help, needed more time to make it work. For all we know, it may have taken them months or even years to successfully create it in the first place.

                A deactivation command may have been the easiest thing to do, so they prioritized that. The Ancients could have reactivated it, so if they used Asurans as weapons the Wraith may have spent more time developing a more complicated virus that turned them against the Ancients and forced the Ancients to spend time trying to hack a Wraith lockout.

                I don't know that the Wraith knew where the Asurans went after the attack code was deactivated, so they may not have had an opportunity to try to tamper with Asuran programming further. I also don't know if they had any enemies that needed killing at that time. They were united against the Ancients and may have continued to be until their food source became scarce. I'm not sure when that would have happened, but if the Asurans attacked them soon after the Ancients left and spent a months or years long campaign thinning Wraith numbers, humans may have continued to be plentiful until after the Asurans returned home.

                The same applies to using the Asurans against the Atlantis expedition; I don't know that the Wraith knew the location of Asuras before Todd brought a fleet of Hives to help destroy it.

                Does anyone really know the Ancients policy when it comes to younger civilizations? Like in the episode "The Return", that's the only real reference we have in regards to sharing knowledge and technology.
                Not entirely, but we do know they didn't have the same broad non-interference policy that ascended Ancients had and we know they were okay with the idea of humans taking over their technology. In "The Return," the Ancients, at the least, led Woolsey to believe there was a path for Earth to return to Atlantis...
                WOOLSEY: They are willing, over time, to let us back in the city...


                And Janus wasn't the only one okay with the idea of humans claiming Atlantis. Melia indicated that she wanted that to happen, but was concerned that time travel may have altered humans finding Atlantis...
                JANUS: Ten thousand years from now. (He smiles.) It should be noted that our actions have succeeded in protecting the city for so many years.

                MELIA: Let us hope Doctor Weir's arrival has not altered this eventuality. By directly encountering the Wraith, she may have already set in motion a chain of events that could lead to a future far different from the one she left.


                Moros, meanwhile, was only grumpy about the existence of time travel technology; he never said a word in opposition to humans arriving on Atlantis, nor did he do anything to lock them out.
                Last edited by Xaeden; 15 March 2024, 01:47 AM.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  Yeah, it happened to the Asurans in "Be All My Sins Remember'd."
                  It also happened in SGU 'Air' when the Lucian Alliance attacked Icarus base and damaged the USS Hammond. I can understand the Asurans being less wary as they are on their home turf with lots of other ships and ground defense platforms. But what excuse did the Tauri have to not always be combat ready? They didn't have any good defense platforms, 1 ship, and a very sensitive planet that could go nuclear. At that time the USS Hammond should always have their shields up.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  Maybe, but there's not precedent for it. What we have seen of gate lockout measures is easily hackable and just because the Wraith are not the Ancients doesn't mean none of the technology can compete with Ancient tech.
                  Probably pointing back to the case of what Todd said about the arrogance of the Ancients thinking their technology was untouchable. In the case of the Asurans, I'm not even sure turning off their attack program was that difficult as noted by Rodney in the episode 'Progeny' when he easily found a way to remove the aggression program with a flip of a switch.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  What I would do in terms of safeguarding gates on ships is to "bury" them. On the wall, build a capstone that perfectly fits into the Stargate, then build a track that moves the Stargate onto and off it. When dialing out or having someone dial out, the Stargate can be moved away from the wall. For dialing in, this should be coordinated either via subspace or, if there's a problem with that, by dialing out first. Just in case a foe is always dialing that address as quickly as possible in the hopes of beating them to the punch, a shield and/or lockout program can be added for extra protection.
                  Now that is a great idea. Low tech and very effective. But knowing an Ancient, they would probably try to over complicate it.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  The genius of the gate network is that not only could it link all these populations together so closely, but it could link together all manner of industry. The Ancients didn't need to build every service and function into every facility. Instead, they could create specialized facilities that were connected by the gate network. Nothing is days, weeks, months, or years away; it's all seconds away.
                  But as you pointed out, it's also a bottleneck. If it is an ever expanding population it also increases the necessity of a larger logistics with resources and energy requirements. Being a race of scientists, researchers, and explorers they are going to be burning through resources quite a bit which becomes more apparent as the population grows and they were spread throughout the galaxy and maybe more. But then we don't know much about how their industry works with how big their facilities are, how much of it is automated, or even locations.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  So while he didn't tell them about every outpost and piece of Ancient tech in the galaxy at the time, there's nothing to indicate that he held back any knowledge about surviving ZPMs.
                  But my problem is that Janus could has easily sectioned off a part of the Ancients database concerning specific data in the construction of ZPMs or drone weapons. As noted by Thor in 'New Order', the Ancients library is massive as the Asgard have been studying it for presumably decades to centuries to which he admitted that although they learned much they too have barely scratched the surface. Hence why it took O'Neill with a conscious mind to sort out what they needed in order to build the anti-replicator weapon.

                  So even after 5 years with the database, I highly doubt the Tauri are any closer to understanding the construction method of ZPMs or drones.

                  Now to be fair, this was the beginning of the Atlantis expedition and thus Janus would not have known anything about the future challenges they would face. But he did know that energy requirements would be a problem going forward when he helped save the future expedition. So the construction data on ZPMs would have been more helpful rather then finding outposts in which no one could possibly guess their states after 10k years. Yes, Ancients built their stuff to last. But things do happen.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  I don't know that the Wraith knew where the Asurans went after the attack code was deactivated, so they may not have had an opportunity to try to tamper with Asuran programming further. I also don't know if they had any enemies that needed killing at that time. They were united against the Ancients and may have continued to be until their food source became scarce. I'm not sure when that would have happened, but if the Asurans attacked them soon after the Ancients left and spent a months or years long campaign thinning Wraith numbers, humans may have continued to be plentiful until after the Asurans returned home.
                  Fair enough. We know that the Wraith turned them off. However it probably happened after the Ancients left as the timeline here gets a little iffy. But this is what we know for certain. From beginning to end we know the war was about 100 years. The flashback by Niam showed the Ancients leveling Asuras. Asurans before Rodney messed with their program were hard-coded to never harm their makers. Finally, the Wraith only turned off their attack program. Now with the time line of events, I can only imagine the Wraith turning the Asurans attack program off after the Ancients left. If Rodeny could easily turn it back on then I'd imagine the Ancients would be able too.

                  Not unless the Ancient were worried about how susceptible their program was and that was the real reason to why they had to destroy Asuras.

                  But anything Ancient related, the Wraith were very thorough in destroying all their technology as it was the only thing that could compete against them. So I'd imagine they would have known about Asuras. But probably for the same reason like the Ancients had trouble keeping them down and probably decided to just leave them alone if they left them alone.

                  Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                  And Janus wasn't the only one okay with the idea of humans claiming Atlantis. Melia indicated that she wanted that to happen, but was concerned that time travel may have altered humans finding Atlantis
                  But that same episode was to the contrary. They may have seemed fine with them claiming Atlantis. But they didn't do much to help the future expedition to preserve it. Only Janus helped to make sure Atlantis would survive. They could have also helped by leaving behind instructions with powering the city. But as you noted, they probably couldn't leave any fresh ZPMs in stock due to the destruction of their industry. But at the very least leave behind detailed instructions with things they would need for the city to continue on after hearing Weir's story.

                  Not unless their reason for not doing more was because of the time line that Atlantis was destroyed in 10k years and are just going to let in happen because of the idea of fixed points in time. But then that can't be the case either as Melia offered to lock out Earth's gate from dialing Atlantis. So there only issue was traveling through time and not changing events.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Rohan View Post
                    It also happened in SGU 'Air' when the Lucian Alliance attacked Icarus base and damaged the USS Hammond.
                    Are you sure about that? I can't watch the episode at the moment to check, but as I recall, we only ever saw weapons fire hitting the Hammond's shield and there's nothing in the dialogue indicating otherwise. You can scroll through the screengrabs of the battle here:

                    https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/th...um=889&page=27

                    This is the first instance of weapons fire hitting the Hammond:

                    https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/di...638&fullsize=1

                    This isn't definitive, as there are gaps in the screengrabs, but it's the best I can do to fact check this at the moment.

                    I'm not even sure turning off their attack program was that difficult as noted by Rodney in the episode 'Progeny' when he easily found a way to remove the aggression program with a flip of a switch.
                    Rodney was given access:
                    SHEPPARD: Niam gave you access to the program code, and you're screwing around with it.



                    The problem isn't changing the code, it's gaining access by hacking your way through Ancient security measures.

                    Later, in "Lifeline," Rodney gained backdoor access by using Elizabeth's connection to the collective and was able to activate their Wraith kill command. However, once that access point was severed, he was never able to get back into the system even though he spent months collaborating with Todd to try to get the Wraith virus to work:
                    McKAY: Ellis is gonna love this. I don't get it. We tried re-configuring your stand-down code; we tried programming the nanites to turn themselves off. Something should've worked.

                    WRAITH: They are a very complex and ingenious design.

                    McKAY: Yeah, well, I thought I was ingeniouser.



                    But my problem is that Janus could has easily sectioned off a part of the Ancients database concerning specific data in the construction of ZPMs or drone weapons.
                    I think the problem is less finding the data and more understanding it. The Ancient database would be filled with mathematics and terminology that would would be very difficult for a third-party to understand. Especially if they're much less advanced. In "Tao of Rodney," McKay invented a whole new math in his mentally advanced state that he couldn't understand once he returned to normal. However, before that happened, he was able to figure out how to maximize Z.P.M. power, miniaturize a hyperspace engine for use in a jumper, etc. In O'neill's case, the repositories similarly evolved him mentally, but they also provided him with a framework to understand what's in the database.

                    In "The Siege, Part 1," Weir stated that they were able to choose between the data they were able to save:
                    WEIR: How do I choose between Zero Point Module research and their work on ascension? Between weapons schematics and their notes on space travel? No matter what we choose here, invaluable information's gonna be lost, and that is just the information that we've deciphered. Now we all know we have barely even begun to scratch the surface. What if we destroy the cure for all disease, or even some piece of information that could lead to the downfall of the Wraith?



                    Earth's problem, and likely the Asgard's to a lesser extent, is that they simply do not understand all the information available to them in the database. It's like giving technical information related to building a car to the greatest thinkers in Ancient Greece. Those are not step-by-step tutorials that explain the whole process in the simplest possible terms. Rather, they're written with the assumption that you have a baseline understanding of the mathematics and terms used. And even with that, all it's going to tell you is how to put together parts that have already been constructed.

                    Just creating the wiring is an incredibly complex endeavor for anyone attempting to do so from scratch. We're able to do that because we have the infrastructure for it, so the how basically amounts to putting metal through a machine and then having another machine coat it in rubber. For the Ancient Greeks to do the same, first they have to understand how to build that machine, which itself requires an understanding of other machines that build the components of the the first machine.

                    Look at how long it takes countries to successfully develop their own nuclear weapon programs. Many have gotten help from foreign scientists and/or gained access to foreign data, but developing the infrastructure necessary to do what the United States accomplished in the 1940s is still a very long and grueling process.

                    To replicate a ZPM, you not only better understand the math behind doing so, lest you end up blowing up an entire planet, but you need complex machinery and infrastructure. Creating an artificial pocket of subspace time requires a machine, the components of a ZPM that taps into that pocket and directs it safely requires at least one machine, possibly more, to construct, and then there's the equipment needed to create the ZPM's crystal shell. All of these machines are going to be incredibly complex, and they will require other machines to build those machines and other machines still to build the second tier of machines.

                    Having access to raw data is a very small part of the equation. They could cut a lot of corners with the help Asgard technology, but even that requires they understand exactly what they're directing the Asgard core to replicate and they simply don't. They're not advanced enough mentally to be able to properly grasp all facets of Ancient science, and they don't understand the "language" behind Ancient data.

                    We know that the Wraith turned them off. However it probably happened after the Ancients left as the timeline here gets a little iffy.
                    They definitely attacked them after the Ancients left...

                    WRAITH: Many thousands of years ago. We had defeated the Ancients -- the galaxy was ours, and then these things appeared.



                    What's not clear is how long they waited to attack the Wraith after the Ancient's returned to Earth. "And then," in the context of something that happened 10,000 years ago, is could it happend a year after or a hundred years after.

                    If Rodeny could easily turn it back on then I'd imagine the Ancients would be able too.
                    I'm sure they could reactive their Wraith attack command as well. What I was trying to say was that if the Ancients used the Asurans as a weapon before they left (which they did not), then knowing that the Ancients could simply reactivate that attack code would have necessitated a different strategy on the part of the Wraith. Specifically, it would've meant they had to try to employ a more complicated virus that would not just alter Asuran programming, but also lock the Ancients out so they couldn't make changes without hacking their way through the Wraith's block. And since the Ancients are still around, in this hypothetical, the Wraith would be motivated to try to reprogram the Asurans to attack the Ancients, rather than to just shutoff their Wraith attack code. Depending on how weak the Ancients were at the time, they may not have the ability to get around the lockout before overwhelmed by the Asurans.

                    the Wraith were very thorough in destroying all their technology as it was the only thing that could compete against them. So I'd imagine they would have known about Asuras.
                    The Wraith left a lot of Ancient technology behind simply because it wasn't worth the effort to bother with. They could have come down on the Ancient city from "The Tower" in force, but it wasn't worth it to them to lose the number of ships they would have had to in order to claim a few villages worth of people or destroy the technology for good. They get aggressive when someone has the ability to actively attack, as the Satedeans tried to do, but when the threat is a passive one, they mostly leave it alone. Some Wraith will test those defenses from time to time, but failure doesn't prompt the Wraith to rally an attack.

                    That, though, is different than the issue of Asuras. I do think they would seek to finish off the Asurans if they could, which is part of why I'm not so sure the Wraith ever knew where they came from. The other part is that I don't see how the Wraith could learn about the location of Asuras. The Wraith can't track enemy ships, the Ancients didn't include information about their nanite experiments on that planet in their database, the replicators can't be captured and made to be told where they're from, and there's nothing to indicate that their virus (or a separate virus) relayed information back to them.

                    Only Janus helped to make sure Atlantis would survive. ... But at the very least leave behind detailed instructions with things they would need for the city to continue on after hearing Weir's story.
                    Janus was the only one to help because he was the only one okay with time travel being used to manipulate the timeline. The council refused to do anything, not because they were entirely unsympathetic to the plight of the expedition or because they were against the idea of humans taking over the city, but because they were trying to limit her impact on a future they believed they had no right to know about, let alone change.

                    To the council: If Atlantis was meant to be found by humans and saved from destruction before it ran of power, so be it. The same applies if the city was meant to be found by humans and destroyed shortly after their arrival or if it was meant to be discovered by the Wraith and used as a means to conquer the Milky Way. This doesn't mean they don't have a preference between these possibilities. It just means that they don't believe they have a right to use technology to try to change the timeline in any way. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been trying to help ensure the city survived when the expedition survived; they would have been trying to use the jumper to stop the Wraith so that their people didn't have to flee.

                    There's no way to know what the consequences of trying to avoid a specific event would be. Helping Weir save the city could have led to it being captured by the Wraith and used to reach the Milky Way for all they knew.

                    Melia offered to lock out Earth's gate from dialing Atlantis. So there only issue was traveling through time and not changing events.
                    Mind you, there's nuance involved. Moros was the strongest in favor of limiting the fallout from Weir being in the past. He was willing to bring Weir back to Earth with them, which would have impacted the timeline further, but he really had no choice other than to kill her or to try to repair the time machine and use it to send her back. Melia was the bridge between Janus and Moros; like Moros she was concerned about the impact Weir's presence had on the timeline ("Let us hope Doctor Weir's arrival has not altered this eventuality. By directly encountering the Wraith, she may have already set in motion a chain of events that could lead to a future far different from the one she left."), but she was also sympathetic to Weir's plight and offered to block the Stargate. Right after she refused, Janus gave a little speech to try to convince her they should do more to help, and Melia paused, looked like she was torn, and then said the council's decision was final.

                    There's nothing to indicate Moros or the council at large would have agreed to blocking the Stargate.
                    Last edited by Xaeden; 26 December 2023, 05:35 AM.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      we only ever saw weapons fire hitting the Hammond's shield and there's nothing in the dialogue indicating otherwise.
                      This point was heavily discussed before. What we see first, their shields were up. Then we get a pan view of the USS Hammond fighting only three Hatak ships with it's fleet of death gliders as the gliders were more focused on the planet then them. The Asgard beam weapon should have easily sunk all three ships no problem. Even if the Hatak ships were upgraded to some degree, the results should not have been different. The only reason anyone can make out of it was that their weapon systems were knocked out because their shields were down at first.

                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      The problem isn't changing the code, it's gaining access by hacking your way through Ancient security measures.
                      Alright, fair enough.

                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      Weir stated that they were able to choose between the data they were able to save
                      I rewatched that portion of the episode and it came off as desperate exasperation rather then literal notes. They needed to make sure the Wraith could never make it to Earth either by stargate or reverse engineering a intergalatic hyper space engine. Thus they needed to destroy Atlantis thoroughly including it's database. Skipping a bit of context, with the hard drives they brought with them they would only be able to save at most 9% of the Ancients database. Weir was just noting to Zelenka the importance of what they could potentially be losing as it was quite a lot.

                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      Having access to raw data is a very small part of the equation. They could cut a lot of corners with the help Asgard technology, but even that requires they understand exactly what they're directing the Asgard core to replicate and they simply don't. They're not advanced enough mentally to be able to properly grasp all facets of Ancient science, and they don't understand the "language" behind Ancient data.
                      How ZPMs are made are still a complete mystery as no one knows the materials, methods, or facilities that need to go into it. Yes the Asgard core can easily make short cuts to lessen the time frame to create the necessary infrastructure. It was designed to be very user friendly after all. But ZPM technology might be in the grasp of the Asgard as the core itself seemed to have used power similar to it. Just a matter of asking one of the personalities on file to explain how it's power source was built. But then again in the episode of 'Small Victory' and 'Unending', like you noted, different terminologies and understandings might make that a little difficult.

                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      There's no way to know what the consequences of trying to avoid a specific event would be. Helping Weir save the city could have led to it being captured by the Wraith and used to reach the Milky Way for all they knew.
                      Any time related technology is always a bad idea. Even O'neill knew that as he jokingly said so to Thor. In several theories and thought experiments, time travel is simply just a bad idea. But the experiment generally makes the point of not trying to change past events. Yet changing future ones is kind of a coin flip of what will happen. If the Ancients understood the connection with time and parallel universes, then they should have understood that altering the future really didn't matter. Seeing as they invented the quantum mirror, they know parallel realities exists. Thus their concerns about altering the future is borderline irrelevant. Even Oma makes note of it that in the end of it all, the only real choice we have is choosing between being good or evil.

                      Simply put, if they chose to help they would have just created a different branch in the timeline with the Atlantis expedition having better odds and being better prepared when they claimed the city. Hence it was no demerit to them.

                      Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                      Melia was the bridge between Janus and Moros; like Moros she was concerned about the impact Weir's presence had on the timeline
                      Based on the context of the argument, Janus was the 'first' successful case of developing temporal technology. Moros was opposed because of how new the technology was in not knowing what kind of ramifications it would have. Not to mention Janus was always a bit of an outcast among his peers due to his eccentric nature with inventing new/dangerous things. From some of the background information, it hasn't been the first time Janus had bumped heads with the council. Hence why not a lot of people would have been jumping in to side with him regardless of his good intentions.

                      But yeah, Melia was probably speaking for herself as the council might not have agreed to blocking off Earth's gate.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Rohan View Post
                        This point was heavily discussed before. What we see first, their shields were up. Then we get a pan view of the USS Hammond fighting only three Hatak ships with it's fleet of death gliders as the gliders were more focused on the planet then them. The Asgard beam weapon should have easily sunk all three ships no problem. Even if the Hatak ships were upgraded to some degree, the results should not have been different. The only reason anyone can make out of it was that their weapon systems were knocked out because their shields were down at first.
                        That's a possibility, but it could also be that they couldn't fire beam weapons and rail guns at the time same time and wanted to focus rail guns on the smaller craft because they could take the hits, they rushed the Hammond into service before its beam weapons could be installed (the super Hive did just disable the majority of their fleet), the writers made a purposeful effort to tone down F304s for Universe without providing an explanation (they also downplayed the age of the Ancients in this series and there's an episode of Atlantis where all of the sudden the Daedalus needed to drop its shields to beam people off a planet), the Lucian Alliance developed a defense to beam weapons off-screen, etc.

                        As there are a lot of possibilities, I'm disinclined to favor any particular one, and I think it would be a little weird for Carter to not report that they took some damage before they could raise shields when Young asked for a status report.

                        I rewatched that portion of the episode and it came off as desperate exasperation rather then literal notes. They needed to make sure the Wraith could never make it to Earth either by stargate or reverse engineering a intergalatic hyper space engine. Thus they needed to destroy Atlantis thoroughly including it's database. Skipping a bit of context, with the hard drives they brought with them they would only be able to save at most 9% of the Ancients database. Weir was just noting to Zelenka the importance of what they could potentially be losing as it was quite a lot.
                        She did use the word "choose" two separate times...
                        How do I choose between Zero Point Module research and their work on ascension? Between weapons schematics and their notes on space travel? No matter what we choose here, invaluable information's gonna be lost

                        And she provided specific examples. Your interpretation means that she completely misspoke. If she meant that they would just be backing up data randomly and had to accept that it could later turn out that they got information on ZPMs but not ascension, she could have said that.

                        But ZPM technology might be in the grasp of the Asgard as the core itself seemed to have used power similar to it.
                        I didn't get that impression at all. In previous instances, the Asgard were said to use neutrino-ion generators to power their ships. In "Unending," all Thor said was that the core was equipped with its own power source that would not interfere with their ZPM. We know Sam drained both the core's energy source and the ZPM to power the time dilation field, but there's nothing to indicate that they contributed even semi-equally to that effort. Also, that it gives off a unique energy signature suggests to me that it doesn't in fact use zero point energy.

                        Any time related technology is always a bad idea. Even O'neill knew that as he jokingly said so to Thor. In several theories and thought experiments, time travel is simply just a bad idea. But the experiment generally makes the point of not trying to change past events. Yet changing future ones is kind of a coin flip of what will happen. If the Ancients understood the connection with time and parallel universes, then they should have understood that altering the future really didn't matter.

                        ...

                        Thus their concerns about altering the future is borderline irrelevant. Even Oma makes note of it that in the end of it all, the only real choice we have is choosing between being good or evil.


                        Simply put, if they chose to help they would have just created a different branch in the timeline with the Atlantis expedition having better odds and being better prepared when they claimed the city. Hence it was no demerit to them.
                        That's a popular real world theory, but Stargate has always treated the situation as if time traveling to the past wipes out the events that have happened so far and forces them to reoccur insofar as they are able to with ripples made by the time traveler.

                        Hence, the Ancients are concerned about the ramifications of helping Weir change the future (Melia said that things might not happen just because Weir used the time machine) and nobody who has ever time traveled has tried to fix the problem by hopping back to the reality they've come from. In "Continuum," for example, Laundry was enraged at the idea that Sg-1 would suggest he let them time travel because he thought that meant the experiences of billions would be wiped out (along with an untold number of lives). Carter and Daniel declined to rebut that by saying it was okay because they would end up in a third reality since they don't believe that's how time travel, in their fictional setting, works.

                        Seeing as they invented the quantum mirror, they know parallel realities exists.
                        The quantum mirror was never said to have been built by the Ancients. All we know is that an industrial society used the Stargate to explore the galaxy and recovered various devices that Jackson referred to as a "treasure chest ... of diverse human cultures." We were never told who built it in either "There But for the Grace of God" or either of the two follow-up episodes where it was referenced.

                        Based on the context of the argument, Janus was the 'first' successful case of developing temporal technology. Moros was opposed because of how new the technology was in not knowing what kind of ramifications it would have.
                        I would think it was more a long running restriction that Janus flouted. The Ancients would've stumbled on time travel 50+ million years ago with early model Stargates and despite all their advancements in all the years after that, a group of Ancients dying from the plague and Janus are the only two known cases of the Ancients trying to develop a stable time travel machine.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          As there are a lot of possibilities, I'm disinclined to favor any particular one, and I think it would be a little weird for Carter to not report that they took some damage before they could raise shields when Young asked for a status report.
                          So it's essentially can be summed up as plot induced stupidity on the writers part. If they really needed to blow up Icarus base to set up the events of Universe it could have easily been explained with multiple Hatak ships (like 12 or more) outnumbering the Hammond. This way they didn't have to nerf the BC-304s and easily explain that although the Hammond sunk many of their ships there was just simply too many to handle and thus the planet went critical.

                          Sucks sometimes when writers of episodes are not on the same page as each other.

                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          And she provided specific examples. Your interpretation means that she completely misspoke. If she meant that they would just be backing up data randomly and had to accept that it could later turn out that they got information on ZPMs but not ascension, she could have said that.
                          Fair point as it's up to interpretation of each viewer until clarified.

                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          In "Unending," all Thor said was that the core was equipped with its own power source that would not interfere with their ZPM.
                          That's true. This is based on assumptions on vague clues and also the wiki. The Asgard computer is powered by their latest technology in compact power generation. According to the show and wiki, it produces a unique subspace signature which led to the assumption it was somehow drawing power from subspace. Otherwise it's unknown beyond that. Though Thor said it would not infringe on their ZPM, I do wonder how they planned to power the computer later. Or Thor assumed they would understand the technology before the computer ran out.

                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          That's a popular real world theory, but Stargate has always treated the situation as if time traveling to the past wipes out the events that have happened so far and forces them to reoccur insofar as they are able to with ripples made by the time traveler.
                          Stargates time travel rules are a bit of a mess existing in a paradox. But if it factors in the multiverse then everything makes sense. '1969' was fine as it was a self-fulling prophecy paradox. But in '2010', though they sent a message into the past we have no real way to confirm that their timeline was deleted. 'Moebius' created an open loop paradox branching out two realities where one got messed up and probably destroyed by Apophis while the other one got a free zpm to which factoring in the multiverse means that they didn't need to travel back in the first place.

                          But 'Continuum' played jump rope with the rules. First people and buildings were disappearing on the Tok'ra homeworld. However Mitchel didn't disappear and he was a literal grandfather paradox.

                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          The quantum mirror was never said to have been built by the Ancients. All we know is that an industrial society used the Stargate to explore the galaxy and recovered various devices that Jackson referred to as a "treasure chest ... of diverse human cultures." We were never told who built it in either "There But for the Grace of God" or either of the two follow-up episodes where it was referenced.
                          I went with the wiki on this one as it said it belonged to them. I think the only proof they had for this was the Ancient communication stones were discovered with it. But otherwise there were no other citations to indicate the contrary. However as I said I just went with the wiki on this.

                          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                          I would think it was more a long running restriction that Janus flouted. The Ancients would've stumbled on time travel 50+ million years ago with early model Stargates and despite all their advancements in all the years after that, a group of Ancients dying from the plague and Janus are the only two known cases of the Ancients trying to develop a stable time travel machine.
                          Fair enough as we still need a full recount of their history to really know more about it.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Rohan View Post
                            So it's essentially can be summed up as plot induced stupidity on the writers part. If they really needed to blow up Icarus base to set up the events of Universe it could have easily been explained with multiple Hatak ships (like 12 or more) outnumbering the Hammond. This way they didn't have to nerf the BC-304s and easily explain that although the Hammond sunk many of their ships there was just simply too many to handle and thus the planet went critical.

                            Sucks sometimes when writers of episodes are not on the same page as each other.
                            Basically. Although I think it's a matter not just of needing for the Icarus base to blow up, but also to present the Lucian Alliance as a threat to the audience. The writers worked very hard to use SGU to lure new viewers with their grittier take on Stargate and, alongside that, they seemed to want to tone down or sidestep some of their, shall we say, less grounded ideas (e.g. that the Ancients could be tens of millions of years old).

                            Sure, you could have extra Ha'taks in the scene (maybe... I don't know how much extra that would cost them), but having the Hammond slice through a bunch of them with a single shot is problematic because it looks silly, especially if you're new to the franchise and don't have any context for why that's happening, and it makes the Lucian Alliance appear weak. The writers no doubt wanted audiences to be fearful of what would happen if the Lucian Alliance attacked Earth without having to explain that Earth has a limited fleet and many of their capital ships were just disabled and yada yada yada.

                            Also, even though 304s/Ha'taks played no role in their attack on Destiny (obviously), this opening scene sets a tone for how people perceive the Lucian Alliance. If a single Earth ship started cutting through Lucian Alliance ships like butter, you create the impression that the Lucian Alliance are poor opponents who only won because they caught Earth off guard and outnumbered. That translates to how people will perceive them as a whole regardless of if ships are involved or not.

                            I don't think even established fans took them very seriously during their tenure in Sg-1. They were always kind of a joke, B-antagonist, so SGU had to both establish them as a worthwhile foe for new viewers and convince existing viewers that they could be used to create actual tension.

                            Of course, even though I think giving Earth such powerful beam weapons was a mistake, I too wish they could have created the tone they were aiming for without pretending like beam weapons didn't exist.

                            That's true. This is based on assumptions on vague clues and also the wiki. The Asgard computer is powered by their latest technology in compact power generation. According to the show and wiki, it produces a unique subspace signature which led to the assumption it was somehow drawing power from subspace. Otherwise it's unknown beyond that.
                            Slight clarification: It's not a subspace signature, it's an energy signature detectable from subspace:
                            CARTER
                            I suppose the new power source could be giving off some sort of unique energy signature that's detectable from sub-space.

                            Though Thor said it would not infringe on their ZPM, I do wonder how they planned to power the computer later. Or Thor assumed they would understand the technology before the computer ran out.
                            The core was still functional after 50 years, and Carter said she used both its power source and the ZPM to maintain the time dilation field, so it seems like they have a bit of time before it dies on them. They also redirected the Ori's beam weapon into the core, so feeding it energy from one of their outside power sources should be doable.

                            I would hope they would prioritize trying to build Asgard power sources, though. Those would give them a big boost across the board (better shields, faster hyperdrives, stronger weapons) over naquadah generators.

                            Stargates time travel rules are a bit of a mess existing in a paradox. But if it factors in the multiverse then everything makes sense. '1969' was fine as it was a self-fulling prophecy paradox. But in '2010', though they sent a message into the past we have no real way to confirm that their timeline was deleted. 'Moebius' created an open loop paradox branching out two realities where one got messed up and probably destroyed by Apophis while the other one got a free zpm to which factoring in the multiverse means that they didn't need to travel back in the first place.

                            But 'Continuum' played jump rope with the rules. First people and buildings were disappearing on the Tok'ra homeworld. However Mitchel didn't disappear and he was a literal grandfather paradox.
                            "1969's" form of time travel was retconned away. Someone realized that the predestination paradox is fine for a single episode, but it doesn't work when you're doing recurring stories. The point of it is to trick audiences into thinking the timeline is changeable and then try to shock them by revealing that it never was. After that, it's not very interesting for people to see follow up predestined time travel stories because they know nothing the characters do matters. That's why James Cameron switched to a changeable form of time travel for the Terminator sequel and why Star Trek nonsensically does situational predestination paradox stories where sometimes they can change the future and sometimes their actions create the future they came from.

                            In Stargate's case, they have been consistently using a changeable past since "Mobieus." Showing things change as a result of Ba'al's time travel in "Continuum" was new for them, but everything else was consistent time travel in Atlantis, SGU, and Sg-1 post "1969." In these instances, Stargate ascribes to the idea that the timeline starts anew from the point that the time traveler goes to. Sg-1 can go back to Ancient Egypt and they can do things that will prevent their future selves from ever being born or from time traveling in the same exact way that they did and it doesn't matter. Just as Mitchell and Carter were saved from being erased by making it to the Stargate in time during "Continuum," a time traveler exists independently once they time travel and the universe has no means to know they shouldn't be there.

                            Hence, versions of one's self can keep traveling back in time and meet each other. For "Mobieus" to use the alternate reality form of time travel, this would mean Sg-1 (unwittingly) decided to abandon their reality to secure a ZPM for a new reality that they created. The original reality, thus, never ended up getting that ZPM, and they forever lost their Sg-1. Then, when Sg-1 left that recording for people in the future to find, they weren't leaving a message that could be used to rescue them. Instead, they left a message that prompted the creation of a third reality. Thus, the original Sg-1 died in Ancient Egypt, but because they existed in the second reality when nerdy Carter and co. time traveled, alternate versions of them existed in this third timeline and were able to bring the ZPM back to either this third reality's future or a fourth reality.

                            Not only would this make each instance of time travel in Stargate rather depressing, but no character thinks it works like that, including the Ancients. It may not be very popular for real worth theorists to argue in favor of this form of time travel, but it is fairly common in fiction because it enables the actions of characters to have a meaningful impact on events within the story.

                            I went with the wiki on this one as it said it belonged to them. I think the only proof they had for this was the Ancient communication stones were discovered with it. But otherwise there were no other citations to indicate the contrary. However as I said I just went with the wiki on this.
                            Yeah, that wiki is a bit of mess. Most problematic is that they reference a lot of information from non-canonical sources alongside information from the TV shows. That seems to be what happened here. They didn't cite their source in the article itself, but in the talk section someone defended this thusly:
                            It's said to likely be an Ancient device in Stargate SG-1: Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One which is then confirmed in Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement. I agree that the article needs a lot of work though. —Jaymach Ral'Tir (talk) 06:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


                            https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Talk:Quantum_Mirror


                            There's no reference to it being an Ancient device in a 2008 edit, which tracks as I recall this nonsense about including information from the RPG starting until after Sg-1 ended.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                              If a single Earth ship started cutting through Lucian Alliance ships like butter, you create the impression that the Lucian Alliance are poor opponents who only won because they caught Earth off guard and outnumbered. That translates to how people will perceive them as a whole regardless of if ships are involved or not.
                              There should be nothing wrong with it from a plot perspective as it makes sense from a logistics and military stand point. Earth's force are severely limited with a barely functional shipyard, resource scarcity, monetary issues, and the fact they are trying to keep this all a secret.

                              Although the Lucian Alliance is not as technologically advanced they have multiple planets under their control, millions in their armed forces, large amounts of resources to pull from, and they are still capable of expanding without much resistance as Earth's forces can't do much to keep them in line as they stretch out across the galaxy.

                              Thus the Lucian Alliance is a credible threat while there only capable allies being the free Jaffa nation and Tok'ra are not going to be of much help.

                              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                              I would hope they would prioritize trying to build Asgard power sources, though. Those would give them a big boost across the board (better shields, faster hyperdrives, stronger weapons) over naquadah generators.
                              Perhaps. But it's still the same problem as they don't have the necessary infrastructure in place to really take advantage of it. Unless they disclose the existence of the stargate program, they will always be operating in minimal capacity. At best for the time being they can relieve some of those issues like using an Asgard power source to run the SGC electrical requirements as well as using the matter creation technology to supply what they need.

                              Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
                              Not only would this make each instance of time travel in Stargate rather depressing, but no character thinks it works like that, including the Ancients. It may not be very popular for real worth theorists to argue in favor of this form of time travel, but it is fairly common in fiction because it enables the actions of characters to have a meaningful impact on events within the story.
                              In retrospect it really doesn't matter. But in hindsight it's 50/50 as it does have a meaningful purpose but at the same time is irrelevant as time travel just creates new branches in the time line to account for the changes. The only real way to counteract it is to avoid a butterfly effect to which if SG-1 stole the ZPM without getting caught then everything should have been fine. Otherwise if time was truly linear from cause to effect and vice versa then time travel for the purpose of changing events become impossible due to paradoxes. SGU 'twin destinies' makes this whole point valid as the Destiny appeared in another time line along with her crew. With the 'past' Destiny crew not repeating their actions then the event should have fallen apart due to a paradox. The crew who ended up on Novus should have not been there either. There was another SGU time travel event, but the point still holds true.

                              But that is an interesting idea of creating time replicates of ZPMs. Just a matter of figuring how to create that kind of stable paradox.

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