Why no Zats or Staff Weapons in Atlantis?

[roxics]

My girlfriend and I are rewatching Atlantis. I haven't seen it since it first aired and she has never seen it. So I have forgotten most of it. Which is fun when rewatching. We're nearly complete with season 3 and certain things keep bothering me. First and foremost is the lack of stun weapons. Shepard has to keep relying on Ronon to stun people.

Why was the Atlantis team not outfitted with Zat's from the start or some new hybrid weapon that is both energy weapon/firearm? Ronon has the most advanced gun, yet he seems to come from a civilization slightly less advanced than Earth was prior to the Stargate program.

One would think that after 8 years of SG teams traversing the galaxy and discovering cool new technology, they would have advanced their personal arms by the time of the Atlantis mission or at least carried Zat's as a backup weapon when stunning is needed.

At one point the team goes back to earth and returns with the anti replicator weapons. Pretty cool looking/functioning. But those are sadly short lived. So what is the insistence on the show creators to have SG teams keep using P90's on Atlantis? Even on SG1 is was fairly common practice to have a Zat on hand.

I understand that the gunpower weapons are useful against certain more advanced enemies who have systems in place to stop energy weapons. Which is why I think by this point a hybrid weapon could have been created.

Overall I am not a fan of the alien weapon design on Stargate. Either SG1 or Atlantis. I get that they are alien so they should look alien. But come on, everyone is speaking English on every planet anyway. We're willing to give a little here and there in suspending our disbelief. At least give them really cool props we can salivate over. The Zat is probably the worst looking of them all in my opinion. When I see stuff like the weapons from District 9 I can't help but think the creators of Stargate really fell short in what could have been very cool props. Props can make a huge impact. Just look at the light saber.

[tomaso88]

Theres already a few threads like this but I'll answer anyways.

Why no zats in atlantis?
So the series differentiates its self from sg1, its a new series and they want to show off new things not have the same technology.

Why all aliens speak english?
They chose to do this because having different languages for each race wouldn't only be stressful for the characters in every episode, it would also be stressful for the audience having to see someone like daniel translate a language each episode, and they weren't as advance as say the earthlings on startrek who had technology to translate.


overall I think it's a matter of personal opinion, I thought the props looked fine in stargate though it did stress me when they used one prop again as another piece of technology, which is also reason to show that they didn't have a very big budget for props

[roxics]

I wasn't asking why they all spoke English. I know why.

I get that they wanted to differentiate Atlantis but it still makes no logical sense from a story perspective.

[Spimman]

I hope this doesn't cause it to get cancelled

[destiny khan]

yes all of these things are problametic... e.g no use of goauld hand devices/sarcophagus or the memory device(to train people in days rather than 4 years or more in college or whatever)... why no use of advanced body armor like that of anubis's drones... there are so much more like that, but they never use it(not even in sg-1)... i find it better not to concentrate on these flaws and enjoy it, but it is hard to do as it is "Sci fi" that means, people who use your brain like to watch it and cannot see it as "mindless" fun like a michael bay movie... so in the end a scifi fan is irritated when the writers are not properly utilizing all the tools at their disposal to combat problems(as would happen in real life).... because i can give you a fool proof way of manufacturing zpms without a problem, and it is deceptively simple...

[Starsaber]

I'm pretty sure they at least use Zats during "The Return" two parter.

[Inquisitor]

I'm pretty sure they at least use Zats during "The Return" two parter.

Not in The Return, they don't work against replicators (they used ARGs).
They used zats in Midway though, because of Teal'c.

[jelgate]

Not in The Return, they don't work against replicators (they used ARGs).
They used zats in Midway though, because of Teal'c.

They did use a zat on a SGC guard when shep stole a puddle jumper in the return

[Inquisitor]

Ah yeah, the one with crutches. I was only thinking of the Wraith.

[Chappas]

"First and foremost is the lack of stun weapons"

What about Wraith Stunners?

[Railgun]

There should be more use of alien hand weapons, most definitely.

The reason why I don't think that tech has come though is more about organisation and bureaucracy than anything else.

Earth likes to standardise on Earth made weapons. They produce the P90's, presumably cheaply and in mass quantities and have quite a stockpile of them. All armed forces are trained with these weapons providing a large pool of military personnel with the skills to use them correctly. So when they sent a team to Atlantis those are the weapons that they gave them.

Zats have to be procured off-world and although we probably have quite a few from the defeated Goa'uld, more large-scale/permanent supply would depend on trading them with the Tokra/Jaffa both of which we have tumultuous relations with. It would be bad to standardise on a weapon which we could not make and then fall out with the only source of that weapon. It's a security of supply issue.

[StargateMillennium]

There should be more use of alien hand weapons, most definitely.

I disagree. The only useful alien hand weapons they ever encountered were the particle magnum, zat, wraith stunner, TER, and intar. And the SGC/Atlantis adopted these weapons. The rest are crap. There's a thread about this. I explain why there.
http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/8...energy-weapons
And the ones they have aren't for every situation. The zat/stunner is primarily for stunning and serves no purpose in a front line fight (and double zatting every single soldier is inefficient especially compared to the human ballistic weapons. Intar are training weapons.
TER are made for cloaked enemies (which aren't seen very often)
And they only have one particle magnum with them.

I think the stargate franchise should make more actually effective energy weapons.

[Bladed]

Jack explained it on one episode as he was training some off worlders. "Staff weapons are weapons of fear. Limited range, hard to aim, and nasty wounds to inspire fear. P90's are weapons of war easy to aim, easy to operate and designed to maximize effectiveness of your troops." In others words learning an alien weapon or any "new" type of weapon has it's learning curve to become proficient with it. Most Humans already have a basic understanding of firearms that humans have designed.

[The Flyattractor]

Jack explained it on one episode as he was training some off worlders. "Staff weapons are weapons of fear. Limited range, hard to aim, and nasty wounds to inspire fear. P90's are weapons of war easy to aim, easy to operate and designed to maximize effectiveness of your troops." In others words learning an alien weapon or any "new" type of weapon has it's learning curve to become proficient with it. Most Humans already have a basic understanding of firearms that humans have designed.

........uh...I aint really seeing that much diff between a Staff and a 90. At least in the wound and range issues. It is a SUB-machine weapon and thus not really a "long range" weapon.

[c0sm0s]

The P-90 has a firing range of over 5,500 feet, admittedly with an effective firing range of 650-ish feet at fifteen rounds per second.
Staff weapons are mostly hip fired, don't seem to have a sight and fire seemingly once per two seconds.
If you want to blow a hole in a wall use a staff weapon.
If you want to shoot dudes use the P-50.
If you want to do both, take a P-90 and undersling a grenade launcher to it.
That said... we don't know how many shots you get with a staff so it might beat the P-90 in having lug around ammo.