Wraith vs. Asurans

[Snowman37]

Would you have liked to see the Asurans succeed the Wraith as the series' central villains? Personally, I liked the concept of the Asurans, but they simply failed to deliver that sense of danger that the Wraith presented. Somehow, a hand in the forehead just isn't as scary as being fed on by the Wraith. I liked them as villains, but they just don't compare to the Wraith.

[thekillman]

absolutely not. the Asurans were a poor Replicator-ripoff. For me, the Humanforms were the worst part about them.

[The Flyattractor]

Humaforms = Cheap Villians.

[Snowman37]

Of coarse the Asurans were creatively based on the Human-form replicators. Remember, the Human-form replicators were to be the main villains of Atlantis when the show was going to be a sequel to SG-1. When that show was renewed for an eighth season, SGA was retooled to take place in the Pegasus galaxy with the Wraith as the main villains. I think the writers always intended to use the Human-form Replicators on Atlantis, but with the Replicators wiped out, this necessitated the Asurans to be thought up.

Perhaps the writers just didn't anticipate that the audience would be burned out on the Human-form Replicators? It's not like we saw them all that often. There was the group from "Unnatural Selection," Fifth, RepliCarter, and that guy from "New Order, Part 2." That was it. Perhaps the audience just never warmed up to human-form Replicators???

[Dean Grr]

Would you have liked to see the Asurans succeed the Wraith as the series' central villains? Personally, I liked the concept of the Asurans, but they simply failed to deliver that sense of danger that the Wraith presented. Somehow, a hand in the forehead just isn't as scary as being fed on by the Wraith. I liked them as villains, but they just don't compare to the Wraith.

I found the Asurans really chilling at times (i.e. Oberoth), especially the episode "This Mortal Coil", if I remember, where the Asurans start wiping out human settlements to remove Wraith feeding grounds. Also, the part in Season 3's "The Return", where the Lanteans are confident the Asurans will not harm them, and then they start bombarding the city.

Like the Borg on ST Voyager, the Asurans were too easily defeated by the Atlantis team sometimes. Like you say, the Wraith feeding on someone is frightening (and is a pretty awesome idea for a villain!). Had the Asurans been shown without pupils in their eyes (steel or black eyes), and generally unstoppable (i.e. their planet didn't get blown up), they may have been more intimidating. SG-1 Season's 8 replicators were far more menacing ... - Dean

[Dave2]

Personally, if they ever bring back an SG franchise I think MANY fans would be burnt out by Goa'uld, Ori, Wraith and Replicators. They'll have to come up with something new, especially since the audience already knows the storylines of villains how they work, it's all rather predictable. I don't even think a Wraith hosted by a goa'uld would work. It'll have to be something creatively new.
We'll already be too familiar with the story line of the Jaffa as well. Part of the success of the franchise is the DEVELOPMENT of the characters, the science of the villains, planets, stargate, etc. But once we already know how it works, it LOSES the appeal. What say others?!

[Snowman37]

I found the Asurans really chilling at times (i.e. Oberoth), especially the episode "This Mortal Coil", if I remember, where the Asurans start wiping out human settlements to remove Wraith feeding grounds. Also, the part in Season 3's "The Return", where the Lanteans are confident the Asurans will not harm them, and then they start bombarding the city.

I pretty much agree with you here. I believe the episode where we learn that the Asurans are wiping out human feeding grounds is "The Seer."

Like the Borg on ST Voyager, the Asurans were too easily defeated by the Atlantis team sometimes. Like you say, the Wraith feeding on someone is frightening (and is a pretty awesome idea for a villain!). Had the Asurans been shown without pupils in their eyes (steel or black eyes), and generally unstoppable (i.e. their planet didn't get blown up), they may have been more intimidating. SG-1 Season's 8 replicators were far more menacing ... - Dean

I like your ideas on making the Asurabs scarier. Really, all they had to do to make the Asurans more of a threat would be to show expedition members getting killed, Puddle Jumpers being destroyed, ya know, give the Asurans some victories over Atlantis. That's what I loved about the "First Strike" trilogy of episodes, Atlantis was nearly destroyed more than once, and the preemptive strike on Asuras lead to the loss of Dr. Weir, the expedition's leader. As for the Asuran's final defeat in "Be All My Sins Remember'd," I'm guessing that the Asurans' defeat was in response to criticism of been there, done that with the whole Replicator thing.

Personally, if they ever bring back an SG franchise I think MANY fans would be burnt out by Goa'uld, Ori, Wraith and Replicators. They'll have to come up with something new, especially since the audience already knows the storylines of villains how they work, it's all rather predictable. I don't even think a Wraith hosted by a goa'uld would work. It'll have to be something creatively new.
We'll already be too familiar with the story line of the Jaffa as well. Part of the success of the franchise is the DEVELOPMENT of the characters, the science of the villains, planets, stargate, etc. But once we already know how it works, it LOSES the appeal. What say others?!

They tried to do this with Universe, but the show was cancelled after just two years. Most people who stopped watching cited the show as being too boring, too different, too poorly written, you get the idea. Conceptually, it was great, but the execution was awful. If the writers focused less on faulty character drama and more on survival and the adventure, the show might still be on the air.

[The Urban Spaceman]

Would you have liked to see the Asurans succeed the Wraith as the series' central villains?

No, I thought they were quite dull. But I'm old fashioned. I like my monsters to look like monsters and my aliens to look like aliens. The more fangs and antennae and tails the better. I liked the Goa'uld because of their insidious nature, because I can put myself in the position of a host and imagine how scary being possessed by an alien entity is, and being forced to do things against your will. I liked the Wraith because again, I can empathise with the victims and imagine how horrible being drained of your life-force is, plus I like a good villain in leather. I liked the original replicators because OMG CREEPY VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE ACID-SPITTING CLICKY BUG THINGS, how can those not be scary?

For me, the human-form replicators AND the Asurans were always on the lamer side of the villain scale. The Goa'uld did not want to be human -- they accepted what they were and used humans as hosts and slaves. The Wraith did not want to be human -- they accepted what they were and used humans as food and as a source of entertainment. The replicators were cool right up until the writers essentially gave them the Stargate equivalent of the Borg Queen, increasing their lameness factor a million-fold.

But of course, that's just my opinion. Maybe some people like replicators and Asurans.

[Snowman37]

I didn't have that problem with the human-form Replicators. Only a few were featured, and they all had personality. RepliCarter had this Terminator vibe going, which I loved. Come the Asurans, I had high hopes. My problem with them is that they had NO PERSONALITY. That killed them being interesting. It also didn't help that there were virtually no recurring Asuran characters. Oberoth and Niam popped up a few times, and that was it. Everyone else were mostly glorified extras to be offed by episode's end. I think the execution was more of a problem than the concept, no?

[McAvoy]

The idea that awhole agressive unstoppable force with a full understanding of Ancient technology is appealing however the Asurans have no personality, no menace, no nothing.

The Asurans just kill you once they are done with you. Gouald enslave you or make you into a host. Wraith view you as we would a cow. A food source. The Asurans are less threatening because dying is dying whereas being used as food or a slave or as a host would be misery.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I always preferred the Wraith to the Asurans in SGA.
I wish the producers had maybe left the Human form element out of the show and made the nano virus something the Ancients never got to deploy against the Wraith.
We put it into play and some unexpected side effects happen, I don't know what they would have been though, just not a Human form element, maybe a more tech like race comes out of it, with different capabilities and devices, generally a different feel and personality about them than what we got.

Overall though I think the Asurans were made too weak.
Their tech level just didn't make them menacing enough.

[McAvoy]

They were also limited in scope. I mean the Asurans at first wanted nothing and it took a reboot of agression to get them going again. I think it would have been better if the Asurans were deactivated and Atlantis reactivated them on some planet only to see them construct that giant city weeks later, building ships, with enough of them of them to wipe out the Wraith and then wipe out humanity.

Actually that alternate alien from Daedalus Variations was pretty threatening. Strong enough to wipe the floor with Ronan among other things.

[Dundee30]

That's pretty tough question. But I think Wraiths are quite traditional, and so all questions I prefer them. But the Asurans also have something to himself. At least they are clean.

[YceQueen]

No thanks. I never liked the Asurans. Wasn't a big fan of the replicators on SG-1, bug-form or human-form, and wasn't all to pleased when they showed up in Alantis.
I'm glad they were only a part of the show for a little bit longer than a year. Sure, they provided diversion, but I liked the Wraith so much because we hadn't met anyone like them yet on SG1, unlike the replicators.
Didn't help either that there wasn't really any story build-up.
They were just there suddenly, and kept popping up every now and then to remind us that "oh yes; they are very much a threat!"
It made for a good season 3 finale, and their "goodbye" episode was really good. But that's just about it.

[Dr. D.]

Would you have liked to see the Asurans succeed the Wraith as the series' central villains?

No. However, I also would have preferred a villain other than the Wraith.

Asurans were a poor Replicator-ripoff.

The lack of originality for a villain is what detracted me - to some extent - from the Asurans, though it was interesting discovering their back-story.

Still, they're replicators, an SG1 villain. Not a true SGA villain. Even though they're not the same replicators, they're still replicators. Given how they differ from the SG1 replicators, it was a really cheap and lazy effort on behalf of the writer-producers to drag them into SGA.

Despite different origin for the SGA version, I would have preferred that the SG1 version just hop galaxies, even if only a single replicator escaped. The writers screwed with things by having 2 origin stories. Sure, it is very possible that 2 origin stories could have occurred - the concept of replicating AI machines is nothing new - but for the sake of Stargate continuity, at least between SG1 & SGA, it would've better to just have the exact same replicators from the Milky Way end up traveling to Pegasus.

Having said that, I still enjoyed the Asuran story arc. The writer-producers should have gone a different route but it's pointless getting into woulda-coulda-shoulda type talk.

Perhaps the writers just didn't anticipate that the audience would be burned out on the Human-form Replicators?

It was not burn-out. It was a knee-jerk reaction viewers had, and continued to hold on to, as a result of the writers being almost completely unoriginal and lazy in implementing another villain into SGA, particularly with how the replicators were written into the show.

I found the Asurans really chilling at times (i.e. Oberoth)

True. They had a few enjoyable villainous aspects. However, for the most part, they lacked in villainous characteristics.

Had the Asurans been shown without pupils in their eyes (steel or black eyes), and generally unstoppable (i.e. their planet didn't get blown up), they may have been more intimidating. SG-1 Season's 8 replicators were far more menacing ... - Dean

That certainly could have helped. The Asurans/Pegasus replicators were a bit of a double-edged sword. On one side, they were dull, boring, uninteresting, and unoriginal. On the other side, they had a few characteristics and aspects to their back-story that were pretty interesting.

Personally, if they ever bring back an SG franchise I think MANY fans would be burnt out by Goa'uld, Ori, Wraith and Replicators.

Goa'uld, defeated.

Ori, defeated.

Wraith, not yet but they probably would've been in the SGA movie.

Replicators, technically not defeated, considering the SGA version, and WeirFran and her gang were left floating out in space. Plus, some nitwits on Earth could always screw things up and bring the MW reps back similar to how they were briefly reintroduced in AoT.

Overall, the villains of SG1 & SGA are in the past. Even if they were not defeated, they should be left alone or, at most, given a very quick end in the beginning of a new story so that a completely new villain could be introduced.

There are villains in SGU, some of which are completely original, so the writers made a wise choice with that, yet they also brought the Lucian Alliance back in, which only left viewers either sighing or grunting at it thinking, "oh there they go again, using another SG1 villain in another SG show."

I liked the original replicators because OMG CREEPY VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE ACID-SPITTING CLICKY BUG THINGS, how can those not be scary?

Exactly.

The idea that awhole agressive unstoppable force with a full understanding of Ancient technology is appealing however the Asurans have no personality, no menace, no nothing.

The writers could have written great stories out of a villain that lacks personality. The absence of personality could have been extremely menacing had they not made the Asurans so soft. If the Asurans were more hard-edged, cold, and sharp about how they approached their missions then it would have been more convincing. Of course, the way in which the actors played the Asuran roles contributed to them coming off as soft and even, to some extent, boring.

Overall though I think the Asurans were made too weak.
Their tech level just didn't make them menacing enough.

They had the tech. They just didn't have the necessary degree of menace, which made them weak.

Actually that alternate alien from Daedalus Variations was pretty threatening. Strong enough to wipe the floor with Ronon among other things.

The alternate universe aliens were interesting for a stand-alone episode but they were way too much like a stereotypical Star Trek race, so I was very glad that we never saw them again.

However, it would've been nice to see another villain - entirely new - introduced to the series. For all we know, a new villain might have given SGA another year or more. SGA mixed things up a bit, instead of perpetually focusing on the Wraith, yet they still focused too much on the Wraith. It's safe to say that part of what resulted in 10 years plus 2 movies of SG1 was the gradual and continual introduction of new and fresh ideas in combination with creative developments from ideas that they had already introduced in the early years. SGA could've benefited from that approach.

... but I liked the Wraith so much because we hadn't met anyone like them yet on SG1 ...

Although I didn't care for the Wraith at all - until they introduced Todd and, later, Michael and the hybrids - one thing I did appreciate was that the Wraith were unlike any of the villains from SG1, so that was refreshing.