Morally questionable actions of the Stargate Atlantis Expedition

[Infinite-Possibilities]

OK, I could try to continue to respond point by point like before, but I think it's about this point where I've lost the ability to take this conversation seriously.

[Mister Oragahn]

Their plan was to get the prisoners out and escape quietly.

How could they even know that plan was remotely realistic praytell? Did they knew anything about the place they were going to and what it consisted of, who were there?
Their "plan" was not one. It was just a silly idea with no ground in reality, that's all.
How could they know they wouldn't be spotted by some ground based super duper radar system?
"Plan" was sh1t from the beginning.

They knew they had only minimal resources to commit to such an operation and your plan involves spending more.

More resources they actually had.

The wraith would have woken up anyway.

You don't know that, and the characters could not have known that either.
They hadn't even met one single Wraith at that point.
They knew nothing about them safe for terror tales from people who only knew cullings by those terrifying darts and most likely saw stargates as a curse.
Worse, for the first time in their life, humans from Earth dealt with an enemy who knew how to thread the needle through stargates in a most natural way and even went as far as to place gates in orbit.

They thought they had a new food supply. Michael even said that was the reason in season 2 I think. They also likely would have learned about Atlantis too from the other prisoners if not from Sumner. Killing that queen accelerated things slightly at most.

It accelerated things big times, since her death = scream-alarm-clock.
Point being that with the Wraith awake in large quantities, it still took nearly a full year to have them launch an attack against Atlantis.
Not to count the people from all those worlds across the quadrant who were pleased to know that the Wraith would return sooner than usual, for sure.

[Mister Oragahn]

OK, I could try to continue to respond point by point like before, but I think it's about this point where I've lost the ability to take this conversation seriously.

Well, Ouroboros may be play the devil's advocate a tad here but one needs perspective and we need to take some distance. He's right in how the whole plan was screwed from the beginning.
They were so hasty that they didn't buy themselves one or two more years to acquire enough power sources or even a ZPM to bring to the other side, knowing they were achieving a transgalactic trip to a totally unknown place.
One can almost smell the stench of military and private interests.
The whole expedition can be sum'd up to too fast too furious. Some hyper gold rush with reason gone haywire, and perhaps because aside from this affair being officially international, the USA were too concerned about who really planted the flag first. It's interesting how it looked largely underbudgeted despite this project being supported by several nations on paper. The SGC was about to suffer monetary restrictions, and Earth was concerned about achieving the construction of those massively expensive starships. The expedition greenlighting might have been ripped off of the hands of reluctant decision makers. All we saw were the heroes at the front, but we never saw the bureaucratic dealings behind the curtain.
Because it's more than certain that they should have really given themselves much, much more time, if only to build a network of power sources to guarantee a more frequent bridge with Atlantis, and therefore the possibility to send more resources.
When I rewatch the show's premiere, it does look like Sumner wasn't particularly happy about going there to boot. Reminds me of the original O'neil from the 94 movie.

[coolcatkim22]

They didn't bother because they knew it would be pointless.

Did they really know it would be pointless? How can you be so sure?

Or if he was angry. Or if he just felt like it. Wraith don't kill people just because they are hungry.

The only reason he would be angry at them if they did something to upset him like kidnap him or experiment on him. And I never heard of a wraith killing someone cause they felt like it. The only time I can think is with the runners and that's for sport. It's not like they just go up to a planet and kill inhabits cause they feel like it, they're not sociopaths.

He may have thought that but they didn't. They figured if the experiment worked he could still be allowed to live a normal life.

Al life without any of his memories, a constant injection of serum everyday, and being isolated from the rest of the galaxy only being able to depend on the Atlantis Expedition in case of emergency, is not much of a normal life or even much of a good one.

[zbir]

I wonder if the people here pointing the finger paid enough attention, actually, to the said episodes (Rising, Michael) and to the build-ups of events (sometimes I have the sensation that I was watching an alternative reality version).
A. “Rising” issues:
1)

“they’d taken a blind wormhole into a city that was about to implode because the temptation of the loot that might be there was just too much to resist”

Really, how can you accuse them of anything bad here?? Isn’t that the idea of every expedition into unknown? To do it “blindly”? (and do you think they didn’t knew their probabilities? For the “hostile reception“ scenario they brought a little armed force, proportional (IMO) to the calculated risk)
And about the idea that they should have waited few years, to find other ZPM. Really? They should explore other sites, but not the one with the highest probability of having more ZPM ??

2)

”they had to go out and start wandering around random planets without knowing what they were doing”

But they knew what they were doing: they were checking a random planet as a site for evacuation, because the city was collapsing over their heads. Can you blame them??

3) They had to find Sumner because, at that time, they” didn’t leave people behind”

4) No intel on that mission? Really, what kind of intel (except what they already did) do you need for a mission against the clock? And who should have use that intel, except Sheppard himself? Do you really wanted Sheppard to gather intel, go back on Atlantis, present it to himself (as the head of the military), take the decision in his office, and go back (or not) to save the people? He took all the decisions, one by one, on the field. What would have been changed if he would have done that in Atlantis?? He already had the armed guys, the hive looked deserted, so he tried (correctly) an infiltration. If the hive was swarming of troops, you can guess that he wouldn’t try that. (I’m sure there are [real] special operations on this pattern, cause you just can’t predict 100% the course of any military operation).

5)

“so we killed one of their leaders for basically no reason”

Did you see the episode? (sorry, I had to ask). I think you are just pulling our collective leg here.

B. People crying over Michael? Please, how do you imagine that the science evolved on Earth? Are we evil as a race? I could agree with that.

C. “Evil empire”? I never thought about them as being evil. I see them always cornered, always fighting their way out, just to find themselves, again, with the back against the wall. Hasty decisions? Yes. Bad decisions? Yes. Desperate decisions? Hell yes. Evil decisions? I don’t see any evil intent, just good intentions ending up badly .

D. Incompetents? Well, unlike us, they didn’t have the scenario to read, they were living it, their fictional lives being carved by every second of the movie. And IMO all their decisions are reasonable real-life choices for anybody who didn’t read the script.

In the end we have to remember that either of us isn’t the owner of the absolute truth. I have “love” glasses on, you have” hate” glasses on (the post from I quoted was clearly showing it in spades). The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

[Ouroboros]

OK, I could try to continue to respond point by point like before, but I think it's about this point where I've lost the ability to take this conversation seriously.

You were taking it seriously?

[Ouroboros]

1)
Really, how can you accuse them of anything bad here?? Isn’t that the idea of every expedition into unknown? To do it “blindly”? (and do you think they didn’t knew their probabilities? For the “hostile reception“ scenario they brought a little armed force, proportional (IMO) to the calculated risk)
And about the idea that they should have waited few years, to find other ZPM. Really? They should explore other sites, but not the one with the highest probability of having more ZPM ??

There was no urgent need to take the big stupid risk. It's not like Earth was about to be blown up or something. This is the incompetent part again.

They didn't even consider the possibility that there might be another intelligent race on the other side of the wormhole that wouldn't want them just barging in with a bunch of basically armed refugees.

For all they knew they were doing the equivalent of Apophis through the shut down stargate and were dumping all these people into some ancient relic site where they would have got swarmed with Alterran military/security forces and locked up indefinitely. Then the Alterrans start wondering why they brought so many soldiers and guns through, like what they were thinking of attempting before they got caught.

Good luck with "no we were just planning to loot the place, honest" being what gets them out.

2)
But they knew what they were doing: they were checking a random planet as a site for evacuation, because the city was collapsing over their heads. Can you blame them??

Yes because they only had to do this because no one thought of the possibility a 10,000 year old abandoned ruin might not be a particularly safe place to just strand dozens of people in.

4) No intel on that mission? Really, what kind of intel (except what they already did) do you need for a mission against the clock? And who should have use that intel, except Sheppard himself? Do you really wanted Sheppard to gather intel, go back on Atlantis, present it to himself (as the head of the military), take the decision in his office, and go back (or not) to save the people? He took all the decisions, one by one, on the field. What would have been changed if he would have done that in Atlantis?? He already had the armed guys, the hive looked deserted, so he tried (correctly) an infiltration. If the hive was swarming of troops, you can guess that he wouldn’t try that. (I’m sure there are [real] special operations on this pattern, cause you just can’t predict 100% the course of any military operation).

Well one thing that for sure should have been changed was Sheppard not being the only pilot on the mission then deciding to front line the mission himself, culminating in him attacking a Wraith queen in melee combat. I mean the guy had literally just shot the same queen 3 times a moment before and saw how little effect it had, but he decides stabbing her with a pointy stick is totally going to work, and because the plot's protecting him, it does. This, instead of him ending up looking like that guy that drank from the wrong cup in Indiana Jones 3 and the whole rest of the team now stranded in Wraithville without a pilot to fly them home.

5)
Did you see the episode? (sorry, I had to ask). I think you are just pulling our collective leg here.

What did I say that was untrue? Oh I know that that's not the light it was presented in sure, but my light is infinitely warmer and more hilarious, and will save you $270 per year on your electric bill.

He actually waits for the wraith queen to turn around just so he can stab her.

She was literally only still a threat to him and Ford in the one exact situation he put himself into. Close quarters combat. They could have left and been fine but he had to take one last risk to kill her, and he didn't want to do it the easy way by telling Ford to just open fire. Why not?

I dont know man there's something pretty hinky going on here. You can't just explain this with pure practicality. Like why does he need her to turn around first? Why not just stab her in the back so she can't retaliate or have Ford blow her away, does he perhaps need to see the life drain out of her beautiful alien eyes? Or feel the warm caress of her blood on his hands? Was that the point? Did Sheppard volunteer for the SGA expedition because the dirt floor in his basement was getting a little too crowed with the other women he'd introduced to his knives in the past? Did he hit upon a brilliant way to get 95% of the old thrill back but in a way that his peers, and society, at last wouldn't judge him for. If only the Wraith queens would scream more, beg... show more fear...

C. “Evil empire”? I never thought about them as being evil. I see them always cornered, always fighting their way out, just to find themselves, again, with the back against the wall. Hasty decisions? Yes. Bad decisions? Yes. Desperate decisions? Hell yes. Evil decisions? I don’t see any evil intent, just good intentions ending up badly .

Remember the episode where the Asurans were building ships on their own planet, and when they were contemplating nuking them all from orbit for having the nerve to do that, the biggest expressed worry was "but do we have enough nukes to make sure we get all of them".

D. Incompetents? Well, unlike us, they didn’t have the scenario to read, they were living it, their fictional lives being carved by every second of the movie. And IMO all their decisions are reasonable real-life choices for anybody who didn’t read the script.

In the end we have to remember that either of us isn’t the owner of the absolute truth. I have “love” glasses on, you have” hate” glasses on (the post from I quoted was clearly showing it in spades). The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

But what if I have one lens from the love glasses and one from the hate glasses, what sort of glasses would those be, would they be 3D GLASSES! Or could I just open and close different eyes to switch between love and hate REAL TIME ON THE FLY!

Also what color are the glasses because I don't really like those goofy looking coloured lenses. I mean the love glasses aren't red are they....













They're are, aren't they.

[zbir]

Thank you, Ourobors, for the light hearted response.
I was seeing red through the pink glasses of love ( ), but you offered me some perspective and made it possible for me to distance a little from the show.
Just.. I know SGA have many faults. I know them, all. You don't need to invent more.

(and the assurans issue? The eartlings didn't cause any pain, to anyone, by destroying them, so where is the wrong there? They were AI machines that don't feel pain, they were trying to destroy the human race and had to be stopped (now, I hate what they did at the moment, but the reasons, again, are valid))

[destiny khan]

Well it is not just about these things too, there were tons of other "creative" blunders that defied logic and there were too many to be forgiven...time and time again, in sg-1 and atlantis, i cannot help but think that the united states air force is highly incompetent and the only other capable organization, NID is corrupt to the core so basically in this reality earth humans are incompetent... only really awesome humans are the lucian alliance who have gotten the hang of motherships(where they got them from is still a mystery as i doubt jaffa would have left anything laying around) and advanced weapons in just a couple of years and have trained their puny prehistoric, human host worshipping days, into a galactic force and warlords and also getting the hang of bio engineering and making unbelievably addicting space corn... not to mention they somehow evolved to having become warlords for decades in sgu and somehow knew much about ancients systems...

michael proved that he didn't want to be a threat the first time they converted him and he helped them defend and attack on earth. They should have let him go or "killed" him. But they repeated the processes and when michael again re-learned what had happened to him, he knew nothing more than the fact that "atlantians are evil"... they let go todd even though he was a viciously cunning person who always used the humans for his own purposes under the guise of a savior or ally. We were made to love that character but michael would have been the better ally, who wasn't really too cunning and was more emotional(maybe a much younger wraith unlike todd who was more than 10k years old)...

they made michael into the devastating enemy that he was ... they should have known from their goauld days that "superior" races aren't that easy to control so either kill them or keep your distace.. the michael experiment was just too stupid to continue as they now knew that it is a temporary solution.... this is purely stupidity on writer's part or maybe they wanted to show how stupid or immature humans are... or in accurate words humans are "incompetent"...

[thekillman]

You don't know that, and the characters could not have known that either.
They hadn't even met one single Wraith at that point.
They knew nothing about them safe for terror tales from people who only knew cullings by those terrifying darts and most likely saw stargates as a curse.
Worse, for the first time in their life, humans from Earth dealt with an enemy who knew how to thread the needle through stargates in a most natural way and even went as far as to place gates in orbit.

I'm curious about your POV because you pick on the wrong things or for the wrong reasons.

First and foremost, in "rising" after meeting the athosians, aside from direct confirmation they're 99% sure "the race that defeated the ancients" = "the wraith". Worse is that at this point they're 100% sure that the wraith will occasionally wake up and feed but are otherwise dormant.

I'm not sure at what point sheppard believed that a rescue mission would:
-not wake up the wraith
-not give any excuse to potential enemies to check out atlantis
-be successful against a race that defeated the ancients (SG1 has been drooling on them for 7 years)
-succeed with a piece of ancient technology when they knew the wraith defeated that very technology.

That being said, the next crime happens in 38 minutes. Kavanaugh pointed out a legitimate concern and Weir is outright hostile to him. When kavanaugh tells her that she was being rude she is again rude. 10 minutes later Mckay raises the very same concern (the jumper potentially exploding), says he can tell 7 seconds ahead and tells them to raise the shield the moment he says so.

Really? couldn't Weir have relayed the info to Mckay, who then says "yes i know i can warn you" followed by a Weir patting Kavanaugh on the back for pointing it out? It's just forced villainy.

In Childhood's end, Sheppard shows hostility by destroying their shrine (of wraith tech). Was it really that hard to tell them of the shield and that we shut it down? In stead we get all sorts of complex stuff that could've been easily avoided by telling them.


The next crime happens in "Poisoning the well". The whole geneva deal isn't that big to me, because the wraith don't give a damn about our morals and i felt it was justified.
It bothers me a thousand times more that Sheppard has basically already negotiated the entire deal, then informs Weir (also saying Beckett volunteered when he didn't), tells the hoffans about the wraith (then informs weir) and basically has greenlit the entire project already and then asks Weir.

He shows he's a horrible negotiator, goes completely behind Beckett's and Weir's back and has almost the entire situation to blame on himself. Good job sheppard.


The crime is then amplified a thousand times because in the next episode ("underground"), the same thing more or less happens: Sheppard has already agreed to deliver the C4 and everything and Weir basically can only agree (or risk all other Pegasus tribes turning against them since the galaxy appears to be a small town).

Cue Sheppard and Mckay finding a well-oiled hatch. Shouldn't that ring an alarm bell to the both? i mean, the Genii are clearly being secretive and you're negotiating an important deal. They also want C4 (for clearing stumps) when they clearly have the tech to build a bunker. Shouldn't that raise concerns about the C4 and what the Genii want with it?

Then, the secretive Genii capture them, point weapons at them and Mckay first starts spilling nuclear secrets to a race that clearly wants the A-bomb (and at this point, we're not sure what the Genii actually want with the bomb) then Sheppard again negotiates (well, surrenders) the entire deal, spilling more secrets (cloaking puddlejumpers), Mckay basically tells them the blueprints of a nuke and they then reveal they have even more jumpers and backstab the genii.

congrats a new enemy. Oh and why tell them we woke up the wraith early? last episode Sheppard had no trouble hiding that information and now he immediately spills it.

For some reason, everyone in the galaxy knows that we're from atlantis (congratz on spilling more secrets) which is probably the most well-known address in the galaxy and so the Genii have no trouble with the events of "The storm".

"the defiant one".
I like it, but at what point is it a good idea to investigate a downed Wraith ship with 4 people. First and foremost, those things are HUGE but the amount of boobytraps could be insane and the structural integrity alone could raise a billion concerns. Is it that hard to send a second jumper immediately, outfitted with more scientists and soldiers to check the thing out?

"hot zone".
In the real world, the escaping scientist would've been shot at the moment he ran.

"the brotherhood".
I wonder what they tell eachother during team briefings but i'm pretty sure that "don't tell them we're not ancients" would've been mission-vital information. That, and the complete lack of backup on a team that's not had radio contact for 10 hours (iirc?) is stupid. They shoud've sent a jumper just to check on them right away, especially because the ZPM is pretty darn vital to the survival of Atlantis. I'm also not sure why they needed the last part of the puzzle given that a crowbar used on the circles (of convenient near-ZPM size) would've solved the entire "get killed" issue.

"letters from pegasus".
Again with the Kavanaugh hostility. Every single concern he raises is a completely legitimate one. Is this the writers just trying to ridicule nay-sayers or so?

Yes. Bad decisions? Yes. Desperate decisions? Hell yes. Evil decisions? I don’t see any evil intent, just good intentions ending up badly .

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

A bit of careful analysis from all of SG1's missions would quickly learn that rushing head-first into a situation you know nothing about leads to big trouble.

Im also not sure why Sheppard didn't have Teyla's necklace checked seeing as A: the wraith barely ever show up and B: shortly after he picked up the necklace (one that was gone for years) the wraith show up. Surely, ANYTHING brought through could at the very least have been checked for suspicious emissions?

But most of all, the entire thing is basically a rehash of "children of the gods" where they go meddle with affairs they shouldn't. "big powerful aliens" should ring a "wait before you attack" bell not a "we can totes win this" bell. It was known before the rescue mission in "rising" that the wraith were the ones that defeated the ancients. I'm not sure why he thought it would work.

[zbir]

I'm not sure at what point sheppard believed that a rescue mission would:
(...)
-succeed with a piece of ancient technology when they knew the wraith defeated that very technology.

Actually, at that point, one of the few things they KNEW was that the ancient technology was overly superior to wraith's technology.

I can't find the disponibility (and disposition) to adress their other "crimes".

[Mister Oragahn]

I'm curious about your POV because you pick on the wrong things or for the wrong reasons.

What is you means?

First and foremost, in "rising" after meeting the athosians, aside from direct confirmation they're 99% sure "the race that defeated the ancients" = "the wraith". Worse is that at this point they're 100% sure that the wraith will occasionally wake up and feed but are otherwise dormant.

Not sure I'm replying to your concerns, but I'm going to point out something here.

Did the expedition ever get a confirmation from the Athosians in Rishing, before the first culling, that the Wraith were those who defeated the Lanteans?

The only moment a link is ever suggested is then:

SHEPPARD: What if the Wraith are the enemy the Ancient hologram lady was talking about?

After that, nothing. Even whatever knowledge Shep gets from the caves is not going to get up the chain of command before the culling.

Next step is Weir jumping at conclusions:

WEIR: Alright, just shut up and listen to me for a moment, alright? Come on, what do we know about the Wraith? One of the few things we do know is that they are the enemy that defeated the Ancients. When we first began to use the Stargate we found on Earth, we got ourselves into serious trouble -- why?

Wouldn't it be funny if said enemy had never been the Wraith?

Sheppard's best argument:

SHEPPARD: Maybe it will. But it's the right thing to do. [Saving Colonel Sumner] Why? Because it is!

Silly.
Sheppard tells her that he's going to rescue Sumner (sure thing dude), and his orders (as they seem to be) might have been to avoid engaging the foe.
Huh. Say that again? Were they going to rely on the cunning use of that superior intrusion tactic called Grandmother's footsteps?
I'd suggest that by the moment you're going to get into trouble, if you want to make sure the enemy doesn't get out of this, may you turn one of those nq generators into a nuke and carry it into the enemy's base, just in case something goes horribly wrong?
I mean the cloak is a pretty huge advantage there.
These people were just totally clueless.

Talking about that cloak...
When Sheppard makes a demo of the cloak of invisibility, Weir is impressed. We don't know what they talked about, we don't even get a summary of what they've been cooking up until the mission's departure.

When on the other side, as Sheppard flies the PJ towards the dark structure, no one complains, so the plan seems to be to get there. Inside.
The hell??
And they're supposed not to engage the enemy. They didn't have a plan about how to find them.

That's already totally nuts. But it gets better once Sheppard returns. You'd have expected some very loud and angry exchange between Sheppard and Weir.
Like, perhaps what Weir had allowed was a recon mission and, at best, the authorisation to land if possible, but only by taking extreme caution and being sure no one would spot them.
Weir couldn't know what resources those "Wraith" had at hand and frankly any landing scenario should have only been considered massively unsafe and only worth 1% of the entire mission's todo list.
Now, Sheppard and Ford saw the huge structure, they knew the Wraith came from it and had ships. Cloak non-withstanding, it seems obvious that once they'd step out of the PJ, they'd be exposed.
Simply put, there was nothing smart about landing once you'd know that the Wraith had a huge base like that.
Total foreign territory, no good knowledge of the use of that sensor device you've never seen in your life.
Never mind.

We know how all of this fantastically ended.

Then they return... after this obviously successful mission.
You know, they lost some men, never rescued Sumner and had to down him, they have attacked the Wraith (who according to Weir's shark-jump were those who defeated the Lanteans), engaging the enemy at multiple occasions (ground and space).
They blew some C4 as well and screwed big times over what looked to be the local queen.

So the conclusion?

ATLANTIS. NIGHT TIME. There's a ‘getting to know you' type party going on in the Gateroom, with all the Atlantis crew milling around with the villagers. Sheppard and Ford walk out onto the balcony and look out over the dark water.

FORD: I guess this is home now.

SHEPPARD: I guess so.

FORD: I'm thinking of a little place with an ocean view. Out of the way.

(Weir walks up behind them.)

WEIR: Major. Lieutenant. (She holds up mugs for them to take.) I thought the occasion merited opening this. Compliments of General O'Neill.

SHEPPARD: Cheers. (They all drink. Weir notices that Sheppard doesn't look happy.)

WEIR: You did good, John.

SHEPPARD: I don't know about that.

WEIR: Hey, there was no way you could have saved Colonel Sumner.

SHEPPARD: I have to live with it. (Weir nods understandingly.) I'm beginning to think you were right -- I have made things much worse. I haven't made us many more friends out there.

WEIR: No? (She turns towards the Control Room/Gateroom.) Look around you.

This is totally crazy. Was Weir high or something?? Sheppard even comes out the wisest of the two, by wondering if he might have made things worse, when similar concerns were tamely voiced by Weir before the mission.
She completely allows every single stupid decision Sheppard has taken. Were hormonal levels involved or what?
In other words, she was totally unfit for the role and had no sense of strategy or any primitive sense of preservation kicking in during the debrief.
Like, well, who gives? You're back so I'm happy I won't have to take hard decision, you're the tough, funny and pretty army man.
Shep! Shep! Shep! Shep! Shep! Shep!

Haha, I think I know what this is all about. First of all, they brought Sheppard because he had that ATA gene. Then they put Weir in charge of the team just to make things look nice and not an obvious military loot operation (weapons weapons weapons weapons weapons).
But it's just all the more obvious that Weir was above all weak and quite a yes-woman, and those who sent the expedition team counted on Sumner and Bates to keep an eye on all those village idiots.

They didn't count on both these guys to be removed out of the picture so soon. And they were not cautious enough with Sheppard's military rank, considering his past record.
O'neill didn't assess the situation properly (which is just that tragic considering how the whole adventure started in 94).

If the show were to resume for some reason, there'd be some great potential here to have an entire story arc devoted to what led to the greenlighting and funding of the project, plus who came up with that roster.
I don't even get the impression that the US president took Weir seriously...
A totally naïve civilian with no record in team management whatsoever, whose only advantage seems to be to speak seven tongues or something... at best she'd have held only a secondary role, like secretary to some kind of minister of xenorelations who at least had more experience after supervising the actions of SG teams and perhaps even some experience in the army or some such.
Having Weir at the helm is like putting a hippie tree-hugger in charge of a vast motorway project that has to cut through the Amazonian jungle.

It's like this entire mission wasn't taken seriously at all. They didn't even give them a nuke. At best they'd have to McGyver one from the nq generators. Kinsey may have been long outed but it seems more and more obvious that those who pulled the stops didn't really care about Altantus whatever...
Huh a nerd project in other words, potentially another abandonned place, when the billions are better spent on building weapons and ships on URF!
I mean, from the very beginning, the PTB have always been obsessed with GEGATON NUWX, haven't they?

I'm not sure at what point sheppard believed that a rescue mission would:
-not wake up the wraith
-not give any excuse to potential enemies to check out atlantis
-be successful against a race that defeated the ancients (SG1 has been drooling on them for 7 years)
-succeed with a piece of ancient technology when they knew the wraith defeated that very technology.

Are we in disagreement?

I agree with the rest of what you typed.
All the more reasons to believe that no one took that mission seriously, only counted on finding another city in ruins with a head grabber, and had two decent war chiefs to keep the kids on a tight leash.

[Mister Oragahn]

Actually, at that point, one of the few things they KNEW was that the ancient technology was overly superior to wrait's technology.

All the more worrying.

[thekillman]

All the more worrying.

actually they didnt know that.

[Mister Oragahn]

actually they didnt know that.

I remembered the hoogram woman spoke about their powers beineg rivalled.
I had to check and it's in The Siege that Sheppard said that the Lanteans won every single battle.

In fact I don't know what's worse now. Knowing about the powers being matched, or the Lanteans having superior tech but still losing against numbers.

In our case, the first option, the one they actually only knew in Rising I suppose (even if Sheppard *seems* to have taken his info from the hologram) revealed that there would be no tactical advantage to obtain.

- We have full optical camo! It's an advantage.
- Wraith rivalled the Lanteans' powers, remember?
- But... cloaks!!
- Rivalled powers.
- ...