Drones

[ori soldier]

they wer prob just trying to dial down the drones power i mean remeber that season 2 ep when the puddle jumper gets shot down in a prison colony and a wraith crusier comes to investigate and sheppard fires one drone and damages the cruiser so much it has to retreat, it was getting a little ridiculous and im glad the drones arent as effective as they were, however i would have have liked to see more allied casualties i tink they only lost two ships against 30 thats dialling it down a little too much.

Also the asurans dont have the ATA gene so probs cant fire drones as effectively

[EarthandBeyond]

They copy the Ancients in every possible way, they even built themselves a replica of Atlantis. It seems likley therefore that they would use a chair to fire drones because thats how the Ancients did it.

From what i understood about " The Chair", it uses sort of reverse-telepathy. It reads the mind of a user, and does what its told. Since Asurans are not an organic creature they do not have a human mind no the gene to activate Ancient chairs, hence they cant use them.

[2ndgenerationalteran]

They are allowed to have organic cells.

NIAM: In these tiny killing machines, the Ancients imbued an aggression that surpassed even that of their enemy. The technology allowed for organic assimilation and self-replication to increase their effectiveness ... and replicate they did.

They could manufacture the ATA gene or the protien needed, especially since they actually created fully opperational human cells in TMC

[Gate-builder]

From what i understood about " The Chair", it uses sort of reverse-telepathy. It reads the mind of a user, and does what its told. Since Asurans are not an organic creature they do not have a human mind no the gene to activate Ancient chairs, hence they cant use them.

Where has it ever been stated that they don't have the gene?

Also if they have a 'human mind' or not is a bit of a grey area. They are machines, but as close to humans as it's possible to get. Humans are basically a collection of cells, the Replicators are a collection of nanites which must perform all the basic functions of human cells. Replicators are also sentient, they are not just mindless machines. They are pretty damn close to being human IMO

[YutheGreat]

You gotta ask what kind of shields. The shields the drones broke through in Lost City were Gould shields. Anubis had advance tech but not as powerful as the asgard or the ancients. They destroyed Thor ship but that was probably the oldest ship cause the advance ones were being use against the replicators. The combined Atlantis fleet were using either Asgard or ancient shields which are more powerful. The ordinary Travellers' ships were destroyed by the replicators.

As for the gene question, the replicators built their ship they should have means to fly them. They copy ancients but that doesn't mean they copy everything completely. Maybe they modified the controls to command their ships but they don't use the gene as a basis. The gene is there to prevent none ancients from using the ships and tech. The replicators might have modified this safegaurd to prevent none replicators from using their vessels.

[UGA Dan]

In all likelihood the drones can pass through pretty much any shield. The replicators were firing them in large numbers, but many of the drones were probably being shot down before reaching their intended targets by point defense systems or fighter screens (like when the Wraith darts shot down our slower moving nukes).

The Auroa ships themselves appear to have point defense systems as when Sheppard launches a swarm of drones at the replicator ship many of them are clearly destroyed in space; from about twenty drones fired only two impact the ship. The alliance ships could have dialed up anti-drone defenses knowing what they would be facing.

Clearly something was hitting the shields of the allied vessels, but are drones the only weapons Auroa class ships have? Perhaps they have energy weapons similar to the Hatak in addition to a compliment of drones.