Irises on Midway

[Cree]

It is one thing having the MAKER of the code hack it, and another to envision others doing the same when it is not common knowledge it even is out there.

My point though, was that it is possible to hack it, it would just be harder for the wraith!

[Vala_M]

Yeah quite a goof. They used a stock shot computer image.

It's not a stock shot, those were totally new dual gate dialing screens which have never been shown before.

Vala,

[Argosy]

My main issue with the episode is that all the bonehead contrivances stand out like a sore thumb.

That retcon in the “previously on Stargate Atlantis” was bad enough, but then they had to go compound that with a bunch of other bonehead plays like letting us know that they have a ZPM (the discussion between Ronon & Shep) but not trying to establish contact with the SGC to warn them of eminent danger or asses their situation through direct dial then radio contact (i.e. has the SGC been compromised already).

One would think that they (team Atlantis) would want to do an end-run around to possibly get ahead of their enemy, & retake their HQ rather than follow up on the heels of your enemy.

There is a whole ass load of things that interfered with my ability to enjoy this episode, but I don’t have time to get into it right now.

[Xaeden]

One would think that they (team Atlantis) would want to do an end-run around to possibly get ahead of their enemy, & retake their HQ rather than follow up on the heels of your enemy.

There is a whole ass load of things that interfered with my ability to enjoy this episode, but I don’t have time to get into it right now.

They sort of addressed this while on the Midway station - Sheppard couldn't imagine that the Wraith would be able to take the SGC by force as he had no concept of a weapon that could disable everyone in the base. Worst case scenario to him was a few Wraith get through, they get shot, and the Iris goes back up. Given what little they knew it was reasonable for them to assume that Earth would be fine and it was only the Midway station that was at risk.

[gopher65]

Given what little they knew it was reasonable for them to assume that Earth would be fine and it was only the Midway station that was at risk.

Yes, because the wraith have shown time and time again how they are unable to defeat even the lamest foes. Remember how the wraith weren't able to defeat the replicators, twice? Remember how they lost to the Ancients? How they didn't beat an entire galaxy full of advanced interstellar humans (the Genii interstellar alliance, the Travellers. Heck, even the Athosans had ruins of a city that was more advanced than anything Earth has)? Obviously the wraith are no danger to Earth. No need to warn them.

Even if they were stupid enough to think that, they'd be risking the lives of the SFs in the gateroom for no reason. Are the members of the Atlantis command staff so callous and cold that they don't care if a few of their redshirts get eaten?

[Dutch_Razor]

For an IDC:

What you do is this: Send through a group of travellers, with a special IDC. Have the last gate in the network programmed to scan the incoming matter stream for an IDC, then pause. Have a subspace transmitter on that gate. The gate activates the transmitter, and sends the IDC. If it receives a confirmation, then it unpauses the macro and continues forwarding it.

Or, better yet, get rid of the Iris completely. Have the gate on the receiving end scan the incoming matter stream, and then decide if you want it to reintegrate that stream. If you don't like what's coming through, press the big red delete key, like they almost did to Teal'c in that one episode. Presto, problem solved.

The gate can still be "hacked" if they could hack it like this I presume.

[BubblingOverWithIdeas]

Game over for the Wraith. It would've sucked to have to try to come up with cover story for these creatures running around and might not have even been possible. But the military would've hunted them down and blown up the base to prevent any further waves from coming through (the Midway station would've been next). After which they would've dug up the Stargate and moved it to a new facility. The Stargate program would be up and running again a short while later. There's just no way that the Wraith could've sent enough forces through to take and hold anything. Not only did they have no chance of sending that many through before their mode of transport was taken out but you don't go up against a superior military with ground forces alone. The whole thing seemed like a futile exercise as they had no goal other than establishing a beachhead and there was no way they could do that.

You're right, they couldn't have established a beachhead. Perhaps they did not know this because they don't know our exact capabilities on Earth. They could, however, scatter in many directions and keep on the run, sticking to the woodlands and feeding on nearby humans before moving on. It would take the military a long time to hunt them down, but it still wouldn't be much of a strategy.

[Xaeden]

Yes, because the wraith have shown time and time again how they are unable to defeat even the lamest foes. Remember how the wraith weren't able to defeat the replicators, twice? Remember how they lost to the Ancients?

They "beat" the Ancients and the Replicators 10,000 years ago. The Wraith of today do not begin to compare to their ancestors and they didn't defeat the replicators a second time. All they did was lend ship support so Atlantis could go through with its plan. They won some battles beforehand and put up a good fight, but they didn't beat them by any measure of the term.

How they didn't beat an entire galaxy full of advanced interstellar humans (the Genii interstellar alliance, the Travellers. Heck, even the Athosans had ruins of a city that was more advanced than anything Earth has)?

In the case of the Genii and the Athosians the Wraith had access to ships which they could use against them where as neither have shown any hints of one time having the capacity to fight an enemy that could bombard them from orbit or send thousands of darts down on them if they so desired. Not to mention unlimited soldiers (something they couldn't bring to Earth due to the Midway's limitations). As for the Travellers, there was never a reference to the Wraith beating them. All we were told is that they used ships to avoid contact with the Wraith and they occasionally get into scrapes where they lose a ship. All this means is that they do not have the resources to go to war with the Wraith and since they do not have the knowledge to build more ships they had no way to gaining more resources towards such an effort.

Obviously the wraith are no danger to Earth. No need to warn them.

Everything said above is pointless to this conversation anyway. Being able to win in one situation does not mean they are able to win in another and you can't really use one of these things as proof towards saying they need to be worried about every little plan the Wraith come up with. Every situation has to be analyzed individually - The SGC was heavily fortied and protected by an Iris. Short of tossing a bomb through and blowing it up, which gets them nowhere closer to getting food or crippling Earthling activity in the Pegasus galaxy, there was no known way that would allow the Wraith to do any real harm. It's easier to point out things that "should have" been done when you have all the facts though.

Even if they were stupid enough to think that, they'd be risking the lives of the SFs in the gateroom for no reason. Are the members of the Atlantis command staff so callous and cold that they don't care if a few of their redshirts get eaten?

Only the Wraith trying to invade the gateroom doesn't put anyone's life at risk as they use stunners. Had they tried to do it without the weapon a few Wraith would've gotten through, the Iris would've gone up on the rest, those few Wraith would've been killed, and anyone that was hit with Wraith weapon fire would've later woken up in medical.

[gopher65]

My point wasn't that the Wraith won with ships, or reprogramming or whatever, it was that they were able to develop strategies to beat enemies that were superior to them. Given that Wraith don't die naturally, it is entirely possible that the same Wraith that created the solutions to those problems are still alive today.

If you were faced with a clever enemy, would you simply assume that they were using the worst possible tactic, with no regard to the possibility that your enemy has half a brain? I certainly wouldn't, and it bothers me that the characters on Stargate are that arrogant.

[Xaeden]

My point wasn't that the Wraith won with ships, or reprogramming or whatever, it was that they were able to develop strategies to beat enemies that were superior to them. Given that Wraith don't die naturally, it is entirely possible that the same Wraith that created the solutions to those problems are still alive today.

But that's the thing. The Wraith have very limited strategies and depend heavily this bug mentality of just swarming your foe with everything you have. They have some brilliant ideas, but they're always shortsighted.

With the Ancients it was brilliant of them to develop cloning technology and use captured ZPMs to achieve this. But then they just flooded them with everything they had, not thinking that this effort would heavily tax their food supply to the point where their own actions were a threat to their continued existence in the long term.

With the Replicators it was brilliant of them to develop a virus to deactive their attack code. However, then they just ignored them and went back to their business. They may not have been able to push an attack against their homeworld or even known where it was, but they had 10,000 years to prepare for their possible return. Instead they were too concerned with fighting with each other for food.

With all the Human civilizations they have attacked, there was no brilliance involved. Just senseless overpowering of weaker civilizations.

If you were faced with a clever enemy, would you simply assume that they were using the worst possible tactic, with no regard to the possibility that your enemy has half a brain? I certainly wouldn't, and it bothers me that the characters on Stargate are that arrogant.

Then there's their dealings with Earth. This is a common pattern with them. I wouldn't even think they'd be stupid enough to go to Earth given that there was only one possible outcome for them if they did so. Stun weapon or no stun weapon they were going to die and so if I were to give them full credit, I would assume they were intelligent enough not to waste their time on such a futile scheme (I've mentioned this on some thread or another, but if I was them I would've used the Midway station to dial Atlantis and get them to drop their shield so I could use the stun weapon on them - pretty much any other plan of their's would've been an idiotic waste of time and resources). Regardless, the major point I differ from you on this is that I think if you're in a situation like that you have to quickly make a lot of decisions and cannot be held responsible after from not following through on every possibility. Right then Midway was the most important thing to them, as it should've been. They were right to completely focus on getting there before giving a second thought to anything else. The sooner they got there, the sooner they would have a chance to cut off anything the Wraith were up to and the more likely it would be that they could save the lives of those on Midway. The time to consider warning Earth would've been right after Sheppard and his strike force left Atlantis and we don't know what happened then as the episode did not show us the dialogue that went on between the people in the gateroom while they waited for Sheppard to complete his mission.

[Argosy]

I certainly wouldn't, and it bothers me that the characters on Stargate are so poorly written.

The bolded portion in the above quote is a correction I made.

While it was correct the way it was written…I believe my correction rings a bit truer (hope you don’t mind gopher65).

[Ed]

i think something even bigger will happen in terms of earth being arogant i think fighting the genii now would be an interesting reversal of roles to sg1s early years but usbeing the supper advanced race

[YutheGreat]

McKay was way too overconfident believing no one could hack his code. If Midway was attack with a ship I doubt it even had one railgun to defend itself.

[The.Road.Not.Taken]

McKay was way too overconfident believing no one could hack his code. If Midway was attack with a ship I doubt it even had one railgun to defend itself.

they wouldn't need any because as far as atlantis knows they have no enemies currently be able to reach or even locate the midway station