Seriously they couldn't mount a better defense?

[_Ancients_]

Couple things...

O'Neill could have been on the secret mission that the Odyssey is on.

And...

Surely they would have fitted Area 51 with some sort of defensive capabilities when the chair was moved there. Even a few rail guns could have helped. Even our aircraft carriers today have the Vulcan Cannon Sea Wiz "rail guns" that can shoot down an incoming anti-ship missile traveling at full speed. If you have never seen them in action before follow the link and check it out. It fires 4,500 rounds/minute at bursts of up to 1000 rounds.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeXdr-BVPO8

[Ripple in Space]

Your forgetting a very important piece of information.... Jack had all the knowledge in his head when he was firing all the drones... so it might of had something to do with his ability to fire them so effieciently

Even without the Ancient knowledge he was able to destroy a Ha'tak Mothership with two drones. Even Shep isn't at that skill level since he often uses three to take out a single dart. While a Hive may outclass a Ha'tak, a Dart is orders of magnitude weaker than a Ha'tak.

Ha'taks are gigantic Motherships with respectable shielding. Darts are tiny and have been destroyed by sufficient bullet impacts.

[nx01a]

Earth's best and only defense is to keep someone in that chair at all times and fire drones at anything that gets past whatever 304s and 303s are in orbit.
Whoops! No more chair.
Shep should have sat in that chair, picked off the drones selectively using as few drones as possible and waited for the hive to come into range.

[Laxian of Earth]

On the topic of asking allies for help. There's two explanations for that.

1) They expected the Hive to take weeks to get to Earth, but it arrived in mere hours. They could've already asked for help, but they just never arrived in time.

2) The Hive defeated Earth's 304's. I don't think Any number of Gou'ald motherships would do anything but become cannon fodder.

Sheppard in the chair

1) Sheppard's much more adept at handling drone weapons than anyone else on Earth.

Landing in San Francisco.

1) I personally think this is a tribute to Star Trek.

Well, firstly:

Hello (reading this promted me into registering - have had an account here once, but to my shame forgot the name and the password),

secondly:

Ha'taks would of course have made a difference, as in my humble oppinion the Deadalus only fared that bad - as it allways does in space fights: BECAUSE IT 'AINT MOVING, honestly, not moving the ship, to for example pass the hive at high speed, all the while firing missiles, beam weapons, railguns (and these energy cannons seen in the episode they attacked the replicator planet) just makes it easy for the wraith targetting computer to "paint" (aquire) the target and shot - and if someone says they had to stay there to protect the jumper: They could have beamed the people out!) and damage it (maybe enough so that the other two F-304's could have finished it off, after it has been weakened by hyperspace radiation entering it from the "wounds"?).

As for the Ha'taks: They would have been usefull, as the Super-Hive only managed to take the F-304's because they were so few. If 6-10 Ha'taks would have attacked it it would have had to divide it's firepower, or have had to concentrate on one, while leaving the others free to move about and shoot to their hearts content. In addition: Wraith ships have no shields, Ha'tak have (after season 7 even with a strength that's almost as good as Asgard ones!) and so they are more than a worthy opponent (in the episode the ori ships took the ha'tak appart with one blow i thought they made them extra weak, even more so as the F-304's had problems fighting ONE Ha'tak prior to having beam weapons!)

As for fighter-planes of human origin: A Dart is just an organic Glider (as a comparison) with a beam device an a very fragile hull (a Cal. 50 machingun was able to shoot one down in one episode) and as we see in "Continuum" russian Migs (probably mig 29's from the look of it) were able to take the gliders (which are tougher then Darts), so a squadron or two of say F-16's or more modern: F-22 Raptors would have been able to take them on easily (even more so with the F-302's at their side)

then for ground defenses: If you have a space weapon and a lot of other stuff in a warehouse (area 51 is a warehouse - yes they research there, too, but even more, they store everything there they think is interesting or even dangerous (the mirror for reality jumping for example)) full of alien tech, that might be dangerous, wouldn't you protect it? (have anti air guns their - patriots or something like that? what i mean to say is: The army would protect such a site as a principal, even more if an invasion from space could hapen any time!)

then their is the other thing: why does earth not try to build other defenses (the ships can not be their at all times as we see: Daedalus in Pegasus, Odysse on a secret mission (probably with rest SG-1), Sun Tsu and Apollo taken out of the picture (Damaged in the fight)).
I want to implie: They have the technology now and had time and they had full access - i repeat: FULL ACCESS - to Asgard technology for over a year and they were not able to, well build defense satelites? Shoul be easy to mount a beam weapon, a targeting computer, a small engine (to keep in orbit and for targeting ships) an energy cannon (for shooting smaller ships like gliders/darts) and a Naquadah-Reactor onto a Satellite and let one of the ships dropp them into orbit?
It would certainly make them less dependable on the Droneplattform and it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper then to keep ships around for that purpos (twenty of those - an entire grid would have a few hundred - should have been able to finish super-hive off (concentrated fire, like the satellite sys daniel envisions in the one episode he has goauld knowledge in his mind, and BOOM!).

and for sheppard to be that good with drones: Didn't O'Neill handle them almost as often? (Shep used them once to deffend atlantis, then on the ancient ship attacking the replicators and once to disable the cities star drive during replicator occupation makes 3 times, O'neill may have only had one time, but the drones are guided by their own "intelligence" in a way (the ones O'neill fired from the jumper onto the hive in: "It's good to be King" sought out a vital part of the ship, without him aiming for it (or even knowing what he had to hit)), so it wouldn't matter)
On side note: With him in the chair (as he seems to feel the ancient systems better then anyone) maybe the hyperdrive "glitches" would have been detected earlier?

so my three cents on the happenings.

on the episode, i liked it still (big fan of special effects and computer animations) but it had so much shortcommings (misstakes and such) that i lived from effects only and all in all was poorly done!

mfg LAX

[Ozzman]

No in general combat was poorly done. Why didnt they rig a generator and send that through the gate? why no more fighters to protect area 51? All area 51 staff have clearance to know about alien attack. The chair is easy to move, the hardware to run it is not. however at least save the freakin chair..

in generally poorly managed tactics. It was rushed, period.. Sci-Fi would have given 2 hours. Their ratings were good enough to justify it.

[cobraR478]

good point but for one Stargate activity is still classifed so no stealth, and no other fighters because they would have to reveal the stargate to all those people.Second Gen O'Neil is proboly doing something else proboly heading some base but we don't know he could have evan retired again.And thirdly the wraith attacked way to fast for them to evan call any allies plus it would take any kind of attack from the allies because they would have to come by ship a long time to get to earth. The wraith had a stargate on board so no dialing out to tell them and no dialing in well atlast no into earth.OO i almost forgot that the IOA proboly just agreed to move it to area 51 because it was Sg1 who found it and area 51 is one of the safest locations on earth. Plus i am sure that the united states kinda offered them a huge sum of money to keep hold of it.

Fighter Pilots probably have the level of clearance required to legally be allowed to know about the Stargate (Assuming there isn't a fake level of clearance made up for the show. Has this ever been mentioned?). However up until the point when it became clear that the Earth was in immediate danger, there was no need to know. As soon as they decoded the message, it should have been immediately recognized that the Wraith might attempt to do something to disable the chair before endangering their ship. Any sort of defensive capabilities that could have been mobilized, should have been mobilized.

[Flyboy]

Fighter Pilots probably have the level of clearance required to legally be allowed to know about the Stargate (Assuming there isn't a fake level of clearance made up for the show. Has this ever been mentioned?). However up until the point when it became clear that the Earth was in immediate danger, there was no need to know. As soon as they decoded the message, it should have been immediately recognized that the Wraith might attempt to do something to disable the chair before endangering their ship. Any sort of defensive capabilities that could have been mobilized, should have been mobilized.

I don't see why fighter pilots would have the required level of clearance, particularly considering that you can actually start flying your 'type' relatively early on in your career, directly after training. You obviously have to have a certain level of clearance, but it really wouldn't be the highest - most fighter pilots would be junior officers. And they're not going to have the same clearance as a General in charge of a major facility, or even a junior Intelligence Officer.


As for Shep, what confuses me is that he was so insistant on taking the fight to the enemy, yet the fight was OVER Area 51... so surely if he;d have just got his ass into the chair, he could STILL have taken the fight to them.

[_Ancients_]

I don't see why fighter pilots would have the required level of clearance, particularly considering that you can actually start flying your 'type' relatively early on in your career, directly after training. You obviously have to have a certain level of clearance, but it really wouldn't be the highest - most fighter pilots would be junior officers. And they're not going to have the same clearance as a General in charge of a major facility, or even a junior Intelligence Officer.


As for Shep, what confuses me is that he was so insistant on taking the fight to the enemy, yet the fight was OVER Area 51... so surely if he;d have just got his ass into the chair, he could STILL have taken the fight to them.

The whole chair fiasco was one of the biggest disappointments of the finale. I understand why they took out of the equation, just like the Odyssey, but it was very rushed and in some ways contrived.

[Flyboy]

Thole chair fiasco was one of the biggest disappointments of the finale. I understand why they took out of the equation, just like the Odyssey, but it was very rushed and in some ways contrived.

Agreed. Certainly they didn't want a SECOND antarctic battle, that would be too much like The Lost City, without the punch as it was just one ship, but... Area 51? Couldn't they have moved it to somewhere more realistic? And then had a better reason for not getting SHep to it in time?

[_Ancients_]

Agreed. Certainly they didn't want a SECOND antarctic battle, that would be too much like The Lost City, without the punch as it was just one ship, but... Area 51? Couldn't they have moved it to somewhere more realistic? And then had a better reason for not getting SHep to it in time?

Exactly. What really surprises me is that they never "invented" any ground base beaming systems. That could have easily gotten Shep to the chair in time. But with the Apollo and the Sun Tzu damaged and outside of the MW, there was no way to beam him there.

And I am with you on why they chose Area 51 for the Chair to be housed. I suppose it was because they were studying it hoping to be able to replicate it one day. If not, I would have put it somewhere way off the grid that even the IOA didn't know existed and then put a replica at Area 51 so the IOA still thought it was there.

[Flyboy]

Exactly. What really surprises me is that they never "invented" any ground base beaming systems. That could have easily gotten Shep to the chair in time. But with the Apollo and the Sun Tzu damaged and outside of the MW, there was no way to beam him there.

And I am with you on why they chose Area 51 for the Chair to be housed. I suppose it was because they were studying it hoping to be able to replicate it one day. If not, I would have put it somewhere way off the grid that even the IOA didn't know existed and then put a replica at Area 51 so the IOA still thought it was there.

Why try and thwart the IOA? It may have it's problems, but the future is in trying to find international stability and co-operation, not US dominance. Had it not been for a LACK of international co-operation regarding the Chair, it would have been moved to a more secure intenrational location which would have resulted in a very different scenario being played out.

[_Ancients_]

Why try and thwart the IOA? It may have it's problems, but the future is in trying to find international stability and co-operation, not US dominance. Had it not been for a LACK of international co-operation regarding the Chair, it would have been moved to a more secure intenrational location which would have resulted in a very different scenario being played out.

True. I was just thinking that the less people that knew about the chair the better so that way the Wraith didn't know where to attack.

[hedwig]

And speaking of the chair being at Area 51 ... did I miss something? How did the wraith even know the chair was at Area 51? There was no reason, really, for them to attack Area 51 unless they knew the chair was there.

(**must go back and watch EatG, Vegas, etc. to find clue as to how wraith knew about this**)

[Flyboy]

And speaking of the chair being at Area 51 ... did I miss something? How did the wraith even know the chair was at Area 51? There was no reason, really, for them to attack Area 51 unless they knew the chair was there.

(**must go back and watch EatG, Vegas, etc. to find clue as to how wraith knew about this**)

The Wraith from Vegas included that in his message I believe.

[terr]

It is clear that the finale was rushed, but I figured this was due to the cancellation of the series. It looked to me as though the episode was originally to be two parts, finishing as the premier for season six. However, from what I'm reading now, this does not appear to be the case. Apparently, they always planned on ending the season with the Super-Hive destroyed and Atlantis on Earth. So, why did they rush this episode?


See The Season Six That Might Have Been: http://www.gateworld.net/news/2009/0...ght-have-been/


And Mallozi's blog: http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...n-au-season-6/