Two primary targets waiting to be taken out, but no action!?

[mago1978]

There I have to disagree. I think that it would totally take away the episode from the character development. Take a look at the last scene. If you put in a huge explosion after "I love you. I have for quite some time" (paraphrasing) it would not fit at all.

Since when a character-driven episode precludes the use of action scenes??

I'm not suggesting that the episode should have been as is with an action scene inserted at the end.

I suggested that writers could've written the action scene in. Obviously some scenes and elements of the story would have been changed.

I'm also not asking that the producers of the show pull the episode and re-shoot the whole thing. All I did was offer up my opinion.

[Vlad]

And this is a discussion. Nobody is taking this, or should take this, as a hostile attack.

[Pic]

I can see your point. Hey, we got a jumper in and got a lay of the land, why waste the intel, so to speak

But they knew the wraith were there long before Rodney had need to go there. Woolsey said they'd settled there during the replicator wars. Why would they feel the need to attack them now? Why not earlier? or later?

I'm glad the "action" was reserved to Ronon blasting the slimy-slug. I mean, I like both beer and ice cream...

[Vlad]

There was ice-cream?

[AscendedThor]

there's no way to beam a nuke into the hive ships anymore (the wraith developed some kind of shields that prevent it), and a nuke going off from outside their ship won't do any damage (if it could do damage than why haven't we seen nukes being used in any episode where there's a battle with a wraith ship?) obviously a nuke even very close to their ship but outside does very little damage

[Col. Shadow Quinn]

there's no way to beam a nuke into the hive ships anymore (the wraith developed some kind of shields that prevent it), and a nuke going off from outside their ship won't do any damage (if it could do damage than why haven't we seen nukes being used in any episode where there's a battle with a wraith ship?) obviously a nuke even very close to their ship but outside does very little damage

Actually a nuke incinerate the Hive Ships because they aren't in space, they're on the ground and therefore the nukes would do much more damage.

[Major_Griff]

Honestly, the Wraith haven't bothered the expedition in a while, so I don't think they should make it a priority to attack them and get their attention while they are in the middle of a civil war.

Also as others said not every episode has to be action oriented.

[Zelda fan]

don't start a war when you don't need to

[GoSpikey]

Saving Rodney's life was a top priority. Engaging 10 000 angry wraith who may detect a plan to destroy them wouldn't exactly help the team's cause. And nukes could've potentially destroyed the shrine and therefore any hope of saving Rodney.

I kinda thought the number of Wraith on those two Hive ships a bit exaggerated?

If every Hive ship (there were supposed to be 60 in the first season, let's say they didn't build more, then 14 got shot down by us, so 46 tops left - minus the ones the Replicators got, but doesn't matter) carried 5,000 Wraith aboard (we were previously told 2,000 tops?) then 46 x 5,000 = 23 x 10,000 = 230,000?

That's a bit much, isn't it? Not saying that every Hive carries that much, but it's strange they're getting so cozy all of a sudden.

There I have to disagree. I think that it would totally take away the episode from the character development. Take a look at the last scene. If you put in a huge explosion after "I love you. I have for quite some time" (paraphrasing) it would not fit at all.

Oh man, that would have been a catastrophe for the episode!

Honestly, the Wraith haven't bothered the expedition in a while, so I don't think they should make it a priority to attack them and get their attention while they are in the middle of a civil war.

Also as others said not every episode has to be action oriented.

Yeah, they'd get the blame for it, and the Wraith would once again come for Atlantis. We've had that situation before, so they're not gonna do something stupid now, and risk it again. Definitely not when the Wraith are probably still getting affected by that Hoffan drug... They're dieing the slow way, now.

[Specter177]

Why is 230,000 Wraith a lot? That is a quarter the size of the US military.

[Xaeden]

It was never said how many Wraith a Hive can hold. As I recall, they've always just hinted at it being thousands. For example, in "Misbegotten" this was said...

SHEPPARD: Well, the ship didn't have a full complement to begin with but, still, there are a few.

SHEPPARD: Official count is just under two hundred. A lot of them were killed in the battle. A lot more of them killed each other when the gas started changing them. We should consider ourselves lucky. A hive ship like this could carry thousands.

But regardless, all they said is that there were 10,000 Wraith on the ground. Not that they were all from the crew of those Hives. There's no telling what they were doing there besides just parking their ships. They might've had a facility somewhere, they might've had Wraith coming in and out through the Stargate for some reason, they might've had more ships in orbit and placed some of the Wraith from those ships on the ground, etc. There are various reasons why the number of Wraith could've been greater than the number of crew both ships had.

That said, while, I wouldn't be surprised if one of their ships could house that many, there's no telling how many have much smaller crews (like the one in "Misbegotten") as a result of their various problems.

[NKDietrich]

This wasn't a Wraith-killing episode. Nor a space battle episode. There are only so many minutes in which to tell the story. Spending a few minutes on killing Wraith would have robbed us of a great story, and some glued on exploding hive ships would have taken away from the story as well and just looked tacky as hell.

[unluckynumber11]

don't start a war when you don't need to

yea, where have you been the whole series? the war already started years ago.

And why do people think that if they want to destroy a hive, they have to use a nuke? HELLO!! we have asgard weapons just use those and take care of the hives, or we can just use the rail guns. That would have also been a distraction for the wraith, they would be more worried with the 304 then with a unknown cloaked jumper.

And in Prophecy, the writers set up the jeopardy in a way that the team is in danger, not Jonas.

Jonas was in danger also, he needed to get into surgery to remove the tumor that was giving him prophecies before it killed him but he wanted to lay off the surgery to have more time telling the future so he could save sg-1 and everybody.

as many of you had said, it would have been the cherry on top

[Xaeden]

yea, where have you been the whole series? the war already started years ago.

The Wraith are their enemy, but they're not really in a war with them. The main objective of the expedition appears to be to try to lay low and bide their time while they explore the galaxy and continue their research on Atlantis. They'll help people who are under threat of the Wraith and they'll defend themselves when attacked in any way they can, including going on the offensive for a bit. But, they try to stay away from actively going after the Wraith for no other reason than to do some damage.

After season 1 they have mostly been been able to slip under the Wraith's radar since the Wraith have more pressing things to deal with. It started with the introduction of their civil war and then got a whole lot worse thanks to the replicator war (Atlantis much prefers to find ways to indirectly cause harm to the Wraith). So, unless they are ready to follow through on an all out war, going on the offensive may not be the best idea as it will turn the Wraith's attention toward them. Which they won't be to handle until they have more ships and at least a formal military alliance with the Travelers/potentially others. Atlantis is in a great position right now, but they're not quite ready for a true war.

Anyway this is nothing new. They have had plenty of opportunities to do damage before now - They have Ancient sensors that can track Wraith ships and a powerful ship of their own which stays in the galaxy for a bit before moving on. They could've tracked lone ships and went after them one by one in their spare time. Yet they don't, likely because they know it will result in the Wraith becoming more united and them actively seeking a way to A) Set up an ambush to destroy Earth's ship(s) attacking them and B) Find Atlantis (which they know wasn't destroyed now) and form alliances so that they'll have a large enough fleet to take it out.

[Vlad]

Why is 230,000 Wraith a lot? That is a quarter the size of the US military.

YEah but Atlantis has was only 100 or so military personnel, I am guessing.

...
And why do people think that if they want to destroy a hive, they have to use a nuke? HELLO!! we have asgard weapons just use those and take care of the hives, or we can just use the rail guns. That would have also been a distraction for the wraith, they would be more worried with the 304 then with a unknown cloaked jumper.

That would take too long. And there is not guarantee that they could destroy the hive ships.

Jonas was in danger also, he needed to get into surgery to remove the tumor that was giving him prophecies before it killed him but he wanted to lay off the surgery to have more time telling the future so he could save sg-1 and everybody.

as many of you had said, it would have been the cherry on top

Yeah but we knew that they could perform the surgery and it would save his life. In this episode, we didn't know that Rodney would be saved (ok yeah we did because he is the main cast but it wasn't set up like that in the episode)