George Hammond

[Ezis]

Odd that the George Hammond did not have Asgard upgrades. All the others ships have them. This might show that the writers/creators of SGU may have never seen a episode of Stargate before.

Or, perhaps, that ZPMs are more rare than you think, as those Asgard weapons seem to require a LOT of energy.

[overstitch]

It could also be that with the Odyssey off on it's secret mission they were unable to utilize the Asgard replication system to build upgrades for the George Hammond.

After all, we still don't know where it went and for how long. That would leave them with only Tauri technology available (hence rail-guns and standard shields). As for the teleporters, they did have that technology for that prior to receiving that supercomputer.

[jhkplaya888]

Or, perhaps, that ZPMs are more rare than you think, as those Asgard weapons seem to require a LOT of energy.

Normal asgard upgraded 304s have no need for a ZPM and can fully power asgard plasma weps and shields.

[andy tyler]

they wern't on the planet for six months. that must've been a mistake. eli was wearing the same exact clothes and on the ship he said "yesterday i was beamed out of my home"

i find it mildly annoying there were no Asgard beam weapons to take out the Ha'taks either. I love how the writers ignore plot points to get the story across, because if the ha'taks were complete, there would be no SGU.

Where the hell is the Odyssey by the way then??

[GateTrek2004]

they wern't on the planet for six months. that must've been a mistake. eli was wearing the same exact clothes and on the ship he said "yesterday i was beamed out of my home"

i find it mildly annoying there were no Asgard beam weapons to take out the Ha'taks either. I love how the writers ignore plot points to get the story across, because if the ha'taks were complete, there would be no SGU.

Where the hell is the Odyssey by the way then??

I think he was referring to the Base had been there for 6 months, thats what i thought when he said that.

on some

Spoiler:

super secret mission STILL lol

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I see there being two possible explanations for why the Hammond wasn't using beam weapons:

1) They were knocked offline when the Ha'Taks all exited Hyperspace (didn't Sam say something about just getting their shields up?)

2) As others have said perhaps it just didn't have them installed yet.


I believe the reasons why the Hammond was the only ship there is because we know from EATG that Odyssey was off on some secret mission, Daedalus was in the Pegasus Galaxy after getting beat up by the ZPM powered Hive and would take quite a lot of time to get back to the Milky Way, the Apollo and Sun Tsu were crippled in the fight with the ZPM powered Hive, so really everything leading to only one ship protecting or transporting people to the base can be accounted for if Air happened shortly after EATG, like a few weeks or something especially if Apollo and Sun Tsu were in really dire states after their battle.

[Giantevilhead]

The Hammond not having beams isn't a bad explanation since whoever sent the Ha'taks would have known about it, otherwise they wouldn't have been stupid enough to send only three Ha'taks.

[talyn2k1]

All of the other 304s (Daedalus, Odyssey, and Apollo) had the Asgard upgrades tacked on after construction.
Considering how long we have had the Asgard tech, the Hammond (and maybe even the Sun Tzu) would've had the technology integrated from the very beginning, rather than as an upgrade. Therefore, I see no reason why the Hammond wouldn't have Asgard weapons and shields.

I really enjoyed the premiere, and this didn't ruin it by any means. But the SG writers are infamously bad with ship details (relative strengths/sizes/capabilities), that I really wasn't that surprised that they conveniently 'forgot' about the Asgard beam weapons in order to facilitate the plot.

The thing that generally annoys me when they do things like this, is that it is normally very easily avoidable.
At the very least, they would've had to add a single line from Carter stating that they got hit before they raised their shields and lost their weapons.
Although the much cooler solution to the problem would've been to have a fleet of Hataks. Have the Hammond take out a large portion of them (with the gliders and transports still making it past the Hammond) and suffer severe damage in the process, necessitating their withdrawal.

All in all the premiere was really good, but the writers need to sort this lack of attention to detail if they really want this to be better than previous Stargates.

[Excali5033]

The omission of Asgard beams annoyed me less than the continuing military mistakes. It's been twelve years guys, come on. :\

But really, I'm just happy to see the old orifice on my television screen again.

[SGFerrit]

1. Joe Mallozzi said this was set very soon after Atlantis' last episode, days to a week, at most. As of the last episode of Atlantis, the George Hammond wasn't complete. So in under a week, Sam has taken command of it and it's set off on it's first voyage. The fact that it didn't have beam weapons is understandable considering it's only been a week since the end of Atlantis.

2. Again, this is supposed to be set very shortly after the end of Atlantis, so...

Daedalus: Limping back to our galaxy, damaged.
Apollo: Limping back to our galaxy, badly damaged.
Sun Tzu: Adrift in space, not going anywhere for a long time. And Chinese, anyway.
Odyssey: On a secret mission.

The incomplete Hammond was the only ship available, and considering the Icarus Base was supposed to be secret, there should have been no problem sending it.

[dahok]

The Hammond not having beams isn't a bad explanation since whoever sent the Ha'taks would have known about it, otherwise they wouldn't have been stupid enough to send only three Ha'taks.

I'd be surprised if the LA had that many left to begin with. Replicators and the Ori destroyed many, what remained was grabbed up by the FJN, LA, and possibly the Tok'ra.

I hope more is shown in flashbacks, even it's just another 15-20 seconds of the battle. They dedicate a ship to not just the character but the man, it needs to be done right.

[ha'tak_]

the reason they did´int make the Hammond whit the Asgard plasma cannons is because if they had the beam weapons they had taken out the ha´taks in three shots and the Icarus base would not have to be evacuated and then there would be no STARGATE UNIVERSE

but I do think it is really weird that it did´int have the beam weapons

[The6thRace]

Maybe its also symbolic of the direction they want to take Stargate Universe. They take two old elements from the show, a Deadalus class ship and 3 Hatak's, and turn up the realism, making the battle seem more balanced and the possibility of going either way. While it may not fit immediately without explanation, its still plausible.

It also seems like a conspiracy element, the Lucian Alliance's presence was never fully explained. It's entirely possible there is a lot more behind this then a simple accident, something that will eventually connect to someone within the stranded group on the destiny. Or better yet, it's possible there are cloaked infiltrators aboard the destiny who sneaked into the Stargate during the first moments when it was opened but no one was going through. As they said, it's a huge ship.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Normal asgard upgraded 304s have no need for a ZPM and can fully power asgard plasma weps and shields.

Well the Plasma Beam weapons I'm not sure about, it's really a matter of opinion ATM until either someone asks TPTB or we see Odyssey take on a regular Hive, but the shields on a standard 304 are not fully powered, if they were fully powered then they'd have been able to take the same kind of pummeling Odyssey could from the Ori, plus in the Siege Part 3 Hermiod did say that Daedalus's shields were significantly diminished without the ZPM installed.

[amconway]

1. Joe Mallozzi said this was set very soon after Atlantis' last episode, days to a week, at most. As of the last episode of Atlantis, the George Hammond wasn't complete. So in under a week, Sam has taken command of it and it's set off on it's first voyage. The fact that it didn't have beam weapons is understandable considering it's only been a week since the end of Atlantis.

2. Again, this is supposed to be set very shortly after the end of Atlantis, so...

Daedalus: Limping back to our galaxy, damaged.
Apollo: Limping back to our galaxy, badly damaged.
Sun Tzu: Adrift in space, not going anywhere for a long time. And Chinese, anyway.
Odyssey: On a secret mission.

The incomplete Hammond was the only ship available, and considering the Icarus Base was supposed to be secret, there should have been no problem sending it.

All excellent points. Thanks for clearing up the timeline.

So, Sam was wearing a 'Hammond' patch? I forgot to look....