asurans base code

[nova]

so now atlantis have wraith prisoners, plus the original wraith base code (exepct a few little bits), instead of altering the code to stop them attacking wraith, why dont they alter it to stop asurans attacking human planets, and carry on the wraith war, and maybe even alter it to make humans as allies.

thoughts?

[jelgate]

The Asuran base code is very complicates. It was a miracle tha McKay was able to rewrite the base code in the first place. It would be next to impossible to do what your asking

[Alendra]

That would require to change a LOT of things (if that's even possible), McKay's good but he has some limits ^^.
As of now what McKay did was, "erase" the aggressivity on one guy, activate an already present command (wraith attack command).
That's much easier than add a whole new command (I think).

[wise one]

i would of thought the database would help on something on the lines of base codes and programming

[Alendra]

If I recall correctly from "Progeny", the Ancients wiped any reference to the Asurans from their database.

[HyperspaceDaemon]

It's unlikely to see McKay doing such an extensive and refined rewrite of the Asuran
software. I'd be very disappointed by such a plot .

Since i'm a programmer i have the tendency of being picky about the whole
idea that McKay was able to alter the Asurans' programming in the first place.

Being a genius could help but is not enough for programming something that you've
never seen before : you need technical specifications and documentation, you
need the source code, you need a compiler able to generate the machine code
for the target architecture, you need to familiarize yourself with how that software
works before modifying it . Programming takes time, work and a lot of testing ...

[Jeffer]

Being a genius could help but is not enough for programming something that you've
never seen before : you need technical specifications and documentation, you
need the source code, you need a compiler able to generate the machine code
for the target architecture, you need to familiarize yourself with how that software
works before modifying it . Programming takes time, work and a lot of testing ...

It is reasonable to assume that the code is similar to other Ancient code which he has worked with before. I'm not disagreeing with you cause i have coded stuff before (Just simple stuff) but he would have the technical know how to adjust stuff if he needed to.

[HyperspaceDaemon]

It is reasonable to assume that the code is similar to other Ancient code which he has worked with before. I'm not disagreeing with you cause i have coded stuff before (Just simple stuff) but he would have the technical know how to adjust stuff if he needed to.

I can accept this explanation, but only from the typical watcher's point of view
(who is surely not required to have any programming experience ).

But ... If McKay is so proficient with Ancient programming then it should be trivial for him
to find useful information in the Ancients database : "building zpm" , "drones tutorial" , etc.

[P-90_177]

i try not to think about it really but really mckay shouldn't be able to do that sort of thing anyway. I mean he may be a genius but his specialty is theoretical astro-phsycist...............does that have anything to do with computer programming code?

[Xaeden]

But ... If McKay is so proficient with Ancient programming then it should be trivial for him
to find useful information in the Ancients database : "building zpm" , "drones tutorial" , etc.

We do not know that he hasn't (in fact I remember someone saying he mentioned ZPM data in database but I don't remember which episode that person said this was from so I'll just assume that it never happened). However, having useful information on being able to create a ZPM and having the raw supplies and the machinary to be able to do so are two different things. Building a ZPM for them would be like going back in time 2000 years and trying to build a car (worse actually since it would be like giving someone from 2000 years ago the intructions without the ability to learn from someone with experience). Sure you may know how to do it, but it's not exactly like you have a shop you can go to to get all the parts you need and given the primitive tech of the time it would be near impossible to first build everything you need. With ZPMs and drones, the Ancients seem to have taken everything that wasn't bolted down in Atlantis back to Earth so even if there were things there that could be useful they probably aren't around anymore and it's more likely that ZPMs had an entire offworld facility that had everything needed to build them.

Anyway, they have before gotten information out of the database with ease (even Keller went searching through it looking for information on known diseases) so ZPM and drone data should be no different. They have people working on the database back on Earth and eventually they will probably be able to put some of that information to good use, but it won't be overnight. In the meantime though there are various examples of Mckay easily extracting information from the database. The first ones that come to mind are from Echoes (where he learns all about the research the Ancients did on the whales) and their general ability to pull up gate addresses and the information that the Ancients have on those planets (they've been able to do that since day one).

[Alendra]

Yeah, having something and understanding it are 2 different things, like ... hearing & listening

[Lúmendil]

so now atlantis have wraith prisoners, plus the original wraith base code (exepct a few little bits), instead of altering the code to stop them attacking wraith, why dont they alter it to stop asurans attacking human planets, and carry on the wraith war, and maybe even alter it to make humans as allies.

thoughts?

Even if McKay was able to change it like that, it would be a much too simple solution for wiping out the two main enemies. There would be no show left.

[Jeffer]

I can accept this explanation, but only from the typical watcher's point of view
(who is surely not required to have any programming experience ).

But ... If McKay is so proficient with Ancient programming then it should be trivial for him
to find useful information in the Ancients database : "building zpm" , "drones tutorial" , etc.

Your acting like he rewrote the code from the ground up. I could mod a simple flash game. To build one is a whole other story. Looking for a line of code and putting in attack Wraith=yes is a whole lot easier then building the entire code.

[Actionhank]

Your acting like he rewrote the code from the ground up. I could mod a simple flash game. To build one is a whole other story. Looking for a line of code and putting in attack Wraith=yes is a whole lot easier then building the entire code.

Question is - how many information is needed to describe the behaviour and structure of the Assurans. I guess that would make several million binary decisions (if it works on a binary basis at all) - nothing like a simple flash game, I guess...
Even if he was familiar with the technology I doubt it would have been so easy for him to find the right place. I mean it's probably not as easy as a boolean flag kill_wraith=false or something like that.
But for dramatic purpose I can accept the way it was written in that episode. I'm really fine with it. But I wouldn't deepen the "programming things so fast and getting things to work so quickly" aspect if I was a writer of the show...
Even super astrophysics/computer genius geak McKay must crawl through the code - just like any human being. ^^

Would love to see a McKay book "Assuran base code in a nutshell" or "Base code in action" though.

[Deckker]

From a Programming point of view,

Maybe he was doing it in their version of "Java" lol...

However it may not be the most difficult thing he could have done.

His 1st trick was to pause time so to speak. We know its easy to add a pause into a program. For his 1st trick he could have put a 5 min pause into the base code. just long enough so that they could escape.

With him making the ausrans attack, he mention the code was written already, but needed the commands to turn it on. His program probably a shell script design to seek out the configuration file and replace it.

As for what else he did I do not know.