Designing a 'perfect' Ancient warship?

[Xaeden]

There should be nothing wrong with it from a plot perspective as it makes sense from a logistics and military stand point. Earth's force are severely limited with a barely functional shipyard, resource scarcity, monetary issues, and the fact they are trying to keep this all a secret.

Although the Lucian Alliance is not as technologically advanced they have multiple planets under their control, millions in their armed forces, large amounts of resources to pull from, and they are still capable of expanding without much resistance as Earth's forces can't do much to keep them in line as they stretch out across the galaxy.

Thus the Lucian Alliance is a credible threat while there only capable allies being the free Jaffa nation and Tok'ra are not going to be of much help.

Yes, but these are things that takes time to understand. Explaining that to new viewers in a pilot that's busy trying to set up its own story and characters while catching them up on other aspects of the established mythology is difficult.

What you just said is an analysis of Earth's situation that you and I understand from watching multiple episodes showing how long it takes Earth to construct a ship, how few ships they have, and from a general idea of how numerous their various enemies are throughout the galaxy. A new viewer doesn't know any of that.

Instead of looking at how you perceive the first episode, imagine how you would perceive it if you didn't have the knowledge you do from watching 300+ existing episodes. Would you then understand why these ships that Earth was one hitting would be a serious threat to Earth? And would you take the Lucian Alliance as a serious threat after watching that?

After 5 seasons of Atlantis there are still lots of fans who don't think of the Wraith as a serious threat. I've spoken to many of them, and I've observed that they don't see them a threat to Earth today because they don't see how they could have been a threat to the Ancients. To me, this is not a problem because I understand that the Wraith were much more numerous when the Ancients were around, but their overfeeding caused their population to decline to the point where they're now a challenge to Earth, but not anywhere near the overwhelming force that hammed the Ancients with swarm after endless swarm. Knowing this means I know they can become as dangerous as they once were (or somewhere between where they were then and where they are now) if they ever find a way to grow their population. However, this has gone over the heads of many fans who have watched all 100 episodes of the show.

If a new program came out that tried to the establish the Wraith as a threat to brand new viewers in a pilot that showed Earth destroying Wraith ships in 1-2 shots, I'd fully expect to be on here explaining to the Wraith can in fact seriously threaten Earth to a deluge of online commenters.

In retrospect it really doesn't matter. But in hindsight it's 50/50 as it does have a meaningful purpose but at the same time is irrelevant as time travel just creates new branches in the time line to account for the changes. The only real way to counteract it is to avoid a butterfly effect to which if SG-1 stole the ZPM without getting caught then everything should have been fine. Otherwise if time was truly linear from cause to effect and vice versa then time travel for the purpose of changing events become impossible due to paradoxes. SGU 'twin destinies' makes this whole point valid as the Destiny appeared in another time line along with her crew. With the 'past' Destiny crew not repeating their actions then the event should have fallen apart due to a paradox. The crew who ended up on Novus should have not been there either. There was another SGU time travel event, but the point still holds true.

While I can see why one would wish Stargate's form of time travel fit into one of the latest real world logical arguments, the simple matter is that fiction can say time travel works however they want, and writers have a long history of creating forms of time travel where the timeline is changeable without paradoxes being applicable. I'm not sure exactly what you're attempting to convey regarding "Twin Destinies," but neither it nor any other episode does anything to suggest that the alternate reality form of time travel is applicable. Yes, Stargate's form of time travel does not conform to how real world theorists argue time travel might work, and yes using the alternate reality form of time travel would solve paradoxical problems they've brought up. However, pretending those problems don't exist because you want to tell a story without them works as well, and that's what Stargate seems to have done because no characters (regardless of how knowledgeable) has expressed any belief that they've traveled to another reality or that their timeline is unchangeable.

Stargate subscribes to a range of ideas that are non-scientific. For example, we know that humans do not use only 10% of their brains here in the real world, but within the confines of this fictional setting, humans do indeed only use a portion of their brain power and can gain greater intelligence and even magical powers by using technology to unlock more of their brain's potential (or through evolution). It's fair to critique this for not being scientific or being an overused trope or whatever else, but I don't think anyone would try to say that's not how things work within Stargate's fictional setting.

[Rohan]

Yes, but these are things that takes time to understand. Explaining that to new viewers in a pilot that's busy trying to set up its own story and characters while catching them up on other aspects of the established mythology is difficult.

This is probably just my own common sense, but why skip ahead? You just don't start in the middle of the story without knowing the beginning. Of course there are exceptions with masterful story telling in which you can tell a story in it's own self-contained universe. But that wasn't exactly the case here.

In retrospect although I found it funny, I suppose the Daniel Jackson videos were for first time viewers in more or less catching them up on key points. But then it leaves quite a few holes that they don't answer for the first time viewer on why does Earth have all this technology when this is based on modern times.

As for your Wraith situation, I thought it was obvious they were a threat without contention. They were technologically advanced enough to be a threat to the Ancients. They lost from being severly outnumbered. If they ever discovered a power source strong enough for their ships they would come to the Milky Way galaxy for a new feeding ground. Although current Tauri ships are powerful enough to mop the floor with them, it'll just be the same results as with the Ancients of being outnumbered.

While I can see why one would wish Stargate's form of time travel fit into one of the latest real world logical arguments, the simple matter is that fiction can say time travel works however they want, and writers have a long history of creating forms of time travel where the timeline is changeable without paradoxes being applicable.

By factoring in alternate universes then it avoids the paradox problem altogether thus allowing them to tell a time travel story any way they want. Yes, no character has ever expressed this being the case. However it doesn't necessarily negate it from potentially being true.

I'm not sure exactly what you're attempting to convey regarding "Twin Destinies," but neither it nor any other episode (ignoring, as always, "1969") does anything to suggest that the alternate reality form of time travel is applicable.

Aside from the causality paradox from the viewers POV, it was alluded too by the discussion with the two Rush's when Johansen and Wray were questioning the whole concept of time behind it.

[smovy]

I got 1 question why didnt ancients accelerate time to create ships faster? Or mine faster to build more ships etc?

[Xaeden]

I got 1 question why didnt ancients accelerate time to create ships faster? Or mine faster to build more ships etc?

The Ancients had a penchant for inventing (or trying to invent) new technologies in their final hours.

While dying from the plague, they created the Dakara device and attempted to perfect time travel in the Milky Way.

While on the verge of being beaten by the Wraith, they created a device capable of helping an individual reach the evolutionary stage necessary to ascend, tried to create a power source more powerful than ZPMs, and experimented with various other technological solutions to the Wraith problem. Janus also perfected time travel in secret during this time.

Weir's understanding of the Ancient writing was that the "last of the Ancients" created the field as a "sanctuary from the Wraith." This suggests it was either built as an alternative evacuation site to Atlantis (after the war was lost, many Ancients in the galaxy fled to the city for safety/to join the migration back to Earth) or by Ancients who weren't able to make it to Atlantis in time to join the return trip to Earth and didn't have access to a ship, like the crew of the Tria.

In their desperation, they may have come up with the idea to build the field or they may have had a breakthrough that allowed them to perfect an existing research project that was started during the war as a potential means to increase their production capabilities.

It's even possible that they did perfect reverse time dilation technology during the war and did use it to speed up their production, but it was too late to reverse the tide or it may have allowed them to beat back the Wraith until the Wraith countered by developing the cloning facility. For all we know, the field in "Epiphany" could have been a ship/weapons building site that was repurposed after the war by Ancients looking for a safe place to work toward ascension.