History Headscratchers / StargateAtlantis

* So they have the Attero Device that blows up Wraith starships that attempt to jump to hyperspace - however it has that nasty side effect of causing any Stargates that attempt to dial another blow up. However in SG-1 we say they had the ability to stop Stargates from successfully dialling out by scrambling the DHD programme so it dialled random, useless, addresses. Why not use this to your advantage? You send out the Virus that causes the gates to lock up as they dial every gate they can think of until every gate is unable to dial out except yours. You can then turn on the Attero device and fly around blowing up Wraith ships in huge numbers (either the Ancients or Terrans can easily mass enough ships to overwhelm the mostly scattered Hives). After the job is done you then use your gate to transmit the update that gets rid of the virus, which then transfers through the gate system as each gate "unlocked" randomly dials new gates. No Wraith, and no World Ending explosions.

** They didn't receive a time dilation device until the series finale of SG-1.
* Elizabeth's 'death' in 'Ghost in the Machine': Yes she needed to go through the gate first to convince the other replicators to follow, but afterwards what was preventing the team from ''going back and reactivating her?'' They did it for Niam, in 'Return' and considering Sheppards personal mantra of 'we don't leave anyone behind' it was totally out of character that he didn't make the effort for one of his closest friends.

** Iguess, like the disintegration ability of the zat guns, it got phased out because the writers felt it would be too difficult for characters to realistically combat. On the other hand, perhaps it was so easy to combat (it didn't take long for the characters to get used to the fact that what they saw wasn't really there), that it became too ineffective to be worth using.

** In the episode ''Irresponsbile'', Lucius beats up some guys while wearing it. And while they were working for him and therefore not trying to beat him, he did end up breaking one guy's wrist and another guy's tooth while clearly not punching very hard. So I think not only doesn't cancel out the wearer's attacks, but actually augments them.

** Knowing Rodney, he probably introduced himself as Rodney [=McKay=] and tried to get away with it. The military would have to find out his real name from his ID but that would only be the people who first looked into him, not the people he subsequently met and introduced himself to. He certainly wouldn't put Meredith on his application. If the military wrote a profile of him they'd probably refer to him mostly by his surname or as Rodney (to avoid confusion, since that's what he calls himself). Any references he had would call him Rodney since that's what they know him as. His full name probably would be included as a footnote or under a list of aliases in a file somewhere, but given the sheer number of applicants and things to consider about them, it wouldn't be given a position of prominence and Weir and Shepherd could easily have missed it.

*** The idea was referenced during "Travelers". Shepherd was using a Traveler weapon at the time and was in close proximity so the same threat may not work if he were using Earth weapons or firing from a distance. Still, basically what he did was to sneak up behind a Wraith and stick a gun in his neck and the Wraith certainly took it seriously. "I see that you've just fed, which means that your regeneration powers are at their highest, but I seriously doubt you can grow a new head."
** Lt Ford did it in the pilot, he shot a Wraith soldier in the head to save Shepherd from the Wraith Queen. That was the only time though, whilst the above poster is right they are tough to pull off there are countless times when it was at least worth a try. The Super Wraith advancing slowly on Rodney is one, another is where Colonel Everett is blasting a Wraith with his pistol at point blank range, you surely can't miss at that distance.

** Iguess, like the disintegration ability of the zat guns, it got phased out because the writers felt it would be too difficult for characters to realistically combat. On the other hand, perhaps it was so easy to combat (it didn't take long fr the characters to get used to the fact that what they saw wasn't really there), that it became too ineffective to be worth using.

** Having been in the military myself, in general they don't put one's full name on documents. It's usually Firstname Initial Lastname, or Initial Middlename Lastname if the person uses the latter. So most of the documents about him would identify him as M. Rodney McKay (or possibly even Rodney M. McKay, if he applied that way). Only the application for his security clearance would have his full name, and those would be sitting in a government file cabinet somewhere with a million other forms just like it. I knew a guy (Top Secret clearance, military) with three names and a last name, he went by one of his middle names, and the paperwork I saw said "R. M. Eric <Surname>", so...

** Perhaps the Pegasus gates had an extra security feature to prevent cutoffs. I don't recall any instances of stuff getting cut off in the Atlantis series. Or perhaps it's fine with small stuff sticking out (like air hoses), but not gate filling ships. But both ideas are at best not mentioned by the transcript at http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s1/transcripts/104.shtml Anyway, MST3K, man.

*** They may not have been invented by different races. It's STRONGLY implied that Reese's (the android who created the MW/Ida replicators) "father" (creator) was one of the Ancient scientists on the Asuran project, and that he built her after the Ancients fled Pegasus (which was not too long after the Asurans). And that she was built with SOME of their nanotechnology, but she wasn't made entirely out of nanites like the Asurans were. That very neatly explains why the replicators she created eventually went the same direction the Asurans did.

*** They may not have been invented by different races. It's STRONGLY implied that Reese's (the android who created the MW/Ida replicators) "father" (creator) was one of the Ancient scientists on the Asuran project. And that she was built with SOME of their nanotechnology, but she wasn't made entirely out of nanites like the Asurans were. That very neatly explains why the replicators she created eventually went the same direction the Asurans did.

**** The Wraith normally use energy weapons but have been shown to use projectile weapons when they're all that's available to them (like when their own weapons are damages and they have to steal a weapon from a victim). While it might have seemed strange that a Wraith would have been using one, it's unlikely to have seemed so odd that he couldn't incorporate it in his delusion.