History Headscratchers / StargateAtlantis

** The problem is that ZPM's are literally orders of magnitude more powerful than even the most advanced Naquadah reactors. A single one is shown to be capable of powering a massive time-dilation field for 10,000+ years without any indication of depletion, while another enables a starship to travel back and forth between galaxies in a matter of days. Later, that same ZPM is demonstrated to be capable of holding under sustained fire from nine Wraith hive-ships and dozens of cruisers for days on end, then still has the power needed to propel the city through hyperspace after enduring hours of bombardment from a Replicator satellite weapon. A large number of Naquadah reactors might be able to ''temporarily'' match the output of one ZPM, but even the MK II versions need to be virtually overloaded in order to supply this much energy, with no indications that they have anywhere near the longevity of a ZPM. The comparison is like having a nuclear reactor that fits into a briefcase, and trying to match the output of said nuclear reactor with truck batteries.

* Why didn't the Atlantis crew follow the Replicator-to-human plan? Instead they leave them floating in space, presumably to have later been thawed out and [[SealedEvilInACan become antagonists or been exploited by an antagonist]] had the show continued to run. If they'd followed the plan that they outlined then they would have ended up with the Asurans in nice, squishy, and above all ''mortal'' human bodies which they could have just dumped on the Ascension planet [[YearInsideHourOutside safe in the knowledge]] that they'd be dead from old age or Ascended in a few weeks; the whole [[GenocideDilemma too-dangerous-to-leave-active]] argument feels like a HandWave. Also, they could have asked them for ZPM blueprints as a gesture of good faith

** This, among other reasons, eventually made Stargate Atlantis too disturbing for this troper to watch (see the Main/MoralDissonance examples).
*** I always just thought it was because he's a JerkAss.
*** Jack O'Neill was always just as willing to kill Goa'uld, and just as distrustful of them as Sheppard is with the Wraith. I put it down to him being O'Neill's equivalent for the show.

* So where did the Ancients manufacture the ZPMs in the first place? Long-lasting as their tech is, they'd surely include directions on how to make more power.
** In addition, the replicators who came with Weir in Ghost in the Machine... I'd say if they offered to tell them how to MAKE ZPMs in exchange for their new bodies would be a perfectly reasonable deal.

* In the episodes called "The Siege", why didn't SGC just send through a pile of SAM missile batteries to Atlantis instead of railguns. We know that missiles work—since 302s shoot stuff down effectively. So when the Wraith darts come flying in, you just shoot them down from beyond-visual-range with missiles and call it a day. McKay keeps talking about how we don't have enough drones. Air-to-Air missiles are basically our version of drones. Strap a naquadah warhead to it, new propellant, and a cheap shield generator... you get Tau'ri drones to obliterate everyone else with. Instead, we fight a long drawn-out battle where we're basically using artillery pieces to shoot at supersonic things a couple of hundred metres away. In fact, in dealing with almost any problem from Wraith darts—just throw missiles at it from beyond-visual-range.

*** They were very well aware there was no proof. But how would they go about getting her back? They only have two ways of getting there. A) Stargate. Since they are no longer sitting back doing whatever they were doing between the original Atlantis-Wraith war, they no doubt either have a shield up like Atlantis does (we know they didn't before, otherwise the first MALP sent would have splatted, but that was before McKay activated the anti-Wraith code/ a good size chunk of a continent was vaporized) or have a guard waiting to shoot at anything that comes through, like they did when they took over Atlantis. B) Daedalus-class ship. Unless there is a good advantage in sensor/beam range vs drone/Aurora-class patrol range, it would most likely have been shot at. Once they get there, unless they can beam her out, what then? There were no real man-portable way of taking down a replicator anymore. A rescue mission with no way to harm the enemy? Bad idea. Even if they did, Elizabeth is still a security risk, being part replicator. The IOA (not Shepard) would consider any missions to get her back a loosing proposition all around.

* The McKay/Carter bridge only lost TWO gates in the explosion. Grab two more gates and put them in a frame - only allow puddle jumpers to pass - problem solved. Yes, there's the danger to SGC, but that exists with the ZPM in Atlantis, too!

** Rodney McKay, who is the head of research & development and one of the most brilliant scientists in existence

*** Given the IOA's past policies I'm rather surprised that the returning Ancients weren't surrounded by Marines and cuffed and then locked in a human built brig. Along with the explanation of "Uhhh, you cowards abandoned millions of people to die at the hands (literally) of the Wraith. The idea that you have a legal or ethical claim to Atlantis or that you have some kind of moral high ground over 'primitive' humans are both laughable as a result. Oh and your little "lock"? Colonel Carter and Dr. McKay will have that beat and we'll be business as usual withing 48 hours. Just tell the guard if you feel like being a little more reasonable in the future."

* How did Meridith Rodney Mckay manage to get into a highly secretive military program without ever putting his full name down on a form. I feel like his name probably should have been on the profiles Weir and Sheppard used to pick members for their teams.

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** For that matter, why didn't he go back for her when she was first captured by the Asurans? After his team and Atlantis was safe, there no proof she was dead and the logical thing would be to try and retrieve her. For a man who risks everything to save a few unknown soldiers, abandoning Elizabeth like that seems downright odd, especially as she has done the same for him on countless occassions.
*** They were very well aware there was no proof. But how would they go about getting her back. They only have two, maybe three ways of getting there. A) Stargate. Since they are no longer sitting back doing whatever they were doing between the original Atlantis-Wraith war, they no doubt either have a shield up like Atlantis does (we know they didn't before, otherwise the first MALP we sent would have splatted, but that was before McKay activated the anti-Wraith code/we vaporized a good size chunk of a continent) or have guard waiting to shot anything that comes through, like they did when they took over Atlantis. B) Daedalus-class ship. Unless they is a good advantage in sensor/beam range vs drone/Auroura-class patrol range, it would most likely have been shot at, and that is the only way I see this working at all, btw. And once they get there, unless they can beam her out, what then? We had no real man-portable way of taking down a replicator anymore at that point. Any attempt at a rescue missions with no way to harm the enemy? Bad idea. Even if they did, Elizabeth is still a security risk, being part replicator. The IOA (not Sphepard, most likely) would consider any missions to get her back a lossing proposition all around.
* Making the captured Wraith test subject a lieutenent ("Lieutenant Michael Kenmore") was silly. One can't just go around handing out military ranks to former Wraith who are under observation.

** Or it could be that since the wraith are a highly hierarchal and militaristic culture, "Lt. Kenmore" would be better able to integrate any lingering wraithy. tendencies into a military construct.

*** Jack O'Neill was always just as willing to kill Goa'uld, and just as untrusting of them as Sheppard is with the Wraith. I put it down to him being O'Neill's equivalent for the show.

*** If I recall a behind the scenes on a DVD by one of the sillier directors, he refered to the Atlantis stargates at digital, while the Milky Way was analog.

** In the alternate timeline where Sheppard ended up in the future, Holo![=McKay=] mentions that they sealed a Mark XII Naquadah Generator in the city which was apparently just about sufficient to run the shield for a few hundred years, even after being buried for 48,000 years. It's reasonable to assume that this technogical advance was helped along by the Asgard knowledge. We also see Future![=McKay=] using a holographic blackboard that looked very similar to the Asgard Database installed on the Odyssey. Since that was within [=McKay=]'s lifetime it seems Earth was definitely learning from the knowledge, it was just taking some time to properly utilise it.

** IIRC, SG-1 took of their patchs when on missions as well. I think it has something to do with visibility. For example, a gray blur at night at a distance would stand out a bit more with a few colorful spots on the sleeves.

*** Not anymore its not. Confirmed by Jason Momoa and the selling off of the props and gear. They decided to save money by not funding Atlantis Extinction and focus more on Stargate Universe. ON the brightside another SG-1 DVD movie is in the talks.

*** Wormhole drive was something Zelenca had been working on. How many eps focusing on him have there been? There could be mountains of tech that are being worked on that [=McKay=] has nothing to do with. He doesn't do everything on the base you know.
*** I watched this episode again yesterday and Zelenca states that ''Rodney'' had all but finished it already. Zalenca just did the finishing touches to make it work.

** Why didn't Area 51 have a shield like the Spaceships Earthlings have built have, or at least some surface to air missles parked around it somewhere? You've got the singular control chair for a weapon suite of incredible power and you think the best plan of defence is to put it in a normal looking building with no defenses or weapons of any kind?
*** It's worse than that. Recall that Area 51 is where they send any alien technology that they acquire off-world. It's not just the chair that they need to protect, it's every piece of alien technology that they've ever acquired for study. So really, it's more a question of why they couldn't find a single shield generator amongst all that tech, and failing that, why they wouldn't have installed one there years ago once they became advanced enough to build shields themselves. You would think that the military would be smart enough to fortify ''the most important research facility on the planet'' from alien attack.

*** Just to further that answer above; given the age of the Lost Tribe, I like to think that they were standard designs that had been adopted right across the Alliance of the Four Great Races. Some Ancient engineer mass produced some Destiny type EV suits and then just remodelled the things to fit the Asgard, the Nox and the Furlings - makes quite a bit of economic sense when you realize the Ancients undoubtedly had the largest industrial base of the four races.

* Something of a FridgeLogic moment. ''Continuum'' is set between the Atlantis episodes ''Search and Rescue'' and ''The Seed'', right? We can assume as much because in ''The Seed'', Sheppard mentions that it's been a month since the events of ''Search and Rescue'', and surely the Tok'Ra wouldn't have waited that long to kill Ba'al. Now, in ''The Seed'', the team is revealed to be infected with a pathogen, including Carter, that they picked up in ''Search and Resuce''. Only Keller is affected, but without the cure, it would only have been a matter of time before the others succumbed too. So how come nothing happened to Sam in the events of ''Continuum''? She was in that alternate reality for over a year and nothing happened.

*** Not to mention the last time they tried working with Wraith it backfired horribly, costing them the Orion and inadvertantly turning Micheal into an even bigger threat than before. Ultimately they were just being as cautious as possible.

* When Ronon is first introduced to the show, it's revelaed in a flashback that a Wraith tried to feed on him but apparently couldn't. But later on in season five, a Wraith feeds on him, aging him and then restores his youth. So what's going on? Did the writers originally intend for him to be immune to the feeding process and then they forgot?

* When a team went to that cave filled with thousands of iratus bugs looking for a cure for Sheppard, how come no one thought to wear any kind of protective clothing whatsoever? They could have worn suits that can withstand vacuum, but they didn't even bother to wear gloves and turtlenecks. You'd think at least the doctors would have given a thought to proper protective clothing.
** They probably realised that there wasn't sufficient armour to stop Iratus bugs.

*** No. I'm refering to the gene therapy that Todd himself took in the fifth season, the one that removed the Wraith nastiness from his feeding hand in ''Infection.''

* Last episode: the Atlantis team get a wormhole opened between the city and the wraith megahive. Thus, they send in a couple o'nades followed by a small srike team. Why don't they just throw in a nuke with a five seconds countdown and call it a day? The wraith gate was probably deep inside the hive, and with the naquada from the stargate to amplify the nuke, it would have instantaneously obliterated the megahive.

* The Hoffan Drug; a near perfect defence against being fed on by the Wraith but with one fatal flaw - it is fatal to 50% (30% with Michael's refined version) of everyone and even when it's successful, it lowers your immune system to dangerous levels. OK, fine, that's why they couldn't utilize it successfully. However, over on SG-1 at this point, Tau'ri, due to their alliance with the Free Jaffa, have vast supplies of Tretonin at their disposal which doubles the lifespan and grants near perfect health; so here's thought... '''combine them.''' You have the most potent, yet harmful Wraith self defence weapon ever invented in one hand, and a drug that contains all of the Symbiote's advantages in another; it baffles belief that we never had a throw away line explaining why we couldn't use these two drugs in conjunction. Yes, Tretonin is addictive, but the Hoffan Drug is a death sentence anyway so it would seem like a pretty decent trade off.

** They'd be great assets, yes, but there's the thing: They're Runners. They're good at not being caught, and deadly when cornered. It'd take some time to explain to them that you're not, say, Wraith worshippers and on their side, and that's time they'll probably spend killing you.
* Original Weir aging in stasis. Merely slowing down metabolism certainly sounds like ''more'' effort than stopping it entirely, since the machine would have to provide her with nutrients and remove waste. That after we were demonstated that civilizations much less advanced than the Ancients developed their own stasis technology that didn't have this flaw. It was obviously just a plot device to have her die at the end of the episode, because StatusQuoIsGod.

* Why isn't Meredith ''Rod'' [=McKay=] armed when he comes to our universe to investigate the exotic particle leak? remember we're not talking about protecting a small group of people here or even a planet; his mission is to ''save his entire universe.'' For all he knows our Atlantis is staffed completely by psychopaths or maybe its a Goa'uld outpost or something. If negotiations with our Atlantis failed, the only choice left open to him to save a literally incalculable amount of innocent people would have been to attack the Atlantis team and destroy the machine - with nothing but his bare fists. Now, unlike our Rodney [=McKay=], ''Rod'' [=McKay=] is stated to have some pretty formidable CQC at his disposal (enough to spar Ronan Dex apparently) and I can see the argument that coming loaded with a P90 and C4 could have seemed too provocative... but not even a Beretta or a knife stashed away in his jacket just in case? or are we actually supposed to believe Doctor ''Rod'' [=McKay=] operates in a similar way to [[Series/DoctorWho another Doctor?]]

** As I recall the shield made him nigh-invulnerable, so it's plausible they reasoned that if those of the main universe were hostile, he'd be protected and be able to get hold of their weapons to fight back. As an above troper says, if they're non-hostile/willing to negotiate, then carrying a visible weapon would risk turning them hostile. Also, on the point of concealed weapons do we even know he actually was unarmed? A concealed weapon such as a pistol or knife in an inside jacket pocket is something we wouldn't see (it would be concealed after all) and because the characters in the main universe proved to be aimiable there was no need for him to whip it out or even bring it up in conversation.

*** Hell, the entire battle could have been ended immediately simply by taking Sheperd ''straight'' to the chair instead of a 302 and have him use ''that'' to shoot down ''all'' the darts in one go.

* You would think that by now the SGC would have some set procedures whenever mind control or anything similar is used. To restrain anyone (such as Tayla when she connects to the wraith "Submersion" or Sheppard when scanned by the lifeboat "The Long Goodbye") who is about to willingly connect with another brain. To cover in training that after you have interfaced with another being you are out from command decisions for the rest of the mission or a set timeframe, and no "It's really me, let me go!" should break those rules. Likewise, anyone who is cleared by the medical staff should still be confined to quarters for a time period, considering how often being "cleared" doesn't identify what becomes a serious danger to the expedition: "Conversion" (Sheppard goes bug), "Sunday" (explosive tumor), "Doppleganger" (dream controller).

** In addition, the replictors who came with Weir in Ghost in the Machine... I'd say if they offered to tell them how to MAKE ZPMs in exchange for their new bodies would be a perfectly reasonable deal.

** Teyla, who is a leader amongst the athosians, is the atlantis expedition's prime source of information regarding the humans of Pegasus and possesses a unique connection to the wraith, allowing her to use their technology and sense their presence

** Major Sheppard, commander of the military forces of atlantis, most proficient known user of ancient technology, main pilot and prime contact for several of Atlantis' allies.

* We see ancient hand weapons multiple times throughout the story, most notably as wielded by the holo-crew of the aurora and wielded by the asurans. As far as side-arms go, they're actually pretty good, having settings for both stunning and explosive blasts and being much less cumbersome than the other weapons with this capability (most notably ronon's gun). However, despite their advantages, we never see any SGA teams carrying them. Where did they all go? Why aren't there any on Atlantis or the antartica outpost? Why weren't there any on the Orion? Why didn't the returning ancients or the Replicators that took over the city leave any behind?

** There's no reason they would have to 'go back and reshoot the entire series to retcon them in'; throughout the series they're shown discovering new areas of the city (e.g. the episode where Rodney descovers the acendtion machine, the episode where the two red shirts descover the thing that creates exploding tumours, etc) so it'd be no problem having the city armoury be one of these latter discoveries. There's also the three Acient ships they come across by the end of Season 3 that they could have taken them from (the one with the crew in cryo, the one from the super volcano outpost, and the one they stumble across between galaxies). In universe the explanation is probably that the Ancients didn't leave any on Atlantis when they left and the same for the volcano outpost and its ship, and the one found between galaxies probably had its crew take everything with them to Alantis and then lost during the Replicator attack.
* ''Phantoms'' - Sheppard and Ronon are both suffering hallucinations. Sheppard thinks he is in afghanistan fighting the taliban, Ronon thinks he is still a runner and fighting a wraith. At one point, Sheppard shoots Ronon in the arm and the latter performs some first aid on himself. However, the wraith don't use bullet weapons, so what does Ronon think he needs to perform first aid for?

* ''The Return'' - A small group of ancients is rescued by the Daedalus and takes back Atlantis. The main characters are understandably peeved, but they do understand the position of the ancients. Okay, good so far. Except then Woolsey says ''"From their point of view, they're being extremely generous."''. Except that they're giving the atlantis expedition absolutely nothing. Not even the puddle jumpers and drones that weren't originally from Atlantis, but from The Tower. This is before Woolsey mentions that the ancients are willing to let humans back in over time, so it doesn't tie into that either. Unless the normal ancient procedure is slaughtering everyone in the city, there is no way this could be considered "extremely generous".

* ''The Return'' - Sheppard shoots wallace with a Zat to disable him. However, dr. Beckett was touching Wallace at the time of the shot. Shouldn't the attack have spread out over them both, or at least severely hurt Beckett?

*** Back in SG-1's ''Sacrifices''. Not only did the zat blast spread over both a jaffa and the hostage he was holding, but it also seemed weakened, with the jaffa still being able to move around afterwards.
* ''The Return'' - Why didn't the replicators destroy Atlantis? That was their plan in their previous appearance and, judging by the shockwave against the atlantis shield, also earlier during the episode itself. So what changed?

* While the SGC was a US military organization, the SGA is under the authority of the IOA, an organization that's not just civilian, but also international, with Russia and China having a lot of political clout (presumably because of their permanent UN security council positions, though France weirdly doesn't come up as often). So how is it that the english-speaking countries so dominate the command structure? The expedition leaders have all been from the US, the head of the science divisions is Canadian, the heads of medical have been from the UK and US, the head of the gateroom technicians is from the US and the military seems to be exclusively US. As far as I know, we only see a single character not from an english-speaking country who is confirmed to hold any rank whatsoever, and that's Zelenka, who seems to have only gotten that position at some point after the first season.
* '''The Daedelus Variations''': The Daedelus always emerges in the same place. It jumps alternate realities every few minutes. Dimensional variations containing an atlantis appear to be not very uncommon. So why did the alternate Sheppard's team choose to stay until they died of hunger, rather than taking a chance on an alternate atlantis? For that matter, why did the original crew strand themselves on an uninhabited, stargate-less world, rather than waiting for an atlantis?

*** They werew very well aware there was no proof. But how would they go about getting her back. They only have two, maybe three ways of getting there. A) Stargate. Since they are no longer sitting back doing whatever they were doing between the original Atlantis-Wraith war, they no doubt either have a shield up like Atlantis does (we know they didn't before, otherwise the first MALP we sent would have splatted, but that was before McKay activated the anti-Wraith code/we vaporized a good size chunk of a continent) or have guard waiting to shot anything that comes through, like they did when they took over Atlantis. B) Daedalus-class ship. Unless they is a good advantage in sensor/beam range vs drone/Auroura-class patrol range, it would most likely have been shot at, and that is the only way I see this working at all, btw. And once they get there, unless they can beam her out, what then? We had no real man-portable way of taking down a replicator anymore at that point. Any attempt at a rescue missions with no way to harm the enemy? Bad idea. Even if they did, Elizabeth is still a security risk, being part replicator. The IOA (not Sphepard, most likely) would consider any missions to get her back a lossing proposition all around.