| 1 | * 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 dialing out by scrambling the DHD program so it dialed 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. |
| 2 | ** The Avenger virus caused a ''big'' problem when it was first used - Ba'al was able to reverse-engineer it pretty quickly and modify it for his own ends, nearly leaving Earth and its allies stranded across the galaxy. Presumably no one would have wanted to risk going through that headache again. |
| 3 | * 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. |
| 4 | ** The Wraith threw asteroids at orbital nuclear mines, rendering observation satellites useless from the resulting electromagnetic radiation and giving the wraith a chance to sneak in undetected. SAM missiles might have trouble navigating in such conditions. Additionally, the railguns were originally meant to be installed on the Prometheus, meaning that this tech was some of the best that Earth had to offer at the time and wasn't going to be needed elsewhere. |
| 5 | * After/During "The Siege", why didn't the Marine corps bring like 30 naquadah generators to power all the stuff on Atlantis? 20 strapped together in a room or such would power the shields and anything which requires city-wide power and the extra 10 could be used to power other stuff around the city. We know that more than one naquadah generator can be chained up (the Chair is powered by 2) and we also know that naquadah power can be used to power Atlantis's shield (The Last Man). |
| 6 | ** The problem is that ZPMs 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. |
| 7 | * So, we have damage on our ship? Well, we have a time dilation device. Slow down time, fix everything, un-slow down time. Those Asgard are so helpful. |
| 8 | * 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 Sheppard's 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. |
| 9 | ** 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 occasions. |
| 10 | *** 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. |
| 11 | * Making the captured Wraith test subject a lieutenant ("Lieutenant Michael Kenmore") was silly. One can't just go around handing out military ranks to former Wraith who are under observation. |
| 12 | ** They ''didn't'' make him a lieutenant, they ''called'' him a lieutenant, just like they didn't give him a birth certificate with the name "Michael Kenmore." It was part of their experiment to see if he could integrate into humanity if he believed that he had always been a part of them. |
| 13 | *** Missing the point. Why in the censored make his identity a lieutenant instead of a normal person? |
| 14 | *** Because while a lieutenant might have more "power" than a normal person, a lieutenant is also subject to more rules and regulations--so he'd be expected to follow orders like, "I'm your CO, so I can order you to stay in this room," or, "You're military, so we're keeping you under guard and observation instead of letting you just go to your room." Plus, as military, it's easier to explain an injury that might be affecting his memory.\ |
| 15 | Alternatively, they might have figured that a Wraith, which comes from what seems to be a militaristic society, might be easier integrated if given a militaristic background than one as, say, a florist or doctor. |
| 16 | *** I'm unconvinced. |
| 17 | *** Well, that's just too bad then. You asked a question, you got a plausible answer, what more do you want? |
| 18 | *** No, it isn't a plausible answer. It makes no sense to integrate him into the military instead of the civilian population, even leaving aside the morality of the forced conscription aspect. There's just no good answer to this because real professionals wouldn't have done it this way. |
| 19 | *** There isn't a civilian population. There are a bunch of scientists who do not hold military ranks, but it's not like the Enterprise-D, they don't have a bunch of families just running around being a little city. Also just because you don't like an explanation doesn't mean it's not plausible. The fact that you admit "There's just no good answer to this" means you didn't come here to have a headscratcher answered, you just came to complain about the show, which is not what this page is for. |
| 20 | *** There ''is'' a civilian population. The Tau'ri aren't the only people on the Atlantis planet, there are the Athosians. He could also have been transported to Earth. And he'd have the intelligence to be a scientist in Atlantis. Also, when I wrote this, it was It Just Bugs Me, not Headscratchers. |
| 21 | ** Or it could be that since the Wraith are a highly hierarchical and militaristic culture, "Lt. Kenmore" would be better able to integrate any lingering wraith-y tendencies into a military construct. |
| 22 | * If the personal shield is air permeable and slightly away from the skin, then how can you start drowning with only your head submerged? And also, why didn't the inventors, while living in an underwater city, build in a gill system? |
| 23 | ** The air has to funnel through an extremely tight space. It's not shown to be that far off the skin. |
| 24 | *** And the Ancients ''didn't'' live under the sea. They submerged Atlantis just before they abandoned it. Throughout most of their time there, it sat on top of the ocean. |
| 25 | ** That episode made a total mockery of the shield. The bad guys shouldn't have been able to push him into the water in the first place, not with the shield up absorbing any force they apply to it. It's also absurd that the shield would be skin-tight around the user's nose when otherwise its loose enough to easily cover any clothing, but then again, that wouldn't be the first absurd design feature on Ancient tech. |
| 26 | *** It might have been an earlier, less effective, version of the one we saw when it was first introduced. |
| 27 | ** Even in the episode when the shield was first shown Sheppard was able to push Rodney off a balcony, so clearly it doesn't absorb all force being applied to it, just what would cause injury to the wearer. This is confirmed when he fell but didn't feel anything. But later Sheppard punches Rodney and it hurts his hand, but doesn't effect Rodney at all. Based on what we saw with the balcony, Rodney should have at least been knocked off balance by the punch just like he was when Sheppard pushed him. Of course the real question is why Rodney can't drink water because the shield yet Lucius gets wet when the Genii dunk his head in water. Perhaps the best explanation is that the shield's AI is not all that good with threat assessment. |
| 28 | *** It should be remembered the the shield first appeared in episode 2, a time where Earth's knowledge of Ancient tech was incredibly small - [=McKay=] simply may not have known how to turn the security off. Just because Lavin was annoying doesn't make him an idiot. |
| 29 | *** Those sound like pretty different applications of force. A punch and a push are two different things after all. With a push you could just put your hands against the shield and shove, which the shield either doesn't protect against or has been programmed not to protect against, for whatever reason. A punch on the other hand is basically a projectile coming in very fast, and would be protected against the same way bullets or shrapnel would be. So, no inconsistencies, the shield just deals with different things different ways. |
| 30 | *** Alternatively, the shield may not have an AI at all. Instead it could get its idea of what constitutes a threat from the mind of the user (Ancients aren't exactly strangers to interfacing a living mind with tech - It's how some of their more iconic pieces of tech, The Chair and the Puddle Jumpers, work). Lavin doesn't have the same problem as [=McKay=] because he is nowhere near as paranoid as [=McKay=] is. |
| 31 | ** Writers always seem incapable of fully grasping what they invent or its secondary effects. In the case of that episode the Geni should never have been able to get near Lucius. He’s completely invulnerable, one punch to the head and he’s shattered your skull. You could never grapple with someone like that. Also it should be noted that Rodney let Shepherd push him off the balcony so even that isn’t really a comparison. |
| 32 | * Why on Earth is Sheppard so gleefully violent against the Wraith? I can understand feeling the need to eliminate them, and being a bit put out at having one's comrades eaten. Sheppard, however, shows a disturbing level of glee at the death or suffering of any Wraith for a supposedly disciplined military officer |
| 33 | ** Because Wraith and Goa'uld are portrayed mostly as simplistic creatures of pure demonic evil that it's okay to enjoy killing. |
| 34 | ** It's possible he still blames himself for waking them up in the first place. He may, on some level, be trying to undo some of the damage he's done to the ''entire galaxy''. |
| 35 | ** He actually does spend at least one episode working with a Wraith to escape the Genii, and keeps his end of the bargain by allowing that Wraith to go back to his people instead of capturing or killing him. He knew, and we all know, that that Wraith will go on to feed on other innocent people, so the smart thing to do would have been to kill that Wraith, but he didn't. I don't think he has quite the "glee" for their death as you might remember. |
| 36 | *** He did carry on to be very distrustful of Todd. He only let him live after escaping because it was the deal they'd struck and Sheppard was true to his word. |
| 37 | *** Exactly. If he took pure pleasure in killing Wraith, why would he keep his word and let this one go? It's obvious that he doesn't trust the Wraith, or even Todd, but he's willing to take each situation as objectively as he can, taking into account his priority of saving Humans over Wraith 100% of the time, and allying with the Wraith as he did shows that. |
| 38 | ** He's distrustful of life-sucking space vampires, wonder why... |
| 39 | *** Life sucking vampires that, in his first encounter with them, imprisoned him and his team, did horrible things to his commanding officer, and in pretty much every encounter with them afterwards they're trying to slaughter and eat other people and kill him in the process. It's like he doesn't even understand that the [[DracoInLeatherPants cool-looking dangerous bad-ass leather-wearing aliens]] are automatically morally superior to us evil ol' humans and that they thus deserve to eat us. He actually has an emotional reaction to their activities! The nerve! |
| 40 | * If Pegasus Stargates have no moving parts (so manual dial is presumably impossible), what are the symbols for? Decoration? |
| 41 | ** Probably; the Ancients did seem to prefer style over clarity of purpose. |
| 42 | *** Case in point, ring transporters. Insecure, impractical, and deadly if you stand in the wrong spot. But used and without improvement for MILLIONS of years. |
| 43 | ** The symbols light up in a clockwise sequence, as opposed to Milky Way gates which revolve. The inner ring on the Pegasus gates doesn't spin, instead the symbols glow. |
| 44 | ** The redesign of the Pegasus gates was silly anyhow. There was nothing wrong with the original gates except that the producers were bored with them and wanted a different visual. I can't believe the Ancients, who designed things to last like nobody's business, would have changed designs in the first place. |
| 45 | *** How about looking at the redesign as an attempt to improve security? For instance, you can't manually dial a Pegasus gate. |
| 46 | *** If I recall a behind the scenes on a DVD by one of the sillier directors, he referred to the Atlantis stargates at digital, while the Milky Way was analog. |
| 47 | ** The symbols are to tell anyone that's looking at the gate where it's being dialed from. |
| 48 | * SG-1 ended with [[spoiler:the gifting of all Asgard knowledge to the humans of Earth]]. Is that going to get stuffed down the memory hole? Even granting time to fully utilize the resource, it seems that Atlantis' general power problems should be easy to alleviate in all but the most extreme cases (maybe not powered starflight). [[spoiler: The Asgard may not be able to build [=ZPMs=], or we may not be able to bootstrap straight to that, but surely we can get something going better than the current generators pretty quickly.]] Odyssey and Daedalus both have new Asgard weapons, but that seems to be all so far. I'm perfectly ready to believe that it's going to take time to fully understand and master the Asgard technology.... like years and years and years. I'm just unwilling to believe that it's had no effect at all in the power generation field. |
| 49 | ** They were 'already' using a lot of Asgard technology anyway (shields, transporters, hyperdrive, etc. hence why Hermiod was on the crew), so maybe they'd have to do a bit of development before actually being able to update anything. |
| 50 | ** 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 technological 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 utilize it. |
| 51 | ** But it still bugs me.... Couldn't they just ''make'' anything they need with their fancy [[spoiler:Asgard matter-converters]]? Come to think of it, why couldn't they duplicate the mysterious polypeptide chain that was keeping the second Beckett alive? The transporters can reproduce living beings, so it stands to reason that this specific chemical would be easy to make... |
| 52 | *** Because they had to actually discover what it was in the first place (reverse-engineering from the database they captured from Michael). |
| 53 | *** I don't recall Unending to well off the top of my head, but didn't it take Sam awhile to get the [[spoiler:Asgard matter-converters]] up and running, with a ZPM plugged directly into the core? After Unending, she might not have taken the time to do that again. |
| 54 | * Why do the Atlantis teams never wear their Atlantis and flag patches off world? It's not like they've got the gate address on them... |
| 55 | ** Still, they're trying to keep a low profile. Atlantis is destroyed as far as the Wraith know; parading the Atlantis name may lead to suspicion. And the flag patches are more for the benefit of the multinational crew- when interacting with others, they want to present a unified front. |
| 56 | ** Yeah, but the Wraith are going to recognize the uniforms. Patches or no patches, you can't disguise a P90. |
| 57 | ** In any case, they didn't even wear the patches during the first season, when the Wraith knew Atlantis had risen (and that its gate could lead to the Milky Way) and before the fake explosion was staged. |
| 58 | ** I've heard that it's standard practice for special forces soldiers to remove all insignia from their uniforms before going into hostile territory. Plus, even in the first season, they weren't looking to advertise that they were from another galaxy. As far as the Wraith knew, they were a bunch of Pegasus natives who managed to raise Atlantis. Wearing funny looking insignia nobody recognizes might raise suspicions and they WERE desperate to make sure the Wraith didn't find out about Earth. |
| 59 | *** But the Wraith found out about Earth pretty early on. That's why they were after Atlantis. They wanted to use Atlantis to get to the new rich feeding ground, and probably take advantage of all the technology available there. |
| 60 | ** IIRC, SG-1 took of their patches 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. |
| 61 | * Do the Wraith specifically have to feed on humans? Can't they just grab some livestock and use that instead? |
| 62 | ** The show answered this question as early as the seventh episode of season one. When the Atlantis team had "Steve" as a prisoner, Dr Weir asks Sheppard if there's been any luck getting him to eat anything else. Sheppard says he tried livestock from the mainland but nothing worked. So therefore, Wraith can only feed on humans and other Wraith. |
| 63 | *** Don't be so sure, after all, eating has exactly one meaning, but 'feeding' has two, so who knows if they actually got him to try 'feeding' on the livestock. Mind you, I suppose the fact that the culling cycles have been going on for about 10,000 years now would indicate that maybe they 'can't' feed on anything else. |
| 64 | ** Wraith don't ''have'' to feed only on humans, but they don't want to feed on anything else. They're insects that look like people because they feed on people. If they started feeding on cows; they'd start to assume the appearance and intelligence of cows. Would you want that? |
| 65 | ** It's probable that because they're a combination of Iratus bug and human DNA, they need more human DNA to be able to repair tissue and cells and such. |
| 66 | ** Wraith can also feed on other Wraith, as we've seen on more than one occasion. |
| 67 | * Why didn't the Atlantis expedition bring any zats? They would quite likely make more efficient weapons against the Wraith than Earth firearms. |
| 68 | ** The reason they didn't bring zats is the secondary reason they didn't bring staff weapons; they run off of a power cell that, while long-lasting, does run out, turning their weapons into so much scrap metal. |
| 69 | *** As opposed to P-90s, which use bullets, a renewable resource? |
| 70 | *** Earth weapons use Earth ammunition. 5.7 and 9mm are government calibers. Government contracts being what they are, Atlantis probably had somewhere around a million rounds of ammunition sent their way. |
| 71 | *** This bugged me too. Zats are a standard side arm on ''Series/StargateSG1'', even when the Atlantis expedition left. They are infinitely useful in stealth missions and knocking people out instead of killing them. There's no reason they shouldn't have brought a store of zats with them. |
| 72 | *** The SGC may not have been able to spare any zats for the Atlantis mission. After all, they had to capture all the zats they have, so their supply of zats is limited and they might not have been able to afford losing them. As for the P-90s, those can be reloaded with extra clips. As far as I know, once the power runs out for a zat, it's useless. |
| 73 | *** That might have been true in early episodes (if a bit of a strain since there were Jaffa they were actively allied with), but after they defeated the Goauld and transportation was established that makes little sense. As for power, well, surely there's some way to recharge them if SG-1 regularly went out with them and carried them back after firing dozens of shots instead of just dropping them. Really ,the most likely thing is that they were just left out to further differentiate the show from SG-1. |
| 74 | ** Also, they were clearly shown as grabbing all the Wraith weapons (in season one's "The Storm" Ford is shown grabbing a Wraith rifle off a big pile of them), so the initial oversight of not bringing any zats is quickly remedied by the SGC's standard tactic of "shiny + dangerous = grab a handful". |
| 75 | ** The Atlantis Expedition is explicitly under the IOA right from the start, even the soldiers are on secondment from their home countries. The SGC is still US Military even by the time the IOA are loosely administering it. The Zats were initially gathered even prior to agreement with Russia, never mind the IOA, and so are presumably US Military property only. The US Military is just keeping their toys close to home and not willing to give up an advantage when they don't have to. Militaries don't like to share if they don't have to. |
| 76 | * In "Home", the expedition members were given a choice to stay in the "shared dream" version of Earth. Except they were not plugged into life support systems, they were still lying unconscious on the surface of the planet. How were the energy beings going to fulfill their biological needs, had they accepted the offer? |
| 77 | ** They weren't. The energy being explicitly states that they don't really care if the team dies and that they should make the most of their remaining time in dream Earth. Killing a couple of humans was apparently a perfectly acceptable price for them to pay to not have a bunch more of them eaten by the Stargate. |
| 78 | ** Yeah, this question is answered pretty much right when the offer is ''made''. The energy beings clearly aren't even ''aware'' that humans need food and stuff to live when Weir points this out. |
| 79 | * The whole "moral dilemma" over Beckett's retro-virus never made sense to me. I mean, if they're trying to kill the wraith, why is it so bad to make them slightly easier to kill? (even ignoring the whole "no longer have to kill them" bit of the plan). it just seems a bit silly. |
| 80 | ** Because Doctor Beckett is an official "One of the nicest people you'll ever meet". He states that he made the retro-virus to free the Wraith from what he saw as an unnatural affliction (His words, more or less), so that they could be normal people and not have to feed on humans to live. Finally, the whole thing is just plain creepy. Michael acted more or less like a normal person when first subjected to the retro-virus, so it's reasonable that they are helping to kill humans that aren't even evil anymore. Of course, this viewer sees no problem with the state of mind of your enemies when you kill them, but you can't deny it's a bit unsettling. |
| 81 | *** Maybe if it were permanent. But since they know the wraith-ness bleeds through, and that they change back, and that the wraith are handily always-evil, and that there's no room for compromise... all the angsting and "oh my god, what have we done"-ing and "our sins are coming back to haunt us"-ness seems to me just to be a way to keep the storyline from ending. At least SG-1 had the excuse of not wanting to kill the Jaffa when handed a solution to their almost undefeatable bad guys problem. |
| 82 | ** The moral conflicts as I see them were: 1) The use of of the gene therapy could be considered biological warfare and if your opponent is not using that tactic against your forces it can have {{Unfortunate Implications}} for your group. 2) They used the gene w/ little large-scale practical testing (Michael seems to have been one a few subjects) and they had no way of knowing that it wouldn't kill the Wraith ,potentially becoming as big a hazard as the Hoffan drug. 3) No one seemed to have a "what's next" plan in place BEFORE they utilized the drug. If they turned most of the Wraith into humans,where would they go and what would they do? 4) It appears that the gene therapy's usage wasn't ordered by IOA or Stargate Command, but was the result of an independent decision by Weir, Sheppard and Carson Beckett. No oversight for the use of a biological weapon? Very slippery moral slope. |
| 83 | *** The only reason that's even a threat is because the Atlantis team is there. If they left the Wraith wouldn't even have a clue where to look for Earth. If the team would pack up and go home the threat would be gone. |
| 84 | *** And the Wraith would just stop enjoying tasty Athosian burgers, would they? |
| 85 | *** No, but that's really the Athosian's problem, not Earth's. To risk 6.5 billion for the lives of a few hundred million is absurd. If the Atlantis team wanted to jump on a grenade and wipe out all data on Earth from their computers and fight the Wraith good for them, but they're risking Earth and the entire Galaxy. Or they were, at this point I think the Wraith have too much VillainDecay to be particularly threatening. |
| 86 | *** I dunno, I never found the wraith particularly threatening in the broad sense. They were a threat, but they're a predator, not a conqueror. The only real shift they showed was how many shots it took to kill them, which was, IIRC, explained in series by depending on how much the fed. |
| 87 | ** Also, remember that Beckett pretty much embodies, and always sticks to, the Hippocratic Oath. His Virus turns the Wraith's Human, therefore he's oath bound to assist them through rehab and remaining as Humans, and other members of the expedition don't really want to override him because of a nagging feeling that maybe Beckett's virus *does* work properly, and if they kill off the newly-Humans, they're murdering innocents. |
| 88 | *** This has been a constant problem with the Wraith. In actuality, they have no choice and must feed on people to survive. They took the only option available to them to ensure the survival of their species. I submit that the wraith are not "evil," but are, in fact, farmers. They don't see feeding on people as wrong, and some people would say that in itself makes them evil. However, is a farmer evil when he raises a population of cattle to kill some of them off for food? The cows might think so, but most of us would say no. The unfortunate thing is that the main characters treat them as if they are evil incarnate anyway. If they were put on normal food the war would be over. At least Keller addressed this in season 4 and 5. |
| 89 | *** A good argument, though farmers generally aren't actively malicious to their herds. |
| 90 | *** Evil, no. Hungry, yes. Compatible with humanity's existence? Very, very no. When we're talking about predators that eat people, while they may not be evil, they're still beings highly detrimental to human life - only one side's getting out alive and happy, and I have no qualms about it being me. Not a value judgement, but survival is not immoral - on either side. Just a matter of who wins. |
| 91 | *** This discussion even came up in ''Series/StargateSG1'' when a trial was held in Tollana over who was the rightful owner of the body - Skaara of Klorel. Lord Zipacna made this very same argument about cows and farmers and Goa'ulds and humans. Goua'ulds consider humans to be an inferior species and a means to survival just like farmers consider cattle to be (sort of). When I watched this episode I actually feared that after this argument they would give Klorel the win. |
| 92 | *** While the Wraith do need to eat people to survive, they don't seem eager to attempt to change that situation. For thousands of years, even with technology which allowed them to have a chance fighting the Ancients (including good knowledge of genetics) they have just relied up culling worlds to keep them going. They didn't seem to make any efforts to modify existing animal species to be more human and therefore a food source or genetically engineer humans to give them an unintelligent food source (both better for the humans and safer for them). It's like if humans had to resort to cannibalism to survive that wouldn't make them evil, but if they then decide that since cannibalism works they won't try to get other food sources then that would. |
| 93 | *** Besides, if anything they're hunters rather than farmers. Farmers are required to feed and care for their stock, protecting them from predators and keeping them safe through harsh weather in order that they get the best yield out of the land that they can. If the Wraith actually farmed humans they could probably meet their food supplies a lot more efficiently than by just going where there are humans and eating them. |
| 94 | *** Regarding the issue of the Goa'uld, while it was stated to be the case in that episode, I don't recall seeing any evidence that the Goa'uld actually required humans to survive. On their original homeworld there were shown to be "wild" Goa'uld in the waters. Goa'uld have also been kept alive in tanks and could leave their hosts and still survive. They needed humans to walk and talk but not to survive. Even then, like with the Wraith, it was never shown that the Goa'uld couldn't have used an unintelligent human-like (or Unas-like) host and have them work just as well. The Asgard could apparently clone bodies to have consciousnesses implanted in them (and so could humans do so with an Asgard body at one point) but prior to the implantation they were basically blank. It's entirely possible that if the Goa'uld had taken the time to develop such a thing, they could have survived perfectly fine in bodies that didn't belong to any consciousness before them. |
| 95 | *** Why did none of the experts ever suggest capturing a sarcophagus and giving it to Todd? They bring humans back to life and keep their users young and are reverse-engineered from Ancient tech that created life. That's gotta be what they feed on. If the Wraith could reproduce them and have a dozen+ per ship it would basically be like a mess hall on a Daedalus. |
| 96 | *** There is the issue of the psychological impact of frequent sarcophagus usage ("when using regularly, especially when unneeded, the psychological side effects can include megalomania and intense notions of superiority.") to consider. Experts would have seen the effect they had on the Goa'uld, and as we saw in the SG-1 Episode: Need ("after falling in love with an alien princess, Jackson began using the Sarcophagus more often and soon became addicted to the device, demonstrating symptoms common to the Goa'uld who regularly use them, including paranoia, egotism and megalomania.") sarcophagus usage can be addictive so the idea of giving the Wraith sarcophagi could be similar to planning on getting someone addicted to drugs with side effects that could make them worse than they already are. Hence the hesitation on suggesting sarcophagi as a solution. |
| 97 | *** More of giving the Wraith access to a machine they could reverse engineer to generate their food, not use it themselves. Also it doesn't seem to have a mental effect when it heals damage (as evidenced by O'neill's multiple resurrections by Baal) and hunger would fit under that category. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | * Why did [=McKay=] have to go to all that trouble to get Sheppard back to ThePresentDay in "The Last Man"? What happened to the time-traveling puddle jumper from "Moebius"? |
| 100 | ** Assuming that the time-travelling puddle jumper was still around, there is no reason to assume that [=McKay=] would have access to it. It's likely that the puddle jumper was secured in an Indiana Jones-style warehouse by the military. Why on earth would higher-ups in the military grant clearance to use the time-travelling puddle jumper to rescue one individual when so many others are also killed in the line of duty? |
| 101 | ** Assuming it was still working at the end of that episode, it was nevertheless already very old, older than the Atlantis ones -- however long it spent abandoned by the Ancients, plus 10,000 years in Egypt from the two time trips. Could [=McKay=] guarantee that it would still work after another 48,000 years spent in Atlantis, and would he be allowed to keep it there in the first place? |
| 102 | *** Oh no my time machine's getting old. Yeah right. |
| 103 | *** What? Just because it's a machine that travels through time it shouldn't age? Sure other ancient tech might have survived a long time but it didn't just work perfectly when brought online. That jumper would have been exposed to god knows what and [=McKay=] probably wouldn't have considered it a reliable option even if it was available. |
| 104 | *** Why would he need to keep it there? It can go forwards too, couldn't it. The Ancients used one to predict the future in 'It's Good to be King' in SG-1. [=McKay=] should be able to travel to the right year and back. |
| 105 | ** But at the end of "Moebius", there were two alternate SG-1s who lived out their lives in AncientEgypt and, at the end of the episode, the third version of them decided not to go back since the timeline had already been altered in their favor, implying that the puddle jumper of their timeline had never been used. Also, [=McKay=] wouldn't have had to just leave it sitting there for 48,000 years. He has the [=ATA=] Gene artificially, so he could have just traveled into the future, picked up Sheppard and brought him back. |
| 106 | *** Yes, he could go to the future... provided he knew the exact date at which Sheppard would return. |
| 107 | *** Ya. Sheppard wouldn't have survived long either. |
| 108 | *** I thought it was mentioned somewhere in a post-Moebius SG-1 that the time device was ordered destroyed because of the dangers of misuse (and easy solving of time-travel plots) |
| 109 | *** Yep, and so was the quantum mirror (so we can't send you people back ripple effect [=SG1=]s) |
| 110 | * Why was the I.O.A reluctant to rebuild the Midway station after the first was destroyed? They claim they're worried that the Wraith might use the same trick again to board it, but if they just invested in a pair of new irises (and maybe fit the station with some Asgard beam weapons in case the Wraith attack from the outside), then it would pretty much solve the problem. Considering the amount of work that went into the gate bridge, the I.O.A was pretty quick to scrap the project. |
| 111 | *** I just realized why an iris (or other gate cover) wouldn't work; how would anyone identify themselves on the way in? A radio signal (like the IDC system) requires an active radio signal during an open wormhole. However, it was explicitly stated that the gate bridge is an "offline" solution; something goes in one end, and is repeatedly forwarded to the next gate in the bridge. There's no contiguous wormhole to broadcast through. I have no idea if the writers thought of this, but it would fit with canon… |
| 112 | ** The I.O.A. is Always Chaotic Stupid. They make the most lame brained decisions possible and expect to be obeyed. Why do you think O'Neill brushed them off so often? |
| 113 | *** Wouldn't that be Always Lawful Stupid? |
| 114 | ** Where exactly is it mentioned that the I.O.A. didn't want the station rebuilt? |
| 115 | ** I don't know if the show had continued, if the gate bridge would have been rebuilt, but when their gate exploded from the Janis device, they did mention mining one of the space gates of the gate bridge to replace the one at Atlantis. Maybe others were used to reseed planets that had also suffered from the gates exploding, meaning they would have needed more time finding more gates to mine to replace them and just didn't want to take the time for it. |
| 116 | *** Sheer expense. The ISS cost 150 BILLION US dollars to build. Midway station had to be close to a trillion bucks from collecting and placing the gates to building the station, etc. |
| 117 | * In Season 5 Episode 5 where the [[spoiler:Replicators including [=RepliWeir=] in FRAN's form come to Atlantis]] the Marines guarding the prisoners are standing in a circle around them pointing guns at the prisoners. Since they are standing a circle around them holding ''automatic shotguns'', this is a recipe for a major friendly fire incident. |
| 118 | ** This was explained in the episode. When they agreed to let the former "ascended" replicators build new bodies for themselves, one of the conditions was that Rodney modify the nanite code so they wouldn't be able to shapeshift/impersonate other people, and they wouldn't have the T1000-style self-repair abilities that human form replicators normally had. So basically, Rodney made it so they couldn't shapeshift or repair themselves, meaning that the shotguns WERE a threat to them. |
| 119 | ** Probably just an oversight. They've been in that situation dozens of times and never made that mistake (to my recollection). |
| 120 | *** Except don't you need to use Anti-Replicator Weapons to actually hurt replicators? Isn't that the whole point of [=ARGs=]? |
| 121 | *** Technically, [=ARGs=] are simply the most efficient means of dispatching a human-form Replicator, not the ''only'' method. Sure, against a Milky Way human-form, an ARG is a must given their ability to regenerate. These Replicators were specifically designed to lack that spiffy power. It'd take more damage than a regular human, but pour enough punishment into a gimped human-form and it won't get back up. Even though their formation was stupid, shotguns are actually the best method of doing that thanks to the scatter (they presumably didn't have [=ARGs=] on hand). |
| 122 | *** Oh Lord. Has nothing to do with the weapons used against the Replicators. Has everything to do with the fact that if you surround your enemies in a circle and have to shoot at them you tend to shoot your buddies on the other side of the circle.... |
| 123 | * Why are there no ring transporters in the Pegasus Galaxy? The Ancients invented them, they've been found at many an Ancient outpost in the Milky Way. Yet, they're conspicuously absent in the ostensible birthplace and home of the Ancients. |
| 124 | ** Either they didn't invent them until they had already left Pegasus, or they invented them before coming to Pegasus, but since then, invented the teleporters on Atlantis and just used those instead. |
| 125 | ** First, the Ancients are from the Ori galaxy, not Pegasus. Second, who says there aren't any rings in Pegasus? The Expedition didn't bring any with them, and they wouldn't fit in puddle jumpers. So it would have been impossible to use rings until the Daedalus brought it's on-board set. But the Daedalus has Asgard transporters, which are usually much more practical than rings, anyways. Why ring down to an unknown point in a structure when you can beam directly where you need to be? |
| 126 | *** The ancients were all over the Pegasus galaxy, and very well could have brought rings with them. The rings, however, tend to be used between one fixed point and another near by, something which is generally missing in Atlantis plots, and tend to function much more like super-elevators than site-to-site transporters. Don't forget, the only reason they're so common in the Milky Way is because the Goa'uld put them ''everywhere''. |
| 127 | *** Also, the ring transporters are unwieldy and impractical. The Ancients likely ditched them around the same time they got rid of rotary dialing. The teleporters on Atlantis are apparently descended from them in that they also are inherently two way, exchanging the contents of both endpoints. In general, the Ancient devices in Pegasus seem to be improved and streamlined versions of their Milky-Way technology. |
| 128 | ** I'd always gotten that the ring transporters were another tech stolen from another race by the Goa'uld, the only things that use them are non-Ancient tech. Even the Wraith use beaming technology in the Pegasus galaxy. The Goa'uld used the rings instead, placing them in places of interest. |
| 129 | *** Nope, they're definitely Ancient. In Lost City there are rings in the Ancient outposts on Taonas and in Antarctica. In the same episode when they're discussing how to get down through the ice hole to the antarctic outpost Daniel outright states that since the outpost is Ancient that there "must be rings down there somewhere.". |
| 130 | ** You've all ignored the fact that the transporter booths in Atlantis are very clearly descended from the ring transporters in some manner. So why bother with ring transporters if you have a better version of them lying around? The rest of the Ancient facilities in the Pegasus galaxy aren't big enough to merit having a few of them. |
| 131 | * The finale. Too many moments to list them all. |
| 132 | ** It's being continued on DVD because Sci-Fi channel is run by idiots. |
| 133 | *** Not anymore it’s 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 bright side another SG-1 DVD movie is in the talks. |
| 134 | *** There MAY be hope for the future, however, because the buyer of all of the props and gear is none other than David Hewlett (aka Rodney [=Mckay=]). |
| 135 | ** But since we have the opportunity, why not? Where the everloving crap did the wormhole drive come from? Why couldn't this have been mentioned at any point in the last couple of years? Why didn't they have an episode with Rodney, in time-honored tradition, [[MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds destroy a star cluster or something]] in his first attempt to get it right? That is how "stuff the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] [[LostTechnology couldn't figure out]]" generally works, right? |
| 136 | *** Wormhole drive was something Zelenka 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. |
| 137 | *** I watched this episode again yesterday and Zelenka states that ''Rodney'' had all but finished it already. Zalenca just did the finishing touches to make it work. |
| 138 | ** Why didn't the wraith just bother to DIAL SOMETHING with the gate they brought to Earth? Even if nobody else can seemingly come up with the Iris idea, at least make someone trying to take advantage of your plot have to work at racing you to re-dial at the end of each period. (And since you've got a Pegasus gate, you're at an strong advantage against any such attempt coming from anywhere but Atlantis, at least.) |
| 139 | *** Presumably the Wraith didn't know any Milky Way gate addresses. Why would they? |
| 140 | ** Why didn't Area 51 have a shield like the Spaceships Earthlings have built have, or at least some surface to air missiles 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 defense is to put it in a normal looking building with no defenses or weapons of any kind? |
| 141 | *** 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 among 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. |
| 142 | ** For that matter why the hell isn't John strapped into the chair the second he walks through the gate? "The wraith are coming in Darts, so instead of sending you to the chair where you can protect it by using the weapons it controls to shoot down anything that tries to destroy it, we're going to let you, a man we've called back from Another Galaxy because everyone else is rubbish, hop off in a fighter plane to get shot at." |
| 143 | *** That's exactly what they planned on doing, but because the Wraith were hiding behind the Moon until their ship was finished Sheppard convinced Carter that it would be better to take the fight to them in 302s armed with nukes (led by him, their best pilot) rather than simply wait for the fully powered hive ship to attack at their leisure. |
| 144 | * The Lost Tribe: Auto-resizing one-size-fits-all battle armor designed and worn exclusively by the race in Stargate who are all about three feet tall being used by humans. |
| 145 | ** Keep in mind that the Asgard originally looked quite similar to humans and shrank gradually as clone degradation came in. Therefore they must have modified the suits at some point to ensure that they would continue to fit as they shrank. |
| 146 | *** But there's no reason that they would have it automatically scale back up to human size. |
| 147 | *** Unless they designed it that way in anticipation of fixing the cloning problem and one day restoring themselves to their original sizes. |
| 148 | *** That's forward thinking to the extreme. At that point you might as well build new suits. |
| 149 | *** Perhaps it's intended as another layer of disguise. Given that every other race ever encountered is are "human size" the short armour is dead give-away. |
| 150 | *** This is sort-of explained in Stargate Universe. The armour is Ancient technology not Asgard... It looks almost identical to the spacesuits used on the Destiny. |
| 151 | *** 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 remodeled 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. |
| 152 | ** Why the heck didn't [=McKay=] and Daniel just take the Zero Point Modules that most likely power the Attero Device, it certainly would've allowed the Atlantis Expedition to solve the power problems that seem to constantly plague them. |
| 153 | *** If I remember correctly, at one point it was implied that the device was powered by the core of the planet it was on. At the time, I thought this meant geothermal, but in the wake of SG:U, it was probably more of an Icarus-type planet. I don't think there were any Zed-P-Ms to be had. |
| 154 | * [[http://www.tv.com/stargate-atlantis/the-seer/episode/968669/summary.html The Seer.]] A character with a power that Jonas Quinn had gotten in SG-1 comes to the city. Carter's response? Not believing it to be possible, and having [=McKay=] explain how it is Exactly the same way she explained it in that episode. [[http://www.tv.com/Stargate+Atlantis/The+Seer/episode/968669/trivia.html Nearly word for word...]] In general, I like newer Stargate more than most fans, but this just pissed me off. |
| 155 | ** I watched that episode recently and from what I saw, Carter was one of the least skeptical characters. She even told Woolsey that nine of any ten actions they took to prevent a vision would likely result in causing it anyway. |
| 156 | *** I also rewatched this episode recently, and Carter seemed like she had no real strong reactions either way when the subject was first introduced, and was quicker than most to accept that it was true later on in the episode [[spoiler:even before she was given the future-vision.]] |
| 157 | ** I haven't rewatched the episode, but logically, even if Carter believes that it's ''possible'' to see the future, she wouldn't necessarily believe random-alien-of-the-week can see it. Would you believe someone who walked up to you and said 'I can see the future!' even if you knew a friend of yours had had prophetic visions in the past? |
| 158 | * 38 Minutes, and the false drama created "Stargates only send things through in whole pieces". This was contradicted in the ''second episode'' of SG-1 when they chopped off half of Kawalsky's head, plus several other instances of stuff cut off by the gate shutting down. |
| 159 | ** Kawalsky's head getting cut off wasn't a contradiction of this. The contradiction is that in the past (and future) we've seen that anything in the gate's buffer when it shuts down is sent. We've seen parts of staff weapons get sent, Ernest was sent through the gate while in a diving suit that was connected to an air supply in the SGC. Therefore the entire apparatus was a single object and by the logic shown in this episode he never should have been sent, and they shouldn't have found him. And it was contradicted in Continuum. If you watch closely, the plank Baal sends through to walk out on never fully exits the stargate, and gets cut off at the point where it's still in the gate when it closes. These are just some I can think of without looking it up more. |
| 160 | ** 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|Mantra}}, man. |
| 161 | *** What is the contradiction? They accept that anything protruding into a wormhole when it is shut off will be cut at the event horizon. The difficulty is that portion won't ''travel'' through the wormhole, just go 'poof' - destroyed, including anyone it contains. |
| 162 | *** Exactly. Whatever's sticking in will be destroyed, like the back of Kawalsky's skull. So in 38 minutes, the jumper's back would fall away and the pilot and copilot would disappear - poof, as you say. But that also means that the Jaffa whose staff weapon got cut off and Earnest Littlefield, whose air hose was sticking out, should also have 'poofed'. |
| 163 | *** It is stated that the Stargate will only send objects that have been completely dematerialized. Also, under normal circumstances the gate will remain open if something has entered the event horizon to prevent it getting cut off. They will only close with something partially inserted if they lose power or reach the 38 minute limit. However, the SGC gate is not operating in normal conditions. As stated several times, the gate is being operated by an SGC-made computer, instead of a proper DHD, that has to bypass many of the safety protocols to function. In the case of Kawalsky, it is likely that they shut off the power directly. Once the power was gone, the wormhole and event horizon disappeared, along with half of his head. This safety protocol bypassing is a probable explanation for other incidents of things getting cut-off by the SGC gate, as it is the given explanation for all the other problems caused by the SGC gate. |
| 164 | * 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 Rescue''. 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. |
| 165 | ** To be fair, a lot of people were asking when ''Continuum'' took place, and the answer given was originally "Sometime between ''Unending'' and ''Adrift''. This was eventually retconned when a suitable opening presented itself. Naturally, this presented certain continuity problems, as you pointed out, but presumably they just didn't occur to anyone at the time. |
| 166 | * How come in ''Be All My Sins Remembr'd'', when Earth sends two of its ships to Pegasus to fight Replicators, it doesn't send the Odyssey? At this point there are no major threats in the Milky Way. Even if they wanted to keep a ship to defend earth, why not keep the Apollo or Daedalus? With its ZPM and phasing abilities, surely the Odyssey would have been a better choice to go up against the Asurans. |
| 167 | ** Cynical answer. The Odyssey's greater abilities is precisely ''why'' they didn't send it. It's the most capable ship they have, and therefore should be reserved for the most important mission - which is protecting ''Earth''. The Asurans were (at least from the IOA's point of view) not an immediate threat to Earth. |
| 168 | ** In the same episode, once they saw that the Asurans were being pulled to pieces, why didn't they beam down a few SG teams to steal, oh, say a couple dozen [=ZPMs=]? We've been told that the Asurans have a nearly unlimited number of them, and Rodney's planet-collapsing trick surely didn't need them ALL. Todd was smart enough to think of it, why weren't Our Heroes? |
| 169 | *** The Wraith Hive had to wait until the last minute to make the jump into hyperspace because they were waiting for the darts to return. Our Heroes probably care too much about their people's lives and know that their ships (Earth has only ever built 6 of the 304s in the entirety of all the Stargate series and only 2, Daedalus and Apollo were ever dispatched to the Pegasus Galaxy) are too valuable to risk losing them and a ship for a few [=ZPMs=]. |
| 170 | ** Apparently the Odyssey is on a "secret mission", as hinted by several minor and supporting characters, documented on the Stargate Wiki's article for the ship. Nobody knows just ''what'' they're doing. |
| 171 | ** Why didn't the Asurans detect the Wraith-Earth-Traveler fleet well before they arrived at Asuras. They have the same deep space sensor capabilities as Atlantis considering they have the ability to produce all ancient tech. |
| 172 | *** They probably did. Atlantis and their allies went into that battle knowing that a straight-up fight was going to end badly for them; the point was to stall long enough to get their plan implemented. The Asurans do not care about collateral damage (at least not much), and the loss of a few ships in exchange for killing the only major threats to them is a good trade. |
| 173 | * I guess it's not a big deal, but I find it kind of a shame that the Sun Tzu was introduced entirely out of nowhere and put into action in an entirely offscreen battle. Unless they have future plans for one of the Stargate movies that specifically requires five 304s, it just felt like an AssPull. |
| 174 | ** They definitely were making more ships. How could new unit in the line be AssPull? It makes no sense. |
| 175 | ** Also, there's a season 10 episode of [=SG1=] where it's mentioned the SGC had to fork over the newest Daedalus-class ship to the Chinese in order to appease them. |
| 176 | * In the season one episode ''Letter From Pegasus'', what was that blue beam of light that appeared during the Wraith culling? The episode never explained what it was. I assumed it was a Wraith weapon, but it didn't seem to do anything. All it did was give Sheppard an excuse to leave the ship. |
| 177 | ** Isn't it stated to be some kind of beacon? |
| 178 | * In ''Home'', Hammond claims Sheppard was uniquely capable of controlling his fantasy. Is it ever explained ''why''? I wondered if it might possibly have something to do with the ATA gene (since [=McKay=] appeared to have minor control as well), but it's never confirmed. |
| 179 | ** Makes about as much sense as anything else. |
| 180 | ** Isn't it also said that he was highly resistant to Wraith mind-probing? This troper can't remember what episode/season it was said, but one would think that mental resistance like that would affect fake, mind-worlds. |
| 181 | ** It probably was meant to tie into whatever made him so skilled with ancient technology and what attracted the ancient woman and the ascending woman. |
| 182 | *** Yeah, he seems to have a stronger-than-usual latent Ancient gene. Maybe he just won the genetic lottery there and it had side effects like a higher Will save. |
| 183 | * What happened to the Aurora-class ship that Weir and the remaining Asurans used. Also, what happened to the Tria? |
| 184 | ** Weir's ship is either derelict or self-destructed. The Tria is hanging in the void between galaxies and cannot be repaired. |
| 185 | *** Cannot be repaired? The hyperdrive in the Tria can't be fixed, but there's no reason it couldn't be ''replaced''. Earth might not have any spare Ancient hyperdrives on hand, but they're quite capable of producing Asgard ones. |
| 186 | *** Asgard and Ancient ships seem to be completely different designs. It leads to the question: Are Asgard hyperdrives even compatible with an Aurora Class Vessel? |
| 187 | * Why did they constantly act like Todd was a total dick? He goes out of his way to save Sheppard's life the first time they meet, and subsequently '''helps''' the team on several different occasions. Occasionally he steals a ship and tries to blow up some ancient doodad, but is totally justified in doing so. At the end of the series after showing up entirely to help Atlantis and doing everything right, Sheppard is still incredibly angry at him. His last scene in the series is pretty ominous, and this troper at least thought the implication was that he was killed to tie up loose ends. |
| 188 | ** That's pretty dark, and no, Todd isn't dead. Can't very well be a cast member in the DevelopmentHell movie if he is. Anyway, the reason they didn't trust Todd is because he ''always'' had a secondary agenda whenever they worked together. At the end of the day, he was looking out for his own ends. It wasn't until the gene therapy came along that Todd was on the level. Incidentally, during that incident, he does try to crash the ship into the planet rather than take the Atlantis team at their word that they weren't responsible for the Attero device. |
| 189 | *** Not to mention the last time they tried working with Wraith it backfired horribly, costing them the Orion and inadvertently turning Michael into an even bigger threat than before. Ultimately they were just being as cautious as possible. |
| 190 | *** He always has his own agenda, but most of the time his agenda isn't actually at odds with the Atlantis crew's. The only time he actually turned on them was when he thought they betrayed him first, and he's sacrificed a ''lot'' to help them (his hive, including his queen, died to protect Atlantis from a rival hive). |
| 191 | * What was the deal with the Wraith stupid plan in "Midway"? Even if they thought they could bring millions of warriors thought the gate before anyone would notice them, they still would have been outnumbered and outgunned. One nuke would have killed them all. |
| 192 | ** I don't think ''all'' the Wraith in the Pegasus galaxy knew that the homeworld of the Atlantis team had nukes. They probably figured they would show up, take the area around the gate by surprise, grow a few ships and then lay back and enjoy the buffet they had before them. |
| 193 | * The Atlantis Expedition Team takes a lot of flak for not being true Ancients. I'm only half way through season 2 but among other things, it has resulted in being denied a ZPM in the episode ''The Brotherhood'' all because [=McKay=] flubbed and said none of them grew up in the city. Why can't they just say they are the descendants of the Ancients, come back to retake their ancestors' home? It's not like that is a lie. The Ancients did retreat to Earth in the first place, and even more, only those with the ATA gene can use most Ancient Tech. Seems like just saying that would put the team on the good side of a lot of people out there. |
| 194 | ** Because they were too honest to begin with and now everyone knows the secret. That and being descended from the Ancients isn't a valid response. Everyone in the Pegasus galaxy seems to know the Ancients made them, so it's not like they have any less of a claim under those circumstances. Look at how Kolya responded when Weir tried to tell him why he was being an idiot. Granted, the man is a moron, but his reaction is probably what you'd get out of anyone in the Pegasus galaxy since they don't know what happened to the Ancients. |
| 195 | * When Ronon is first introduced to the show, it's revealed 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? |
| 196 | ** Or was he immune to process? I always thought that Wraith started feed on him and felt his strength, deciding "Hey, I gonna make him runner and won't feed on him". |
| 197 | ** Basically the above. Ronon isn't immune. They'd have outright killed him and his entire people no matter how far they ran for that. It was his defiance in the face of feeding that led the Wraith to make a runner out of him. |
| 198 | ** Rewatching all of Atlantis, and I think this could be a viable theory; in the Season 2 mid-season 2-parter, Ronon was infected with the Wraith enzyme that Ford was high on. Seeing as this enzyme is what lubricates the Wraith feeding process, the high and near-constant dosing could have destroyed his immunity. Trust me, it makes sense if you think about it |
| 199 | * This isn't so much a JBM question as a curiosity. So, in the final episode Atlantis warps/teleports/wormholes/whatever all the way to Earth and lands in San Francisco Bay (still under the cloaking shield so TheMasquerade isn't broken). And...then what happens? Does the SGC ever send another expedition back to the Pegasus Galaxy? What happens to the city of Atlantis? Does the IOA relocate it somewhere on Earth, and if so what do they do with it? Is there any conflict between the IOA and the US government about who has the rights to what on Atlantis? Does the Atlantis Expedition stay with it or do they move on to other projects? Do Ronon and Tayla resettle on Earth, and if so how does that work out for them? Do they join the Earth-based Stargate program? Do they have difficulty adapting to Earth culture?\ |
| 200 | \ |
| 201 | I guess what I'm really asking is...is there or will there be a movie and/or an official (that is, in-canon) Expanded Universe series that continues the Atlantis story? |
| 202 | ** For that matter, why would you ever park it in SF bay? The cloaking field would generate at best, a headache-inducing distortion of the water, and at worst a giant crater in the ocean where the field ended. Even leaving that aside, there's no way "military quarantine" could cordon off a large enough chunk of the harbor for it to sit comfortably without someone with a scuba suit and a DPV sneaking underneath to see what was up. /I/ would. |
| 203 | *** Come to think of it, how did they even get it there? They state flat out that it landed somewhere in the Pacific ocean, and Atlantis has never yet shown any ability to maneuver on the surface. |
| 204 | ** A movie is planned, but currently in DevelopmentHell. But with MGM's bankruptcy, things are apparently looking hopeful. |
| 205 | ** [=McKay=] and Woolsey will be appearing in an episode of Stargate Universe to tie up the loose ends left over from the Atlantis finale. |
| 206 | *** Except that Universe has also been prematurely cancelled now and all the previously planned movies are on indefinite hold. So it's doubtful we'll ever get any closure. |
| 207 | ** The story is being continued through a novel series, and in the first book Atlantis is returned to Pegasus using the wormhole drive not too long after arriving on Earth. However, the city doesn't quite have enough power to get back to the planet it was on before, and lands on a considerably colder planet closer to the edge of the galaxy. |
| 208 | *** That novel series isn't official canon. Thought I would point that out considering the question was ''will there be a canon continuation of the series.'' |
| 209 | *** What is there to contradict the novels at this point? Previously, you could argue that the novels aren't canon because the shows might say otherwise... but now, what? How aren't the novels canon? |
| 210 | *** That comes down to your definition of canon. Anyone could write something which doesn't contradict canon and, if there's not going to be any further shows, they could consider it to be part of their personal canon. If your definition of canon is only those things which are accepted by all or virtually all the show's fandom as being part of canon then only stuff in the television series/movies meets that criteria. If your definition includes some other medium, such as the novels, which don't contradict the shows then you can choose to include them. However, the official shared canon does not include the books (hence why some people will include them and some people will not) which is why several Stargate sites do not accept information from the books in their articles. |
| 211 | * 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. |
| 212 | ** They probably realized that there wasn't sufficient armour to stop Iratus bugs. |
| 213 | * The whole point of the Replicators is that any single one of them can start a ZergRush. Beside, it takes all the willpower of a former ascended being to make them glitch, and yet only for a few minutes. But the Asurans can barely replicate unless there are large quantities of neutronium around. And all it takes to durably reprogram them is a smartass with a laptop. |
| 214 | ** They may have the same name, but the Milk Way Replicators are a completely different design from the Pegasus Replicators. They were invented by entirely different races so it's not unlikely that they'd have different rules. |
| 215 | *** 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. Reese was basically an android, with Asuran nanites in her "bloodstream", but without all of their capabilities. This very handily explains why both the Asurans and the replicators she created were vulnerable to the ARG. |
| 216 | *** Their shared name is what bugs me. |
| 217 | *** This. The humans know, or ''should'' know, that the Asurans are not the same thing as the Replicators the SGC fought. Remarkably similar technology to the human-form Replicators, but completely different origin and purposes. Hell, they're extremely lucky that the anti-Replicator weapons even ''work'' on Asurans. |
| 218 | * So, in "First Contact", the Atlantis Stargate explodes, taking out the entire control room. Next episode, the control room is ''pristine'', down to the ''stained glass windows''. |
| 219 | ** Because the secret of constructing stained glass windows was lost along with the Ancients? They were probably just constructed and shipped through from Earth. If they went to the trouble of making a Pegasus-themed plaque for Weir's office is it so unbelievable that they'd restore the window when they rebuilt the room? |
| 220 | * It is never explicitly stated but: regarding the gene therapy Todd went through and was debating spreading through the Wraith population. If the Wraith were to take the therapy and became unable to feed off the life energy of humans wouldn't that mean they no longer have their healing ability and thousand year lifespan? |
| 221 | ** If you mean the thing that turns Wraith into human beings, that does seem to be the implication. So long as they keep taking the gene therapy they're completely biologically human. That means no more nigh-immortal lifespan or HealingFactor. The Atlantis Expedition saw that as a fair trade (for them at least). |
| 222 | *** No. I'm referring 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.'' |
| 223 | *** Doesn't Dr Keller mention that she's modified the therapy so that it should theoretically allow the Wraith to keep their abilities, although possibly in a diminished form? |
| 224 | * Last episode: the Atlantis team get a wormhole opened between the city and the wraith megahive. Thus, they send in a couple of grenades 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 naquadah from the stargate to amplify the nuke, it would have instantaneously obliterated the megahive. |
| 225 | ** Does Atlantis actually routinely ''keep'' any nukes on board? |
| 226 | *** Probably not normally, but even after they got the ZPM's there were still several Naquadah reactors (and at least one Mk II) in the power room. Overloading one of those and tossing it through would have the same effect. |
| 227 | ** If they don't, they should, if only for self-destruct-if-the-wraith-capture-the-city purpose. |
| 228 | *** They might, but there was still the possibility of needing the nuke themselves for self preservation purposes. |
| 229 | ** And the possibility of killing off the entire planet with nuke waste? It was probably an idea, but a 'Plan F'. |
| 230 | ** Also, when they'd used a nuke as a last-ditch solution against the Ori, it ended up bad for them. The Wraith might have accounted for the variable and make it ineffective. The strike team would have been able to adapt if their plans went sour. |
| 231 | * In "Midway" Sheppard and the rest of the survivors were stuck in a puddle jumper for days. Where did they poop? |
| 232 | ** PoopSocking? |
| 233 | ** NobodyPoops. |
| 234 | ** Or, you know, the Puddle Jumpers have some form of waste disposal unit that they don't usually bring up because it's not relevant? |
| 235 | * In the second episode [=McKay=] is stuck in a personal shield for a while - why isn't urine pooling at his feet? |
| 236 | ** Because he's not pissing his pants. |
| 237 | *** Alternatively, the forcefield may well have been programmed to only work at stopping things from going in, not out. If the Goa'uld's personal shields can work in one direction (able to block incoming fire while allowing the user to fire out), there is no reason to believe that the Ancients, who are more technologically advanced, wouldn't also be able to make a personal shield with that capability. |
| 238 | * So what's with the entirely unprofessional uniforms that the SGC has issued the Atlantis crew with? the things are dull blue or grey with various ugly red or yellow patches... the things look like Away Team wear for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. What was wrong with the olive drab BDU they were using before, and indeed, still are? In fact, even later on when the uniforms were redesigned (apparently the Quarter-Master had realized he had inadvertently issued five hundred clown costumes) the uniforms still consisted of fashionable leather jackets and Star-Trek esque colour lines. Here's an idea; how about using the tried and tested military uniforms that featured in every other Stargate series and movie instead of making up your own? |
| 239 | ** The Atlantis Expedition was a civilian operation so it would be inappropriate for [=McKay=] and Weir to be wearing a military uniform. As for why the military crew wore them, they probably thought it was better to present a united front to the people of Pegasus through uniformity of their, well, uniforms rather than potentially confuse people by having some of your expedition dressed differently. |
| 240 | * The Hoffan Drug; a near perfect defense 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 defense 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. |
| 241 | ** Combining drugs is never that simple. There could be all kinds of side effects associated with combining two different drugs like that. |
| 242 | ** Besides, it's openly pointed out in that episode that once the Wraith found out about the drug, they'd just kill everyone who had it. |
| 243 | * What happened to the Wraith ability to project hallucinations? we go from even the Dart pilots being able to project them whilst conducting an aerial assault during the pilot, to seemingly only something the Queen could do and even then it's limited to basic telepathy and paralysis; by series 2 it's near enough completely forgotten, even though it could have and logically should have been used countless times throughout the series. |
| 244 | ** I guess, 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. |
| 245 | ** There is also the theory that it's because the Wraith seen in the pilot were able to properly feed so they were more powerful. This also explains why they were much tougher to kill in the pilot and series 1, but as the Wraith were woken up too soon there simply want enough food so they got weaker and weaker as time went on. The Wraith civil war started in season 2 so the lack of food reaching crisis point matches up with the depowering of the Wraith. |
| 246 | * Does the personal shield only protect against damaging force being applied to the wearer or does it protect against the wearer inflicting damaging force upon himself, too? For instance, if [=McKay=] punched a steel wall while wearing the shield would it hurt his hand? And would the force applied to the wall remain the same or would the shield cancel that out, as well? |
| 247 | ** In the episode ''Irresponsible'', 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. |
| 248 | * Given how much of an asset Ronan Dex has been to the team as well as it being pretty much established that you have to meet a certain badass quota in order to be picked as a Runner, why didn't the Atlantis team search out the other six Runners seen on the Scanner in ''Sateda?'' Kiryk (the guy with the teleporter armband) was near enough equal to Ronan in terms of skill and at the very least, given how often the Atlantis team will argue about the value of human life, wouldn't freeing them from this living hell be the humane thing to do given how easy it is to remove the tracking device? |
| 249 | ** 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 worshipers and on their side, and that's time they'll probably spend killing you. |
| 250 | * 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 demonstrated 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. |
| 251 | ** Presumably tied to the need to have her wake up every 3300 years or so. The only cryo reversal process seen in the show required medical staff on hand. Same would apply to entering it. Suspension is probably simpler process. |
| 252 | ** It was also explicitly stated that the pod tried to revive her when they first arrived in the city, but Mckay manually killed the process. It's entirely possible she barely aged at all during the 10,000 year process, then the last year of being partially unfrozen before being discovered caused 90-someodd percent of the aging we saw in the episode. |
| 253 | * The idea of beaming nukes onto Wraith ships (used pretty early on from the Daedalus) always struck me as bizarre. We know for a fact that the Wraith understand matter-transmission tech - their fighters use it routinely. And the Wraith aren't exactly all one big, happy family. Wouldn't you think that at some point, one hive would have used their darts' beaming ability to plant weapons/troops/bad stuff on an opposing hive? And then wouldn't there be defenses against it? I'm not sure what surprised me more - that no one made the argument against it as a wasted effort, or that it ''worked''. |
| 254 | ** The Wraith's beaming tech is clearly different from Asgardian--for one, it seems to only drop or pick up from a surface directly beneath the dart in question, meaning any attempt to beam weapons/troops/bad stuff onto the opposing hive would only result in those weapons and troops being beamed onto the ship's ''hull'', and thus be useless. |
| 255 | *** In addition, due to the short range of Wraith beaming tech, any dart would have to get up very close to even use it on a hive. Most likely, the dart would have been intercepted or blown out of the sky before it got in range, hence anti-beaming measures would have been largely unnecessary when Wraith were facing off against other Wraith. |
| 256 | ** Also, apparently the Wraith ''have'' encountered this, considering they devise a defense inside of five minutes. They clearly have some kind of experience with the technology, perhaps from fighting the Asgard that live in this galaxy. |
| 257 | * 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 Ronon 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?]] |
| 258 | ** UriahGambit? The guy was pretty annoying, maybe his home universe figured they could come up with a solution without him and were half-hoping he'd get himself killed. Plus he was, if anything, even more arrogant than our [=McKay=] what with not having his crippling sense of personal insecurity so he just assumed he wouldn't need anything. |
| 259 | ** They probably figured that if whoever was running the device was malicious, a gun wouldn't help that much, while the gun might alienate (or get him killed by) an otherwise reasonable and willing-to-negotiate group. |
| 260 | ** "Rod" kinda explains this when he arrives. He already knows what the source of the problem is, because his team was considering trying the same thing. His team put 2 and 2 together and pretty much knew it was an alternate Atlantis team doing what his team had already considered. It was "they're trying this, they're just assuming our universe isn't inhabited, better pop on over there and tell them that it is". |
| 261 | ** 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 amiable there was no need for him to whip it out or even bring it up in conversation. |
| 262 | * In "Enemy at the Gate" it's shown that SGC knows the Wraith are coming and that they know the control chair is at Area 51. There's ample time to mobilize conventional forces to defend against them, yet they don't seem to even consider filling the skies over Area 51 with F-15s and F-22s in case the F-302s higher up can't intercept all the darts. Given what's at stake, shouldn't the military have made more of an effort to defend the chair? |
| 263 | ** Yes, and that is ''far'' from the only flaw in military strategy in that episode. The very fact that the chair is at Area 51 violates not just several fake treaties of the show, but even a few real-life treaties regarding the exploitation of Antarctica for military gain. However, to get back to your question, there has never been any explanation or commentary as to why they left themselves exposed like that. Previous episodes of SG-1 have shown that the US military ''is'' put on alert when alien forces approach Earth, and that they are more than capable of engaging alien technology provided that it does happen within the atmosphere (An F-22 shot down an Al'kesh in "Insides"), but they just left it out of this episode. |
| 264 | *** Hell, the entire battle could have been ended immediately simply by taking Shepard ''straight'' to the chair instead of a 302 and have him use ''that'' to shoot down ''all'' the darts in one go. |
| 265 | *** Drones are a limited resource, humans can't make more of them like they can with missiles. Most of the time they're too valuable to use on small fry. Would they have enough drones to take on the Super Hive if they used some to shoot down waves of darts first? |
| 266 | * So, the Wraith-Human Hybrids that Michael created don't need to feed on life force. And they don't apparently need to eat food, either. So, does that mean they only need things like air and sleep? |
| 267 | ** Presumably they ''do'' need to eat food, since without '''some''' kind of energy intake they're violating some of the most basic laws of biology. It's probably considered a benefit over normal Wraith feeding since there's no food source bottleneck like with humans; a single planet can produce enough food for billions of of people (And probably Wraith, unless they've got much higher caloric intake), whereas the human-to-Wraith food ratio seems to be a lot more lopsided. There's also the issue of supply replacement; it takes decades (or centuries) for humans to build a population, but plants can be sown and grown in a single season, and animals can replace entire populations in only a few years. |
| 268 | * 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. |
| 269 | ** Did you see what happened when they tried that? One rogue replicator (Koracen) who didn't think the replicator to human plan was viable got loose and had to be hunted down. Why would the Atlantis team want to risk the possibility that there was more than one rogue replicator among the group, and thus a chance that happening again if they just let the replicators resume their plan? |
| 270 | * 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 time frame, 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). |
| 271 | * 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! |
| 272 | ** What I find worse is that the whole security issue was that the Wraith was trying to reach earth by taking control of the half way base... so multiply the fortifications on this space station by a factor of ten. Install irises on both the Milky way and Pegasus gates (I literally have no idea why there aren't any), station a permanent and heavily armed SG team there instead of a collection of poorly trained scientists, equip the base with a F-302's or Jumpers so that it can both defend against exterior attack and/or destroy the base as a last resort, installing force fields that can be activated to slow down invaders and, perhaps most importantly, rewrite the program to exclusively link to an off world SG base (such as the Beta site for example) that can vet any arrivals and take the brunt of any potential fight. This whole situation screams of the IdiotBall to me. |
| 273 | *** As stated above, there was a good reason why there wasn't an iris or an IDC system: how would anyone identify themselves on the way in? A radio signal (like the IDC system) requires an active radio signal during an open wormhole. However, it was explicitly stated that the gate bridge is an "offline" solution; something goes in one end, and is repeatedly forwarded to the next gate in the bridge. There's no contiguous wormhole to broadcast through to make sure they let you through. I have no idea if the writers thought of this, but it would fit with canon… |
| 274 | *** What makes it worse is the fact that the wraith are using a slight variation on the plan the SGC feared during ''The Return'' last season. The security of the bridge was already a concern for over a year and there are still no security measures in place? That's just silly. Hell, placing an iris on midway would seem like the preferable idea to trying to nuke Atlantis in that episode as well. |
| 275 | *** Another thing to do in addition to irises would be to use a version of the G.D.O. to assure anyone who dials to or from Midway would have to provide an access code in order to tell the sites they were who they said they were. All that was required in otherwise was trust that only Atlantis or Earth could dial Midway and that Midway was always safe. |
| 276 | ** They DID have security though. They wrote the macro to only work from either Atlantis or the SGC. Granted I'm sure the IdiotBall was involved in not stationing a contingent of Airman or Marines in the Midway Station considering in real life the military would never let such an obvious security flaw remain, but then again the exact same thing is all that prevents anyone in Pegasus from dialing out to Milky Way. |
| 277 | * 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. |
| 278 | ** 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. |
| 279 | * Is it just me or does the composition of Sheppard's team sound terrible? Usually, you kind of want to spread out your assets, make sure that you don't lose your entire leadership or capabilities with the loss of one team. However, this team includes: |
| 280 | ** Teyla, who is a leader among 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 |
| 281 | ** Rodney[=McKay=], who is the head of research & development and one of the most brilliant scientists in existence |
| 282 | ** 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. |
| 283 | * I'd question any of these three people being put on an away team in the first place, let alone on the frontline team. However, these three people were placed on the exact same frontline team. That seems like the perfect recipe for disaster to me. |
| 284 | ** Otherwise known as the Star Trek Away Team effect. It's stupid but it means the producers don't have to pay new actors. |
| 285 | ** SG-1 (and most similar shows) do the same thing: send out the #1 tech/science genius, #1 expert on Goa'uld and other alien languages and cultures, and only contact with the Jaffa rebellion for random missions. |
| 286 | ** Though in theory it's a terrible idea, given the number of times when the main teams end up relying on having all of the top skills on their respective planet together on relatively minor missions in order to get out alive, it makes a certain amount of sense. While you're in a lot of trouble if all of the main team is killed, you can virtually guarantee that if they're together they won't be. Based around the number of times they'd almost gotten themselves killed even while working together, logically if you'd taken them each and paired them with an inferior team they would have been killed. Of course, if adventuring in the galaxy were written consistently as being as dangerous for each of the different teams then the rest of the teams should all just have gotten themselves killed off pretty quickly. |
| 287 | ** A possible explanation for this is lampshaded by Colonel Caldwell in "Conversion" after he takes up Sheppard's duties while he's busy turning into a bug. He puts out a bulletin about rearranging the offworld teams because Sheppard has made "rookie mistakes" and has things "backwards", which implies that Sheppard has his team and possibly others arranged this way on purpose and that Weir lets him get away with it, either because she doesn't know better or because SG-1's infamous defiance of proper protocol rubbed off on her during her brief tenure at the SGC. Caldwell is more by-the-book, and would have things arranged more realistically. |
| 288 | |
| 289 | * ''Allies''/''No Man's Land'' - F-302s are 2-man fighters. Indeed, during the space battle, we see multiple shots of fighters carrying two people. So where did the second crewman of Sheppard's 302 go? |
| 290 | ** It could be the case that the 302 is designed for maximum effectiveness with 2 people (or so theoretically they could be used for training pilots since an instructor could sit in one seat with a rookie whose being taught to fly the 302 in the other) but can still function with just 1 pilot. Take the episode with the Wraith computer virus on the Daedalus for example, Sheppard did all of the flying and shooting when he was in a 302 with [=McKay=] just going along for the ride. |
| 291 | * 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 Antarctica 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? |
| 292 | ** Could be any one of a number of reasons. Maybe the Ancients took all their sidearms with them when they left. Maybe they left the weapons behind but after thousands of years the power cells died and the humans can't figure out how to recharge them. Maybe as the power cells age they start leaking chemicals or exotic particles that corrode the electronics and damage the guns beyond repair. (Of course the real reason is because the writers hadn't come up with Ancient handguns when the show first started. They can't very well go back and reshoot the entire series to retcon them back in.) |
| 293 | ** 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 discovers the ascension machine, the episode where the two red shirts discover 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 Ancient 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. |
| 294 | * ''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? |
| 295 | ** If he's hallucinating that Sheppard is a Wraith maybe he's hallucinating that the bullet wound is actually a Wraith weapon wound. |
| 296 | *** The wraith use energy weapons though, which would need very different first aid (or even none at all, since the wraith use stunners). Hence the question for why he's performing first aid for bullet wounds. |
| 297 | *** 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 damaged 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. |
| 298 | * ''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". |
| 299 | ** ''"Not even the puddle jumpers and drones that weren't originally from Atlantis, but from The Tower."'' Why does that even matter? The Tower, as broken as it was, was still clearly an Ancient City Ship, and therefore it and all it's associated gear still belonged to the Ancients. Had they survived that long, the Ancients may well have gone out and reclaimed that City as well some day. |
| 300 | ** I think he meant that they could have attacked Atlantis and taken all the humans as prisoners, but instead they're letting the Earthlings leave peacefully. |
| 301 | *** From the Ancient's perspective, the Atlantis Expedition personal are either thieves or grave robbers, depending on how well they acclimated to the fact that a few years of them flying in near FTL was actually 10000+ years. They took their city, slept in their beds, stole all their books, nicked all their good electronics, got a bunch of there stuff blown up, fiddled with all their dangerous experiments, and generally just ignored common decency for the sake of getting some cool stuff. |
| 302 | *** 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." |
| 303 | * ''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? |
| 304 | ** That depends. Have we ever seen a Zat blast act that way before? |
| 305 | *** 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. |
| 306 | * ''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? |
| 307 | ** Because in their first appearance, Atlantis was occupied by a hostile, heavily armed military force who had weapons specifically designed to destroy them (well Milky Way Replicators but still) and who would rather destroy the city than give it to them. Once the Ancients took over, there were significantly less troops with almost no weapons or ways to defend themselves against them so they took it for its strategic importance. |
| 308 | * ''The Return'' once again (even though it isn't that bad an episode) - Why did the drones stop chasing Sheppard's jumper when it went underwater? We see later in the episodes that drones function just fine in water too. |
| 309 | ** To answer this: Drones that are being controlled one-to-one by the Chair do fine underwater, drones that aren't apparently don't. Keep in mind, the Replicators were flying them manually, it's possible there's some kind of fail-safe or other unique function that stops them from going underwater when not controlled by the chair. |
| 310 | * ''Lifeline'' - Shouldn't the jumper-generated anti-replicator field also disable the bonds between the nanties that are keeping elizabeth alive? She should have instantly died as soon as the field activated. |
| 311 | ** It's a point worth considering. The best response I could give is that originally the field was generated by the ship's shield which would have meant it was projected outside of the ship, not inside. By the time Elizabeth left the ship the Replicators seemed to be developing an immunity to it and it's possible she'd developed it too (automatically due to a link between her cells and theirs). |
| 312 | * During ''Midway'' why didn't Atlantis use the ZPM to dial Earth directly and warn them about the attack on Midway Station? They admit they wanted to conserve power, but given that defense of Earth has priority over everything else I don't see an reason why they wouldn't. |
| 313 | * Why does everyone keep saying that Project Arcturus was a complete fiasco and an embarrassment? [=McKay=] might not have discovered an energy source, but he got something even better. A solar system destroying bomb! Now that is something that has to come in handy at somepoint, plus the solar system they destroyed was uninhabited anyway. |
| 314 | ** That would require them having all the technology, equipment, and know-how to reverse-engineer a new Arcturus reactor. Its highly likely they lost most of what they would need to do that, along with the 5/6 of that solar system. |
| 315 | * 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. |
| 316 | ** 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 Sheppard could easily have missed it. |
| 317 | ** 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 Mc Kay (or possibly even Rodney M. Mc Kay, 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... |
| 318 | * If the reason why Ronon became a runner is because the Wraith couldn't feed on him, how was the Wraith in Broken Ties able to repeatedly drain and restore him? |
| 319 | ** Hm? Where did you hear that he couldn't be fed on? The true reason for runners was never discovered, but the theories that they went with was fun and/or combat training. |
| 320 | ** The episode shows the Wraith stop before feeding on him. Nowhere is it even implied that the Wraith *couldn't* feed on him. It was Ronon's defiance in the face of being fed on that got the Wraith interested, so he decided to use him for entertainment rather than food. At the time, the Wraith weren't exactly starving or hurting for food. |
| 321 | * A characterization headscratcher: John Sheppard and his eventual fate on the show. The series repeatedly establishes that this is a guy with a serious GuiltComplex and enough self-loathing to border on DeathSeeker. Fine. All of the other characters have bucketloads of issues too, no big deal. However Season 4 and 5 mostly has them working through their demons: Teyla becoming a mother and finding Kanaan, Rodney getting together with Keller/fixing things with his sister, even Ronon opening up to relationships with Amelia and finding more of his people are alive. Meanwhile Sheppard, (on top of the deaths of Ford, Carson and everyone in his past), loses Elizabeth several times - who is at the very least an extremely close friend and [[{{ShipTease}} possibly]] [[{{UnresolvedSexualTension}} more]] - and becomes an even darker character. There are two occasions where his subconscious gains control and he hallucinates being beaten and tortured because he ''believes he deserves to suffer.'' Rather than addressing this, the show ends with the rest of the characters living HappilyEverAfter with their partners while Sheppard's alone and presumably as guilt-ridden as before. This is your main character and there's not even a "some people don't get a happy ending" message, he's just forgotten about. Just what? What were they trying to say and do with his character arc? |
| 322 | ** Probably something along the lines of, "We thought we were going to get more seasons to continue his arc." |
| 323 | * Did any of the Atlantis personnel '''''ever''''' try shooting a Wraith in the head? Sure, they can regenerate, but can they regenerate their own brain after a burst of 5.7 mm bullets from a P90 goes through it? |
| 324 | ** RealityIsUnrealistic. Head shots, even at point blank range, are hard to pull off and have a record of not being the best way to even kill other humans let alone space vampires. It might take a lot of shots in the center of mass to put a Wraith down, but it is a better bet than trying to pull off a headshot. |
| 325 | *** But in the early seasons, the Wraith are damn near invincible (sometimes requiring heavy explosives to kill) but are stunned by a burst to the chest, why not follow up with a couple shots in the head? Police are taught the Mozambique Drill, you would think that at least one of the military personnel would suggest or try it. And how many times were the Earthlings faced with the faking dead technique by the Wraith? Once they're on the ground (faking dead or not), shot them in the head once or twice to make sure they don't get back up. |
| 326 | *** The idea was referenced during "Travelers". Sheppard 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." |
| 327 | ** Lt Ford did it in the pilot, he shot a Wraith soldier in the head to save Sheppard 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. |
| 328 | * 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. |
| 329 | ** The IOA insisted on Weir commanding the expedition, and Weir insisted on picking her team. Apart from selecting the best she could find, things like security clearance, experience and willingness were probably other factors involved in the makeup of her expedition, making it politically agreeable and diverse clearly wasn't Weir's priority. |
| 330 | * '''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? |
| 331 | ** Just because it is currently in a set of dimensions that feature a lot of Atlantises it doesn't mean that was always the case. But even if we take it as fact that there was an Atlantis every other world, that does not also automatically mean that they were necessarily a better alternative to staying on board until the last minute. How many of these alternate Atlantises had been conquered/inhabited by the Wraith? Or by the Asurans? Or by the Goa'uld? Or by the Nazis? Or by evil counterparts of themselves? Or was an Atlantis built by Ancients that breathed carbon dioxide instead of oxygen? Or were a set of bombed out/diseased/flooded ruins on a barely habitable planet? Or by just about any other kind of threat that you can imagine. Stargate subscribes to the infinite universes with infinite possibilities theory, so for every Atlantis they come across, there is an equal chance of it being a paradise, or about the same, or Hell. I think that may explain both teams. They both stayed far too long trying to fix the problem (as our team points out) and when the call finally came to escape, they were presented with a string of bad choices. |
| 332 | * Europeans who speak English as a second language typically speak British English. As such, shouldn't Radek be saying "Zed Pee Em" as well? |
| 333 | ** People also tend to adopt language quirks that the people around them speak. Considering that nearly everyone else says "Zee", he just uses what everyone else uses. Rodney may be more of a linguistic purist. |
| 334 | ** Put it this way, no one refers to Dragon Ball Z as Dragon Ball Zed. Zee pee em isn't just an acronym, it's lingo (which Rodney, ass that he is, stubbornly ignores). |
| 335 | ** ''Many'' Europeans who speak English are self-taught from TV, which is mostly dominated by American media. |
| 336 | * Why did they go to the time and expense of building an elevator at the Antarctic site? Didn't the site already have a ring transporter? Why not just use that? Seems like there was a creative decision at some point not to show any ring transporters in SGA. |
| 337 | * If the Iratus bugs feed on life force, just like the Wraith, then why do they poop? They won't have any undigested food material or gut bacteria to slough, because life force isn't a physical thing. |
| 338 | ** It's never explained exactly what it is the Iratus bugs and Wraith feed on, only that it's a chemical process and it has the apparent effect of draining years of life. Biological organisms produce a lot of waste as a function of living, Iratus bug poop likely consists largely of dead cells and other bodily waste products unrelated to digestion. This of course means that Wraith probably also poop, or shed waste in some manner. |
| 339 | * Once SG-1 defeated Anubis and recovered his Kull warrior technology, why not offer the cloning tech to the Wraith? In return for the agreement never to feed on humanity again, the Wraith get the tech to breed brain dead Kull clones to feed on which have to be the human equivalent of a Wendy's triple cheeseburger. |
| 340 | ** Because having a stable food source would make the Wraith near unstoppable in the Pegasus Galaxy. They wouldn't need to sleep and have full regeneration. Puny humans would have no value and using valuable resources that the master race could use better. If offered after a disarmament or a large enough culling of Wraiths, then it becomes a good idea. |
| 341 | * Lucius raises a good point, how does Shepard get his hair like that? Did he spend his entire "personal items" allowance on hair gel, or is Altantis just good friends with the planet of hairdressers? |
| 342 | * So, the Wraith-Ancient war. Why were both sides absolute idiots? |
| 343 | ** On the Ancient side: even after the Wraith have powered up their cloning facility, the humans in the galaxy must have necessarily outnumbered them. The Lanteans were losing the war through attrition. The humans they seeded in Pegasus were anatomically modern humans thus they had the same intelligence as a modern human even if they were technologically primitive... so why didn't the Ancients consider enlisting their help and arming them against the Wraith? We've seen that even comparatively primitive Tau'ri weapons are highly effective against Wraith technology, a large human army paired with the Lanteans' industrial capacity would have wiped them out. It's not like they had any kind of a Prime Directive, as seen in "The Game". |
| 344 | ** On the Wraith side: once they got the cloning facility running, why even bother continuing the war? They could clone humans too so they could have had infinite food at their fingertips, infinite food that doesn't fight back. At that point they could have sued for peace. |
| 345 | ** And even if the war couldn't be stopped because the sides had been at each others' throats for millennia: why continue the cycle of hibernation periods and culling periods for the next ten thousand years after they won? Just wipe out the remaining humans in the galaxy, populate a few space-gated planets as their hunting grounds if they want to hunt for sport, and keep cloning enough humans to sustain a stable Wraith population. Sure, the big cloning facility required [=ZPM=]s to run but smaller-scale cloning operations (like Michael's) could be run on conventional power sources as well. |
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