SDN Commands the Atlantis Expedition (RAR!)

[Skywalker_T-65]

I just thought of something...having the Aurora, Orion, and (possibly) the Traveler's Aurora or the Tria...we might want to see if the SGC can send over people to retrofit railguns or something along those lines to them. Having the ships is all well and good, but we don't exactly have an unlimited supply of Drones, especially if we want to keep Atlantis itself stocked. Unless they have those (plasma? energy? ion?) guns that the Asuran variants had (IIRC).

[Terralthra]

Tossing the Ori, who are the Ascended but without any morals, a second galaxy to dominate hardly strikes me as a wise or ethical move. They'd more than likely utterly destroy the Wraith, and they still have quite a grudge against the Alterans (later the Ancients). If we're maintaining any sort of presence in Pegasus, sooner or later the Ori will twig to it, figure out where we're from, and now they're on to a third galaxy. Under the rules of this RAR, with no deus ex machinae to stop them, the Milky Way (and Earth) be fucked. Good going!

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yeah, we really should make sure that Merlin's Anti-Ascended device is here and not a useless hunk of metal before we even think about those stones and the Ori.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Sigh...go back and look at the post where I suggested the idea. I mandated that we i]must[/i] have the Anti-Ascended Weapon both ready and armed before/i] the plan is initiated. And if we make sure we block the Supergate after the first wave of 4 or so ships, then we can defeat the Ori forces in detail after/i] the Ori themselves go to hell.

[Borgholio]

The Ori ships really aren't that much more powerful than Ancient warships, especially if the Ori themselves have been killed. The Wraith beat the Ancients so it stands to reason they'd beat the Ori, especially if they only had four ships.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Sigh...go back and look at the post where I suggested the idea. I mandated that we i]must[/i] have the Anti-Ascended Weapon both ready and armed before/i] the plan is initiated. And if we make sure we block the Supergate after the first wave of 4 or so ships, then we can defeat the Ori forces in detail after/i] the Ori themselves go to hell.

I remembered. Just making sure and all.

[Forgothrax]

Ehh, the problem for me with the Ori-Wraith plan is that we'd be playing a secretive game against beings who we can't defend against and whose powers (and the rules governing their use) are ill-defined. The Ori can't interfere directly, but they could very well gather intel and feed it to their followers, and if we locked out the Supergate, they certainly would start looking for whoever did that to them. That's also not including any Stargatehax they might be capable of, or mind-reading any of our people that we catch.

As for the Aurora-Classes, I'd be shocked if they didn't mount energy weapons as secondaries or for point defense purposes. If not, we can mount railguns on them like T65 suggested to deal with darts. If we're low on drones, VLS tubes for naqnukes could also be fitted-- either yoink the drone launchers and put them in, or even just bolt them directly to the hull. The ships are apparently over two miles long with a crew of 500, so we might be able to convert them into fighter-carriers as well if they have sufficient empty space.

[Skywalker_T-65]

The Asuran Aurora's certainly had energy weapons of some variety. But we don't know if that's standard or something unique to the Repli-Aurora design. They didn't use many drones in the final battle, so it is possible that they can't produce them as easily for some reason or another and relied on energy weapons instead. We don't know for sure though.

EDIT: As for the Ori, that depends on how much the Milky Way/Pegasus Ancients are willing to stick their necks out. They won't interfere directly, but they also keep the Ori out (isn't the entire reason the Ori are converting followers in the OTL so they can get enough power to bull-rush the Ancients?). Still a risky strategy though.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Ghetto EDIT: Found the page for the Asuran weapons: Here

Apparently strong enough to take out a Hive with enough shots. If, and that's a big if the Aurora/Orion/Tria/Traveler Aurora have them, that could negate the drone problem. Only use the drones on things that justify them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

OK, the "they'll only send 4 ships" was assuming they follow the OTL attack. Of course, they'll be scouting Pegasus ahead of time so will know of the Wraith and probably send more than 4 ships. The Wraith have at least 60 Hives and could over whelm Ancient ships easily enough, so I woudl think 20-30 Ori ships in the first wave is reasonable. With that force they can attack and annihilate the Wraith but take substantial casualties in the process. We use the Supergate to send the anti-ascended weapon and then destroy the gate to prevent reinforcements. Once either the Wraith or the remianing Ori forces triumph over the other, we launch a full offensive with everything we have (up to and including Atlantis herself if necessary) and destroy the winner.

Of course, I woudl suggest getting Carter to work on her "take the whole planet out of phase" trick so that we can have a totally secure base to build up our forces. That way even if they learn of our existence they absolutely cannot hurt us.

[OmegaChief]

And what of all the people and civilisations in the Pegasus galaxy? We cool with letting billions die in that fight? Or suffer under Ori rule after they beat the Wraith? Which seems like what would happen to me.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Pegasus struck me as rather sparsely populated really. At least, compared to the overwhelming population of the Milky Way, since the Wraith didn't let (most of) them get big.


Still going to be nasty though. Depends on if you think its worth it or not, to (potentially) wipe out the Ori and Wraith.

[Terralthra]

The Ori ships really aren't that much more powerful than Ancient warships, especially if the Ori themselves have been killed. The Wraith beat the Ancients so it stands to reason they'd beat the Ori, especially if they only had four ships.

The Wraiths beat the Lanteans, who were unascended. The Ori are ascended, and have no compunction about using their Ascended abilities in a war. The Ancients in the Milky Way kept them from doing so, forcing them to use the Priors and the Orici to convert enough people to give the Ori a fraction of the power of that belief (since apparently a lot of ascended power derives from belief/worship of the unascended). There are Lantean Ascended in the Pegasus galaxy, and they adhere to the same code as the Milky Way Ascended (cf. Chaya Sar), but that doesn't mean they couldn't be overwhelmed and overpowered by the Ori and their armies just like the Ancients were in danger of being overwhelmed until the deus ex machina was found.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Really, it seems like there are several things to take into account:

A. Can we find Merlin's device, and will it work

B. Can the Lantean Ascended in Pegasus hold off the Ori long enough for said device to be used.

C. Are we willing to take the losses that are inevitably coming? Related: Can we guarantee the Wraith-Ori War wouldn't wipe out large tracts of Pegasus(' population) in the crossfire?

D. Will we have weapons that can take down surviving Ori ships?


It seems to me, those are the big things to take into account. If we can't say all of them (and other things I didn't include) will fall in our favor, we might be better off destroying the stones or locking them away (preferably on Atlantis since it is arguably safer) until we have enough 304's (armed with good enough weapons) and Auroras (its entirely possible more are out there, even without the Asurans).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Oh absolutely we shouldn't pull this plan for a while. The OP says we have five years, should be sufficient time to either find or build ZPM's for ships and reverse-engineer the satellite weapon system. Those can rip through Hive ships without breaking a sweat so should work just fine on Ori ships.

If we can avoid waking the Wraith before we begin our plan we have four or five years to build up our strength. Should be enough time if we have all of Earth's resources at our backs.

[PREDATOR490]

The Pegasus galaxy already has at least one of those long range communication devices along with Ancient technology scattered all over the place. Even if the Wraith manage to give the Ori a run for their money initially it will only encourage the Ori to become even more extreme. We already saw the Ori were willing to spread viruses and bug swarms to pacify populations and the Pegasus galaxy wont survive much of that before ALL of the races cave.

Of course, the obvious end to this scenario is going to Atlantis, fixing the stardrive and then bringing the thing back to Earth so you can happily have a floating city to rip apart and fuck everyone else.
It will be a fun five years with Atlantis floating around on Earth with a phase cloak, Dakara super weapon and an increasing fleet of X304s.
As for fixing the drive - The Asurans were able to fix the drive by ripping apart their own ship and there is an Ancient crew stuck in hyper sleep that can potentially be used to figure out how to either upgrade an Aurora or fix up Atlantis.

[Batman]

Um-last I checked they needed no less than three functional ZPMs to get Atlantis back to Earth. Finding which would likely require the SDN version of the Atlantis mission to scout around for them, especially as you aren't allowed to check your DVDs for the details of where to find them and what kinds of difficulties you'd run into.

And frankly if the only interest is to get the best result for current humanity and sucks to be you if you live in the Pegasus galaxy, the best thing you can do is deliberately lose. As per the OP nobody actually dies, Earth gets one hell of a tech boost, and nothing in the OP says the Goa'uld/Ori/Wraith threat persists past the end of the scenario.

[PREDATOR490]

Um-last I checked they needed no less than three functional ZPMs to get Atlantis back to Earth. Finding which would likely require the SDN version of the Atlantis mission to scout around for them, especially as you aren't allowed to check your DVDs for the details of where to find them and what kinds of difficulties you'd run into.

Raid the ancient ship that has a crew in their freezers. You can either try and appeal to them in the simulation or copy the Wraith tactic.
The ability to make an Aurora go faster would certainly help the expedition retrofit the other acquired ships to catch the Tria.
Catch the Tria and you get a ship full of Ancients to play with and their ZPMs.

And frankly if the only interest is to get the best result for current humanity and sucks to be you if you live in the Pegasus galaxy, the best thing you can do is deliberately lose. As per the OP nobody actually dies, Earth gets one hell of a tech boost, and nothing in the OP says the Goa'uld/Ori/Wraith threat persists past the end of the scenario.

Q also details your objective for him: namely, the Atlantis Expedition must survive and be in command of Atlantis by the 5-year mark, defined by survival of at least 20% of your total personnel including reinforcements and one SDN member, and by Atlantis remaining under your sole control or that of a non-coercive alliance (the Genii taking control of the city but leaving you in nominal control of some aspects is a fail, the Genii allying with you to share tech and resources to beat the Wraith is not). Upon failure, you will be returned to the "real world" with no time having past and a payment of $10k per month of survival on Atlantis. Upon success, all members (whether killed in SGA or living) will be returned to the modern day with no time having passed with a Q-created "uplift package" disseminated into the public sphere that will lift modern-day Earth to the level of technical knowledge/capabilities of the Goa'uld within 20 years of sustained global effort and to the level of the early Alterans within a century as well as $10 million tax-free as payment and a 1sqm container .

Fix the engines, move Atlantis to Earth or somewhere safe in the Milky Way and sit happy for 5 years until Q comes and gives us the grand prize. If you want to take the moral stand by helping Pegasus, then nothing really prevents that by moving to the Milky Way.
The only issue that really comes up is how to deal with the crew of the Tria if they decide to try and boot us off. You can either neutralize them or negotiate so that we remain in control.
Alternatively, the tech like 'Wormhole drive' would be of use even to the Asgard and Tok'ra so you can bribe them into helping move Atlantis for a share of the benefits.

[Batman]

I guess that's what I get for not reading the OP carefully enough

[Ahriman238]

Supplying sources of food is important, OTL Atlantis got most of their food in trade with the Athosians and half a dozen friendly agrarian societies. We don't know who they are, unless anyone remembers the name of the people who harbored the Atlanteans in the Storm? Also, what will we trade? Medicine, advanced technology, manufactured goods? I wonder if Atlantis has some sort of industrial quarter we never saw, all these standardized widgets had to come from somewhere.

We also the name of one world, Olesius, that sacrifices their citizens to the Wraith to preserve their society (first it was just criminals, but it turns out agonizing death at the hands of the Wraith is actually a splendid deterrent.) Whatever shall we do about them?

Actually, this may be an opportunity. The OTL team had several successes impersonating Wraith-worshippers and turning the Wraith against each other. I wonder how much further we can take that. Especially if we can start laying spadework before the Wraith wake.

[Eternal_Freedom]

It was the Menarians (sp?) on Menaria that sheltered the expedition in The Storm.

[FaxModem1]

Could we ask Stargate Command to investigate Merlin's lab by combining the addressed of Castiana, Sahal and Vagonbrei? That way, we can safely revive Merlin, or we can't get him due to the "No ascended Ancients" rule, we can still nab his teleporter oberlisk and use it for teleportation of supply drops whenever either of us dial in. If nothing else, we can get the Ori destroying device before the expedition even starts, as long as we know to have the team going there to show the virtues required and to know the Ancient name of Morgan La Fey for any dragons that show up.

[Forgothrax]

Atlantis has to have some form of industry aboard, we just never saw it. Who knows what shape it's in.

As for what to trade... we might want to have a form of "uplift database" assembled that has specific technologies for different levels of development. So if we encounter a bronze-age civ we can teach them this, renaissance-level teach that, etc. There's also the option, if we can, of acquiring a sarcophagus, of offering medical treatment. Bringing along goods specifically for trade might also be wise; I'm certain metal tools, jewelry, and gadgets could be very valuable. We are going to want to put some thought into that, though; I'm not sure that growing our own food would be worth our time and effort as opposed to trading for it.

[Borgholio]

Could we ask Stargate Command to investigate Merlin's lab by combining the addressed of Castiana, Sahal and Vagonbrei? That way, we can safely revive Merlin, or we can't get him due to the "No ascended Ancients" rule, we can still nab his teleporter oberlisk and use it for teleportation of supply drops whenever either of us dial in. If nothing else, we can get the Ori destroying device before the expedition even starts, as long as we know to have the team going there to show the virtues required and to know the Ancient name of Morgan La Fey for any dragons that show up.

Merlin isn't ascended anymore, he re-took human form. I'd suspect he'd be there in this scenario. That said, he would be very helpful with finding caches of ancient tech and ZPMs, or simply showing us how to make them.