SGA 5x20 "Enemy at the Gate" Talkback (Series Finale)

[Stargate Nerd]

2:32 - 2:45.

I wonder if any of those Auroras would have been salvageable at all after the replicator cells penetrated the hulls and god knows what when being pulled towards the planet.

[Zac Naloen]

Weird. I actually rewatched that episode today. I was in argument about how well 304 shields would stand up to drone fire on Gateworld. I claimed they stood up pretty well in BAMSR, to which I got the, 'they used energy weapons' response, so I watched the entire of BAMSR to check and still managed to miss that.

Are there any instances of drones being used of 304s? (As in we see them smack into the shields)

I think what's confusing people is that the projectiles they are firing are single and going in straight lines.

But, it's the Drone special effect.

Strikes me very much as a cost issue, lots of animated drones = 100,000's of $$$

[NecronLord]

Are there any instances of drones being used of 304s? (As in we see them smack into the shields)

There's a fight between a 304 and an Asuran escort in Lifeline, I forget if it's seen to use drones or energy weapons.

[Chris OFarrell]

We see drones pecking into 304's over the Asurans Homeworld during the big furball and just dissipating into the shields. And yes they ARE drones, the idiots who claim they are not are just that.

Gateworld is all but impossible to actually debate on, the 'tech' people are so utterly entrenched in their positions -which is often 'Ancients are 1000% above everyone else in every possible way and we'll twist everything around until that is the truth- that its just not possible.

[Zac Naloen]

Gateworld is all but impossible to actually debate on, the 'tech' people are so utterly entrenched in their positions -which is often 'Ancients are 1000% above everyone else in every possible way and we'll twist everything around until that is the truth- that its just not possible.

Gateworld is all but impossible to read.

If it's not the Carson lovers it's the idiots who think every Plot Device = PLOT HOLE or OMG ANOTHER DEM!!!!!!

And of course half of them have already decided that Universe is going to be terrible. Much like Atlantis was going to be the worst thing ever, until it actually aired.

[Crazedwraith]

To be fair I don't recall overwhelming optimism about Universe here either. Especially after those casting calls,

[CaptJodan]

We see drones pecking into 304's over the Asurans Homeworld during the big furball and just dissipating into the shields. And yes they ARE drones, the idiots who claim they are not are just that.

Evidence?

All this morning I've been looking through this episode going as frame by frame as I can to see what's there. It's undeniably clear that there is more than just one weapon system being fired at certain points (yes, Necronlord, I finally see the one with Sheppard's drones, though I'm interested in the Wraith hive one you speak of, though there are so many wraith hive shots I'm not sure which one you're talking about), specifically with the counter drone fire. However, if we're looking at about 35:05 in (your mileage my vary), where there's a good shot of the 304 shooting at an Asuran ship, and the ship returning fire. Those are straight line, fast pulses (drones seem inherently slower most of the time) hitting the 304, and I don't see those as drones. So I'm wondering where specifically you see drones hitting a 304's shields. (Note: I'm not one of those that think the Ancients should be godlike above everyone else. That's the Asgard's job.)

As for Lifeline, if I recall, those weren't drones. They certainly didn't act like them from what I remember.

[Themightytom]

I finally see the one with Sheppard's drones, though I'm interested in the Wraith hive one you speak of, though there are so many wraith hive shots I'm not sure which one you're talking about), specifically with the counter drone fire.

The only ship I saw in there with counterdrone fire was an asuran, not a wraith.

(Note: I'm not one of those that think the Ancients should be godlike above everyone else. That's the Asgard's job.)

Sure because they used that apparently godlike technology to defeat the replicators, which were essentially the creations of a robot child...
Oh right the robot was built by the ancients, the replicators were unstoppable and tehy had to use the ancient database from jack's brain to stop it.

[CaptJodan]

The only ship I saw in there with counterdrone fire was an asuran, not a wraith.

I don't know what you mean here. I'm not saying a Wraith counter fired, but NecronLord says there's a spot where a Wraith Hive was hit by drones, and I'm wondering just where that might be. If it's in the distance, it's going to be hard to prove.

Sure because they used that apparently godlike technology to defeat the replicators, which were essentially the creations of a robot child...
Oh right the robot was built by the ancients, the replicators were unstoppable and tehy had to use the ancient database from jack's brain to stop it.

You know, I debated using a smiley to denote the obvious non-seriousness of that statement, but thought that it was obvious I was kidding. Oh well, lesson learned.

[Zac Naloen]

To be fair I don't recall overwhelming optimism about Universe here either. Especially after those casting calls,

I've not really seen very much discussion about universe here, that's why I can't really make that judgement

[Bilbo]

Read through everything on Drones weapons and this is at least the theory that I have come up with to explain how they operate.

1. Drones can pierce shields automatically below a certain tech level.

2. Drones are tipped with an ablative type disentigration tip. This tip vaproizes material on contact and allows the Drone to burrow through ships to detonate inside. If a ship does not possess heavy armor the tip may not be expended flying through a ship. If this happens then the Drone does not detonate but instead swings around and either burrows through the target again or finds a new target. When the tip is no longer able to burrow through something it explodes.

3. Drones have a high-explosive warhead that explodes once its disentigrating tip has allowed it to burrow as far as possible.

To me this explains why drones operate the way they do. When Anubis attacked the drones burrowed right through Death Gliders. They continued on. Upon reaching the large ships in orbit they easily pierced the shields and starting burrowing through the fleet of Anubis. The drones often flew right through ships and looped back to hit the same ship or another Eventually they drones detonated as we saw none left when the fleet was destroyed.

When Jack fired only two on the Hatak of Ares this also works. The two drones pierced easily and while we did not see it from our angle I expect that they punched through the back then dove back in where they detonated.

This fits with when McKay used a drone to burrow a hole in the roof. We can assume Rodney knows how drones operate. If they phase then firing one does nothing, if they just explode then that makes things worse for Rodney. So what Rodney did only makes sense if he knew that Drones can burrow through solid matter. Any concern from Rodney in the episode would be his fear that the Drone would not operate properly with how he jury-rigged it to launch.

Wraith ships since they have no shields are more heavily armored. Drones still pierce standard Hiveships but the heavier armor and larger size of Hive Ships mean they cannot do the dance of death back and foth like happen to the fleet of Anubis.

The Super Hiveship had such dense armor that the drones were only able to burrow a very short distance (not breaching the armor belt at all) before they detonated, inflicting very minor damage.

Also I think the Drones we see take out the Kull warriors were a variation of the mini-Drones that are discovered in Season 3 or 4 of Stargate Atlantis.

Anyone see any holes or problems with this?

[NecronLord]

Sure because they used that apparently godlike technology to defeat the replicators, which were essentially the creations of a robot child...

No she wasn't. The writers seem to be shooting for that, but there's no canonical evidence to suggest that Reese's "father" was an Ancient. Reese certainly was no Asuran; if she was, she would have simply walked over and broken O'Neill's neck, rather than being killed by a shotgun.

[Zac Naloen]

Reese was just an Android who had the ability to make "helpers" via nano-technology. She was also emotionally unstable and things got a little out of control.

Any relation between Asurans and The Replicators seems to me to be coincidental from any canon i've seen.

[Bilbo]

Sure because they used that apparently godlike technology to defeat the replicators, which were essentially the creations of a robot child...

No she wasn't. The writers seem to be shooting for that, but there's no canonical evidence to suggest that Reese's "father" was an Ancient. Reese certainly was no Asuran; if she was, she would have simply walked over and broken O'Neill's neck, rather than being killed by a shotgun.

Reese appeared to be much more like the robotic copies of SG-1 than she does with the replicator Asurans.

[CaptJodan]

Anyone see any holes or problems with this?

Just a couple of light ones.

Wraith ships since they have no shields are more heavily armored. Drones still pierce standard Hiveships but the heavier armor and larger size of Hive Ships mean they cannot do the dance of death back and foth like happen to the fleet of Anubis.

Episode 301, No Man's Land. The Orion's drones do the "dance of death" over one of the two hives, going in, then coming out and hitting it again.

When Jack fired only two on the Hatak of Ares this also works. The two drones pierced easily and while we did not see it from our angle I expect that they punched through the back then dove back in where they detonated.

Meh, I'm more apt to account the lack of "dance of death" for jumper drones to the fact that they're not as capable as chair controlled drones. Chair drones are probably more powerful in some way, possibly from extra energy given to them by the ZPM (if there is one). After all, puddle jumper drones don't go through darts and then continue to the next target. They just explode. Obviously O'Neill's drones penetrated far enough to hit something critical, but without evidence, I'm not willing to say it angled back in for a second run.

3. Drones have a high-explosive warhead that explodes once its disentigrating tip has allowed it to burrow as far as possible.

High-explosive is pushing it. A drone's warhead seems fairly underwhelming. Their strength obviously lies in their numbers and their burrowing capability.

[Bilbo]

Dance of Death to me is how when they attacked the fleet of Anubis the swarms of drones took out multiple ships by flying through several of them before exploding to destroy a final ship. With Wraith cruisers the drones go through once maybe before coming out turning and exploding on the second trip.

On the Jack shot. You might be right, puddle jumper drones may have less power since they are not receiving power from a ZPM. On the other hand drones from Lanteen warships are not powered by ZPM either. It might be that there are 4 different size/classes of drones.

mini-Drones - Only seen once in Atlantis. Designed to kill people. Maybe seen taking out Anubis Warriors in Antarctica.
Puddle Jumper Drone - Strong enough to get "lucky" and kill a Ha'tak or an already damaged Hive ship.

Lanteen warship Drones & Atlantis city-ship drones - Seem to have the same level of firepower though city-ship drones are powered or guided by Atlantis chairs but go inert when the chair loses power.

I called them high-explosive because they do explode. The small size of the explosion might might just be due to their smaller size. You are right though in that their shield-piercing and tunneling ability is more important than their explosive power. Which makes them so ineffectual against the Super-Wraithship.

[Themightytom]

Sure because they used that apparently godlike technology to defeat the replicators, which were essentially the creations of a robot child...

No she wasn't. The writers seem to be shooting for that, but there's no canonical evidence to suggest that Reese's "father" was an Ancient. Reese certainly was no Asuran; if she was, she would have simply walked over and broken O'Neill's neck, rather than being killed by a shotgun.

Fair enough. The point remains, the Asgard couldn't solve the replicator problem, whereas the ancients could create them and destroy them. Even if you discount the Asurans, the first ARG came out of the ancient data bank.

[Braedley]

The similarities between the Human Form Replicators and the Asurans does seem to indicate some form of common lineage. I'm not saying that Reese's father went on to create the Asurans (or vice versa), but it should be fairly obvious that the technology used to create the Asurans is similar, albeit far more advanced than the technology that Reese used to create blocks. I think (although I may be wrong) that Brad Wright said something in a blog or interview that the histories of the Replicators and the Asurans were some how connected via their human creators.

[CaptJodan]

Dance of Death to me is how when they attacked the fleet of Anubis the swarms of drones took out multiple ships by flying through several of them before exploding to destroy a final ship. With Wraith cruisers the drones go through once maybe before coming out turning and exploding on the second trip.

I think there may be a case to be made, or at least the possibility that, the energy tunneling capabilities of the Aurora might STILL be less than a ZPM powered drone fight, IF we accept the proposition that the type of power used to fire the drones affects how effective they'll be. Auroras, as far as we know, don't run off of ZPMs, and we know there wasn't one on Orion when she fired on the Wraith....she couldn't even run weapons and shields at the same time.

Of course, such a proposition would then mean a city ship powered by 3 ZPMs, firing the first shots with an un-strained shield (before the enemy returned fire) could still cause barely any damage to the super hive. If "better power source=more powerful drones", then the Hive was tough indeed. Even though Beckett didn't exactly do an alpha strike on the thing.

[CaptJodan]

Fair enough. The point remains, the Asgard couldn't solve the replicator problem, whereas the ancients could create them and destroy them. Even if you discount the Asurans, the first ARG came out of the ancient data bank.

Not to get into a pissing match on what was basically a joke you took badly, but it isn't as if the Asgard don't have some pretty impressive technology the Ancients never thought up either. The Ancients would have knowledge of how to defeat replicators because they built them. The Asgard were coming at this from a position of ignorance on the subject, and took a different, and generally ineffective tack on it. On the other hand, I'd say it's arguable that the Asgard got the better deal on transporter technology.

Each side has strengths. I'd probably say the Ancients have the upper hand in most areas, but as of the death of the Asgard, they certainly were catching up, and surpassed the Ancients in some key areas.

[Themightytom]

up until enemy at the gate, the Asgard had faster ships too.

[NecronLord]

up until enemy at the gate, the Asgard had faster ships too.

They still did. A one off piece of experimental research is fine and good. But the Asgards' version worked reliably and was in routine production. As far as we know, the Ancients never used their plot device drive.

The similarities between the Human Form Replicators and the Asurans does seem to indicate some form of common lineage. I'm not saying that Reese's father went on to create the Asurans (or vice versa), but it should be fairly obvious that the technology used to create the Asurans is similar, albeit far more advanced than the technology that Reese used to create blocks. I think (although I may be wrong) that Brad Wright said something in a blog or interview that the histories of the Replicators and the Asurans were some how connected via their human creators.

They seem to have had that idea, yes. But along with the idea that the Asurans created the Hot Zone virus, it's something that exists purely in the realm of creators' offhand remarks on blogs and characters' speculation, as opposed to something it's reasonable to take, given the evidence, as canonical.

Anyway, this thread has been hijacked far beyond discussion of the actual episode, and its contents no longer reflect that. If you people want to talk about Ancient technology and Asgard and the like, start a dedicated thread.