SG1 9x04 (Ties the Bind) & SGA 2x04 (Duet) Discussion Th

[Vympel]

Ancient technology is not the end all of technology. Asgard technology has shown itself to be superior in several key areas.

Which areas? Remember, the Asgard (and everyone else) got their butts saved by an Ancient weapon. The Asgard aren't far inferior, of course, otherwise they wouldn't really be equal partners among the Four Races. Speaking of which, I wonder if we'll see the Nox again? Or the Ewoks erm I mean Furlings ...

[CaptainChewbacca]

I have a feeling he'll get taken down a peg or two, but he has been a living/breathing weapon and hunting animal for many years, so its not out of the question that he'd be in peak physical shape.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Ghetto edit: Plus, he was from a technologically advanced culture. I agree the earth-weapon proficiency is a bit much, but other than that...

[Alyeska]

Ancient technology is not the end all of technology. Asgard technology has shown itself to be superior in several key areas.

Which areas? Remember, the Asgard (and everyone else) got their butts saved by an Ancient weapon. The Asgard aren't far inferior, of course, otherwise they wouldn't really be equal partners among the Four Races. Speaking of which, I wonder if we'll see the Nox again? Or the Ewoks erm I mean Furlings ...

Oh really? When did the Asgard get their but kicked by Ancient weapons?

Asgard Hyperdrives are superior to Ancient hyperdrives. Asgard ships can travel between galaxies in minutes. Ancient hyperdrives aren't even intergalactic capable and Ancient transport ships had to transport people to Atlantis in order to gate them to Earth. Asgard transporter technology is superior to Ancient transporter technology.

The Asgard were able to give shield technology that allowed an Earth ship without significant power sources to take on 12 Wraith ships for a limited amount of time. ZPMs allowed the Daedalus (using Asgard hyperdrives) to reach Peagasus in 4 days. Asgard ships can make these trips using their own power source in minutes. The Asgard ships logicaly have significantly more powerful shields not to mention they have energy weapons the Wraith will have no defense against.

I get tired of the "Ancient are the shit!" claims. Ancient technology is not the ultimate badass technology on the block. A big chunk of Goa'uld technology is infact Ancient technology. Didn't stop the Asgard from curb stomping the Goa'uld for thousands of years.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I think the Runner's scenes today were solely to show his uberness and didn't have anything to do with the plotline. It was sort of predictable. He kicked everyone's ass, he trash talked about his preference of weapons, and he went to Teyla's bedroom after that fight.

Why not give him some plot related combat scenes to show his skills? Or at least do some stuff to make him interesting?

[Vympel]

Oh really? When did the Asgard get their but kicked by Ancient weapons?

Huh? Who ever said that? Again: the Asgard couldn't defeat the Replicators. It was small potatoes for the Ancient technology databases. And need I mention the Chair? How many Asgard ships would've had to show up to accomplish what the Chair did on Earth?

Asgard Hyperdrives are superior to Ancient hyperdrives. Asgard ships can travel between galaxies in minutes. Ancient hyperdrives aren't even intergalactic capable and Ancient transport ships had to transport people to Atlantis in order to gate them to Earth.

That's not really a conclusion that can be made from the available evidence. We've only ever seen Asgard warships, remember? We've never seen an Altaran military vessel. The Puddle Jumpers are clearly short-range craft meant for inter-gate travel. Your drawing conclusions from what the Ancients did when they were under siege and had already had their fleet destroyed by the Wraith.

Asgard transporter technology is superior to Ancient transporter technology.

That's true from what we've seen so far, but that's got nothing to do with weaponry.

The Asgard were able to give shield technology that allowed an Earth ship without significant power sources to take on 12 Wraith ships for a limited amount of time. ZPMs allowed the Daedalus (using Asgard hyperdrives) to reach Peagasus in 4 days. Asgard ships can make these trips using their own power source in minutes. The Asgard ships logicaly have significantly more powerful shields not to mention they have energy weapons the Wraith will have no defense against.

Significantly more powerful shields than who?

I get tired of the "Ancient are the shit!" claims. Ancient technology is not the ultimate badass technology on the block. A big chunk of Goa'uld technology is infact Ancient technology. Didn't stop the Asgard from curb stomping the Goa'uld for thousands of years.

Goa'uld technology is a mish-mash scavenged technology, that doesn't make it Ancient technology. We saw what happened when a Goa'uld ship got some Ancient technology- it destroyed Thor's ship, and was only threatened to retreat by three newer Asgard ones. I think it's clear from the events of the shows that Altaran > Asgard in the relevant areas.

[Alyeska]

Huh? Who ever said that? Again: the Asgard couldn't defeat the Replicators. It was small potatoes for the Ancient technology databases. And need I mention the Chair? How many Asgard ships would've had to show up to accomplish what the Chair did on Earth?

Misread what you said.

A single Asgard ship would have defeated the Goa'uld fleet. The Prometheus had Asgard shiels but was only equiped with an Alkesh reactor. It shrugged off massive bombardment from Anubis's ship. A state of the art Asgard warship sporting specificaly designed shields for itself with Asgard power systems would have laughed at Anubis's weapons and kicked the crap out of his ships.

That's not really a conclusion that can be made from the available evidence. We've only ever seen Asgard warships, remember? We've never seen an Altaran military vessel. The Puddle Jumpers are clearly short-range craft meant for inter-gate travel. Your drawing conclusions from what the Ancients did when they were under siege and had already had their fleet destroyed by the Wraith.

This is most definately evidence. The Asgard are capable of building inter galactic ships. And of the three we've seen, only two were warships. The Ancients on the other hand never couldn't even put intergalactic hyperdrives on their ships and had to use transports which got destroyed by Wraith ships.

That's true from what we've seen so far, but that's got nothing to do with weaponry.

I stated the Ancients do not have the best technology in every aspect. You disagreed. The transporters are a valid example.

Significantly more powerful shields than who?

Asgard shields on Asgard ships are going to be significantly more powerful then Asgard shields on Terran ships with Terran power systems.

Goa'uld technology is a mish-mash scavenged technology, that doesn't make it Ancient technology. We saw what happened when a Goa'uld ship got some Ancient technology- it destroyed Thor's ship, and was only threatened to retreat by three newer Asgard ones. I think it's clear from the events of the shows that Altaran > Asgard in the relevant areas.

Thor's ship was excedingly old and doesn't count. The Prometheus with Asgard shields had better shielding then the Beliskner.


Something else to consider. The Asgard have superior Stargate knowledge over the Ancients. The Ancients were still reliant on DHDs. The Asgard (and the Nox) can both activate the Stargate with hand devices that activate the gate without the splash effect.

[Vympel]

Misread what you said.

A single Asgard ship would have defeated the Goa'uld fleet. The Prometheus had Asgard shiels but was only equiped with an Alkesh reactor. It shrugged off massive bombardment from Anubis's ship. A state of the art Asgard warship sporting specificaly designed shields for itself with Asgard power systems would have laughed at Anubis's weapons and kicked the crap out of his ships.

I don't know about that. They had to bring three O'Neill's rather than just one to reliably engage Anubis' upgraded Ha'tak. And I thought Prometheus had received upgrades by that time?

This is most definately evidence. The Asgard are capable of building inter galactic ships. And of the three we've seen, only two were warships.

That would be a majority.

The Ancients on the other hand never couldn't even put intergalactic hyperdrives on their ships and had to use transports which got destroyed by Wraith ships.

And as I said, you're drawing conclusions from when they were on the verge of defeat and were leaving- their fleet had already been destroyed by that point. It stands to reason that they had to use the gates to leave, and I see no reason to assume that their transports must have military-type intergalactic hyperdrives.

I stated the Ancients do not have the best technology in every aspect. You disagreed. The transporters are a valid example.

Yes they are- but I still think the Ancients are more advanced overall than the Asgard.

Asgard shields on Asgard ships are going to be significantly more powerful then Asgard shields on Terran ships with Terran power systems.

Yup.

Thor's ship was excedingly old and doesn't count. The Prometheus with Asgard shields had better shielding then the Beliskner.

How old was Thor's ship?

Something else to consider. The Asgard have superior Stargate knowledge over the Ancients. The Ancients were still reliant on DHDs. The Asgard (and the Nox) can both activate the Stargate with hand devices that activate the gate without the splash effect.

Simply because they can activate them by hand doesn't mean they know more about Stargates- that's simply a way of manipulating already established technology. I gotta stick with who established the network in the first place. And who also had the technology to defeat the Replicators in a device that could wipe out all life in the galaxy.

[Alyeska]

I don't know about that. They had to bring three O'Neill's rather than just one to reliably engage Anubis' upgraded Ha'tak. And I thought Prometheus had received upgrades by that time?

So your telling me that the Prometheus is more powerful then O'Neill class ships? Remember, the Prometheus was said to be more then a match for a Hattak and 2 Alkesh. And all Anubis ships have these upgrades. The Asgard brought in excessive forces to prove a point.

That would be a majority.

If the Ancients are so super advanced and better in technology why are their transports not even capable of doing what a mere Terran ship can do?

And as I said, you're drawing conclusions from when they were on the verge of defeat and were leaving- their fleet had already been destroyed by that point. It stands to reason that they had to use the gates to leave, and I see no reason to assume that their transports must have military-type intergalactic hyperdrives.

Why must intergalactic be military?

Yes they are- but I still think the Ancients are more advanced overall than the Asgard.

The Ancients had a very broad range of knowledge on a lot of subjects. That is where their advantages come in. Its very clear the Ancients have a much better understanding of biology compared to the Asgard. The Asgard have focussed their research in limited areas.

Asgard shields on Asgard ships are going to be significantly more powerful then Asgard shields on Terran ships with Terran power systems.

Yup.

How old was Thor's ship?

We don't know, but given the significant difference between the Beliskner and the O'Neill and the fact that second hand (you really think the Asgard give the SGC their most advanced toys?) technology on the Prometheus still outperformed the Beliskner. The Asgard grew arogant and assumed the Goa'uld would not get past their old ships.

Simply because they can activate them by hand doesn't mean they know more about Stargates- that's simply a way of manipulating already established technology. I gotta stick with who established the network in the first place. And who also had the technology to defeat the Replicators in a device that could wipe out all life in the galaxy.

The fact that the Asgard did something with the Stargates that the Ancients never did in millions of years should show something.

BTW, if you listened to Thor talk in the episode where O'Neill builds them a weapon, Thor states it was technology they had, they just hadn't concieved of using it in such a matter. The Dakara device was also the very same type of technology. The Asgard have this technology on their own, they just didn't choose to build it for such things.

The Ancients in general are the most advanced ever seen, but they do not hold the title of having the most advanced technology in every regard. The Asgard have specialized in certain areas of technology and have eclipsed in a few areas as well. Given the Asgard war with the Replicators (and considering how long it lasted) they had ample incentive to research military technology. The Ancient war with the Wraith lasted far less then the Asgard war with the Replicators.

[Zac Naloen]

BTW, if you listened to Thor talk in the episode where O'Neill builds them a weapon, Thor states it was technology they had, they just hadn't concieved of using it in such a matter. The Dakara device was also the very same type of technology. The Asgard have this technology on their own, they just didn't choose to build it for such things.

Incorrect, he stated that they'd tried that approach but couldn't get it to work. Which is a totally difference ball game.


Also the ancients must have some pretty awesome shields, they're city shield held of a wraith attack for years.

not only that with just one, obviously not fully charged, zpm it could hold off a continued bombardment for a matter of DAYS. Those are some pretty damned strong shields. its been shown that the technology depends as much on the amount of power being put into it than the limitations of the size of the reactor. A ZPM can dump a hell of a lot of energy into something, can't say how much but can you really say its significantly less than asgard technology? especially when used in tandem with other zpms.

We've never seen what an altaran vessel is capable of in combat. For all we knew those transports they were talking about were the equivalent of a larger version of the jumper, we don't even know if they were equipped with hyperdrives. Fact is we don't know enough of about they're military technology to make judgements about it.

Altarens have no intergalactic hyperdrives? Sg-1 shows that they came from another galaxy to begin with, how can they not?

[Alyeska]

The Ancient shield that defended Atlantis had drones to aide in defense. When the Atlantis team used the shield, the only had 1/3 the available power and no drones to shoot at the Wraith hive ships.

[Zac Naloen]

The Ancient shield that defended Atlantis had drones to aide in defense. When the Atlantis team used the shield, the only had 1/3 the available power and no drones to shoot at the Wraith hive ships.

your missing the point, sustained bombardment from 6 ships, plus escorts for several days, years when including other zpms plus drones which drain yet more power.

Compared to the daedelus, sustained bombardment for .. 2 minutes? from same ships.

personally i'd love to see how an asgard ship holds up, if it holds up for days then i'll concede, but the replicators can take them out in a few shots so the wraiths must have some amazingly shit weapons if thats the case.

[Alyeska]

Atlantis was not Sieged for years with the Ancients like you claim. Just look what happened in the alternate reality. A whopping two Darts in orbit to attack the time travel jumper.

When the Ancients were under siege, they had weapons to ward off the attacks. Furthermore, their ZPMs still had enough power to sink the city. Unlike the Ancients, the Atlantis team had no weapons to defend themselves so the Wraith got to hammer the shield non stop with 10 ships and associated cruisers.

[Zac Naloen]

Atlantis was not Sieged for years with the Ancients like you claim. Just look what happened in the alternate reality. A whopping two Darts in orbit to attack the time travel jumper.

When the Ancients were under siege, they had weapons to ward off the attacks. Furthermore, their ZPMs still had enough power to sink the city. Unlike the Ancients, the Atlantis team had no weapons to defend themselves so the Wraith got to hammer the shield non stop with 10 ships and associated cruisers.

i see what you mean now, but by the end the ancients were pretty damned desperate. and i recall seeing more than two darts in orbit on the hologram in the alt reality episode.

[Alyeska]

The Ancients were desperate because the Wraith were sending never ending waves. The Ancients appeared to have had only a handful of Warships and they were destroyed in the first engagement. After that the Ancients began a slow series of losses as outposts were taken over and they eventualy realized total retreat was necessary. They probably couldn't lift off Atlantis and send her into hyperspace without raising the shield so the safest course of action was send everything through the stargate and sink her. Anyway she was under siege for years, but not under constant attack because she had weapons to defend herself.

[Chris OFarrell]

BTW, if you listened to Thor talk in the episode where O'Neill builds them a weapon, Thor states it was technology they had, they just hadn't concieved of using it in such a matter. The Dakara device was also the very same type of technology. The Asgard have this technology on their own, they just didn't choose to build it for such things.

Incorrect, he stated that they'd tried that approach but couldn't get it to work. Which is a totally difference ball game.

Actualy he only states that they had considered such an approach, but they didn't figure it out.

The same epispode PROVES they had the technology. The Ancient program afterall could only use pure Asgard technology as thats all it had access to. I also point out that as soon as Thor saw WHAT it did, he was very quickly able to backstep the technology and build a bloody gigantic version, on his own without any problem.

This all speaks to the same idea. The Asgard are generaly at or beyond the Ancients technological level, its just that they don't have anything like as wide an understanding as the Ancients did, they simply are unable to think of new and creative ways to use their technology. Its a theme that comes up quite a bit in SG1 with the Asgard in fact.

Also the ancients must have some pretty awesome shields, they're city shield held of a wraith attack for years.

There is no evidence at all that the shield was under constent attack for two years. In 'Before I Sleep' the Wraith blockade against the transport ships was only a couple of Hiveships and a swarm of darts, according to the sensor readout. The citys shields were also not under attack at this point.

Beyond that, there is no evidence that the Ancients stoicly stood there and simply absorbed whatever the Wraith took. Sheppard in 'Seige II' in fact explicitly says that the Ancients held out in CONJUNCTION with the sophisticated weapons like the Orbital Defence grid and drone system. It was a seige...not a constent attack.

not only that with just one, obviously not fully charged, zpm it could hold off a continued bombardment for a matter of DAYS. Those are some pretty damned strong shields.

I'm not impressed. If Daudalus running off a TERRAN reactor can survive the same level of bombardment for at least a matter of minuites, I would bloody well expect Atlantis to be able to at LEAST withstand the bombardment for a day or two. A ZPM is just a frigen bigass capciter afterall. As long as it has stored power, the shields should remain powered.

its been shown that the technology depends as much on the amount of power being put into it than the limitations of the size of the reactor.

To a degree. The fact that Prometheus's Asgard shields powered off an Al'Kesh reactor took a CRAPLOAD more damage then any Al'Kesh possibly could, against Anubis's supership, says that its hardly the only concern though.

A ZPM can dump a hell of a lot of energy into something, can't say how much but can you really say its significantly less than asgard technology?

No, but we don't really KNOW anything about Asgard power technology. An interesting point is that the Asgard have, probably in those devices built into their hands, enough wireless energy to power a Stargate to dial extra-galactic. Where as the only Ancient powersource we know capable of dialing extragalactic is a ZPM. Even a full sized Puddle Jumpers engines combined with a heep of Naquadah reactors together can't power the gate for more then a second and thats at extreme risk of overload.

especially when used in tandem with other zpms.

As I said. They are glorified batteries. Not generators. My guess is that they are hooked into REAL generators, quite possibly getting charged for years, before they are full.

We've never seen what an altaran vessel is capable of in combat. For all we knew those transports they were talking about were the equivalent of a larger version of the jumper, we don't even know if they were equipped with hyperdrives.

They carried several HUNDRED people. Even Goa'uld Cargo ships carry hyperdrives. Prometheus is perfectly capable of extra galactic travel with a clearly obsolite Asgard hyperdrive, I frankly wonder about the Ancients technology...

Fact is we don't know enough of about they're military technology to make judgements about it.

We know bits and peices. But if they lost the war to the Wraith, I aint impressed...

Altarens have no intergalactic hyperdrives? Sg-1 shows that they came from another galaxy to begin with, how can they not?

Clearly they DO, but its a matter of speed. The Asgard get from their Galaxy to Earth in *minuites* in their Motherships. It took HOURS for an O'Neill class to get back to it from Earth in 'Unnatural Selection'...because they were dragging Prometheus with them. Daudalus with the ZPM and an older or smaller Asgard hyperdrive takes 2 days (or 18 without the ZPM).

[Xon]

Those Wraith transporters are much more advanced than anything we have seen the actual Ancients use.

However, they look to be a reimplementation of Ancient stargate transporter tech (which is basicly a transporter system which beams you though a sub-space wormhole) given how trivially the Stargate control system was plugged into the Wraith dart.

Either that or Ancient technology has a truely amazing level of adaptivity for what it can interface with.

[Zac Naloen]

[quote=chris o'farrell]As I said. They are glorified batteries. Not generators. My guess is that they are hooked into REAL generators, quite possibly getting charged for years, before they are full. [/quote]

Its stated many times that they draw their energy direct from subspace, so if you could somehow reconnect it to subspace via some sort of technology you could theoretically recharge the zpm.

Atlantis must have this function somewhere in the city, its not like they pull the zpms out of nowhere whenever they need new ones, and we know they were there for several thousand years.

[Zac Naloen]

[quote= chris o'farrell]Actualy he only states that they had considered such an approach, but they didn't figure it out.

The same epispode PROVES they had the technology. The Ancient program afterall could only use pure Asgard technology as thats all it had access to. I also point out that as soon as Thor saw WHAT it did, he was very quickly able to backstep the technology and build a bloody gigantic version, on his own without any problem.

This all speaks to the same idea. The Asgard are generaly at or beyond the Ancients technological level, its just that they don't have anything like as wide an understanding as the Ancients did, they simply are unable to think of new and creative ways to use their technology. Its a theme that comes up quite a bit in SG1 with the Asgard in fact. [/quote]

Which i never denied, they had the technology but not the understanding to fine tune it enough for use against replicators. Once Thor new how it worked he could backward engineer it into a larger machine.




I'm not denying the asgard match the ancients in some respects, its quite possible the asgard base alot of their technology on things they learnt from the ancients 10,000 years ago and built on it, but thor himself states that the ancient knowledge base is so large that even they've barely scratched to surface.

[Zac Naloen]

Sorry, can someone fix my quote tags for me.

[Chris OFarrell]

As I said. They are glorified batteries. Not generators. My guess is that they are hooked into REAL generators, quite possibly getting charged for years, before they are full.

Its stated many times that they draw their energy direct from subspace, so if you could somehow reconnect it to subspace via some sort of technology you could theoretically recharge the zpm.

It is stated they draw energy from subspace. But its not a simple subspace tap. It simply looks like the energy put into the ZPM is stored into some kind of subspace domain. Its far more likely then the idea that subspace is some kind of huge domain with positive energy. I mean otherwise the ZPM would realisticly never run out of power.

However as I see it from the evidence in the episodes, conventional reactors send energy into the ZPM, which is what holds the subspace pocket 'open', probably by using a constent, if tiny, fraction of the stored energy to power some kind of subspace field (or whatever).

If explains why the ZPM itself realisticly doesn't appear to hold any kind of energy. I mean even antimatter densities wouldn't match up with ZPM level energy. It also explains why they have a limited power endurance and will simply run out completly, rather then draw energy from subspace forever.

[JediMaster415]

I enjoyed both episodes. They were both wonderful.

Ronan, I figure, is the Jayne of Stargate. Good in combat situations, useless everywhere else. I can stand him as long as it doesn't get ridiculous.

[Chmee]

It was great to see Wallace Shawn on SG-1, but I confess that the minute I saw him, I was hoping that he'd challenge Mitchell to a battle of wits as the price of curing Daniel & Valla ... come on, that would have rocked!

I liked getting a little Valla backstory ... but no surprise, her backstory is that she cheats pretty much everyone she ever comes into contact with. Thank you Daniel for cutting off Shawn before he could go into more detail on his naked nature-romps with Valla! That was classic. The ship's captain taunting Valla about the 'hidden compartments' she missed at the end was great, and his utter misery at having to pose as a monk for so long was a nice SG-1 counterweight to the growing religiosity of BSG.

The whole thing with yet another Washington D.C. bean-counter trying to mess with the SGC's budget came off a little flat for me ... I mean, how many times do you have to save the planet before they consider it a pretty decent investment???

[Darth Yoshi]

Yeah, seeing Shawn on SG-1 was great. Though the writers should've given him at least on "Inconceivable!"

Well, they are dealing with politicians here. But it was worth it to see Vala smack him down good.

[SylasGaunt]

The whole thing with yet another Washington D.C. bean-counter trying to mess with the SGC's budget came off a little flat for me ... I mean, how many times do you have to save the planet before they consider it a pretty decent investment???

This particular bean counter just things the money to protect the planet should be spent differently (i.e. building more ships like Daedelus instead of at the SGC).