SGA 5x01 "Search & Rescue" Talkback

[Timotheus]

Logically, two Anubis Ha'taks ought to be able to stomp the crap out of it, at least in a stand up fight. Yeah, the Beliskner-class was a generation or two behind, but it was much, much bigger.

Presumably a larger goa'uld ship upgraded to the same standard should be able to do it.

Hard to say.

Ori ships could not stand up to it at all. In addition the Anubis upgraded ships were better than standard ones due to his access to ancient tech from his ascension. If that is the limit of his upgrades then there is no chance here. Ancient battleships under the control of the Replicators crumbled almost instantly with no indication that their shields were even holding for a few seconds when fired upon by the 304's Asgard beam weapons.

They'd just dropped out of hyperspace; their shields were presumably down. We only see very few Auroras destroyed (remember, explosions on the shields don't necesserily mean the ship's being damaged) in the battle of Asuras. Before the DeM gets them, we only actually see two or three Auroras destroyed (one from the combined fire of a 304 and a hive, the other from uncertain targets), compared with a number of rebel ships - indeed, supposedly the Oddessy was supposedly very near to total shield failure three minutes in.

The real nerfing in that episode is that the Asurans' systems were apparently not able to detect 304s and their allies - perhaps there is an Asgard ECM suite upgrade that was allowing them (and ships travelling with them) to consistantly get the drop on the Asurans.

In addition we see the super ship built by Sokar and captured by Apohis was no match for a replicator ship when it and SG-1 were thrown into another galaxy by the exploding sun of the Tok'ra system.

Really? How do we know it didn't utterly vapourise the replicator ship, only to be shafted by a few replicators that got on board during the battle? Also, I wouldn't necesserily assume Sokar built that ship; he wasn't using it at the time of his death, after all.

Never mind that those replicator-captured ships were only seen on two occasions; and are a complete unknown, they might be able to shred O'Neills and wipe their ass with them for all we know. We certainly know that Thor required a human vessel to go near Halla, which was apparently only guarded by one such ship that we saw (and he'd yet to witness replicators forming ships out of replicator blocks). It's possible it's more than a match for an O'Neill.

The Odyssey is dead. Destroyed by the Ori designed sat weapon. The ship you are talking about is the Apollo. The actual quote is more like we cannot take much more of this. The Captain's response was that "hopefully we won't have to". This hardly sounds like total failure was about to happen. There were no bridge explosions or the other signs of shield failure we normally see. Odds are the bridge officer was stating that the shields were draining and at a clip faster than they could regenerate and would fail before he could see an end to the battle.

[Timotheus]

I had another thought relating back to the fight with Michaels Cruiser. The ship lasts pretty long considering how quickly a 304 is shown able to take down a Hive Ship.

Now we know they were trying to cripple not destroy the ship.

But there might be something else to consider. We never see Wraith living in cities on planets. They all live on their hive ships.

So maybe Hive ships are combination floating cities, super carriers, and overall command ships for the Wraith. They carry massive numbers of Darts and thus would be perfect for culling planets of their human food. In addition the Hive ships have the capability of storing in cryo sleep large numbers of Wraiths.

On the other hand the Wraith Cruisers are smaller, more maneuverable, and may be more pure dedicate warships than the larger bulkier Hive Ships.

[JME2]

The Odyssey is dead. Destroyed by the Ori designed sat weapon.

You mean the Prometheus; so far as I know, the Odyssey is still active in the Milky Way. Unless, of course, it's destroyed in the second DTV film, in which case we'll know in the coming three weeks,

[Timotheus]

The Odyssey is dead. Destroyed by the Ori designed sat weapon.

You mean the Prometheus; so far as I know, the Odyssey is still active in the Milky Way. Unless, of course, it's destroyed in the second DTV film, in which case we'll know in the coming three weeks,

Your right my bad. So Odyssey was the one that had the Asgard core installed. Which means Earth understands the Asgard weapons well enough to build them and install them on all of their ships.

[Revy]

Your right my bad. So Odyssey was the one that had the Asgard core installed. Which means Earth understands the Asgard weapons well enough to build them and install them on all of their ships.

Not really - they have an AI Asgard computer core that has every bit of Asgard tech blueprints on file, and can Trek-like replicate anything on file including a Replicator/Bug as we see in Ark of Truth.

So really all they need to do is use the core to replicate some more Asgard guns, or the components for them, and then plug them in. I'm guessing 304's are plug 'n play when it comes to Asgard tech, unlike the Prometheus, seeing as how major elements such as engines and shields on all 304's were entirely of Asgard design.

Question - do we have any instances of Ancient Drone Weapons being used against a 304's Asgard shields? And if so, to what effect? And which weapon does people consider to be generally superior - the Asgard beam weapons or the Ancient Drones? I'm just curious.

[NecronLord]

The Odyssey is dead. Destroyed by the Ori designed sat weapon. The ship you are talking about is the Apollo.

Someone beat me to the punch on Prometheus. But yes, Apollo is the one I mean, you are correct (incidentally, that's a really crummy name, what's next, The Cronus? I could believe Prometheus was perhaps named after a Tok'ra...

The actual quote is more like we cannot take much more of this. The Captain's response was that "hopefully we won't have to". This hardly sounds like total failure was about to happen. There were no bridge explosions or the other signs of shield failure we normally see. Odds are the bridge officer was stating that the shields were draining and at a clip faster than they could regenerate and would fail before he could see an end to the battle.

Ahem.

MARKS: Our shields can't take much more of this, sir.

ELLIS: Hopefully they won't have to – but get ready to transfer power from the beam weapons to the ...

I'd say that when you have to start cutting out other systems to survive, your shields are pretty close to failing, no? Even assuming he's not talking about needing to beef up the shields so that they're not all about to start sucking vacuum, it's obvious that they're taking a sufficient pounding to justify him weakening or deactivating their main offensive weapons in order to compensate in some way.

[PREDATOR490]

I would consider the Beam Weapons more effective overall than the drones. Drones ultimately win because they can swarm a target into submission but the Wraith quickly demonstrated the ability to intercept missiles.
I'm willing to lay good odds that strategy was used in the war with the Ancients and the Wraith must have been able to engage the Ancient warships effectively SOMEHOW for them to win. The salvo launched by the Orion was massive and it was only able to destroy a single hive but I dont see those ships being able to launch many of those kind of attacks.
In which case, ammo becomes a big issue for using drone weapons and once they are gone the Ancient ships are left without weapons. The Asgard weapons wouldnt run out of ammo as easily and seem to be equally as effective at causing damage as drones. The beam weapons do appear to be unwieldy to aim and fire though.

[Revy]

True, but as to intercepting them, when the Orion fired on that Hiveship, the drones easily weaved around the Darts that tried to intercept them and instead homed in on its intended target.

The problem with the Orion however seemed to be power, not ammunition. According to the dialog at the time, they had to divert full shield power to the weapons in order to fire that Drone salvo in the first place, and after that they started taking massive hull damage.

CALDWELL: Major Lorne, now would be a good time to open fire.

LORNE: Yes, sir, I was just thinkin' the same thing. I gave the order but nothing happened. Zelenka!

ZELENKA: I'm trying, do prdele!

LORNE: We're having a little difficulty transferring power from shields to weapons.

And then later;

LORNE: One more shot, Zelenka, that's all I'm asking!

ZELENKA: I just cannot give you what I don't have! (He runs to another console and looks at it.) There's too much damage! We need to abandon ship!

(He tries to run from the Bridge but Lorne hauls him back.)

LORNE: Hey! Doc! Listen to me!

ZELENKA (pulling himself free): We sacrificed our shield capability for our first salvo! This ship is going to blow any moment, Major!

No indication that they had simply run out of drones, it was instead a combination of damage and lack of power. So I think that if the Orion were in peak condition, not a millenia old hulk that some humans patched up, it might have faired a bit better.

As to how the Wraith beat the Ancients, I'm guessing in the same way they started fighting the Replicators - fall back, regroup, set up ambushes and attack with superior numbers. Tactics, like you said.

I think that Drones are more accurate than Asgard Beam, but are much more power hungry and really need a ZPM if you're going to use large swarms of them for any length of time. Damage-wise they seem about the same.

Someone beat me to the punch on Prometheus. But yes, Apollo is the one I mean, you are correct (incidentally, that's a really crummy name, what's next, The Cronus? I could believe Prometheus was perhaps named after a Tok'ra...

Well Prometheus stole the secret of fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, which fits well with the show, since they are stealing alien technology from 'the gods' (aka the Goa'uld and other aliens) and the Asgard are also giving them alien knowledge and technology. As for the rest though, I guess they just took after one mythical name and went from there. Incidentally, what would you name the 304's, given the choice?

[General Zod]

As to how the Wraith beat the Ancients, I'm guessing in the same way they started fighting the Replicators - fall back, regroup, set up ambushes and attack with superior numbers. Tactics, like you said.

They mention it any number of times throughout the series. The Wraith beat the Ancients through sheer numerical advantage rather than any sort of tactics or technology.

[Timotheus]

As to how the Wraith beat the Ancients, I'm guessing in the same way they started fighting the Replicators - fall back, regroup, set up ambushes and attack with superior numbers. Tactics, like you said.

They mention it any number of times throughout the series. The Wraith beat the Ancients through sheer numerical advantage rather than any sort of tactics or technology.

Sheer number advantage plus the Ancients didnt have a tactical bone in their body. They seemed to have at least with the first major encounter to have sent just enough ships that their loss hurt the Ancients but not enough to win the battle.

In addition between Todd and the Wraiths that wrote the virus that shut down the Replicators the Wraith are not really brainless foes. They also developed a defense for using Asgard beaming tech to send in nukes in just a few minutes.

[NecronLord]

I would consider the Beam Weapons more effective overall than the drones. Drones ultimately win because they can swarm a target into submission but the Wraith quickly demonstrated the ability to intercept missiles.
I'm willing to lay good odds that strategy was used in the war with the Ancients and the Wraith must have been able to engage the Ancient warships effectively SOMEHOW for them to win. The salvo launched by the Orion was massive and it was only able to destroy a single hive but I dont see those ships being able to launch many of those kind of attacks.

We see a mundane salvo - under thirty drones - total a hive in the background of the Battle of Asuras.

[Timotheus]

I would consider the Beam Weapons more effective overall than the drones. Drones ultimately win because they can swarm a target into submission but the Wraith quickly demonstrated the ability to intercept missiles.
I'm willing to lay good odds that strategy was used in the war with the Ancients and the Wraith must have been able to engage the Ancient warships effectively SOMEHOW for them to win. The salvo launched by the Orion was massive and it was only able to destroy a single hive but I dont see those ships being able to launch many of those kind of attacks.
In which case, ammo becomes a big issue for using drone weapons and once they are gone the Ancient ships are left without weapons. The Asgard weapons wouldnt run out of ammo as easily and seem to be equally as effective at causing damage as drones. The beam weapons do appear to be unwieldy to aim and fire though.

You would think so but when the 304 go replicator hunting and in the big main battle you dont see them missing with those beam weapons much.

It also doesnt take the Daed much effort to destroy the hyperdrive on Michaels ship.

Accuracy has never been a Earth ship problem. The problem before now was that weapons were either rail guns that did so little damage that the enemy ignored them or slow moving VLS lauch nuclear missles that are easily shot down before they get to the target.

[Timotheus]

The Odyssey is dead. Destroyed by the Ori designed sat weapon. The ship you are talking about is the Apollo.

Someone beat me to the punch on Prometheus. But yes, Apollo is the one I mean, you are correct (incidentally, that's a really crummy name, what's next, The Cronus? I could believe Prometheus was perhaps named after a Tok'ra...

The actual quote is more like we cannot take much more of this. The Captain's response was that "hopefully we won't have to". This hardly sounds like total failure was about to happen. There were no bridge explosions or the other signs of shield failure we normally see. Odds are the bridge officer was stating that the shields were draining and at a clip faster than they could regenerate and would fail before he could see an end to the battle.

Ahem.

MARKS: Our shields can't take much more of this, sir.

ELLIS: Hopefully they won't have to – but get ready to transfer power from the beam weapons to the ...

I'd say that when you have to start cutting out other systems to survive, your shields are pretty close to failing, no? Even assuming he's not talking about needing to beef up the shields so that they're not all about to start sucking vacuum, it's obvious that they're taking a sufficient pounding to justify him weakening or deactivating their main offensive weapons in order to compensate in some way.

You are correct. But as I said we dont see any of the common bridge sparking that comes with close to failing shields. That is one annoying brainbug that at least for a while had carried over from Star Trek to Stargate.

[NecronLord]

As for the rest though, I guess they just took after one mythical name and went from there. Incidentally, what would you name the 304's, given the choice?

Odyssey and Daedalus are fine. Korelev was the best. My guide, were I naming them, either in universe, or as a producer, would be Could this name have likely been used by the goa'uld? If yes, select a new name and try again.

Humans naming a ship 'Apollo' shold logically be a bit like Israel naming a ship 'Goering.'

[NecronLord]

You are correct. But as I said we dont see any of the common bridge sparking that comes with close to failing shields. That is one annoying brainbug that at least for a while had carried over from Star Trek to Stargate.

The exploding consoles of doom trope seems to fade in an out of Stargate at times, it's been there sometimes, at others, it hasn't.

[Timotheus]

I would consider the Beam Weapons more effective overall than the drones. Drones ultimately win because they can swarm a target into submission but the Wraith quickly demonstrated the ability to intercept missiles.
I'm willing to lay good odds that strategy was used in the war with the Ancients and the Wraith must have been able to engage the Ancient warships effectively SOMEHOW for them to win. The salvo launched by the Orion was massive and it was only able to destroy a single hive but I dont see those ships being able to launch many of those kind of attacks.

We see a mundane salvo - under thirty drones - total a hive in the background of the Battle of Asuras.

We also see a mere pair of Puddle Jumper drones (assuming that Drones come in different sizes) take out the Ha'Tak or the Goa'uld Ares.

[Bladed_Crescent]

Humans naming a ship 'Apollo' shold logically be a bit like Israel naming a ship 'Goering.'

Especially since Athena is one of the Goa'uld operating on Earth. You'd think that naming one of their ships after the brother of someone trying to subvert their civilization might have made at least one person in the DoD go "Waaaait a minute...."

[PREDATOR490]

I am aware that the Orion was limited more by it's power than lack of ammo but the point is that the Ancients seemingly relied on them heavily.
The only other weapon I recall being used is that Orbital weapon platform which the Ancients had a few of them according to Mckay.

As for the excuse about 'superior numbers' - I dont buy it.
The Wraith feed on human hosts, and thus inorder to even begin the long climb from bug to Wraith they must have been killing populations along the way.

For a lone Wraith like Michael you can rationalise him going undetected, but a power like the Wraith managing to amass a force bigger and more powerful than the Ancients without being noticed ?
The resources must have come from somewhere and they must have been killing shit loads of populations to assemble an army which really dosent seem like the thing you can keep underwraps. That either means the Ancients allowed it to happen or remained retardedly oblivious to what was going on around them.

As for the Drones VS. Beam weapons
The Drones are obviously powerful but realistically they are the weaker choice for Atlantis. They cannot replicate them and they seem to require massive amounts of power to fire while the Asgard Beam weapons can be mounted on the X304s. I really dont see Atlantis being able to mount those drones on ships simply because it would turn the X304s into unstoppable killing machines.
Although, this little problem is something I began to notice as time progressed, they have spent lots of time on Atlantis but they havent shown any appreciable technology coming off of it. Anything they find is either broken, useless or ignored. The lack of anyone trying to replicate and install drone technology onto the X304s instead of railguns when they have beam weapons is top of that list.

[Lancer]

This was handled last season.

The Wraith were getting their asses casually handed to them by the Ancients until they managed to successfully ambush an Ancient ship, steal its ZPMs, and use them to power a massive cloning facility which boosted their numbers sufficiently to grind down the Ancients.

As for trying to replicate the drones, they might very well be working on it at Area 51. In the Atlantis pilot, you see a drone from the Antarctic outpost that had been removed and was being examined by scientists. They probably have more of them under study, just like how they tried to reverse-engineer the Goa'uld hand devices and Tok'ra TERs.

[Stargate Nerd]

As for the rest though, I guess they just took after one mythical name and went from there. Incidentally, what would you name the 304's, given the choice?

Odyssey and Daedalus are fine. Korelev was the best. My guide, were I naming them, either in universe, or as a producer, would be Could this name have likely been used by the goa'uld? If yes, select a new name and try again.

Humans naming a ship 'Apollo' shold logically be a bit like Israel naming a ship 'Goering.'

They should name the 304s after great human generals like Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Rommel etc.

[Timotheus]

As for the rest though, I guess they just took after one mythical name and went from there. Incidentally, what would you name the 304's, given the choice?

Odyssey and Daedalus are fine. Korelev was the best. My guide, were I naming them, either in universe, or as a producer, would be Could this name have likely been used by the goa'uld? If yes, select a new name and try again.

Humans naming a ship 'Apollo' shold logically be a bit like Israel naming a ship 'Goering.'

They should name the 304s after great human generals like Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Rommel etc.

Was already done in B5. Not sure how many people would notice but I am betting that they are trying to avoid names of ships from any other sci-fi show on purpose.

[Lonestar]

B5 is a much weaker franchise than SG, no one would notice.

In any event, since they are U.S. warships, they could be naming them after states, cities, Distinguished Americans(USS Will Rogers, anyone?) or traditional naval vessels, even if the show's USAF wank precludes the logic of putting a bunch of submariners on such vessels.

[Strider]

I had another thought relating back to the fight with Michaels Cruiser. The ship lasts pretty long considering how quickly a 304 is shown able to take down a Hive Ship.

Now we know they were trying to cripple not destroy the ship.

But there might be something else to consider. We never see Wraith living in cities on planets. They all live on their hive ships.

So maybe Hive ships are combination floating cities, super carriers, and overall command ships for the Wraith. They carry massive numbers of Darts and thus would be perfect for culling planets of their human food. In addition the Hive ships have the capability of storing in cryo sleep large numbers of Wraiths.

On the other hand the Wraith Cruisers are smaller, more maneuverable, and may be more pure dedicate warships than the larger bulkier Hive Ships.

I'd have to mostly disagree; the vast awe inspiring gulf of horror between the combat capabilities of a Wraith Cruiser and a Tau'ri Battlecruiser were put clearly on display this episode.

Fact One: In the relatively short combat window between Daedalus jumping in and Michael trying to jump out, the Daedalus was able to take out the Hyperdrive of the Cruiser with a well placed shot that did no additional damage.

Fact Two: For a long period of time, probably at least half an hour if not more like a full hour, the Daedalus just SAT there, with only its shields functional after the Shepard & Ronin beam-up debacle, and the Wraith Cruiser fired on it the entire time, with a 100% hit rate, and it still did not break the shields down.

Fact Three: Once Shepard was off the ship and the Daedalus was functional again, the engagement was such a joke that the weapons officer was told to "make it go away" or something of the sort, and a beam shot or two later the Wraith Cruiser was flattened like a bug on a windshield.

From the evidence we've seen so far, I'd say the Daedalus or any other of the upgraded 304s is an even match for at least three Hive Ships in a fair fight (the Phoenix alt-history). I would guess that any other ships in the Milky Way can't hope to do anything better than either get VERY lucky with a 304 coming out of Hyperspace or just run away. That trade federation from the last Season or two of SG1 is screwed, Ha'taks are definitely second class Warships now, perhaps on par with the laughable Wraith Cruisers.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Why are you calling them X-304? They are called BC-304.

[Darth Nostril]

In which case, ammo becomes a big issue for using drone weapons and once they are gone the Ancient ships are left without weapons. The Asgard weapons wouldnt run out of ammo as easily and seem to be equally as effective at causing damage as drones. The beam weapons do appear to be unwieldy to aim and fire though.

The Ancients did have beam, or at least energy based, non-drone weapons.
When the Wraith hive ships are advancing toward Atlantis a team is sent out to find and repair one of the Ancient defensive systems, they managed to jury-rig repairs before the Wraith ships reached their location.
The weapon was able to take out a hiveship with a single shot before the kludged together power conduits burnt out and the Wraith destroyed the weapons platform.