Stargate Atlantis:SEASON 2 PREMIERE...

[TanisFrey]

Next weeks epsoid has a problem with the Daedelus. I think that the computer virus in the preview is caused by the Asgard!

 

[Viking Bastard]

Right. This is the episode of the Friday Three that I was looking least forward to.

It is also the one I enjoyed the most.


Wraith actually seemed kinda scary. Good.
Bye-bye Mayweather... I mean Ford. Good.
An Asgard. Good.
Daedelus. Good.
Offensive strike against Wraith. Good.
Mitch Pileggi. Good.
Whole space battle. Good.
McKay. Great.

Opening 10 second credit montage. Awful.
Cloaking Device Plan. Lame.
All cliffhangers from last season finale resolved in couple of minutes. Annoying.

A solid 8.5.

 

[DM_Matt]

Daedelus. Good.

It LOOKS a lot cooler than the Promethius, but without energy weapons its still just a scout ship. In the entire history of the show, have missiles penetrated the point defenses and shields of anything better than an Al-Kesh? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Seriously, what could the designers be thinking to expect that might work.

Its very fast, has good shields, good fighter defense, good sensors, good transport (rings, beams, probably a lot of room for cargo), but all its good for is moving from one place to another without getting shot down. It can't take on any true warship. The beam-nuke trick only worked because Hermiod overrode limitations intentionally built into the ship so it wouldn't work.

The justification that the Asgard fear that the Tau'ri would use their own weapons against them doesn't make sense. They can limit the number they give, and they dont have to give the best ones they have. Even Anubis' super-improved Hatak guns couldn't get through up-to-date Asgard shields (and after the war with the Replicators, the Asgard have very few old ships left). Something that strong, however, would be quite effective against most things the Daedalus would encounter.

And speaking of Hatak guns, one would think that with the collapse of the Goauld empire it would be possible to buy, trade for, or steal a few main ship guns.

 

[MaxKaladin]

And speaking of Hatak guns, one would think that with the collapse of the Goauld empire it would be possible to buy, trade for, or steal a few main ship guns.

Yeah, but that sort of thing takes a while to work its way through the system so to speak. Even if the US got some of those guns as soon as the empire collapsed, it would take time to incorporate them into a ship and make sure they tied into all the other stuff on the ship safely, that there was enough power for the weapons and so on. The next ships may well have some sort of energy weapons as a result of recent events. Then again, maybe not. They had one bad experience trying to integrate Goauld technology into a human ship a few seasons back (the X-301 program) so they may have decided the proper approach is to just use earth technology and tech from trusted sources (the Asgard).

Besides, I'm rather amazed that the US has a functioning warship at all as soon as this is after the aquisition of the technology necessary to make it. The stargate program has been running about 9 or 10 years and for the first few years they were not having much success getting their hands on useful technology. Thus, in the space of only a few years the US managed to design and build a functioning interstellar spacecraft starting from a point where reaching orbit was about all we could do and reaching the moon was a massive endeavor that we've not tried to replicate for decades. I'm not surprised it can't stand up to most warships in the galaxy. The fact it exists at all is pretty amazing.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Wraith are very scary and have been interesting, with my spoiler above I just have to wonder now if we are not going to get a 'single wraith villian' for the team to fight.

 

[DM_Matt]

Yeah, but that sort of thing takes a while to work its way through the system so to speak. Even if the US got some of those guns as soon as the empire collapsed, it would take time to incorporate them into a ship and make sure they tied into all the other stuff on the ship safely, that there was enough power for the weapons and so on. The next ships may well have some sort of energy weapons as a result of recent events. Then again, maybe not. They had one bad experience trying to integrate Goauld technology into a human ship a few seasons back (the X-301 program) so they may have decided the proper approach is to just use earth technology and tech from trusted sources (the Asgard).

Meh. The recall device thing was a one-off ep that doesn't really jive well with the SG universe. Especially in times of war, Goauld weapons change sides pretty often. Thanks to genetic memory, most of their stuff is standardized, and

whenever a Goauld is defeated, whats left of his army joins up with the winner. Singe-Goauld recall devices would really mess with that, I dont see how they can necessarily differentiate between whose use would not activate them (it cant be a species thing because otherwise the X-301 Tealc was using would not have been activated), and I see no incentive not to lock it against other Goauld anyway. I guess it would have to be that the device gets cranky when it detects modifications in the overall device, but that too is weird because Goauld do like to upgrade their ships when they can.

Besides, pieces have been routinely taken from Goauld ships since. The Promethius was using bits and pieces of Al-Kesh, including power and engines, for quite a long time. For that reason, too, I don't think there would be much difficulty getting to integrate them into a ship's systems. Speaking of which, since they are relatively light, self-contained, have infinite ammo, and are easy to steal/salvage from battlefields, I wonder why none of the 302s have glider cannons to supplement their missiles.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Meh. The recall device thing was a one-off ep that doesn't really jive well with the SG universe. Especially in times of war, Goauld weapons change sides pretty often. Thanks to genetic memory, most of their stuff is standardized, and

whenever a Goauld is defeated, whats left of his army joins up with the winner. Singe-Goauld recall devices would really mess with that, I dont see how they can necessarily differentiate between whose use would not activate them (it cant be a species thing because otherwise the X-301 Tealc was using would not have been activated), and I see no incentive not to lock it against other Goauld anyway. I guess it would have to be that the device gets cranky when it detects modifications in the overall device, but that too is weird because Goauld do like to upgrade their ships when they can.

Besides, pieces have been routinely taken from Goauld ships since. The Promethius was using bits and pieces of Al-Kesh, including power and engines, for quite a long time. For that reason, too, I don't think there would be much difficulty getting to integrate them into a ship's systems. Speaking of which, since they are relatively light, self-contained, have infinite ammo, and are easy to steal/salvage from battlefields, I wonder why none of the 302s have glider cannons to supplement their missiles.

The answer could be simple: government contract From story point a different weapon format, tech speak to make your side different from the other side, rail gun vs blasters - mass drivers vs phasers.

 

[DM_Matt]

The answer could be simple: government contract From story point a different weapon format, tech speak to make your side different from the other side, rail gun vs blasters - mass drivers vs phasers.

Well, the writers could have decided that very big rail guns could be competitive against shields and move too fast for point defenses, if we are going to be the projectile planet. Or sometinhg innovative like asgard-beam-bombs or missiles shot through milisecond hyperspace windows or something. Its just silly to think that the Daedalus was apparently designed on the assumption that missiles could be the primary method of attacking capitol ships from other planets.

 

[Viking Bastard]

It's just drama. They don't want the Daedelus to be a dreadnought. They
made it fast and shielded as an excuse for their continued survival, but
still want the Wraith ships to be more powerful.

 

[DM_Matt]

It's just drama. They don't want the Daedelus to be a dreadnought. They made it fast and shielded as an excuse for their continued survival, but
still want the Wraith ships to be more powerful.

I'm not asking for it to be able to take on a fleet. Just for it not to be entirely pointless to do anything but run away when encountering another warship.

Besides, the Wraith are about numbers and regeneration. They often blocked the missiles by throwing fighters in front of them. Their individual ships are not supposed to be that great. In fact, its not even clear they have shields at all.

It HURTS drama because it just doesn't make much sense that Daedalus even tries to fight other large ships because they will either run or have to come up with some new gimmick every time.