Stargate Atlantis The Replicator Trilogy

[Mabus]

Imagine if back in 2006 when the episode was made, the writers decided to change the Fantastic Four joke to Justice League: McKay was already called Batman (I think this was in Irresponsible), which means Sheppard would be Superman, Teyla would be Wonder Woman and Ronon Aquaman. I mean, the show already takes place in Atlantis, so...

[Linkara]

https://sfdebris.com/videos/stargate/atls3e20.php

I honestly think bringing on board the Ancients' version of artificial humans/replicators was a mistake. It's a well the Stargate franchise kept on running to over and over, when they stopped being narratively effective and interesting villains back in Stargate's 7th or 8th season. But for whatever reason, they kept on bringing them back as villains in some format, to the point that even their big finale movie about the Ori brought back the replicators and made that the bigger sideplot.

I partially get why. The Wraith suck as villains, because aside from Michael and Todd, they're interchangeable alien vampires, and we don't get a lot of episodes fleshing them out as villains. The other reason being that by this point in the canon, Earth has spaceships that can one-shot the Wraith, with no real consequence, they're just choosing not to, and they need to find a reason to not hit the 'I win' button.

It just speaks to the false peril the characters are in worldbuilding-wise in later seasons, due to how powerful they've made the humans, and how they don't want to address that.

The human Replicators are this show's Borg Queen. They took a faceless, hive mind enemy that took everything thrown at them and still kept on coming... and made them human.

And honestly I'm okay with it. The Pegasus replicators were different from the replicators we'd seen in the Milky Way, with their own objectives and modus operandi. In turn, they were eventually destroyed in a clever way and started making way for Repliweir and the possibilities there, though sadly that of course didn't last and the show ended before they could do anything more.

Although I should note that I loved the inclusion of the replicators in Ark of Truth - helped bring a real sense of finality to SG1 and frankly it was kind of an ingenious plan on the IOA's part - the replicators couldn't be swayed by religious thinking and they're a ravenous parasite - a perfect foil to the Ori's power. It's still an incredibly STUPID plan because of the replicators being so uncontrollable, but as a last-ditch effort, I applaud the ingenuity.

[chaos42]

though the pegasus replicators are probably cheaper to do as they don't have to do the mini bots instead its all the full sized human models that just turn to sand when deactivated

[Zatman]

So, quick nitpick for Chuck, it's stated in the dialog that Horizon carries six live warheads and four decoys. So six out of ten is on purpose.

[BlackoutCreature2]

So, quick nitpick for Chuck, it's stated in the dialog that Horizon carries six live warheads and four decoys. So six out of ten is on purpose.

It's been a long time since I watched this episode, but why would they carry decoys?

[TGLS]

So, quick nitpick for Chuck, it's stated in the dialog that Horizon carries six live warheads and four decoys. So six out of ten is on purpose.

It's been a long time since I watched this episode, but why would they carry decoys?

So if the adversary manages to use their ABMs against your bombs, then they might shoot down a dud instead of a bomb, saving materiel.

[BlackoutCreature2]

So, quick nitpick for Chuck, it's stated in the dialog that Horizon carries six live warheads and four decoys. So six out of ten is on purpose.

It's been a long time since I watched this episode, but why would they carry decoys?

So if the adversary manages to use their ABMs against your bombs, then they might shoot down a dud instead of a bomb, saving materiel.

I am by no means a military tactician, but that seems like a dodgy strategy to me. It seems like the odds would be just as good that they'd shoot down an actual bomb and you'd just hit them with junk, making the entire mission a failure.

[Zatman]

Well, I'm sure they could have cooked up a technical explanation in the episode, but apparently they're used in real life. Perhaps the four decoys were on a trajectory toward the higher population densities to make the Asurans think Atlantis was going for them wholesale rather than just their new ships.

[TGLS]

I am by no means a military tactician, but that seems like a dodgy strategy to me. It seems like the odds would be just as good that they'd shoot down an actual bomb and you'd just hit them with junk, making the entire mission a failure.

The idea is the enemy needs to commit the same number of countermeasures on decoys as real bombs because they don't know which are decoys and which are real bombs. This reduces the probability of taking out bombs overall, because fewer countermeasures means a greater risk. The problem is in reality they aren't throwing up dud shells; they're designing the payload that it create decoys to radar.

[drewder]

Imagine if back in 2006 when the episode was made, the writers decided to change the Fantastic Four joke to Justice League: McKay was already called Batman (I think this was in Irresponsible), which means Sheppard would be Superman, Teyla would be Wonder Woman and Ronon Aquaman. I mean, the show already takes place in Atlantis, so...

Yeah I was thinking that chuck would make a joke that Ronan is more of a DC guy.