Stargate Atlantis The Replicator Trilogy

[FaxModem1]

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.

[J!!]

Am i the only one who finds to wierd that they have a ship called 'The Apollo'? In the context of Stargate, that would be like the US Navy naming a carrier 'The USS King George', of China naming a ship 'The Hirohito'.

[CrypticMirror]

The Wraith only stopped being effective bad guys when they introduced regular travel to Earth. If they'd kept Earth a distant and only rarely contactable thing, then the Wraith become a lot more scary, as they gradually whittle down the expedition and add a potential terror to every mission. The Wraith are the monster, the scarcity and isolation becomes the villain; and it is a cold and terrifying villain from which there is no retreat or no negotiation with. The whole Pegasus Galaxy could be a vast and unknown place, filled with traps for the unwary and unlucky, and the Wraith always waiting in the shadows [like good vampires do] to take the fallen.

Exploring the Wraith too much did too much to demystify them, and introducing the Daedalus robbed the series of the isolation factor.

[Captain Crimson]

I admit, I took it pretty hard when Oberoth said Dr. Weir was killed. Yeah, I know she had the wahman management shoved into your face by the writers, but come on. Ms. Higginson is so hawt! Huge crush on her, it's not the character's fault the writers couldn't get gender out of their minds and so went on to neuter Kavanagh, Caldwell, Ronon, Woolsey, and others to reinforce this viewpoint. The same disconnect between writers' intended Neelix and actual Neelix, sadly.

So it leaves me feeling happy that Mr. Wright said Oberoth lied to spread misinformation, but sadly, SG is likely dead in the water or due for a radical change that's going to take it into the murky depths of modern woke insanity and lazy corporate storytelling, so we won't ever get this in the golden age, though something like SGU was hardly a fitting illustration to SG at its best. I feel like Ms. Higginson deserved better, but what can you do?

[Ikiry0]

I must admit, I've always been kinda...unhappy...with how Stargate treated the humanoid replicators. Time and time again they run into replicators who don't agree with the others or want to not fight them and time and time again Atlantis backstabs them because 'they're too dangerous', while they'll go through hell or high water to save members of Atlantis from similar fates. Like, Weir's 'we wanna ascend' replicators. Weir gets to ascend, they get dumped into space because they're Too Dangerous. Rodney blew up a Solar System. I'm not sure Atlantis really has the high ground when it comes to 'Being too dangerous'.

Alongside that...half of the trouble the replicators cause is at Atlantis' own feet. The replicators are genociding humanity? Atlantis literally turned on the 'Kill the wraith, no matter the cost' program and now just don't like that the program decided 'starve the wraith' was a valid cost.

Despite that, I don't think Stargate Atlantis ever really looks at themselves and goes 'Are we part of the problem here?'

Edit - An an addendum: I'm kinda uncomfortable about how there really isn't much moral debate about 'is it right to turn the Replicators into slave soldiers to fight in our war by warping their minds, when they very clearly want no part of it?'.

[Linkara]

It just became kind of a fun tradition that Atlantis existed solely to betray anyone who wanted to be their friends. Kind of a twisted irony that their original leader was a diplomat. Hell, even when Universe featured Woolsey and Rodney as a kind of homage/callback to Atlantis, they were in the midst of betraying one of their allies. XD

[CrypticMirror]

The problem with Atlantis was the crew acted like they were 21stC USA, but their actual position was, at best, 19thC Spanish Empire. They were posturing far in advance of their deliverable capabilities in the Pegasus Galaxy, and it kept coming back to bite them because they couldn't learn some damn humility.

[clearspira]

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.

[BlackoutCreature2]

Sheppard was all wrong in this one. He's the Human Torch, McKay is Mr. Fantastic. That's just obvious.

[Jonathan101]

Sheppard was all wrong in this one. He's the Human Torch, McKay is Mr. Fantastic. That's just obvious.

That's probably the joke, at least for people who know Fantastic Four.

Shepard can't imagine McKay being his leader.