Merlin's Weapon

[DWF]

^It takes months - even up to a year - to build one ship. I'm sure the fact that they have to do it in secrecy doesn't help.

And the fact that Earth ships are no match for Ori vessels.

Well, to be fair, they were by The Ark of Truth.

As long as they have a ZPM and Rodney McKay isn't onboard he has a habit of empting ZPMs.

 

[Hermiod]

^Even without ZPMs, Earth's ships can put up a fight better than anyone else's. It just depends on whether or not they'd figured out how to reproduce the Asgard beam weapons by then.

 

[DWF]

^Even without ZPMs, Earth's ships can put up a fight better than anyone else's. It just depends on whether or not they'd figured out how to reproduce the Asgard beam weapons by then.

I thought the Asgard beam weapons needed a ZPM to be effective against the Ori or the Wraith either for that matter. We saw an Asgardian ship go against the Ori with no luck.

 

[Hermiod]

^The need for a ZPM is speculation.

 

[Kpnuts]

I found it odd that in Camelot and Unending Earth ships could only take a few hits before getting destroyed...

Yet in Ark of Truth, the ship took a pounding from all sides for ages... and managed to survive fine.

 

[DarkProphet]

I found it odd that in Camelot and Unending Earth ships could only take a few hits before getting destroyed...

Yet in Ark of Truth, the ship took a pounding from all sides for ages... and managed to survive fine.

Maybe the learned to put the Asgard technology given to them by Thor in Unending to good use by the time of Ark of Truth.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I found it odd that in Camelot and Unending Earth ships could only take a few hits before getting destroyed...

Yet in Ark of Truth, the ship took a pounding from all sides for ages... and managed to survive fine.

Maybe the learned to put the Asgard technology given to them by Thor in Unending to good use by the time of Ark of Truth.

That or the fact that the Odessey had a ZMP which supercharged their shields.

 

[DWF]

I found it odd that in Camelot and Unending Earth ships could only take a few hits before getting destroyed...

Yet in Ark of Truth, the ship took a pounding from all sides for ages... and managed to survive fine.

Maybe the learned to put the Asgard technology given to them by Thor in Unending to good use by the time of Ark of Truth.

That or the fact that the Odessey had a ZPM which supercharged their shields.

That's what I was thinking. And the ship did take a pounding in Unending too.

 

[Kpnuts]

Ok I'd forgotten it was mentioned they were using a ZPM

Maybe the learned to put the Asgard technology given to them by Thor in Unending to good use by the time of Ark of Truth.

That or the fact that the Odessey had a ZPM which supercharged their shields.

That's what I was thinking. And the ship did take a pounding in Unending too.

I guess I've tried blocking out every memory from that godawful episode

 

[Jimmy_C]

Otherwise, I have no problem with Merlin's weapon, or the ark of truth being used as a plot device. But when you've got a 'hunt for the ancient device' plot used every year, it gets old, and very lazy on TPTB's part.

Every year ? Seasons one, two, three, four, five, six and eight featured no such plot line.

The whole point of SG-1 was to search for technology that could protect Earth from Alien invasion. That was the reason they were created in the first place! If SG-1 wasn't finding technology, they wouldn't be very sucessful. This was brought up in season 1, in fact!

Besides, they were always looking for someone. In seasons one and two, they were looking for Skaara and Sha're. In seasons three and four, it was the Harcesis child. In season five, they didn't explicitly have a quest. It was mostly a buildup for Anubis. Seasons six and seven saw the quest for Atlantis - the Lost City. Season eight didn't really have a quest either, but seasons nine and ten saw several different explicit treasure hunts.

So in 10 years, only 2 seasons didn't feature any kind of quest. In the rest, SG-1 was searching for something.

 

[Hermiod]

The whole point of SG-1 was to search for technology that could protect Earth from Alien invasion. That was the reason they were created in the first place! If SG-1 wasn't finding technology, they wouldn't be very sucessful. This was brought up in season 1, in fact!

Errr, yes, I know that from watching the show.

Besides, they were always looking for someone. In seasons one and two, they were looking for Skaara and Sha're. In seasons three and four, it was the Harcesis child. In season five, they didn't explicitly have a quest. It was mostly a buildup for Anubis. Seasons six and seven saw the quest for Atlantis - the Lost City. Season eight didn't really have a quest either, but seasons nine and ten saw several different explicit treasure hunts.

So in 10 years, only 2 seasons didn't feature any kind of quest. In the rest, SG-1 was searching for something.

Skaara, Sha're and the Harcesis child are hardly "treasure", they're people. At no point was it suggested that Skaara or Sha're could somehow prevent Earth from being attacked by the Goa'uld, and the Harcesis was never going to help them.

There were two seasons in which the main theme was locating a specific place or piece of technology, seasons seven and ten. The concept of the Sangraal was introduced in "Arthur's Mantle" in late season nine.

But criticising SG-1 for trying to find things is like criticising Jessica Fletcher for solving murders. It's the point of the show.

 

[Kpnuts]

So in 10 years, only 2 seasons didn't feature any kind of quest. In the rest, SG-1 was searching for something.

Finding people is a little different than finding convenient technological plot devices that will save the world at the push of a button. Why bother writing complex bad guys, when you can write super powerful godlike entitied who can do anything... and can be defeated with Ancient super weapon #45

 

[Broccoli]

They really didn't do the whole quest thing all that often as people like to claim they did. However, they did seem to start to depend on it a little much but the final years (or at least, having to do one back-to-back like with Merlin's weapon and the ark of truth). Even in some of the quests (such as Atlantis), it was barely even a push in the show other than Daniel occasionally mentioning that he was still researching on it.

 

[Kpnuts]

or at least, having to do one back-to-back like with Merlin's weapon and the ark of truth

If we're talking back to back ones then it should probably go: Ancient repository > Antarctic outpost > Atlantis > Dakara weapon > Merlin's weapon > Ark of Truth

With another search for the Clava Thesara Infinitas thrown in for good measure, although they never actually found it.

 

[DWF]

Brad Wright is aware of people's complants about this subject.

http://www.gateworld.net/interviews/wright_on_target.shtml

GW: One of the storytelling devices that's common on SG-1 is that the team is always searching for that one piece of advanced technology that's going to beat our unstoppable foe. All sorts of examples: The Dakara weapon. The Prior inhibitor. Merlin's anti-Ori weapon now. Where do you think is the balance between defeating Earth's enemies with technology versus defeating them with ingenuity? Is this a storytelling device that you think is part of the SG-1 formula?

BW: Well, yes and no. The original thing about SG-1 is that it's low-tech. And low-tech quite often wins over high-tech. There's a really good Arthur C. Clarke short story. It has nothing to do with Stargate, but it demonstrates that so well. I can't remember what it's called. But it essentially was a General from the loosing side confessing as to how they lost. And in every case they had the superior technology, but there was always an aspect to it that could be defeated.

My way of incorporating that in SG-1: I wrote a scene in "The Warrior" where O'Neill is talking about a staff weapon versus a P-90. And to try to demonstrate, "OK, this is why we win, folks. This is a weapon of terror." Bang! "It's incredibly high technology, but it doesn't repeat very well. It's designed as a weapon of terror, to scare people." [She] fires a P-90. "This is a weapon of war." Cuts the thing in half -- which, you know, would happen every time we shot somebody, if you really did use P-90s. They're very powerful weapons. And that, to me, went a long way to help explain that.

But as the show kept evolving, it became a relationship between the amount of time we've spent going out among the stars, and how much stuff we've been bringing back in terms of technology. And our alliances with races like the Asgard -- who owed us enough after we saved their butts so many times -- to share some of that technology and figured we earned it, that we would need Daedaluses and Odysseyes and Prometheuses.

And so it kind of has evolved toward the quest for higher tech from the lower tech. But generally speaking, strategy-wise, it's still the old-fashioned way that wins out. Courage. Stuff like that. "We don't leave our people behind." That's a huge theme.

 

[Broccoli]

or at least, having to do one back-to-back like with Merlin's weapon and the ark of truth

If we're talking back to back ones then it should probably go: Ancient repository > Antarctic outpost > Atlantis > Dakara weapon > Merlin's weapon > Ark of Truth

With another search for the Clava Thesara Infinitas thrown in for good measure, although they never actually found it.

Personally, the whole ancient repository/Antarctic outpost/Atlantis were all the same damn thing. They stumbled upon the repository, which told them to find Atlantis, but it turned out the be the outpost (all of which were only in one episode). They actual "search" for Atlantis was quickly resolved in the first two minutes of "Rising".

I also wouldn't count the Dakara weapon as that was really just a one-episode quest anyway (and really not much of one).

I guess I was more referencing the quests that were stretched over multiple episodes, such as the Merlin weapon and the Ark of Truth (although, granted, the AoT first appeared and only appeared in the movie...I think it gets criticized a lot because they did another quest withing, what, five episodes since the previous one. At least with the previous "actual" quests, it was a good 2 years from Atlantis to Merlin [or at least one solid full season if you count Dakara]).

 

[Kpnuts]

Brad Wright is aware of people's complants about this subject.

http://www.gateworld.net/interviews/wright_on_target.shtml

GW: One of the storytelling devices that's common on SG-1 is that the team is always searching for that one piece of advanced technology that's going to beat our unstoppable foe. All sorts of examples: The Dakara weapon. The Prior inhibitor. Merlin's anti-Ori weapon now. Where do you think is the balance between defeating Earth's enemies with technology versus defeating them with ingenuity? Is this a storytelling device that you think is part of the SG-1 formula?

BW: Well, yes and no. The original thing about SG-1 is that it's low-tech. And low-tech quite often wins over high-tech. There's a really good Arthur C. Clarke short story. It has nothing to do with Stargate, but it demonstrates that so well. I can't remember what it's called. But it essentially was a General from the loosing side confessing as to how they lost. And in every case they had the superior technology, but there was always an aspect to it that could be defeated.

My way of incorporating that in SG-1: I wrote a scene in "The Warrior" where O'Neill is talking about a staff weapon versus a P-90. And to try to demonstrate, "OK, this is why we win, folks. This is a weapon of terror." Bang! "It's incredibly high technology, but it doesn't repeat very well. It's designed as a weapon of terror, to scare people." [She] fires a P-90. "This is a weapon of war." Cuts the thing in half -- which, you know, would happen every time we shot somebody, if you really did use P-90s. They're very powerful weapons. And that, to me, went a long way to help explain that.

But as the show kept evolving, it became a relationship between the amount of time we've spent going out among the stars, and how much stuff we've been bringing back in terms of technology. And our alliances with races like the Asgard -- who owed us enough after we saved their butts so many times -- to share some of that technology and figured we earned it, that we would need Daedaluses and Odysseyes and Prometheuses.

And so it kind of has evolved toward the quest for higher tech from the lower tech. But generally speaking, strategy-wise, it's still the old-fashioned way that wins out. Courage. Stuff like that. "We don't leave our people behind." That's a huge theme.

The man is an idiot.