How did the Wraith defeat the Ancients? | Stargate (legacy)

In this video, we will be discussing how did a powerful like the Ancients get defeated by a race such as the Wraith. We will be reviewing the history of the Lantean-Wraith war and then go over the different way the Ancients could have won the War.
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[@Wilahelm2]

One of the constant themes of the Stargate is how the more technologically advanced a civilization becomes the more their fighting ability seems to degrade. The Goa'uld had dominated the galaxy for so long that they had regressed to a medieval mentality when it came to war. The Ancients were even worse as they seemed to have forgotten how to make war at all. All they ever did was try to make some new invention that would take care of the Wraith for them. The Asgard were cool but fell into the same trap.

[@masteridiot123]

Actually the Goa'uld never advanced past a medieval mentality rather than regressing to one.

[@nihilityjoey]

Lot of rubbish

[@hulmhochberg8129]

the goa uld never really were a species like the ancients, tauri or even the wraith with a common technological development. they were are parasites and they aproched technology the same way. they just took knowledge from other races, without the foundation that created said knowledge and why. this made them almost completly unable to inovate and only when under severe pressure. but just my opinion

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

The asgard never forgot how to lay waste to their enemies, and have at every opportunity made use of everything they had to win. The replicator war was a galaxy wide, long lasting war of attrition.... combined with their other problems, the asgard were simply overwhelmed. Never was a lack of will to kill a problem they had.

[@Wilahelm2]

@@trazyntheinfinite9895 The issue with the asgard and the ancients comes when they face an enemy they can't beat with their technology. They got so used to winning through use of superior weapons tech that when they face a foe that doesn't work against they're stumped. The human's of earth were always at a disadvantage tech wise so had to be smart and cunning. Fermenting dissent, disrupting supply lines, assassinating key leaders, surgical strikes. These are standard military tactics but for the advanced races of the galaxy if they couldn't win with overwhelming force or superior technology they didn't seem to know what to do.

[@sg-24]

You what what I think is funny about your conclusion. It’s basically the same one Thrawn from Star Wars had about the Empire. Don’t spend all your time making super weapons, build reliable ships and have a good strategy.

[@Gothic7876]

It’s common sense. The Nazis tried it, and it failed, what with the ever bigger and more expensive and less effective tanks.

[@sg-24]

@@Gothic7876 true. There’s a lot of funny memes about that.

[@sephiroaone-of-nine101]

@@Gothic7876 common myth on the wonder weapons -

[@BrokenCurtain]

This kinda makes me wonder what sort of government the Ancients had. Because this obsession with megaprojects is typical for autocratic regimes - not just the Nazis, but also Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Romania under Ceaușescu and many more.

[@sg-24]

@@BrokenCurtain that’s… actually a really good question. The only thing we ever saw was the Council in Atlantis, but we never learn how it’s members were picked

[@EamonatorZ]

Operating in fleets of 15 probably would have won instead of 1 ship cruising around on its own. They were fundamentally careless and overconfident as the Wraith said.

[@Johnrich395]

Heck 3-5 would have probably been enough, just know when to fight and when to run.

[@0megacron]

Long story short, the Ancients made numerous mistakes - foremost of which was... they ignored the threat. Beyond that, the Wraith had the advantage not only because of their numbers and ability to grow ships quickly, but also because their supply lines pretty much just consisted of people.

[@Zozo806]

Actually its funny because the Wraith should not be able to survive long term if they have regulary consume humans to survive. A human is in its 20s to 30s in its physical prime. So it needs 2 to 3 decades to grow a single meal. Even if they sleep for a long time, it is just not possible to feed even a small civilisation of Wraiths long term.

[@spacelogic101whatif]

0:40 what experiments does anyone know?

[@MissKashira]

@@Zozo806 Wraith eat about four humans a year. When the war started, humans populated over a thousand worlds, lots seeming not to have access to the advanced tech of Atlantis. If we put a colony on Mars, it won't be as well defended as the US. So they had years of fighting poorly defended hamburgers. There was no issue of the troops starving. It was only after they won the war did they have to deal with the whole "we just murdered a huge amount of our food source" issue which they resolved with hibernation. But I do have to wonder why they didn't at least look into cloning. I mean it'd be effectively their version of farming.

[@MissKashira]

@@spacelogic101whatif It's in the books. The Ancients made the Wraith. They were crossing themselves with the Iratus bug in hopes of becoming immortal if they couldn't ascend. But instead of Spider Man, they got the Wraith, who escaped and grew in numbers.

[@spacelogic101whatif]

@@MissKashira O thanks.

[@origami83]

I think that because of their obsession with becoming ascended beings they ignored the universe around them until the wraith gave them a reality check.

[@nixboox]

They weren't ascended at that point...they created the Wraith, remember? By accident, but still.

[@origami83]

@@nixboox Thats why i said 'BECOMING ascended beings' as in trying to get there and ignoring real world problems, such as the wraith.

[@classical4872]

Their obsession with ascension inevitably ironically would also prove to be their downfall aswell as their biggest achievement.

[@origami83]

@@classical4872 I like that conclusion :)

[@MrFlatage]

@@origami83 Yes well most Germans who obsessed with becoming 'Ubermensch' pretty much came to the same conclusion. Without that obessesion they would have won WWII easily.

[@thanqualthehighseer]

It's been said on screen the Wraith captured several ships with ZPMs having seen how fast the superhive grew it's possible the Wraith used those ZPMs to accelerate the growth of ships to replace vessels faster than the ancients could destroy them. But by the time of the Atlantis expedition those were exhausted or destroyed. The Ancents while scientifically brilliant like the Asgard couldn't think outside the box and innovate simpler solutions.

[@DeathBYDesign666]

Or their superior intellect made them think too outside the box and looked for ever more complex solutions to simpler problems. This is how I have come to see intelligence as a whole here on earth as well, sometimes you have to look past the raw data and see things for what they are. I for instance love science as much as the next guy but there are limits to what we know and a more instinctual mind might see things for what they are more readily, there is a delicate balance between the two. Any intelligent lifeform should know that life sometimes behaves unpredictably, especially if it's sentient life. It can't be measured or controlled through the process of the scientific method, sometimes it requires a more direct approach.

[@rcschmidt668]

There were similar references to the Vulcans in Star Trek lore.

[@Shadowscares433]

Clone

[@TheBigExclusive]

The Wraith won because the Ancients were a bunch of scientists and not warriors. They were not fighting to win. Meanwhile the Wraith were fighting to not only win, but to exterminate the Ancients. Eventually the Ancients waited too long and threw away their technological advantage. The Wraith numbers had grown too much to overcome without genocide weapons. And the Ancients were unwilling to do that.

[@Optimusprime240]

"Intellect alone is useless in a fight Mr. Spock. You can't even break a rule how can you be expected to break bone?"

[@elitemook4234]

Basically the Wraith used one or more captured ZPMs to power one or more cloning facilitys and spammed soldiers and ships at the Ancients until they got fed up and quit.

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

Despite being very advanced the Ancients weren't a warlike species, as they focused more towards science and exploration. Advanced technology and weapons are only effective depending on how its used in battle.

[@JemHadar422]

That’s the key. The Ancients were not aggressive. Had the had jack or Shepard they would have wiped out the Wraith.

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

No. The ancients are arrogant cowards. They left a whole galaxy to some asshole lifesuckers.

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

@@trazyntheinfinite9895 Arrogant perhaps but not cowards. They'd originally intended to rebuild their civilization and hoped that their descendants return the Pegasus galaxy.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

I think there is a lesson to be learned there, all the advanced technology in the world won’t save you if a slightly less advanced but more numerous enemy is prepared to go to war and you aren’t.

[@norml.hugh-mann]

@@Matt-yg8ub the thing is; this isnt classical literature endlessly debated about the deep life lessons This is modern mass produced fiction designed TO PROFIT. I enjoy the show, but trying to find deep life lessons in mass produced multi-writer fiction is a fools errand.

[@spaceexpireaudio666]

Stargate is probably the only Universe in which organic technology isn`t the best one🙂 Wonder how Ancients dealt with temptation to destroy all Wraith once they ascended. I mean they could, right? Wouldn`t mind actually to get series about Ancients in their prime . Just another thing we`ll never see.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

They could but if I remember correctly they had rules of interfering

[@spaceexpireaudio666]

​@@UtopianBroadcast1 I remember those rules, but they decided to follow those on their own, no one pushed on them, so it was probably a hard decision at first, and honestly not the smartest. Since Wraith are artificial race created by Ancients, the least they could do is to erase them. But they accepted their new rules letting many Pegasus residents suffer because of their mistake

[@Zachomara]

@@spaceexpireaudio666 Another possibility is the Ancients could have decided to leave the Wraiths and Replicators alone for the newer groups of humans to avoid having the same mistakes they did, preventing logical stagnation that lead them to their downfall. I mean if there's always pressure to improve or your survival is at stake, it's more likely the improvements will happen, right? The Asgard, Nox, and Ancients all seemed to have this problem. The Ancients with the Wraith, the Asgard with the Replicators, and the Nox with the Gua'uld (they hid from them, but the Gua'uld knew of them, so they'd eventually be caught.)

[@spaceexpireaudio666]

@Zach Omara well that would be a tough lesson for newer humans. They could just leave a hologram explaining those things haha

[@darkmagn]

@@spaceexpireaudio666 Aren't the wraith victims? Rather than destroy them try curing them. Remove the need to feed. Create alternative sources of food? Make so fellow humans offer them no substance. The latter was done with limited effect. But for the ancients, it would be child's play to get it right. They cure the wraith undo what the ancients did to them. After you ascend it's not interfering more like cleaning a place up before moving on.

[@nihilityjoey]

The wraith won because the ancients simply abandoned the war. This is very similar reasoning (albeit not as severe) as what happened with Oma desalla. For the ancients to win the war, they would have had to have made the wraith extinct. Regardless of how they came about (which is one of the most overlooked things) they were not willing to wipe the wraith out. What ethical questions would we have if a team of rogue scientist created a new breed of species for their own gain? Did the rest of the ancients think like that, so should a whole species get wiped out for a mistake? Everything the ancients did proved they could have killed the wraith had they wished. From utilising subspace as a weapon to the replicators, but they all came with moral conundrums. I mean look at the whole retro virus issue? The replicators are an ideal example (and loads of people misunderstand the replicators as well, they werent ai with freewill, no matter how sentient they were, it was programming). The replicators were snuffing the wraith out. However they were doing so in a way that made the ancients question the decision. No emotions, no morality, had they become that? Is what they were asking themselves. So they destroyed the replicators. They finally gave up when the wraith got a hold of a zpm and cloned themselves silly. The ancients decided to leave. They held life in high regard, even the wraith, who were feeding to LIVE. And life found a way - the geni etc. They were not arrogant, incompetent or foolish. They underestimated their opponent before they had a proper handle of what was happening, and it was to late to maybe find other ways. And who the hell is saying they didn't build ships that were reliable???? And strategy. This just shows people dont pay attention. You cant win almost every battle........if you are incompetent at war. And their warships and weapons are the strongest in the known universe so I dont understand that shit of a statement. Their "defeat" was down to morality and I'll paraphrase "the conviction of not breaking your philosophy, just to prove it". They left their home galaxy instead of using their technology to get the upper hand. The same is true here. I've never seen so much shite written on here by people who haven't a clue. You don't become the dominant species inultiple galaxies and survive as long if you cannot defend yourself. So much shite.

[@DarththeHorrible]

Excellent video, if i was the Ancient top general my strategy would be preety simple, withdraw to your own planets, secure sensitive tech like zpm, send scout ships and if possible capture several wraith ships, and use your superior tech to read minds and discover the top sensitive locations of wraith. Seek and destroy their industrial capacity mostly on cloning and shipbuilding. And the most importabt thing if you expect a long war og attrition, recruit from the local human populace children, yes children, give them a full education and later military training to fight against the wraith, after the wraith are destroyed send those children back to their worlds and let them pass on their knowledge and within few generations you have a highly advanced galaxy of humans

[@williamwinder5011]

"This is about the species boys and girls! It's simple numbers. They have more" - Carl Jenkins, Starship Troopers

[@emperor1470]

As ascended beings they should've rid the Pegasus galaxy of the plague they've created. Either obliteration or curing the Wraith.

[@dim1723]

Good conclusion that they fought in half measures due to being a super power. Though I think it's also cause they wanted to assend more then they cared about winning. I'm not sure if we ever hear about mass production even being looked at. Instead hoping for a magic winning weapon.

[@travischapie1394]

I also think the lanterns were concerned with preserving human life they would fight but not if it endangered human life. The exact reason they pacified the v replicators according to the show. Also the lantean ships outclassed the wraith but the lanteans rarely engaged in ground battle, also cannon from the show. The lanteans provided defensive tech to some planets but never offensive weapons Essentially all of that leads me to the conclusion that the lanteans held back in many fronts because they didn't want humans caught in the crossfire Ironic since losing meant serving humans up as dinner

[@Grz349]

It’s worth remembering that several times during SG1 and Atlantis the ancients made decisions based on their ethics which they treated as absolute. Something many advanced races do.

[@julonkrutor4649]

Even with there ethics as a handycap and at the end of the war when they where reduced to Atlantis and without the Nanits any normal human would win the war within 70 years - assuming the Wraith get smarter over time and stay on the defensiv after the 18th year. If they just keep sending there fleets agains Atlantis and try to win with numbers alone - 41 years MAX. How? Easy: 1. Artificuly grow your population via A Cloning; B bread new ancients in artifical wombs; C Some other SciFi thing. They clearly had the Tech to do that and it would not breach there ethics, since they are not breading slaves. Every new ancient would have a choice wath to do with his or her live. 2. It takes 18 years to grow up and learn the basic stuff - so you have 18 years to build a fleet to take back your solar system and make it into a fortress. And i am talking about not just one satilet that has to charge up, i am talking about a few million that can shoot with the power of a ZPM. 3. Use your local star and the ressources on all the planets to build an armada of ships should take you around 5 years. 4. Take set Armada and go human hunting - every human you get out of Wraith controlled space gose into your fortess - I would kill all i can not save, but there are those ethics ^^ 5. Keep building ships and never stop incressing your population. Also, never stop building up your defensiv structurs. 6. After 5 years of hunting humans ... sorry, i mean saving them ... You will slowly run out space since everybody and there grandmother will try to get to you. So build somewhere near you a new fortess. Then take your fleet and kill as many Wraith as you can without running to much risk. If they send fleet after fleet into your guns, you will win with ease. If they have not done that OR/AND have a huge reserve of ships and food aka humans somewhere it will take a while. You have to strike where you can without expossing your center (the 2 Fortresses with all those you saved and are responseble for). But since your tech is so much better, your population is not dependend on food that is harder and harder to come by and you have better intel you will win in the end ... Even if you find the cloning stuff of the Wraith only at the very end. Sorry, the ancients are just so stupid - a smart 5 year old could win that war!!!

[@shadowphoenix1696]

@@julonkrutor4649 well that was kinda the theme throughout SG the advance races became to reliant on there superior tech that it leads to overconfidence and arrogant which leads to there downfall. Doubly so considering that here superior tech lead to such a long period of peace and no war that like the Tollan had lose the ability to think even basic military strategy and like the Asgard just couldn't think what they probably consider primitive. So yeah like you say the super genius race was really stupid when it comes to waging a war.

[@julonkrutor4649]

@@shadowphoenix1696 And that is wath i never understod about SG ... Don´t they have a history class in school? Modern europe has seen the longest time of peace (between major powers - i do not count the balkans here) in the last decades, but european armies are still amoung the better militaries of this world. Why? Because the german army for example has a LONG history that it teaches to its officers, NCOs and enlisted on diffrend levels and learns from it. Afghanistan for example started a HUGE debate inside the army how to fight wars in the future. So even if you had a few hundert, hey, even a few thousend years of peace you could look into your history book how military conflicts where fought in the past. As an example: The Romans fought in legions, that where structured in smaller units and those where structured into even smaller groups. Each level had a diffrend level of autonomy on the battelfield. Therefor the leader didn´t had to command every single man on the field AND local leaders could expliot things the General was not able to see. It was a flexible command structure that is still in use today - same gose for most of the tactics, logistics ect. The tools change and you can add new Tech, but War never changes. So why didn´t they just look it up? Or did they forgot everything they ever learned about war/never had one? But i get, that is was a nice plot so that the SGC could come in to save the day. Opening the stargate to find a galaxy without the snakes (because the Asgard killed them all hunderts of years ago) and finding no Wraith in Atlantis would be a boring TV show ^^

[@shadowphoenix1696]

@@julonkrutor4649 yeah understand that and kinda agree it does make a nice plot line. So in the danger of writing the show for the creators am going to see if I can come up with some explanation. 1 are major powers may have not fought each other in almost 80yrs but we still are engaged in conflict/war in all that time. 2 if they had "say" hundreds/thousands of years of peace (true piece with no war/conflict) then it is possible that those books have been forgotten about (not loss just forgotten) 3 even with h access to that history it also possible with the way they think and there ethics that they saw it as beneath them or thought them to primitive to be useful. Bit like the Asgard/Tollan. Yes they were idiot s in this area but like the video said they were so confident in there tech that they loss the ability to think or innovate in a military fashion.

[@fabianhoffmann7931]

The greater good I suppose isn’t it a common theme in current history? Fascism socialism communism technocracy, look at modern western nations currently destroying their energysupply and economy while preaching mediocrity because no one is allowed to be special anymore or hold any form of ethics

[@dawfydd]

The Ancients were massively arrogant and ignored the lesser human beings of the universe they let them do whatever they wanted, including being murdered by the wrath. then the Wrath just kept coming, over and over every-time the arrogance could be milked they benefited massively and rather than learning from their mistakes they tried to build better weapons. I wonder if the Ancients tried to relive the wrath of their required feeding if they could've made peace with them.

[@ProjectGrandMarauder]

The wraith didn’t want to be “healed” of their hunger. They liked being able to feast on people. You can’t save someone if they like what they are.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

That’s arrogance right there. You can’t make peace with the Wraith, They don’t want you to fix them. The problem with the Ancients Was not there technology, it was that the writers kept giving them moral dilemmas about using their technology. Time and again they developed Super weapons that should have won the war easily…. But there was always a trade off or downside that prevented them from using the weapon.

[@patsilverfang]

SG-1 established the Ancients as being more evolved than modern humans but SGA made them much more similar to modern humans to the point the primary difference seems to be technologically. I’m not sure which I prefer honestly although in SGA the human base model does a nice job of explaining why there are humans all over and saves a lot on costuming 😆. It also explains all their failings, they were “only human” instead of Daniel Jackson’s romanticized advanced race.

[@edmundprice5276]

Because the ancients that designed the destiny in sga were from an earlier time period than the ancients who designed Atlantis and built the Stargate network

[@geoffreyprior8931]

@@edmundprice5276 Destiny was one of their grand plans; too bad it never got completed.

[@Tamamo-no-Bae]

They were more advanced than humans but nowhere near on the scale of Priors yet. The Ancients as a whole reached that level and subsequently ascended in the ten thousand years after Atlantis was abandoned. They were essentially a stagnant species, over-relying on technology and being marred in rules and traditions. In Stellaris terms, they'd be a Fallen Empire.

[@VinhPham-td1wm]

@@edmundprice5276 The destiny is in SGU not SGA and how does Destiny get into this argument? They aren't even relevant

[@edmundprice5276]

@@VinhPham-td1wm in sga dialogue confirms what I have said I was saying that the destiny was much older than Atlantis

[@imkluu]

Maybe I should watch this show again. I haven't seen it since it was broadcast.

[@beaney56]

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

[@jeffpadilla9891]

What I want to know, remember the episode with the Daedalus and the reality jump drive! They went to one universe where a ship was attacking Atlantis and they attacked the ship and disabled its primary weapons, so it sent out fighters. Those fighters sounded just like darts but they didn’t look like Wraith when Ronan and Shepherd fought the one on the ship.

[@Rougarou99]

Maybe an alternate version of the Wraith, just not developed from the Iratus Bug.

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

The Ancients invented the Attero device, which can be set to specifically target and destroy Wraith hyperdrives, but also caused stargates to exposed and destroy a planet. In their minds, even if they had managed to win the war with that device, it would've ended in a pyrrhic victory. The planets that they'd wanted to protect and retake would've been lost as result.

[@tonyhelms5904]

With the Ancients beaming and hyperdrive technology they could have easily collected all the gates located on non-Wraith planets, then engaged the Altero device. Destroy the wraith and then put the gates back in place.

[@Gothic7876]

Or as we know it’s possible, turn the gates off.

[@dylvon0]

You dont think the people that built the stargate could not turn them off well useing the other device?

[@Matt-yg8ub]

And yet it seems, it never occurred to the mighty technologically advanced ancient that they could simply shut down the gate network, then nuke the Wraith, wipe them from the galaxy and then turn the gates back on.

[@dylvon0]

@@Matt-yg8ub so true

[@allnamesaretakenful]

The Ancients were controlling and arrogant, their downfall was inevitable.

[@adamm.6595]

War is not a civil act. Losers fight wars with ethics, an arm tied behind ones back. Winners let free the hounds and hope some sanity remains afterwards. But absolutely worth it in the end, imho.

[@richardlahan7068]

It's stated in Stargate Atlantis that even though the Ancients possessed superior technology to the Wraith, the Wraith overwhelmed them with sheer numbers.

[@thundercricket4634]

True, but arguably even more important than that, the Wraith were fighting what they believed to be a war for their survival, whereas the Ancients seemed to think (at least at first) that they were simply dealing with a persistent, but not very dangerous pest. That gave the Wraith the time and opportunity to exploit some bad decisions the Ancients made and then in turn to overwhelm them.

[@quitehat7819]

Like the grunts from Halo "Will get you with numbers" which is sooo true for the Wraith.

[@KingOfMadCows]

They were always pretty vague on the numbers but it felt to me like the Ancient population was extremely low by the time of the war with the Wraith. So many of them were ascending that even without the Wraith, it was only a matter of time before they all disappeared.

[@nuyorican1985]

I've always had this question from the start of SG Atlantis, did the ancients have children? I mean when SG1 Atlantis visited other worlds we at least saw kids a few times. But never did we see children of the ancients. Were they like the Asgard that they got to a point they could no longer have children. I know in the Asgard case it was because of the extreme use of cloning. But i mean there is just so much similarities between the two. So my question stands did the ancients have kids?

[@viciousyeen6644]

Excellent question! Would fit well with their humongous lifespan and telepathic powers like the healing and stuff they developed later on. Could’ve been a wrong step towards ascension that made them infertile. We also never got to see where exactly the wraith came from, so what if it’s got something to do with them trying to „heal“ that infertility by using their advanced gene editing? What if the Wraith were their children?

[@shanenolan8252]

Thanks. I love star gate

[@N7Masterchief1]

they stopped using the replicators because the replicators wanted to beat the wraith by destroying their food supply....Humans.

[@carlchapman4053]

There were no Humans back then idiot, Humans didn't evolve again until much later. They stopped using the replicators because the replicators wanted to beat the Wraith by destroying their food supply....Lanteans (Ancients) The replicators wanted to defeat the enemy by killing EVERYONE! Edit - Humans didn't evolve again until much later AND in a different galaxy (Double Idiot)

[@Donthaveacowbra]

I think one factor we never really got was their numbers. The city ship which is about the size of Manhattan realistically can't support more than 10 million (almost ten times the density of Manhattan). We don't know how many city ships they had but not a lot. They'd need people to build all their crap to. Ball park their population is under 100 million and that's a stretch. I'd likely bet it's closer to one million total at best. Populations contract with tech and I fully expect births to be rare and special to their culture. The wraith population isn't known but likely would also actually only be in that million mark based solely on their host requirements (50-100 million) . Given all this, would cloning new soldiers work well? How would it change things other than swarm fodder. They need ships to last which means building ships. If building clones makes ships fair. Additionally, given what the super hive was, why they didn't just use that is unfathomable. It spanked asgard weapons which spanked ancients shields. A single superhive was effectively capable of beating an atlantis city ship. Handedly. I also don't take the whole they became technologically stagnant. They were able to counter beam tech in minutes. They changed the replicator coding to make them not attack them (asgard couldn't even do that shit). Fundamentally the only way I see atlantis losing is if their population was so small and focused on ascending that they were just about functionally extinct already.

[@LuaanTi]

The Ancient population _was_ that small. Their lifespans were very long, they were very wealthy, their medicine was top notch. It's doubtful they would have any appreciable population growth at all. And now consider that they were already the survivors of the utterly devastating plague, which they ran away from to Pegasus. It's poetic that they then ran from another "plague" (the Wraith) back to the Milky Way, in just the span of a few thousand years. Their response to people dying in a war wouldn't be "we must make more Ancients, pronto!", it would be "let's get the hell out of here". It still led to their demise (with some escaping through ascension) - they didn't last even ten thousand years since their exile, compared to the millions of years their civilization has existed. The city ships were rather large, sure... but they didn't seem designed for a large population. More like luxury living, with lots of infrastructure. I doubt there were more than a few thousand Ancients on each of the city ships. Just consider that there were only a couple transporters to move around - even if we assume the Ancients were very fond of walking, the corridors were tiny even for a pretty small Earth city. If we assume the transporters were primarily used for emergencies (e.g. to give quick access to medical or repair teams), just think about how many ambulances you see during the day in a million-popped city.

[@Fenris77]

The ALterrans/Ancients were basically a race of science geeks STEREOTYPICAL science geeks. In short they were a bunch of wimps even overshadowing the UFP in kumbaya wimpiness. They as you said hadn't been challenged for a VERY long time and so had lost the ability of military inovation. Just look at their warships that were indeed impressive but they only had seemingly ONE weapon the drones no secondary weapons and as far as I could tell no proper starfighter corps or any kind of "Boots on the ground" military. Just like the Tollan that relied simply only on their impressive ion cannons they thought they had the weapons they needed and never inovated for anything extra for "Just in case" eventualities.

[@nixboox]

In all fairness, the weapons the Tollan had were the best in the galaxy until Anubis used the Ancient's own technology to super-fy his ships against their weapons. And, again, the Tollan built even better weapons but never had a chance to use them.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

The lack of secondaries was intentional. The writers never wanted the Atlantis expedition to gain any advantage over the enemy so everything they ever did find was always based around drones and the drones were always depleted. Even when they did get their hands on an Aurora class vessel….You never see them use any of the cannons.

[@Fenris77]

@@Matt-yg8ub True I know that. I simply answered my opinion as to why the Ancients was so obviously inept at forward thinking. The Atlantis expedition did become at least moderately better with Carter in charge (Why she wasn't promoted properly is beyond me).

[@Matt-yg8ub]

@@Fenris77 Weir was a ‘diplomat’, largely unsuited to the reality of dealing with implacable enemies. Woolsey was even worse in that regard. Carter was by far the most competent commander of the Atlantis expedition.

[@Fenris77]

@@Matt-yg8ub Indeed. To their credit Weir did her best and even Woolsey managed to pry his thumb out of his situpon in the end. But Carter was the best. Best scene was in that alternate timeline where she sort of stood her ground in the USS Phoenix (Renamed as the Hammond later). Her glorious ramming attack that took out three hives.

[@Johnrich395]

One of the biggest blunders of StarGate Command in the entire series was the refusal to use the Pegasus Replicators. The code was hacked by Rodney, all you would have had to do is tell them to build you ships and ZPMs, no fights, no weapons, just “build us ships”. If you wanted to get sci-fi ambitious you could give them the 3 laws of robotics.

[@Youtube_is_Trash]

Well, the problem is that the Asurans plan was to kill the wraith's food and the ancients weren't ready to release a second scourge on humans.

[@hex9688]

Easy to deal with, they had a directive to not harm the ancients, put one in for humans too.

[@adrianfisher3349]

They could have deployed automated replicator athletic to create new 'Ancient'/Alteran facilities or space based weapons that would attack any Wraith craft, tech, or personnel within a given range that would allow them to continually push out to new territory. That would then give them the breathing room to come up with a more long-term approach.

[@s-094cam5]

Grand irony is that Janus' doomsday weapon would have been perfect. If they blocked out all stargates for planets/outposts under Lantean control then activate the device they could have picked the Wraith off then simply re-seeded the galaxy with a second generation of humans. They did it after the Milky Way plague (which, let's face it, given how badly Ancients screw up then leave messes for others to fix, was probably some genetic attempt to ascend early on) so why not in Pegasus?

[@nehorlavazapalka]

They didn't even need that. Their Auroras were what, at least 5 times faster than Hives? Than 1 Aurora could control about 125 Hives. SGA is total nonsense.

[@s-094cam5]

@@nehorlavazapalka maybe, maybe not. We saw the Orion - though she wasn't in peak form - had to drop shields to fire drones. If this was in fact par for the course for Lantean warships (and given their inability to think tactically after a literal century of warfare, I'd legitimately consider it) then the ships would accumulate damage that ultimately would eventually leave the Auroras too weak to win a fight. Also where are you getting this 125-to-1 ratio?!

[@DATWagonator]

Weren't the Ancients also dealing with a plague that severely diminished their numbers and many left Pegasus. But it was basically true that over confidence was their downfall.

[@s-094cam5]

That was in the Milky Way and was several million years before the Wraith (likely) developed.

[@matthewdavies2057]

The Nox should have had a heart to heart with them.

[@HenryW9]

3:30 it was because they started glassing human worlds to stop the wraith feeding, like they did after McKay overwrote the replicator code

[@EyMannMachHin]

Mass before class!

[@robertforsythe4247]

UB I believe you are right. But I wonder why they quit firing at Atlantis?

[@the_flyattractor8656]

Yeah. The Wraith are in my Top Ten of Sci Fi Bad Guys, but the Wraith were really mishandled in the series. IN that first episode the Wraith were Extreme Powerful and Scary, but very, very quickly got Nerfed by the writers. I would have handled the whole thing much differently . Oh wel.. Fun Vid!

[@davidjones3165]

Like the Borg in TNG

[@xaivierallen4020]

The earth in episode 1 were well fed after that they were rationing

[@ladrok97]

Yeah. In fist season they could create halucination. You even got episode where ONE wraith was good enough to kill 4(?) people and they killed him only thanks to jumper firepower. In next episode writers forget it

[@the_flyattractor8656]

@@ladrok97 Yes. The one on the Desert Planet. Where Shepard make the "This one is different" line a lot. Also the Wraith was feeding on the glowy bug things. too. So much cool got dropped for nerfing. Sigh

[@LuaanTi]

@@davidjones3165 The Borg oscillate like crazy. In their first appearance, we see their strengths. They have a technological advantage over Starfleet, sure, but Starfleet is really young and pretty primitive as far as the galaxy goes. Their main power is _persistence_ . They will not stop. They will keep coming back. No matter what you do, they're not going to give up. They are patient. They have overrun many civilizations through that, not their "superior technology". That technology came in a big part _from_ the civilizations they overrun, after all. They're curious and single-minded. Most writers couldn't handle that kind of thing, and nuance. And they didn't. But to be fair, they weren't a good fit for a show that runs over a few years. They would be a far better enemy in something written more like Foundation, where things happen over centuries.

[@FoggyPigeon]

I didn't know the bit about the Ancients actively creating the Wraith. Is that in a book or something? If so which is it? because I would love to read it. The show always suggested that the Wraith evolved over time after the iratus bug fed off humans and incorporated the dna into their own. When they first discover Atlantis there is the educational hologram that tells the story of discovering the Wraith on a 'dark world' before they spread across the galaxy.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

The book is called Stargate Atlantis: Secrets. Its from a legacy series of five books.

[@FoggyPigeon]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 awesome, thanks for that. I'll check them out.

[@Mortlupo]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 So not really cannon as in cannon (the series) they develop over time after feeding on humans and incorporating their DNA...AS PER THE ESPISODE.

[@terencesmith9404]

Where did you get your info regarding the creation of the Wraith? I don't remember that in any episodes of the show.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Stargate Atlantis: Secrets. It's part of a series of books

[@Mortlupo]

Not cannon

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Yup its legacy

[@LogitechXibanga]

Their mistake was not to put humans on to the war! We earthlings solved the problem at the end XD

[@urmumisaho69]

Ancients should have “scorched earth” a lot of planets and defended “core worlds”. Wars over and the end justifies the means... Cold but effective, compassion can be exploited. It really is a weakness sometimes.

[@1MoreTurn]

Well you are a sith lord. Not surprised you would do this.

[@mastervel7210]

Maybe that is EXACTLY How Earth became so isolated... 🤔

[@davna4420]

Ouh ouh I know this one !!! They committed several mistakes that led to their downfall: 1) overconfidence led them to overestimate the capability of their warships and they ventured more and more into wraith territory leading to several of their ships and their technology ( mainly the ZPM ) to fall into enemy hands. The ZPM was then used to power the wraith's breeding machine . This created an overwhelming amount of wraiths 2) their overconfidence also led to the wraith problem as they could eradicated the wraith before they became a threat if they had not underestimated the reproductive and evolutionary abilities of the bug that the wraiths derived from. 3) the ancient did not seek help from the other races to deal with the wraith problem and yet when the wraith became too much of a threat the other races were driven to the brink of extinction due to this... communication is key ... Communication and the habit of not underestimating threats smh I feel like the start of every bad things that happened to the Ancients could be explained by one sentence : " The Ancient underestimated ( insert threat's name )" It was the same for the replicants. It is the same for the wraith and for every other dangers encountered by the SG- Atlantis expedition.

[@PathsUnwritten]

Where did you get the info on the 100 male and female test subjects?

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Stargate Atlantis: Secrets (book). Its part of novel.

[@Mortlupo]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 So not cannon.

[@farscape1714]

@@Mortlupo Correct as its not from the show runners.

[@Zephyr01]

so that weapon on dakara can wipe out any one with certain DNA but the ancients didnt use it on the wraith?

[@mad0813]

If I remember correctly, the show mentions that the wraith beat the ancients by out numbering them. The growth rate of the wraith was so fast that they couldn't keep up. They created a drug that tried stopping it but it in the end ended up effecting them killing off a huge population of ancients. They found this drug in the show and one planet modified it hoping it would help but it also effected the humans causing 1 in 3 human deaths.

[@krodex001]

nope they didnt develop the drug the people of the planet your talking about did after one of their people surved a culling and were building the drug off of what they found with that person then sheperd's team came and helped them finish it

[@krodex001]

after the alantis team helped them finish it the hothens spread it amost their people killing 50 of the people of the planet then the alantis team was discusted with their willingness to kill their own people and they left michal eventualy found it and improved on it and started spreading it to unknowing planets

[@krodex001]

50% not 50

[@johncunningham4820]

After being Un-Challenged for so long they had Forgotten HOW to wage war .

[@jorgnocke991]

Goauld vs Borg who do you think what win??

[@kh8895]

They lost because they were at peace for so long that they lacked proficient military leaders and strategist. It's like the old saying, "hard times bring hard men, hard men bring good times, good times bring weak men, weak men bring hard times."

[@cecilb3216]

Funny the ancients had a alliance in the milky way. Against who? Ancients are humans. Humans more or less are violent by nature. The hologram said they came up on a planet with beings who's powers rivaled theirs. The wraith may have been created by another race indigenous to that galaxy. I doubt that galaxy was empty.From what I've seen the ancients had some smart people. The majority were avg.

[@MozartificeR]

They probably had an ethical problem with building living ships. So they were not defeated, it was a tactical withdrawal.

[@LuaanTi]

The Ancients had no need to build living ships; they were inferior in every way for the Ancients. Their value to the Wraith was in a big part thanks to how little infrastructure they need to be built and maintained - perfect for the Zerg rush tactics of the Wraith, against the overconfident and bumbling tactics and strategy of the Ancients.

[@primegrimm1981]

The ancient hollow gram said they awoken an ancient evil that slept.

[@Shiftry87]

I have watch alot of Atlantis and i dont think i ever heard the name Syrians. Are u refering to the replicators? Was that there original name or is there a race i am missing here.

[@Tamamo-no-Bae]

Not Syrians, but Asurans. And yes that is the name the replicators referred to themselves as. The Tauri called them Replicators due to the similarities they shared with the Milky way replicators. (Heavily implied to have been created by an ancient refugee from Atlantis.)

[@MissKashira]

You get better at something by doing it. The Ancients lived in peace for thousands of years. They were on the verge of ascension. It's no surprise genocide wasn't something they'd be particularly good at. The Wraith were fighting for their right to exist. The Ancients just wanted to live long enough to ascend and then this existence was no longer their problem.

[@Grizabeebles]

It should be pointed out that the Wraith didn't so much "defeat" the Ancients as "outlive" the Ancients. Kinda like how the Celtic Britons survived the fall of the Roman Empire and eventually became the world power that was "Great Britain" or how Great Briton had to choose between devoting resources to the rebellion of the 13 colonies in America and the slave rebellion in Haiti, resulting in the eventual rise of the United States to superpower status.

[@talus007]

"We humans are alone in this world for a reason. We murdered and butchered anything that challenged our primacy. Do you know what happened to the neanderthals? We ate them” Dr. Ford-Westworld

[@141Wingman]

If I remember correctly the ancient built replicators decided the most 3ffective way to defeat the wraith was to destroy there food source which is what lead to the ancients destroying them

[@s-094cam5]

Could be argued somewhat as the Replicators at the time of the Atlantis expedition started by waging a direct war against the Wraith and only after several weeks switched to an indirect attack (going after the human pops)

[@MihzvolWuriar]

I always thought that this idea of higher tech losing wss an allure to WW2, the Germans had the best weapons, but we're always overwhelmed by numbers, and when higher tech failed, they tried to go even higher, and most of the time, failed even to complete their work, and were defeated by a inferior (but not by much) power. I dunno if that was intentional, but once I made the connection, I could never undo it, and it made so much sense, I could finally understand why they followed that path, a leadership that aimed too high and thought of themselves as the chosen ones, you can see this with the goa'uld too.

[@Fydron]

Asuran replicator plan never made sense at all because we can clearly see their effectiveness against the wraith only problem they had was how wraith deactivated them so that they would stay on their homeworld. Never understood why Lanteans just wouldn't fix that problem instead of trying to wipe Asurans out.

[@Vesp3r1987]

Well... the show pretty much points all reasons why and how. 1. Wraith had seemingly infinite numbers 2. Ancients had to deal with Wraith and later on their own mistake (replicators)... they also probably had to deal with Ori at the time and they were getting sick with no known cure aside from ascension 3. Despite having superior technology they lacked military mind... and from what we see their line of though is more like that of the Asgard... where they need dummer people to come up with plans to deal with enemy 4. They were confident in their defense so much that they "forgot" to attack BONUS: After watching all the shows multiple times im convinced that the Ancients/Alterans/Lantians were idiots. With every breath they take - they make a mistake. I mean the entire premise is that because of their screw ups we got the rise of Goa'Uld, Replicators, Wraith, Ori (probably) and when they are in position to help with minimum interference to fix their own mistakes - they not only dont help but they also stop whoever grows consciousness and actually tries to help Overall its a miracle they became the most advanced race... and by so much that even 10 000 years after they disappear there is still no race in 2 galaxies that can make sense of most of their technology

[@DeMatthias]

The attero device would have won them the war if they had only deactivated the stargate network but no a few gates blew up and the project was shelved. Janus was an innovator and the council was a fool to discredit him.

[@jordanbrancato7026]

it was a numbers game as they first stated in the beginning. my question is. if they had more city ships like atlantis. why didn't they just use those and start destroying every strong hold they could find?

[@JemHadar422]

It’s not about the numbers, it’s the war ideology that they lacked.

[@ladrok97]

Why would they create more city ships? It would be waste of rescources. Way easier and faster would be creating more warships (we saw some of them in the show). Cheaper to build, easier to scale your power. If you have low amount of ships, then enemy can hide from you. If you have many ships, then enemy can't hide so easily (shorter time for your ship to get into position of enemy ship) Building many city-ships would be strategically correct only if wraith would sudenlly build mega ships (they got first one only in last season of SG:A) In this war number of ships was way more important than their power. Wraith could build ships eaisly (they need only seed and big amount of energy - as we saw in one episode), had free food everywhere. Wraith got shipyards and food on every planet. You can't deploy super ship to destroy important planet, when enemy do not have any target like that.

[@JemHadar422]

@@ladrok97 it was not a resource thing with the Ancients. It’s an aggressive strategy that they lacked. If you are a stargate fan you will recall when the Asgard needed Carter’s help to fight the Replicators in the Milky Way.

[@JemHadar422]

To defeat the Wraith all the ancients needed was 3 to 5 fleets of 15 Aurora class ships. 1 fleet on reserve to alway back up if needed. Additionally deploy hundreds of defense satellites in key systems. Also leave sensors on planets to alert of wraith presents. As soon as the wraith try to occupy a planet hit them hard and chase them home.

[@ladrok97]

@@JemHadar422 True. But even when you have endless rescources, then using them on building mega ships is useless, when you have ships that are way better for this war. I was pointing only this fact

[@havoccreations6746]

In RTS Terms. The Ancients had the technology to effectively "turtle" and run recon though all gates via the Jumpers and eventually find the cloning facilities. And with the Asuran replicators at their disposal, a replicator fleet could have been used to defend planets with a strategic value or just to protect their trade partners and neighbors. Sparing Ancient lives and resources to scout for the cloning facilities. The Ancients had the means, but not the ability to see these means.

[@thundercricket4634]

I agree. The only reason the Ancients lost wasn't a matter of logistics or resources or economics. It was simply that the Ancients really didn't know how to fight. They weren't used to it since it was such a rare thing for them. As far as the Ancients were concerned, at least at first, the wraith were just an abnormally persistent pest. The Wraith on the other hand, knew they were fighting a war for their survival.

[@thegardenofesim1174]

I think the ancients got rid of their replicators because just like in season 4 the replicators knew how to really fight the wraith and that is get rid of the food supply. Also my memory is no longer great but I seem to remember McKay got infected of that nano disease designed to kill humans were designed the asuras replicators

[@Tamamo-no-Bae]

Their programming could have been adjusted, the Asurans were in that state because they had no guidance and were abandoned by their creators.

[@thegardenofesim1174]

@@Tamamo-no-Bae sorry for the late reply Now that could have been done but remember when McKay reprogrammed them it allowed the asurans replicators able to change their reprogramming thus becoming immune to wraith virus hacks thus I assume the ancients did not reprogram them in order to avoid what happened in season 4 the one of mistakes they did on replicators was they got rid of them conventionally instead maybe a replicator anti wave since the technology was developed using ancient knowledge during the events of stargate

[@hi-q2261]

Ancients had the power Rath had the the numbers thay forgot how to think strategically, look at the Vietnam war people same thing America underestimated there opponent 🤨

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Yeah there were multiple factors that weren't considered during that time. I think America military thought they would have an easier time than France did.

[@shanenolan8252]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 true and they lost the battle for hearts and minds if they spent more money on rice rather than bullets they probably could have won . Funny the vietnamese military leader was a genius he beat the Japanese the French and American military's. That final battle against the French was amazing. I wouldn't have seen that and underestimated him especially with China and Russia support ( covert )

[@Zachomara]

@@shanenolan8252 There are a lot of factors that went into losing that war. Feeding the population is only one when you're supporting a dictatorship that the population despises (i.e. South Vietnam) and tries to centralize power, losing influence in the areas you're fighting by pretending everything is all right in the capitol. This also works well for an allegory about Afghanistan. (Ghani went way over his presidential mandate.) In Vietnam, it all went downhill during the Tet offensive because the NVA and VC popped up out of nowhere to cause a massive number of casualties and make it appear like they were winning (they were not. They were just attacking out of desperation but it set the US back enough that there was renewed support for them).

[@shanenolan8252]

@@Zachomara yes the hearst and minds thing i mean 64 or 65 before tet offensive. But every airstrike or counter attack into some village just created more viet kong . I was referring to gaining popular support from the sount vietnamese people. But the local government madecthat very hard with corruption ect . You really had two separate enemies like viet kong north vietnamese army and the insurgents ( i forget the name ) 3 enemies correction. And perhaps the south Vietnam government and poor military or political leadership. Ill equipped poor tactics. For which i blame the politicians. They learned nothing from Korea.

[@n_kliesow]

It's a bit wrong xD Ancients never really lost the war... They were too morale bound to continue fight because they had to change their strict rules to defeat the enemy... It's a bit different on the ori because they left their old home because there were conflicts in morale whether they can use their knowledge to control others but they where too weak to challange them so they left the old home (ori galaxy to pegasus) but theese rules prevented them from beein aggresdive so they build replicants to do the job, but in the end it failed because the wraith were able to reprogram the machines. It's a bit like a religion because they technically "lost" you shall not kill. XD

[@armandovanhaaren9823]

They got their hands on three zero point energy modules and used them to clone their army's

[@theshadowmastermage7381]

Stargate rule No. 1 NEVER COME ON TO A WAITH ! They have teeth down there too !

[@Connor.SG-1Ring]

They're aggressively handsy too.

[@robertg7249]

they could have given energy shields to planets with life on them, wraith couldn't have used the gates to get there. they could have set up defense chair thingies. they didn't need to be there to protect.

[@timothythomad5529]

One word gentlemen...volume.

[@nathanhale7444]

So basically the same reason why the Asgaurd couldn't beat the replicators. They had technology but lacked creativity

[@jacara1981]

Their fatal flaw was they were beyond arrogant.

[@JustinBruce-zy8xf]

The inconsistent use of biological science which would have helped them with a lot of problems they have with the actual mechanical science that they use

[@ishmailskywalker7527]

Like Colonel sheppard said, The ancients made giant mistakes and never corrected them. And what's with all the crazy rules(refering to non interferences)

[@cliftonconnor9389]

I wonder how the Wraith would have faired against the ORI?

[@TentaclePentacle]

the ori are the ancients.

[@farscape1714]

@@TentaclePentacle But Accended with Priors whom have access to advanced tech. How would the Wraith deal with an Ori ship?

[@TentaclePentacle]

@@farscape1714 the wraith would melt.

[@TheAmazingCraft1]

I never understood why didnt they use asurans as a supply of much needed resources.. Its not like they could hurt them.. If only they came there took what they need and left then that could very well have helped them.. Also i dont not believe that they couldnt program them to actually attack the wraith without killing humans..

[@JugglesGrenades]

Perhaps if the ancients had adopted an ancient strategy (Fabian strategy) the Wraith would have been defeated.

[@Matt-yg8ub]

Janus should have just hoped in the time-jumper and gone back and wiped the Wraith out before they were a threat.

[@LuaanTi]

Time travel usually makes loops in Stargate universe. Not to mention the ethical implications of effectively murdering the population of the whole universe every time you change the past :)

[@farscape1714]

Timey wimey

[@norml.hugh-mann]

How did the Wraith win?? Probably has something to do with the writers immagination

[@LuaanTi]

It has been hinted a few times on the show, including from the PoV of our main characters. The Wraith outlasted the Ancients. It felt a bit like the Vietnam war - the Wraith kept coming, no matter how many were being slaughtered, and the Ancients just gave up. It should also be noted that there weren't all that many Ancients to begin with - and they took far longer than the war lasted to replace (which was one of the biggest reasons they even considered building replicators, presumably). Remember Spaceship Troopers? Just try fighting a war where if one of yours dies for a thousand of theirs - you're still getting closer to defeat with every "victorious" battle. And all that time, you're doing massive slaughter. Would you _really_ fight in that war, or would you rather just... go away. There was nothing personal for you to lose, the Ancient colonies were slowly eliminated one by one, and while you could always force an encounter that allowed you to defeat any enemy battlegroup, there was nothing you could do to protect your own territory - we're talking about trying to defend the whole galaxy with a very small force. Sure, a single Ancient battleship could defeat a dozen Wraith hive ships, if not more... but it can only be in one place. Especially when considering the Ancients deliberately avoided using the super-high-speed FTL drives to prevent them from falling into Wraith hands (See? They do learn. Just very slowly, and way too forcefully). And all it takes to level a city is a single cruiser. People tend to overly focus on the number of hive ships, but those aren't all that important in the big galactic picture - they're used in sieges against fortified positions, and designed to overwhelm the drone defences of both Ancient ships and defensive installations. You don't need a hive ship to wreak havoc on civilian populations or industry. The Wraith were the perfect counter to the Ancients, honestly. The Ancients _did_ try to counter them - they went way out of their comfort zone to try new approaches to dealing with the Wraith, like the Lantean defence satellites, or the Asurans, or the plague, or crippling their own ships to make their potential capture less of a "win the whole war" problem. If you think the Ancients should have easily won the war... you're just showing the same kind of overconfidence. That's what overconfidence looks like. It's doubtlessly exactly what the Ancients felt early on in the war. Later on, the ethical implications became even more severe - the Wraith became a true population, not just a "failed experiment". You weren't just trying to clean up, you were exterminating a people. Do you _really_ want to fight that war? Even against someone who uses other sentients for food?

[@The_Zilli]

Numbers, pure numbers. Then if you want to split hairs, ethics and morals but even that wasn't a given that those Ancient plans would have worked.

[@nickgage1438]

I agree with most of it, other then the fact that it makes no sense, for an race that old, to have so little amount of ships. Looking at earth, id guess they would have like a million ships by the war with Wrath. Meaning go clone as much as u want, ur dead eithway.

[@TentaclePentacle]

most of the ancient, the best of them have all ascended. the ones left behind are the stupid ones who can't ascend or know what they are doing.

[@LuaanTi]

The Ancients in Pegasus were a tiny fraction of their civilization that barely survived the plague in the Milky Way. They never recovered, and they had no hope of really opposing the Wraith. Even after they ran back to Milky Way, in less than ten thousand years... they were gone (or ascended, for some). While plenty of people seem to claim that the city ships were self-sufficient, it seems really unlikely given the way they were forced to mostly disperse into local populations after their (second) exodus. They lost all the infrastructure in Milky Way, escaped with a tiny population and very few resources, and before they could build up (and increase their population, with their presumably very tiny population growth), they were forced to run again. People really underestimate just how fragile populations and civilizations are. Even though we clearly see from history that this has happened to humans over and over again, and how dramatic the impact of even local climate changes were to human populations, we still maintain that it could never happen to _us_. After all, we're the ones who survived the previous problems, aren't we? :)

[@TheZaman_]

Tauri just need several ship to win against Wraith in just several years. It take Ancient many fleet of ship in 100 year and still lose.

[@LuaanTi]

Except that isn't really true, is it? What the Tau'ri did was almost entirely accidental - they have awakened the Wraith too early. That's the whole driving force behind the downfall of the Wraith. The amount of Wraith the Tau'ri and their allies defeated in the war was insignificant compared to how many were killed by _other Wraith_. As is often the case, they won mostly through dumb sheer luck, and being willing to push through the volatile situations that ensued, and mostly ignore the ridiculous damage the Wraith did to the population of the galaxy as a result (while Wraith feeding on people is bad enough, the Tau'ri were indirectly responsible for the Wraith destroying entire civilizations, leaving no survivors). And by the end of SGA... the Tau'ri didn't eliminate the Wraith. The war was far from over. They gained several powerful allies, including Wraith willing to find a compromise, rather than fight a war of extermination, which is great. But it wasn't over. The series end was only a (temporary) happy ending _for Earth_ . Most Wraith are still fighting "our" alliance, and still feeding on humans.

[@TheZaman_]

@@LuaanTi A win still a win.

[@LuaanTi]

@@TheZaman_ Sure, and nobody cares about collateral damage, right? It only took the lives of mere hundreds of Tau'ri personnel, who cares about the billions of non-Earth humans. ... and the war isn't over. If anything, the finale of SGA has shown how ridiculously unprepared Tau'ri is for a Wraith attack, despite our leaps and bounds over the span of the franchise. And it was still the kind of superpower-magic-trick that the Ancients are so well known for that stopped the super-hive, not a sustainable strategy. It was a non-repeatable one-off.

[@sadev101]

the "they relied to much on technology" idea ,stargate kept saying seems ridiculous to me.

[@TheGary108]

I distinctly remember arguing with someone on why Ancients seemed to be over reliant on Drone weapons, instead of developing planetary defense stations and actual point to point defense systems to take care of the Wraith Darts. It seems the Wraith fall under the tactic of swarming the enemy with superior numbers, which the Drones are ill suited to deal with. Honestly, it feels like the Ancients developed weapons expecting to fight an equally advanced enemy, rather than an enemy that had adopted the Russian philosophy of building low tech in superior numbers and bleeding the Ancients dry of resources. In other words, Ancients are arrogant morons that had deluded themselves into thinking their superior technology would always save the day and they had no need for innovation...or actual tactics.

[@MuddinNYC]

Numbers will always beat superior tech. Just look at what happened in Afghanistan.

[@Grizabeebles]

It's also possible to argue that the Wraith designed their military specifically to attack weak points in Lantean doctrine and ship design that had proved solid for centuries. What would have happened on the Lantean side is something akin to what happened during the First World War. Senior commanders might have proved unwilling or unable to recognize that the rules of the game had changed and persisted in throwing soldiers to their deaths for marginal gains rather than retiring and handing their authority over to younger and hopefully more innovative commanders. The doctrine for the Tauri certainly still seems to be "engage the enemy with superior firepower while the scientist builds the bespoke doomsday weapon."

[@TheGary108]

@@Grizabeebles Don’t forget the Tau’ri has the living Deus Ex Machinma that is SG1/SGA. Literally all they have to show up and all is saved.

[@kalanigrager3709]

@@MuddinNYC dude your comment comes after 3 decades of US occupation in a region that finally get the go ahead to fully pull out. And after they have disabled most everything the US moved out and the Taliban moved in because the US forces were gone and also half the Afghanistan military force would work for taliban,regimental army, or work with the US...honestly they were mercenaries and when the taliban strolled thru they knew those men would just give up and join the taliban cause.

[@mattking993]

They totally explained how it happened.......

[@DaddyHensei]

Honestly I think it’s because the Ancient’s were hilariously incompetent. Like so many precursor races across many franchises, they are so advance but somehow their advance tech doesn’t save them but a modern human is able to succeed where they fail.

[@clubx1000]

Never heard that the wraith were created by the genetic engineering of the ancients . Where is this from?

[@robertagren9360]

The wraith were designed to defeat the nanites. They are the ancients.

[@robertagren9360]

This clip is just making up things on its own without checking facts first.

[@BasecodeDigital]

And if the Ancients had an effective technology, there would never have been a Star Gate Atlantis... It's funny how people have to come up with a "solution" that would have changed the series or the writers had to come up with even yet another great enemy. :P

[@william7546]

The replicators not being able to absorb anything wraith really didnt help the idea, if the asgards had organic ships the replicator wars would have been a joke

[@Hollex28]

In reality the problem is that the ancients were more scientists and spiritualists focused on discovery than conquerors and warriors. In essence the Ancients built weapons and technologies that were later stolen and assimilated by the wraith. It is exactly the same problem that the Asgard have had.

[@yorkshirelad346]

Great video, but not sure I buy that the Wraith went from nothing technology to taking on the Ancients in 900 years , That’s not a long time really. Even if they stole so tech they would have too understand it first before even inventing there own

[@wolffrdu6463]

number of gun generaly win, unless the one how have the gun have low moral

[@jiasunzhang8001]

War need purpose, to gain something or survival. When ancients back to our galaxy and start to acending, the war with wraith become meanless, They will gain nothing by winner but will suffer when lose, so why bother?

[@maddlarkin]

The Ancients failed to give ground and mass force so were constantly bleed for recources and combat power, trying to defend the whole galaxy. They spread themselves too thin relying on lone ships which while powerful with sufficent numbers could be overwhelmed, if they had pulled back to key systems, massed fleets and focused on the manufacture of what were already effective weapons (an Aurora class ship is plenty effective against a hive vessel) rather than wasting resources on god knows how many side projects they could of more realisitically held the areas they chose to without siginificant loss till a point where the wraith had been bleed white (a process which could of been massively accelerted if they'd managed to ID the cloning faciclities and had enough combat power horded for a deep penetration strike). This would of been horrifying for the human populations of the galaxy, more or less abandoned to a predetory alien species, but it's no worse than what happened anyway and had the ancients focused on preserving personnel and material at the expense of territory the chance would of been there to push out with a far stronger military than they began with and if not wipe them out at least force the wraith back to a containable area where they could be managed (and with luck wouod turn on themselves as food grew scarce)

[@alanmike6883]

I like to look at it like the Korean War. If we are honest had it not been for threat of nukes, the north Koreans and Chinese would've overran the entire peninsula through sheer numbers. Kinda like the wraith and the ancients...

[@hi-q2261]

But did America underestimate the Koreans 🤨

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

I think few of US and UN leaders back in the day underestimate how much China would get involved in the war.

[@alanmike6883]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 Before the Chinese got involved the allies were wining. Then pushing them north Koreans to the Chinese border was like the point of the wraith capturing the zpm. Then as the Chinese flooded over the border pushing the allied forces back, it was like the massive clone armies of the wraith.. Pushing back the ancients back to Atlantis which would've been happened to the allied forces being pushed back to Pusan had the USA and Soviets had not nukes. You know what Im trying to say?

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

I do. Fair comparison. I wonder if the writers got inspiration from the Korean war.

[@alanmike6883]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 I was thinking that because In many ways the Korean War fits more then the Vietnam War in terms of influence. The allies post MacArthurs successful landing were prideful just like the ancients. Took too many risks, just like the ancients. Over extended their lines, just like the ancients. And pride gets a lot of people in trouble. Like the moment, when the asgards weapons were useless against the shields of the upgraded ship Osiris was on because of influenced ancient technology..

[@SkinPeeleR]

The ancients had too many managers.....

[@oldtimefarmboy617]

Sounds like the Ancients, like the Asgard after them, lost their ability to think more primitively and use simpler strategies and weapons side by side with their advanced weapons and strategies.