Last time I got a little into the biology/disposition of the Ancient's versus modern humans. I thought the relationship between the Ancients and Humans we akin to the relationship between bonbos and chimpanzees. With both the Ancients and humans with a disposition somewhere in between our close ape cousins. With the Ancients more towards the bonobos and humans more towards chimpanzees in our respective dispositions. This makes the Ancients a little more laid back and co-operative with each other, and humans a little more belligerent and aggressive.
These are only small differences in personality, but it could lead to wildly different frames of mind when approaching problems. I think the Ancients had a relatively peaceful preindustrial growth. This led to a very swift development of their civilization. Where we have six thousand years of preindustrial history, what if the Ancients only have 3 thousand, or two thousand? Since they have little in the way of interpersonal conflicts, thanks to their bonobo like personalities, all problems then might become technological in nature.
The Ancients might not have developed much in the way of military theory or practice. We humans, constantly bickering and fighting have developed and entire field of knowledge around fighting and warfare. We have War Colleges. The Ancients might only have had rudimentary ideas about fighting. When they ran across the Wraith, they probably thought there must be some sort of technological solution to the Wraith problem. The Ancients just didn't think in tactics, only technology. This might explain why they came back to earth after colonizing the Pegasus galaxy. They found us humans, and saw that we thought differently from them, enough so that they probably tried to use us as a technical solution to the Wraith problem. That is, they interbred with some modern humans to introduce tactical thinking into themselves.
The Pegasus galaxy is full of Ancient tech that is impressive, but tactically half-assed. The Ancients, for thousands, upon thousands of years never ran across a problem that couldn't be solved with some new tech, or re-application of existing tech, even social issues could be resolved with new tech. Then they met the Wraith, and they were stuck thinking tech, but the Wraith are corrupted Ancients, and have all the Ancient's knowledge and know how. And the Wraith were and are just as smart as the Ancients and can come up with their own new stuff. The Ancients for the first time were presented with something that new tech couldn't fix. The Ancients were at war and couldn't think like generals. This is why the Wraith run the Pegasus galaxy even though the Ancients did, indeed, have better stuff. This is why I think there may have been a small human/ancient breeding program. And that program is why not all the ancient descendants in the Pegasus galaxy have "the ancient gene", even though they should ostensibly be Ancients.
Now we get to humans being ass kickers and name takers. We humans do think tactically. For most of our history we've been at each other's throats. Since the g'ould blend with their hosts (some more than others, see the tok'ra), our temperaments are a small part of the reason they are so obnoxiously evil. As the song goes, "every single one of us, the devil inside". Combined with the g'oulds' use of those sarcophaguses which upsets brain chemistry and makes them maniacs, it's like a perfect storm of badness. When the StarGate program started we only had our "primitive" weapons and our tactics. Yet we found that our weapons are effective against g'ould weapons. Our tactics appear to be superior to jaffa tactics.
On the other hand, the jaffa we trained to instill fear in defenseless populations, and to die in war with other jaffa. The g'ould reproduce prodigiously. The System Lords are known to eat the larval g'ould. But there can only be so many System Lords, and every jaffa carries a potential usurper. So g'ould tactics are for fear and population control. They need slaves to make and mine stuff, they need jaffa to control the slaves, but too many jaffa is a problem, so...off to war with a rival g'ould. If you win you get more territory. If you lose, you've gotten rid of excess jaffa and larvae. It's harsh, cruel, merciless, and very g'ould.
The jaffa use those ridiculous staff weapons. They can't be aimed accurately. When you fire them, the discharge gives away your position. Jaffa apparently don't have snipers. Their "armor" appears to be solely for intimidation rather than protection, judging by how easily a staff weapon or Terran assault rifle kills a jaffa. They also use those death gliders. Worthless in air-to-air combat; they appear to be wholly sub-sonic, and are used primarily as ground support. They fire larger versions of staff weapons at ground targets. The main advantage to g'ould weapons is that they don't need to be reloaded.
Human tactics are very different. Our modern weapons have been honed by centuries of conflict. Our tactics have changed as our technology evolved. By the time the tau'ri first walked through the stargate, our tactics were better than those used by the jaffa and their g'ould masters. This is mainly due to our goals being very different. We fight to win, not burn off excess population. Human weapons are on par with g'ould weapons because our weapons are designed to kill, not terrorize. G'ould are all flash with just enough substance to keep people guessing. If the g'ould ever started thinking like a tau'ri weapons designer, we'd be in trouble.
Now the tau'ri have the technology to make interstellar warships. And so far, our tactics are helping to make up for our inferior technology. Although, the humans appear to be making significant progress. The new Daedalus class ships don't have that large target, er, I mean, conning tower toward the rear. The Daedalus class has gone up against g'ould motherships and survived. With upgrades from the Asgard, they've taken on the Wraith and come back alive. If the tau'ri can start mass producing them then, they'd be a force to be reckoned with. The tau'ri can start thinking about tactics using fleets of the vessels.
Humans have done some serious damage to the political power structure in the Milky Way, just by being smart, belligerent, and aggressive. Not by being technologically advanced, but just thinking about how to fight properly. Now the tau'ri are starting to get the technology. The galaxy isn't going to be the same. Unfortunately, in a few centuries, the people of the tau'ri will stop being satisfied with their home planet and start conquering the other worlds in the galaxy. If they don't turn on each other first. May the ascended beings protect those that get in the way of a galactic scale tau'ri war.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment