Asurans - SCIFIPEDIA

Asurans

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Asuran leader Oberoth played by David Ogden Stiers in "Progeny"

The Asurans are artificial lifeforms, on the TV Series Stargate Atlantis, that were created by the Ancients. The Atlantis team first came across them in the episode "Progeny" when they discovered the address to Asuras in the Ancient database with no accompanying information.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

1 History
2 Season 3
3 Season 4
4 Related Articles
5 Key Episodes

History

The Atlantis team was surprised to discover living Ancients in a city that highly resembled Atlantis. They were invited to visit Asuras and Elizabeth Weir attempted negotiations hoping to gain their help in fighting the Wraith or a Zero Point Module which the Asurans have in abundance. The leader of the Asuran High Council Oberoth refused to even consider it, and upon learning they were from Atlantis, imprisoned the team.

It quickly became clear the Asurans were not human when Oberoth invades their minds by placing his hand through their foreheads just as the human form Replicators from the Milky Way did to SG-1. McKay quickly makes the connection between the Asurans and the Replicators. When Oberoth discerned the information he needed from the Atlantis team, he immediately made plans to go to Atlantis and launched the city ship on a journey to destroy the city using the city's stardrive.

One of the Asurans, Niam, and two other members of the council differed in philosophy from Oberoth. They believed their civilization had become stagnant and they desired to achieve Ascension. In order to do so, they believed they needed to rewrite their base code to remove the code that made them violent. Unable to do so themselves, they turned to McKay for help.

Niam also explained the source of the Asurans anger towards the Ancients. According to Niam, the Ancients experimented with the possibility of using nanites to attack and destroy the Wraith. The experiment failed but the nanites grew in intelligence and eventually took on human form. The Ancients programmed them to be violent and ensured they were unable to alter their base code.

The Asurans counseled the Ancients on the best way to deal with the Wraith but their suggestions were rejected. The Asurans felt betrayed when the Ancients attacked them with the intent of wiping them out of existence. A few nanites survived however, and replicated. They rebuilt their civilization modeling it after Ancient civilization. For years they harbored a hatred of the Ancients but they believed Atlantis to be destroyed and the Ancients defeated by the Wraith.

In order to escape the Asurans, the team secured Niam's help. Mckay rewrote Niam's base code to remove the tendency toward violence intending to upload the code to all the Asurans. He also programmed a glitch that caused them to freeze allowing them to escape. McKay also overloaded the city's ZPM causing the city to explode over Atlantis' home planet. They escaped with Niam using one of the city's Puddle Jumpers. The remaining Asurans on the home planet overwrote Niam's code and caused him to attack the team. Unable to stop him, they blew him out the back of the puddle jumper, leaving him floating in space.

The Atlantis team has been unable to find any record of the Asurans in the Ancient database and it is presumed that it was intentionally removed.

Shortly after abandoning Niam, Dr. Weir fell ill when nanites transferred to her by Niam began attacking her brain. The nanites attempted to convince her that her experiences on Atlantis were a delusion, in an effort to force her to stop resisting and give up. They were eventually shut down with the support of John Shepard and the medical assistance of Dr. Beckett.

Season 3

In the series' third season, a ship of Ancients returned to take control of Atlantis and ousted the expedition. Shortly after settling in, they came under attack by the Asurans. They were easily wiped out when they arrogantly assumed their programming preventing them from acting Ancients was still in effect. However, the Asurans retained McKay's programming allowing them to rewrite their own code ("The Return, Part 1".

The Asurans (called exclusively Replicators in the series), took control of the city. John Sheppard and Rodney McKay took matters into their own hands and reformed their team to oust the replicators using the same weapons that defeated their Milky Way counterparts. The Replicators on Atlantis were completely destroyed and the expedition returned. ("The Return, Part 2").

In the series finale Col. Abe Ellis, captain of the Apollo visited Atlantis with a plan to attack the Replicator home world. Surveillance uncovered the replicators were building ships, possibly for a planned attack on Earth. Dr. Weir was overruled and the mission was successful in destroying the replicators' shipyards. Their actions prompted a reprisal. ("First Strike").A probe with a stargate appeared in orbit of the Lantean planet and released a constant powerful beam of energy on the city.

Season 4

With the replicator weapon beaming down on the city, Atlantis was ultimately forced to abandon its home planet for survival but found itself adrift in space with dwindling power supplies. Dr. Weir was injured in the replicator attack and suffered severe brain damage. Nanites in her blood stream from a previous bodily attack by the replicator Niam, were reactivated and reprogrammed to heal her body but did so by replacing her damaged cells with replicated versions.

To ensure the survival of the city, Sheppard led his team and Dr. Weir on a mission to the replicator homeworld to recover a ZPM to give Atlantis enough power to enter hyperspace and find a new home planet. During the mission, McKay discovered he could rewrite the Replicator base code, reactivating their purpose to find and destroy the Wraith. He was successful, due largely to aid from Dr. Weir whose nanites allowed her to connect to the replicators, and the team escaped but were forced to abandon Weir ("Adrift").

The Replicators began systematically attacking the Wraith much to the Atlantis team's satisfaction. Later, however, they learned from the Wraith that the Replicators developed a new method of undermining the Wraith by wiping out human worlds, eliminating the Wraith food source. A certain Wraith contacted the expedition to gain their help reactivating a virus originally used by the Wraith to shut down the replicators' desire to attack them. After learning of the Replicators' new tactic, the team devoted it's resources to finding a way to shut down the replicators altogether ("The Seer").

They met with some success when similar nanites, manufactured by an Earth company with ties to the Stargate program, erred in using flawed nanites on a human girl, ultimately leading to her death. Atlantis' Wraith prisoner was able to complete a program to shut down the same nanites in Jeannie Miller's blood stream ("Miller's Crossing").

In the episode ("This Mortal Coil") a faction of replicators recreated biological versions of Sheppard's team using nanites. The group was influenced by Dr. Weir's humanity and defied Oberoth and went off in secret to do research into ascension. They were eventually discovered and destroyed but not before handing their recreated Atlantis team the means to track all Aurora class Replicator vessels in the galaxy. This part replicator team sacrificed themselves to get their information to the real team and allow them to escape Replicator vessels sent to destroy them. Thanks to their sacrifice Atlantis learned that the replicators had stepped up ship building and now had dozens of vessels throughout the galaxy.

With the help of the Daedalus and the Apollo the expedition set to work destroying Replicator vessels in attempt to protect human planets. When they retreated to Asuras to formulate a new plan, the team attempted to come up with a plan to wipe all Replicators out at once. McKay had little success activating a shut down code but came up with a new plan to increase the attraction between replicator cells forcing them to bind together in a massive form until they became immobile. To enact his plan, a distraction was required and the expedition allied themselves with the Wraith and the Travelers to attack the replicators while McKay and a human-form replicator of his creation visited the Replicator homeworld to activate their plan ("Be All My Sins Remember'd").

The plan proved successful and the replicators and their homeworld were destroyed. However, Elizabeth Weir or a Replicated version of her was seen in command of an Aurora-class vessel investigating Asuras' destruction.