Star Trek TNG vs Stargate Atlantis (scenario)

[BitVyper]

The crew of the Enterprise-D as of TNG's final season, is replacing the Atlantis expedition. More specifically, named crew, and an equivalent number of extras are going. They will have an equal incidence of the ATA gene among them to the Atlantis expedition. They have all the information available to them that the Atlantis expedition had before they went(including like, what Stargates are), and three days to prepare equipment and supplies from their own setting before they go. They are otherwise limited to what they could carry through a Stargate. They don't get the benefit of eventual contact with Stargate Earth, but we'll say they can have the Enterprise in place of the Daedalus when it would have shown up, but it's still stuck with warp engines instead of a hyperdrive (unless we think they can change that in-scenario). The couple big time travel problems will be presumed to magically resolve themselves.

No contact with Earth leaves them with some shortcomings. Can they overcome those? How will they interact with the Wraith? The other Pegasus societies? Since the Atlantis Expedition created a lot of their own problems, lets give two possible scenarios:

1. Anything is up for change. If they solve the entire series in the first episode, that's good work on them.

2. The same basic problems will at least *start* even if it doesn't make sense.

[greatmetropolitan]

This goes very well for the TNG team. Even ensigns on the Enterprise are known to have taken classes in quantum mechanics and astrophysics and god knows what else. The general level of scientific and technological knowledge amongst this group is far, far higher than the Atlantis expedition. So if a brilliant 21st century scientist like Rodney McKay can access and make us of Ancient systems on Atlantis, someone like Geordi or Data will make short work of it, and fast. It really wouldn't surprise me if they had Atlantis fully up and running on day one. Tricorders, which basically everyone will have, will let them scan the place and figure out who has the ancient DNA etc, and replicating that as a treatment will be child's play for Crusher if a 21st C doctor can do it.

The basic level of tech they'll be able to carry through - tricorders, phasers, replicators etc, will make life a whole lot easier, and when the Enterprise does show up they'll have access to dilithium reactors for a power source for the city, if they haven't already used their vastly superior scientific acumen to find various ZPMs before then.

They'll be able to reverse engineer hyperdrives from puddlejumpers, the engines on Atlantis and other ships they encounter pretty handily - again, if human scientists can do it in the 21st C, Geordi and Data do this on a lazy afternoon.

Enterprise crew get a shock when they see Chief O'Brien with the Genii.

But yeah, I really don't see them having any issues at all. Their tech and general scientific level will allow them to fully utilise Atlantis, probably replicate ancient missiles etc for weaponry restocking. They'll have every tactical advantage within a day or two, meaning any interactions with any other species is done from a position of strength. Three days prep with Federation tech is also massively advantageous and one assumes Data and Geordi are studying the stargates themselves in that time.

[BitVyper]

While I agree that they definitely have big advantages dealing with tech stuff, I don't think they're beyond McKay and Carter types to the extent they would be with just any 21st century scientist. Those guys are basically comic book super scientists. Ancient tech is still pretty close to magic compared to a lot of Star Trek stuff, so while I think they'll do considerably better with it (for basically all the reasons you said), I dunno that I see them just trivially reverse engineering it.

I think they'll have a lot of trouble with the Asurans in scenario 2. Scenario 1, I don't see the Asurans happening at all since there's zero possibility of anyone on the Enterprise allowing that murder code to be reactivated short of either Barclay or Wesley fucking up.

Speaking of which, I feel like Barclay somehow ends up married to a Wraith Queen.

I figure that overall, the Enterprise crew is going to be reluctant to interact much with the Pegasus civilisations. It probably becomes necessary, but they'll be a lot more cautious in general. We're probably going to hear about how *incredibly* irresponsible the Ancients were in their general policy of just allowing or actively putting invasive species everywhere. I think Picard and crew would generally rather completely fail the entire scenario than go to war with the Wraith over the nature of their nutritional requirements. On the other hand, the conflict is probably unavoidable with how villainous the Wraith like to be in how they treat their food supply. Still, I expect them to grapple with it more than Atlantis did. Not sure how that plays out. They certainly have much better odds at the gene therapy stuff Atlantis was trying, but I dunno if Picard would go for playing god in quite that way. On the other hand, they might be good for coming up with some kind of substitute food supply if it's possible.