Stargate Torpedoes

## **Alteran Drone Weapons**

**Game Notes**:

* Shields: Drone weapons will ignore any total shield rating less than its own base damage rating.
* Attack and Damage: Drone Weapons are fired at a target with the user's attack skill. During the attack the user declares the number of attacks the individual drones will make in that round. A single drone can make a maximum of 4 attacks in a single round. The drone will attack with its own skill of 4D and targeting systems of 6D for a total of 10D. Drones suffer no attack penalties when attacking targets of starfighter scale or larger sized targets. When it damages a target it subtracts half the target's hull code from its own damage code. If it has any remaining damage it will attack again and do damage with its remaining damage code. It will continue in this manner until its damage code reaches 0D.

**Description**: *"Thousands of bright yellow—I don't know—They're coming from the surface! I don't know what they are! They're cutting the enemy fleet to shreds! My God, it's beautiful."* ―Kirkland during the Battle of Antarctica

Drone weapons, known more colloquially as drones, are projectile weapons that serve as the primary weapon system of the Ancients. Drones are capable of penetrating the shields of Goauld Hatak class ships as well as the Ancient upgraded shields of Anubis' capital ship. A single drone can destroy most fighters and cause severe damage to smaller capital ships, while hundreds or thousands can obliterate dozens of vessels with little effort.

*"Our shields are of no use!"* ―Her'ak

A drone is a vaguely squid-shaped weapon about three feet long. It has a rounded yellow head with small spikes that jut out to the rear of the weapon. Six tails extend from the rear of the weapon, which taper into a point while in flight. A drone is an extremely powerful guided weapon, comparable to a highly sophisticated missile. Using an internal sensor for guidance a drone can penetrate or even bypass all but the most powerful shields and burrow through thick armor with ease while avoiding attempts to shoot them down and avoiding allied targets.

When active, a drone emits an energy field capable of burning through nearly all forms of conventional matter, as well as allowing it to punch through energy shielding with ease. This not only renders a drone capable of causing severe damage in a single strike, but allows it to make multiple attack runs on a single target before running out of energy. Drones are precision weapons, designed to cause massive damage to small targets without destroying anything around them. This makes them ideal as anti-fighter or anti-ship weapons, but less effective as ground-suppression weapons, despite their low collateral damage.

Drones are usually deployed using a Control chair, which can command thousands of them at once. Drones are capable of self-guidance, but the chair also allows for direct control. When attacking in a large group, drones use swarming tactics to maximize damage, surrounding and assaulting a target from all directions. Any drones still active after the attack has been completed will return to storage for later use.

Drones are among the most powerful weapons in existence. They can pass through Goa'uld shields with ease and punch through the organic armor of Wraith Hive ships without being destroyed. In an alternate reality, it was stated that an Ori warship was driven off by drone weapons, though it's not made clear if it simply retreated or was destroyed. Two or three drones are sufficient to destroy a Ha'tak vessel when the ships are hit in key areas, which drones automatically detect and aim for, and a few dozen drones tore apart a Hive ship in less than a minute.

Although Drone weapons can bypass Gouald shields, some races possess the technology to defend against them. Drones will drain the Asgard shielding gifted to the Tau'ri but won't bypass them. The shielding of the Ancients themselves will similarly resist the weapons, though the drones will still cause strain. The Travelers presumably have strong enough shields to resist drones to a limited degree, given their participation in the attack on Asuras, though it was their less advanced ships that took the most damage. The Wraith Super Hive was able to withstand several continuous salvos of drones fired by Atlantis without being destroyed.

A drone's targeting computer retains friend and foe information provided by a Control chair. Even if communication with a chair is terminated, a drone, assuming it retains power, is still capable of carrying out its last orders. If a drone is given no targeting information when launched, it will simply seek out the nearest valid target and pursue it until successful or instructed otherwise. Drones have also proven capable of seeking, tracking, and engaging targets of their own accord, dodging weapons fire directed towards them, and dodging any obstacles in their path. It also appears that drones are automatically set to detonate on impact whenever smaller objects, such as a fighters or individuals, are designated as targets.

It appears that drone weapons are powered through an advanced form of wireless energy transfer, as they have shut down and fallen from the sky in mid-flight when the Zero Point Module powering the City-ship they were launched from were depleted, implying that an outside power source is required to keep the drones in flight. However, the ZPM was already near depletion in the first place, and it could be that the drones possessed so little power when they were launched that they depleted their internal supply far quicker than they would have had they been launched using a stronger power source. This could also be explained by the fact that the drones were under direct and continuous control by control chair instead of having their targeting information directly uploaded on launch, so they shut down because they were no longer being given any flight information.

Ancient vessels and structures possess varying amounts of drones: City-ships and Ancient outposts boast tens of thousands of drones, likely hundreds of thousands at full capacity, that can swarm and destroy multiple fleets of ships, Aurora-class battleships somewhere in the upper hundreds to lower thousands (more than enough to destroy several ships in one salvo), and Puddle Jumpers contain at least eight.

Drone weapons also possess their own neural interface technology on the outer shell, allowing someone with the Ancient Technology Activation gene to set them as timebombs by touching them and using their mind. It is unknown what other functions can be altered or activated in this way.

With precision aiming, drones can destroy hive ships with as few as seven drones. During the Second Battle over the Outer Rim Planet, John Sheppard, while picking his shots due to a limited drone supply, fired eight drones at a hive ship in two waves. One missed but the other seven struck and destroyed the hive ship. This shows that massive amounts of drones aren't required to take out a target if they are targeted properly.

## **Goa'uld Naquadah Bomb**

A Naquadah bomb is an explosive device of Goa'uld origin.

It uses Naquadah as fuel for the explosion. They came in a variety of sizes and shapes some taking on the form of chests while others were more spherical in form while others simply consisted of bars of naquadah.

## **Goa'uld Plasma Charge**

Plasma charges are weapons used on Al'kesh ships to bombard a planet's surface. They are dropped from the ship like bombs and have a destructive power slightly more powerful than a Staff cannon. The ships have also shown the ability to quickly pierce the lining of Tok'ra tunnels.

## **Tau'ri Missiles**

**Game Notes**:

* Naquadah Enhanced: Missiles enhanced with naquadah modify their damage by +2D.
* Naquadria Enhanced: Missiles enhanced with naquadria modify their damage by +4D; but due to the unstable nature of naquadria they will suffer critical failures on a 1 or 2 on the wild die but will also suffer critical success on a 5 or 6 on the wild die. Mishaps involving naquadria enhanced weapons suffer an addition +1D when determining the severity of the mishap.

## **Source**

* Stargate Wiki: Drone weapon
* Stargate Wiki: Naquadah Bomb
* Stargate Wiki: Plasma charge
* Stargate Wiki: AGM 65-G Maverick
* Stargate Wiki: AIM 120A air-to-air missile
* Stargate Wiki: Mark III
* Stargate Wiki: BFMB Mark V bomb
* Stargate Wiki: Mark VIII
* Stargate Wiki: Mark IX
* Stargate Wiki: Goa'uld-buster
* Stargate Wiki: Horizon
* thedemonapostle