Asuran

"They're not people. They're machines. Replicators!"

- Rodney McKay

The Asurans are a technological life-form originally created by the Ancients as a means of fighting the Wraith.

Genesis
"There was no disagreement, Doctor Weir. Only betrayal. If you wish to know the truth of who we are, I will show you."

- Niam



During the war with the Wraith, the Ancients sought to create a weapon which would attack Wraith DNA. Turning to nanite technology, the Ancients built nanites which would allow for organic assimilation and replication, encoded with an aggression code that surpassed even that of the Wraith. Without warning, the nanites suddenly began replicating and interlocking, taking the most advanced form they knew&mdash;Ancients. Even in this form, the aggression codes remained. Fueled by a rage they could not understand, the machines begged the Ancients to remove the aggression programming, but the Ancients refused, for they had created base codes that prevented the Asurans from harming them, and they were desperate to find a weapon to destroy the Wraith.

When they concluded that the Asurans would not be the weapon they sought, the Ancient Council sent a fleet of Aurora-class warships to Asuras, wiping out the laboratory and the nanites, and deleted all references to the project from their database, save for Asuras' Stargate address. However, some of the nanites survived, and began to replicate again. After the Ancients lost the war and returned to the Milky Way galaxy the Asurans began to attack the Wraith. The Wraith created a shut down code that deactivated their directive to attack them. This resulted in them returning to their homeworld where they entered the Second Birth and restricted themselves to that planet.

Discovering Atlantis
"We’re not taking you to Atlantis. Our intention is to destroy it."

- Niam



Ten thousand years later, the Asurans had achieved much: They had built their own city-ship, as well as surrounding structures, and were able to mass produce Zero Point Modules as fast as the ancients could. Most of the Asurans, such as Oberoth, were content to live as they had, but some, like Niam, wanted to ascend. When they learned of the Atlantis Expedition, the Asurans welcomed them, claiming that they were Ancients who had quarreled with the lanteans over the war with the Wraith. After learning that they needed Zero Point Modules, they probed the minds of Atlantis 1 and Elizabeth Weir, and learned that Atlantis was intact. Intending to destroy Atlantis out of retribution, they took the city-ship to Lantea. However, Rodney McKay, with the help of Niam, tried to remove the aggression core programs. Instead, McKay froze the Asurans, and rigged the city-ship to detonate. Taking Niam with them, Atlantis 1 escaped, but were soon forced to leave Niam in space after the other Asurans reset his programming and he attacked Weir.

Later, after Atlantis had been reclaimed by living Atlanteans, the Asurans attacked the city. Finding a way to overcome the code which prevented them from harming the Ancients, they attacked the city, occupying it and taking Major General Jack O'Neill and Richard Woolsey hostage. John Sheppard, Weir, McKay, Ronon Dex, Carson Beckett, and Teyla Emmagan hatched a daring plot to rescue O'Neill, Woolsey, and Atlantis. They initially attempted to use Niam to upload a virus into the Asurans which would freeze them for seven hours, allowing them to attack the Asurans. However, Niam reactivated, forcing them to kill him. As a new plan, they modified the shield emitters to release a massive replicator disruptor wave, destroying the Asurans who invaded the city.

Angered that both attempts to take the city failed they started to build a fleet of ships to strike at the heart of the problem-Earth. The Apollo made short work of this plan by destroying the ships.The Asurans then attempted to destroy Atlantis a third time with a Stargate Satellite, firing a sustained energy beam through the Stargate at Atlantis. All attempts to destroy the satellite failed. Using their unlimited ZPMs, they were able to keep the Stargate open indefinitely. The Asurans almost succeeded in destroying Atlantis, only to have it fly away.

The Enemy of My Enemy
"We overload their ZedP.M.s – about half a dozen of them in a symmetrical pattern around the Replicator mass. The force of the explosion causes the mass to compress even further, essentially creating our own Replicator fusion bomb. The whole planet's gonna be destroyed in the process."

- Rodney McKay

The Asurans remained on their homeworld for a time until their base was infiltrated by the Atlantis Expeditions flagship team. After stealing a power module from the Asurans, Rodney Mckay activated the Asuran command directive that forced the race to attack the Wraith. It was discovered that the directive had been deactivated for centuries by the Wraith through the use of a computer virus.

After being activated, a fleet of Asuran warships departed Asuras and attacked a Wraith planet. The Asuran-Wraith War had begun which, at first, caught the Wraith off guard. However, the Wraith began to resist which saw the destruction of two Asuran warships in the conflict. Despite the war between the two foes, the Asurans recognized a weakness within the Wraith: dependence on humans as a food source. As such, the Asurans developed a new tactic: wiping out human settlements in order to starve the Wraith.

After the Atlantis Expedition developed the means to track the Asuran warships deployed throughout the galaxy, they decided to put the Asurans on the defensive. Attacks by the Apollo and the Daedalus using new Asgard weapons forced them to retreat to their homeworld, congregating all of their ships at Asuras for safety in numbers. Thanks to a new plan developed by McKay, the Atlantis Expedition, the Wraith, and the Travelers ally together, and Fran, a Replicator McKay created, the Daedalus, the Apollo, seven Wraith Hive-ships and 7 Travelers ships, including their Aurora-class warship, launched an all-out assault on Asuras to turn all of the Replicators into a mass of nanites and overload their ZPMs, destroying the planet in the process and taking the Asurans with it. Thanks to Fran sacrificing herself as part of the plan, and some improvising by McKay and Carter, the Asurans turned into a dense mass as planned and sunk to the planet's core causing it to implode, destroying Asuras and the Asurans. Later, it was revealed that at least some survived off-world, as an Asuran ship commanded by Dr. Elizabeth Weir arrived to investigate the planet's destruction, but it was indicated that they were not allies of the destroyed Asurans.

Background
"In these tiny killing machines, the Ancients imbued an aggression that surpassed even that of their enemy. The technology allowed for organic assimilation and self-replication to increase their effectiveness ... and replicate they did."

- Niam

The Asurans, though appearing as humans, were actually constructed of millions of nanites.

Nanite Construction
As mentioned earlier, the Asuran species are actually a collection of microscopic nanites that combined to form a much more complex organism that mimics the form of the machine races creators: the Ancients. As such, they appear Human but are far from it, possessing a great level of strength. A more insidious ability of the Asurans has shown that they are quite capable of actually infecting other races with their nanites, with the small machines carrying a portion of the original Asurans personality.

The nanites themselves are capable of a high level of replication and can use materials within their environment to produce more of their number. This can even be in the form of organic material which they can incorporate within the Asurans makeup.

Their true nature also allows them to walk through obstacles in their path should there be any form of entry way as demonstrated by Oberoth who walked through a door that had been closed. This same ability also makes them somewhat impervious to weapon fire which simply passes through them should they be projectile weaponry in form. Energy weapons, however, seem to momentarily stun the Asurans for a very short period of time.

The nanites, when separated from the Asurans, are also somewhat vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses that can disable the circuitry present within them.

Programming and Subspace Link


"The Ancients put in place measures to prevent us from altering the code ourselves ..."

- Niam

The Asurans, being machines, were actually programmed by the Lanteans who instilled an aggressive personality into the nanites to attack Wraith tissue. This would remain while the Asurans evolved into their current form.

On the matter of programming, the Asuran nanites were developed to possess an extremely high level of aggression that was said to surpass that of the Wraith. As the Asuran species evolved, this same programming would remain. The machine race pleaded with the Ancient Lanteans, asking them to remove these directives but they were refused. Furthermore, during their creations, the Lanteans implanted a series of directives one of which prevented the Asurans from harming an Ancient. In addition to this, safeguards were placed that prevented the replicator species from tampering with their own Base Code. This stopped the species from changing aspects of their code by themselves, however, hacking of this programming through outside means allows the Asurans to alter it themselves.

Despite being individual units, the Asurans are actually interconnected with one another through a powerful subspace frequency allowing the species to know what their comrades are accomplishing. These are accomplished through a periodic update known as Merges which Asurans face allowing them to disseminate new data to the rest of their people. While an effective means of communication and coordination; this same system can be exploited.

Numerous other benefits of the subspace link possibly allow the Asurans to 'adapt' to the effects of the disruptor when used against them. Furthermore, its quite possible that the link also allows the Asurans to keep a backup personality of all members of their race so that they can be recreated should they be terminated.

Termination
"They’re energy weapons. They disrupt the link between the nanites’ cells. The Replicators literally fall apart when you fire on them."

- Rodney McKay

Due to the nature of their construction, the Asurans have proven to be very difficult to terminate with weapon fire only stunning them temporarily. However, due to their relationship to the Replicators that invaded the Milky Way galaxy a few years ago, it was quickly discovered that the use of a disruptor weapon, also known as an Anti-Replicator Gun, was capable of disrupting the link that allowed the nanites to form a Human shape. This essentially destroyed the Asuran in the process which would crumble into a pile of dust-like particles.

However, the Asurans have proven to be very adaptive to weapons that can harm them and repeated uses of ARG weaponry helps the machine race to develop an immunity against the device. This combined with the ability of the Asurans to recreate destroyed members of their race demonstrates how difficult it is to actually destroy the machine race.

Society
"They are our creators, and ascension is the final step to equaling them, to becoming one with them."

- Niam

Very little has been seen of actual Asuran society though it appears to mimic that of the Lanteans in design. However, as a civilization, its been noted that the species are actually stagnant with little change since their original construction. Most Asurans decide to continue this way of living though some wish to break the static society they live in.

Some Asurans such as Niam sought to fight their aggressive instincts and remove it in order to achieve Ascension like their creators.

Most of the Asuran species believe that they were betrayed by their creators and abandoned for the favored siblings; Humans. As such, the Asurans tend to lash out against Humans and seek to wipe out the last traces of the Lanteans. They view the Tau'ri especially with envy and hatred due to the fact that they are from Earth, the homeworld of the Ancients, as well as the fact that many are direct descendants of the Ancients and now inhabit Atlantis.

Known Asurans

 * Oberoth
 * Niam
 * Talus
 * Cetus
 * Elizabeth Weir