Design
The Aurora-class ship was an Ancient battlecruiser used during their war with the Wraith. The Atlantis Expedition first encountered this model of ship in the form of the Aurora, and only four have been discovered since the fall of the Ancients. Built by the Ancients during the war against the Wraith, the Aurora-class is considered among the most advanced series of warships ever created.
Locations
Bridge
The bridge of the Aurora-class battleships controls most (or all) basic systems required for the battleship to function. It is situated in the middle of the upper side of the ship with the front side being a large window. The bridge consists of panels and displays similar to those of the Atlantis control room, but also features a control chair for navigation that allows a person with the ATA gene to control most if not all functions of the ship. This chair is only present on some variants of the ship, and differs from other Ancient control chairs, such as the ones found on Earth and Atlantis.
Chair room
This room contains an Ancient Control chair in the middle, which allows the user to fire and control the ship's Drone weapons. It is located towards the rear of the vessel.
Other locations
- Hangar Bays: For smaller attack vessels or Gateships, the vessel contains at least three bays, although more may exist.
- Auxiliary Control Center: Like a City-ship an Aurora-class ship has a secondary control center in case the bridge is unusable.
- Brig
- Drone Storage Room
- Captain's Office
Power generation
Main reactor(s)
The technology behind the primary cores of Aurora-class ships is unknown. Their capacity is not negligible, since the ships are capable of remaining active for long durations of time. In the first ever encountered Aurora-class ship, the Aurora, the power had remained active for 10,000 years, maintaining the crew's stasis pods. Even more, enough energy remained in order to launch a Self-destruct procedure, which doomed the Aurora and vapourized two nearby Wraith cruisers. If the power grid is similar to that of Atlantis, the power conduits themselves could share the same capacity of managing high energy flux outside real space.
ZPM (addition)
The Ancients would sometimes install a ZPM to give them an extra 'boost' (SGA: "The Return"), allowing them greater abilities in several domains, like propulsion, defenses and weapons, but could also include sensors. Once enhanced by the greater power of ZPMs, the Aurora-class ships could be sent deeper into Wraith territory for harassing and lone combat missions. Without becoming utterly invincible, it would still take months for the Wraith to capture three of such powerful ships (SGA: "Spoils of War").
Propulsion
Sublight engines
Located in the ship's stern, the engines provide thrust through the rockets. These engines are extremely sturdy and extremely adaptable, capable to be dramatically enhanced by the boost of a ZPM, in which conditions they can attain speeds up to 0.999c and provide decelerations of 27g (SGA: "The Return, Part 1"). The deceleration noticed by McKay was relative to a point of reference free of time dilation effects, which means in all logic that the deceleration achieved by the Aurora, relative to herself, was considerably greater by many orders of magnitude.
Hyperdrive
Aurora-class ships are equipped with an hyperdrive capable of intragalactic voyages. Considering the importance of preventing the Wraith from leaving the Pegasus galaxy, it is possible that such a limitation on their hyperdrives was chosen as a security in the eventuality of a capture. We know that the Lantians were capable of equipping their ships with better hyperdrives, as evidenced by the operations ran by the Aurora's crew to significantly increase FTL speed, in order to deliver a top-priority information to the council in Atlantis (SGA: "Aurora").
Defenses
Shields
The shield of the Aurora has been shown to roughly mimic the contour of the hull, with a gap of a good dozen meters between both. Aurora shielding systems allow them to withstand intense Wraith fire even with little power. Aurora shielding has also been shown to protect the ship from the eruption of a super volcano for four seconds, even thought the ship had barely enough power to bring the hyperdrive online for a short jump (SGA: "No Man's Land", "Travelers", "Inferno").
Weapons
Drones
The Aurora-class boasts an arsenal of Drone weapons that are capable of destroying a Hive ship in mere seconds, and has shown the ability to bypass shielding systems used by the Asurans. They can either be fired en mass from a dorsal apertures at mid-lenght of the ship (SGA: "No Man's Land") or from other lateral and frontal tubes (notably under the ship's bow), as evidenced by the engagement of such two opposed ships in orbit of Asuras {{cite[ATL|Be All My Sins Remember'd}}.
Energy cannons
Auroras are also equipped with energy weapons, sometimes grouped within batteries along the hull (SGA: "No Man's Land", "Be All My Sins Remember'd"). 26 pieces can be found, spread over the whole ship's lenght, in a fashion which largely favourises broadside salvos.
Sensors
Communications
The Aurora-class possesses the capacity to transmit and receive high quality FTL communications over short ranges measured in lightyears.
Detection
Like many ships, Aurora-class ships come with a variety of passive and active FTL sensors.
Other systems
Stasis pods
To protect the crew in case of critical damage, the ship is equipped with several hundred stasis pods, at least enough to contain the entire crew. While in stasis the brain of each person can be connected through the ships main computer in a virtual construct where interaction is possible. However, over a long amount of time, the pods do not protect the inhabitants from aging, only slowing it down considerably and prolonging the life cycle; eventually to the point where the pod is the only thing keeping them alive (SGA: "Aurora").
History
It is known that the Ancients once controlled an entire fleet of Aurora-class vessels, which were used in their war against the Wraith, with many ships being equipped with ZPMs. In the end however the Ancients lost the war with most of their ships being destroyed (SGA: "Spoils of War").
10.000 years later, the Atlantis Expedition became aware of these ships when they detected the Aurora via Atlantis' long-range sensors. After traveling to the location of the ship with the Daedalus they found the Aurora as a badly damaged vessel floating in space and the crew in stasis, infiltrated by a Wraith. To prevent the ship from falling in the hands of the Wraith, the captain of the Aurora gave Col. Sheppard his code so that he could activate the self-destruct which destroyed the vessel. Later all such ships were designated as Aurora-class vessels (SGA: "Aurora").
Some times later the Atlantis Expedition made contact with the Taranians, who not only discovered an Ancient outpost on their planet but also a hangar with a damaged but repairable Aurora-class ship, named Hippaforalkus. Since the planet was threatened by a super volcano, the population of it was evacuated on the ship, (now named Orion) which then was repaired enough by Dr McKay to escape the catastrophe. Gratefully the Taranians let the Atlantis Expedition keep the ship which was then repaired to help fight against the Wraith, which were again on their way to Atlantis (SGA: "Inferno").
After the Wraith gained access to intergalactic hyperspace technology, the Orion and Daedalus followed and engaged them in a battle at the edge of the Pegasus galaxy. Although the Orion had shields they could not fire Drones until they sacrificed their shields to fire them, taking out one Hive Ship in the process. The other Hive however quickly responded and destroyed the now shieldless Orion (SGA: "No Man's Land").
About half a year later the Daedalus, while making a test with the new Midway space station, discovered another such ship, traveling at 0.999 times the speed of light. It turned out to be the Ancient ship Tria, which was damaged by the Wraith. The crew of the ship was then evacuated by the Daedalus and brought back to Atlantis. Since the hyperspace engines of the Tria were unrepairable, the ship was presumable abandoned in the intergalactic void (SGA: "The Return, Part 1").
The currently last know Aurora-class ship was found by a space traveling human race known as the Travelers. They abducted Col. Sheppard so that he would help them activated the ship. After preventing the Wraith from getting the ship, it was repaired by the Travelers and is now in their possession. This currently unnamed ship later participated in the Battle of Asuras to defeat the Asurans once and for all (SGA: "Travelers", "Be All My Sins Remember'd").
The Asurans, who were able to create replicas of Ancient technology, built their own fleet of Aurora-class ships, consisting of nearly 40 ships. All but one of these have been destroyed (SGA: "Be All My Sins Remember'd").
Known ships
External links
- GateWorld's article on Aurora class warship in The Stargate Omnipedia
- Aurora class warship on Wikipedia