- "We lost our intergalactic ships in the first battle and we did not have the resources to build more."
- ―Vanir leader[src]
Vanir starships are Asgard spaceships built by the Vanir in the Pegasus galaxy.
Crew[]
Commanding officers[]
Known crew[]
History[]
A Vanir ship engages a Traveler ship.
In the Battle of M6H-987, two of the three Vanir starships engaged a Traveler ship while the third escaped to hyperspace. They were revealed to be only slightly larger than a Traveler ship, which proved to be a match for them. One was destroyed when it and the Traveler ship fought at point-blank range, and the other was destroyed later in a brief exchange of fire on the far side of M6H-987.
As the Vanir arrived in the Pegasus galaxy 10,000 years ago, their offensive and defensive technology is less advanced than their mainstream Asgard counterparts, as those Asgard fought the Replicators and had to develop more advanced weapons, shield technology, and ships to effectively fight them, and also because the planet on which the Vanir settled did not have the necessary resources to build intergalactic hyperdrives, much less ships capable of combating the Wraith. (SGA: "First Contact", "The Lost Tribe")
The Vanir later sent a ship to Sateda to abduct the recently deascended Doctor Elizabeth Weir in hopes of finding the ascended Asgard Ran and forcing her to deascend so they could save their race. The Vanir captured both Weir and Ronon Dex, the latter accidentally and placed both in stasis. Doctor Rodney McKay and Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard chased the Vanir ship with Puddle Jumpers, with McKay firing on the ship in hopes of disabling it. However, McKay accidentally caused more damage than he intended and the ship crashed on Sateda. The front end of the ship, including the control center, was crushed, killing all but one of the crew who was in the rear section. Following the crash, McKay and Sheppard were able to enter the wreckage and with the help of Doctor Daniel Jackson, revive Weir and Ronon from stasis. They found the surviving Vanir, Dis who was beyond their ability to aid. With the help of a Travelers doctor, Dekaas, the team located an abandoned Vanir installation where they were able to use a regeneration pod to heal Dis' injuries. (SGA: "Unascended", "The Third Path")
Specifications[]
Rodney McKay and Daniel Jackson in the brig.
Similar in size to the Prometheus, these ships are equipped with an electromagnetic field which allowed them to pass through Atlantis' shield without resistance by mimicking the field generated by Ancient ships, although the shield has since been reconfigured to prevent this. They are capable of dropping soldiers vertically from a drop bay and subsequently retrieving them via use of a drilling platform.
The only known room inside the ship consists of a brig equipped with "laser force shields" that emit a painful jolt when touched. The ship is capable of interstellar hyperspace travel, and open hyperspace windows within a planet's atmosphere. Their weapons and shields are far inferior to the ships of their Ida galaxy brethren; they are easily defeated by Traveler generational ships, even when they have a numerical advantage. Later, a single Puddle Jumper was able to shoot down one of these ships though the crash was unintentional as the pilot was aiming to disable the ship. (SGA: "First Contact", "The Lost Tribe", "The Third Path")
Visuals and Design[]
Several visual and technical details provide evidence that these vessels might have originally been of Ancient/Lantean construction.
- Shield hue: Asgard shields normally exhibit a yellow-blue tint, whereas Vanir ship shields appear purely golden yellow—a coloration shared with Lantean and Goa’uld vessels. Since Goa’uld technology is reverse-engineered Ancient tech, a golden-hued shield implies an Ancient lineage rather than an Asgard design.
- Weapon energy color: Vanir energy weapons fire golden-yellow blasts. Apart from Goa’uld weaponry, this color matches Ancient Lantean beam weapons, reinforcing the possibility of an Ancient origin.
- Thruster plume coloration: The thruster plumes on Vanir ships are golden yellow. Ancient (Lantean) vessels and Tau’ri ships (using Goa’uld-derived tech, e.g., Prometheus, Daedalus) share this plume color. Since Atlantis-era Tau’ri and Lantean ships both display golden thruster plumes, Vanir thrusters likely originate from Ancient designs.
- Hull color scheme: In low light, these vessels appear dark gray. However, in SGA: “The Lost Tribe” (timestamp 32:25), they briefly show a red-on-gray paint scheme nearly identical to Lantean Aurora-class vessels—albeit subtler. It has been pointed out that this coloration may simply be indicating age on the vessels rather than a paint scheme.
- Vanir armored exoskeleton coloration: Vanir troops wear red-on-gray armor identical to Lantean standards. A society capable only of using existing pieces of Lantean armor are unlikely to posses the industry to manufacture entire starships from scratch.
- In-universe dialogue: When the Vanir ship first passes through Atlantis’s shields, the Atlantis team expresses confusion, noting that “Ancient ships can do it.” (SGA: “First Contact”, 18:22) This implies the writers intended viewers to recognize the vessels as Ancient/Lantean, not Asgard, based on that functionality.
Major campaigns[]
- Vanir raid on Atlantis
- Battle of M6H-987
[]
| Individuals | Dis • Vanir leader • Vanir 1 • Vanir 2 • Vanir 3 • Vanir 4 |
| Technology | Armored exoskeleton • Plasma pistol • Vanir energy weapon • Vanir force field • Vanir spaceship |
| Bilskirnir-class • Bomber • Chariot • Cruiser • O'Neill-class • Science vessel • Scout • Transport • Vanir spaceship | |