SG-Atlantis 2x13 : Critical mass *possible spoilers*

[Zac Naloen]

Overall i thought that this was a strong episode. The song at the end seemed kind of out of place.

and i hope that theres more implications to the ending than a reset button. Im not going to give it away just yet.

[Gustav32Vasa]

Couldnt they drop a relay where the Deadeleus stopped so that they can talk with the Milkyway without opening the stargate?

[Zac Naloen]

Couldnt they drop a relay where the Deadeleus stopped so that they can talk with the Milkyway without opening the stargate?

thats assuming they had such an item on the ship, thats a pretty specialised piece of technology

[Xon]

The power requirements for such a transmitter are probably rather scary too. The SGC really is limited on power generation for the most part.


ZPM's once again are stated to have planet destroying energy levels.

[Luzifer's right hand]

The power requirements for such a transmitter are probably rather scary too. The SGC really is limited on power generation for the most part.

I doubt that. A SG team was able to take a relay to another planet in the episode after all.

[Braedley]

So I didn't see that coming. Hopefully Hermiod's operation was a success, but I also don't want to see a reset button pushed.

[Xon]

The power requirements for such a transmitter are probably rather scary too. The SGC really is limited on power generation for the most part.

I doubt that. A SG team was able to take a relay to another planet in the episode after all.

There is a hell of a difference between a power generation equipment you can physically lug around in a normal enviroment & constantly babysite for a few minutes and one designed for remote operation in space with little to no active maintance for a prolonged period of time.

They dont have that many portable naquadah reactors, we dont know how many that feat of transmitting at least ~2 million lightyears (~2 days to enter/exit the both galaxies, 14 days between galaxies and the Daedeleus was 7 days in, so about 1 million lightyears out from Pegasus)

[Luzifer's right hand]

The power requirements for such a transmitter are probably rather scary too. The SGC really is limited on power generation for the most part.

I doubt that. A SG team was able to take a relay to another planet in the episode after all.

There is a hell of a difference between a power generation equipment you can physically lug around in a normal enviroment & constantly babysite for a few minutes and one designed for remote operation in space with little to no active maintance for a prolonged period of time.

They dont have that many portable naquadah reactors, we dont know how many that feat of transmitting at least ~2 million lightyears (~2 days to enter/exit the both galaxies, 14 days between galaxies and the Daedeleus was 7 days in, so about 1 million lightyears out from Pegasus)

I was just talking about your claim the such a transmitter needs a rather scary power generation. Do you have any evidence that the transmitters need huge amounts of energy?
Also we have seen portable naquadah reactors quite often and nobody seems to give shit if Carter or someone else takes one of them.
I doubt that they had a relay sat on board but it does seem likely that a relay chain is possible. The Daedalus makes runs between Atlantis and Earth which should make regular maintance possible too.

[Chris OFarrell]

It looks like subspace transmissions are degraded by the mass or energy of the stellar objects in a Galaxy. After all, your looking at an absolute maximum of what, 70,000 light years bonus, putting the transmitter on another planet. That’s assuming Pegasus is directly on the other side of the Galaxy from Earth.

So doing a little math’s. Daedalus was 7 days out from Pegasus. We know it takes 20 days to reach Atlantis from Earth. And Pegasus is said to be about 4 million light years from Earth. So Daedalus is capable of crossing 200,000 light years per day. Average speed anyway. Speed inside the Galaxies looks somewhat slower, probably because they have to turn rather then just plow straight ahead.

But seriously. The maximum 70,000 light year gain is only a tiny fraction of the four million light years total. Daedalus must have still very been close to Pegasus. And they had to run right back to the edge of Pegasus to relay transmissions to Atlantis. But they could still transmit the far longer distance to the SGC's field base on the edge of the MW, at least until they entered the Pegasus Galaxy.

So its clear that subspace transmissions have quite long range in Extra-Galactic vacuum, if a temporary transmitter on the MW outskirts can reach to the outskirts of the Pegasus Galaxy. But the signal is rapidly lost as you actually go into the Galaxy...

[Zac Naloen]

snip

The problem with the theory of hyperspace is that we know that you don't have to fly round planets in stargate like you do in star wars, and i'd assume stars too. So what are they avoiding and whats slowing them down?
Perhaps a better theory would be that being in a high gravity situation slows down hyperdrive due to the effects of gravity on subspace (are subspace and hyperdrive the same thing? i can't recall). This in turn will cause signal degredation in any transmissions as the transmission isn't having new energy pumped into it like a ship at hyperspeed is.

[Chris OFarrell]

Oh and Weirs weird graphics tablet / laptop combination has both a Microsoft Windows sticker and an Intel Centrino Sticker on it.

Which in turn suggests parts of Microsoft, Intel and Dell (who make the field laptops the SGC and Atlantis teams use) are in on the Stargate program to some degree. Given that said computers probably have alien hardware in them as they can physicaly interface with Goa'uld and Ancient technology on the phyisical and application level.

McKay during the months he spent in the Ancient outpost between Lost City II and Rising really did appear to put 'heroric' efforts into interfacing human and Ancient technology. Though he had several years work on the Stargate, which of course is Ancient, to go on.

[Zac Naloen]

I'm hoping that we can see some sort of reference to what happened at the end after this episode. I.e Regular medicals on all staff after returning from earth and actually see it more than referenced too atleast once. Im surprised they weren't doing that anyway, they knew the trust had infiltrated the upper echelons of the government.



Chris, Microsoft/Intel aren't necessarily involved in anyway. The software weir was using certainly didn't look microsoft based. Perhaps mckay wrote a sort of ancient emulator that runs under windows.

[Chris OFarrell]

I'm hoping that we can see some sort of reference to what happened at the end after this episode. I.e Regular medicals on all staff after returning from earth and actually see it more than referenced too atleast once. Im surprised they weren't doing that anyway, they knew the trust had infiltrated the upper echelons of the government.

It's strange actualy. In season 2 of SG1 people were being screened at the enterence to the SGC by MRI's to see if they had a Goa'uld inside them. An Ashrak got through by using a weird brainwashing hand device, but the theory still holds

Area-51 is supposed to be *ultra* secure after all the security breaches there. To the point where people have to strip then get into rather drab clothes. With all the rouge NID/Trust activity there, I would have thought ANYONE heading for Earths limited and absurdly valuable starship fleet would have been getting complete screenings every time they arrived on base.


Chris, Microsoft/Intel aren't necessarily involved in anyway. The software weir was using certainly didn't look microsoft based. Perhaps mckay wrote a sort of ancient emulator that runs under windows.[/quote]

[Chris OFarrell]

Chris, Microsoft/Intel aren't necessarily involved in anyway. The software weir was using certainly didn't look microsoft based. Perhaps mckay wrote a sort of ancient emulator that runs under windows.

Seriously, I hate the lack of an edit button.

McKay clearly wrote some kind of Ancient emulator for the laptops. The laptops the SGC run around with, with nothing more then a fibre optic cable, can bring up just about any data or screen from an Ancient computer system, which can be manipulated by the keyboard. The Ancient OS looks absurdly plug and play.

That said, it make a hell of a lot of sense that the hardware and software venders are in on SOME level. Even if its just providing laptop configerations and OS configs to very specific standards, then Area-51 fits the alien hardware inside and specific software to interface the two halves.

I'm not saying Microsoft, Intel or Dell KNOW about the Stargate program, just that they are involved at some level, probably a rather low one.

[Zac Naloen]

I'm not saying Microsoft, Intel or Dell KNOW about the Stargate program, just that they are involved at some level, probably a rather low one.

After i made my post it occured to me the situation could be something along the lines of this "hey you guys at microsoft/intel we accidentally found this awesome way of doing things, we'll tell you how to do it for free if you provide us with (insert number here) top of the range machines/software" then they slowly feed them technology creating the next software/hardware revolution on earth. No company will say no, its a guaranteed cash cow for them.. and will solidify their lead in the market.[/code]

[Chris OFarrell]

Yes. Bill Gates is a member of the Trust. It all makes sense.

[Braedley]

Chris, that is sig worthy.

Anyways, I think the case is that Dell just fills a huge Department of Defence order and then Area 51 and SGC retrofit inhouse hardware and software interfaces into them.

Or you know what? It could be that the little extra money from Dell is the difference between great visual FX and mediocre FX, but I digres.

[NecronLord]

What was the tactical issue? Why not just send the Daedalus and the jumpers to destroy the cruisers? Even a single well placed squid can mission kill the things. Though hiding is preferable, they'd not be hard to overcome in battle. It would have been nice to have a mention of the reason for needing to hide was to ensure that the cruisers didn't inform their queens...

And yeah, it'd be nice if they don't push a reset button on Caldwell - I want him walking around with a goa'uld ribbon device any time he's in the field in the future. I can see it now... A waith officer shoots Caldwell with a pistol-stunner, and then blinks a few times as it bounces off the force field, Caldwell then sends him flying, walks over, steps on the wraith's hand, and grins, then purees his brain...

I've got to agree with Weir's decision on sending Ronan to torture Doctor Kavanagh. One also has to wonder just whom he was sending those messages to, unless he was in collusion with the Caldwell goa'uld.

Best lines: "Doctor Kavanagh... stop talking"

"I warn you, as a goa'uld, I now posess the strength of many men."
"Won't be a fair fight then..."

I liked that second one and the following scene particularly - it fits nicely with my theory that the goa'uld achieve their strength by being able to over-ride the pain-feedback of overtaxing human muscles, as extreme adrenaline does. Presumably a sufficiently talented human can do the same when 'pumped.'

And Teyla's (I don't think it was the actress) singing was interesting, as was the different score. It's a nice change of pace, but I don't want too much of it. The lyrics were definately well thought out too.

[Zac Naloen]

I have to admit, i was convinced it was kavanagh despite the "Its way too obvious" clause.

He's just that much of an asshole. and you reminded me about the messages, who was he sending them too? Perhaps he is in league with the Trust but he's just far too much of an opinionated arsehole for them to take advantage of him in this sort of situation.

Also they suggest that kavanagh has the expertise to rewrite atlantis OS system, if someone had those sorts of expertise i'd keep them under close guard when on earth... could result in serious issues.

Caldwell was obviously not a willing victim, or else infecting him would have been unnecessary, i hope they touch on some sort of guilt associated to this. Would add extra depth to his character. Seriously this whole episode could mean so much in terms of future character development for caldwell, and weir.. she is willing to torture when it comes down to it, political commentary of some sort?

[NecronLord]

Seriously this whole episode could mean so much in terms of future character development for caldwell, and weir.. she is willing to torture when it comes down to it, political commentary of some sort?

Unlikely it's related to the current controversy. This episode was probably shot months ago, and finished in post weeks ago. However, one can easily have 'good guys' prepared to embrace utilitarianism and torture the bad guys when their backs are against the wall. How is it even remotely worse than SG1 sending the shadow-SG guys off to be excecuted, after all? I would certainly give the order in Wier's place. It doesn't need to be a commentry on the real world situation at all, really.

And I was half expecting them to get their information out of Caldwell by having Hermiod walk in with one of those Asgard mindhackers.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I kinda hopeing for a Gou'uld in a Wraith body.

[NecronLord]

Oh, and just what did Caldwell say anyway? Was it 'I've suffered' or 'it's severed?'

[Luzifer's right hand]

Oh, and just what did Caldwell say anyway? Was it 'I've suffered' or 'it's severed?'

After they electrocuted him? It sounded like "Sheppard" to me.

[Xon]

I bet that tazer used on Caldwell doesnt feature normal batteries.

The real question is how long has Caldwell been snaked, and how long has the Trust had access to him. Remember he was gunning as the military lead of the Atlantis expedition.

[Braedley]

And Teyla's (I don't think it was the actress) singing was interesting, as was the different score. It's a nice change of pace, but I don't want too much of it. The lyrics were definately well thought out too.

I'm pretty sure it was Rachel Luttrell (who plays Teyla), as her bio says she's and acomplished singer as well. The song was still recorded in a studio though, as doing that on screen would take too long and be very difficult.

Also there's a thing on gateworld about Rachel singing in Epiphany, but either Joseph Mallozzi or the inteviewer was mistaken about that comment.