StarGate Universe premiere 2 Oct (spoilers)

[[R_H]]

What I didn't really understand was why they were getting launched through the gate. Scott(?) walked through it while the base was being evacuated, if I recall correctly, and comes flying out of the Destiny's gate.

And why are there two sets of fatigues, black and tan? And some carry G-36s while others carry M4s.

[Zac Naloen]

The insane distance and not quite perfect coordinates due to the ship being constantly on the move. Fits with stargate lore.


Btw Jodan just realised I confused you with Bilbo for a moment there, I redirect the question about bringing it up to Bilbo.



I just pulled out the season 4 DVD set, it's not enough to judge the beam weapons on. The only confirmed beam weapon kill... the shields were down. We don't see them use the weapon against shielded ships at all that I can currently recall. We can only infer it from dialogue.

The only time we have seen a shielded ship taken out by beam weapons was when the Odyssey used it's ZPM powered weapons.

This is kind of a pointless discussion though, it was an act of plot whether reasonable or not. and as you said earlier we simply didn't see enough of the space battle to judge. It's entirely possible they were putting all their efforts into the evacuation and simply ignoring the Ha'Taks, it's not like they were going to get what they wanted with the planet about to explode anyway.

[RogueIce]

And why are there two sets of fatigues, black and tan? And some carry G-36s while others carry M4s.

Black is for the SGC personnel who were part of Project Icaraus. Why they had super special uniforms and not the regular SGC OD uniforms I don't know. The tan uniforms were US Marines (at least, I'm pretty sure they were since I never saw any U.S. MARINES service tape on the uniforms), as those looked like desert pattern MARPATs to me. I didn't really pay attention to the weapons but I'm guessing it was mostly SGC (black) with G-36s while the USMC (tan) had M4s.

There's also the third group of Air Force personnel wearing the ABU. Again, why they wore ABUs and not SGC ODs I don't know, since during SG-1 everyone was wearing either regular OD or blue fatigues when they were at the SGC itself. Maybe the regulation changed?

[NecronLord]

In Travelers, we get a Wraith cruiser coming out of hyperspace and attacking an honest Alterran (not Asuran) ship. The shields on that ship are also said to be at 20% when the battle starts. From when the shields are stated to be at 20% till they fail in the episode lasts 73 seconds of on screen time. There could be additional time of John running to the chair that was cut, but nowhere near the same amount that it took John and his team to get from the bridge of the 304 to the jumper (in no great hurry, I might add).

It wasn't as if that ship was a partially restored drifting hulk, now was it?

Oh wait.

In fact, the performance in Travellers can't even be compared to the same ship later on, as we know they've had the best part of the year trying to fix it.

P.S. I'm still annoyed that they killed the Travellers' ship offscreen. Damnit.

[NecronLord]

The insane distance and not quite perfect coordinates due to the ship being constantly on the move. Fits with stargate lore.

Additionally, people get shot out of stargates when they're taking damage on the other side, which that one may have been, and possibly even when the gate is being reactivated for the first time (it happened in the movie; though the movie's notion was that the coordinate system could go anywhere without the requirement for a recieving gate).

it's not like they were going to get what they wanted with the planet about to explode anyway.

Unless what they wanted was to stop the Tau'ri starting another galactic war, in which case they might have.

[CaptJodan]

Be all my sins remeber'd. If they could take out a ship with it's shields raised in a reasonable time frame they wouldn't have needed to run when the Asurans got the drop on them considering how well their OWN shields hold up to Lantian weaponry.

We really have no idea how long it takes for the beam weapons to punch through Ancient shields because we have never seen it done. But I'm not willing to say it takes minutes with beam weapons to take out a shielded Aurora when we have no evidence either way, and the battle was chaotic enough to not really know what proportion the 304s were participating. During the entire battle we had all of 1 shot of a 304 firing its beam weapons, and only 2 beams were fired at that. It looks as if the ship is unshielded, but given the yellow hull huggers Auroras have, it could have just flat penetrated and the fire we see from the first shot could be blocking the fraction of a second that they flared up. However, in the interests of no further evidence, I'm willing to say that the shields were done on that particular ship.

Here's what we know:
-A wraith cruiser can lower an Lantean/Alterran/Ancient/whatever's ship's shields from 20% to 0% in about 73 seconds.
-I think we all can accept a cruiser to be less powerful than a Hive.
-In one of the quickest Hive battles (The Seer), with 1 Hive against another, it took 10 seconds to kill one of the Hives (it looked like it could have died from an internal explosion, but I'm going with it because it sides with your position conservatively). I counted 18 shots hitting the hive that exploded on screen.
-A 304's beams can do the same thing to a Hive in as little as two shots, but I'd be happy to round up to 3 or 4 if you thought that one was a lucky hit. Even so, it suggests beams of considerably more brute force power than Wraith Hives are capable of.
-In the end of the episode, only two ships were confirmed lost. 1 Hive ship (as evidenced by it going boom, and because the SFX guys got this right for once, and had 6 hives out of the 7 jumping away at the end), and one Traveler ship, for the loss of 5 confirmed Asuran ships, and an unknown number damaged or possibly destroyed that we didn't see.

If Ha'Taks can be considered = Lantean/Asuran war ships as you seem to be implying below then that only strengthens my argument.

That's actually Necron's argument, that the Universe Hataks were probably using Ancient shields from Anubis' modifications. There's a whole host of issues I have with that possibility, really (including questions of Camelot), but ancient shields don't translate to ancient weaponry. The 304s were outlasting SHIELDED Aurora's when they were outnumbered 2 to 1, and under assault by superior weaponry than Hataks are likely to have.

-The fact is, even if we assume these Hataks are using ancient shields, they are smaller than Auroras, and size usually matters in these things. They should fundamentally have less shielding than an Aurora.
-We have some evidence to suggest 304 shields to be superior to Aurora shields, as evidenced by the examples I gave, or at least for them to be so close in capability as to be rendered near equal.
-Finally, we know that Wraith Hive weaponry is, pound for pound, less powerful than these beams. And while Hives have never shocked me with their impressive firepower (till they were given 1 ZPM, and then they seemed superior to even a 3 ZPMed city's shield), they do seem damned resilient, as evidenced by "be all my sins" for 6 out of 7 surviving without any shields. I've always considered Hive weaponry to AT LEAST be as strong as Hatak pulses (though probably not by much more), and we've seen plenty of evidence that 304s can last a good amount of time under that barrage as well.

Given those facts, and the lack of visuals showing 304s blasting away with beams constantly against Asuran shields that are holding the beams back, I'm not willing to say they can necessarily last minutes. The humans certainly used more railguns in that battle than they did beams, for whatever reason.

This is kind of a pointless discussion though, it was an act of plot whether reasonable or not. and as you said earlier we simply didn't see enough of the space battle to judge. It's entirely possible they were putting all their efforts into the evacuation and simply ignoring the Ha'Taks, it's not like they were going to get what they wanted with the planet about to explode anyway.

That's the theory I'm sticking to myself. Sam made it clear they weren't the target, and she made it clear she was working to cover the planet, not necessarily themselves. I'm not going to just assume these Hataks were highly upgraded without a bit more proof.

[Razaekel]

Keno.

According to the Closed Captioning for the episode, the proper spelling is Kino, based off of, I can't remember exactly, but i think Eli said it was a russian word for a spirit.

RE the damage on the Destiny, It seems to me that most of the holes are located on forward facing portions of the ship, which suggests that instead of being damage from altercations, It could be accidental damage from running through something either in FTL or RS, like a high speed impactor. Remember that Rush said the ship had never been occupied, although this could be because they haven't seen any evidence of occupation yet, which means that the damage to the shuttle probably didn't occur from somebody taking it for a joyride in the wrong part of space. If we follow this train of thought, If somebody HAD taken it for a joyride and then returned to the ship, there would have been evidence of their occupation unless they were meticulous about cleaning up after themselves. It's possible that somebody may have gotten on the ship during a stopover at a planet, managed to get into one of the shuttles, taken it for a joyride through an asteroid belt which resulted in the big hole, returned it to the ship, and gotten off again before departure, but that kind of stretches credulity.

What I didn't really understand was why they were getting launched through the gate. Scott(?) walked through it while the base was being evacuated, if I recall correctly, and comes flying out of the Destiny's gate.

I suspect there may have been some sort of energy transfer due to the fact that Destiny is in FTL when they come through the gate, resulting in the addition of kinetic energy to objects passing through. Consider it the result of a slight error in the transfer due to the large, unstable energy source that is the planet and the enormously huge distance between source and destination.

What exactly is the purpose of the ninth chevron? Considering that 6 chevrons are for location, the 7th for origin, and the 8th for 'area code' or galaxy code if you prefer, then what does the 9th indicate? ship code? if so, then you could just use 1 chevron instead of all 9. It seems to me that instead of the 9th chevron having a specific purpose, it's actually the combination of all the chevrons to form a code for accessing the ship is what the meaning is here. If so, then there is likely another code to access the other ship that's on this universe cruise.

[CaptJodan]

It wasn't as if that ship was a partially restored drifting hulk, now was it?

Oh wait.

That's bullshit and you know it. 20% shields is 20% shields. Are you going to start saying the Traveler can't read, too? You are semantic whoring one of the (only) episodes that best quantifies Aurora shielding capabilities. I can only wonder why.

In fact, the performance in Travellers can't even be compared to the same ship later on, as we know they've had the best part of the year trying to fix it.

And could that be because they had time to bring the shields to 100%? That it had a full crew working with the other weapons to keep enemy ships off of them? That they had other ships and fighters covering their backs?

Naw, couldn't be that.

[Bounty]

i think Eli said it was a russian word for a spirit.

It's colloquial Russian (well, a root form used by a lot of languages) for cinema.

[AMT]

I suspect there may have been some sort of energy transfer due to the fact that Destiny is in FTL when they come through the gate, resulting in the addition of kinetic energy to objects passing through. Consider it the result of a slight error in the transfer due to the large, unstable energy source that is the planet and the enormously huge distance between source and destination.

Actually they wern't in FTL. They go into FTL (as shown by the whooshy graphics) when they are out of the gate (and confirmed when they go "whoosy" again when the ship arrives by that star or whatever at the end of the episode.)

Plus, IIRC there was dialog stating the ship went out of FTL when it activated the stargate, which was why it had stopped at the end instead of opening the gate while still traveling.

[CaptainChewbacca]

What I didn't really understand was why they were getting launched through the gate. Scott(?) walked through it while the base was being evacuated, if I recall correctly, and comes flying out of the Destiny's gate.

In the SG1 Epidose 'Frozen' where they find the antarctic gate, it is established that if a gate is overloading matter gets accelerated as it passes through. In that case, the gate was taking lots of hits from staff weapons. Daniel was going incredibly fast, and suffered injuries similar to the colonel. In SGU, the gate's power source was highly unstable and was going critical, which caused the people passing through to accelerate.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Nitpick: That was "Solitude". "Frozen" was much later when they discovered a hibernating Ancient in Antarctica.

[Kane Starkiller]

On a slightly unrelated note: it's the year 2009 and they still aren't able to produce a CG effect of the stargate event horizon that matches that of the 1994 movie in quality?

[NecronLord]

That's bullshit and you know it. 20% shields is 20% shields. Are you going to start saying the Traveler can't read, too? You are semantic whoring one of the (only) episodes that best quantifies Aurora shielding capabilities. I can only wonder why.

And you assume it started out at 100% capacity why?

And could that be because they had time to bring the shields to 100%?

Quite.

In fact, I'm not sure if you're aware of the whole context of the bit you're quoting.

LARRIN: You were trying to broadcast our location. Guess what? It worked. There's a ship approaching, only I don't think it's the one you were hoping for.

SHEPPARD: What do you mean?

LARRIN: It's the Wraith!

(As John stares at her, appalled, outside the ship a hyperspace window opens and a Wraith cruiser flies out of it and heads towards the battleship.)

BRIDGE. Nevik types frantically on a small computer pad. He and Silas struggle to keep their feet as the Wraith cruiser fires on them and sparks fly from the consoles. In the Brig, Larrin and John – still on his knees – also totter as the ship jolts.

NEVIK (over comms): The Wraith ship is firing on us.

LARRIN: Do we have shields?

NEVIK: Affirmative – but they're only at twenty percent we can't take this for very long.

That sounds to me an awful lot like the shields were at twenty percent to start off with. I would imagine that if they'd just knocked the shields down to that, he would have said something to the effect of 'they just kicked the crap out of them.'

[Anguirus]

On a slightly unrelated note: it's the year 2009 and they still aren't able to produce a CG effect of the stargate event horizon that matches that of the 1994 movie in quality?

The 1994 big-budget movie only had to do it once (IIRC) while the show usually does it several times per episode. At this point the effect looks quite good IMO and it has been 100% consistent week-to-week for years now.

The 1997-2009 TV franchise also does action scenes about once every 2-5 episodes that blow away those in the 1994 feature so, you know, I'll take it.

[JointStrikeFighter]

On a slightly unrelated note: it's the year 2009 and they still aren't able to produce a CG effect of the stargate event horizon that matches that of the 1994 movie in quality?

The 1994 big-budget movie only had to do it once (IIRC) while the show usually does it several times per episode. At this point the effect looks quite good IMO and it has been 100% consistent week-to-week for years now.

The 1997-2009 TV franchise also does action scenes about once every 2-5 episodes that blow away those in the 1994 feature so, you know, I'll take it.

And the event horizon looked like shit in the movie anyway.

[CaptJodan]

That sounds to me an awful lot like the shields were at twenty percent to start off with. I would imagine that if they'd just knocked the shields down to that, he would have said something to the effect of 'they just kicked the crap out of them.'

How in the hell did you misread what I originally sent? OF COURSE their shields started at 20%. That's what makes it such a great comparison point with the Daedalus in "Search and Rescue", because their shields eventually drop to 20% under assault from the same type of ship, and we measure how long each ship lasts under the same type of assault from 20% down.

I think you misread what I was getting at there.

[JME2]

On a slightly unrelated note: it's the year 2009 and they still aren't able to produce a CG effect of the stargate event horizon that matches that of the 1994 movie in quality?

The 1994 big-budget movie only had to do it once (IIRC) while the show usually does it several times per episode. At this point the effect looks quite good IMO and it has been 100% consistent week-to-week for years now.

The 1997-2009 TV franchise also does action scenes about once every 2-5 episodes that blow away those in the 1994 feature so, you know, I'll take it.

And the event horizon looked like shit in the movie anyway.

Well, the gate effect in the movie was impressive for it's time; I definitely agree the creative team's produced a more consistent gate effect of years now.

[Bilbo]

Several people have asked why they were thrown through the gate.

One thing to remember is that the first time O'Neil went to see the Asgard he was thrown through the gate. It seems that long distance connnections if not done well can result in this happening.

Lucky for the Atlantis crew the first time they went to Atlantis they had the wormhole calibrated well enough to avoid this problem.

[Bilbo]

That sounds to me an awful lot like the shields were at twenty percent to start off with. I would imagine that if they'd just knocked the shields down to that, he would have said something to the effect of 'they just kicked the crap out of them.'

How in the hell did you misread what I originally sent? OF COURSE their shields started at 20%. That's what makes it such a great comparison point with the Daedalus in "Search and Rescue", because their shields eventually drop to 20% under assault from the same type of ship, and we measure how long each ship lasts under the same type of assault from 20% down.

I think you misread what I was getting at there.

Search and Rescue had a point where the Daedalus dropped its shields and took several hits that pretty much damaged everthing. Rodney and Sam had to repair weapons, life support, hyperdrive, basically nothing worked and the shields were at 20%. As an interesting point that 20% kept them safe enough to walk around, chat, do some repairs, have a meeting, and decide on a stealthy assault of the Wraith Cruiser.

[CaptJodan]

Search and Rescue had a point where the Daedalus dropped its shields and took several hits that pretty much damaged everthing. Rodney and Sam had to repair weapons, life support, hyperdrive, basically nothing worked and the shields were at 20%. As an interesting point that 20% kept them safe enough to walk around, chat, do some repairs, have a meeting, and decide on a stealthy assault of the Wraith Cruiser.

Thanks for what I believe is support but...

Technically, the 20% line didn't come until the meeting on the bridge. Up until then, the shield status was much more vague. Like I said, about 125 seconds of ON SCREEN time between her stating the 20% and the Wraith Cruiser's weapons being taken offline. So meeting, walk around casually and talk about John's health, get to the jumper, launch the jumper, get into position, and launch 302s.

Still a lot of time, yeah.

From the dialogue it didn't seem like the shields themselves had been damaged by shield-less attack (which was so fucking stupid, because they've beamed people through their own shields all the fucking time). If they were, it was probably minimal compared to everything else.

[CaptJodan]

Several people have asked why they were thrown through the gate.

One thing to remember is that the first time O'Neil went to see the Asgard he was thrown through the gate. It seems that long distance connnections if not done well can result in this happening.

That's a good catch, and actually a good throwback to that episode, I agree. O'Neill cobbled together a new power source for the gate in order to get there, but it was very crude. The planet was about to explode, so the power there probably wasn't terribly steady either.

Lucky for the Atlantis crew the first time they went to Atlantis they had the wormhole calibrated well enough to avoid this problem.

ZPM. Steady, reliable, and not cobbled together power source. Looks like it makes a real difference.

[Bilbo]

Search and Rescue had a point where the Daedalus dropped its shields and took several hits that pretty much damaged everthing. Rodney and Sam had to repair weapons, life support, hyperdrive, basically nothing worked and the shields were at 20%. As an interesting point that 20% kept them safe enough to walk around, chat, do some repairs, have a meeting, and decide on a stealthy assault of the Wraith Cruiser.

Thanks for what I believe is support but...

Technically, the 20% line didn't come until the meeting on the bridge. Up until then, the shield status was much more vague. Like I said, about 125 seconds of ON SCREEN time between her stating the 20% and the Wraith Cruiser's weapons being taken offline. So meeting, walk around casually and talk about John's health, get to the jumper, launch the jumper, get into position, and launch 302s.

Still a lot of time, yeah.

From the dialogue it didn't seem like the shields themselves had been damaged by shield-less attack (which was so fucking stupid, because they've beamed people through their own shields all the fucking time). If they were, it was probably minimal compared to everything else.

If it wasnt hits while the shields were down then it would be major plot shields. Would mean the last 20% lasted 10 times as long as the first 80% and the entire crew is being bizarrely casual.

[CaptJodan]

If it wasnt hits while the shields were down then it would be major plot shields. Would mean the last 20% lasted 10 times as long as the first 80% and the entire crew is being bizarrely casual.

Not really. We've seen the Daedalus come under attack from a fleet of Hives in Siege 3, and while they certainly didn't last long in that fight, they lasted long enough to beam a few nukes to the enemy ships and escape. That was against a considerable number of Hives and their cruiser escorts.

But that's not really the point. I got the distinct impression that once they got John and Ronon got beamed aboard, there was a time cut while Keller tended to their wounds, put IVs in and then they talk, then he leaves and goes to talk to Sam. Then they (no doubt casually) walked up to the bridge to talk to Caldwell. I can see their shields draining from 100 to 20% during that time. Though they might have taken some damage...but they certainly weren't at 20% after they were re-raised. They had to be higher.

Though either way, at 20% they were bizarrely casual.

[NecronLord]

That sounds to me an awful lot like the shields were at twenty percent to start off with. I would imagine that if they'd just knocked the shields down to that, he would have said something to the effect of 'they just kicked the crap out of them.'

How in the hell did you misread what I originally sent? OF COURSE their shields started at 20%. That's what makes it such a great comparison point with the Daedalus in "Search and Rescue", because their shields eventually drop to 20% under assault from the same type of ship, and we measure how long each ship lasts under the same type of assault from 20% down.

I think you misread what I was getting at there.

Indeed.

However, it's still a tenuous comparison. The Aurora's power systems were seriously questionable, what with leaking radiation and all that, giving it no ability to replenish its shields. And from what I remember, the rate of fire from Michael's cruiser would be best described as abysmal, while the one in Travelers in those scenes where it was shown, was pretty much firing non-stop.

Also, you're right about the minimum number of Auroras killed in the battle of Asuras. It is five. Good catch on that early background one. To further my notion of the SGU planet core being in some way related to ZPM manufacture, I re-watched it to see if there's any particular mention of why the planet explodes; there isn't, they talk about it attacting neutronium, and then suddenly reach the conclusion that the core will explode.

McKAY (typing on his tablet): OK, the mass is so super-heavy that it's sinking into the planet's surface. If I dial it up just a little bit, it'll attract the neutronium and sink all the way to the core.

CARTER: And the planet will exert enough pressure on it to cause an implosion.

McKAY (typing): Just give me one ... more ...

(His tablet beeps.)

McKAY: Got it!

(Outside, the writhing mass stops writhing and sets solid as it integrates with the neutronium, then begins to sink into the ground.)

McKAY (nervously): Um, we need to get out of here.

DEX: All right, let's go! (To the marines) Come on!

(Rodney disconnects his tablet from the console and Ronon grabs his arm and supports him as they stumble into an open area of the room. The marines gather around them and a transporter beam whisks them away, depositing them onto Daedalus' Bridge.)

McKAY: Much as I'd love to, we shouldn't stick around and watch this go down.

CARTER (to Caldwell): We should tell the fleet to jump to the rendezvous point immediately. The planet's become unstable.

It's possible to interpret McKay's reaction as surprise at the sudden earthquakes as the blob crushes its way into the mantle; no mention is made of the planet exploding until that point. The Wraith in the next episode predict the planet will explode, but it's concivable they know how ZPMs are made (in principle) anyway, from having attacked such facilities before.

So there's nothing to expressly contradict the notion that Asuras had the same kind of planetary core 'generator' in there.