SGU 103, Air Part 3 (Spoilers)

[Bilbo]

The black soldier, my apologies his name just eludes me, so far he is annoying.

Greer. Personally, I find his assholery mildly entertaining and unusually convincing for a Stargate series. Frankly, the idea of an Earth soldier who isn't basically a decent enough guy is pretty refreshing for a change. Both Scott and Greer strike me as being much more realistic soldier-type characters compared to basically everything else Stargate has ever thrown at us. For me, this is part of what makes Stargate: Universe so promising. It's basically the Atlantis scenario, only with a different direction. I'd hesitate to call it the producers trying to do Atlantis 'right', but sof ar Universe is really promising. The shift away from the rather campy good guys fighting space monsters that we've had for the past 300 odd episodes is welcomed, because it was wearing extremely thin (and the writers completely lost it towards the end, as far as I'm concerned). I don't really trust the writers to really capitalise on what they've got, but their approach is so far much more satisfying than Atlantis ever was.

The problem is as I pointed out Greer doesnt make much sense. Even expanded the SGC has its pick of military persons from all of the various branches. What are the odds that a mildy unstable asshole gets selected and then gets kept around on such an important base?

[Zac Naloen]

It could be whatever happened that caused him to be unstable happened whilst on SGC duty, sort of like PTSD type situation that wasn't caught until just before the Destiny incident.

[Johonebesus]

It could be whatever happened that caused him to be unstable happened whilst on SGC duty, sort of like PTSD type situation that wasn't caught until just before the Destiny incident.

But then why continue to put him on the front lines? I thought I saw a few uniformed men, so why not assign the clearly unstable soldier to something with few responsibilities and plenty of supervision, and send someone else on away missions? His aggression just really pissed me off. He needs to be put in his place and kept away from situations where he might snap and hurt or kill a civilian.

[Gil Hamilton]

Chances are they are going to explain WHY he was put in the hole in the first place, based on how the series is going.

I wouldn't be surprised if Greer actually had an exemplary service record and passed his psychological exams, made it into an SGC team, and ended up discovering some of the really fucked up shit out there. That's one thing that Stargate kind of glosses over that SG:U hasn't. Getting involved in the Stargate program is a major paradigm shift from what you thought was reality; discovering that we've got spaceships and portals and that there are a half dozen races out there that would like nothing better than your enslavement/extinction is a major headtrip.

Most of the characters in SG handle these facts in an incredible blase fashion, one of the bit characters in SG:U even commented on it with "I forgot how quickly you take this sort of thing for granted" when talking about the Stargate. It wouldn't be surprising to me if a psych evaluation occasionally (or even often) failed to predict how people will react to these things.

This leads to the problem of what you do with people who snap off-world. You can't merely send them home, because they'd spill the beans. They probably just threw Greer in the clink until they figured out what exactly to do with him. Might as well do it off-world, since that ensures his confinement (he wouldn't be able to escape without dialing home and waltzing into waiting SGC soldiers, adding an extra layer of security). So when shit spectacularly hit the fan and they needed every warm body to survive, well, now they've got someone unstable with a gun because they need ANYONE who can soldier.

That's not a bad set up.

[Zac Naloen]

Scott likes him, thinks he's a good soldier and thinks he can control him and ultimately, Young seems to respect his opinion.

And to be fair, when it is just Scott and Greer, there seems to be some sort of mutual respect thing going on because when he's around greer is controlled. It's when Scott isn't around he's a bit more of a loose cannon.

[Bilbo]

It could be whatever happened that caused him to be unstable happened whilst on SGC duty, sort of like PTSD type situation that wasn't caught until just before the Destiny incident.

Possible except Rush specifically states that he had a say in base personel and says quite clearly he would not have picked Greer. This could mean that Rush is so high on himself that he thinks he would have seen the hole in Greer's personality from the start, or it could mean that Greer has a known issue and that someone vouched for him. Which is what makes little sense, why vouch for someone when you can just skip him and go to someone better qualified?

What do we know about Greer so far?

1. Was in brig for something.
2. He is a thief.
3. He does not respect civilians, which extends to the rather old cliche that he thinks that being military means he can tell civilians to shut up or point his weapon at them, and thinks their complaints is nothing but whining.
4. He wont give up on a fellow soldier.

[NecronLord]

3. He does not respect civilians, which extends to the rather old cliche that he thinks that being military means he can tell civilians to shut up or point his weapon at them, and thinks their complaints is nothing but whining.

Sorry, no die.

He has a perfectly legitimate reason to hate Rush and want him to die, Rush doomed him and some of his friends to die because of his own rediculous hard-on for this nine-symbol address. I would be tempted to put some nice hot lead into his warm fleshy body if he did that to me, too. In fact, I am impressed by Greer's restraint in not laughing and ploughing bullets through the bastard's knees and leaving him to burn on the sand.

Call me when he's that mean to someone who hasn't destroyed his life.

That'd be the same asshole that immediately says "Greer shot him" not "we shot him" or something.

[Bilbo]

3. He does not respect civilians, which extends to the rather old cliche that he thinks that being military means he can tell civilians to shut up or point his weapon at them, and thinks their complaints is nothing but whining.

Sorry, no die.

He has a perfectly legitimate reason to hate Rush and want him to die, Rush doomed him and some of his friends to die because of his own rediculous hard-on for this nine-symbol address. I would be tempted to put some nice hot lead into his warm fleshy body if he did that to me, too. In fact, I am impressed by Greer's restraint in not laughing and ploughing bullets through the bastard's knees and leaving him to burn on the sand.

Call me when he's that mean to someone who hasn't destroyed his life.

First episode he stole and was rather rude to all of the civilians in the gate room. The only two people who deserved his attitude were Rush, who was not there at the time, and the IOC woman, what was his reason for being a threatening prick to everyone else in the room?

[NecronLord]

First episode he stole and was rather rude to all of the civilians in the gate room. The only two people who deserved his attitude were Rush, who was not there at the time, and the IOC woman, what was his reason for being a threatening prick to everyone else in the room?

If you mean stole food, I've seen it said that someone else did that. I'd like a screenshot if you want to make this stick. Otherwise AFAIK, there's no knowing why he was in the lockup. And frankly, even that isn't that bad, it's not good, but it's not terrible 'oh my god what an asshole' behaviour.

What were his reasons for being rude? Being rude is not comparable to 'having no respect' and 'threatening to shoot.' Are you telling me you're never rude when under stress? Now imagine you just got out of the stockade and onto a suicide mission. Yeah. I'm sure you'd be as cheerful as Santa Claus.

[Bilbo]

First episode he stole and was rather rude to all of the civilians in the gate room. The only two people who deserved his attitude were Rush, who was not there at the time, and the IOC woman, what was his reason for being a threatening prick to everyone else in the room?

If you mean stole food, I've seen it said that someone else did that. I'd like a screenshot if you want to make this stick. Otherwise AFAIK, there's no knowing why he was in the lockup. And frankly, even that isn't that bad, it's not good, but it's not terrible 'oh my god what an asshole' behaviour.

I will doublecheck the episode. I remember it being pretty clear that he was swiping a ration bar and sticking it in his uniform while watching to see if anyone noticed.

As for your other comments, I will repeat. No I would not be Santa Claus, but he is supposed to be a member of the SGC. What part of sucide is not a given if your in the SGC but not part of SG-1? At the very least this goes back to him being a poor choice for inclusion in the SGC.

[Agent Fisher]

No, it was a white marine who swiped food.

[JME2]

No, it was a white marine who swiped food.

Aye, and sooner or later, he's gonna get caught and probably lynched by the Icarus survivors.

[NecronLord]

As for your other comments, I will repeat. No I would not be Santa Claus, but he is supposed to be a member of the SGC. What part of sucide is not a given if your in the SGC but not part of SG-1? At the very least this goes back to him being a poor choice for inclusion in the SGC.

Death to defend earth is probably in any soldier's mind, not the same as being trapped on a doomed rust bucket because some cock-face decided he really wanted to screw you over.

[TheLostVikings]

First episode he stole and was rather rude to all of the civilians in the gate room. The only two people who deserved his attitude were Rush, who was not there at the time, and the IOC woman, what was his reason for being a threatening prick to everyone else in the room?

If you mean stole food, I've seen it said that someone else did that. I'd like a screenshot if you want to make this stick. Otherwise AFAIK, there's no knowing why he was in the lockup. And frankly, even that isn't that bad, it's not good, but it's not terrible 'oh my god what an asshole' behaviour.

I will doublecheck the episode. I remember it being pretty clear that he was swiping a ration bar and sticking it in his uniform while watching to see if anyone noticed.

This is the guy who stole the food:



Last time I checked that's not Greer.

[Bilbo]

No, it was a white marine who swiped food.

Aye, and sooner or later, he's gonna get caught and probably lynched by the Icarus survivors.

I hope he doesnt get caught nor lynched.

Not everything needs to be resolved. Just make this part of the no one is perfect everyone is super flawed grimdark nBSG feel they want to give. I think this works best as a tone setter that not everyone here is a self-sacrificing hero and that lots of people stuck on the Destiny are selfish or greedy.

[NecronLord]

Eh. This show isn't worthy of the term grimdark. A group of people fight to survive on a banged-up ship. It's no more grimdark than Apollo 13.

Call me when Earth is doomed and there's no hope.

[Chris OFarrell]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Atlantis.

3 ZPMs - hell even ONE ZPM would be insane overkill.

Stargate address

Dial Stargate

Profit

It really isn't such a hard thing to put together, if I don't get an answer WHY this can't be done -and the idea that a fully powered Atlantis, the frigen capital city of the Ancients and the height of their technology, can't dial Destiny is just nuts- sometime soon, its just going to drive me nuts.

Anyway, this episode I'd give 2.5/5. Nothing REALLY bad and headbanging like in the first episode, but nothing good either that gives me much hope for the series.

[NecronLord]

I've given you a bit of an (imprecise) answer over on SB.com, but I much preffer to discuss it here, so, I'll bite: A ZPM can barely lift Atlantis on its own. It's astounding that such a thing could have the many megatons per second output to do that, but why should a whole planet with a naquadriah core have a lower power output? It's a much, much larger facility. Less convinient, of course, but there's no reason the Ancients shouldn't have had bigger power sources down the years.

To me real question is why the hell all stargates have nine chevrons.

I find it a contrivance that Atlantis can't dial nine chevrons, of course.

[Bilbo]

I find it a contrivance that Atlantis can't dial nine chevrons, of course.

Good question.

If we look at the Stargates in order or design maybe we can learn something. Either our galaxy or the Ori galaxy is the origional network. I remember reading that the Ori galaxy has less symbols and is thus a potentially smaller gate network, but I dont remember if their gates are all digital like the Pegasus Valley gate system. The Pegasus system is newer as evidence by the purely digital system.

My guess would be that origionally he full expanse of the network was not known and they were designed with 9 for maximum number of gates. It is also possible that before the Destiney got too far out you could dial the ship from just about any gate if you had the address. Now that the ship is billions of lightyears away only the special setup with the explodo planet will do.

None of this explains though why no Ancients ever visited the Destiney (assuming Rush is correct). When the Ancients were forced to leave Atlantis you would have expected at least a few of them to travel to explodo planet and from there to the Destiney in hopes of finding a new place to start their civilization.

Side Question unrelated to this issue - This has me wondering. Has it ever been explained why the Ancients abandoned Atlantis? The city had three fully functional ZPMs. There is no reason why she could not have taken off, flown through the Wraith armada then used the superior Atlantean hyperdrive tech to escape. Bringing Atlantis back to the Milky Way 10,000 years ago would have certainly made Atlantean life easier and might have allowed them to rebuild enough to take back the Pegasus Galaxy after a while. In fact once Atlantis was in our galaxy it would have been a curbstomp. Using Puddlejumpers as spies you would learn that the Wraith hibernate. Once you know this you take out the Hiveships on the ground.

--------------

Thinking about it more the Atlanteans should have been able to leave with Atlantis, recover the damaged Orion with the sleeping crew, possibly send a team to recover the one damaged on the mega-volcano planet, and met up with the one trying to cross the gulf between galaxies at near lightspeed. This would have given them 3 warships and a city-ship with which to rebuild in Milky Way for a counter attack on the Wraith some time in the future.

[Darwin]

Brings up some questions about the gate network.

The Destiny has a single piece, manual-dial-only gate, as does the desert planet they visited. It implies that these must be very old gates, compared to the complicated milky-way gates and the digital Pegasus gates. It's sure handy the Kino control devices also apparently function as DHD's.

[Bilbo]

Brings up some questions about the gate network.

The Destiny has a single piece, manual-dial-only gate, as does the desert planet they visited. It implies that these must be very old gates, compared to the complicated milky-way gates and the digital Pegasus gates. It's sure handy the Kino control devices also apparently function as DHD's.

These gates must operate much differently than the more modern gates. The DHD in Milky Way or Pegasus are the power sources for the gates. If you dont have a DHD you have to somehow power the gates and if your in Milky Way you can turn the ring itself.

These ancients gates must have their own powersupply built into the gate or those Kino's have simply awesome powersupplies built into them if they are powering the gates the way a DHD normally does.

[NecronLord]

Ori-galaxy gates (supergates aside) were never shown.

Brings up some questions about the gate network.

The Destiny has a single piece, manual-dial-only gate, as does the desert planet they visited. It implies that these must be very old gates, compared to the complicated milky-way gates and the digital Pegasus gates. It's sure handy the Kino control devices also apparently function as DHD's.

I assume that's a security precaution of sorts. Don't put a convinient DHD down until you know it's not full of slavering monsters.

[ThomasP]

I wonder what the Ancients were hoping to accomplish with the Destiny then, since it requires such extraordinary power supplies to dial.

Surely they'd have foreseen that?*

* Yes, I've seen some of Atlantis and understand the "LOL, ANCIENTS" criticism. Still.

[Gramzamber]

Eh for all we know the Destiny and her sister ship where what the Alterans fled the Ori galaxy in, and were left on a programmed course dumping stargates and generally sending up red flags to distract the Ori while the ancients went to our galaxy, never intended to be seen again.

[Imperial Overlord]

I'm not surprised by the BSG influence. It was a popular, critically acclaimed show and it is going to influence the genre. An stronger emphasis on characterization and realistic instead of technobabble problem solving is good. Following BSG's "we'll just make shit up as we go and worry about it making sense later" and "it's okay its part of God's plan" bullshit would be bad. The Stargate approach to religous menaces should be retained ("Its part of God's plan to wreck our planet? Hmm. How protected is his palace from naquadda enhanced nukes?")

I liked the episode. I didn't have a religious character suffering from heatstroke and potentially in contact with an alien lifeform having religious hallucinations and having real science involved in the CO2 scrubber search was appreciated. I liked that Rush's points were good despite him being an asshole and that Greer's assholishness was limited to Rush, who he has every reason to be pissed at. I don't have a problem with Greer yet. We don't know why he was in the brig and no screening program is going to be absolutely perfect.