SGU 104: Darkness (Spoilers)

[NecronLord]

I don't deny it would have been grimly satisfying to see the evangelical Ori forces having to contend with the Legos from Hell. The IOA proceeded the way they did because the SGC would never agree with the plan.

They've previously shut down the SGC upon the President's order when they knew Earth was going to be attacked. I don't think they'd be any less obedient if he told them to unleash replicators on a bunch of muderous fanatics coming to kill everyone.

Which makes you wonder why the IOA programmer didn't try to do that,

The lack of evidence? They clearly programmed it to be hostile. Reese's bugs never harmed her. Clearly they just forgot to include a 'do not hurt earth humans' directive.

especially as he was able to program a self destruct command and ARG weakness. Either the base code was too complex to reprogram (ala the Asurans in Season 4) or they didn't have enough time and hoped for the best with what he or she had.

They were programmed in fucking java, man.

They just assumed super-aggressive bugs were needed, and in between drooling moronically didn't think it would be worth troubling with limiting the damage they'd do to people not directly involved with the Ori military.

I figured that the Ancients spent their time keeping the Ori from knowing about the Milky Way galaxy and from directly interfering with events in the milky Way. In their own galaxy you see no such limitation.
[]
You see Adria appearing at will,

You see Deus Jackson, Oma Desala, Orlin (he instructed a planet in how to build a weapon without descending) Shifu and Ganos Lal appearing at will. They only slap that last one on the wrist when she actually tries to impart useful information. They don't stop their their own appearing and talking to people, though it's said to be a technical violation of the rules. Adria couldn't even fucking read Vala's mind during Ark of Truth. She didn't even know how to operate the Ark of Truth.

you see the Ori creating the Priors (at least that was what I got from it, that they were created by the Ori directly), they even possess the body of the Doci for entertainment purposes.

The pre-ascended Orici could make priors too. It's likely it's technology.

Then you have the failed attempt to damage the Ori ships by the resistance. Did the Ori stop the attempt? A Prior showed up immediatly back at the bar, suggesting they knew the resistance was there all along and were amused by their useless efforts.

Or it suggests they're not total morons, and comprehend 'informers'

Though I admit your theory is just as likely as mine.

Rather more, I'd say.

[Chris OFarrell]

Just to add a thought here that came again after watching this episode a few days back;

Anyone else think that this COULD have worked a lot better if the Destiny had been a Furling Ship?

I mean a ship that they launched 100,000 years ago would make sense. When they were a real power, putting them perhaps as a middle power that rose when the Ancients were in Pegasus but well before the Asgard started to get involved in the MW.

So we can say that Destiny was THEIR big trip into the unknown, 100,000 years ago they sent it out to Pegasus to try and find the Ancients, who they had reverse engineered a lot of their technology from and were really keen to meet having found where they went. They make contact and have a cordial sort of meeting over time, and they become *very* interested in the whole Ascension angle they have going, which back home over a long time will mutate into a desire to close themselves off and meditate their way to Ascension, through a simple and fun existence without any technology, which we saw the end result of in Paradise Lost of course.

Anyway, that is well into the future of course. Slightly less then 100,000 years back, Destiny leaves Pegasus to go and explore the universe beyond. Over the long centuries and then millennium that follow, they find most of the universe is actually very very boring without life at all advanced on their level of sentience, with one or two exceptions. So they work to 'help' life -resulting in weird and *really* crazy alien shit out heros would find 100,00 years later of course, but over time back home the 'turn hippy and ascend' movement increasingly comes to dominate. Destiny is not always fully crewed or even crewed at all, but people rotate on and off over time.

Eventually, Destiny itself is abandoned as the Furlings seal themselves away from technology and other 'distractions' to 'better' themselves. The Nox of course who have also evolved through this time a bit later are influenced by this, but to nothing like the same level. Finally, the Ancients return from Pegasus and some go to the Furlings for introductions and an explanation for who the frack this 'Ra' guy was who killed a quarter of their people before they were able to get off Earth. The Furlings still have some presence, and serve more or less as people who 'introduce' the Ancients to the Nox and these new Asgard fellas they found on one trip by Destiny early on (and a little more then 10,000 years ago some Asgard decide this Pegasus Galaxy the Furlings talk about would be an awesome place to conduct some 'research' but I digress) and thus the Allience is born


At the very least it might help explain;

1. The crazy time inconsistencies with the launch of Destiny from the MW compared to the 'known' Ancient history.

2. The technological differences in design compared to the rather static Ancient designs far older.

3. Why Rush and Earth were so crazy keen to get Destiny. I mean with Atlantis and the Ancient database in your possession, one old rusy Ancient ship is more or less a laughable reason to spend a billion bucks.

4. Though it still explains why Atlantis had the Gate address.

5. It explains the whole new 'different' FTL from Hyperdrive, which is all the Ancients really have used in millions of years.

6. It explains yet ANOTHER Stargate design, if this is a Furling knockoff like the Nox/Tollen deal, rather then a genuine Ancient design.

7. It could even explain a lot of the similarities to Ancient technology on Destiny if the Furlings cloned Ancient tech for their own tech base, while having subtle differences.

8. And it could open a whole heap a cool new possibilities for all manner of plot devices.

[Imperial Overlord]

Is it just me or are other people getting a Necrontyr vibe off Destiny's design? It makes the "recharge by sucking energy out of the sun" possibility really push to the forefront of my brain.

[Chris OFarrell]

The Necrons aint the first SciFi race who recharged by going and sucking up a bit of a Star you know

Still, if it sucks up the star with massive GREEN beams of some kind or if Eli discovers a Tomb Spider or something, well...

[Imperial Overlord]

I'm aware of that. I'm saying that Destiny's exterior has (in my not at all humble opinion) a Necrontyr feel to it.

[NecronLord]

Mallozzi has said that Rush is wrong about the 'hundreds of thousands of years' and it's millions. The production literature also used 'millions' and says that the thing that prevented it being used was the plague, not ascension - most likely Destiny predates Atlantis. I expect this may be revealed later in the series for some reason.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Is it just me or are other people getting a Necrontyr vibe off Destiny's design? It makes the "recharge by sucking energy out of the sun" possibility really push to the forefront of my brain.

Yes. In fact, I've been trying to think of a way to kitbash a Destiny-like ship to use as a tombship.

[Bilbo]

Mallozzi has said that Rush is wrong about the 'hundreds of thousands of years' and it's millions. The production literature also used 'millions' and says that the thing that prevented it being used was the plague, not ascension - most likely Destiny predates Atlantis. I expect this may be revealed later in the series for some reason.

So this is probably far from the first time the ship has run out of power and its has done these solar flybys many times to recharge the ships batteries. Which would be a nice bit of reality.

I wonder how long before Rush realizes that he was wrong that no Ancients were ever one the ship. Obviously the ship has been occupied at certain points in the past. Otherwise there would be no reason for the ship to tax its power runing life support throughout the ship when it would make more sense to only run it in the gateroom and have the rest activate after someone arrives. Another clue being why would the CO2 systems be all run down and drained if there was no one on the ship generating CO2 for the scrubbers to remove.

[Anguirus]

Anyone else think that this COULD have worked a lot better if the Destiny had been a Furling Ship?

No, because then you have to explain why the Ancients built every Stargate in the universe with nine chevrons in order to dial some "Furling knockoff."

[Solauren]

Do we have any idea how fast the Destiny moves?

I mean, it's been 5 - 6 million years. Even at Gou'ald hyperdrive speeds (roughly 32,000 times the speed of light), that's a considerable amount of distance covered. Like more then the physical diameter of the universe.

[Ragnarok]

Do we have any idea how fast the Destiny moves?

I mean, it's been 5 - 6 million years. Even at Gou'ald hyperdrive speeds (roughly 32,000 times the speed of light), that's a considerable amount of distance covered. Like more then the physical diameter of the universe.

You also take into consideration that Destiny is laying around at times to explore the planets and seeded Stargates, she's not going to be constantly in FTL.

But from what we can gather, she's considerably slower than a ship travelling in Hyperspace would be able to do. Which is why i have a theory that its the original type of Ancient FTL technology, and that all other races simply made the jump to Hyperdrive from having found the Ancient's older technology and improving on it, simply leapfrogging real-space FTL like the Destiny seems to have.

[Zac Naloen]

I wonder how long before Rush realizes that he was wrong that no Ancients were ever one the ship. Obviously the ship has been occupied at certain points in the past. Otherwise there would be no reason for the ship to tax its power runing life support throughout the ship when it would make more sense to only run it in the gateroom and have the rest activate after someone arrives. Another clue being why would the CO2 systems be all run down and drained if there was no one on the ship generating CO2 for the scrubbers to remove.

Whilst we know someone has been hanging onto at least the outside of the ship, it's highly unlikely Destiny is a sterile. CO2 is produced by bacteria, plenty of time for that to screw up the scrubbers.

[Revy]

Does anyone else think that maybe the Destiny is being controlled by an Ancient AI?

*They cannot access the core systems. Why not? If the ship was uninhabited, but was awaiting Ancients to visit and use it, why are the key systems locked out? And this predates the ATA gene. Blocking the key systems makes sense as a security measure to avoid random aliens from stealing the ship, but it might not be as simple as a password protection.

*The ship is uninhabited. We're told it has been running on autopilot. For millions of years? I know it's a piece of junk now, but an intergalactic ship like the Destiny might have been quite valuable back then, so would you trust an autopilot to keep it in one piece? Plus, autopilot is for travelling places that have already been mapped out. Can an autopilot cope with travelling into whole new galaxies? I suppose the advance ships that seeded the Stargates could be feeding maps and nav data to it, but if anything happens to them then it'll be left flying in the dark. An AI on the other hand can cope with new and unexpected situations.

*It seems to know what it's doing and what needs to be done. Maybe. It stopped off at the right planet to get them what they needed to fix the life support, and now it seems it may be navigating a slingshot trajectory to recharge itself at a star, after 'conveniently' dropping out of FTL in a solar system instead of deep space. That sounds like a very sophisticated autopilot to me.

The big problem with this idea is that if there is an AI, why hasn't it communicated with them already. It might be having trouble deciding if they are Ancients or not. Humans and Ancients are physically the same from the outside, and the Destiny predates ATA tech, so it can't tell that way. If they're really going old school Ancient, it might be that the AI is programmed with the actual Ancient language (like the one Jack spoke when he had the repository stuffed in his head) and doesn't know english the way the Atlantian Ancients did, and so is confused by these visitors. To it they look Ancient, but aren't speaking the correct language.

Even if that is the case, the quickest way to find out would probably be to make contact with them. The only thing I can think of then is that maybe the AI is damaged, or it's too busy trying to get the ship up and running again to bother about its visitors yet.

A lot of speculation, but it might be a nice possibility, especially if it could lead to another character being added to the show. SG1 had Teal'c and Atlantis had Ronan and Teyla - adding an alien to a sci-fi cast is pretty common, and since they said in that behind the scenes special that the aliens they encounter won't be of the 'rubber forehead, English speaking' variety, having an Ancient AI computer be the alien cast member might be an idea.

[His Divine Shadow]

Do we have any idea how fast the Destiny moves?

I mean, it's been 5 - 6 million years. Even at Gou'ald hyperdrive speeds (roughly 32,000 times the speed of light), that's a considerable amount of distance covered. Like more then the physical diameter of the universe.

You also take into consideration that Destiny is laying around at times to explore the planets and seeded Stargates, she's not going to be constantly in FTL.

But from what we can gather, she's considerably slower than a ship travelling in Hyperspace would be able to do. Which is why i have a theory that its the original type of Ancient FTL technology, and that all other races simply made the jump to Hyperdrive from having found the Ancient's older technology and improving on it, simply leapfrogging real-space FTL like the Destiny seems to have.

How about the asgard gave the ancients hyperdrive technology? I like to think of it like that anyway. Anything to try and cut down on the ancient dicksucking a bit.

[Johonebesus]

Does anyone else think that maybe the Destiny is being controlled by an Ancient AI?

*They cannot access the core systems. Why not? If the ship was uninhabited, but was awaiting Ancients to visit and use it, why are the key systems locked out? And this predates the ATA gene. Blocking the key systems makes sense as a security measure to avoid random aliens from stealing the ship, but it might not be as simple as a password protection.

*The ship is uninhabited. We're told it has been running on autopilot. For millions of years? I know it's a piece of junk now, but an intergalactic ship like the Destiny might have been quite valuable back then, so would you trust an autopilot to keep it in one piece? Plus, autopilot is for travelling places that have already been mapped out. Can an autopilot cope with travelling into whole new galaxies? I suppose the advance ships that seeded the Stargates could be feeding maps and nav data to it, but if anything happens to them then it'll be left flying in the dark. An AI on the other hand can cope with new and unexpected situations.

*It seems to know what it's doing and what needs to be done. Maybe. It stopped off at the right planet to get them what they needed to fix the life support, and now it seems it may be navigating a slingshot trajectory to recharge itself at a star, after 'conveniently' dropping out of FTL in a solar system instead of deep space. That sounds like a very sophisticated autopilot to me.

The big problem with this idea is that if there is an AI, why hasn't it communicated with them already. It might be having trouble deciding if they are Ancients or not. Humans and Ancients are physically the same from the outside, and the Destiny predates ATA tech, so it can't tell that way. If they're really going old school Ancient, it might be that the AI is programmed with the actual Ancient language (like the one Jack spoke when he had the repository stuffed in his head) and doesn't know english the way the Atlantian Ancients did, and so is confused by these visitors. To it they look Ancient, but aren't speaking the correct language.

Even if that is the case, the quickest way to find out would probably be to make contact with them. The only thing I can think of then is that maybe the AI is damaged, or it's too busy trying to get the ship up and running again to bother about its visitors yet.

A lot of speculation, but it might be a nice possibility, especially if it could lead to another character being added to the show. SG1 had Teal'c and Atlantis had Ronan and Teyla - adding an alien to a sci-fi cast is pretty common, and since they said in that behind the scenes special that the aliens they encounter won't be of the 'rubber forehead, English speaking' variety, having an Ancient AI computer be the alien cast member might be an idea.

AI does not necessarily mean self-awareness, or even human level intelligence. The ship's computer might be sophisticated enough to make very complicated and seemingly intelligent choices and still lack true consciousness or a personality. It might not have the ability to "talk" to the crew beyond the normal operational interface, or make evaluations outside of its programming.

[Ragnarok]

Do we have any idea how fast the Destiny moves?

I mean, it's been 5 - 6 million years. Even at Gou'ald hyperdrive speeds (roughly 32,000 times the speed of light), that's a considerable amount of distance covered. Like more then the physical diameter of the universe.

You also take into consideration that Destiny is laying around at times to explore the planets and seeded Stargates, she's not going to be constantly in FTL.

But from what we can gather, she's considerably slower than a ship travelling in Hyperspace would be able to do. Which is why i have a theory that its the original type of Ancient FTL technology, and that all other races simply made the jump to Hyperdrive from having found the Ancient's older technology and improving on it, simply leapfrogging real-space FTL like the Destiny seems to have.

How about the asgard gave the ancients hyperdrive technology? I like to think of it like that anyway. Anything to try and cut down on the ancient dicksucking a bit.

Except it doesn't work, since Atlantis is at least 4 million years old and fitted with intergalactic hyperdrives, and the Asgard were going around in Sleeper Ships in their own Galaxy only 30,000 years ago in comparison.

[NecronLord]

How about the asgard gave the ancients hyperdrive technology? I like to think of it like that anyway. Anything to try and cut down on the ancient dicksucking a bit.

Personally, I find the 'ancient dicksucking' refreshing; in Atlantis they often came off as boobs who couldn't find their own noses without detailed instructions, maps, recognition documents and a sherpa guide.

[Gramzamber]

How about the asgard gave the ancients hyperdrive technology? I like to think of it like that anyway. Anything to try and cut down on the ancient dicksucking a bit.

Personally, I find the 'ancient dicksucking' refreshing; in Atlantis they often came off as boobs who couldn't find their own noses without detailed instructions, maps, recognition documents and a sherpa guide.

I wouldn't call sending off ships to plant stargates for millions of years unsupervised with no clear goal an act of supreme intelligence either though
That aside I think "Ancient dicksucking" refers to the fact that the writers have the Ancients be responsible for EVERYTHING. Yeah they made the stargates... and hyperdrive... and every single superweapon ever found.. all miscellanious tech is credited to the Ancients.. oh and they made the Replicators.

[TheLostVikings]

I wouldn't call sending off ships to plant stargates for millions of years unsupervised with no clear goal an act of supreme intelligence either though

No clear goal that we know of. They have been aboard the Destiny for how long now? 3-4 days or so? And they are still locked out of the majority of the ships systems. Aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? The ship clearly had an intended goal when setting off, it's just us who doesn't know it... yet.

[NecronLord]

I wouldn't call sending off ships to plant stargates for millions of years unsupervised with no clear goal an act of supreme intelligence either though

I wouldn't call not planting crops and letting your cattle run riot an act of supreme intelligence either. For some odd reason, real humans did this during the Black Death. Oh yes, they had more important things to do. There's no reason to assume the Ancients planned to leave the expedition ships unsupervised so long.

That's a totally inane 'rebuttal' in every way I can concieve. About the only way you could make it worse would be to put in some 4chan memes. An actual problem would be why they never went after they recovered, but given that the Atlantis database only had an address it's quite possible the Ancients on Atlantis never knew specifics of Destiny's mission.

That aside I think "Ancient dicksucking" refers to the fact that the writers have the Ancients be responsible for EVERYTHING. Yeah they made the stargates... and hyperdrive... and every single superweapon ever found.. all miscellanious tech is credited to the Ancients.. oh and they made the Replicators.

They made the Asurans. They didn't make the legobugs.

And honestly, it doesn't bug me. The Ancients are ancient and as far as we know, the most advanced race ever to exist (barring the Ori, who both have achieved the same ultimate accomplishment of ascension under their own power; even the Asgard's technological advancements are negligable compared to Ascension) in the setting.

While I'd like to see more of other races, the Ancients' culture lasted for fifty million years. Their legacy should be immense.

[Chris OFarrell]

Anyone else think that this COULD have worked a lot better if the Destiny had been a Furling Ship?

No, because then you have to explain why the Ancients built every Stargate in the universe with nine chevrons in order to dial some "Furling knockoff."

Not really, the most logical answer is that 9 Chevron addresses are designed for REALLY long range addresses and the Destiny is one of only a few Stargates to be assigned such an address. Or that 9 Chevron addresses really are 'codded' addresses, only allowing connections to a Stargate from a specific Point of Origin, over any distance.

[Alyeska]

Not really, the most logical answer is that 9 Chevron addresses are designed for REALLY long range addresses and the Destiny is one of only a few Stargates to be assigned such an address. Or that 9 Chevron addresses really are 'codded' addresses, only allowing connections to a Stargate from a specific Point of Origin, over any distance.

9 Chevrons acting as a telephone number rather then a cordinate system actually works. Eli already noted that in the pilot. It can't be an actual physical location because the Destiny is constantly moving.

9 symbol address is a specific code to reach a specific gate no matter what, no matter where you are. The question is, do you have sufficient power? Distance determines power.

[White Haven]

Of course that puts a wrinkle into getting home...they know the coordinates of earth, not its nine-chevron code, so even if they happen on a power source, they still need to crack Destiny's computers to find the right code.

[hongi]

Colonel Young: You're sticking with that story?
Eli: Yeah.

Isn't that sexual harrassment? I mean yeah, I laughed at it too but thinking about it, I wouldn't want to be spied on in my bunk...

[NecronLord]

Of course that puts a wrinkle into getting home...they know the coordinates of earth, not its nine-chevron code, so even if they happen on a power source, they still need to crack Destiny's computers to find the right code.

They have found an address already. Presumably it goes to "Terra Atlantis," maybe Dakara, or failing that, the shipyard Destiny was laid down in.