SGU 105: Light (Spoilers)

[NecronLord]

Discussion and poll for this episode of Stargate Universe.

[FireNexus]

The ship is gonna drink the star's milkshake. I think that's obvious. Luckily, this show thus far has been entertaining as hell.

[Razaekel]

Why that little...! Christian boy is definitely getting around, I must say. Can't imagine why Eli would want to keep associating with her, even when he knows that she prefers soldier boy.

The writers are definitely gunning for reactions with the prayer session. While the SG-1 dealt with toppling old religions, maybe they have a more nefarious purpose with the larger amount of christian exposure in this show. Possible curveball in future episodes?

And that is an awesome sequence, when the destiny stardives to refuel on the hydrogen. Man, the ride in must have been amazing, not to mention the view above the surface. I myself would've elected to be removed from the lottery, just for the chance to see that. Who cares about eking out an existence when you can ride into a star?

Also, Math Boy saves the day! And that's one rough landing at the end.

Rush is... a bastard. But I like him.

[Slacker]

I really enjoyed this episode. I'm also remarkably impressed by the attempt to actually use science in the show.

[Burak Gazan]

Very good, the 'math boy' line was very well done

The Destiny / Star flyby stuff was all pure starship porn, without any explosions needed at all

And the shuttle, certainly way different from Jumpers, RCS thrusters, chemical engines, sweet

And we find out what Greer was in the brig for; damn, he should have got a medal instead for smacking down Telford

And next week looks interesting, although Eli needs to work on his deliverySpoiler

...looks like we have entered the Hoth System....

[TimothyC]

Good solid episode. We get some back story on why Greer was in the hole, and we see people reacting to the knowledge that they are going to die. Some play cards, some pray (and let's face it - these are not the people that spent 8 years fighting one Goa'uld after another, and thus I expect them to be more religious), and some go off to do their own thing.

[Rommie2006]

Way too predictable. Come on...

Destiny flying into a star, but we know that they will find a way out obviously. First thing that came into my mind was to scoop up some hydrogen for fuel. Writers need to do something better than this.

And the goddamn religion thing is starting to piss me off. Seriously there are some stuff that SGU should not pick up from neoBSG. You want religion? You bring them in as glowing eyes aliens or skinny grey aliens... if not just shut the goddamn religion bullshit.

Seriously whose fucking idea was it to make Stargate all religious-y now?

[Gramzamber]

I really, really hope that the writers are faking us out on this religious claptrap and that it's going to bite the characters in the ass in the form of a new big bad or something (yes I know the writers said there's no big bad, I maintain you can't have a lasting Stargate show without one).

Though I don't think the writers have the guts to do that to their percieved Christian American audience.
If they continue down this route this will not be Stargate, just nBSG with alien ships and without Edward James Olmos.

[Aeolus]

Way too predictable. Come on...

Destiny flying into a star, but we know that they will find a way out obviously. First thing that came into my mind was to scoop up some hydrogen for fuel. Writers need to do something better than this.

And the goddamn religion thing is starting to piss me off. Seriously there are some stuff that SGU should not pick up from neoBSG. You want religion? You bring them in as glowing eyes aliens or skinny grey aliens... if not just shut the goddamn religion bullshit.

Seriously whose fucking idea was it to make Stargate all religious-y now?

Yes because a significant percentage of the population isn't religious
Seriously it's a bunch of modern people about to die of course a bunch get together to pray..

[Gramzamber]

Yes because a significant percentage of the population isn't religious
Seriously it's a bunch of modern people about to die of course a bunch get together to pray..

A bunch of modern people on a million year old spaceship in a universe where virtually every major Earth deity has been proven to be aliens with buckets on their heads.
We saw people about to die all the time in SG-1 and Atlantis without resorting to this blatant pandering which is happening just so coincidentally after the success of nBSG and it's Bible-bashing.

[une]

I liked this episode. It might have gotten kind of boring near the end, because you knew that the ship was going to survive, but I did enjoy the character moments.

Eli's situation was a textbook example of an intellectual whore. I almost died laughing when I saw Chloe lay her head on Eli's shoulder after screwing soldier-boy. The only thing that could have made that moment better would have been if she had said something like, "Oh, Eli you're such a sweet guy. You're like a brother to me."

[Zac Naloen]

We all knew how this episode was going to end, the title of the episode gives it away and we are only 4 episodes into the series, so the predictability of the plot is never a valid criticism.

Trying to trick us into thinking they were going to die wasn't the point at all.

The point was to see how the characters react to the situation.

Some prayed, some played cards, some went off on their own to deal with it in private and we got a plenty of character development to keep things interesting.


Add in the starship porn and I'd say we got the best episode of the series yet, personally.

[DarkAscendant]

Yes because a significant percentage of the population isn't religious
Seriously it's a bunch of modern people about to die of course a bunch get together to pray..

A bunch of modern people on a million year old spaceship in a universe where virtually every major Earth deity has been proven to be aliens with buckets on their heads.
We saw people about to die all the time in SG-1 and Atlantis without resorting to this blatant pandering which is happening just so coincidentally after the success of nBSG and it's Bible-bashing.

All the pagan deities anyway.

[TheLostVikings]

I really liked the episode even though it had quite a few boring moments. But I also have one really massive gripe: When they got power back we saw the countdown clock start up, doesn't that mean there was a stargate withing range? Wouldn't it be fucking obvious to dial out in order to temporarily stop the ship instead of this "lets fire the manouvring jets and almost wreck the only working shuttle for a bajillion lightyears" business they had going on?

Of course it would've dropped all that tension they were trying so hard to build up, but I still can't stop being annoyed by that glaring omission.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The timer was for re-engaging the FTL, not any nearby stargate.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Yeah, timer was time-to-ftl, nothing more. I enjoyed the episode, and I think its very reasonable for ordinary people (and for the most part they are) when faced with death to say 'oh fuck, are we supposed to pray or something? On September 12, 2001, my church was full of people praying for America, and most were folks that I hadn't seen in years or didn't see again after that day. Its a part of our culture, like it or not.

As for Rush, I think he suspected but didn't know for sure, and that suspicion made his decision to withdraw easier. I mean, he's a brilliant physicist and an antisocial prick, he's smart enough to know he'd go insane after a month stranded on a planet, even if Lieutenant Hooters is on that planet.

Also, I really expected Eli and Chloe to start making out.

[Rommie2006]

Yeah, timer was time-to-ftl, nothing more. I enjoyed the episode, and I think its very reasonable for ordinary people (and for the most part they are) when faced with death to say 'oh fuck, are we supposed to pray or something? On September 12, 2001, my church was full of people praying for America, and most were folks that I hadn't seen in years or didn't see again after that day. Its a part of our culture, like it or not.

As for Rush, I think he suspected but didn't know for sure, and that suspicion made his decision to withdraw easier. I mean, he's a brilliant physicist and an antisocial prick, he's smart enough to know he'd go insane after a month stranded on a planet, even if Lieutenant Hooters is on that planet.

Also, I really expected Eli and Chloe to start making out.

Ordinary people? This bunch of ex-Icarus people should be among the best in the world, on the standard of the Atlantis expedition members. Top secret offworld base working on 9th chevron problem... and the IOA would choose ordinary people eh? You don't see the Atlantis expedition members praying to god everytime they faced near death. Sheesh...

Speaking about the quality of this new group, I'm getting pissed off with their whiny "I wanna go home" attitude. Seriously why are all of them freaking out? These people were trained for this kind of shit (except a few civilians), this entire "outer-space" thing should be what THEY WANT. You don't see Atlantis people crying I wanna go home...

[CaptainChewbacca]

Ordinary people? This bunch of ex-Icarus people should be among the best in the world, on the standard of the Atlantis expedition members. Top secret offworld base working on 9th chevron problem... and the IOA would choose ordinary people eh? You don't see the Atlantis expedition members praying to god everytime they faced near death. Sheesh...

Are you serious? They spent a year trying to figure out how to get to Atlantis, and in the end only ONE person on the team that made the offworld dialing work (McKay) went. I would guess only 1/4 of the people on Destiny were supposed to go on the first mission, and these havn't been ideal circumstances.

Speaking about the quality of this new group, I'm getting pissed off with their whiny "I wanna go home" attitude. Seriously why are all of them freaking out? These people were trained for this kind of shit (except a few civilians), this entire "outer-space" thing should be what THEY WANT. You don't see Atlantis people crying I wanna go home...

Again, its a LOT harder on them. Atlantis started with something like 3 months-worth of supplies. By the end of the first day they had beds, a mess hall, and an ocean view out of every room. These are people who have mostly never been in a hardship situation, and while the military people seem to be holding up more than the civvies, when the chain of command no longer has any authority things can fall apart. I think its incredibly realistic, personally.

[ThomasP]

I was already liking Greer more at the start of the episode, for decking that asshole soldier that I've disliked since the beginning. Finding out what he got locked up for just made me more sympathetic, because I can't stand Telford either.

We all knew how this episode was going to end, the title of the episode gives it away and we are only 4 episodes into the series, so the predictability of the plot is never a valid criticism.

Trying to trick us into thinking they were going to die wasn't the point at all.

The point was to see how the characters react to the situation.

Some prayed, some played cards, some went off on their own to deal with it in private and we got a plenty of character development to keep things interesting.

Add in the starship porn and I'd say we got the best episode of the series yet, personally.

Between the title and the speculation in the last thread, yeah I pretty much took it for granted that they'd be refueling, but damn if it wasn't a good scene even so.

I especially liked how they're at least trying to be realistic about spaceflight, even if it is handwaved for TV purposes.

About the only things that have bothered me, and this has been a blanket criticism of the series, is the obvious Scott/Chloe/Eli love triangle that's developing. Any of that teen-drama kind of crap irritates me, but given how they've handled things so far I can let it go.

I know the religious stuff is a big gripe for some, but I just don't see it as being out of place.

I gave this one a 4.5 out of 5, easy.

[Ford Prefect]

You don't see Atlantis people crying I wanna go home...

I don't see anyone calling the Atlantis Expedition a particularly realistic cast of characters, either. Even the best of the best didn't exactly sign up for getting lost on a poorly maintained spaceship they can't control on the other side of the universe. Ultimately, I think you're just too used to the 'humans' of Stargate who act less like people and more like science fiction characters. The fact that we do get people who are afraid, flawed, lonely, angry, whatever (as opposed to witty and intrepid adventurers) is a part of the premise of this series. That's what you signed up for.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I love the names the internet is giving to the characters.

Lieutenant Christfag
Lieutenant Hooters
Colonel Boring
Doctor Lesbian (not actually a doctor)

I don't really remember their names either, I think the Colonel is named Young.

[Zac Naloen]

Really? I haven't had any trouble really remembering their names.

I assume from your list you are talking about Scott, James, Young and Johansson though

[TheLostVikings]

I love the names the internet is giving to the characters.

Lieutenant Christfag
Lieutenant Hooters
Colonel Boring
Doctor Lesbian (not actually a doctor)

I don't really remember their names either, I think the Colonel is named Young.

Considering what happened this episode they need to come up with a new name for at least one of those characters...

And this episode was the first time we even got a hint that Ming Na might not be straight, would've been nice if the crew didn't spell that out 92756592757 times when introducing the series so the character could have gotten some time to develop naturally.

[NecronLord]

Destiny flying into a star, but we know that they will find a way out obviously. First thing that came into my mind was to scoop up some hydrogen for fuel. Writers need to do something better than this.

And you would be wrong. That wasn't what she did. She absorbed radiation with her shields. The things that came out the bottom were most likely thrusters of some sort. They couldn't have been feeds for the reactors, because if they were, then how was Destiny recovering power before they came out?

And if she'd dropped the shields to scoop up hydrogen, then the superheated hydrogen atmosphere would have flooded into every hole in the ship that was letting air out. Added to that, and no mention of 'fusion' or anything like it, we can assume the mechanism we actually saw (shields) was responsible.

A bunch of modern people on a million year old spaceship in a universe where virtually every major Earth deity has been proven to be aliens with buckets on their heads.

Have ya ever been a Christian buddy? Protip: To them, all other gods are false gods and lies anyway; the fact that it was aliens making the lies changes nothing meaningful for a Christian. They can already accept that every other god is a lie and that theirs is not. These guys just happen to know that pagan gods were lies made up by aliens, rather than lies made up by men or satan and his angels. And all pagan gods being lies is what 3,612,229,000 RL people believe - as they believe in one God. Christians absofuckinglouteley do not consider their religion to be the same as Ra worship, or Ares worship. To a believer, the notion would not even join up the way it does for you or I. That's what Monotheism is.

The fact that there was no goa'uld Jehovah would in fact, make them more convinced that their faith is the real one.

We saw people about to die all the time in SG-1 and Atlantis without resorting to this blatant pandering which is happening just so coincidentally after the success of nBSG and it's Bible-bashing.

You saw The Right Stuff people, for the most part. These are just the peons that would work in the SGC kitchen, or the airmen that Anubis would cap in the ass with ease as he walked past.

Ordinary people? This bunch of ex-Icarus people should be among the best in the world, on the standard of the Atlantis expedition members. Top secret offworld base working on 9th chevron problem... and the IOA would choose ordinary people eh? You don't see the Atlantis expedition members praying to god everytime they faced near death. Sheesh...

They never did in the same way. They were always trying to get away somehow. Go find me an episode of Atlantis where they're as completely doomed as 'we're flying into the sun.' With no way to stop it or avoid it. The worst case scenarios for the whole expedition (individual death doesn't count, the hero characters like Rush and Eli weren't going all religious) tended to be 'we'll have to go to the Alpha Site and blow up Atlantis.'

Speaking about the quality of this new group, I'm getting pissed off with their whiny "I wanna go home" attitude. Seriously why are all of them freaking out? These people were trained for this kind of shit (except a few civilians), this entire "outer-space" thing should be what THEY WANT. You don't see Atlantis people crying I wanna go home...

No they were not. They are not the expedition team. If I took a modern US soldier prepped to go to Iraq, and dumped him on Mars with a spacesuit and a few day's supplies, I expect he'd be rightfully pissed off at me. I also bet he'd pray at some point.

Being in the military doesn't make you some kind of hyper-rational superman.

Telford and Rush are the only people we know were slated to actually go. And Telford's eager to get there whenever he can, and Rush is happy as a pig in shit (err, sortof) to be there.
___

I wonder if they can dial Earth again now. Perhaps some of Destiny's capacitors are damaged and she can't actually top-off to that level. (With, at some point in the future, the crew trying to scavenge parts from a stargate seeder ship to allow her to do so)

Destiny was odd in not waiting to retrieve her shuttle; perhaps they need to be manually logged out from one of the control rooms before she knows they've left?

[Alyeska]

I cannot believe the complaints I am seeing people make against this new series.

Its boring, not enough explosions

The team is idiots because they weren't 100% prepared for the expedition

They are all religious fucktards because they prayed when faced with certain death.


Come the fuck on people.