SGU 107: "Earth" (Spoilers)

[Coalition]

Eli calling himself Philip Fry was some pretty vintage Stargate humor too.

I enjoyed that bit also.

One thing I was wondering if the body Eli was put into had an allergy to chocolate. So when he tries to eat his grandmother's cookies, the body starts going into seizures from the chocolate. It'd be nothing more than drama, but at the least, it'd point out potential medical issues for the host bodies, and greater care needed when swapping.

For the stones themselves, I wonder if anyone in the Stargate/Homeworld program is trying to figure out a way to link those stones via a computer, so they can communicate in real time, even if it reduces the number of people by one.

[PREDATOR490]

4

I actually found this episode interesting and a welcome break from the routine episodic stuff they have been throwing out of late. I am largely disappointed at the weapons of Destiny, I wasnt expecting drones or Asgard Beam weapons but those things look equivelent to Goa'uld ship weapons which isnt very impressive.
Of course, it makes sense I guess since the Goa'uld probably leached it from whatever Ancient tech they found lying around.

Dialing Earth this quickly into the season reminds me of Voyager doing similar things in the first season. There isnt even suspense, just the oncoming expectation your going to see the characters dreams smash before your eyes. At best it was just a standard attempt at painting the home team as the 'good guys' at the expense of Telford etc. I found the 'glitch' situation amusing during the sex scene but the rest was rather unimpressive for comedy value.

As for the overall plan itself, I get them trying to send people BACK being a problem but using a blackhole to power a gate should allow a connection TO the Destiny much like they did with the Ori supergates. Its also interesting they dont try and dial from Atlantis when they got supplied with a full set of ZPMs in "Enemy at the Gates"
If Atlantis dosent have the power to dial the Destiny then it really begs the question how the fuck were the Ancients supposed to do it ?
If it requires more ZPMs then Rodney and co. needs to quickly figure out how to start making them otherwise Destiny is effectively unreachable.

Although if range is THAT much of an issue for power it brings up a question of what the Ori were using to power the connection for their supergates and how far the Ori galaxy is from the Milky Way. Incidentally, the rotating mechanism to the gate is a nice nostalgic return to SG-1 but it really is annoying. Suddenly I see why the Ancients deciced to employ the instant-dial Atlantis gates rather than sit for 10 minutes while the thing spins constantly. I have to say that RDA is looking pretty bad in SGU and his role seems to be nothing more than a weak cameo guest star designed to give the 'I've been there, done that so STFU' speach.

As for the future, I'm betting there is going to be a power play between Earth and the Destiny crew which is possibly going to end up in a mutiny situation. With that in mind, the stones might not be that bad a concept for dramatic value but its going to quickly get old watching more of this body swap gimick.

[CaptJodan]

I am largely disappointed at the weapons of Destiny, I wasnt expecting drones or Asgard Beam weapons but those things look equivelent to Goa'uld ship weapons which isnt very impressive. Of course, it makes sense I guess since the Goa'uld probably leached it from whatever Ancient tech they found lying around.

I was disappointed with Atlantis' weapons (specifically, their rate of fire and saturation of drones was less impressive than any old outpost), and given that this ship seems quite a bit older than Atlantis, it tracks pretty well. I wouldn't at all be surprised if Destiny's weapons are on par with early or mid SG-1 Hatak weaponry. At least they don't have an ammunition problem, save exhausting their reserves.

If Atlantis dosent have the power to dial the Destiny then it really begs the question how the fuck were the Ancients supposed to do it ?

Presumably, the ancients would never have waited so long to actually go to Destiny. I get the distinct impression that the ship was never designed to be going on this long (kinda like the Mars rovers) or go as far as it has.

Although if range is THAT much of an issue for power it brings up a question of what the Ori were using to power the connection for their supergates and how far the Ori galaxy is from the Milky Way.

A black hole, and probably not even a fraction as far out as Destiny is now, I imagine. Definitely not outside the Virgo Super Cluster.

[bilateralrope]

If Atlantis dosent have the power to dial the Destiny then it really begs the question how the fuck were the Ancients supposed to do it ?

Presumably, the ancients would never have waited so long to actually go to Destiny. I get the distinct impression that the ship was never designed to be going on this long (kinda like the Mars rovers) or go as far as it has.

The other option is to stargate to one galaxy, then the next, and so on until they reach the Destiny.

[NecronLord]

Or maybe they would have had equipment to make a naquadriah planet to dial back with.

Or, given that at least one science advisor thinks the one-way limit of the stargate is a safety protocol, that Apophis disabled to step through backwards in the pilot, the Ancients could have deliberately made Destiny unable to dial back, so that they'd have to lock in for people to come home. For all we know, it could be that Destiny only has the address as a precaution (or that that address is a trap) and was never intended to dial "Terra Atlantis" under its own power.

[xerex]

Of all the reasons not to have an abominable Eli/Chloe relationship, to fall back on the ridiculous concept of an unbreakable 'friend zone' is mind-boggling. Don't be fucking immature, people date anyone they want, this 'friend zone' meme is garbage. If Eli suddenly got a) physically attractive and b) a pair of functioning balls, he might have a chance, it's got nothing to do with 'friend zone' status.

youre leaving out the other half of the equation-- Chloe.

if under all that emotional stress, betrayal by her best friend, her epiphany about her life, her missing her dad, alcohol AND Eli being in a more attractive body she STILL didnt make a move on him then she just AINT gonna make a move on him .

[tezunegari]

Nice episode.

I nearly choked on my drink when the first stone-glitch happened.
(Could it be considered as cheating if Telford is married?)

Presenting the IOA as the bad guys (again!) was too much for my SoD though.

But somehow the scene with Eli talking to his mother left something out...
When he talked about how close the swap-body is to Eli... I somehow expected his mother to drop the
'Eli is gay...' line. With how much the (McKay-ish socially inept) swapped-Eli praised himself and made it out to be best buddies to talk about
the illness of his mother... Though she might have recognized his behaviour at the end when he had the chocolate chips.
(It just looked too much like a habit of Eli as he took a few to snack on.)

And poor St. Riley. Just got 30 and doing his job probably saving everyone on Destiny. Spoiler

I checked Haig Sutherland's (Riley's actor) imdb.com site.
He is credited for 7 episodes of SGU.
If the entries there are to be trusted he will appear in the season finaly "Incursion".

It is interesting how ambiguous Dr. Rush is displayed by the writers / handled by the other characters.
He does appear to know more about Destiny's functions and inner workings.
I wonder if the dialing would have worked... and Rush sabotaged it to stay. Or maybe the dialing would have had
the catastrophic outcome he was making up.

O'Neill appeared rather out of character in the first moment but one has to remember he bend/broke rules
while either being a Colonel in the field or a newly appointed Brigadier General (1-star).
He now is a Major General (3-stars) and as it appears the military leader of Homeworld Security.
So I think he has to go through a lot of politics to get things his way and can't be as laid-back as he used to be.

[Covenant]

youre leaving out the other half of the equation-- Chloe.

if under all that emotional stress, betrayal by her best friend, her epiphany about her life, her missing her dad, alcohol AND Eli being in a more attractive body she STILL didnt make a move on him then she just AINT gonna make a move on him .

Okay, leaving aside the whole nonsensical 'friend zone' thing people invented to give themselves a reason not to feel bad that they don't have the guts to ask a girl out while she's actually single, you're wrong that I'm forgetting Chloe, but you're not understanding: The whole "Eli needs some balls" thing isn't "Eli needs to be manly," but "Eli needs to make a move." Or more specifically, he needed to make a move before she found someone else who cares about her on Destiny.

You're really assuming an awful lot if you think alcohol + emotional duress = pants off every single time for every single individual. Plus, he's just in the body of a skinny nerd, not a male model--skinny nerds may not be Chloe's type either. She's angry at her friend, it's not like she lost Scott. If she found Scott back in bed with James then maybe Chloe would run to Eli. Or maybe if Eli had shown even the barest hint of actual affection for her, she might have then. But this "friend zone" thing is horseshit, even if it's popular horseshit. It's as moronic as saying "oh, he's just too much of a nice guy, and girls never like nice guys," especially in the context of a show where the characters are being written to enhance the drama--and there's very little drama watching the rich party girl date the aimless manchild.

[spaceviking]

anybody else notice O'Neil has put on some weight?

[JME2]

anybody else notice O'Neil has put on some weight?

His Divine Shadow made a similar observation during the pilot. RDA's had foot surgeries over the last year, IIRC; he hasn't been able to get around much, though he should be back in shape for next Jack O'Neill-centric DTV.

[Solauren]

What I'd like to know is why are they not sending back the addresses in Destiny's database to attempt to reach them via Intergalactic leapfroging?

From the Milky Way to Pegasus to Next One (repeat) until they reach Destiny. Get the original team their, with supplies needed to get home.

Sure, it could take a while, but at least it's something.

Or whatabout using a Asguard updated ship, putting a ZPM on it and saying 'GO MAN GO'.

[Zac Naloen]

They've only been there like a week or two.

Trying to dial whilst in a star is literally the first idea they came up with that had the benefit of being able to get them home now.

[White Haven]

Because they'd have to cart one or more ZPMs along with them and hook them up every time they tried to dial another extragalactic gate. They don't have a huge supply of them to begin with, and they're a nonrenewable resource.

[Covenant]

What I'd like to know is why are they not sending back the addresses in Destiny's database to attempt to reach them via Intergalactic leapfroging?

From the Milky Way to Pegasus to Next One (repeat) until they reach Destiny. Get the original team their, with supplies needed to get home.

Sure, it could take a while, but at least it's something.

Or whatabout using a Asguard updated ship, putting a ZPM on it and saying 'GO MAN GO'.

As WH stated, you'd need lots of ZPMs, and we don't have lots of ZPMs, to do leapfrogging. It only worked for Rodney's gate-chain because they had placed them in space specifically for that purpose.

Sending a ship is possible, and will probably be Plan D, since even at high speed it could take a long long time to reach Destiny, and you can probably bet that the Lucian Alliance will show up to keep us from committing our ship resources to the Destiny operation. However, outside of interventions by the Lucian Alliance, a Daedaulus-class 304 can reach the location of Atlantis in a week if ZPM powered, and three weeks if not. That's a galaxy away. If you watch the flightpath of Destiny it seems like they've gone about 8-9 galaxies from Earth:



So if we presume the distance to Pegasus has been roughly average as far as Galactic Jaunts go, and we ignore the fact that Destiny hasn't gone straight away from Earth where it was apparently launched, then we could set an inflated "lower limit" at around 2 months to half a year before they're able to reach the same distance that Destiny has taken thousands if not millions of years to cover. Overall, it's like catching up to a turtle in a jet fighter, so it shouldn't be an issue. They're either going to have to invent some insane reason why we can't just fly over and dock with Destiny or really heat up the Lucian war against Earth to make it impossible to spare a ZPM and a 304 for a year-long journey.

Personally, I like the idea of Earth being unable to spare the ships to save Destiny's crew, combined with Rush dragging his feet on any evac plan that isn't 101% undeniably safe, to give the plot time to create a reason why Destiny needs to be left alone. A technical/science reason for it will almost certainly be absurd given how fast Carter's flagship is able to move, let alone the speeds they can reach if they deploy Atlantis herself. Plus, it will make it feel more Stargatey and keep the focus on emotional and pyshological terrors and stressors rather than technological ones. If they make our guys struggle versus broken technology it just makes them look like a team of emotionally maladjusted short-bus scientists. If they struggle for help from Earth, they look victimized and heroic. It's why I felt Earth was a much stronger episode for the characters than, say, any of the others yet.

[xerex]

Okay, but you're not understanding: The whole "Eli needs some balls" thing isn't "Eli needs to be manly," but "Eli needs to make a move." Or more specifically, he needed to make a move before she found someone else who cares about her on Destiny.

Plus, he's just in the body of a skinny nerd, not a male model--skinny nerds may not be Chloe's type either. .

ok I agree with everything you said except for the skinny nerd bit.

In my experience the body Eli was borrowing would be considered quite attractive..

[Zac Naloen]

Sending a ship is possible, and will probably be Plan D, since even at high speed it could take a long long time to reach Destiny, and you can probably bet that the Lucian Alliance will show up to keep us from committing our ship resources to the Destiny operation. However, outside of interventions by the Lucian Alliance, a Daedaulus-class 304 can reach the location of Atlantis in a week if ZPM powered, and three weeks if not. That's a galaxy away. If you watch the flightpath of Destiny it seems like they've gone about 8-9 galaxies from Earth:

That graphic shows that yes, but when they go off screen the sound effect for each new galaxy is continuously going in the background. They are way more than 8-10 galaxies out.

[CaptJodan]

That graphic shows that yes, but when they go off screen the sound effect for each new galaxy is continuously going in the background. They are way more than 8-10 galaxies out.

Agreed. That, and we are continuously reminded that they are billions of light years from home, which puts them well...WELL out of the Virgo Supercluster. 8-10 galaxies away? Probably not.

[Covenant]

That graphic shows that yes, but when they go off screen the sound effect for each new galaxy is continuously going in the background. They are way more than 8-10 galaxies out.

Agreed. That, and we are continuously reminded that they are billions of light years from home, which puts them well...WELL out of the Virgo Supercluster. 8-10 galaxies away? Probably not.

Ahh, I didn't catch that. Then it's quite possible that they're going to be years away from Earth, even at maximum speed, and any 'rescue' from Earth will be basically irrelevant unless they can stabilize the ship in the meantime. A lot more simplified.

[tezunegari]

With the ZeePM boosting her engines, she should be here inside of four days. That is how long we have to hold this base.

A BC-304 with ZPM can make a trip to Pegasus in 4 days. I always thought that the arrival of the Daedalus was faster because Atlantis personel was surprised of Sheppards rescue. So I assume they did it in 3 maybe even 2 days.

I dare to remember that it was stated that without a ZPM a BC-304 needs 3 weeks (or 21 days)to travel the same distance - though I doubt they used the maximum speed available when there was no threat to Atlantis. [SGA Intruder ???]

In reality there are 2 galaxies known as Pegasus - both are satellite galaxies of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy - 2.527.000 lightyears

Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy - 3.300.000 lightyears

Gateworld.net gives the distance from Milky Way to Pegasus between 3.260.000 to 3.500.000 lightyears.

Now if my Math Fu is still strong enough that would give us the following numbers regarding BC-304 speeds:

v = distance / time

time / 365.25 = fraction of a year

x... multiples of lightspeed

distance / fraction of a year = x

• Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
  • non-ZPM: ~5.014 ly/h - or 43.951.750*c
  • ZPM - 4 days: ~26.323 ly/h - or 230.746.688*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~35.097 ly/h - or 307.662.250*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~52.646 ly/h - or 461.493.375*c
• Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy
  • non-ZPM: ~6.548 ly/h - or 57.396.428*c
  • ZPM - 4 days: ~34.375 ly/h - or 301.331.250*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~45.833 ly/h - or 401.775.000*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~68.750 ly/h - or 602.662.500*c
• Pegasus Galaxy (Gateworld.net 3.26)
  • non-ZPM: ~6.468 ly/h - or 56.700.714*c
  • ZPM - 4 days: ~33.958 ly/h - or 297.678.750*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~45.277 ly/h - or 396.905.000*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~67.916 ly/h - or 595.357.500*c
• Pegasus Galaxy (Gateworld.net 3.5)
  • non-ZPM: ~6944 ly/h - or 6087500*c
  • ZPM - 4 days: ~36458 ly/h - or 319.593.750*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~48611 ly/h - or 426.125.000*c
  • ZPM - 3 days: ~72916 ly/h - or 639.187.500*c

If my thought process is flawed... corrections are welcome - flails and flamethrowers not so much.

Now we now that Destiny is definitely older than 3 million years (age of the ice layer where Ayana was found in SG1 "Frozen") as Ayana was present at Atlantis' departure from Earth (SGA "Rising - Part 1").

we are continuously reminded that they are billions of light years from home

http://www.jimloy.com/math/billion.htm
Do we know which of the 2 scales the SGU writers are using?
short scale: billion = 10^9 (long scale "milliard")
long scale: billion = 10^12 (short scale "trillion")

If Rush uses long scale they truly are fubared.

edit: The US is using short scale only. The UK too I think. Rush is from Glasgow which makes him Scottish... does anyone know what scale they use?

[PREDATOR490]

I wouldnt recommend sending a ship at Destiny anyway without using Destiny's logs to identify what they might encounter. It already appears Destiny picked up a hitchiker and has been through a battle so sending an X304 after the Destiny is very likely to run into whatever races are floating around out there.

That said, the leapfrogging approach can still be used via using Blackholes to power the gates. At the very least they can dial closer galaxies without the need to drain a ZPM. Of course the Lucian Alliance could easily intercept such a bridge but if they were to start it from Pegasus it might work better. Although logically, they could simply go to the IDA galaxy where there is no Wraith, Lucians OR anyone else to mess with the gate.

[Solauren]

We've seen Asguard hyperdrives do intergalactic in minutes.

MINUTES.

Even if there max speed is only 1 million light years per minute (which is jaw dropping by any standard), even if the Destiny is literally on the other side of the universe (30 billion light years away), that's only 30000 minutes/500 hours, 20 days.

Now, that's assuming we've built a ship using all the Asguard tech and knowledge they gave us.

40 days round trip is annoying as hell, but doable.

This begs the question; would a ZPM be able to do it? And did the Asguard give us the knowledge to build more ZPMs?

[NecronLord]

UK (which includes Scotland) now uses the short scale for billions in almost all cases. For a long time we were the only holdout for long scale.

We've seen Asguard hyperdrives do intergalactic in minutes.

MINUTES.

Even if there max speed is only 1 million light years per minute (which is jaw dropping by any standard), even if the Destiny is literally on the other side of the universe (30 billion light years away), that's only 30000 minutes/500 hours, 20 days.

There is this thing called fuel. Hyperdrives can also be burnt out by running them close to their limits for too long, so wear is also a risk.

Now, that's assuming we've built a ship using all the Asguard tech and knowledge they gave us.

Which would be rather laughable, we see the scale of industry being used to build the O'Neill; it requires substantial work, far more than a 304.


I hold out some hope that Ori ships do not need fuel, given that we saw their reactors as a big empty space with some stuff in it (like project Arcturus) which may imply they use true ZPM. If so, they should be able to go out and get it.

Any other ship, may well run out of fuel long before they get there.

Or they may not. We see that replicators can generate intergalactic power easily, by themselves, so perhaps it's always some kind of ZPM thing, even for the asgard.

[JME2]

Because they'd have to cart one or more ZPMs along with them and hook them up every time they tried to dial another extragalactic gate. They don't have a huge supply of them to begin with, and they're a nonrenewable resource.

Unless it turns out Atlantis has had a ZPM manufacturing plant all this time and we didn't find out about it until after its return; for a city that was meant to travel through space, it just never made sense that Atlantis didn't have such a facility on board.

But Necron Lord's right -- a rescue attempt wouldn't be a spin around the block to Ida or Pegasus. Fuel and spare parts are a concern. I'm very curious if the SGC is going to eventually be forced to write off the Icarus survivors and what effect that would have on the military and civilians, especially in the wake of Telford's PR damage.

[Covenant]

But Necron Lord's right -- a rescue attempt wouldn't be a spin around the block to Ida or Pegasus. Fuel and spare parts are a concern. I'm very curious if the SGC is going to eventually be forced to write off the Icarus survivors and what effect that would have on the military and civilians, especially in the wake of Telford's PR damage.

I certainly hope so. That's exactly what this show needs, really--a real sense of being alone. Having these stones is a real disaster at the moment, it's like watching Alien take place in a ship where all the corridors are lit and have camera surveillance. Oh no, will someone get homesick? Good thing they can just teleport home and have sex!

The stones would have been better off with just one of them, which would have made it possible to communicate with home, but limited to just some senior personnel, or Rush could have hidden it to control information flow... or something. And then you could lose that one, and then oops! No more talking to Earth!

Maybe they'll nuke the stones some other way at some point, but while I really enjoy seeing Earth, I think it makes this too painless a seclusion, for the moment. Being written off entirely would be a great way to give them something to actually feel bad about.

[Revy]

Unless it turns out Atlantis has had a ZPM manufacturing plant all this time and we didn't find out about it until after its return; for a city that was meant to travel through space, it just never made sense that Atlantis didn't have such a facility on board.

I would have thought that were this the case, genius inventor Janos may have said something about it to Weir when she time jumped back to Atlantis and told him her team was going to die due to ZPM depletion. He had to come up with that rotating module trick to save the power. If there was a ZPM plant in the city, surely he would have simply pointed it out to her so she could turn it on and bang out a few spares, and leave them in the power room for Rodney to find back in the present.

Here's a crazy idea for getting the Destiny crew back - the Stargate can scan a person and rebuild them at the other end of the trip. If they could find a way to visually examine the actual data that gets imprinted on a Stargate when a person passes through it, then have someone stare at the data until they have visually glanced at it all (yeah it'll be a lot, but how long would it take - a week, two, tops?) then have that person use the stones. A tok'ra memory gizmo then gets strapped on their head and a recording of the data is taken from their memory. Using either an Asgard transporter, or a set of rings, or even a Stargate in the milky way, that data could be used to materialize the person scanned.

Of course all this does is get you a copy of a person back on Earth. I suppose you could destroy or dematerialise the original, but isn't that pretty much what Stargates and transporters do anyway? I suppose that with the stones there might be a way to transfer the persons actual original consciousness into the copy body you made, maybe with Machello's body swap machine or with the Asgard mind transfer tech they were always using to move into new clone bodies.