SGU 108: "Time" (Spoilers)

[Bounty]

So, question: If the kino Scott sent through turned up for 2nd Timeline team to find, where the hell was Rush? Rush went through first, so why wasn't he there when the 2nd timers showed up on the planet? They found the kino that came through, but what happened to Rush? If he died going through the gate why wasn't his body there for them to find?

He would be the skeleton they find.

[Revy]

He would be the skeleton they find.

Oh. Huh, I thought the time jump was only a few hours or days. I didn't think it was years.

[Bounty]

He would be the skeleton they find.

Oh. Huh, I thought the time jump was only a few hours or days. I didn't think it was years.

With carnivorous predators, a few weeks or months might have been enough. Days even if there's enough bugs nearby.

[NecronLord]

A few thoughts: Eli's mum really needs to be told about this stuff. Mostly so she can become a Tok'ra host. Surely, everyone would like to see that.

Rush; if he does want to ascend to save his wife, it shouldn't be that hard after actual ascension; though Ascended beings don't seem to be able to travel in time unaided, he could simply use his great power to steal Janus' time jumper and go do the deed. Of course the Others would try and fuck with it, but Oma got away with ascending thousands of people, surely one wouldn't be that great a rules break.

[Revy]

I don't see the connection between the Destiny and ascension though. From everything I've read, the Destiny was abandoned because the Ancients discovered ascension. It sounds like the Destiny is about as far away from discovering the secrets of ascension as you can get without hopping into a Tardis and flying to the very end of the universe.

Does anyone have a quote of what Rush said exactly? It seemed a bit strange to me. He said he doubted that the likes of him or Eli would ever manage it, but it was the reason he was where he was. Is it possible maybe that an ascended being contacted him and told him that he needed to be on the Destiny? That it was important for some reason? That could explain his obsession with getting and being there. Perhaps an ascended being offered to raise his wife from the dead or reunite them again if he did what it asked (regardless of whether it could or not) and so Rush risked everyone's lives to dial the 9th chevron address because some ascended being told him he had to go there?

[J Ryan]

Favourite episode so far, even though the ending was signposted as soon as people started dying the second time around.

He would be the skeleton they find.

Oh. Huh, I thought the time jump was only a few hours or days. I didn't think it was years.

With carnivorous predators, a few weeks or months might have been enough. Days even if there's enough bugs nearby.

Was anytime line given? As long as kino could survive in open ground it could have been years.

[CaptainChewbacca]

No timeline was given. If you watch the episode again, when Scott throws the Kino through the first time (he thought he was throwing it back to Destiny), the recording shows it landing on the ground and Rush is either dead or unconscious in the field of view.

[CaptJodan]

Is it possible maybe that an ascended being contacted him and told him that he needed to be on the Destiny? That it was important for some reason? That could explain his obsession with getting and being there. Perhaps an ascended being offered to raise his wife from the dead or reunite them again if he did what it asked (regardless of whether it could or not) and so Rush risked everyone's lives to dial the 9th chevron address because some ascended being told him he had to go there?

That sounds like something that someone might posit for the old stargate format, but I don't see it easily fitting in with the new format. My guess is, and this is only a guess, that Rush feels that the Destiny is sufficiently far out to find a race not unlike the Ancients who might be able to help with ascension, or something. He probably also hopes to crack the computer code and find out what the Destiny has seen so far in its travels, which might hold keys he's looking for.

Really, the episode this week was vague on what he was actually after, but it still seems like ascension is the new top contender for why Rush is really here.

As an aside, I wonder if they're choosing to go the La Femme Nikita route with the titles here. Each one this season is 1 word. I wouldn't at all be surprised if season 2 has 2 words, 3 has 3 and so on.

[Oskuro]

Nice episode in general, but I'm also of the opinion that the series still needs to define itself, so far it almost feels like an extended pilot.

How so?

They are still gathering resources and stabilizing their position on the Destiny, maybe that's the intention of the writers, to have the whole show revolve around that, but I'm half expecting to have them somehow settled and devoting time to investigating/fixing the ship, as well as trying to find a way home. Really, all this looking for resources is bound to get old soon.

Oh. Huh, I thought the time jump was only a few hours or days. I didn't think it was years.

Considering that in previous instances of solar-flare time travel they were hurled decades through time to the least (with the exception of Sheppard, who had to go and be a show off), it's probably meant to be years.


One thing I've been thinking is why were they on that planet. Did the Destiny anticipate that they would need the creatures' venom to fight the bacteria? One of the notions I really like about this series is having the ship itself be a mysterious character (Kinda like the Event Horizon, but less homicidal), I hope they don't ruin it by having the characters take full control, or talk directly with some lame AI.

[CaptJodan]

One thing I've been thinking is why were they on that planet. Did the Destiny anticipate that they would need the creatures' venom to fight the bacteria? One of the notions I really like about this series is having the ship itself be a mysterious character (Kinda like the Event Horizon, but less homicidal), I hope they don't ruin it by having the characters take full control, or talk directly with some lame AI.

One of two theories come up for me.

1. The ship doesn't always stop just when the crew wants to. It also stops randomly for...whatever reason. Call it scanning the area, or providing a bit more intelligence for later exploration or whatever. The team gates to a planet that might be nice to check out, and they randomly pick this one (or not so random, if most are not habitable).

2. The ship did stop here on purpose, perhaps from some crew request for food. There clearly was some kind of food on the planet, and although the crew didn't find any that seemed particularly editable, I find it unlikely that the Destiny can really tell if food is actually editable with long range scans. Instead, it finds a planet and says "there COULD be food here, and I'm going to give you longer than normal to check for it" (notice how the Destiny's departure time was longer than it was when searching for water or minerals to fix the air supply), and hopes these bumbling fools can find it. I don't, for one minute, think the ship actually is intelligent enough to know for sure either way, but it figured it was the best place to stop to try it out.

[Xon]

The Ancients clearly have experiance with time-travel, as the time-traveling jumper shows it really isn't very power intensive nor does it require much in the way of hardware. Reversing time within an area appears imposible for the Ancients, but sending a message back in time should be very posible.

The Destiny could contain a prototype where the computer recieves information from the future, and plans based on what happens in the actual future and works to fine the better path.

[hongi]

I really liked this episode. One question:

When Scott threw the Kino into the Stargate at the end, isn't it possible that the Kino goes significantly forwards or backwards in time, missing the team when they get on the planet? Or did the solar flare happen exactly as it happened before, affecting the wormhole exactly as it happened before?

[Bounty]

They are still gathering resources and stabilizing their position on the Destiny, maybe that's the intention of the writers, to have the whole show revolve around that, but I'm half expecting to have them somehow settled and devoting time to investigating/fixing the ship, as well as trying to find a way home. Really, all this looking for resources is bound to get old soon.

So, basically, you want it to be a different show - one with a crew on a comfy, working ship trying to find a new way home each week and failing miserably for increasingly contrived reasons.

I think you'll find another SF show tried that formula before. It didn't turn out too well.

One thing I've been thinking is why were they on that planet. Did the Destiny anticipate that they would need the creatures' venom to fight the bacteria?

And how would it do that? If it can register diseases and antidotes on long-range scanners - as you assume it does - it would have known the water was infected and not dialled the ice planet in the first place.

There are many reasons why the ship would want to halt at promising planets. Maybe it's running diagnostics on the local Stargate, or mapping the system, or looking for beacons from the gate seeding ship. Maybe it just takes a while to compute the next leg of the course. But saying the ship automagically knows what the next big plot point is - or, god forbid, uses a magic computer to look into the future and then plays coy about it - is just asinine.

[Starglider]

The Destiny could contain a prototype where the computer recieves information from the future, and plans based on what happens in the actual future and works to fine the better path.

Highly unlikely for two reasons; firstly the Stargate tech was very new when the ship was built, so they probably didn't have a handle on even solar-flare time travel (note that proper time travel technology wasn't mastered until the end of the Atlantis era). Secondly the Alteran council demonstrated an unwillingness to risk 'tampering with causality' (thus Janus having to defy them just to let Weir stay on Atlantis, never mind continuing his research). I don't think an earlier council with less understanding of time travel would authorise a technology that required constant time travel to function.

[J Ryan]

Another thought I've had is whenever we've seen the solar flare producing time loop wormholes the wormhole always engaged correctly.

This time we seem to get some sort of interference.

Even more puzzling is the final time it was locked, it correctly locks the Destiny the solar flare happens and without shutting down the wormhole changes destination.

I can't remember a time this has ever happened in the previous series without large amounts of power being dumped into either side of the wormhole.

Has anything similar ever occurred or is this a limitation perhaps with the "low-tech" Stargates?

[Xon]

Highly unlikely for two reasons; firstly the Stargate tech was very new when the ship was built,

With the Stargate timeline there is several of millions of years between when Atlantis left Earth, and the Wraith finally became an issue. And then there is the estimated ~30 million years the Ancients have been in the milkyway. Beyond that, we have no idea how old the Ancients truely are.

Their home galaxy is likely not in a local group. The Destiny sure as hell isn't any more.

The bottem line is, there is not enough information to determine how old or new the Destiny's stargates are compared to the Milkway ones. Or how old the Stargate technology is compared to the Destiny.

so they probably didn't have a handle on even solar-flare time travel (note that proper time travel technology wasn't mastered until the end of the Atlantis era).

The timetravelling jumper is fairly different. It operates on radically different conditions, there is no wormhole or high-energy event redirecting it. There has to have been prototypes and even theory between finding out Stargates can cause to travel to developing a fully functional time machine with high reliability.

Secondly the Alteran council demonstrated an unwillingness to risk 'tampering with causality' (thus Janus having to defy them just to let Weir stay on Atlantis, never mind continuing his research).

The actual phrase they use is "Causality is not to be treated so lightly.", and given the breath of the Ancients knowledge by this point it is likely they have have actually experianced why this may be a good idea. Especially when you consider if there is a way to fuckup a technology the Ancients probably have done so.

I don't think an earlier council with less understanding of time travel would authorise a technology that required constant time travel to function.

I don't think you can make the call that the earlier Ancients had less or even more understanding of time travel than the Atlantis Ancients. There is literially millions of years difference between the two.

[NecronLord]

Considering that in previous instances of solar-flare time travel they were hurled decades through time to the least (with the exception of Sheppard, who had to go and be a show off), it's probably meant to be years.

Actually, Carter said that Ba'al's time machine had locked onto a point in the cretaceous, during Continuum.

One thing I've been thinking is why were they on that planet. Did the Destiny anticipate that they would need the creatures' venom to fight the bacteria? One of the notions I really like about this series is having the ship itself be a mysterious character (Kinda like the Event Horizon, but less homicidal), I hope they don't ruin it by having the characters take full control, or talk directly with some lame AI.

Possibly. Or possibly it was just finding them food.

[NecronLord]

Highly unlikely for two reasons; firstly the Stargate tech was very new when the ship was built, so they probably didn't have a handle on even solar-flare time travel (note that proper time travel technology wasn't mastered until the end of the Atlantis era). Secondly the Alteran council demonstrated an unwillingness to risk 'tampering with causality' (thus Janus having to defy them just to let Weir stay on Atlantis, never mind continuing his research). I don't think an earlier council with less understanding of time travel would authorise a technology that required constant time travel to function.

The stargate technology was not new. The ship was built between hundreds of thousands and several million years ago, between the plague and ascension. The oldest stargates are fifty million years old.

I agree with your other statements, however.

[tezunegari]

The ship was built between hundreds of thousands and several million years ago, between the plague and ascension.

Actually the Destiny is at least 3 million years old - that is if it was built around the time the (Ori?) plague rampaged through the Milky Way.
I am not quite sure it the architecture of Atlantis has change that much during its stay in Pegasus or if the angle heavy designs were always part of it. Either way it might be that Destiny was launched mere centuries or even just decades prior the departure of Atlantis from Earth - though this is based on quite a few big speculations.

• In SG1 "Frozen" an expedition surveying the place around the Antarctica-Gate found a frozen Ancient who they name Ayana.
  The layer of ice is estimated to be 3 million years old, possibly even older than that.
• In SGA "Rising" Ayana (I believe it was supposed to be her) is seen staying behind in an installation below the departing Atlantis.
  So we can estimate that the departure of Atlantis was at least 3 million years ago.
• In Ark of Truth we learn that one of the Ancients had the idea to create Stargates when they left the Ori-Galaxy.
  I wonder how long their journey from Ori-Galaxy to Milky Way lasted considering that their tech was developed while under the scrutiny of the Ori (they had to hide their technoligy and believe in scientific method so much that it appeared to be much less a hassle to just leave the galaxy)

[Dooey Jo]

Actually, Carter said that Ba'al's time machine had locked onto a point in the cretaceous, during Continuum.

The oldest stargates are fifty million years old.

At least one of these statements must be wrong, or how could it lock onto the Cretaceous if there wasn't a gate there yet?

[Oskuro]

At least one of these statements must be wrong, or how could it lock onto the Cretaceous if there wasn't a gate there yet?

There was no gate at the missile silo SG-1 came out in the first time travel episode, it might be possible for the wormhole to connect to the coordinates of the gate of origin, even if the gate is not there at the destination time.

So, basically, you want it to be a different show - one with a crew on a comfy, working ship trying to find a new way home each week and failing miserably for increasingly contrived reasons.

I don't meant to have them comfortably set in the ship, specially since all the fixing the ship probably needs will be enough of a source of trouble. I mean that I'd like the problems being dealt with to delve a little into the story of the Destiny and its mysteries. For example, when trying to fix the atmospherical leaks in the pilot, they guessed that the ship had been in a battle due to its damage, these types of things I like, solving survival issues and finding out more about the ship all at once.
I'd be dissapointed if, like they've done in the other series, they dumped massive revelations all at once in a two parter or season finale.

And how would it do that? If it can register diseases and antidotes on long-range scanners - as you assume it does - it would have known the water was infected and not dialled the ice planet in the first place.

Firstly, I think the thourough scanning of the planets is being done by the seeding ships, not Destiny itself. It was stated that the task of said ships was to find suitable planets, so I don't think it's too much of an stretch that they perform thourough analysis of potential planets before reaching a decision, an then send the information back to the Destiny.

Secondly, I'm only suggesting that the ship uses the information it has to find the best solution. Even if it knew about the parasites in the water, it would be entirely possible that there was no better alternative at the time, or that it knew it could afterwards lead them to the planet with a possible antidote. It's also entirely possible that the ship expects the crew to have medicine able to deal with the parasites, but on its internal life sensors picking up the infection, it decided to find a solution.

Now, the whole idea of the ship looking for solutions to their problems by itself is presented at the very beginning when they got sent to the desert planet. Considering that Destiny was designed to be self-sufficient, it would follow to assume some level of intellingence or problem solving capacity. It would also follow to assume that in its undamaged state it probably had a direct method of communicating with the crew, and now it is limited, thus the obscure way of presenting solutions.

But then again, all this is just speculation. I like the idea of a mysterious intelling ship being a character, so I speculate in that direction until the show tells us exactly what's going on, just for fun.

[CaptJodan]

Now, the whole idea of the ship looking for solutions to their problems by itself is presented at the very beginning when they got sent to the desert planet.

This is your first mistake, and I think the one you're jumping off and leading into everything else. Rush as much as tells us that he TOLD the ship that they were in trouble, probably telling the ship what kind of trouble they were in. How he phrased that request is anyone's guess, but the ship probably interpreted what Rush needed, and then dropped out of FTL. It did not just think "Oh shit, humans, I need to find some air now" that you make it out to be.

Considering that Destiny was designed to be self-sufficient, it would follow to assume some level of intellingence or problem solving capacity.

That's already been clearly demonstrated. The ship does have SOME problem solving ability, just not the level of ability you want to attribute to it.

It would also follow to assume that in its undamaged state it probably had a direct method of communicating with the crew, and now it is limited, thus the obscure way of presenting solutions.

How does that follow at all? We know the ship predates the ATA gene security system. We've seen no evidence yet of a neural interface system. The best you can say is that in its undamaged state it might tell the crew something on a console, but why would the ancients need it to do that at all?

We're talking about a ship that was launched on autopilot with the eventual plan for the ancients to inhabit it. Once the ancients inhabited it, I doubt very much they expected the ship to do all the work. They don't need to build an AI that "talks to them" about solutions, because they would presumably have full access to all the data the scout ships are sending back, without need of the computer's help. And they could change course, stop, or bypass areas as required.

But then again, all this is just speculation. I like the idea of a mysterious intelling ship being a character, so I speculate in that direction until the show tells us exactly what's going on, just for fun.

I think the ship is a great character so far, but I think the ship is a great character so long as it doesn't become ultra smart. It's taking a certain set of parameters "We need water", and looking through it's data banks for a planet that contains water. Saying "and the ship (either Destiny or the gate-building ships) could detect, on orbital scanners, a microbe that couldn't be found on a microscope until it grew a little" is giving far more credit to the ship than it deserves. Even Atlantis didn't demonstrate such advanced scanning technology. It's far more likely the ship didn't know, and I think the idea of not having a god-like AI is a far better choice than what you propose.

[Covenant]

My favorite episode so far. Not only did I get to see Chloe and Scott die twice, and in hilariously useless ways, but these deaths were extremely valuable windows into people's character. Seeing how they handle the end was nice, people pulled it together, Rush and Eli on point with Greer--who fought it out to the end. Chloe was, of course, useless--but she wasn't baggage and I consider that a little bit of an improvement. Scott was too much of a yelling asshole as usual, but thankfully we're allowed to see how much of an act that is, which I like. Also, letting these characters die twice? That's excellent--it really shows WHY they're the wrong people, without making them incompetent. That's a prefect balance.

So overall, the characters I dislike get softened further by having additional depth and their original annoying elements undermined by better elements, and the characters I like get more context to make me enjoy them more. Some fun continuity from the water, a good ol' Science Fiction Stargate episode with silly time travel and such. I don't think you should be afraid to embrace the silly sci-fi stuff, you can just play it straight, like here. I liked the bit about Rush's skeleton.

As a time-travel reset episode it scores low for "impact to series" but I've never understood why people need constant progression. So I have no problems enjoying it and I felt they made my hour well spent, with good insights into characters, some nice action, homages to the original series and other science fiction movies... overall fun.

[NecronLord]

Actually, Carter said that Ba'al's time machine had locked onto a point in the cretaceous, during Continuum.

The oldest stargates are fifty million years old.

At least one of these statements must be wrong, or how could it lock onto the Cretaceous if there wasn't a gate there yet?

As seen in 1969, you get plunked to a location where your destination should be, regardless. In 1969, they appear in the same place as the Earth stargate will be, but in a different time. They step out of an (illusory? temporary?) gate, which disappears, and they find themselves under a titan missile engine about to be test-fired in that silo.

Therefore, it's not really a problem to go back before the creation of the stargate.

Though it is kinda silly.

[NecronLord]

[*]In SGA "Rising" Ayana (I believe it was supposed to be her) is seen staying behind in an installation below the departing Atlantis.
So we can estimate that the departure of Atlantis was at least 3 million years ago.

Or we could read the subtitles...