SGU "Space" [season 1 episode 11]

[NecronLord]

Well folks, what did you think of this long-awaited episode?

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I'm not sure I understand your rating scale. Are you actually rating an episode of Stargate Atlantis over an episode of SG1 dealing with Sam's father?

[CaptJodan]

Not horrible, though a bit convenient. A lot of the episode really relied on a bit of contrivances and pretty incompetent aliens...or maybe just incredibly weak aliens.

Chloe remains useless, and adds stupid to her list of faults. No no, run towards the alien light.

We see the Destiny salvaged the Pegasus' guns. Seriously, I watched the scene with the big weapons and thought "Oh, Pegasus' forward battery".

I couldn't help but continue to wonder throughout the episode why the Destiny, with all of it's fairly smart AI being able to do a great deal of the piloting, didn't think to jump into hyperspace the moment it was fired on. That really doesn't make much sense to me. The ship knows immediately when it needs to head to the nearest star to recharge, but its programmers didn't program in a "run first, shoot only as a last resort" directive? Granted, it would have solved the episode a bit too well, and I know a lot of fans hate the fact that the Destiny does auto-solve a lot of it's problems, but from the standpoint of the ship's survival, I don't understand why it didn't jump. Perhaps it needs time to recharge it's engines somehow...it's not just about stopping to sight see all the time.

The shuttle's extreme combat capability, with 1 ship against a whole swarm, seemed a bit excessive. The alien craft must be pretty bad performance wise.

Overall, the episode felt kind of like a lot of episodes that have to reboot things back to the way they were do. I was expecting we'd get Rush back much later, and I'm kind of disappointed that he came back so soon, even though I like the character. I'm still waiting for Chloe to become useful.

And Eli is finally starting to get a little on my nerves.

[adam_grif]

Wait what, it's out?!

Damn you Australia!

[Burak Gazan]

Canada too, in progress

[NecronLord]

I'm not sure I understand your rating scale. Are you actually rating an episode of Stargate Atlantis over an episode of SG1 dealing with Sam's father?

That particular statement was rather sad in its original context because she couldn't explain exactly what her real job was. Jacob may be great, but that was rather a sad moment. In comparison the 'we might be able to get the city to fly' is quite fun, as was the first sight of a stargate in orbit.

It's subjective (and a little random) mind, but hey, I don't claim to be impartial.

And with that, I bow out of this thread until I see the episode.

[Burak Gazan]

It wasnt bad, although I wondered about the shuttle -- either REALLY big guns on something so small, or the alien assault ships were eggshells with limited -or no - shields. Was a bit of a shock to see Rush back so fast, and like that, but we all knew he was going to be back anyways, just when.

And Chloe.... yes, the ship is under attack, everyone is supposed to stay out of the way , and what does she do? Lets run out and see what is cutting through the hull If this show had an equivalent stupid Neelix moment, this was it.

And our dear Colonel -- well .... willing to blow Chloe away in order to kill Rush -again. Fascinating little shit he is becoming, this is gonna be very interesting. And Eli continues to be his Rat, I think in the near future that is going to have consequences.

The ending, fascinating -- seemed to imply there will be more power struggles coming, and soon. And, it sure gave me the impression Camille was in on the framing of the last episode. Ah,wheels within wheels

[Themightytom]

Availability Notes:The episode airing on Friday, April 2 may be delayed due to technical issues. We will post it as soon as it becomes available.The first three episodes will be available the day after air; subsequent episodes will be on a delay.

Daminit hulu!!

[adam_grif]

Oh lawdy, why did Rush come back so fast? When the main guns on the ship deployed, I was like YEAH TIME FOR SOME PWNAGE!

And then they did practically nothing. Destiny, I am disappoint.

[Themightytom]

Lt james is getting some empathetic character growth. She's heroicly trying tos ave crewman, putting her foot in her mouth with the fellas, bonding with Johansen, and er... crying at the end. I think Blond psych trainee is missing some cues here

Well Eli pretty much shit himself under pressure, that was... not encouraging. Good to know when the going gets tough... Eli throws a tantrum.

The Team really needs to work on procedures during battle, like stay in your room and don't walk willingly into the boarding pods when tehy breach the ship. Don't stand near windows during a firefight. Don't hide around the corner when you are armed and you see a stupid little girl wandering towards danger. Etc Etc.

For about ONE minute I started to like the Rush character, and then he turned back into the doucheweasel I was happy to see left on the planet. And you know what, no amount of musical montage is going get me to like the IOA chick.

[Coaan]

Having just watched the episode, I agree with pretty much every thought above, though I think they should take it one step further with IOA chick and have someone push her out a goddamn airlock. She's worse than Chloe.

She couldn't hack leading the ship when Rush (and herself, possibly) framed Young and took control....she froze up and generally acted like all the wrong stuff, yet continually tries to oust Young? Way to go. You're not only incompetent, you're hell bent on breaking any effective leadership that Destiny might have.

The space battle was also a bit underwhelming, but it's nice to see something besides backstabbing and people frolicking/sulking.

[DesertFly]

I couldn't help but continue to wonder throughout the episode why the Destiny, with all of it's fairly smart AI being able to do a great deal of the piloting, didn't think to jump into hyperspace the moment it was fired on. That really doesn't make much sense to me. The ship knows immediately when it needs to head to the nearest star to recharge, but its programmers didn't program in a "run first, shoot only as a last resort" directive? Granted, it would have solved the episode a bit too well, and I know a lot of fans hate the fact that the Destiny does auto-solve a lot of it's problems, but from the standpoint of the ship's survival, I don't understand why it didn't jump. Perhaps it needs time to recharge it's engines somehow...it's not just about stopping to sight see all the time.

I think it had to do with the fact that Destiny was connected to an active Stargate. I'd imagine that the designers wouldn't want to leave people behind if the ship was suddenly attacked while people were on a planet, so it probably is only programmed to jump out if the battle is going extremely badly, which the one in tonight's episode didn't, boarding action notwithstanding.

[Xon]

Not horrible, though a bit convenient. A lot of the episode really relied on a bit of contrivances and pretty incompetent aliens...or maybe just incredibly weak aliens.

Humans have always held a 'special' spot in Stargate, that they are physically powerful and capable of mindraping an alien with thier own technology should not be consider suprising considering Humanity is an Ancient project.

The shuttle's extreme combat capability, with 1 ship against a whole swarm, seemed a bit excessive. The alien craft must be pretty bad performance wise.

You are comparing it against an Ancient ship, and the alien mothership still tanked a considerable amount of attacks from the Destiny. The Ancients have been the standard in technological overachievement(but not the best implementation) in the setting baring corner cases.

[Siege]

Frankly as much as I think Camille Wray isn't cut out for a command position I don't fault her for trying to get rid of Young as the CO. He's running the ship by virtue of having everybody with guns obey his orders and he's far too authoritarian for my tastes, if I were a civilian aboard Destiny I wouldn't be too comfortable with having him in charge either.

And yeah, I still find myself rooting for Rush at every turn: he is an asshole, but he at least knows what he's doing. Compared to the good doctor the rest of the crew seems to be blind in the dark. Besides... Mind-hack an alien, save the girl, hijack a shuttle and high-tail it out of the giant mothership before it can jump to FTL? That's a pretty damned good showing for a guy who I doubt has had much in the way of combat training. Go Rush!

EDIT: I do wonder though why the Ancient communication stones locked onto that one particular alien and not anybody else. After Rush strangled it the stones stopped working, so what was it about that one that the stones locked onto him?

Humans have always held a 'special' spot in Stargate, that they are physically powerful and capable of mindraping an alien with thier own technology should not be consider suprising considering Humanity is an Ancient project.

It's not so much that as it is that the alien mind-hack devices clearly were a one way street: someone wearing the red device could access the mind of a person wearing the yellow one, but not the other way around. As soon as Rush had the yellow thing he'd been wearing fitted to the alien, it was pretty much screwed.

[Zac Naloen]

EDIT: I do wonder though why the Ancient communication stones locked onto that one particular alien and not anybody else. After Rush strangled it the stones stopped working, so what was it about that one that the stones locked onto him?

When Rush put on the telepath tech it showed a flash of the Alien holding a stone

[Siege]

Really? Damn, I must've missed that. That raises the question though, how did the alien get hold of a communications stone?

[adam_grif]

Really? Damn, I must've missed that. That raises the question though, how did the alien get hold of a communications stone?

Well, they were after the Destiny, and they speculated that they had been following their progress for some time. It's possible that they once had access to it, but were forced to bail out shortly before the current occupants arrived due to the widespread failure of ship systems (i.e. what the crew had to fix in the first episode). They took some stones with them.

[CaptJodan]

Humans have always held a 'special' spot in Stargate, that they are physically powerful and capable of mindraping an alien with thier own technology should not be consider suprising considering Humanity is an Ancient project.

Ooook. I don't really see it that way. Sure, humans had a huge advantage in most known areas of space because the Ancients held all the cards in Pegasus and Milky Way. I don't know if those benefits should really translate all the way to completely alien societies billions of light years from where the ancients knew anything.

You are comparing it against an Ancient ship, and the alien mothership still tanked a considerable amount of attacks from the Destiny. The Ancients have been the standard in technological overachievement(but not the best implementation) in the setting baring corner cases.

Destiny notwithstanding. Destiny is old tech, and I would be surprised if the ship was more than an even a match for your every day Hatak even during its heyday (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the pulse weaponry on Destiny isn't comparable to Hatak ship weapons). I wouldn't ever suggest that this ship is anywhere near an Aurora in combat capability, even in her heyday.

But even if she was the shit back in the day, she's considerably less dangerous now. She's got extensive damage, her weapons weren't operating anywhere near capacity, and her shields can't seem to protect as well while the weapons are firing. She has people trying to fight with her who know very little about the ship itself, and less about how to fight with the ship. Despite all this, they're able to mount a pretty decent defense. That doesn't bode well for these alien's and their technology.

Even still, given the age of the shuttle, and the fact that it's *clearly* not designed as a combat ship (it's excessively roomy, and with far less delta v capability than the Destiny, etc) and the fact that they have very few flight hours with the ship, and no combat experience, I felt that a space battle against aliens who know their technology and probably have fought more than once in their own ships should have scored many more hits against the shuttle.

Just to be clear. I don't have a problem with the aliens having less capable ships. Given all the hurdles our characters have to overcome just to fight at all with a broken ship, Destiny has to have some superiority just to have a chance against their enemies. I just felt it was a little to convenient how the shuttle was easily mopping up the alien ships left and right, while at the same time apparently being unable to match them in Delta V (the enemy ships easily pull away from the shuttle when they retreat).

[NecronLord]

My initial reaction... those Aliens are really fucking lucky the crew they found on board Destiny were humans, and wasn't, say Wraith. I'm imagining the Wraith version of Chloe looking up that hatch, getting snatched, and proceeding to break necks all round.

[NecronLord]

I couldn't help but continue to wonder throughout the episode why the Destiny, with all of it's fairly smart AI being able to do a great deal of the piloting, didn't think to jump into hyperspace the moment it was fired on. That really doesn't make much sense to me. The ship knows immediately when it needs to head to the nearest star to recharge, but its programmers didn't program in a "run first, shoot only as a last resort" directive?

What makes you think the Ancients were the type to run before shooting back? Sure, their performance in the war with the Wraith was pretty poor, but they were quite capable of being ruthless.

Presumably the ship's processor is programmed to assume the crew will make that decision, and anyways, at full functionality (they had, what, 30% weapons and one of three {one damaged, one a missing pad} shuttles?) that ship would likely have been eliminated before Destiny even began to feel it, in the situation her programmers envisioned.

The shuttle's extreme combat capability, with 1 ship against a whole swarm, seemed a bit excessive. The alien craft must be pretty bad performance wise.

Ancients' shuttles do have extreme combat capacity. A later model Lantean shuttle can mission kill a Wraith cruiser, and destroy a ha'tak.

[Soontir C'boath]

And Chloe.... yes, the ship is under attack, everyone is supposed to stay out of the way , and what does she do? Lets run out and see what is cutting through the hull If this show had an equivalent stupid Neelix moment, this was it.

She also stood in the line of fire of the other guy.

Lt james is getting some empathetic character growth. She's heroicly trying tos ave crewman, putting her foot in her mouth with the fellas, bonding with Johansen, and er... crying at the end. I think Blond psych trainee is missing some cues here

You did watch the scene when Johansen talked to the person James like and said no, right? James was alone.

It was certainly a much more entertaining show than most of the first half of the season. I hope they will explore the alien's shuttle/fighter craft and try to get more answers.

[CaptJodan]

It just wouldn't be a Stargate week without you, NecronLord.

What makes you think the Ancients were the type to run before shooting back? Sure, their performance in the war with the Wraith was pretty poor, but they were quite capable of being ruthless.

I'm not saying they aren't. But some things to consider.
1. No ancients are aboard. We're relying on a reasonably intelligent autopilot, one which was probably tasked with doing it's job until such time as the ancients arrive to take control. They ain't there, and the ship is still largely using this autopilot.
2. Destiny isn't a warship. At best, it's an exploration ship. Presumably the designers would understand that their ship just might appear in someone's space that wouldn't want them there, or would perceive the ship as a threat. Given the nature of the ship's mission, simply jumping to the next area would be the most logical course of action. Destiny isn't designed to hold territory. That's not it's mission. There's no reason for it to fight unless its somehow prevented from jumping away.
3. The ancients also don't come off as joyous murderers, either. And given that there's nothing to defend besides the ship, and the ship can do that easily by simply running, then that should be the AI's first choice.

Best theory I've heard so far was Desertfly's. Maybe Destiny thought the crew went through the gate when it dialed and decided it had to stay to avoid leaving crew behind.

Presumably the ship's processor is programmed to assume the crew will make that decision, and anyways, at full functionality (they had, what, 30% weapons and one of three {one damaged, one a missing pad} shuttles?) that ship would likely have been eliminated before Destiny even began to feel it, in the situation her programmers envisioned.

I think there's enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the ship's AI knows this crew might not be the best decision makers, lest it would have given up control of the ship to them. The ship's been through the ringer before, and presumably it chose one of the two options to defend itself. No reason it couldn't do that here.

Ancients' shuttles do have extreme combat capacity. A later model Lantean shuttle can mission kill a Wraith cruiser, and destroy a ha'tak.

I'm surprised you'd use a generalization fallacy like that. Because Jumpers are good in combat means all Lantean shuttles are good at combat. Really?

[NecronLord]

1. No ancients are aboard. We're relying on a reasonably intelligent autopilot, one which was probably tasked with doing it's job until such time as the ancients arrive to take control. They ain't there, and the ship is still largely using this autopilot.

Why the fuck wouldn't it think they're Ancients? They came from close to Terra Atlantis, through the stargate, and are human (as the Ancients were, fundamentally).

2. Destiny isn't a warship. At best, it's an exploration ship. Presumably the designers would understand that their ship just might appear in someone's space that wouldn't want them there, or would perceive the ship as a threat. Given the nature of the ship's mission, simply jumping to the next area would be the most logical course of action. Destiny isn't designed to hold territory. That's not it's mission. There's no reason for it to fight unless its somehow prevented from jumping away.

Or if there's a survey team on the planet, or if they need to protect some innocent people or... I could go on, and so could you. The Ancients don't seem to do exploration half assed, that's for sure.

3. The ancients also don't come off as joyous murderers, either. And given that there's nothing to defend besides the ship, and the ship can do that easily by simply running, then that should be the AI's first choice.

Why are you assuming it's that bright? It's not an AI (or rather, not a sapient one) it's a computer program.

I think there's enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the ship's AI knows this crew might not be the best decision makers, lest it would have given up control of the ship to them. The ship's been through the ringer before, and presumably it chose one of the two options to defend itself. No reason it couldn't do that here.

We've seen the Ancients' freak out the last time they encountered a sapient AI. Why should they have actually made this ship able to preempt its crew?

I'm surprised you'd use a generalization fallacy like that. Because Jumpers are good in combat means all Lantean shuttles are good at combat. Really?

Ahem. The other model of Lantean shuttle we've seen is good in combat. Why should it be surprising that this one is too? I should note that they are good in combat.

For that matter, they are imagined by the producers to have a stealth mode, at least according to the notes on the control panels on the actual prop. Whether this means a cloak or something else is unknown. But that would suggest it's intended to get into situations where such a thing is necessary. Not just flying around peacefully.

[PREDATOR490]

Watched it and found it rather boring.

Too much filler / trivial shit like talking about tomatoes or getting useless visuals of the almight super cannon....

Yeah, random super cannon comes out and wrecks for... pitiful visual effects.

Random shuttle now has the ability to use guns and fight against aliens that cant even win with superior numbers. They didnt even seem to be shooting back which is hilariously funny. If these ships were drones I could buy that but even the Borg react when they start losing.

I see a new character has appeared with that guy talking to the medic. I suspect romantic intrest coming between those two with our noble leader getting upset.
More romantic triangle melodrama ?
I'm just waiting for when they start having kids... I dont imagine they brought lots of protection with them and an Ancient condom machine would be funny.

The rest was just a repeat of Atlantis:
New Race: Check
Interested in what the characters have: Check
Superior technology to what they have: Check
Open-door for future returns: Check

[NecronLord]

As for Rush mindfucking aliens. Eh. Why are we taking what he's saying at face value again? Man is not trustworthy. I suspect there's more to it than that.

Yeah, random super cannon comes out and wrecks for... pitiful visual effects.

Umm. Yeah. The point is that these guys aren't going to smack enemy starships down. If it ever was a super gun, as opposed to just a main gun, it hasn't got the power.

The rest was just a repeat of Atlantis:
New Race: Check
Interested in what the characters have: Check
Superior technology to what they have: Check
Open-door for future returns: Check

Is any of that a problem, really?