SGU S02E03 Awakenings (SPOILERS)

[Adrian McNair]

Well, this week's installment of Stargate Universe has arrived. It's nice to be able to actually start one of these threads for a change. Here are my initial thoughts.

- Damn. I hope that isn't the last we've seen of Telford. If Rush can come back after being marooned, then there's certainly a chance that Telford could make it back.
- Rush continues to be consistently ruthless.
- Those alien stowaways were pretty similar in appearance to a certain other alien species that the Destiny had encountered. Maybe they're an offshoot of the Blue species.
- It's too bad they used the local Sewerage Treatment Planet for the Stargate Seeding Ship sets. Nah, I'm kidding. On a more serious note, it was pretty underwhelming compared to the interiors of a BC-304 or even the Destiny. The only impressive thing about it was the rack of Stargates. I honestly expected the overall design of the vessel to be much larger than the Destiny (as opposed to being smaller), given that it's supposed to be a Stargate manufacturing and deployment craft.
- Varro had a wife, who was killed when the shelter she was staying in collapsed. He's already a better fleshed out character than Chloe is.
- This is the third consecutive episode in a row featuring Chloe being pathetically useless. Thrill as Chloe offers emotional support that any other character could have! Watch with awe as Chloe stares at a newly developed wart where her gunshot wound used to be! Fuck! I really wish she had stayed aboard the Seeding ship instead of Telford.

3 1/2 out of 5 from me.

[Zac Naloen]

Those Aliens wouldn't have looked out of place in a movie, the effects on this show really are amazing. I wonder if they used the District 9 guys again on that.



I would have expected the seeder ships to be completely unmanned so I'm actually a bit surprised it had a control centre at all, but at the same time that means I'm not surprised it's cramped. It's an automated factory, no need to have wide open spaces.

Rush has come full circle.. leaving someone behind himself. When the rest of the crew find out about the Bridge he's going to have some explaining to do.

[Adrian McNair]

I would have expected the seeder ships to be completely unmanned so I'm actually a bit surprised it had a control centre at all, but at the same time that means I'm not surprised it's cramped. It's an automated factory, no need to have wide open spaces.

Maybe my expectations were too high or maybe the overall aesthetic just seemed too amateurish. Either way I wasn't impressed. The aliens more than made up for it though.

[dragon]

One thing that has me curious is if this was the seeding ship and they left it behind, then how are the next planets that they come going to have gates. And since the shuttle is gone they should have a slight problem.

[tezunegari]

In the pilot Rush said the Ancients launched a fleet of gate seeding ships ahead of Destiny.
This is just one of many.

[NecronLord]

I expect we'll see more of the seeding ship. Personally I'd like to see it actually creating a stargate.

The aliens are related to, an ethnicity of, or allies of the Blue Man Group, I think.

My reasoning is simple; they could operate Ancient Technology, and the seeding ship had full power, or at least, respectable power. There was no obvious reason for it to be dead in space, unless... the aliens had come aboard and stopped it. Why would they do that and then leave it there, only to drain energy from Destiny... unless they want Destiny. Why would they want it unless they've seen it before. The only alternative is that they could have inferred its existance from the seeding ship...

[Siege]

I liked how cramped the seeding ship was -- it only makes sense for an unmanned vessel not to have comfortably huge walkways all over the place. And I doubt we've seen the last of Telford.

The aliens were interesting, but if they really were there to seize Destiny they sure weren't in any hurry to do so. Granted they might not have anticipated a bunch of hairy monkeys with guns aboard, but they coulda moved a lot quicker if they wanted to somehow seize Destiny.

[Slacker]

I'm kind of surprised, I half expected them to find another couple of shuttles to stock up on.

Was a pretty good episode. The delicate sort of game they're playing with the Lucian Alliance guys, if handled right, could be pretty awesome. Or it could be full of fail.

[JME2]

Was a pretty good episode. The delicate sort of game they're playing with the Lucian Alliance guys, if handled right, could be pretty awesome. Or it could be full of fail.

Wray's again playing a dangerous game. I agree with Young; their intel isn't trustworthy.

[bilateralrope]

- Damn. I hope that isn't the last we've seen of Telford. If Rush can come back after being marooned, then there's certainly a chance that Telford could make it back.

He is on a ship with plenty of stargates and power. All he needs is for the Destiny to stop within range and some way to dial the gate. The only problem is the aliens.

[Adrian McNair]

He is on a ship with plenty of stargates and power. All he needs is for the Destiny to stop within range and some way to dial the gate. The only problem is the aliens.

Emphasis mine. That's why I raised that point. The problem in that situation is that he has no way of communicating with them or making his intentions clear. They could react in any possible fashion (up to and including stunning or killing him).

For reference.

The alien race from this episode-


The Blue aliens-


I think that the upcoming spacebattle will feature these two species (who I will refer to as the Blues and Greys from now on) and probably see the return of Telford.

[NecronLord]

that he has no way of communicating with them or making his intentions clear.

They must be able to read ancient...

[JME2]

I think that the upcoming spacebattle will feature these two species (who I will refer to as the Blues and Greys from now on) and probably see the return of Telford.

Probably; I took another look at the screencaps from the Season 2 Trailer and it looks like the Blue Man Group's ships are part of the armada.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I was pleasantly surprised about this episode. When I saw the trailer I thought it was going to be ALIEN redux, running around in cramped quarters while something eats redshirts. In fact, when the scientist guy turned around and saw the alien in the door I groaned, convinced that guy was gonna die. When the alien keeled over, I laughed pretty hard.

[NecronLord]

I was pleasantly surprised about this episode. When I saw the trailer I thought it was going to be ALIEN redux, running around in cramped quarters while something eats redshirts. In fact, when the scientist guy turned around and saw the alien in the door I groaned, convinced that guy was gonna die. When the alien keeled over, I laughed pretty hard.

It strikes me as odd that they'd do that as a ruse though so unless it was genuinely exhausted, they probably knew something about the destiny crew.

Think about it. Only the Tau'ri would fall for that - real Ancients/Asgard/Nox would take him back to a lab on destiny and try and help him. Goa'uld would drag him off in chains, and so on. Only the humans could be counted on to not know what to do.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I would guess it was genuinely exhausted. We don't know how ong they were in stasis, and it could have been a very long time. Remember how Doctor Weir aged during her 10,000 years of stasis on Atlantis? I was thinking the aliens here were in a similar situation, but still strong enough in number.

[Gil Hamilton]

The one was still probably pretty shagged out from being in statis for who know long. It could have been a trick, though, to find out who these not bony dudes were and how hostile they were.

They don't look much like they are with the Blue Man Group though.

[NecronLord]

I'm not sure why they'd pick a fight if they didn't know it was a small crew of pathetic humans. A full Alteran crew, if they were anything like Lanteans, would just be able to storm the seed-ship, kick the shit out of them, and then decide what to do with them. That's not a decision that's well... at all sensible... compared to just trying to explain your situation and enlist their aid. If they read ancient, they probably know that Ancients wouldn't mean them any harm; the Ancients do have a love of monumental inscriptions talking about who they are and what they believe.

[hongi]

Eh. If I was Rush, I would have waited a minute or two longer. They had three minutes.

[Gil Hamilton]

It's possible that Rush didn't know how long it would take him to get the ship disconnected. These systems are relatively new to him and the cost of waiting till the last minute would be disasterous if he was wrong or else something else went wrong. Disconnecting as quickly as possible and sacrificing Telford is the smart move.

[PREDATOR490]

Didnt Rush mention previously he knew how to turn the auto-pilot OFF ?
If it can be turned off one would assume the countdown counter will stop thus - no jump to FTL and no leaving Telford behind

I find it interesting Destiny went to all the trouble to find the seedship, dock with it and seemingly do nothing but download it's data.
Either the Destiny is automated to do this with any Seedship it finds or somehow the Destiny figured out something was wrong with the Seedship and decided to do a drive-by of it's database. Now the question becomes wether the aliens intentionally disabled the Seedship or the Seedship just stopped on its own accord.

Personally, I liked Telford and would rather see him in charge than the current dimwit moron. If only for the fact Telford comes across as smarter and more competent, one would think if the SGC had him slated to command this expedition they would make sure he was capable of doing so.

As for the BS 'almost home' cliche... this is the second time they have pulled this trick and I presume dozens more are going to come. I can quickly see this becoming a tedious trend. There was no chance in hell they were getting home, at best I saw MAYBE some of the civilians getting home so SGU can cut some of the cast but the moment the alien appeared it telegraphed the fact something was going happen to interfere with the operation.

I found the ship interior to be needlessly complicated, sure its meant to be automated and not flashy but having pipes and obstructions all over the place even in an automated vessel dosent make much sense. All it establishes is SGU is so hung-up on making Ancient tech look 'Old' Ancient they have to go with dripping pipes and narrow corridors to establish the theme because the audience is too stupid to get it. Your on a spaceship that size and they need to have corridors THAT tight to fit... what exactly ?

As for the Stargate production line - If a ship that small can manufacture those things I want to see why the Destiny is so much bigger. Given the size of the Destiny, one would be expecting it to have production lines if the Seedship can do it at a reduced size.

[JME2]

As for the Stargate production line - If a ship that small can manufacture those things I want to see why the Destiny is so much bigger. Given the size of the Destiny, one would be expecting it to have production lines if the Seedship can do it at a reduced size.

Destiny's supposed to be the flagship of this experiment; it'd make sense that it's larger. It may even be tied to whatever it's ultimate mission is.

[NecronLord]

Re-evaluating this episode, I'm thinking that perhaps the aliens are reasonably friendly after all. The ideal outcome, as far as I can see it, would be for Telford to learn to communicate with them (they clearly understand written-ancient) and the ship to actually accompany the Destiny crew; if it can manufacture things other than stargates, it would instantly take care a lot of the supply problems (they could get new shuttles, space-suits, bullets, changes of clothes and other useful things out of it).

[Oskuro]

My impression of the aliens is, as Rush said, that they were a research team dropped on the seeder ship as it moved through their space, and that eventually they managed to drain the ship's power, or it simply broke. Their draining of Destiniy's power was probably an attempt to "refuel", which probably means Telford will be returning aboard the now functional seeder ship.

They also felt more sympathethic, I was kind of hoping the first alien was to become a cast member or something.


As for why the Destiny doesn't build gates and has more living space, I'd say it's because it is not a factory, but was actually meant to house a sizable group of people (Last episode Rush said Destiny wasn't supposed to work on autopilot).

Besides, seeder ships are specialized vessels that only need to assemble relatively small stargates. They don't need to be larger. As for the control room, even in a fully automated factory it is a good idea to have a control room for the operators to personally check on things, for example when your factory stops working and sits in the middle of space and you need to dock with it and see what happened.

Incidentally, I doubt Destiny simply downloaded information. I guess the procedure there was to run a full diagnostic of the seeder ship so the operators on Destiny could determine the nature of the problem.