SGU: Visitation

[CaptJodan]

Sorry if I step on anyone's toes making the poll this week. Just felt like discussing.

I won't miss Kane. Jesus pole-hopping Christ, where did they get this guy? Seriously, what was he on the series? A scientist? What kind of scientist? I know there are religious scientists out there, but most decent ones don't put their religion ahead of their science. I hate his character, but I love the arc. It was so true of a typical fundie. At the very end, when he realizes that all these "miracles" didn't turn out well for him, then it suddenly wasn't god. Instant shifting of the goalposts. He was both dishonest and selfish. Maybe it was god, and god thought you were a dick and decided to kill you twice.

Having a shuttle back in pristine order is a huge DEM. It reeks of Starbuck's Viper as well. Did the creators think "hey, we really need a shuttle. It's not like we can use, oh I don't know, THE STARGATE for travel to other worlds like...you know, the title of the show implies. Hopefully they'll be taking better care of it?

So everyone searched the shuttle top to bottom for any abnormalities, ANYTHING that would explain what happened. They do NOT find a Keno. Then suddenly James finds a Keno in what seems like a random walk. Huh?

I was pleasantly surprised at how competent the crew was during this episode. Young instantly distrusted these people and had a bad feeling. Greer continues to put others in front of himself as protection. His scenes were great. I think he's just about reached my favorite character in the show. Everyone seemed to be reasonable this week, even cooperative with each other. This is the first time I felt like the crew had actually banded together on an issue, with only a few arguments here and there, and nothing that was really out of place.

I'm also glad they kept the planet aliens a mystery. I'd really hate aliens such as that being explained. We've seen far too much explained over the years in Stargate, and holding on to a few mysteries is a good thing in my book. The only thing we did solve is planet aliens=not god.

Overall, I'm going to give this episode a 4. I enjoyed it, despite the religious subtext. Yes, it was there, but it was discredited in the end. I think Kane was a damned fool more than anything else, and even though most religious people would probably side with his sentiments at the end, I think his display of moving the goal posts pretty much paints him as the unthinking fundie he was. But maybe that's just me.

[Alyeska]

Kane was a computer tech. Nothing special.

Its interesting to see how they resolved a couple of story arcs. We know they died because of a lack of survival skills. They didn't start preparing for the winter nearly soon enough. Clearly didn't have enough gear stockpiled. Accidents can and do happen. I feel sorry for them. They simply wanted something they couldn't have.

TJs dream was just that. A dream. It never happened. Her child died. Perfectly understandable that she wanted to believe it. And given the circumstances, understandable that she would actually believe it. But a dream none the less.

Greer proves yet again to be an interesting character. They are managing with Greer what they failed to do with Ford (and Ronin).

[Adrian McNair]

What the hell, Jodan? I had a nice routine going, week-to-week. You couldn't wait until I posted my thread? You've never been so eager to get the ball rolling before. Why dive in so quickly this time? That's not to say that I have a monopoly on this sort of thing but I enjoyed doing it.

Fuck it. I'm not going to turn this into a pointless, stupid grudge. I'll offer my thoughts when I get the chance to see this episode.

[CaptJodan]

What the hell, Jodan? I had a nice routine going, week-to-week. You couldn't wait until I posted my thread? You've never been so eager to get the ball rolling before. Why dive in so quickly this time? That's not to say that I have a monopoly on this sort of thing but I enjoyed doing it.

Fuck it. I'm not going to turn this into a pointless, stupid grudge. I'll offer my thoughts when I get the chance to see this episode.

1. Didn't think you took it so seriously.
2. Didn't know you had the monopoly on it.

If it means so much to you, next week it's all yours. As for my eagerness, I enjoyed the episode and wanted to comment now. I don't recall you getting things posted minutes after the episode aired, and I was impatient.

TJs dream was just that. A dream. It never happened. Her child died. Perfectly understandable that she wanted to believe it. And given the circumstances, understandable that she would actually believe it. But a dream none the less.

Which reminds me that I was unduly harsh on the TJ baby arc back when it first aired, feeling cheated that they just didn't kill the baby. Seems they did. I wouldn't say it was "just" a dream though. "It felt so real" makes me agree with others that it was, in fact, the ship manipulating her. That I can accept. Baby still dies, and the ship continues to be an interesting character in its own right.

[Adrian McNair]

1. Didn't think you took it so seriously.
2. Didn't know you had the monopoly on it.

If it means so much to you, next week it's all yours. As for my eagerness, I enjoyed the episode and wanted to comment now. I don't recall you getting things posted minutes after the episode aired, and I was impatient.

Fair enough. It was merely off-putting, that's all. I've always wanted to start discussion threads for a series that I've been following but haven't really had the opportunity until now. Since you gave the episode a four then I won't blame you.

[adam_grif]

Quick, someone vote 3 and we'll have a nice normal distribution!


I give it a 2. It was well executed but the concepts involved are far too stupid for me to possibly rate it any higher. This left me with the same bad taste in my mouth as the nonsense in A.I. where the Aliens could bring people back to life but "only for a day" because something something magic and the bit in Bab 5 where a certain character gets a transfer of "life energy" that can't sustain said individual indefinitely. Of course, vitalism has long been a ridiculous hallmark of the franchise since the Sarcophagus / Ancient healing device episodes and then the Wraith...

[Adrian McNair]

Okay, I've seen the episode and here are my thoughts:

- Though this wasn't up to par with last week by any means if you look at it as a parable about the folly of religious belief I think that it works. Caine was an obnoxious fruitcake until the very end and his faith was useless in the face of this situation (not that it would have been useful anyway). I don't feel any sympathy for him or any of the other people within his party. They knew full well that the possibility of surviving the impending winter on the planet (I refuse to call it "Eden" ) wasn't likely and they foolishly believed they could weather it (unprepared and under-equipped as they were). At least the crew of the Destiny got a working shuttle out of this entire fiasco.
- Though Chloe's scenes were entirely irrelevant to the main plot and dull (I actually yawned during the first conversation between her and Scott), there was one exception- her moment with Greer (and that was solely due to Greer being in the scene). Greer, pointless comment about prayer aside, is along with Rush my favorite character. His blunt honesty turned what could have been another tedious portion of the episode into a somewhat was another point in the episode's favour.
- I'm definitely not a fan of the hyper-advanced god-like alien entities. On the one hand if they are hostile the crew would be powerless to stop them short of a highly contrived deus ex machina. If they aren't then they have plenty of cryptic bullshit to deal with. Neither outcome is acceptable in my book.
- At last the issue of TJ's baby has been put to rest. It was definitely another simulation (as evidenced by the use of the very real nebula within her dream. Destiny was using an external variable like it did with the Blues in the battle scenario), presumably the ship's way of comforting her.
- Next week is the mid-season finale and it could be the season's best if that summary I read is any indication.

Three out of five from me this week.

Quick, someone vote 3 and we'll have a nice normal distribution!

I can do that.

[JME2]

Well, the second half of Season 2.0 has been picking up.

I was dreading the return of Cain, but the mystery was well executed and a good twist -- same with the truth behind TJ's dream in the season premiere.

Great scenes with Greer, too; again, he's really become one of my favorite characters on the show.

4/5

[CaptJodan]

- I'm definitely not a fan of the hyper-advanced god-like alien entities. On the one hand if they are hostile the crew would be powerless to stop them short of a highly contrived deus ex machina. If they aren't then they have plenty of cryptic bullshit to deal with. Neither outcome is acceptable in my book.

Well, it's pretty clear that the planet aliens are anything but hostile. The episode almost felt like an apology from the aliens. "Sorry that your people died on our planet while you were away. But here they are back for your chance to say goodbye to them. Oh, and as further compensation, here's your shuttle back, brand new." Nothing they've done screams enemy.

Not sure what you mean by cryptic bullshit, though. Are you saying that the show should explain who they are and why they do what they do? You can't have an advanced civilization in Stargate without fully exploring it to death and understanding it completely, ie the Ascended Ancients? As long as the planet aliens aren't used as a "get out of jail free" card every few episodes, I'm fine with the mystery. I'd actually be surprised if we ever see anything about them again.

Getting a fully working shuttle back was perhaps the biggest objection I had with the aliens, but even that somewhat understandable from a storytelling perspective. The show is called Stargate: something for a reason. We're supposed to predominately use the Stargate, and oddly this show doesn't do it that much. But you also sometimes want your crew to explore planets without gates, or ships. You probably can't keep pulling the whole "leap over to the other ship" trick they tried a couple episodes. That didn't turn out that well as it was. A shuttle was probably necessary to keep some storytelling options open, so while I don't particularly like how they did it (coming across a seed ship which had a shuttle would probably had been a better option), I can see why.

To me, none of that invalidates the main story, though. These "god-like aliens" weren't. They couldn't restore these people's bodies for good. It's arguable whether their memory loss was deliberate, or a result of whatever process the aliens used to recreate them. And the episode proved these aliens had nothing to do with TJ's baby. If anything, this episode showed a lot of the limits of the aliens' technology (or perhaps the limits of their societies willingness to interfere). Besides the shuttle, it was all RAR-GRIMDARK like so many people around here hate.

[dragon]

Over all I liked it there were a few points that raised questions.

1st why did they drop them in an nothern climate is hard instead of the equater. Yes I know the alien tower was there but they could have spent a few years building stuff needed to survive and then moved north.

Also there were tons of resources there and we saw them felling trees. Even using what little I remember from scouts 20 years ago plus some common sense you could easily build shelter. Hell even with no survival skills you could figure out something.

Also the last guy was still alive when the aliens found him so did he live as they didn't show him dying.

As for the baby it's possible that it was real but not with the crew but with aliens pretending to be them. But most likely was part of a simulation like the COL said.

Finally gotta love Greer asking for her forgiveness for what he's going to have to do, and the butter bar crack.

[CaptJodan]

1st why did they drop them in an nothern climate is hard instead of the equater. Yes I know the alien tower was there but they could have spent a few years building stuff needed to survive and then moved north.

Remember that when they first arrived, they weren't planning on any kind of permanent settlement. They were just there to get supplies. No reason to aim for the equator initially. If I recall Faith correctly, there was also an issue of both fuel and time. They needed as many supplies as possible on Destiny, and the shuttle couldn't make it to the planet and back if the Destiny was too far away in the system, so they had X amount of trips where Destiny would be in range. If that wasn't bad enough, Young was already pissed that they wanted to stay, irregardless. He gave them a broken down shuttle that apparently no one could fly (Cain: "I don't even drive a car"), so they weren't moving once Young et al left.

Also the last guy was still alive when the aliens found him so did he live as they didn't show him dying.

Given how the episode ended, I think we can conclude that the copy died, therefore he died. But I agree that that was actually not the best scene. They should have had Cain die, then, the light shows up, not have Cain alive when the light shows up. Then you have to ask yourself whether the aliens waited until he died before they helped.

Finally gotta love Greer asking for her forgiveness for what he's going to have to do, and the butter bar crack.

Greer's arc for this episode could have been a disaster, and I think a lesser actor wouldn't have been able to pull it off. He was both callous (but realistic) with Scott but vulnerable with Chloe, almost begging her to forgive him for what he would have to do. When he talked to Scott, I got the impression he didn't really give two shits about her, until he said that he prayed for her every night. Even then, he seemed horribly callous. But you see he's not that at all when he goes to Chloe. To do that and not make it seem like a nBSG character that changes its personality based on writer's whim is difficult to pull off.

Greer's really one of the top characters to come out of any Stargate series.

[JME2]

The show is called Stargate: something for a reason. We're supposed to predominately use the Stargate, and oddly this show doesn't do it that much.

Destiny is a continuation of the double-edged sword that began with the introduction of X-301 way back in SG-1. The introduction of fighters and ships allowed Earth to go toe-to-toe with their adversaries and generate new stories. But it also made travel by Stargate feel increasingly redundant.

I do wish they would use the Destiny gate more. The SGC gate felt just as much a character as Jack or Daniel. The Atlantis gate, by contrast, felt like an accessory and understandably so, as the Lost City was the focus. Same thing is happening here with Destiny and it's a shame since its' Stargate's status as a prototype to the Milky Way and Pegasus gates makes it interesting.

[CaptJodan]

Destiny is a continuation of the double-edged sword that began with the introduction of X-301 way back in SG-1. The introduction of fighters and ships allowed Earth to go toe-to-toe with their adversaries and generate new stories. But it also made travel by Stargate feel increasingly redundant.

Agreed, but I thought that getting rid of both of their shuttles actually gave them the best chance to get back to that old SG-1 feeling. Earth and the SGC was all they had in early and mid seasons of SG-1. The Destiny and its gate could serve the same function, without them having access to a shuttle. The only dower is the difficulty with boarding other ships, but now that they have enough control to pilot Destiny, they may be able to dock with such ships.

Bringing a shuttle back kills that "we rely exclusively on the Stargate" feeling that they could have stuck with if they wanted to. In a way, it'd be a dulled sword, because you'd have your space porn, but still have the majority of the offworld action a result of the Stargate rather than a shuttle.

It would also give the feeling that when you lose all your toys, they're really gone for good, and the only way to get another shuttle it to maybe steal some alien shuttle or something. Make our characters work for it, not just have it handed to them. This was just Kara's Mk. II Viper. The only difference is, all the Kara's died.

[JME2]

Agreed. True, there may be a twist coming up with the shuttle (doubtful based on this episode) or they may still lose it; remember how quickly the Blackbird Viper got blasted after its introduction in nBSG.

[Themightytom]

I saw survival as a major plot hole too. They had shelter in the form of the shuttle, Young said as much. They were supposed to be able to fly around in the atmosphere and should have done so knowing that winter was coming. Even if the thing broke down they could have just collected firewood to keep warm. I think their faith killed them because they LITERALLY died like idiot sheep. You have to wonder what kind of shepherd Cain is. Then again, the feeling i get from his character is that this has all been a manifestation of his inability to cope with what he experienced coming to Destiny, and unfortunately he dragged others down with him, like any cult leader.

Who Dies From A Tree???

5 died from exposure? Thats lazy writing. i want to see someone get eaten by a crocodile. Lets see THAT fate re-enacted in the infirmary

It seems to me they died because they are idiots.

All of that said, what is the time frame for SG:U? have they even had months since Faith?

I kind of like the way this was handled, mostly because i was just watching house on Monday. There is always the assumption that your faith will be rewarded, that, if you devote yourself to a higher power that power will benevolently reward you. What if that higher power was an asshole (One of House's arguments) or worse, what if that higher power's motives were entirely alien? To us its obvious, if you have the power to save someone either you decide to do it, or you decide not to. The aliens didn't seem to realize what was desired here. "What, we saved them whats the problem"
"They died again"
"Yes and... everything dies..They got to come back and see you all again."
"But... you could have fully brought them back"
"What so they could die a different way?? Good Me, you people are assholes! look we studied the Holy Disc Cain was carrying, and frankly we couldn't make head nor tail of this "Final Destination. "


Things really are weird out there.

Moving on from the bizarre A plot to the B plot.

Greer has always been a subtle character that has paid off. Little glimpses backed up by his omnipresence in the background has given him some solid development, I just hope they don't abuse him. Chloe and Scott continue to annoy me as the superficial King and Queen of the Prom, but they provide a useful metric with which to scale the other characters.

Chloe's comments about Eli were bizarre "He'll take care of Scott in his own way"

What is he a retarded puppy? What a bitch, no wonder Eli resents her.

Young showed genuine concern for TJ, TJ acknowledge decontamination procedures which is something I wondered about with Stargate travel. The SGC had a hospital. Destiny has a field medic and a first aid kit. How they don't have weekly epidemics I don't know.

TJ also acknowledged her son's death. I wonder about that personally, unless this is a retcon the writers were fucking with us, and we DID see the nebula in the dream. I presume this was the ship's doing or laying the groundwork for something else. These seem to be copies after all, and the originals are dead, maybe something else is going on with TJ. Maybe the originals WERE saved by the Obelisk aliens and the Blue Man Group was attempting a zombie invasion with Cain the only surviving infiltrator because they have an imperfect understanding of human biology. As long as no one finds out he's been part of the final five all along I'll wait and see where this goes.

Well there's the dome room so i wonder what the big new set is. better not be that because CGI would do just fine...

A new shuttle. I wonder if it will at some point spontaneously degenerate into its broken form.

...and apparently the episode was too short for Eli to emote any kind of sadness, mention Ginn or compare Chloe's impending loss to the one he just experienced. Colonel Young appears to have suffered no loss of confidence after Rush's revelation that he terminated the ship's simulation, nobody cares about Telford, and come to think of it, is young ever going to rub it in his face that Telford only cheated with her because he was brainwashed at the time.

[JME2]

All of that said, what is the time frame for SG:U? have they even had months since Faith?

According to Joe Mallozzi, the mid-season finale (next week's episode) will take place 10 months after the destruction of Icarus Base. So, it's been at least a few months since the events of Faith; we know they spent several weeks in the galactic void during "Sabotage", for instance.

[Adrian McNair]

Not sure what you mean by cryptic bullshit, though. Are you saying that the show should explain who they are and why they do what they do? You can't have an advanced civilization in Stargate without fully exploring it to death and understanding it completely, ie the Ascended Ancients? As long as the planet aliens aren't used as a "get out of jail free" card every few episodes, I'm fine with the mystery. I'd actually be surprised if we ever see anything about them again.

That was just a prediction on my part, not necessarily an opinion of the aliens themselves. What I'm referring to is that annoying tendency in science-fiction and fantasy to depict advanced races/beings as incapable of being coherent, concise or understandable. To be more specific, any time a Vorlon utters a single sentence or any of Oma Desala's proverbs. It would definitely be best to keep them out there as a background element to prevent something like that from happening. I'm okay with them being a mystery, unless they start projecting themselves into people's heads (even if they resemble Victoria's Secret models) and start preaching about the need to have faith. Then I know the show is fucked.

[CaptJodan]

That was just a prediction on my part, not necessarily an opinion of the aliens themselves. What I'm referring to is that annoying tendency in science-fiction and fantasy to depict advanced races/beings as incapable of being coherent, concise or understandable. To be more specific, any time a Vorlon utters a single sentence or any of Oma Desala's proverbs. It would definitely be best to keep them out there as a background element to prevent something like that from happening. I'm okay with them being a mystery, unless they start projecting themselves into people's heads (even if they resemble Victoria's Secret models) and start preaching about the need to have faith. Then I know the show is fucked.

Both of those examples are valid, because both examples show an unwillingness to speak clearly, rather than unable to. If these aliens did start communicating with the crew somehow, and were cryptic about it, I would want to ask why before writing them off as bad or lazy writing, though. I'm willing to accept aliens as being so alien they can't conceive of easily talking plainly or obviously to humans. That's a quality that makes them alien, after all.

Your examples, on the other hand, were choices made by those characters to be obscure. Kosh certainly had no problems expressing himself when he was beating the shit out of Sheridan. Oma started out all "If you immediately know the candlelight is fire, the meal was cooked a long time ago." and ended up with "waffles it is then". And no, we don't need another alien species in Stargate like that.

[PREDATOR490]

3.

All I can say is meh.

Bunch of folks I dont care about talking and dying randomly while we listen to someone I dont care about is making a goodbye speach via Kino. The show pretty much telegraphed exactly how it was going to play out since the A and B plots just 'happen' to slide together.

Pro-Points

Eli pulling out the Arthur Clark line.
I understand Eli is meant to be a fucking nerd but its nice to see Mr. Nerd being portrayed as coming out with something INTELLIGENT albeit rather predictable.
Rather than previous stunts like in Air where he spouts garbage about Planet of the Apes.

Greer continuing to be a shockingly intricate character amoungst a bunch of idiots.
Still bearing the marks of last episode where his competency got knocked down to service plot but apparantly the entire crew seem to have just *poof* forgot.

Negative Points

Oh lookie... magic shuttle repaired and brand new sent with a lovely bow ribbon. Now Destiny can happily show them using it and turning the thing into a fighter if need be.

Religious / Science BS - Blah blah, God did it, Faith, blah, blah

The simple fact of the matter is I find these kind of plots and developments pointless. The reason being they dont GO anywhere and far too often like to 'play it safe'. Even if such an arguement was to occur, the chances of it being even remotely interesting border on zero. The population of this forum may enjoy these discussions but with the time this forum has been around its beyond insanity to expect a series to ever compress a discussion like that into an entire season let alone a single episode.

At best the episode manages a few hissy fits, allusions and generally spends the entire episode doing nothing but throwing shit out as filler.

Almost nothing new has been learned from this episode:
The folks on the planet died
The aliens intentions or identity still remains unknown
Chloe continues to waste space while everyone panders around her
TJ's baby died and it was all a dream

This episode is nothing but a convienient vehicle to tie up loose ends, plant a pretty toy for future use and waste time without actually revealing anything.

I still find SGU's pacing to be horrific because days / weeks / months are just flying by randomly and what we see is medicore at best. Even when the 'action' does play out its inherrantly boring either because its a false play "Destiny gets blown up... oh its just a dream / fantasy / simulation" or completely subdued.

As mentioned: They fuck around searching the shuttle and only LATER find the Kino - Couldnt they have just had a message recorded via the ship or something ?
Do we have to make the security checks by trained military personel look completely worthless ?

As for these 'Aliens'
The sense I am getting is they are going to remain a complete mystery and the show is going to use them as a medium for claiming the 'Scientific' route for WHATEVER Destiny is trying to do.
Meanwhile, the Religious angle will remain entirely untouched allowing a complete hazy idea of WHAT the hell ACTUALLY happened.

To some that might seem 'deep' and wonderful because the show is trying to make folks make up their own mind but I find it far more likely this is SGU wimping out on ever depicting something like that due to the inevitable backlash that would occur. In which case, sorry you do not get credit for introducing a goddamn plot and then leaving it hanging in uncertainty because you do not have the stomach to follow through.

[ThomasP]

I liked it. I'd say four out of five.

If nothing else this episode was points against the idea that they're going to turn the story arc into a Christian parable. The rationalist and atheist overtones were pretty evident, from the crew's skepticism to the believers dying miserable deaths for their trouble to Caine's realization at the end.

I have no problem with ambiguous super-powered aliens working as stage hands as long as they don't turn into another boss that humans have to level up to beat. I'm actually enjoying this departure from the formula of SG-1 and Atlantis; it's enough to keep me watching every week.

[JME2]

They are managing with Greer what they failed to do with Ford (and Ronin).

On a side note and speaking of Ford, I was a listening to a Gateworld podcast recently. They were discussing where SGA went wrong and naturally, Ford was among the main topics: Not sense of the character's personality, no character development, etc.

They also made a valid point about the Ford arc in Season 2. In order for the Ford AWOL story to have worked, the audience needed to feel compassion for the character they'd gotten to know intimately over 20 episodes -- but since Ford had had no development, that just wasn't possible. It failed in both its conception and execution.

I agree that Greer is emerging as one of the most complex characters in the franchise and Jamil Walker Smith is kicking ass; hard to believe he used to due VO's for Hey Arnold.

[hongi]

Given how the episode ended, I think we can conclude that the copy died, therefore he died. But I agree that that was actually not the best scene. They should have had Cain die, then, the light shows up, not have Cain alive when the light shows up. Then you have to ask yourself whether the aliens waited until he died before they helped.

Maybe he died before the aliens could treat him.

Anyway, I liked this episode simply because it tied up loose ends. I wanted to know what happened to them.

[JME2]

I want to add that I really liked this week's score. Joel Goldsmith's more nBSG-style music for SGU hasn't been terrible, but it's been somewhat disconcerting after the rich, traditional scores of SG-1/SGA (music in film/tv is very important to me; Goldsmith is just as important as David Arnold for the music of the franchise style). It was a nice, quiet score reminiscent of earlier seasons

[NecronLord]

that annoying tendency in science-fiction and fantasy to depict advanced races/beings as incapable of being coherent, concise or understandable. To be more specific, any time a Vorlon utters a single sentence

I think you need to watch that show again, of the three Vorlons with speaking parts (Kosh, Ulkesh {Evil-Kosh} and the one in Into the Fire) none has difficulty being understood when they wish to be. Their more obscure phrases like 'the avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote' usually come out when they don't really wish to be understood.

There is nothing at all cryptic about Ulkesh smacking Lyta across the room and saying "Would you know my thoughts?" indignantly.

[Adrian McNair]

I think you need to watch that show again, of the three Vorlons with speaking parts (Kosh, Ulkesh {Evil-Kosh} and the one in Into the Fire) none has difficulty being understood when they wish to be. Their more obscure phrases like 'the avalanche has already started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote' usually come out when they don't really wish to be understood.

I don't think that I do, given that I own seasons two to five on DVD but thanks for the suggestion. No, I'm fully aware that they were capable of getting their points across but it doesn't change the fact that I found the use of ambigious proverbs, their general dealings with the Younger Races (when they weren't blowing the fuck out of planets during the war and being belligerent arseholes) and their overall arrogance to be supremely irritating. I also reserve a similar level of scorn for the Ascended Ancients. Am I making myself clear now?