Stargate Universe S2E18 "Epilogue"

[NecronLord]

Almost accurate episode name there guys.

[CaptJodan]

Almost accurate feel to the episode too. If they'd been able to switch the order so that this was last (it probably wouldn't have worked because of the new crew and such, but...), it would have served as probably the best bookend to the series as we're likely to get.

[Adrian McNair]

So here are my thoughts for this week's episode:
- As NecronLord and Jodan have stated this was a rather apt title. There was a degree of finality to what unfolded that I will elaborate on in one of the points below.
- The theory that was floated last week about the people of Novus being responsible for the creation of the drones seems to have been decisively shot down. They only managed to construct those generation ships and nothing else. Hopefully they won't end up being a target of the drones. It seems more likely than not that they'll slip by unnoticed through the vastness of space with their slow, sublight vessels.
- This is bar none the most inspirational and uplifting episode the show has given us. For all of their differences, their squabbles and the adversity that they faced, the crew of Destiny were able to band together and create a future for themselves and their descendants. Even if Destiny is lost with all hands aboard they will still have made their mark upon the galaxy. Stargate has always been about humanity striving towards something better, of overcoming the odds and it was exemplified here. It was just the tonic for the preachy, luddite-friendly and borderline nihilistic garbage that BSG gave us at its end. It's a shame that this isn't the actual conclusion because as an ending to the series and Stargate as a whole it's the best one they could have gone with.
- It was also a dramatically resonant installment with the losses of Volker and TJ. The latter was especially effectively conveyed and difficult to watch. Though the other TJ is also susceptible to Lou Gehrig's disease she still has a far greater chance of survival than her temporal duplicate ever did.
- But it wasn't lacking in humour, however. From the elevator muzak, the montage of screaming births and Brody's bitchiness (he seemed to have become the Rush of the settlement in his old age, right down to the longer hair and mustache. Becoming surly and unpleasant was probably the only way he could cope with the loss of Volker) it got some chuckles out of me.
- I was quite sure that they were going to kill Varro. I'm glad they didn't. The fatality rate of the Lucian Alliance crew members is nearly on par with how SG-1 depicted the Russians back in the day.
- This episode makes the viewpoints that certain people on this board have had about the series seem all the more laughable and irrelevant (not that they weren't already) to me. Purists.


Five out of five from me this week. This was one of Universe's (and by extension Stargate's) finest hours. I'd go so far as to so that it's one of sci-fi's best. Carl Binder does it again.

Some clips for the second last chapter of Universe:

A Blockade Promo. Could that be the other Novus colony they gated to? It's way more developed than the one that the Destiny crew stumbled upon. It reminds me of Sateda.


A Sneak-Peek. Looks like use of the Stargate may not be the reason why the drones are able to track Destiny. Maybe the FTL jumps are enough of a signal for them:

[dragon]

I like how they argued about using the destiny weapon on the door and how they had to power it down and use only one of the three barrels. But considering they used the shuttle weapons to no effect meant either the door was made of something very energy resistant or the weapons on the shuttle are piss poor.

Feel a little soory for TJ they uploaded 900 exobytes and the cure wasn't there.

4 out 5 as something I can't put my finger on seemed off but still good episode.

[JediToren]

Great episode. My only complaint is Eli claiming they can't catch up to the generation ships. They know when they were launched and where they were going and how long it was going to take them get there. It should be trivially easy to determine their current position and rendezvous with this fleet of ships.

But other than that, one of SG:U's best.

[dragon]

except the stl ships are moving at realtivistic speeds might be hard to rendevous as when destiny comes out of hyperspace they are moving slow.

[PREDATOR490]

5

This episode made me feel a pang over it being cancelled so thats a major improvement.

I very much liked the end sequence and it would make for a brilliant end to the series. The only irony over the situation is I would much rather see a series based around THAT civilisation develop than watching SGU in it's current form. Incidentally, why does the intro keep mentioning Everett suffocated Riley... gave me the impression he performed assisted suicide with TJ during her condition. Not going to be surprised if this turns out to be a future revelation.

Folks hooking up: Bleh, dont really give a shit since most of it is telegraphed. The Eli one was a bit of a out-of-nowhere though.

Issues:

1) Ummm, wont the Drones intercept and destroy those ships ?
Incidentally, looking at the architecture from the bunker... the lighting seems erriely similar to the kind the drone had when they opened it up.

2) We cant find those ships ? - Bullshit, you know when they were launched and where they are going. Noone thought, hey... maybe we can catch up to them ?
Come on mathboy... calculate it for fuck sake.

3) Whoever built that bunker is a fucking moron of the highest order. Big massive ladder that any poor bastard can fall to their death from like Varro successfully demonstrated ? Nevermind the entire design of those stairs was insanely stupid to the point you would think it was DESIGNED to fall apart so completely.

4) Mmmm, no mention of the Rushities.... how extremely interesting. Noone decided to look up THAT history ?
Dont suppose it might have something to do with them leaving and developing killer drones that destroy technology.... just a casual, wild guess.

5) Massive city replete with technology and noone decided to raid a local hospital or the bunker's medical facilities - If your looking for a cure for something and given Destiny's constant complaints they lack supplies... I would have been expecting people to loot everything that wasnt bolted down. Weapons, ammo, food and medical supplies being the most obvious.
If they did it off-screen fair enough but if it turns out they didnt... how unamused I will be.

[Alyeska]

1) Ummm, wont the Drones intercept and destroy those ships ?
Incidentally, looking at the architecture from the bunker... the lighting seems erriely similar to the kind the drone had when they opened it up.

The drones had trouble tracking Destiny reliably all the time. STL ships in the vastness of space, probably not.

2) We cant find those ships ? - Bullshit, you know when they were launched and where they are going. Noone thought, hey... maybe we can catch up to them ?
Come on mathboy... calculate it for fuck sake.

Space is big. Very big. You would need to know exact information for each ship. And if engine reliability changed, they likely accelerated at a different speed. Then we have relativistic issues due to STL speeds.

4) Mmmm, no mention of the Rushities.... how extremely interesting. Noone decided to look up THAT history ?
Dont suppose it might have something to do with them leaving and developing killer drones that destroy technology.... just a casual, wild guess.

They didn't develop the damned technology. The episode made it freaking clear that they two nations worked together to create the ships. There was some mention. But most of their searching was early Destiny settler history.

5) Massive city replete with technology and noone decided to raid a local hospital or the bunker's medical facilities - If your looking for a cure for something and given Destiny's constant complaints they lack supplies... I would have been expecting people to loot everything that wasnt bolted down. Weapons, ammo, food and medical supplies being the most obvious.

They lacked time and resources. They started investigating the bunker before they knew how unstable the planet was. They only have two shuttles. And the bunker had medical resources too. Did you even listen to the dialog?

If they did it off-screen fair enough but if it turns out they didnt... how unamused I will be.

They had no time. They didn't even manage to recover everything from the bunker as it is.

[NecronLord]

For the drones' tracking, here's my speculation: Couldn't they be using the gate network? Destiny's gate broadcasts its location to the others, perhaps the drone control ships are smart enough to tap into those signals?

[dragon]

If they did it off-screen fair enough but if it turns out they didnt... how unamused I will be.

They had no time. They didn't even manage to recover everything from the bunker as it is.

Yup they grabbed mostly food, info and those neat plot devices err plastic looking stuff for the scrubbers.

[Themightytom]

For the drones' tracking, here's my speculation: Couldn't they be using the gate network? Destiny's gate broadcasts its location to the others, perhaps the drone control ships are smart enough to tap into those signals?

He could be wrong, but Eli used the gate signal exactly because he thought it unlikely that the drones could be using it. This seemed born out by the fact that the drones didn't go to investigate the gate when it's signal pattern changed, despite the fact that drones were destroyed AT that site.

I rated this as my favorite episode, even combined with the previous one i didn't like as much. There's serious animosity brewing between Volker and Rush, Volker could be just acting like an asshole because Rush was right about Palmer. For his part, Rush was trying to find SOMETHING that would validate his unwillingness to participate in the enthusiasm of the crew. Volker was right in that, it's got to SUCk to find out the group of people you're with do incredibly well without you, ESPECIALLY when it turns out they all survived BECAUSE your alternate stayed behind to keep the gate working. Rush opposed Eli's plan, saved his ship mates and then was remembered as the devil for it. His pride is such that he can't just admit that, he has to find some way to project the unreasonable onto everybody else, ie, by finding the thing they were all originally looking for, a substance to improve life support.

Grear was responsible for more than his fair share of the laughs. First the elevator muzak, then during the interviews after Palmer summarizes their offsrpring, "I'm tired."

incidently the fucking make up artist was working overtime to make people look old. Grear looked WIERD, with a visibly darker region off only part of his face, and honestly Camile looked like she just dunked her face in a bowl of make up.

Wray... wow I just realized I'm a bigot or whatever. i completely assumed that the Chinese influence on the society was because she had children and was ultiamtely bi..but... nope. that greeting they made a point of using in the Tea Ceremony in Common Descent was just her greeting from her speech at the elementary school, She probably made sure there was a Chinese curriculum in there somewhere but she gave the SAME translation for the phrase when she was prompted, as she had done in the historical record. that must have tickled everyone pink... it'd be something like tricking George Washington into saying "Well I cannot tell a lie.."
Which GW probably never said, so anyone who brings that up, go fuck yourself all the way back to the history forum.

Eli got picked last for gym class ok? There's no romanticizing it. Corporal Barnes pretty much said "God damnit, it's either HIM or Brody..."
I'd be exhausted by that choice too. I like to think Eli's lack of response to Chloe's teasing was him reaching this realization and trying to recover from the kick in the balls it represented. Funny to me personally because when Chloe read to TJ that Eli head written dozens of education text books, my first thought was "Good lord, he died a virgin, that's the only way he had that time and energy."

Hey TJ way to be Cup Half Empty... You just got a ten year head start on LG disease, and your a doctor in the fucking Stargate program. Hey when you're done feeling sorry for yourself, why don't you do a search on the database on the Destiny, or stone back to the SGC and do one on the Asgard data base, or the Atlantis database because... You Have Ten Years...

Col Young ends up a single father running a colony of... them... the one bright point being marrying a hot young blond wife, just to end up spoon feeding her during her inevitable decay. Yikes buddy take some different steps. I'd have gone nuts after the fight on the hill. I'd have said "Fuck you you squabbling ingrates, you all fucking killed the Stargate Franchise and now you're fighting about where to build our lean-to city next?? Go fuck yourself Scott, build a fence wherever the fuck you want and then you can build it AGAIN when we move asshole! I hope you miss the birth of your firstborn and end up hearing about it for the rest of your life from little Miss "My Daddy Was A Senator, And You Can't Even Build Me A Hot Tub".

I definitely missed the part where they did something with that ship they found, did they send the survivors of the scouting party off in it or abandon it because it would have been Slow?

Was the Entire Planet about to blow or could they have continued to salvage at another site not directly over a fault line?

Why did the ONE stargate on Novus fall into lava? Seemed like they had advanced seismometers and could have moved it when things started to get dicey. Kind of disappointed that a society already comparable to colonial New England 60 years after it's founding didn't manage to do more with the stargate. Maybe... explore a little..maybe...try to figure out the technology...? Was it a paperweight for 1800 years?

Why did Eli arrange for one gigantic uplink instead of multiple simultaneous ones, did he miss the p2p era?

How come they had the data storage chip one episode ago that was compatible with their own but now everything's on a server? Nice job Eli, you killed TJ because you couldn't be bothered to find a couple thumb drives. I hope you accidentally overwrite Ginn's libido subroutine.

I hope they name the new colony New Romana, or Ariala...

[Alyeska]

Hey TJ way to be Cup Half Empty... You just got a ten year head start on LG disease, and your a doctor in the fucking Stargate program. Hey when you're done feeling sorry for yourself, why don't you do a search on the database on the Destiny, or stone back to the SGC and do one on the Asgard data base, or the Atlantis database because... You Have Ten Years...

Seven years. She is not a doctor. Merely a medic. EMT, Paramedic, that sort of thing. There isn't a single Medical Doctor on the entire ship. She has learned in the field, but still lacks the proper dedicated training a real doctor has.

I definitely missed the part where they did something with that ship they found, did they send the survivors of the scouting party off in it or abandon it because it would have been Slow?

Ship was destroyed. The entire location of the shipyards was under lava.

Was the Entire Planet about to blow or could they have continued to salvage at another site not directly over a fault line?

The entire city was being inundated with lava. Quakes like that will bring buildings down.

Why did the ONE stargate on Novus fall into lava? Seemed like they had advanced seismometers and could have moved it when things started to get dicey. Kind of disappointed that a society already comparable to colonial New England 60 years after it's founding didn't manage to do more with the stargate. Maybe... explore a little..maybe...try to figure out the technology...? Was it a paperweight for 1800 years?

Could very well have been located in neutral territory between nations for stability reasons.

Why did Eli arrange for one gigantic uplink instead of multiple simultaneous ones, did he miss the p2p era?

That solves nothing. Bandwidth is bandwidth. When you use all of it, thats all she wrote.

How come they had the data storage chip one episode ago that was compatible with their own but now everything's on a server? Nice job Eli, you killed TJ because you couldn't be bothered to find a couple thumb drives. I hope you accidentally overwrite Ginn's libido subroutine.

Its far more complicated than that.

[JME2]

This is my 2nd favorite episode of the series after "Time" and it really makes me wish we weren't down to the last 2.

SGU's finally found its stride and we're about to say a premature, unsatisfying good-bye -- to both it and the franchise.

Anyway, I kinda wish this had served as the series finale. Loved the ending shot.

5/5

[CaptainChewbacca]

I really liked the episode. Eli seemed like he became the 'Ben Franklin' of Novos, if that makes sense. Brody becoming a cranky old man was hilarious too...

As for them not being able to find the generation ships, Destiny isn't really suited for that. It can only jump into hyperspace so often, and it has a minimum cruising time before it can come out. They could easily overshoot the generational ships during a jump, and if the thing doesn't have FTL then it has no subspace engines for them to track.

Edit: I think its a 'fun historical fact' on Novos that 4 out of every 5 people are a direct descendent of Greer. SEVEN KIDS

[avatarxprime]

That was a good episode, but the one thing that kept bugging me was that if they hadn't bothered dicking about and just took their descendents in toe with them to Novus they would have avoided the drones, had more than enough time to complete the data transfer and maybe even finish looting the bunker. Heck, depending on which earthquake happened to portend the lava flow that ate the generation ship they might have even managed to get that too. During the Eli and Camille vs Young and Rush sequence I kept thinking of having Daniel vs Jack and how appealing to common humanity would have ended the discuss then and there. However, it was nice to see that Young does (did?) eventually grow into what seemed like a nice stable, mature leader.

One other thing I found odd was that their civilization never developed hyperdrive (nor did they have a big space industry judging from the lack of infrastructre in space). They know how it works, and a hyperdrive is capable of being produced with modern day (SG-verse) Earth industry, all you need is a sufficiently dense energy source. Apparently despite being all super advanced they never developed power generation systems equal to naquadriah and even more so unlucky, got a planet that lacked the stuff.

Still, whatever they do with the final episode, it needs to be pretty good after this. Camille's speech at the end was just a perfect send off to the show and Stargate in general.

[Vympel]

Good episode, very enjoyable. Loved the characterization of old-Brody as Eastwood off of Gran Torino ...

[hongi]

I liked how SGU slowed down a bit and lingered for a few episodes on a long story arc like this. It was really nice.

[JME2]

I liked how SGU slowed down a bit and lingered for a few episodes on a long story arc like this. It was really nice.

And a really good use of time travel to boot. I love how they're getting so much mileage out of "Twin Destines".

This also reminds me of SGA's last season. Even after Sheppard saved Teyla, elements from the alternate future he visited still occured: Woolsey leading the Expedition to McKay and Keller hooking up.

Beyond TJ's disease, it would have been interesting to see if any elements from the Kino logs came into play during Season 3. Now we'll never know...

[spaceviking]

Great episode thought I had some 'what' moments. I'll buy that the colony became reasonably advanced in 2000 years, but who on destiny is the expert on early technology? It looked like they had looms (based on their clothes) and fairly advanced tools (scissors) in three years

[CaptainChewbacca]

Yeah, the speed with which they were making their own clothes was a bit off to me, but maybe someone had a hobby. I would've expected hide clothes for longer.

[Xon]

By the final flashback they had have almost 30-40 years to make woven clothing.

[NecronLord]

Great episode thought I had some 'what' moments. I'll buy that the colony became reasonably advanced in 2000 years, but who on destiny is the expert on early technology? It looked like they had looms (based on their clothes) and fairly advanced tools (scissors) in three years

The Lucians. Most of them probably grew up on iron or bronze age planets.

[Themightytom]

Great episode thought I had some 'what' moments. I'll buy that the colony became reasonably advanced in 2000 years, but who on destiny is the expert on early technology? It looked like they had looms (based on their clothes) and fairly advanced tools (scissors) in three years

The Lucians. Most of them probably grew up on iron or bronze age planets.

I was going to say that, it occurred to me they should ahve had trouble just plain feeding themselves given their shitty tracking ability demonstrated in the Hunted, After they kill a couple game for a few weeks the wildlife would have figured out something new was in the area and fled.

What got me was how advanced they WEREN'T. After a big deal was made with the Tollan over the difference not having the dark ages made well... what the fuck, they should have had Spaceships in a few hundred years and been well into FTL at the 2000 mark

[NecronLord]

I was going to say that, it occurred to me they should ahve had trouble just plain feeding themselves given their shitty tracking ability demonstrated in the Hunted,

Against prey that turned out to be fucking sapient. Different skills are required; a sapient species can concieve of things that prey animals routinely fall for and avoid them. That hardly means they're bad at hunting other game.

After they kill a couple game for a few weeks the wildlife would have figured out something new was in the area and fled.

What got me was how advanced they WEREN'T. After a big deal was made with the Tollan over the difference not having the dark ages made well... what the fuck, they should have had Spaceships in a few hundred years and been well into FTL at the 2000 mark

That wasn't what the Tollans were about. That was my speculation on their history back in the day. For all we know the Tollans might have found a cache of advanced technology a few centuries ago.

If nothing else, the Tollans had a huge gate network to explore around them.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Also keep in mind the destiny settlers started out with nothing but video cameras and combat knives. They had to smelt bog grass to get iron, the infrastructure to build a spaceship takes time.