SGU 106: Water (Spoilers)

[ThomasP]

Anybody else catch that the guy that got killed by the aliens was named Gorman?

[tezunegari]

Overall the episode as a 4.

I especially liked Greer's professionalism, TJ in command, Eli being smacked down by Rush and the alien hunt (it even introduced us to MacGyuver-Greer ).
The last scene with Young recording the death of that soldier was somehow unexpected even though they all said the guy might not make it.
The writers are on a somewhat limited amount of characters after all.

And we have seen the civilians doubting the military leadership. I can't wait to see that mutiny.

The whole "get stuck on deadly planet" sub-plot was pretty much formularic and I think leaving out the stuff with Lt. "Pants-down" Scott being stuck in the rift and having those two be the ones who are relatively safe would have been better.



The next episode is titled "Earth".
From the preview trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubk86hPSNoU ( 0:06 to 0:08 ) Spoiler

The lab coats from Earth have come up with a plan that could get the Destiny refugees back to Earth. But the plan is risky.

The bad thing is that Chloe and Eli are "visiting their loved ones" while Young seems to hang around in SGC with Telford as his stand-in.
The good is we see Destiny's big fucking space guns in action.

A rumor from gateworld.net: Spoiler

Apparently the writers plan to have a suicide among the people aboard Destiny. I wonder who that will be...

[dragon]

Anybody else catch that the guy that got killed by the aliens was named Gorman?

Untill you mentioned didn't register.

The colonel still seems pretty dimwitted to me, so I'm not impressed with him yet, nor am I particularly enamored with his method of brainstorming... it made me think he was just going to sit there until the time ran out, if Act Of Plot hadn't freed soldier boy. He's rather dull, but I still have nothing against him. I like him as a main character more than the straight man, and I hope as the show matures they give him more active, vocal roles. He's a good actor, but his character's just waaaay too stiff recently--limp included.

Well I don't know about other branches but Army Colonels seem to be a rather dim witted once outside their field of expertise.
In the five years I spent at US Army European Command I saw so many officers that had no clue what they were doing, granted almost all the ones I met were admin types, few had some combat time under there belts but that actually made them seem worse when it came to the non combat stuff.

Was funny I saw one Lt that got promoted to Captain and became a company commander it was almost like his intelligence went down. But once he made Major and moved out of the command slot slot his intelligence went back up. Maybe had to do with the 1SG and the CSM that was always telling him something different.

[Bounty]

nor am I particularly enamored with his method of brainstorming... it made me think he was just going to sit there until the time ran out, if Act Of Plot hadn't freed soldier boy.

He's breaking under pressure. If the crevasse scene didn't clue you in, the slo-mo walk just before the credits should have. He's got 80 people counting on him to keep them alive and he's not sure he even wants to stay alive himself.

I'm half-expecting him to either snap - which would be a damn shame, he's a great character - or go through some sort of crisis that gives him enough drive to keep fighting.

[Chris OFarrell]

Well, next episode is called 'Earth', which we all know will probably go something like the Atlantis 'Home' Episode from S1...

I wonder though if we could get an idea of how power scales in terms of dialing a Stargate across these distances, to say nothing of how far they actually ARE from the MW, we might be able to work out how much energy they actually need to make the connection. It would be interesting if they actually brought in that Wormhole drive of Atlantis, making it something other then a pure plot point pulled out of thin air, if they could refit it to a 304 and have it make lots of short 'hops' in pursuit of Destiny or something...

But that won't happen.

[Manus Celer Dei]

This was distinctly under-par compared to the previous episodes. The story about the bugs was interesting, but the stuff on the ice planet was mostly just plain boring and dragged the episode down. And Eli's getting more annoying with every episode.

I'm half-expecting him to either snap - which would be a damn shame, he's a great character - or go through some sort of crisis that gives him enough drive to keep fighting.

They do seem to be setting him up for something like that, I hope he does manage to stick around somehow. He's one of the better characters in SGU so far.

[Starglider]

It would be interesting if they actually brought in that Wormhole drive of Atlantis, making it something other then a pure plot point pulled out of thin air, if they could refit it to a 304 and have it make lots of short 'hops' in pursuit of Destiny or something...

According to the previews there is a 'high risk plan to return Destiny to earth' in the next episode, so it's possible.

[JME2]

Well, next episode is called 'Earth', which we all know will probably go something like the Atlantis 'Home' Episode from S1...

I wonder though if we could get an idea of how power scales in terms of dialing a Stargate across these distances, to say nothing of how far they actually ARE from the MW, we might be able to work out how much energy they actually need to make the connection. It would be interesting if they actually brought in that Wormhole drive of Atlantis, making it something other then a pure plot point pulled out of thin air, if they could refit it to a 304 and have it make lots of short 'hops' in pursuit of Destiny or something...

But that won't happen.

It's likely that any mention of the wormhole drive -- or indeed, Atlantis' current status -- is going to off-limits until the SGA DTV enters production -- if ever. It'd be the same as the fallout of The Ark of Truth not being mentioned on SGA until after it was released (barring the installation of the Asgard Beams of Doom on Daedalus and Apollo, of course).

[Themightytom]

Is the destiny still jumping from galaxy to galaxy or are the Ftl'ing accross the same one. I just assumed it was a new galaxy every time they come out of FTL but that means they Destiny is REALLY far out... its been maybe two weeks in universe and thats two galaxies. Its not inconcievable that they could fool the Destiny into thinking its under attack and needs to return to hits launch point: Earth. I still don't see how that could happen in a reasonable amount of time unless destiny has been travelling in a spiral for hundreds of thosuands of years and the milky Way isn't a straight line away. If the Destiny is pausing in each galaxy or possibly travelling more slowly through them then when there are now obstacles in its way between galaxies then maybe the SGC thinks it can do a return home in a reasonable amount of time.

Although they could just be WRONG about how far away Destiny is.

[Starglider]

Is the destiny still jumping from galaxy to galaxy or are the Ftl'ing accross the same one.

The later. Destiny isn't that advanced, it's a much earlier design than Atlantis. Besides, if they were galaxy hopping it would be much harder to have recurring villains (which you know they will eventually add to the show. To be honest, I can't see where the 'this could be the most important discovery since the Stargate' comes from. Not only is the ship less advanced than Atlantis, it's smaller, in much worse shape, and doesn't (seem to) have a huge user-friendly database on board. The only thing it might have that Atlantis doesn't is a map of all the places its travelled through, but that information will be out of date and of dubious practical use given that SGC already have more than enough to do in the Milky Way and Pegasus.

The FTL must be pretty power efficient though, if it can make it all the way across intergalactic space without any star refuels.

[Bilbo]

Is the destiny still jumping from galaxy to galaxy or are the Ftl'ing accross the same one.

The later. Destiny isn't that advanced, it's a much earlier design than Atlantis. Besides, if they were galaxy hopping it would be much harder to have recurring villains (which you know they will eventually add to the show. To be honest, I can't see where the 'this could be the most important discovery since the Stargate' comes from. Not only is the ship less advanced than Atlantis, it's smaller, in much worse shape, and doesn't (seem to) have a huge user-friendly database on board. The only thing it might have that Atlantis doesn't is a map of all the places its travelled through, but that information will be out of date and of dubious practical use given that SGC already have more than enough to do in the Milky Way and Pegasus.

The FTL must be pretty power efficient though, if it can make it all the way across intergalactic space without any star refuels.

I am sure there is lots that the SGC can learn from Destiny. Its a ship that was built and launched a million years ago and is still on trucking. Most of its systems work just fine. It looks like most of the damage was from external sources. The resiliency and strength built into everything in this ship is amazing.

I would be curious how no "Wiki" entry has even been found in the Atlantis database. This isnt just one ship reference missing but several ships since its mentioned that there are several other ships depositing Stargates and equipment on appropriate planets.

[JME2]

I would be curious how no "Wiki" entry has even been found in the Atlantis database. This isnt just one ship reference missing but several ships since its mentioned that there are several other ships depositing Stargates and equipment on appropriate planets.

The Ancients might have deleted the references to the other ships when they abandoned the city to prevent the Wraith from learning of them if they captured Atlantis. That's a bit of a stretch, I know.

[Alyeska]

The later. Destiny isn't that advanced, it's a much earlier design than Atlantis. Besides, if they were galaxy hopping it would be much harder to have recurring villains (which you know they will eventually add to the show. To be honest, I can't see where the 'this could be the most important discovery since the Stargate' comes from. Not only is the ship less advanced than Atlantis, it's smaller, in much worse shape, and doesn't (seem to) have a huge user-friendly database on board. The only thing it might have that Atlantis doesn't is a map of all the places its travelled through, but that information will be out of date and of dubious practical use given that SGC already have more than enough to do in the Milky Way and Pegasus.

The FTL must be pretty power efficient though, if it can make it all the way across intergalactic space without any star refuels.

The Destiny is less advanced, but that by no means makes it less important. Some of the technologies involved are types they have not yet encountered. Older technology can be just as useful. The ships AI for starters. In addition, older technology is more likely to be readily adaptable and usable. The more advanced something is, the higher the technology base required to build it. The only reason Earth could build what they did with the Daedalus class ships is thanks to Asgard help. I am quite certain the Asgard left the SGC necessary equipment to manufacture specific components of the ships. But what happens when that equipment gets destroyed? By having the Destiny, it gives Earth a sampling of more technology, and much of it older and likely easier to work with.

[Starglider]

The ships AI for starters.

It doesn't seem terribly advanced so far, a bunch of simple scripting on top of a normal nav computer would be more than enough to cover premature refueling and minor diversions to acquire basic resources. Atlantis has the holo-person virtual guide technology (as subverted by Morgan) - which the SGC also has via the Asgard computer - and the ability to create human-level sentient AI via the Asuran-making equipment.

In addition, older technology is more likely to be readily adaptable and usable. The more advanced something is, the higher the technology base required to build it.

That's true, but I'd be surprised if all the specs and details for the older tech wasn't already in the Atlantis database. It is supposed to be the primary library for their whole civilisation. Working examples are nice, but hardly essential if you've already got all the blueprints, textbooks to help you understand the blueprints, virtual guides to help you understand the textbooks, and an Asgard replicator that can make things directly from the blueprints.

By having the Destiny, it gives Earth a sampling of more technology, and much of it older and likely easier to work with.

If they can get any of it back, and even then it would still just be a nice bonus. It doesn't make the Destiny more significant than Atlantis, or for that matter first contact with the Asgard.

[Themightytom]

Its an assumption that Altantis is in direct lineage from Destiny, and also an assumption taht the ancients kept perfect records. The fact that they have the headgrabbers seems to imply that at one point information storage was an improtant issue, possibly because so much was lost. There is also the Taonas out post from SG1 lost city, and the deteriorating city ship from The Tower. hell, Dakara was one of the first settlements, yet Earth's home address was the one needed to dial to Destiny. maybe there were other factions on Earth at the time Destiny left and the lantenas weren't the ones who sent it off? That would make destiny very important, as it would represent a completely different sect of ancients.

Even if it is jsut a precursor to Atlantis, its still been dropping stargates in different gallaxies for hundreds of thosuands of eyars. Thats important because it expands Earth's explorable stragets by several magnitudes. it gets them out of the neighborhood.

[Alyeska]

It doesn't seem terribly advanced so far, a bunch of simple scripting on top of a normal nav computer would be more than enough to cover premature refueling and minor diversions to acquire basic resources. Atlantis has the holo-person virtual guide technology (as subverted by Morgan) - which the SGC also has via the Asgard computer - and the ability to create human-level sentient AI via the Asuran-making equipment.

The hologram never existed. It was Morgan the entire time.

That's true, but I'd be surprised if all the specs and details for the older tech wasn't already in the Atlantis database. It is supposed to be the primary library for their whole civilisation. Working examples are nice, but hardly essential if you've already got all the blueprints, textbooks to help you understand the blueprints, virtual guides to help you understand the textbooks, and an Asgard replicator that can make things directly from the blueprints.

They didn't even know about Destiny. Its clear that the Ancient database is far from complete.

If they can get any of it back, and even then it would still just be a nice bonus. It doesn't make the Destiny more significant than Atlantis, or for that matter first contact with the Asgard.

Destiny's navigational and sensor data would be a gold mine for the SGC. And plenty of that could be relayed back home without a great deal of work.

[Starglider]

The hologram never existed. It was Morgan the entire time.

Of course it did. This was explained in the episode; Morgan created it before she ascended. She disabled the output and posed as the program while SG-1 were in Atlantis, but she couldn't have fooled either them or the ancients if the holointerface didn't already exist.

Destiny's navigational and sensor data would be a gold mine for the SGC. And plenty of that could be relayed back home without a great deal of work.

For what? They don't have any other power sources capable of dialing that far out, nor do they have the spare ships or desire to go on long range universal exploration missions. There's plenty still unexplored closer to home. If Destiny finds anything interesting that might change the assessment, but so far all it has visited have been utterly unremarkable uninhabited planets.

[NecronLord]

Rush said it might be the most important discovery, and it might; we don't know where it's going or what it'll find. For all we know they'll make discoveries that make the Ancients and Asgard look like Luddites.

It's not, in itself, terribly important though.

[Zac Naloen]

I'm beginning to wonder if maybe there was a schism in Ancient culture around the time of the plague.


The Geiger ancients seem very earthy (for example they build structures and monuments out of stone) and the Lanteans are very Star Trek super clean etc. 100% technological environments. The entire concept of their existence seems totally at odds with each other.

With that in mind, I wonder if some knowledge was lost at the time of this schism hence why the ancient database seems a bit vague with some of it's information.

[The Yosemite Bear]

So shall the next episode be called food, and whom do we eat?

[Alyeska]

For what? They don't have any other power sources capable of dialing that far out, nor do they have the spare ships or desire to go on long range universal exploration missions. There's plenty still unexplored closer to home. If Destiny finds anything interesting that might change the assessment, but so far all it has visited have been utterly unremarkable uninhabited planets.

The Destiny has been in space for hundreds of thousands of years, possibly a million. It has visited on average, two galaxies a year. Yes, these planets are all entirely unremarkable.

The computers have INFORMATION. Information that they never had before. Just go over the sensor logs and start looking at the interesting places the ship has been. Perhaps one of the nearby galaxies has something of high value to Earth. Just daisy chain some ZPMs from galaxy to galaxy and dial between this galaxy and back to Earth for whatever it has.

[Vympel]

I don't think a schism is necessary to explain anything. Destiny predates Atlantis and other examples of Ancient technology- it looks different because styles change over the years.

[Darth Tanner]

I'm not sure why people are saying the water issue has been solved in this episode, they only brought back one sled of ice and lost that much just throwing the barrel out the gate with the aliens in, let alone the thousands of liters the aliens used to reproduce. Rush certaintly seems depressed enough that they abandoned the second sled of ice to save soldier boy.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

It's why I said somewhat. Even the air filters will likely have to be addressed later. Although that and power are less likely to become issues again before water and food become much more pressing.

What were the figures at the end? We could figure out how much they had, estimate how much the ice was worth, and figure out how much time they really have with the water. Assuming we're bored.

[Oskuro]

Ok, so I finally caught up with the series. It's interesting, it feels like I suspect Atlantis should have felt, has more believable situations and exploration makes more sense. Also, there are no humanoid aliens so far.
What I'm not liking are the characters, they are too flawed, too emo and on edge. I know it fits their current situation, but hopefully they'll lighten up a bit eventually. The character I do like a lot is the ship itself, and I hope they keep treating it like a kind of silent character, instead of giving full control to the humans and ruining it.

Two plot points that have not been addressed:

1) What happened to the people who gave up on the desert planet and went through the gate to one of the locked out planets? Insta-death? Stranded? What? They are not even mentioned again (that I recall).

2) What was that pod that detached itself and flew away from the Destiny at the end of the first episode?

I think the Destiny is traveling within a single galaxy, checking up on gates or whatever it is supposed to do (I was under the impression that Destiny itself was seeding the gates, now I'm not sure what purpose does it have beyond allowing quick access to the far end of the seeding process, wich, by the way, I hope we get to see). I think it'll be another hurdle when the ship decides to make an intergalactic jump, and the characters have to face a long period without supplies of any kind.


As for the episode at hand, I felt the whole drama in the ice was a bit forced, they could've devoted more time to investigating what was draining the water, and trying to understand the alien creatures, rather than making them a disposable subplot. It would've been interesting if the creatures would have pointed the characters to water sources in the ship they might have not known about.