SGU 108: "Time" (Spoilers)

[Bilbo]

The assumption with Daniel was that Oma ascended him and kept him pretty much to himself. Didnt he say he had not met any of the other Ascended Beings.

He said he'd never met 'The Others' - which is to say the mainstream. He had, however, met Anubis as an ascended being, and possibly other renegades, or indeed, the Ori en masse.

If this is the case then the same rules or freedoms may not apply to Rush's wife if she ascended in a way other than through Oma.

Conversely, she may have greater, if she got it on her own technological or philosophical merits, then according to all we know, she would be fully accepted.

Do we have a timeline yet on when SGU is happening? The only other Ascended to interfere with humans directly was Morgan and at the end of Ark of Truth she had done the "epic battle until the end of time routine" with Vala's ascended daughter.

And Orlin, and Chaya Sar, and Anubis, and Myyrdin, and the Ori

I would like to point out that I do not think Rush's wife ascended. My guess is that it will come out that this is just his mechanism for dealing with the grief.

It's quite possible she could have, were she say, an SG scientist working with either ascendomatic machine we've seen.

Orlin and Chaya were both Ancients who were punished for interfering and forced to live in a specific place. Orlin even chose physical form once he found some company. Anubis was a halfway ascended who was in that condition it seems as punishment for Oma, another special case. Myyrdin chose to descend and was completely normal when SG1 met him. So the only Ascended who were interfering with humanity and not already punished for it were Oma and Morgan. Everyone else was in some version of Ascended pergatory. Actually only Morgan fits this description. Oma had Anubis as her own private hell.

I have always wonder if the Ascendo machine SG1 found was still around. It was a rather huge plot hole that it was forgotten. When Orlin descended as a child the smart move would have been to run him into that machine a few times and evolve him enough so that his brain didnt decay. The machine seemed to be an improved version of the one created by the Ancients since it worked in small steps instead of one giant leap and killed the person if they didnt figure out the who "letting go" fast enough.

Daniel met Anubis, or the part that was still ascended in the Diner. I think it was implied by Anubis that he at least knew of Daniel from the time Daniel had fully ascended but being Anubis we have no idea if he was telling the truth. As for the others in the diner. Who knows what they were. They could have been ascended Ancients or they could have been just illusions created by Oma to point out the futility of trying to get them to interfere.

[Oskuro]

Regarding the whole issue of the Gates being invented by the guy with the schematics, I don't think there's much of a plot hole. The Ori back then were doing the whole Goaul'd routine of claiming to be gods due to their advanced technology, thus even if they kept the civilians as culturally backwards peasants, the Ori themselves were making technological advances, up until the point when they themselves reached their own form of ascension, wich of course boosted their technological level due to their increased awareness of the universe.
So seeing how the Tolans managed to create a gate themselves, I don't see it beyond the Ori to develop stargates on their own, even if the inventor of the original gates fled with the other Ancients.

As for Destiny's gate being older than the Milky way gates, another option would be that after creating a gate network on the milky way, a new type of gate was developed for the Destiny, and afterwards, the Milky Way network was updated to the current gates, just as the Pegassus gates were most certainly updated (to the point of the Ancients deciding to set some of them in space).

[NecronLord]

I have always wonder if the Ascendo machine SG1 found was still around. It was a rather huge plot hole that it was forgotten.

Umm. No it's not. You ascend, you obey their rules. End of.

When Orlin descended as a child the smart move would have been to run him into that machine a few times and evolve him enough so that his brain didnt decay.

He went as far as to say the Others would not permit him to re-ascend.

[NecronLord]

Regarding the whole issue of the Gates being invented by the guy with the schematics, I don't think there's much of a plot hole. The Ori back then were doing the whole Goaul'd routine of claiming to be gods due to their advanced technology,

Highly unlikely. The Ancients in the bunker reffer to them as a fanatical movement. There's no indication that the Ori were oppressing anyone but the atheistic Ancients, or claiming to be gods themselves, at that point.

So seeing how the Tolans managed to create a gate themselves,

With Nox instruction.

[Revy]

I have always wonder if the Ascendo machine SG1 found was still around. It was a rather huge plot hole that it was forgotten.

Umm. No it's not. You ascend, you obey their rules. End of.

Yeah, but who said you had to see it all the way through? With the Atlantis machine, sure, you Ascend or die. Not much use, too dangerous. The Anubis machine however managed to produce a human with some pretty impressive superpowers, enough for one unarmed man to defeat an entire base full or armed soldiers. More than that, he seemed stable. It was said that he would remain the way he was and be unable to ascend unless he recieved further treatment in the machine.

So rather than advance someone to the point of ascension (useless for practical purposes because of the strict rules in place) the SGC could have used it to advance personel to the point of Caleb - then they'd have a bunch of super psi soldiers at their disposal. It's actually a wonder they didn't do this to fight the Priors, and it certainly could have been done to help in the fight against the Wraith.

When Orlin descended as a child the smart move would have been to run him into that machine a few times and evolve him enough so that his brain didnt decay.

He went as far as to say the Others would not permit him to re-ascend.

I think what Bilbo was suggesting was that they use the machine on him to advance his brain to the point where it could handle the information that he had stuffed in his noggin, which was on meltdown due to being over full. I do not however think such a plan would work though, because the SGC Doc said that Orlin had the most active brain scan she had seen since Caleb, and his brain was still burning out. I think Orlin was as physically advanced as Caleb was, but even then it was still not enough - a physical human brain, no matter how evolved or advanced, simply cannot handle the sheer volume of information that Orlin was trying to hold onto. Hell, RepliCarter was having trouble coping with the stuff even in piecemeal, and she had the entire replicator army to store the data, and even that was not enough. I don't think putting Orlin in the machine would have helped him at all.

Personally I think the best chance Orlin would have had would have been to take the Orbanian nanites - those were used in children's brains to increase their capacity to learn and store information, and when removed the children wound up in a state similar to Orlin after his brain went meltdown. I think the Orbanian nanites could have been exactly what he needed. I still think they could put them in him and see if the things could compensate for his brain damage enough to bring back who he was, and maybe even some of his ascended knowledge.

[NecronLord]

The Anubis one had a god operating it to make Kaleb. There's no reason to think the SGC could do the same with any degree of safety. The best they've got for an ascendometer is 'ascend or die' - and that was by mashing buttons. There's no reason to think the Lantean version was actually any worse, and also no reason to think that the tau'ri whose understanding of ascension is on the level of 'mash buttons' anyway, and that it'd be less than hilariously dangerous.

Hell, maybe that's what happened to Rush's wife.

[Imperial Overlord]

Despite the fact it was a time machine reset button push episode I quite liked it. I'm also liking Chloe. She's the first one to point out that her skills aren't really relevant to their predicament and instead of moping about it she tries to pitch in the best she can. That's pretty good considering we're at the beginning of the storyline.

[NecronLord]

Oh yes. I forgot that. This episode we got Chloe making herself as useful as she can. I hope her haters are taking note.

[Bilbo]

I have always wonder if the Ascendo machine SG1 found was still around. It was a rather huge plot hole that it was forgotten.

Umm. No it's not. You ascend, you obey their rules. End of.

When Orlin descended as a child the smart move would have been to run him into that machine a few times and evolve him enough so that his brain didnt decay.

He went as far as to say the Others would not permit him to re-ascend.

The plote hole was never seeing it again. It could have been used on Orlin, not to make him Ascend, but to advance him to more than generic human so that his mind could handle all of the knowledge it possessed. That is why he degenerated, he had too much knowledge in his mind for it to handle. If he had been put in Anubis's machine a few times he would have advanced some and survived better.

I do find the "not let him ascend" bit to be interesting. It makes sense if someone who is not physically capable like Daniel Jackson, he only ascended because Oma did the work. If someone is advanced enough on their own, like running Orlin through the machine until he is fully advanced enough then the others would not be able to stop him. If they could then they would have certainly stopped Adria who died and ascended in our galaxy not in the Ori galaxy.

[Bilbo]

The Anubis one had a god operating it to make Kaleb. There's no reason to think the SGC could do the same with any degree of safety. The best they've got for an ascendometer is 'ascend or die' - and that was by mashing buttons. There's no reason to think the Lantean version was actually any worse, and also no reason to think that the tau'ri whose understanding of ascension is on the level of 'mash buttons' anyway, and that it'd be less than hilariously dangerous.

Hell, maybe that's what happened to Rush's wife.

True, but Orlin himself may have been able to use the machine safely.

Good point, that may have been what happened to his wife.

[NecronLord]

The Others enforce their rules fully on the Ori home galaxy, thus rebels can survive. The Others have always been at least equals of the Ori, or the Ori would have exterminated them. They could easily have stopped Adria by smiting her from on high, but to do so would compromise their beliefs.

They permit the likes of Adria to ascend because of their core beliefs (see my sig) - Adria had committed no crimes among the Ascended that would justify her punishment by denying her what she's earnt. The Ori always obeyed the ascended rules, though seeking out loopholes (note that they picked someone with remnants of genetic memory to create their Orici) - but they didn't have free reign at any point.

Orlin, on the other hand, is a serial renegade and criminal, interfering with lowers repeatedly, which is why they'd likely punish him.

[Themightytom]

My assumption with the Destiny is that it's launch is what spurred the Ori to use a disease to wipe out the Ancients in the Milky Way Galaxy (or as they called it, Avalon).

So they fleed to Pegasus (which they knew was fully seeded with Stargates) to rebuild while the disease/plague died out, or until they developed a counter for it.

When they were about ready to recolonize the Milky Way + contact the Destiny, the Ori stuck again, this time with the Wraith.

This would be an effective way by the Ori to keep the Ancients from spreading to dozens of other galaxies via the Destiny's Stargate Network, and screw around with their enemies at the same time.

The Ori got it right the second time, as the Ancients instead were nearly wiped out and instead Ascended.

the Destiny and its gates could have been in service already and the "great idea" was creating user friendly gates to encourage independent travel, developement and freedom. Nothing hurts a religion more than the free exchange of ideas but the problem with a theoccracy is you can only have a small cohort at the top and its hard to project power everywhere at once.

So the Ancients go to Dakara, and as their civilization expands, the Altairans on Earth discover them, theres a war, the Ori introduce the plague, and assume the Milky Way is dead. only to find it, and the ancients are still alive, spreading their fisher price stargates and now in control of the galaxy containing the planet from which Destiny can be dialed.