Well, since no one else is going to do it... Discuss Atlantis here. It looks interesting so far. I'd say something more, but my daughter just woke up from her nap.
B.J.
Posted by Defiantly Running About (Member # 1216) on :
Did anyone else notice that, although the Wraith could regenerate bulletholes, but a spike driven through one killed it?
Also, why the hell did the hologram from the Ancients speak English? Of course you could apply that to any and everybody they meet, but at least you can say there that they speak a variant of an Earth or Goa'uld-based language - the Ancients wouldn't have spoken anything like English, and wouldn't have made a recording in it. Oh, well.
Oh, and I really like the Irish guy ;P
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Also, why the hell did the hologram from the Ancients speak English? Of course you could apply that to any and everybody they meet
I thought it was a bit of a joke when the first adult they met on Teyla's planet said his name, and Shepherd said "I don't know that word." As if, for just a second, we'd think they spoke another language!
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
I enjoyed the premiere.
Atlantis is now surfaced, and without enough power to operate the city's defenses. Hope the Wraith haven't figured out where they are...
Speaking of which, I can't say I care for the Wraith too much. Not very interesting.
Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :
I also enjoyed it and didn't care much for the Wraiths. Otherwise, it looks and feels just as good as SG-1--but in a new way or something.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Oh, and I really like the Irish guy ;P
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but he's definitely Scottish, confirmed by the Scottish flag on his shoulder.
Speaking of nationalities, here's the different flags I remember: USA, Canada, Spain, UK, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Australia. I'm sure there were others.
They're now going to be looking for a power source for the city, to replace the 3 failed ZPE generators. Of course, getting their hands on just one will give them the city shields and (or?) give them the ability to dial Earth.
The Wraith are aware of Earth now, but they don't know where it is. For them, it will be a mega-smorgasbord. I also don't think the Wraith are very original either, but the writers have suprised me over the years, so they may get more interesting down the road a bit.
Sheppard likes college football. I like this guy already!
One thing that reminded me of Voyager's premiere: the only person that didn't approve of Sheppard (a superior officer, no less), got killed already.
Lt. Ford seems at least familiar with gate travel, so I imagine he was previously on one of the unseen SG teams.
They still use GDOs, but it seems they've given each individual their own code, as evidenced by them saying something like "it's Lt. Ford's code".
Sgt. Siler makes an appearance, but doesn't get sent to the infirmary! I was fully expecting something to go haywire when he threw that large electrical switch.
B.J.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: Oh, and I really like the Irish guy ;P
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but he's definitely Scottish, confirmed by the Scottish flag on his shoulder.
Meh, everyone knows that all white guys look the same anyways Posted by Defiantly Running About (Member # 1216) on :
*whacks head* Know how dumb I feel? ...I have Scottish FAMILY and didn't recognize the accent *sigh*
Posted by Capped in Mike (Member # 709) on :
och!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The new bad guys certainly don't seem like something that would bother the Ancients. (At least, not so far.)
And how come the Ancients put a security field over that gate, and not every gate? It's, like, a super good idea that should be obvious. (Also, why do they have a big fancy gate control room anyway? The Asgard just kept theirs in an alcove off a hallway.) ALSO, I don't think there's room in that ship to hold those fold-out engines. (Plus, Ancient weapons, even after laying idle for a long time, seem to blow up Wraith ships just fine. Really, the only problem the, uh, Atlantis people seem to have, in regards to the Wraith, is running out of ammunition.)
Having complained, I thought it was great, mostly.
Is it the official story now, though, that the Ancients are just humans? I've missed most every episode of SG-1 about them, at least in the last two seasons. Because, anyway, that is sort of disappointing.
Perhaps the Furlings will show up.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The Ancients are humanoids who evolved on Earth. I'm pretty sure humans are not supposed to be descended from them (at least, not as a whole). Someone mentioned that humans are the "second evolution of this form" on Earth.
"The new bad guys certainly don't seem like something that would bother the Ancients. (At least, not so far.)"
Well, so far, we've seen, what? About five of them? And they'd just been sitting around for who knows how many years, feeding sporadically. Now they've awakened what will probably hundreds, if not thousands, more, who are going to start making a concerted effort to be really really nasty. I'm sure they'll seem more foreboding in the coming episodes.
Of course, it still won't make sense that the humans will be able to beat them week after week, if they're powerful enough to kick the Ancients' collective ass. But, then, how did SG-1 always beat the Goa'uld? And why does everyone speak English? It's going to be just one of those things that's to be expected.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Second evolution? Poop on that.
I'm sure the Wraith are plenty mean. It's just that an Ancient transport ship seems to do a pretty good job blowing them up, as does a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile.
Anyway, I guess we'll see. I wonder why the Ancients couldn't (or didn't) get help from their fancy Four Races alliance?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Presumably said alliance was toast by this point, given that the Ancients had apparently left our galaxy. There's also no telling how much their allies were worth, really. The stored knowledge of the Ancients (well, and Jack) built the ultimate Replicator-killer in five minutes flat, which all the combined research of the Asgard couldn't do in years.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
"Presumably said alliance was toast by this point, given that the Ancients had apparently left our galaxy."
Well, and? The Asgard aren't from this galaxy either.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Yeah, they are. They moved too. But I see your point, I suppose distance shouldn't matter that much.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
One shot from the premiere got me thinking. When they showed a close-up of the Gate floating in space, I counted nine glowing points on the rim (corresponding to the chevron locks). Now...
If 7 coordinates are enough to travel to any point in a galaxy, and eight can open a wormhole to another galaxy, what would the Gate open to if you managed to encode and lock all nine points? Time travel? Interdimensional? We might just see the Ancients someday after all.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
INCOMING wormholes tend to instantaneously light up all nine chevrons, I think...
People have been speculating about the ninth chevron since "The Fifth Race" when we found what number eight does. There has never been any evidence as to what it does.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I'm curious as to why the movie prop was built with 9 in the first place if they knew they were only going to use 7. They had no concept of the TV series at that point and, in the movie, Abydos was already way outside our galaxy. Inother words, there was no need for 9 chevrons on the Gate, so why did they build it with 9?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I'd guess it had to be radially symmetrical so it wouldn't have a particular "up", and it was easier to divide 360 degrees into nine parts than into seven. But that's just a guess.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yah, but wouldn't someone at some point go, "Hey wait a tic... the story only talks about 7 of these things... and we're building it with 9... what do the other two do?"
It just seems like the logical development of the design would only include 7 markers since having 7 is integral to the working of the Gate (in the movie). As a designer, I can't imagine reading that story, trying to design a Gate that works like the one in the movie does, and somewhere along the line going, "Hell... 9 looks better than 7... I'll just throw two more on there" without asking myself what the other two do.
Now... the fact that the 8th and 9th chevrons are barely visible beneath the ramp could have something to do with it. They knew the bottom would be partially hidden and that all 7 working chevrons would have to visible above it, so they couldn't have just evenly spaced 7 chevrons around the ring and still had them all visible.
As you can see, with only 7 chevrons, the bottom two wouldn't show up under the ramp.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
I've finally got a good version to watch - and I must say, Atlantis itself is pretty darned impressive. There will doubtless be more than one adventure that sees Shepperd and company exploring unexplored or unpowered parts of the city, and hopefully danger and technology along the way. The place is FAR bigger than any good guy starship or station in Trek, with the possible exception of the mushroom starbases. Hey, did anyone notice that the "gate tower" in the middle of the city is actually a suspended building within it, supported by a network of bridges and smaller buildings?
Also notable is the fact that Atlantis itself was designed for intergalactic travel. The Wraith will inevitably find the planet they're on... But hopefully they'll find a way to move it to another planet - or even into orbit or somewhere in the middle of nowhere that no ship could possibly find. The Atlantis gate is integrated into the city ship, so it follows that moving it is no big deal, or possibly operating it outside of the gravity well of a planet or star system. Mind you, if they could find enough power to move the city, they might have the power to gate back home, at least.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not my own observation, but: I wonder if they brought any Goa'uld technologies with them? Zats, at least, would be handy.
I was sort of thinking it would have been neat to have the defected System Lord from SG-1 on Atlantis, but I can't really think of any logical reason to send him along. Oh well.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Yes, zats would be very handy, especially given that they have a limited supply of bullets...
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Of course, we don't know how long the power cells in those things last.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Yeah, but they can presumably be recharged somehow.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
They don't exactly have an unlimited supply of Zats, either. Who knows how many they actually have on hand? The only place they seemed to be getting them from was defeated Goa'ulds and their Jaffa, since the Tok'ra weren't exactly giving them away. Maybe they'll show one having no effect on the Wraith or something.
B.J.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Zats have no effect on Kull warriors either, which makes them pretty useless these days against the Goa'uld. Besides, they want to get away from the SG-1 standard loadoout. Few, if any, SG teams were ever seen with zat guns besides SG-1 - perhaps it was a specialty thing only select teams get.
In any case, we know that the Wraith rifles can disable as well as kill. Wouldn't surprise me if our heroes start using them once they capture a few, or the inevitable pistol-size versions.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
They should have hundreds of the things by now.
Anyway, I imagine Ancient versions of regular SG-1 props are going to accumulate rapidly.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Second evolution? Poop on that.
I'm sure the Wraith are plenty mean. It's just that an Ancient transport ship seems to do a pretty good job blowing them up, as does a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile.
Anyway, I guess we'll see. I wonder why the Ancients couldn't (or didn't) get help from their fancy Four Races alliance?
I was really disapointed in the Wraiths. Anyone see the latest version of The Time Machine? Wraiths are Morlocks with peridontal disease. Their ships are unimpressive: silver Peacekeeper Prowlers that can be taken out my machineguns and rockets.
Mabye these are NOT the ones that destroyed the Aincents after all- I don't think it was confirmed anyway.
Anubis was far tougher.
I like it though....as always, Stargate has good characterizations (okay, the Scotsman/scientist buddy team is a bit too familiar) and I was suprised that all those nomadic hunters stayed in the city....beats living in a tent, I guess.
The second episode was well done also...I wonder if we'll ever see that personal shield again.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: Not my own observation, but: I wonder if they brought any Goa'uld technologies with them? Zats, at least, would be handy.
I was sort of thinking it would have been neat to have the defected System Lord from SG-1 on Atlantis, but I can't really think of any logical reason to send him along. Oh well.
Defected system lord!?!?!?!?!
See this is the problem when everyone is on Different seasons. Is this from beyond "The Race" episode of season 7 - which is where they finished up showing SG1 last season in Australia. Should be back anytime now though! PLEASE CHANNEL SEVEN!
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"See this is the problem when everyone is on Different seasons."
There is obviously going to be some intermarrying between SG-1 and Atlantis, so a thread about the one will from time to time contain spoilers about the other. And, to be honest, I don't understand why you'd even want to read about Atlantis yet, given your long history of superallergic reactions to spoilers for SG-1, so it seems to me that your problem has a simpler solution than you think.
Anyway (1), Simon's blurb was about SG-1's eighth season premiere, New Order, which has the system lords seeking an alliance with Earth against Baal, who's been promoted to Supreme Bad Guy since the death (well, semi-death) of Anubis and is now really evil and menacing and stuff.
Anyway (2), having watched Rising again, I'm a little puzzled why they (the folks back home) didn't just phone the Asgard, who should now be as snug as a bug in a rug with the Replicator threat gone, and ask them nicely to fly one of their hyperultrafast O'Neill's to the Pegasus galaxy and maybe beam down a ZPM or two, but I guess the show has to last at least a season.
Oh, and: matrix lights instead of fixed symbols? They look fancy, sure, but it doesn't smack of much Ancient-ism to me. But what do I know.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The Asgard are probably pretty busy cleaning up after the Replicator invasion of their new homeworld. Between that and them building it in the first place, they're probably pretty busy. Still, when Atlantis fails to check in, they'll probably wait a while before asking the Asgard to look in on them, but hopefully they'll have found a way back home by then - they are not likely to pull a Voyager here.
There's also the notion that the Asgard might not like us playing around with Ancient technology... They know just how dangerous it is, and that while SG-1 can be trusted not to do wrong, what about the whole Atlantis team? They may deliberately avoid phoning them before they've had a chance to find some cool stuff.
Mark
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
They're just afraid the Asgard will come and take over Atlantis.... ..and thta Thor will start in with the rectal probes again.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
No, no, no. That was Loki.
And I'm only half kidding.
B.J.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Did they ever show Loki, Hela or any negative Norse gods?
I'm waaaaay behind on Stargate (I only catch the syndicated episodes nightly- I work Friday nights).
Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :
Loki is in the season 7 episode "Fragile Balance".
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Is he a little evil grey alien of just another human with glowy eyes?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Is he a little evil grey alien of just another human with glowy eyes?
Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :
He's an evil little grey alien.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Coooool. Does he have an evil laugh or anything? Tell me they dont do the "evil twin brother" bit between him and Thor.
Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :
I think he was rather mellow, but still sort of evil.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Like Mr.Burns?
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Was Burns ever into kidnapping people in their sleep and doing nasty genetic experiments on them in order to grow his own personal army of clones/save Springfield from extinction?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Little Grey Gay Assitant Alien: Well sir, we've finished the most recent round of anal probes. There were only three instances of insanity this time.
Loki: Eeexcellent.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I can just imagine an Asgard named Smithers...
$$ Minor Spoiler Ahead $$
. . . . . . .
If you look at some of the information for upcoming episodes, the sixth regular episode is entitled "Home", and will be guest-starring Don S. Davis (aka General Hammond). Sounds interesting.
I wonder if it's because of the Asgard that the SGC apparently doesn't want the Atlantis team to return to the Pegasus Galaxy? Or is it just going to be more home-grown political machinations?
Why did Don Davis leave? Voluntarily, or to allow MacGuyver (WTF ever his name is) to get promoted so he can work less ... ?
Posted by TheWoozle (Member # 929) on :
I expected him to be a 'guest star' in season 8, as the commander of Earth Defenses or whatever the post title is.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I think Davis left voluntarily, at least according to an interview I read. There wasn't a whole lot else for him to do with the character.
Wasn't he promoted to Director of Homeworld Security?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Homeworld Security.
Davis said he'd stay if there was enough money, making it sound voluntary. Whether it WAS or not, who can say?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
From the photos, it looks like the actor who played the Tollan that had a thing for Carter is in this ep. I wonder if it's the same character. If not... they need to stop using actors in Atlantis that are easily recognized from their roles in SG-1.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Yes, it was the same actor. Which probably also serves as confirmation that the Tollan are indeed dead as doorknobs now and won't be brought back again.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yep. I'm still a little surprised that they'd use a fairly recognizable character from a related series like this. Mind you, Nerim has been dead for four years...
As for Hammond, he'll also be back in a the SG-1 episode "Prometheus Unbound" the annual show centering on that ship (though not in command, apparently). Reports indicate that Davis wanted to move on, which is probably true - they hadn't been doing much with him lately (until the seventh season finale). I'm okay with his departure, if it means that when he DOES show up he'll have a substantial part in how things go. This seems to be true, given his parts in "Home" and "Prometheus Unbound".
Mark
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...the long-lost heroes are debriefed at Stargate Command and eventually settle back into their normal lives.
"But clues begin to turn up that cause the team to suspect that all is not as it seems."
That sounds like it will be one of those stories where it turns out that they're actually in some kind of simulation and they never really made it back at all.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yeah.. But I have hopes that this won't be another of the hackneyed Voyager-esque plot twists. Stargate has done a pretty good job at bucking the trend of most cliches. I though time loop stories had been done, then I saw "Window of Opportunity". I thogh I'd be sick of the X-Files conspiracy crap, but the NID arc continues to engage me...
"Sir, I've heard back from Command about your request."
"And?"
"Sir... We can't call our ship the Enterprise."
"Why not?"
[silence]
"Sir, why don't we just call it Prometheus? That was the project's code name."
"But Prometheus is a Greek tragedy! Who'd want to name their ship after that?"
... And they did.
Mark
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Yes, I'm ressurecting this thread on purpose. No, it wasn't to tick off people who thought Stargate was dead for the summer.
When they rebroadcast the first half of the premiere this Friday, I noticed a couple of new things. First, that Ancient woman who was left behind was the same one SG-1 found frozen in the ice, played by Ona Grauer. So apparently *something* happened to the Antarctic base just after Atlantis left. Whatever it was, it was probably the reason it left.
The music is done by Joel Goldsmith, who has done SG-1 since the beginning. He also happens to be one of 6 children of Jerry Goldsmith.
Finally, I found a good map showing exactly where the Pegasus galaxy is. Others have pointed out where it is in our sky, but that doesn't mean that much to me. The October 1999 National Geographic magazine had a good map of our galaxy, and had several views zooming out to show the Local Group and more. I've scanned in the view of the local group here: http://bj.o.home.mindspring.com/BJ_art/pegasus_galaxy.jpg It's still in the Local Group, but fairly isolated from both the Milky Way and Andromeda. I'm guessing the producers chose this galaxy for exactly that reason.
B.J.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Sweet. So now, where is the galaxy of Ida, where the Asgard live? Or did they just make that one up?
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Well, except, Pegasus is supposedly 300 million lightyears away, if you can take what McKay says in, erh, Some Episode Whose Name I Knew Once But No Longer at face value.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Interesting McKay quote. You sure about that number?
OTOH, several sources (in other forums) say that they said on the show that Pegasus was part of the local group. Unfortunately, I didn't hear that myself, so I can't confirm it.
It could be one of the galaxies visible in the Pegasus constellation, as suggested before. This Pegasus galaxy just seems really close, galactically-speaking. Wherever the Ida galaxy is (it's not the name of a real galaxy, FYI BTW, AFAIK), it's probably further out than Pegasus or Andromeda.
Mark
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Question: (And this will no doubt be a dumb one) How is it that there are maps of the milky way galaxy when no man made object has ever left our galaxy to photograph it? Is it a model based on observation of the density and placement of other stars?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Usually it's done based on parallax to triangulate the distance to an object. If you'll notice the link under "Data and Catalogs" in that last URL I posted, the error in those distances listed is pretty hefty. If we had an observatory on Pluto for example, it would help to cut down those errors.
B.J.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
(The MW's overall topology, as far as I know, is extrapolated from the radio signals emitted by hydrogen.)
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
All sorts of neat questions and answers about our galaxy and others, including how they are mapped, at Ask a High-Energy Astronomer. (As opposed to, I guess, asking a low-key astronomer. WHERE IS MY HIGH-HAT HIT? Or: when she is not astronomizing she is a world-class chess player and teaches musical theater to inner-city youths.)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITSTARS!
...says the high-energy astronomer.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
SCORE ONE FOR THE HOME TEAM
(Says the amataur astronemer.)
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
Well, the Fox channel for Latin America showed the first part of the premiere last thursday, they're repeating it today in about 15 minutes... so far it looks pretty good.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So...is there a FOX News for Latin America as well?
Posted by machf (Member # 1233) on :
Hmmm, I think there used to be one but then it disappeared... there's still FOX Sports, though, and until recently, there was FOX Kids (which changed to Jetix). I might check the old cable listings.
Posted by bX (Member # 419) on :
Yes, I am resurrecting a very old thread. Yes, I am very late to the party. I was frozen in time in anticipation of the Wii or something.
I just want to confirm that Stargate Atlantis episodes keep pace 1:1 starting with season 8 of Stargate SG1. (I've had some difficulty searching for this information without getting thoroughly spoiled.) Season 8 SG1, Season 1 SGA, is it not so?
Also maybe the Atlantis episode was aired before the SG1 episode of the same evening. The shows take place in separate Galaxies, but what spoilers I've read suggest maybe there's some crossover at some point.
Also the Wraith are sort of silly looking with some (at this point) inexplicably strict dietary requirements and so maybe not as fun as the perpetually arrogant Goa'uld. Despite this I did find myself sort of enjoy Sheppard and "Steve"'s reparte.
Posted by Chris (Member # 71) on :
SGA episodes take place a couple of weeks after SG1. But yes, s8 SG1 = s1 SGA and so on.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I wouldn't worry too much about cross series spoilers. They've only directly crossed over 2 or 3 times and the plot of the other show is only mentioned in very broad strokes, if at all.
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