This episode leads us into the fall hiatus with a cliffhanger involving some crossover cast from the SGC. And according to these advance release pics, lookie what they're bringing from Earth with 'em!
It's about freaking TIME! Previously, we had the anti-Kull pulses that were added to existing Earth weapons before, which weakened the Kull shielding enough so the bullets could do damage; but here we have the first wholesale reverse-engineered weapons that the Stargate program has apparently devised - from Lantean tech, no less!
Also, the preview also seems to indicate that the SGA people are staring to use zat guns, at least in the SGC. They HAVE been using captured Wraith stunners on occasion, but zat guns are more compact. Here's hoping they start bringing them over to Atlantis - they certainly could use them... Ditto for what looks like the interstellar gate network - active at last!
Mark
[ September 17, 2006, 11:17 PM: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
The two shows don't synch up very well here, as upon returning to Earth everyone from Atlantis spends their time complaining about how boring Earth is and how nothing of importance is going on at all. But, uh, stay tuned for SG-1 please!
(Which is to say, shouldn't they all be reassigned to the much more pressing threat of Ori invasion?)
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Er...you missed the part about the General admonishing "You didn't confront the Ori forces!?"
I loved it- really REALLY outshone the SG1 season cliffhanger.
The WOW joke was hilarious! They must have got permission to use that gag!
These "aincents" are pretty disapointing- and I'm thinking they are not really Ainents at all somehow.
Great cast performances IMHO- I'm finally starting to look forward to SGA more than SG1.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
The zats were used because they didn't have Wraith stunners in the SGC armory.
I sure hope that they have some good security built into Midway Station... otherwise there's really going to be another big wave of conversion to Origin... in the Pegasus Galaxy.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Jason, much of the episode was built around the fact that life on Earth was stultifying and dull. And no, I didn't hear any glancing remarks regarding the Ori, but that hardly changes what I'm identifying as the whole tone of the episode, does it?
ancient, ancient, ancient Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I'm sorry Mark - with as little spoiling as possible - what are those guns?? You talk of zats - they don't obviously look like zats. Or wraith stunners. etc.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
No, the guns in the pics are something else- Zats are used while on earth only.
Sol, I see what you mean, and it shows how little action some of the SG teams see (except for the ever-killable SG-5). Of course, we were seeing a rookie team being trained...they probably start off on worlds known to be uninhabited and move up gradually to "Ori infested".
At a guess though, I thinking maybe a two-three week lag behind SG1's weekly episode on adverage: it looked pretty dull around the start of SG1's episode too- giving Daniel however long he needed to piece his stuff together (and slow enough that Vala got her "dream" to speed things up).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Something I didn't get with the episode is just why the Ancients seemed to think that kicking the expedition out of the city was a good idea. I mean, I got the sentiment about finding someone else in your house... but when the Ancients left Pegasus, they'd just gotten their asses kicked by the Wraith, and were throwing in the towel, abandoning. Why would they think that they'd do any good with just their one ship and hundred-odd crew to revive the city? What made them think that they don't need the Humans at all?
This is just one reason why I've become less and less impressed with the Ancients as we've learned more about them. They're all talk and fancy tricks, with no common sense or real follow-through power. They're like second-rate Vorlons, except without the underlying charisma, power, and hint of menace and mystery.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Yes, this cliffhanger rocked. It was quite epic in feel, and while it suffered from a big dose of setup-itis, it certainly had everything going full steam into the unknown. Bravo!
-Rodney's calling it the McKay-Carter intergalactic gate bridge: 34 gates spanning the void, half each of Milky Way and Pagasus gates. Strangely though, they specifically mentioned needing to harvest space-based stargates to make this work. Have they retrofitted Milky Way gates with Pegasus gate station keepers and power systems? A Milky Way gate is useless without a DHD (or naquadah generator, or bolt of lightning), so SOME physical modification had to be done. Perhaps they were short on spare gates? Why is the Midway space station right in the middle? Sheppard activates the Milky Way gate with the Pegasus-style DHD in the PJ, so SOME modification must have been done on the insides as well.
-We were earlier wondering if they were limited only to puddle jumpers to get back and forth, which seemed to be the indication earlier - you'd slowly and tediously dial each gate as you go, popping in and out of sequential gates, and humping your way home. Now, we see that it's a true relay system, with only one stop in the middle as you transition from one gate system to another.
-3,000,000 ly / 34 gates = 88235 ly/gate. We've never really known the upper range limitation of a standard gate, but this is the first indication. I'd say that the upper range is around 100 to 110,000 ly, as the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 ly wide at the most.
-Note that the Large Magellanic cloud is about 160,000 ly away, and no one's been there yet. Nothing interesting in this galactic cluster closer to home? Hopefully one day, once this mess with the Ori is all over, they'll send the Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, or some other ship out there to see if there are at least gates there to bridge with this new system, so the SGC can explore them using more conventional methods.
-Actual transit time is a little over half an hour; to the traveller it's a slightly longer transit than usual (we've heard said that it's near instantaneous - the cool tunnel effects are mostly for our benefit).
-The Midway Station (provisional name, as it seems more a position than an actual name) is incomplete, so this first test is by puddle jumper. The actual structure is doubtless going to be pressurized so people can just walk from one gate to the next. The interior of what will eevntually be this final chamber looks like a big tunnel, with room for one PJ to comfortably stop after emerging from one gate without having to back up in order to get out of the way of the other gate's kawoosh. Note that this means that all you have to do is activate both systems at once and pass smoothly from one to the other with no need to stop in between.
-Awesome new fog-laden look at Atlantis' exterior. We've not seen that one before, right?
-HAH! Proof once and for all about where you can put a puddle jumper at the SGC! As I've posted before, there's 30+ levels of unused missile silo right above the gate room. Plenty of space to put a PJ or two with the right retrofitting.
-I'm not good at relativity, but apparently it'll take a million years more for the Lantean warship to get to the Milky Way. So Midway is already past the halfway point?
-We don't see what the Lantean ship Triia (sp) looks like, but the blur that goes by certainly looks like the Orion CG model. We don't hear about the Triia after the Daedalus evacuates the crew; presumably it's still sitting out there relatively close to Midway.
-The Ancient dress code continues to change - it's always been this beige / off-white motif, but the crew of THIS ship has graduated to pleather.
-What else does that control pedestal do? With one touch, Captain Helia (sp) deactivates all human tech in the gatrium and presumably the city.
-Beckett was the first to tear up when under control of Lucius earlier this year. Now he's the first to tear up here.
-Sheppard is a Sudoku fan. No surprise given that he's a math whiz, even though it's still a big fad here.
-Teyla hasn't forgotten the headbutting greeting thing he first did with Shep in the premiere. But why didn't she headbutt anyone else of the team?
-Career roundup, six weeks post-return: McKay is is a very large CGI lab at Area 51 (what IS the big rotating Borg thing behind him?). Zelenka was offered a professorship at a university back in the Czech Republic before he left, so presumably he went there. Beckett gets a job in surgery at the SGC, supposedly working alongside Dr. Lam, but has split with Lt. Cadman. Wier does nothing.
-Most importantly, Sheppard is put in at least provisional command of SG-4. When his team comes back to Earth, it's not wearing any shoulder patches per Atlantis standard - I guess the costuming guy on the show hasn't been watching SG-1. Later, we see Shep wearing the standard green BDUs in use at the SGC, with a standard SGC patch on his left arm. However, later on he zats the hobbling Airman Wallace, and the poor guy is wearing an SG-4 patch on his right sleeve.
-The Triia crew brought their ship's ZPM along with them, which at least allows the city's shield to work and for them to dial directly to Earth. Not that it helps any...
-"I didn't bring my bloody cellphone with me - what's happening?!" - Beckett, when everyone ELSE's cell goes off. Then we find out he wasn't called in the first place.
-Anti-Replicator Guns, or ARGs, are purely Carter inventions. They supposedly haven't had the need to work on them in almost two years now though... Are they really not that busy with the Ori threat to invent some spiffy new guns?
-The WOW gag was great... Pop culture has never been a problem in this franchise. Chris Judge made a Def Jam Vendetta joke two years back, too, though in his case it's because he was also voicing the character. Dr. Lee's first name is Bill, which is also the actor's first name.
-The guy in the PJ that Sheppard zats is Sgt. Siler. I think this is the first time in ages where he doesn't say anything in an episode. Speaking of this PJ, wouldn't the Ancients have asked to have it returned?
-Ladon's brief appearance here is very telling of what else is going on with the Genii - they're not even slowing down since last year's coup, but despite being the most organized faction in Pegasus after the Lantean faction, they're still looking for outside expertise in the form or Teyla and Ronon.
It's gonna be a long six months...
Mark
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I had to laugh at seeing Siler (aka "Sparky") just getting zapped out of the blue yet again!
As for the gate bridge, I wouldn't want to go though that without a jumper. Call me cautious, but who says that there couldn't be a snag of some sort along the way?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I thought they towed the ship?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
With what?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
With their other ship.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"As for the gate bridge, I wouldn't want to go though that without a jumper. Call me cautious, but who says that there couldn't be a snag of some sort along the way?"
I was thinking the same thing. Will someone man the station at all times? I wouldn't want to step through the gate at Earth and arrive at the station, only to find out that it had been hit by something and depressurized.
Also : why do they need a station, anyway? Are we to assume that a Milky Way gate always needs extra power to connect to a Pegasus gate, even if they are only a few meters away from each other?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The station could serve as an early warning/security measure- maybe, once completed, a station-keeper will be able to remotely iris any of the gates along the path or even re-direct an incoming traveller to a pre-set alternate gate out in the boonies- kind of an exile for bad-guys.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
True. The "intergalactic void" is hardly empty, after all - there are lots of mostly older stars there that can have planets orbiting them. Who knows if the Ancients ever bothered exploring them or seeding them with stargates or humans.
I'm still wondering why the midway station is indeed midway. If the idea is to physically emerge, then walk into a gate in the other system, why put it so far away from help? Why not have 33 gates in the void from one system, and just one from the other? Maybe the forwarding macro can only work on so many gates?
Mark
Posted by Fulgrim (Member # 1906) on :
If only they hadn't blown their ZPMs...
If it wasn't half way they'd have never found the Ancients and lost Atlantis!
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
quote:Also : why do they need a station, anyway? Are we to assume that a Milky Way gate always needs extra power to connect to a Pegasus gate, even if they are only a few meters away from each other?
I'm guessing it's because of the ad hoc nature of the bridge... in order to dial Pegasus, you need to have lots and lots of power, even if the gate is really close. Kinda like having to dial an area code to call your neighbor down the street.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The Lanteans should have the expertise to build new ZPMs. Kinda makes you wonder why they don't seem to have them ON Atlantis already, though.
But wouldn't they feel pretty stupid if they suddently found the battery factory in an unexplored room of the place?
Mark
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I was thinking that the reason they created the station was that without that extra control crystal, the two gate systems are incompatible. So you put a Pegasus gate and a Milky Way gate close together to bridge the gap, so to speak, without having to connect the two systems.
As for towing the ship, I meant that the Daedalus doesn't exactly have a big trailer hitch back there (or tow cables, or tractor beams...).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Also, the Aurora is monstrous compared to the Daedalus...
Ooh, I've got an idea, if the Lanteans don't actually have a ZPM factory that the team never discovered. If any Lanteans manage to survive the Asuran takeover, Weir should sweet-talk one of them into going out to yell at those nutcases with the "New Brotherhood" and get them to turn over their ZPM.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm not claiming it makes sense for them to tow the ship; that's just the impression that I got from the episode, but apparently that wasn't the case.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Also, Mark, while stars do get ejected from galaxies from time to time, my uneducated guess is that this involves gravitational forces which are not particularly kind to any associated bodies. Or are you talking about things like halo stars or globular clusters? (Or perhaps something else. My astronomy knowledge is mostly from thumbing through magazines at the bookstore before I go to look at comics.)
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Usually when stars are ejected from galaxies, it's because a) there isn't ENOUGH gravitational force to keep them orbiting the galaxy's core, or b) they were forced out by a galactic event like two galaxies colliding. Either way, the process takes hundred of millions of years to happen. Planets involved would be more worried about massive radiation from passing stars, etc. Those spun out of a galaxy would likely continue orbiting around their star until that star ran out. Then of course there would be the aforementioned clusters, plus stars which could form spontaneously in the void (not as "fast" as galactic stars, but it would still happen). Etc., etc...
In any case, the time factor involved is too long for even the Ancients to worry about it.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, of course the time scales involved are lengthy, but that doesn't make the forces involved any less titanic. Consider.
However, there are places where this is more common, I discovered.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
It's all relative, I guess. Our Sun is orbiting the galactic center at just shy of half a million miles an hour. Just 50% more will get us out of the Milky Way, according to Google. Regardless, we're not exactly hanging on for dear life while the Sun continues speeding along as it has been doing for five billion years.
Mark
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I'm not sure I follow. The sun isn't really dragging us along in its orbit through the galaxy. All our bits, and the sun's, were already moving at that velocity. Changing that would require some major gravitational pulls that would presumably do interesting (if not catastrophic) things to local orbits.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Perhaps, but considering how massive Sol is (don't worry, I mean the star ) relative to most of its planets, I'd guess that any orbital changes would be balanced out. After all, unless the object causing the acceleration actually passed inside the radius of the system itself, it'd be too far away to affect Earth-like separately from the star itself.
Anyone ever heard of simulations being run on such an event? I know that some people were madly speculating about a hypothetical nearby star called "Nemesis," but even that wasn't likely to cause major danger.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(I realize it is provincial of me, but extinction level events seem worthy of the appellation major when the extinction involves me and/or my genus. That it is unlikely to exist is of some comfort.)
But, anyway, like, I did link to the case where stellar ejection involved tearing a binary system in half.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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) relative to most of its planets, I'd guess that any orbital changes would be balanced out. After all, unless the object causing the acceleration actually passed inside the radius of the system itself, it'd be too far away to affect Earth-like separately from the star itself.