I thought this was a pretty solid episode, except for a few holes in the logic.
For example, the NID is a government security agency, which apparently trains its agents to go in with an unarmed civilian to probable danger instead of waiting for backup. The nanites can repair brain damage, but doing so corrupts the person's "self"- memories, personality, etc. This doesn't sound much like 'repairing damage' to me, more like causing damage. And why would they have to shut her heart off to repair it? They don't seem to have to turn anything else off.
Also, Rodney and his sister were tasered by the guards, and you actually see electricity coursing along their bodies. I'm assuming they're using modified zat guns of some kind, even though the company only had access to *medical* technology, because the other option is that one of my favorite sf shows of all time has committed a blatant and inexcusable flaunting of biophysics and reality.
Where have I seen Wallace's actor before; and what 'last time' is Jeannie's husband referring to? "She almost didn't go with you back to Atlantis last time" he says...I thought she'd only ever been once?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
It's "Miller's Crossing".
The Wallace actor is Steven Culp. We'd know him from Enterprise as Major Hayes, the MACO leader, but most others would know him from Desperate Housewives.
An okay episode, but I had a real problem with Sheppard letting Wallace go through with that. That seems way out of character for him. It's obvious at the end that he was having a lot of trouble with his own decision, but he shouldn't have made that decision in the first place.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
"because the other option is that one of my favorite sf shows of all time has committed a blatant and inexcusable flaunting of biophysics and reality."
Isn't the show's entire premise a blatant flaunting of biophysics and reality?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Well, I suppose I meant that if it's going to portray real world things like tasers and electricity, it should do so in a way consistent with reality.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I assumed they had access to new types of tech developed from the Stargate missions. They did make a point of giving a half-second focus on the guns and they did seem a little different to your standard Taser didn't it?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
They certainly did look like futuristic stunguns, even though they had a taserish feel to them. Perhaps they WERE meant to be tasers, but were changed what with the current media frenzy around tasers killing more people than it's worth...
In any case, assuming that they ARE Earth versions of Zat guns, I'd like to offer a wholehearted ABOUT TIME to the producers of the show. The Zats definitely look cool, but Earth is capable of fiedling GIANT STARSHIPS full of missiles and transporters and laser guns and crap. Why still rely on an arguably limited supply of captured, but very cool-looking, enemy weapons? Ditto for the Wraith stunners they've been using, for that matter.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I kind of assumed they'd been trading with the Free Jaffa for zat guns - means less manufacturing for Earth. Anyway, like I pointed out before, the company was only supposed to have limited access to *medical* tech garnered from the SG program, right? So how would they get zats or Earth-based zats?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Who knows? The Trust manages to get zats all the time, somehow. Granted, they have easy access to military hardware, but as zats would be a finite resource I wonder just how lax security would be to have a crate go missing like that.
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Assuming it *is* a limited resource...I kinda like my "trading with the Jaffa" idea ;P Plus, the Trust has offworld contacts of their own (I dunno if that's been stated or not but it seems logical given the Goa'uld infiltration) so they could get them from the Jaffa, now-deposed Goa'uld, or through a middleman of their own.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
I'm more concerned about the means by which Rodney has been communicating with his sister by e-mail. He sends a message from the Pegasus Galaxy, and after whatever relays, etc., occur, it shows up at her home on her family's laptop.
Think about it. This e-mail contained the entire Replicator source code. And he probably sent it to Jeannie's damn Hotmail account.
After that, they deserve everything they got. Who the hell is handling IT for the SGC, anyway... FEMA?
Concerning the zats/stun-guns/tasers/whatever, my guess is that the writers originally intended for some derivative of the Trust to be involved in the plot, hence the advanced Earth-designed zat-derivatives. I definitely thought of zats when I saw the discharge. And I don't think those guns were supposed to be tasers at all... we've seen tasers in actual use, remember? (Back when they captured Steve the Wraith.) So no, I think these were supposed to be sci-fi weapons.
But even if this were a medical company, I could see how they would be involved in developing reliable, non-lethal weapons for safely disabling a person without causing them harm. That would involve... biology and medicine to study potential effects on the human body!
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
What makes you say he "probably" sent it to her Hotmail account? I would assume she has a military account for shit like that, and large-key public-key encryption to log in. I mean, in real life, people access top secret, sensitive stuff at home, using both hardware and software based encryption. There IS military-grade security protocol that can be built into a Linux kernel, for example, that was developed by the NSA (which is why I'm not going near it - the Backdoor Buddies).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
My Hotmail comment was just hyperbole, sorry. Still, the point remains: there was a family laptop sitting there, obviously available for either the father or the kid to use as well, and McKay's message popped up on the screen just as if he'd sent a birthday greeting.
My point is, if the communications actually HAD been secure, she would have had to deliberately log in to get access to that e-mail. But she started taking notes and reading the codes right away.
Also, the impression I'd gotten from the episode was that McKay hadn't been been sending her material in the past; that this was the first time he'd asked for her help with SGC-related stuff since her last appearance on the show. Which means he sent a message that effectively read, "Hi, how ya doin', sis? Could you take a look at this Replicator source code and tell me what you think?"
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I still want to know why McKay is somehow both a physicist on Carter's level AND an insanely good computer expert. At least Baltar has the excuse that he was just pretending to be a computer expert, what's McKay's story?
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I got the impression that time passed between McKay's deciding to ask her, and the shot we saw of her getting the email. I also thought there was a line in there somewhere like "she's been helping" or "I've been helping" with the code, which would imply it was more than one time.
Well he has two PhD's...maybe one is in computer science and the other is in physics.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
(Baltar is a genuine computer expert. It's Cylon expertise that he was bluffing. His sideline in advanced biochemistry was the odd thing, if you're so inclined.)
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
When we first met McKay in "48 Hours", he was a stargate physics expert who had never actually SEEN the gate - he was working with a computer model, which he'd presumably built himself. Knowing how a stargate works typically involves being able to rewire and reprogram the thing, as Carter has done umpteen times; it follows that McKay can do the same thing.
Mark
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
And of course if you're that clever, it's all just math anyway.