3. Rubber-wearing blue-fish aliens want to take over Destiny to learn its secrets.
Overall, it was a good episode. I'm just hoping that the rubber-wearing blue-fish aliens don't become the Kazon of Stargate: Voyager.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
The fish men had a very Borg-like feeling to them, mainly in the fact that their more interested in Destiny's technology than the people who are on it. They seem a little more sophisticated than the Kazon Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
And they don't have the silly hair. I like how this time around they actually acknowledge that an alien shouldn't be speaking fluent English. That was always something of a rather substantial elephant in the room in previous series.
It's obvious that the aliens were the ones in the pod that detached way back near the beginning (3rd ep?) So it begs the question, if they're so interesting in getting the Destiny and they've already been on board, why wasn't the place swarming with the buggers when they arrived or for that matter, why now that the ship is manned and inclined to fire back, what's so damn valuable it's worth sacrificing half a dozen fighters just to get another prisoner?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
And yet the aliens did respond to nerdy boy's message in English. Also I'm sure the aliens would be interested in the knowledge stored in the info-chair(pardon my lack of knowledge about Stargate terminology).
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I'd assumed they got the English to Ancient translation from what they'd mined from Rush's brain.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Rev, refresh my memory on what happened with that pod you mentioned? I don't remember that part at all.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Not a lot happened really, just right near the credits, a pod (pretty sure it was one of those fighters) detached from Destiny's left wing while it was in FTL and flew out of frame.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Oh, I remember that. I think that was just for effect, nothing mysterious about it. Remember that the ship only has two shuttles, and one of them is damaged and still has Chloe's dad's frozen corpse sitting in the pilot's seat.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
No, I'm about 99% sure it was an alien fighter. Totally different shape to the ancient shuttles and had the same little red lights. Plus it actually flew out of frame like it was being piloted, it didn't just drop into the Destiny's wake like a chunk of inert wreckage would.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I thought they said there weren't going to be humanoid aliens on this show. Yet here we are with humanoid aliens. I knew it couldn't be long before they'd switch back to KILL THE BAD GUYS WITH COOL LAZERZZZZ. Oh well. I wonder if they'll explain what the crap happened with the stones.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
Woke up this morning and geekishly checked the stargate wiki for the ep details; apparently, there was a scene in Rush's reading of the alien's mind where he sees one handling a communications stone, so I guess they did explain how that hiccup occurred. What I still don't understand is...what, anytime anyone in the universe handles a stone, the next person to use a stone anywhere else in the universe drops into their body? So there must only be like half a dozen stones floating around, or a handful of people who know about them/use them, or otherwise every time any Tau'ri used one they'd end up in the body of a starfish in Orion's belt or something.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Ooh, I think I know what happened with the stones... Maybe the alien that Young swapped with was the one in the fighter at the end of the pilot. That means he could have had the opportunity to handle a stone if he was sneaking around on the Destiny.
Also, in fairness I don't think we can call he aliens exactly "humanoid." in the context of the show, I think humanoid means played by human actors. These aliens are sufficiently different, IMO.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
To me humanoid means "Has a head, torso, two arms, two legs, walks bipedally, and breathes oxygen." So they qualify in my book completely.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
^To me too, however TV executives should be forgiven for not appreciating the distinction. I suppose it's ironic since the Goa'uld weren't humanoid at all, but they were all played by humans.
To be fair, if Young had swapped bodies with an amorphous blob, a radially symmetrical multiped or an insectoid hexaped he'd have no hope of figuring out how to walk, let alone pick up stuff or communicate. He'd probably just fall over and have a heart(s) attack and/or squirt ink everywhere. As it was I got the impression nether he nor "it" could operate the other's vocal cords. So there's in the context of this story, it's justifiable for them to be "human shaped".
Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :
A thought has occurred to me:
What if Young connecting to the blue-fish alien wasn't a malfunction? We've already seen several instances where Destiny seemingly knows what the crew needs. What if that was the ship's way of saying "Hey, you guys are missing one of your own, and here's where he is"?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Well, there was a lot of sound clips to that effect at the head of the episode, so it's possible. I have to wonder if the ship has some kind of AI that keeps directing them to what they need or if it's something else. So far it's been a little too overt to be an ascended being and I suppose the only other alternative is that there's an ancient somewhere on the ship, somehow still alive and waybe plugged in to one of those interface chairs.
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I *still* think that's what should have happened; for example, these "Blue aliens" have some more complicated knee joints than humans do. Maybe the stones 'translate' body sense and movement intention as well as sensory input? (After all, he didn't appear to even see differently, and there'd be no reason these guys would see in our color spectrum.)
And I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather have avoided this whole story to begin with "Superior aliens are shooting at us and we don't know who they are" has been done before...three times *cough* Goa'uld *cough* Wraith *cough* Priors *sneeze*. Hayfever season's coming up...
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Mark has a four month-old at home. Mark was delayed with his notes. Sue Mark!
- Well, SOMEONE brought an electric shaver in their supplies, and at least that can be recharged via Ancient technology.
- Was it always standard procedure to record scheduled swapouts with the kinos?
- Since when was it Eli's job to check the shower system? They have other scientists and engineers on board. Maybe it was Riley's job,but he's still out of commission.
- New background characters! Dr. Caine was apparently always there, but we just never saw him before. I suppose it was inevitable before we ran into the Voyager-esque cliche of meeting new people we hadn't seen in the background for years, who were there the whole time. Still, it would have made sense if it were Riley, Volger, or someone else we already knew. I suppose they needed someone more conventionally good-looking.
- When the swap anomaly happens, Caine uses a cloth to remove the Ancient comm stone.
- The outfits Young, Rush and Chloe wore are not QUITE like the ones the aliens wore, though that was obviously the intent. Specifically, while barefoot, they still cover the lower legs, while the aliens are clearly unclothed from the knee down.
- Young is seen mending a pair of very non-military issue socks. He just happened to bring some along, or is he wearing somethign with extra padding in those boots? Nice touch though, using green thread on a grey sock.
- Volger has succeeded in using the seeds they brought with them (from "Air"), though the taste is really wierd, probably due to the hydroponics process. Still no meat though, but I guess they coulda tried harvesting the burrowing alien flying killing insect things from "Time".
- When the rather unthreatening-looking alien ship shows up, Volger is seen using an old-fashioned Ancient telescope on the obs deck to check it out.
- I dunno if it was seen before, but the shuttle now has masking tape over the Ancient button labels with descriptions of what those buttons do, like "TRIM INDICATOR". Neat.
- So the only thing separating the insides from teh outer hull is a fairly solid-looking block of metal? There must be certain molecular properties in that metal that act as insulation, cooling, etc. There are a half-dozen or more layers of material between the inside and outside of the space shuttle, depending on where you're looking.
- The alien uniforms are wierd. They seem to have some sort of tentacles or tubules leaving their face and going THROUGH holes in the uniforms; do they reattach to the body, or are they simply hanging free? The alien Young swapped with had his tubes simply disappearing into his SGU uniform.
- So why DID Young swap with an alien? He couldn't swap back once that alien was killed. Was it something about that particular subject's physiology?
- Did the alien ship fire a single shot in the whole episode? The only weapons fire seemed to come from Destiny, her shuttle, and the fighters.
- Destiny has a main weapon in addition to the smaller spherical turrets and larger dual batteries, which deploys from the underside of the nose. It has three main barrels plus one underneath, which isn't seen firing. There's something very WWII battleship about this setup which I find very cool!
- Destiny doesn't have a shuttlebay, which is strange for a ship of exploration that would be expected to run into other spacefaring races at some point, no?
- They have re-acquired an alien fighter, which is the same as the one that was seen detaching at the end of "Air". Since they DON'T have a shuttlebay, they're pretty much stuck cutting a hole in the ceiling every time they use it, unless they improvise a hatch or master the force fields which are patching the holes in other parts of the ship.
- How did Rush and Chloe get their clothes back? They obviously weren't wearing them under the alien gear. Did Rush figure out where they'd been stored via the telepathic Seven of Nine sticky things, and grab them on the way to the fighter bay?
- I don't remember seeing it there before, but the obs lounge seems to have inherited one of the "coffee kiosks" seen in the mess hall. Did it get moved in there so people can drink while staring at the FTL lightshow?
- Likewise, there seems to be an increasing amount of comfortable black leather furniture in the various rooms. The place seemed pretty barren when they arrived; I'll suspend my disbelief that the furniture isn't actually leather but some spacey agey Ancient fabric that has withstood eons of time. But I suppose they just found a big storage room full of comfy chairs and sofas and have been distributing it around to the crew?
Mark
Posted by Daniel Butler (Member # 1689) on :
I suppose it would make sense to store the furniture somewhere on Destiny before launch, instead of spreading it around the quarters where it could bounce around during battle with noone on board to repair any damage.
As for the stones, the wiki says there's a scene when Rush reads the alien's mind that shows the alien handling a communications stone; he and Young swapped because they were the last two to handle a stone.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Thread revive. Cause I just watched it.
^ "How did Rush and Chloe get their clothes back?"
I noticed that too. But when Chloe got nabbed, she wasn't wasn't wearing her standard pink wrap-around thing. And Rush was wearing a Marine uniform when young left him on that planet.
^ "He couldn't swap back once that alien was killed. Was it something about that particular subject's physiology?"
No, the alien was dead. There was no mind to swap with.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
"Superior aliens are shooting at us and we don't know who they are" has been done before...three times *cough* Goa'uld *cough* Wraith *cough* Priors *sneeze*. Hayfever season's coming up...