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Stargate Universe
Last night I finally scraped together the two hours to watch the premiere of Stargate Universe. Since the last two series really ran their course and deserved to end, I was skeptical. At first blush it appears that the show is just Atlantis + Voyager, shot in the documentary style that practically every sci-fi show since Firefly uses. But I enjoyed it, and figured we should have a place to discuss it. The TV landscape needs more real, good sci-fi: there's not a lot of it left, even on the moronically renamed Syfy channel. But maybe this one will have a solid season. I just hope that future episodes don't have so many commercials. I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
Firefly wasn't shot documentary style, the special effects had some panning and zooming that first started in star wars episode II
One way to get rid of many of the advertisements is to watch it on Hulu. Granted you have to wait before episoded become available and the entire season of a given show isn't always available, but in general it's a lot better than sitting through lots of useless advertisements.
Justify my text? I'm sorry, but it has no excuse.
I liked the show... but they they still need some thinking writers. Why not use a "Keno" to close the hatch?!
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
Stargate: Why simply beat a dead horse where it lay, when you can transport it anywhere in the universe?
I'm done with sigs. Sigs are lame.
I'd still like to see a B5 feature film. Too bad that JMS hasn't been up to it since the passing of Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs. I still think that B5 is rather underrated/unknown in the general population (although it has a large following here on /.) and suspect that it could do very well at the box office with the right storyline.
I've watched a lot of Sci-Fi but I always wind up coming back to B5. It's the only series that I care enough about to invest the money to buy up all the DVDs. I can still pick up new things when I re-watch the series. How do you go wrong with characters like Londo, G'Kar and Garibaldi?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
unless it is a touch pad only sensitive to a finger. But I guess cutting off a finger and gluing it to a Keno would be better then total self termination.
I have to say it kept me on edge of seat grinning, the detail and visuals were stunning, the music was very very well done!
As for the characters, the acting was quite good, i can see some of them growin
Im delighted to have a new Stargate to watch, and this new direction
lets be honest SG1 last seasons and SGA got very tired and boring
Thats what i love about this, I dont feel like im watchin yet another McGuiver episode or can predict the ending by watching the first few minutes
Stargate Universe has what was lost about Season 2 of SG1, not knowing what happens when you step thru the gate! last few seasons of Atlantis were diabolical imho
Its different and i like the new direction :)
Who still wastes their time watching commercials?
Dr. Nicholas Rush seems to just be playing the part of D. Zachary Smith from Lost in Space.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Watch it online to avoid the long commercial breaks.
I couldn't believe how many ads appeared during this thing.
Yeah really, luckily I watched it via DVR after it had started recording for at least 40 minutes before I began watching it. I haven't seen so many badly (and annoying) placed commercial breaks in a pilot airing since the Star Trek: Enterprise premier. After getting a 720p torrent of the show and then watching it again, it is far more enjoyable (Thanks SiTV!).
This space is not for rent.
It's taken alot of stuff from Battlestar Galactica and Lost - not nescesarilly a bad thing - The previous series rather relaxed attitude to Sci-fi is still there, albeit reigned back slightly in favour of what seems to be a more character-oriented series. Notably the lack of any 'big bad' in the first episode bodes well for the focus being on internal struggle rather than on any kind of external threat.
One of my biggest gripes with the final series of SG-1 (and most of Atlantis) was the reliance on Deus Ex Machina to save the day (Especially in the closing episode of Atlantis) and the constant ressurection of characters through various means, Dr Beckett's clone, Dr Wier's seemingly endless robot clones and Daniel Jackson's repeated Ascensions/Falls.
Stargate's been one of my favourite series since I was a teenager (I've been watching SG-1 since series 3, and having watched Series 1 and 2 on repeats) - The audience has grown up, but the show really hasn't. SGU will hopefully fulfil that role, without alienating any newcomers
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I don't get why Firefly was canceled. It was popular among geeks and trend-setting. It even had the potential to be the next Star Trek-like franchise. I suppose bean-counting overrode "buzz". They didn't give it time. Shame
Table-ized A.I.
Just started watching SG-1 for the first time on Hulu. About mid-way through season 5.
Is there any reason I should I finish out SG-1 before watching this?
Call me out of touch, but this is actually the first stargate thing I have seen since the original movie.
So it transports matter well, I get that (humans and objects can move through), but what about air? Couldn't they just open the new gate to any planet with a good atmosphere and just top up the ship with breathable air?
The people I was roped into watching this with kept shouting at me to stop picking on it, but I want to know how they are limiting this thing...
"oh yes you can put any matter you want though it so long as it is solid or liquid" but then how do their bodies get through it when all the air is displaced out of their lungs?
...
Nice idea, It'd have been a more visceral scene too. Might not have passed the muster for it's timeslot though :P
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
I think the new series started very well, though I don't know how long they will last with the good plots.
The Keno is cool, but if this is really Ancient ancient technology, why haven't they showed up in some other ancient places , like atlantis.
All the contrived, pointless tropes of Stargate with none of the cheeky self-deprecating humor.
Also, Gaius Baltar has no place in the Stargate Universe. Honestly, practically every sentence that came out of Robert Carlyle's mouth it felt like he was being fed his lines by an invisible woman in a red dress. Only he wasn't. His character just has zero definition, and there's no way to sympathize with him.
Sadly, it's all we have.
I don't have any official source for this, but just from watching the show, it seems like anything requires a little bit of a "push" to move through the gate. I suppose if the wind was blowing directly to the gate they could get some fresh air. The problem is, they are in another galaxy and don't know any of the gate addresses for that galaxy. I don't even know how they are going to get back to the ship after they arrive on the planet in the next episode. How do they know the symbols to use to get back to the ship?
What commercials? I didn't have any in mine....
oogly boogly!
I have to say i enjoyed it as well. Although since i watched it online i got to play Discover Card memory game...which in of itself is ultimately lame. I'm very excited to see the direction they take. The one part i'm not happy about is the "humanized" long range communications device so earth knows where they are and can stay in regular contact. It seems to me the show would be more edgy if everyone on earth thought they were dead. I also have to say that Dr. Nicholas Rush is the equiv of Baltar from BSG, although so far he hasn't done anything outrageous (unless he contacted the Lucian Alliance to force everyone into the gate. ???)
The stargate transfers matter in one direction only. If you open a wormhole to another planet, you can only send matter to that planet. Air and water do not generally flow through the gate in any case, since the mechanism does not allow it (see about 20 episodes of SG-1 for a reason.) The only thing that travels both ways is a radio signal, or other waves of energy, like radiation.
I thought the visuals were good, I liked the 'ancient' star ship and the way it was rendered. It's nice to see something the ancients made that isn't 'pretty'. I didn't really care for the actors but I may grow to like them, the shaky camera stuff was really annoying though and irked me. The sex scene was just randomly thrown in and made me roll my eyes, it was a pointless grab for the crotch thinking audience. A few concerns is how they are going to butcher ancient tech. There is a lot of opportunity to expand on the story of the ancients, but with that huge opportunity is a massive chance they are going to kill it. I'm hopeful it will be a good addition to the Stargate series.
as explained in season 1 of SG-1, particles (such as air)are kept from traveling through the event horizon by the cool ancient technology as a way to help protect both ends from the environment on the other side.
Nothing new, just a couple old plot devices shaken together. Still might be worth the watch; we'll just have to wait and see.
It was typical for a spin off series. Lay down the ground work for the viewers new to the series, throw in some background on the individuals, add cameos for the stars from the previous series and hint at whats to come. Most importantly don't mess with the formula.
As for the episode. It still amazes me how the writers handle "The Ancients". Come on. Someone sends out a robot spaceship for a indefinitely long journey and it doesn't have a way to repair itself? "The Ancients" are so omnipotent that they don't need spacesuits, supplies or tools to make repairs, but they do need spaceships? Either "The Ancients" are so overrated or the writers need to think before they write. Oops. I forgot we were talking about Hollywood.
I'm guessing that the automated ships that seeded the universe with gates had instructions to leave gate addresses somewhere around the DRD for the exploration ships that (like "Destiny") were expected to follow, on autopilot, opening for twelve hours when they found one of the seeded gates. Rush & Wallace are going because they know what to look for and should be able to find the return address. Hey, that sounds just like the premise for a movie...
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
The gate is one way after its dialed, and transports contiguous lumps of matter, it normally waits until one item is completely in its "buffer" before sending it. I guess you could say the stream is gas-delimited. If they had canisters it would work fine (did they have canisters, could they dial back? I haven't seen it yet)
Loop, twist and loop again.
"The TV Landscape needs more real, good sci-fi: there's not a lot of it left, even on the moronically renamed Syfy channel." You can argue "real" and "good" if you want, but there's more new sci-fi television coming out now than there probably ever has been. I'd call both Lost and Heroes sci-fi. And they're both major shows on network television. Also, on the other side of the pond Doctor Who has had a revival in a very big way. It's on hiatus for now but will be back on or near December. But the two spin-offs are both airing new shows. There's a BSG spin-off. Dollhouse survived another year. The V revival is coming. The aforementioned Stargate... The biggest dearth of Sci-Fi television right now comes from the channel that used to be devoted to it.
If Lost was episodic, it would be another gilligans island.
Using a flashback for things further in the past, sure, but stuff that happened two days ago? Give me a break. I'm sure the writers (or network) want to get on with the action, but is a linear story so bad, especially in the premiere episode?
I think I would have enjoyed a little more foreplay before the real action started...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I didn't like it. Seemed as if they rounded up the disfunctional people; from military personnel with discipline issues to an MMO geek who's living with his mom (who seems like a Wesley Crusher stand in for the show), and decided they'd be an exciting group of people to sail across the universe on a ship that's about as functional as its crew. I find the makeup of the "crew" absurd, and expect they'll spend the time SG-1 would have used to explore the galaxy, make friends, and fight bad guys to backstab each other and generally angst their way across the universe. Say what you will, but with Jack, Sam, Teal'c and Daniel doing their job, I felt like the people of their universe could at least know they had quality people on the line. Even the Atlantis group seemed to be made of folks with extraoridinary levels of competency in their fields. These guys...well...these guys open sealed doors with flashing red lights on busted up spaceships.
Moderation : -1 Conservative Viewpoint
I have not seen this show. But it is likely one of two things.
1: its an outgoing wormhole? stargate wormholes are one directional, with the exception of a feedback signal from the destination gate.
2: its programmed into the bios of the stargate to filter what goes through. The standard programming prevents atmospheric pressure from venting through the gate for a variety of reasons (some gates are miles below the ocean at huge pressures and some are in the vacuum of space)
introducing a great concept for a new show, letting it get popular, then letting it wither, then killing it before its time.
This has happened before and this will happen again.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
This is yet another "sci fi" show that's just a soap opera that happens to take place in space. The people behind the show said it themselves, they're trying to make it into a show that's more interesting to everyone, not just sci fi geeks. They're lowing the sci fi content and focusing on inter-character relationships and drama. Just looking at the future previews in the commercials, it's obvious it's going to be like Battlestar Galactica x 100 when it comes to over the top drama and it's going to have a hell of a lot lower sci fi content. They might as well have named it Dawson's Creek in space or The Hills in space because that's what it is.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Personally I look forward to every episode in the stargate series. I was a big fan of SG1 for a while, and while I didn't like atlantis at first, I eventually did- realizing that it was its own thing.
At first I was kind of scared with the direction they were taking it with stargate universe. I don't like watching drama shows. I thought back to the new battlestar galactica- which was okay- but honestly not my favorite series.
I just hope they don't try too hard to copy what battlestar galactica did. I kind of have the feeling that they want to- given the similarities of characters- Nicholas Rush is a over emotional long haired scientist guy who is possibly evil possibly insane- just like gaius baltar. I have a feeling that they're trying to adama-fy Col. Everett Young- but that wont work. Edward James Olmos defined that character. They cant duplicate him.
What i'm hoping is that they will realize they're going to fail if they copy another series, and they warp the characters a bit so that they're not the same. I'm hoping that once they do that- i'll lose the sour taste in my mouth.
Anyway- I do like the gamer dude- Eli Wallace- but I feel like it was kind of an obvious ploy of them to put him in- they know most of the people who watch the show are fat male gamers who went to college (like myself). Regardless- that should inject some humor into the series- and that is the main reason I loved the series- because of the witty comic relief- like when Jack O'neal made some wise crack at the big scary aliens- or when Rodney Mckay yelled at the other characters for forgetting something that was blatently obvious to the viewer- but would've been left in the background in any "first generation" sci fi series - like startrek and such.
Anyway- I feel like i've geeked out enough for one blurb, I may as well be the fat comic book guy at this point- so i'll cut my blurb short.
I genuinely liked the series. It seemed to get a little tired around season 4 (or was it 5), but then picked up again. Overall, it was highly entertaining, at least to this viewer and his family.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Will we ever see an episode where the SG team visit Brown's Orthopedic Supplies I wonder?
/.ers, you can listen again That Mitchell and Webb Sound on iPlayer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Mitchell_and_Webb_Sound
For UK
That about sums it up.
I'll keep watching for now.
In case you missed the final reference ... compare SG:U ship to Not of This World album cover.
Oh, also, with all the kids in SG:U, I keep wanting to call it "Stargate University."
At least Gilligan's Island was funny on purpose. And Mary Ann was a lot hotter.
Its average. Its not as good as Babylon 5 or firefly. Its better than 80% of the sci fi shows I have seen recently. Its was worse than the new Battlestar Galactica (that I enjoyed, but was not enthusiastic about) and better than Star Trek: The Next Generation (that I enjoyed as a child and then realized it was crap).
1. Scientists are evil scheming power hungry liars that screw everything up.
2. Politicians are selfless and caring human beings who will gladly give up their lives for you.
3. Thirty year old gamers living with their mom are solving for the Grand Unified Theory by playing Warcraft 18 hours a day.
Well, at least they didn't leave out the patronization.
*sigh* to me it feels like the era of good science fiction is over.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Yeah seriously, I wiped Syfylis from my Tivo.. They can keep their ECW and stupid "haunting" show crap..
I'll take a stab: the Stargate mechanism exerts pressure on either side using a sort of surface tension. A person can move through easily but air, even if there is a huge pressure differential between areas, can't pass -- the field acts as a wall unless you actively press against it. Perhaps you could blast air through, but air won't flow through on its own.
Stargate worked because of Macgyver. His wry humor made it easy to take the logic faults of the show. Tilc also evolved into a very interesting character.
But in the end, it was Macgyver who made Stargate. If Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't end up being as wooden as Edward James Olmos, I'll be (pleasantly) shocked. The good space shows need to have an actor who can portray inspirational leadership. People would follow Macgyver, Kirk, Picard, or Janeway anywhere. Avery Brooks and Scott Bakula, not so much.
You forgot Eureka! If genre mixing shows like Lost and Dollhouse get included as sci-fi, then so should Eureka.
Lots of likenesses being thrown around here and elsewhere, but nobody seems to be mentioning Sliders, what with the limited time on each world before the get whisked off automatically, opening up countless opportunities for team members to get stuck in stupid places and risk being left behind... remember Sliders? No?
I real look forward to seeing how the develop the story line and characters, but it does seam like a stargate version of Voyager. I am wanting the rest of Defying Gravity to Air soon, I think it is the best new original show on any of the big 4 broadcast networks,(FOX CBS ABC NBC)
there are 10 types of people in this world, those who read binary and those who don't. which are you!
Troll? For defending the honor of geekdom? You fanboys are more uptight than the Teal'c at the Vagina Monologues.
First, the gates only work one way (per connection) in regard to matter transport, so they'd have to open it from the planet, not to the planet--and the ship itself would need to be in orbit of a planet itself to establish contact (otherwise it has no address). Second, the gates aren't simple conduits; only elementary particles can actually travel through the wormhole, so the purpose of the gate (besides opening the wormhole) is dematerializing objects for transport and rematerializing them on the other side. The gate itself discriminates between different kinds of objects, and presents a certain amount of resistance at the event horizon to differentiate between an object being sent through (e.g. a human) and accidental contact (e.g. atmosphere)--see the "water gate" episode for a clear example of this, or any of the several episodes where they open a connection between a planet-based gate and one in space--so just opening the gate wouldn't be sufficient to bring air across; something would have to force it through. The gate also transports objects in discrete "packets", fully dematerializing each object before transmitting it, which isn't really consistent with transporting an unbounded mass of air.
Assuming they could send someone across to open the gate from the other side, however, they could package up some air in containers and send the containers back, air and all. The gates will readily transport air, provided it's enclosed in something.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
The Wikipedia article on SG:U seems to imply that, whilst they're stuck on a starship they can't actually drive the thing where they want to go and are restricted to hopping on and off via its onboard stargate when they get near interesting things. So it's a bit like Voyager but somebody stole their steering wheel.
Space: 1999, a British sci-fi (60s or 70s, I'd guess) had a similar setup but it was based on the slightly more bonkers-sounding premise that the crew were stuck on a moonbase and that the entire moon had been catapulted across the galaxy. When the moon went through an interesting neighbourhood they'd sometimes hop off and take a look around, then they'd jump back on again before it left. Surreal stuff! Despite the dodgy science and costumes they actually had some quite good episodes with interesting plot ideas.
As an SG1 fan, I'd just like to say "Please let it be good! Please let it be good!". That is all.
There are many things that make B5 awesome, but the single most compelling reason for its awesomeness is the cohesive storyline. It is the only video (tv/movie) that feels like you are watching a book. Great arc episodes, fantastic writing of dialog, and growth of characters that you have never seen before make it unique and memorable in TV history.
The StarGate Universe however has always felt like a high-school writing class in comparison. SG:U could develop into a good show, and as my TV sci-fi choices are limited I will watch it.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
The rules of the stargate are quite strange and often "expanded" to create some plot. But I give them that their explanations are often quite clever.
A third point is that a stargate actually has a way to recognize objects. It only sends the object if the whole thing passed the event horizon. Otherwise it just would rip people and stuff apart when they try to pass.
I've never figured out what is really supposed to happen when you shut off a worm-hole in mid-transit. In one episode of SG-1, some heavy material re-materializes inside of the nearby planet's sun (causing/solving the red sky and eminent doom). In another episode, Teal'c is trapped inside of the buffer, and his atoms are not just randomly lost at some point in space between the two gates. Also, there is at least one episode I can recall where a Jaffa retreating through a gate has his staff weapon cut in half when the gate shuts off. Also in the 2nd episode of the entire series of SG-1, Kawalsky had his head cut in half by them shutting down the gate while his head was partially in the wormhole. So the whole thing about transporting entire objects as one packet seems to be not true all of the time.
Morphing Software
So it transports matter well, I get that (humans and objects can move through), but what about air? Couldn't they just open the new gate to any planet with a good atmosphere and just top up the ship with breathable air?
Assuming this show follows the cannon established in other Stargate shows... The stargates were designed very specifically for inter-planetary travel (they are not just open wormholes but rather the active devices). Gates are one-way. The originating gate lets matter travel to the remote gate, but you can't travel back without closing the connection and opening a new one. But, furthermore, the gates do not allow the latent atmosphere to leak through the gate (e.g. in some episodes where they gate to/from water or the vacuum of space). In some way the gates can differentiate between latent objects in the environment and things that are actively trying to go through the gate (remember these are devices built by the Ancients for exactly this purpose). (I guess this explains why the gates usually disengage shortly after the last person walks through... since there is no activity around the source gate anymore, it closes the connection.)
Also worth noting is that stepping through a stargate does not mean stepping through a magic wall that you span. For instance if you put just your arm through, it is not yet coming out of the gate on the other side. Instead only once you've completely stepped through (and been dematerialized) are you transported to the other side, reformed, and step out. The stargates in fact contain internal "buffers" where matter is accumulated before being sent through the wormhole. For instance in the episode where the small "puddle jumper" ship got stuck was it was flying through the gate, the ship wasn't sticking out from the destination gate.
In other words, the Stargate series has gone into considerable detail about how the gates work. They have been remarkably consistent with the details, and I certainly hope that this series lives up to that standard. So far, they have not contradicted anything we know about established alien technology in the Stargate universe.
Yet particle and energy weapons shoot through just fine.
EPIC FAIL!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
or Stargate Galacitica, Seems that it's Stargate meets Galactica, all with an old ship that people are fighting for survival on. Personally I'll keep watching, but if it becomes more like BSG, then its only going to be a poor re-hash, as it could never out do BSG.
The Goauld who originally programmed the gates have a vested interest in keeping atmospheric venting to a minimum during standard transport due to the potential for accidents. They do however have a vested interest in being able to kill people attempting to flee through a gate, even after they have physically passed through.
Literally.
The character was so absent from the 2 hour premiere you are unable to compare it.
Stan Lee has played bigger roles in the Spiderman movies than Lou Diamond Phillips played in the SGU pilot.
Is this really necessary?!?!
... if this is what your are going to offer, just shut it off. Either that or get some better writers that don't have to fall back to flashing trash because they can't fill a complete 45 minutes with quality writing...
You know, one of the things I really enjoyed about about the SG series was the fact that I was NOT subjected to the gratuitous sex scene of some skank getting porked in the nearest mop closet. These scenes have absolutely no relevance to the show and really show the writers lack of ability to write a dramatic sci-fi without degrading the entire series... just another smut show.
Writer: Scene opens... great story ensues... cant quite fill the entire time slot.... uh... hmm... oh, I know... skank in mop closet.... ya.
Thoughts to self..."Man I am such a great writer... I hope they don't catch on."
SG-U
There's something to be said for a crew on a space ship traveling aimlessly in space.
Since Star Trek has all but died, it is up to more or less blatant Star Trek clones to carry on the torch, and since they have been running somewhat scarce the last few years, SG:U is just in time.
It may not realize it yet, but it must become Star Trek. The Star Gate franchise has already stolen basically all of the Star Trek technology* without as much as lamp shading the fact, it is my hope that this will subtly influence them into becoming Star Trek. Someone's ears will over time grow pointy, and the women will have a sudden urge to wear mini skirts. Mark my word!
* They have different names, but it's basically the same. Almost in a federation starship has an equivalent in a Star Gate starship.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
The gate really sense someway who or what is going trough it.
Example.
On SGC side, they need to issue a close command to disengage the worm hole. And it should do it automatically after 38 minutes (+ the special cases when so did not happend).
But, when ever SG-1 is coming back from outworld hostiles behind them, the gate gets closed usually automatically after they have passed trought back to home (sometimes few bad guys gets in same time).
You could not close the wormhole from the receiver side any way (thats why the 38 minute safety limit).
That is one kind mystery all the times.
Like there are episodes where SG-1 is going trough stargate without permission. And when the first person arrives to control room, they can only see last SG-1 person go trought and gates gets closed just after it. While the person on control room just curses that he could not see the address because wormhole did disengage, even that no one did it.
Small stupid thing if wanted to pick but hey... nice stories they have.
And didn't they even on the original movie and first SG-1 episodes explained how it was better go trough by keeping breath? So you have air on your lungs, but you keep it there so stargate does not "remove" it. And it is still inside the object what is going trough ;)
That's not the SG:U ship, that's the Hammond (Or any other ship in the same class). This is the SG:U Ship a sort of bastard child of the Millennium Falcon and that ship from Crusade.
Can't believe I'm being this nerdy but everything you mention there is consistent in the show's canon :)
As you push things into the event horizon, they are dematerialised and stored in a buffer in the stargate - so if you stick the staff weapon (or your head) halfway in it's not "there" any more. Once the stargate decides the whole object is inside, it sends the data in the buffer to the other stargate via Sci Fi Awesomeness. It's sorta established that this is *not* instant. When the data gets there, the receiving stargate receives it into the buffer, and once the whole object is in the buffer, rematerialises it out of the event horizon.
So what happens when you shut the gate off depends what stage in this process you are at: if you shut off while a object is partly into the stargate then the bit in the stargate vanishes, no part of it was sent yet (the other half I guess is left in the buffer, but the buffer gets cleared when the gate connection *opens* at least). If you shut off while the 'signal' is in transit between the gates then you get the materialising in space scenario, which rematerialises it without its actual structure (just dumps the fundamental particles back out into 'reality'). Teal'c gets trapped in the buffer because the gate is malfunctioning and is refusing to rematerialise the objects it receives; they have to get him out before anyone else dials into the gate because this will clear the buffer and destroy his stored pattern.
So yah, it basically does transmit each object as a single "packet", but there is a buffering phase inside the stargate at each end to allow this, and the gates don't bother to push partially buffered objects back out if the connection is cut (guess the ancients weren't too big on safety).
I'm guessing you didn't watch the premier for the current season of heroes then. I have never seen so many fricking commercials in my life. The two hours could likely have gone down under one if they'd been cut out.
It's also called Science-fiction for a reason, and not Science-fact/documentary...
Sometimes you just need go with it and not want to know the why's or how's because it's simply not that 'important' to the story.
BTW, people like you usually end up ruining shows for the people who like to watch them for the story, hence the being told to shut the fuck up.
oogly boogly!
The same can be said for any channel. Or movie producer. Or music label. If you want to avoid giving money to hucksters in suits who hold you in contempt, you're doomed to a mass media free existence.
The cake is a pie
One based on Academy life, like in the most recent movie. Roddenberry had proposed such, but never implmented it.
Real home theaters have a 120" plasma. Only the poor people or wanna-be's use a projector. Stop trying to act like you have money. you just look silly when you cant do it right. Bet you don't even have any Crestron gear in your home.
I agree. I loved SG-1. I was skeptical of Atlantis until I watched it; and then loved it. I was skeptical of Universe but willing to give it a chance. After watching the opener of SGU I am extremely disappointed. I nearly fell asleep in the middle out of boredom. If it was bad but tolerable I would still watch it, but its not even tolerable. The problem is that its not Stargate. The show is obviously designed for a different demographic. To accomplish that they took everything about stargate that I like out and put everything about tv that I hate in. The biggest draw of Stargate was adventure and discovery. All SGU seems to have is forced angst. I don't get it. If they wanted another BSG why not just make another BSG? No need to drag stargate into this mess.
Oh yeah, you're right. I just picked the first image I found. That's the one.
Looks like a guitar to me.
I thought of that, just didn't mention it. I didn't recall any instances of dialing in or out from ships in hyperspace or otherwise FTL, but I know I've missed a significant number of episodes over the years, so I didn't think I could conclusively say they'd never done it.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
You need to get yourself a girlfriend.
Let's not forget that the Stargate can only go one way at a time. You can only travel from where the wormhole was initiated.
Stargate has some sort of a built in safety mechanism to prevent this. Like when they opened a gate to planets that had liquid atmosphere or were underwater, the water did not go into the gate. Also when they open the gate from places that have toxic atmosphere, the same is true.
Except, that we know the environment of one such case affected the environment of another, which is why they could not close the wormhole...because a blackhole was in the alternate gates envrionment ...seriously though I think so far they have been pretty cool with coming up with ways of explaining such things especially things like mythology.
They could create a sort of tubbing that pierces the event horizons protective layer, and let the hole in the tube sticking through both sides fillup the air they need...but then again this is just a show, and not real life, so maybe there are x * x reasons for not being able to!
Also, there is at least one episode I can recall where a Jaffa retreating through a gate has his staff weapon cut in half when the gate shuts off. Also in the 2nd episode of the entire series of SG-1, Kawalsky had his head cut in half by them shutting down the gate while his head was partially in the wormhole. So the whole thing about transporting entire objects as one packet seems to be not true all of the time.
Their treatment of the event horizon varied according to plotm but...
They *attempted* to address this in an episode of Atlantis.
1/4 of a Puddle Jumper (shuttlecraft) made it through the gate in outer space before it got stuck as its engines were partially deployed before entering. And the gate wouldn't "transmit" until the whole ship entered.
Rodney said that if left as-is, when the wormhole deactivated the front-part would remain in the buffer so technically the whole crew would go into the event horizon and wait for help much like what happened Teal'C in an episode of SG-1. Meanwhile the rest of the ship would be cut in half (or 3/4) and would vent atmostphere.
HOWEVER, the instant someone dialed that gate the buffer would clear and they would be lost / deleted. Since (at that point) they didn't have an FTL ships on-hand the crew would be SOL since they had no way of getting to them. So they couldn't even send the crew in there as stasis since they could never reach them without gating them.
In the end, they managed to retract the engines and open the rear hatch so the atmosphere blast would scoot the shuttle completely through the gate so it could transmit.
My wife and I watched the first episode - we're both fans of SG-1 and Atlantis. Neither of us particularly liked this first episode of SG-U. I know I quickly tired of the "let's have every single person be involved in at least one interpersonal conflict" writing style, and the repeated use of "the more quick camera cuts centered on a single event, the better" direction. Oh, and that opening scene just dragged on and on and on... I found myself talking back to the TV "All right, we GET it already!".
We'll probably watch one or two more, but based on that first episode... I'm afraid they realized going into this new series that they had no new ideas at all. Faux-gritty writing and direction rarely end up producing good television. Can it be popular? Obviously - just look at 2/3 of what comes out of the big three networks anymore. But after a while all that sameness blends together and is eminently forgettable.
It's too bad, because the concept itself seems like it could be interesting - in more skilled hands...
#DeleteChrome
You're 10 years+ out of touch with the series. The gate is one way for the place that opens it. So if someone on a planet dialed the ship and pushed air at the gate - yeah. Not the other way around. Electromagnetic radiation flows in both directions.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
At least there is one SciFi sort-of space type show on TV... That's about it... no other reason to watch it... It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great... I'll watch because there is nothing else on...
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
How original and fresh are the writers using such a time worn premise....
really, that's the only way you can bring the slob/couch potato/ipod lover into the story line....
>Sadly, it's all we have.
True. But that's the kind of talk that allowed Enterprise to last through 4 sorry seasons..
I want Carlyle to stand out (i wished he was the next Doctor) but the material is awful and cliched beyong belief (and not the good Dr Who kind).
I dont want soap opera in space but sadly we have mediocre acting being upstaged by even more mediocre writing.
Please kill E-lie.
Have him lose his bodily functions like Pike and just get him to stfu.
I remember one episode of SG1 where Hammond was passing through the gate for the first time, and the leader of the SG team he was going with told him that his first instinct would be to strongly inhale. So maybe the gate actually does push the air out of people's lungs. You get reassembled air free, and your body's first priority is getting air in.
-- My work here is done. If you need me again, just admit to yourself that you're screwed, and die.
"just from watching the show, it seems like anything requires a little bit of a "push" to move through the gate"
I always marvel at how all planets appear to have the exact same atmospheric pressure all over the galaxy... It's every bit as surprising as how well most aliens speak English.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Dr. Rush: should learn to submit the hysterical Chloe, maybe learn a choke hold or two.
Matthew Scott: I see we're going to have several episodes of him goofing things up ... sigh.
Eli Wallace: "The holographic doctor", without the humor.
Ronald Greer: somebody please blow this homicidal maniac out the airlock already, before he blows up the ship.
Is SG:U available anywhere in 1080p? I've seen it in 720p, but I want all the eye candy.
Making the pilot itself a cliffhanger? Edgy. But this one seems to push all the envelopes, now doesn't it? Main characters that aren't good have not been a staple of the Stargate series, and I'm just not getting into it. They say that people are going to get left behind on this show? Dr. Rush and Sgt. Greer need to be the first ones.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
I don't think implementation was Roddenberry's forté. He had a large number of rather vague and disconnected ideas about things.
I think Star Trek on television is pretty much dead. For all its cheeziness, DS9 was a real step forward, having embraced the concept of long story arcs. Enterprise just took things backwards and nosedived. The writers seemed to resent the idea of long story arcs or consistency. They constantly gravitated towards the episodic and attempts at striking moments.
yes yes please! more fodder!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Gate dials out, IE one way xfer. So for air to come from somewhere else you have to dial into the ship.
Notice the energy weapons are traveling in the correct flow direction and likely have a great deal more energy associated with them than normal atmospheric pressure.
The premise of the entire series is the search for these over-grown AA batteries they called zpm's.
They had one at half capacity, and they had a machine that could xerox any object!
I have a book and a xerox machine, but no pens! I think i'll go to the store for some pens so i can copy the book by hand!!
of all the stupidity....
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
"Since the last two series' really ran their course and deserved to end"
Why so? OK, SG-1 kept re-inventing new villains often enough it did give the impression they were trying a bit too hard to keep an old series new. Still, there barely even started to explore the Lucian Alliance. And as for Atlantis, that ended with pretty much nothing resolved. OK, so they are supposed to come out with movies. Still, their movies seem to be little more than a season's worth of episodes condensed into a single show. I'd rather watch the show.
As someone else mentioned, way too much interpersonal conflict. So far there is no character I can really like. Eli is too much of a mama's boy. He was beamed into a spaceship and looking down on earth all he wanted to do was call mommy. Come on! Dr. Rush is an @ss and I can't figure out if the military people are too whiny about it or not angry enough given the situation. I think they should either congratulate Dr. Rush for figuring it out (he did do all the groundwork, even if Eli put in the last piece or two) or shoot him for pretty much eliminating all chance they will see their families again. The whiny bs just isn't a good fit for soldiers. I guess this is all part of the remake for a younger audience. Does this just indicate we have a generation of whiny mamas boys reaching the age where they watch ads and buy stuff?
I'll watch a while longer. It isn't nearly as bad as I'd feared and it will probably get better when they actually get off the ship and do something. Speaking of which I was rather disappointed that in an hour they never really got beyond setting up the plot we all knew was coming a year ago. Very slow start.
Between my experiences with Extron/AMX and Crestron at work, I can tell you that Crestron will *never* have any gear in my home -- ever.
To tell a guy that just spent thousands on automation gear that he can't have the software because he's "just an end user" is crazy. I bought the hardware. I'm not leasing it. There was no "license" for how I can use the hardware. It's *MINE*. If you're not going to let me have the software to program it, you're also not going to get any cash from me.
bork bork bork!
Wait for someone to re-edit it into chronological sequence and download it off the 'nets.
Jumping back and forth with the flashbacks was annoying as hell.
A girlfriend with a MythTV box.
Hey, as long as we're fantasizing here, might as well go for broke...
I've pretty much given up on watching series on TV because of the commercials making it a so hard to enjoy. If I want to see a series I generally now just wait until it comes out on DVD or Blu-Ray and rent it on Netflix.
No commercials, watch it at my convenience, no cable TV glitches, and in the case of Blu-Ray, higher quality picture.
One general issue with wormholes between two atmospheres is dealing with unbalanced air pressure on either side of the portal. Measures have to be taken to prevent the higher pressure side from flowing into the other end. Presumably the gate technology incorporates some manner of force field to prevent air flow.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
God...I suppose I'm transforming into Comic Book Store Guy here, and you might even be trolling me, but...
It is completely false that stargates can only have matter going one way.
Um, no? There's no shortage of instances where the "you can't send matter out through an incoming wormhole" thing was a key feature in the main plot thread. EM radiation can travel both ways, matter can't. Just off the top of my Comic Book Guy head:
1. Team of redshirts stuck on a world adjacent to a black hole. Black hole keeps wormhole from earth to said planet open indefinitely. Team can't just step back through the gate -> enough story to fill an hour.
2. Carter goes looking for info to help O'Neill when he's got the Ancient database downloaded into his head. DHD on the planet is borked, earth can dial in to video chat, but Carter's team can't step back through the gate. O'Neill has to draw up instructions for a fix so Carter can repair the DHD and come back home.
3. Anubis dials in and dumps energy through the wormhole in an attempt to blow up earth's gate. They could have just shoved a nuke through the gate and put a big honking block of lead in front of it. Problem solved. Oops, that conflicts with canon -> we have a story that will fill an hour again.
I'm sure there are more. And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get some real work done so I don't feel so much like a basement-dwelling loser for knowing so much Stargate lore. :)
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
Except, that we know the environment of one such case affected the environment of another, which is why they could not close the wormhole...because a blackhole was in the alternate gates envrionment ...seriously though I think so far they have been pretty cool with coming up with ways of explaining such things especially things like mythology.
Thing about a black hole causing a disruption in the wormhole is that you're almost merging two of the same types of phenomenon. A Stargate warps space-time in order to bridge the gap between them. A black hole also significantly distorts space-time in the area around it. It is conceivable that when these two distortions interact that the wormhole itself is affected by the result. However, this does not need to break the idea that a resistive barrier is present to stop particles that are not under a constant motive force from bridging the barrier.
They could create a sort of tubbing that pierces the event horizons protective layer, and let the hole in the tube sticking through both sides fillup the air they need...but then again this is just a show, and not real life, so maybe there are x * x reasons for not being able to!
You're thinking misses a problem here. A tube between the ends would not open up a window, as you're thinking it would. Instead, the tube would be cut in half with the event horizon occupying the middle of it as well as surrounding it. Additionally, it's been described in a few episodes (One in the Atlantis series is one I can recall easily) that there is a safety mechanism to transfer items 'in whole'. If you're not fully within the event horizon, it will not transfer you to the remote gate. A tube used as you describe will not have gone completely within the event horizon, and would not be showing out the other side. Even in the Stargate SG-1 series when O'Neil was after some tech thieves, when he was 'holding the gate open' by keeping his arm within the remote side, it did not remain on the originating side of the wormhole. It is a nice thought, but precedent has been established that this would not work.
I never got what was the big deal with Firefly. I watched the movie and one episode of the series. It is basically a western with spaceships... Meh. It is neither good as a western nor as scifi.
Real home theaters have a 240" OLED. Only people who don't go golfing with the CEO of Sony use plasma. Stop trying to act like you aren't nouveau riche. You just look like a yuppie when you don't have connections. Bet you don't even have HDMI 2 in your home yet.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
In the red-sky episode the situation was caused by the wormhole passing directly through the sun; there was no disconnection. They attempted to fix the problem by disconnecting the wormhole at a specific time, but the implication at the end is that it didn't work--it just gave the Asgard an opportunity to intervene without getting caught and risking the Protected Planet treaty. One might ask why they thought it might work, but then their understanding of the gate system evolves over time. Anyway, in the episode where Teal'c was trapped in the buffer the remote stargate was actually destroyed, not just disconnected, so the situation isn't exactly the same.
As for transporting whole objects: The gate does transport objects in discrete packets, but any object which has already been partly dematerialized at the time it disconnects is split at the event horizon. The dematerialized part is transmitted as-is, followed by a completion code, and the part outside the gate is left behind. Where "discrete packets" comes in is that no part of the object is materialized on the other side until that completion code is received (which is where Teal'c problem came from--with the remote gate destroyed just after he passed through there was no completion code, and--absent a real DHD to compensate--he was never materialized). No object is ever partially materialized on two planets at the same time.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Anyways, I enjoyed the cast, I enjoyed the unknown, I like that no one knows much about anything and they get to ride this ship on the other side of the universe. I just don't want the cheese. I don't want to see Mr. McBigHead Egyptian guy. I don't want to see much of McGyver. I just want to see a solid cast explore the unknown that I can grow to love. Maybe they'll find an android somewhere along the way....
> Couldn't they just open the new gate to any planet with a good atmosphere and just top up the ship with breathable air?
Now this, THIS is how to troll slashdot...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Contrary to the prevailing opinion here I actually really enjoyed this premiere. For starters I bought the season on iTunes so I didn't have to put up with the commercials that many people did, commercial breaks every ten seconds would have pissed me off too. It seems this season there's several high budget shows premiering and the networks are trying to make all of their money on the first few episodes in case the viewership wanes later in the season. Unfortunately that tactic is likely to backfire and cause a drop-off in live viewers because no one wants to be assaults by dozens of super loud commercials over the course of an hour. Way to shoot yourself in the foot Syfy, if that's even your real name!
On to the show itself, I enjoyed the premise and I think the show will be done well. SGU is obviously influenced by shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica and that is fine with me, I like BSG though I have never gotten into Lost I have seen a few episodes. Stargate needed a little more creative camera work and less stable/professional characters. The SG-1 team were all highly trained experts in their fields and that made sense since they were usually the first group of people to go through a particular Stargate. Atlantis was meant from the get-go to be an expedition where they knew they would be out of contact with Earth for a long time.
Both SG-1 and the Atlantis teams were meant to be self sufficient A-teams. The personnel of Icarus Base were third stringers on garrison duty or scientists/civilians with rudimentary if any survival and combat training. They were also not prepared to be self sufficient or separated from logistical support for any period of time. It'll be interesting to see this group survive and how well they do so, they have a fairly large cast of extras so they can potentially mow through bodies before getting to the title cast.
The camera work I didn't really mind as it gave Stargate a different look. Both SG-1 and Atlantis were very bright and often had unobstructed camera views while SGU went for more obstructed views and a darker overall look. I think this works because they're supposed to be on a ship that is millennia old and is slowly breaking down. To me the odd camera angles and focal lengths of BSG gave a better illusion of size. Even though the set might have been forty feet across the short focal distance made the blurred background look farther away and provided the illusion of space. The darker set also helped out in this illusion. I think SGU using this technique will help make the ship look more realistic as Atlantis looked like painted wood paneling as did every planet SG-1 visited except some parts of their base.
I think Atlantis missed the opportunity to use the darker broken down look, Atlantis like the Destiny was supposed to be old and busted it shouldn't have looked freshly painted and unworn. I hope SGU stays with the old and busted look for the Destiny. Planets they go to can look new and maintained but I'd like to see them come back to their worn down rust bucket ship at the end of the episode. This like the untrained crew could also make for some good episodes, marginally habitable planets might look pretty good to the crew compared to their broken down ship but then they have to consider they'll be stranded on that planet forever as the Destiny isn't going to be coming back for them.
I also didn't mind the minor plot holes in the episode because they at least threw a line in afterward to give an explanation for them. Some things just have to move the story along. The Senator with a heart condition and badly broken ribs who was dying anyways decided to press the button and save everyone. I don't know why people have a problem with that. Unlike SG-1 and Atlantis there's no central decision making group (yet) that vets all solutions before deciding on one.
I think they went to great lengths to show that the civilian and military leadership were not a unitary body and that some groups were acting with semi-autonomy from the others.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Stargate worked because of Richard Dean Anderson. His wry humor made it easy to take the logic faults of the show. Tilc also evolved into a very interesting character.
But in the end, it was Richard Dean Anderson who made Stargate. If Lou Diamond Phillips doesn't end up being as wooden as Edward James Olmos, I'll be (pleasantly) shocked. The good space shows need to have an actor who can portray inspirational leadership. People would follow Macgyver, Kirk, Picard, or Janeway anywhere. Avery Brooks and Scott Bakula, not so much.
Fixed it for you! Seriously, IMHO if you enjoy and respect the guy's work so much isn't it worth a minute to find-out his real name? Oh and I left the last "Macgyver" intentionally, because that sentence was clearly about fictional characters.
And part of the reason the humans have so many issues is that they cobbled together a control system for the Earth gate. The dialing devices have some safeguards that the Earth system doesn't, like the event that messed up the sun with the heavy metals or whatever it was. I seem to remember the Asgards saying something to that effect in that episode when they asked for help with it. And that the gate isn't supposed to shut down with an object half way through it, unless you hit the time limit, a little over 30 minutes IIRC. You see people "holding the gate open" sometimes on either side somewhat often. Overall, Stargate does a decent job of maintaining "the rules" once they establish them. They do break them sometimes, but they usually try to make up an explanation. Sometimes the explanations actually make at least as much sense as the idea of wormhole generating circles.
Of course, they did find a dialing device on Earth, 2 of them IIRC (The Russians had one, and there was one in Antarctica). So they COULD have switched to using a real one. I don't think they ever really say why they didn't. Probably just because it would then be harder to make crap up. :)
I am not American you Insensitive Clod!
Yes I am aware you can hide your country of origin by various means to get around this, I just can't be bothered. I will just torrent it anyway.
And here I was gonna go for bastard child of the Millenium Falcon and the Valdore from Star Trek: Nemesis.
I watched it without reading a single review or press release. I had no expectations of what was to come. Warning some vague spoilers may be below.
Within 5 minutes it is clear that this is an attempt to graft BSG onto SG and in an attempt to milk both fan bases for the combined monetary gain. No doubt this idea seems brilliant in the board room.
But the execution is the worse of both worlds. It sucks all the fun, and chemistry among lovable characters out of Stargate and replaces it with a superficial BSG veneer of angry distrust and melodrama. Nothing is left of Stargate, but the gate mechanism and some tired cameos.
The have nothing of BSG world that made it great. Instead they assume dark, dire, angry, whiny = deep. It doesn't. It just equals annoying.
This seems like what you would get if your made your writers watch a few episodes of BSG and make a list of BSG items. Then crib the ones you can get away with (IE nothing to do with Cylons).
So we get dark dingy sets, angry distrusting characters, angry mob scenes, obligatory pointless sex scene, heavy flashback, heavy melodrama. None of the the heart and soul from either show.
After seeing this appear to be a cheap BSG knockoff a quick bit of googling revealed that they at least admit this is what they were trying to do.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/08/tca-press-tour-stargate-universe-producers-aiming-for-battlestar-galacticalevel-quality.html
"creators of "Stargate Universe," the upcoming spinoff of the long-running "Stargate SG-1," took the stage today, panelists promised a fresh, more "Battlestar"-like take on the space opera."
I am annoyed by the cynicism and lack of originality in trying to give Stargate a BSG makeover and by the end result which felt like punishment to watch.
YMMV of course. Some people apparently loved it.
They said it wasn't going through hyperspace so maybe it was a lot slower?
I think I just expected a little more. Hopefully it gets better as the season goes on.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
It had a refreshing character, good actors and a decent storyline. It didn't rely on techno-babble or inventing new fields of science to solve every problem.
I have recently gotten into the TV show Fringe. There is good science fiction out there if you look. It is hard to find and doesn't come around very often but it is out there.
Not all of it involves spaceships and wormholes. If you are looking for specifically for spaceships and wormholes you will fall into one of two categories (unless a third gets created), that of star trek, and that of star gate. If and when a new one is created everyone will complain that it is too much like the two prior universes dispite this being the reason why people want to watch it anyway.
Dollhouse is another that isn't bad that is new. There is of course the last season of LOST also.
I love a good space opera just as much as the next geek, but there is more out there than just that. Having said all that I think we are ripe for a new one, Trek is gone, Star gate is gone, Scrabblestar Metallica is gone, people fondly remember Firefly, I think we are ready for the next big thing. crosses fingers.
The basic concept - send out a starship on a very long voyage of discovery with a "transmat" / "teleporter" / "stargate" on it so you can beam in and out - I vaguely remembered when I watched the pilot. That concept is the basis for the book "The Enemy Stars", by Poul Anderson (copyright 1958), and the ship's name in the book was the "Southern Cross". (My fragile paperback copy says it cost $0.50US back in 1968 or so.) Would have been a nice tribute if this ship had been given the same name (since it originated on Earth, the Southern Cross constellation would have been visible to the ancients that launched it). Don't know about the intellectual property situation, however.
Yes, there are elements of BSG, SG-Atlantis, ST-Voyager (except this ship is heading outbound), and even ST-DS9 (since this is an alien ship that is somewhat trashed / remember the first episode of DS9?). At least this time the Colonel didn't die like he did in SG Atlantis 1-1, and leave the mission to the "young hotshot". Also, you know the rules of pilots - the B-list actor with a recognizable face gets the ax, right? Finally, the Senator would have been S-O-L once his pills ran out, so I think he made the smart move in saving his daughter's life.
The cast has promise, they appear to be reusing lots of SG1 concepts effectively, and it is at least newish (if you can ignore that ST-TNG episode when the "Traveler" took them to the edge of reality / the first "Wesley is **really** special episode). Hey, being 7 BILLION lightyears from Earth is a bit farther away than the Pegasus galaxy.
What else can I say? I liked what the SG Production Team did with Atlantis (died two years early in my opinion), and how the DVD movies wrapped up both the Ori and Baal story lines for SG1. It's not yet another teen vampire show, and I like the Eli character (again, his role shows their humor, using a game to find him - like "Last StarFighter" - then beaming him out of his own house to grab him).
So SGU production team - please steal as much as you can from "classic" SciFi; we will all be thankful.
Other random comments:
- B5 was great, mainly because of the people. What other US SciFi show lets people have drinks, sit around in their rooms, cry like they mean it, and try to live real lives? DS9 did a lot of the same things, but B5 still seems more likable (and I liked DS9; but I own B5). Still, as much as I liked B5, I can't see it continuing without G'Kar; it just wouldn't be the same.
- Sliders / more stealing from my favorite books; this time from Keith Laumer's "Imperium" stories (except his device was the size of a 1950's phone booth or bigger, not a handheld remote control).
- Everyone steals, so why not SGU? / remember the ST-Enterprise episode with the derelict timeship that was "bigger on the inside than the outside"? (Someone should have just said: Q. "What model is it? A. Type 40!")
- Dollhouse / I hate to say it, but as much as I enjoy the hell out of it, I just know Fox is going to kill it as soon as they can. Why can't they sell this kind of show to NewsCorp / SkyNET (perhaps they do, but it may not be enough). While it is still a fairly original show (relatively / not about space, time travel, or robots), it is likely too expensive for its own good (**cough** Farscape **cough**).
- Someone find Claudia Black and Ben Browder some new work. I suggest Robert Heinlein's "The Glory Road". Read it and see what I mean.
= = = = = = = = = = ...
dave | i-can-feel-my-mind-going
If SG1/A taught us anything it's that the ancients are a bunch of arrogant pricks who couldn't see their own shortcomings even when they smashed them in the face.
"Hey isn't there a chance the Star gate could cut out when someone's only partially through and kill them? Maybe we should add some safety features..."
"Are you kidding? We're not stupid, we're the ancients, that'll never happen, stargates are perfect! Now help me build this doomsday weapon that we know no one will ever try to use because it's just awesome to look at!"
There's an excellent blog (disclaimer: Author is a friend of mine) that details the journey of someone who has never seen Babylon 5 before (a B5 "virgin").
She writes a blog entry for every episode of all 5 seasons. Excellent read, and made me want to watch it all again from the start.
Babylon Five Virgin
Frog
Yes, except for radio waves, those can somehow travel both ways.
I really think they are that shallow.
... I watched its series premiere, and wasn't impressed. It felt like Star Trek (spaceships), Battlestar Galactica, etc. but worse. I still prefer SG-1. Atlanta wasn't that good either.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Firefly was very character driven. Sure, it was a western in space - but with cowboys you cared about AND spaceships!
Shhh.... It make the show work.
[spoiler] I can't be unique in being annoyed by "drama" involving characters I barely know. Unfortunately SC Universe insisted that someone had to play the tragic hero and die in the first 50 minutes. The next 10 minutes were, surprise, filled with a hysteric woman, related to the dead "hero", crying, screaming, yelling and waxing nostalgically. I fucking hate that. Why do writers think they need these cliches and emotional breakdowns to give their story meat? Is this really what they think the audience had in mind when they turned on science fiction? [/spoiler]
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
I would assume the address for the Destiny is specifically coded in the gate system to always dial the ship when the 8 chevron address is input with the planet's home symbol for a total of 9. (I'm interested to see if this holds up in upcoming episodes.) That would mean Destiny doesn't need a home location or be orbit of a planet to dial in or out.
I've not seen it yet, but another comment mentioned that the ship had been seeding planets with stargates. If that's the case then it would have spent most of its time in galaxies, doing short hyperspace jumps between star systems, which would explain a relatively small total distance travelled.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The Plot Device effect. You want to tell a story, not explain volumes of made up science. So you do some hand waving. The earliest Stargate episodes, including the original movie, required having Daniel Jackson as the interpreter. But that got cumbersome very fast, and it's not very interesting to have Dances With Wolves style dialogue all the time.
Compare to the Twilight Zone; you don't see hordes of fans complaining about how the science on those episodes was never explained.
> Unlike Taco, I would be very happy to see ridiculous numbers of adds during every episode of SGU. The reason is quite simple. Adds pay for TV. The shows exist as a way to get people to watch adds.
Right, and any nerd worth his propeller hat skips over them anyway.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
That's not really a problem. Stargates were placed exclusively on Earth-like planets intentionally by the Ancients.
That's a very serious, show stopping problem that very few people seem to notice or care about. It's also a problem other science fiction shows lack, or solve adequately. Congratulations, in a thread with over 500 comments, you were the first and only person to mention it (so far). :(
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
That's a very, very poor excuse.
They could have come up with a perfectly adequate rationalization in season one of SG1 had they just taken the time to think of one and then stick to its implications. Now it's impossible to retroactively think of an adequate rationalization without some facet of the canon violating it.
Lazy writing, plain and simple.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
They claim early on in the show that they are doing, "Faster than light travel, but not though hyperspace."
The ship has been traveling for 100,000 years, so you have to use Ancient technology from Atlantis minus 90,000 years. So, that's the equivalent of pushing the human race from space-flight back to before the Clovis Point culture.
So, it's entirely likely that this ship is not the "latest and greatest" intergalactic hyperspace super-cruiser capable of the Kessel run in under 5 parsecs. (Sorry, mixing metaphors.)
The ancients were sending these ships out to other galaxies because it was prohibitive for them to make the journey in ships, that would indicate years, decades, or centuries to do inter-galactic travel. The course they showed on the monitor -- "Billions of light years" -- took 100,000 years, that's a speed roughly 10,000 times the speed of light. That sounds fast, but still represents a 3.4 hour trip from Earth to Proxima Centauri (3.8 light years). Fast enough for interstellar travel, but nothing like what you'd need to hop galaxies.
So, just like we send unmanned probes out to Pluto (New Horizons), the ancients sent an un-manned vessel to other galaxies. Then, if it takes 50 years, who cares? It's not like anyone has to ride it.
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
Like all good series, it had it's tired patches. I stopped watching when the Ori came into it, I was just that sick of Daniel Jackson dooming the galaxy by angering godlike beings.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
However, I seem to remember an episode, where a rope, had been lest trailing through from one side of the hole to another ...which to my knowledge of inanimate objects might not fall under that rule, maybe organic objects living, that could be severely damaged by such and act would not be allowed, where as a rope, or in this case a tube would be ok...???
Yeah, but wait...There are rings ahead of them. That means either: - The ship has reached it's "destination", in the galaxy where the ring builder ships were programming to start building rings, in which case, you would expect the ancients to have built the ship to survive at least long enough to get to its planned destination in good shape, OR - the ring builder ships have been building rings in all the galaxies along the way, in which case, you would expect the ancients should just have programmed the ring builder ships to build galaxy rings, and then jumped directly to the galaxies, rather than jumping to the ship. They would have hopped from one galaxy to the next to catch up to the ring building ships, kind of like the inter-galaxy ring bridge in SG:A. Or, the ship was in a battle, which was suggested in the show at one point. And what about the CO2 scrubbers? Why would the ship have had any atmosphere at all in transit? It would make much more sense to fill the ship with atmosphere just before the ancients jumped to it, not to have been maintaining atmosphere for 1000s of years for no reason. I mean, they didn't have the lights on that whole time, we saw the ship turning them on because of the incoming worm hole, wouldn't the air work the same way?
With all the talk of bittorrent and avoiding ads from it's core audience group it seems that their isn't any profit in sci-fi anymore.
Real home theaters involve a large stage and having the program's actors re-enact the show you're trying to watch. Sometimes they only require a fee to do it, sometimes you have to kidnap them. I have a list of impersonators in case something I'm watching involves somebody who's passed on.
Ever since I upgraded to this system, even my porn collection is considered high art.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
They could have 1 ad for every 1 minute of show. The budget will be cut and the production values to follow, and we'll be left with what was left of sg-1 and SGA, poor meatginder plots.
Lost was merely philosophical douchebaggery. Heroes is crap because none of the good guys has ever come up with the solution of blow the bad guy's head off from 100 yards away. Dollhouse could actually be quite good, except Dushku, while a good actor for certain roles, isn't all that great at the ever-changing personality of her character.
Series 3, where T'ilc fires a rope through to attach to the "cave" roof while he is still on the SGC side, indicates that this safety mechanism nicely fails whenever they need it to :D
You missed the first point - it would be sliced in half, with the event horizon in the "middle" of the tube. essentially at no point would ther be a hole from one side to the other.
Habitable planets would have similar atmospheric pressures, and it wouldn't be that difficult for the stargates to be programmed to deal with any variance.
Also, there is at least one episode I can recall where a Jaffa retreating through a gate has his staff weapon cut in half when the gate shuts off. Also in the 2nd episode of the entire series of SG-1, Kawalsky had his head cut in half by them shutting down the gate while his head was partially in the wormhole. So the whole thing about transporting entire objects as one packet seems to be not true all of the time.
Did you get to see what happened at the other end of the wormhole for those events?
Ring transporters can sever heads and send the severed head to the other side (though only when they come from above and pin you underneath them, not from below like most ring platforms in the series). Stargates don't. Ring transporters also allow bidirectional travel unlike stargates.
Unless you're the animated series where your 'gates can have from 6 to as many as 12 chevrons depending on what angle you're viewing it at.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Actually I wasn't trying to, but apparently I did.
So they are one way, they discriminate particles based on excitation level, but are omni-directional for purposes of electromagnetic spectrum?
So the best way to secure the area around where your gate lets out is to scout with a UAV first, then, if hostile, aim a huge magnetron into the gate, since the bad guys on the other end can't possibly come through...
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Things do not come out of the destination gate until they have been completely disassembled by the source gate. It was covered in an episode of Atlantis at *least*, with a puddlejumper stuck half in a gate.
for scenes with low movement, a 1080i stream will approach a 1080p in actual resolution, while for a stream with high movement inside of it, it will tend towards 540 lines of actual resolution.
Under this definition, anything shot on film has "low movement" because film runs at 24 fps, which less than half the 60 Hz field rate.
That would be interesting. I haven't seen the pilot episode myself yet, so I was basing my argument on the SG-1 and SG Atlantis episodes. On the other hand, I do recall a few episodes where they were able to dial a (fixed) gate which wasn't in orbit of a planet... the Ori super-gate, for example, and all the gates making up their "Midway Station" corridor between Earth and Atlantis. In these cases, however, they always knew exactly where the remote gate was in space.
The main problem would be that the gate has to know the precise physical location of the remote gate's planet to establish a lock. The gate address isn't an arbitrary identifier, but rather a set of spatial coordinates giving the location of the planet--as of when the gate system was set up--which the DHD translates into current coordinates to account for interstellar drift. That's why they could only dial Abydos originally; the Earth gate's translation tables were some 10,000 years out of date, and only Abydos and a few other planets were close enough to have remained at nearly the same location relative to Earth. To connect with a moving gate would seem to require that (a) the DHDs are somehow kept apprised of the target gate's location, or (b) the dialer knows the location and is able to bypass the DHD and input physical coordinates directly.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I saw the dollhouse DVD only episode and that was actually very good. It made the whole first season worth it. But I doubt it'll get past the bad filler episodes quick enough to allow the show to last.
You're right about Eureka - it's one of the few original shows made by Sci Fi that has lasted well. Fun hero saves the day type of geeky fun.
Based on traditional addresses, they would need a new address for the ship for each episode since the ship is supposed to be constantly in motion. That's why I'm assuming there is something special about the 9 chevron address to the Destiny.
How did it fail? Teal'C shoots a hook with a rope through the stargate and then went through the gate himself. The hook, rope and himself were then transmitted together to the destination gate where they were integrated in order, hook first attached with rope, then Teal'C.
Battlestargate Galactiverse. `Nuff said.
Ah, yes it's so good to see an original Sci-Fi idea. Not. Corny as they were I enjoyed Star Trek. Why, because it was upbeat, funny and new (well in respect to TV). Now Sci FI TV and movies is mostly Crush, Kill, Destroy. Death, Kill, Death Death, Kill Kill Death. At least this one added sex. What I wouldn't give for a Sci Fi show that wasn't all about Death, War, Killing and Hate. God, if I want that all I need to do is turn on the freaking news. At least there's a lot more originality with real killers. Which is kind of sad, considering these artists are supposed to be like creative geniuses. I guess schizophrenia beats genius everytime.
You don't get it. They could have 10 commercials for $1 each, or 2 commercials for $5 each (scale up accordingly). We don't need more commercials, just higher advert rates.
> Actually I wasn't trying to, but apparently I did
Actually the a good troll is indistinguishable from someone asking a question with a known answer.
> So the best way to secure the area around where your gate lets out is to scout with a UAV first, then, if hostile, aim a huge magnetron into the gate, since the bad guys on the other end can't possibly come through...
Actually there was an episode where someone aimed a particle beam at a gate.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
But surely, particles can only travel one way through the gate?
Considering that a "particle" weapon would likely use some form of plasma or other highly excited form of matter for its charge, I would think the same thing stopping air getting through would stop those too.
Guess I am too used to Science fiction that has an emphasis on Science with very little to no fiction (damn you Elizabeth Moon, damn your realistic space battles to hell).
...
Even worse, imagine the MTU ;)
So from the (pretty good) explanation...
The stargate surface is not actually the event horizon at all, its just the part of the machine that breaks things up and puts things together, its a Modem to put it simply, the crystal circuits inside the gate interface with an event horizon via a buffer system to send and receive matter.
What I don't understand is that presumably it breaks things up into energy, transmits it, then re-constitutes it at the other end, what about conservation of energy? What is lost in the process? Why doesn't it take MUCH more power at the receiving end to "make matter" than it takes at the sending end to break it apart?
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Why doesn't it take MUCH more power at the receiving end to "make matter" than it takes at the sending end to break it apart
Conservation of energy. They're very efficient with the "breaking people apart" step.
Like all good series, it had it's tired patches. I stopped watching when the Ori came into it, I was just that sick of Daniel Jackson dooming the galaxy by angering godlike beings.
Any series that can put out an episode like Wormhole eXtreme is worth watching. The best part about SG1 was its own sense of humor and self-awareness.
Granted, it wasn't always present, but it was there and hilarious.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
Yes, but moving the broken apart stuff from A to B without getting too much signal noise and hopefully no dropped packets should be a concern.
And yes, efficiency at breaking apart and putting back together would be of paramount concern.
Its not a "move" function so much as copy-delete I guess.
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Yes, the 8th chevron is the "galaxy" code. Go all the way back to the SG-1 episode "The Fifth Race" to see how that came about. However the Earth point of origin chevron seems to be inconsistent with the established mythology. Then again I haven't seen SGU yet (downloading the free ones from iTunes now) so perhaps this is explained.
I don't know how Active Directory Services falls into things. Maybe you mean ads
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Seriously, I am not looking for high brow entertainment. Budget special effects, plot holes are all part of it. -- (of course he needed to close the door manually and die -- same as with my iPhone, touch screen them pencils don't work either)
Stargate is on TV, and that is enough to satisfy my craving for galactic exploration.
Half the puddle jumper was on one side, the other half wasn't?
I will have to rewatch that episode, I seem to remember that half was one side,
the other half on the other side, but I could be wrong...
The ship has been traveling for 100,000 years, so you have to use Ancient technology from Atlantis minus 90,000 years. So, that's the equivalent of pushing the human race from space-flight back to before the Clovis Point culture.
So it's Ancient tech, but to compensate it's also ancient...this series is gonna be confusing :/
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Matter can only move one way through the wormhole. (Energy, like radio waves, is bidirectional)
So if they dial a gate address, they could bring air from the ship to the planet. They'd have to be ON the planet, and dial the ship, before they could bring air from the planet to the ship. And it would not just flow through, since they've dialed in the past to ocean worlds, and vacuums, and there's no influx due to pressure differentials. As someone else said, the gate doesn't allow for that. They'd have to bring it back somehow. (Pressurised containers?)
That's true, but the other side of the coin is, when the original image is shaky/blurry, you can use lower resolution CG on it and most people will never know the difference. Shaking makes good CG harder and cheap CG easier. Unless your CG really stands out from the original image, the eye interprets the deficiencies of detail and proper tracking in the CG as results of the camera's movement. Sounds backwards, but the brain doesn't always interpret visual data like we think it should.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Yup, I don't remember a single long episode arc in Enterprise...
Oh wait, the entire bloody third season!!
(which all sucked, btw) The 4th season two-parters were much better.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
None of the characters especially captivates me. Torture a few. Kill off a few. It's all the same to me like playing with plastic soldiers. On the bright side, it's an opportunity to do Stargate as Battlestar Galactica.
Seriously, it's been so long ago, I can't begin to recall my first impressions of the original cast, but I see some problems with Universe if the 2-hour premiere didn't make me care about what happens to the characters. Similar to, but considerably worse than, Enterprise.
I watched the premerie and the flashbacks with a "airplane full" of people game me the Lost feeling. Each week they can draw in a new character that has yet to be introduced.
Unfortunately is appears to be something fluffy on the order of Sanctuary. Only instead of the mutants being caged by humans, the humans are caged by the aliens. Ugh. They should let Sanctuary be the "feel good" show and turn this show into death, mayhem and destruction. I'm with you on that.
I found it to be predicable and boring at best. As far as I am concerned, it was a remake of Battle Star with a Stargate. Poor lost humans looking for earth. I'll give it 3 more runs but I don't expect it to get any better. Don't get me wrong, Battle Star was the bomb. We don't need another rehash of an all ready played out story line. I mean really, the uniforms even have the same style!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
-- BSG SPOILER --
BSG was really great, except when it was pretty poor. Oh, and I lost all respect for the show when we discover in the finale that, after all those years of being teased with a complex and fascinating mystery, A Wizard Did It. I will never watch the show again, in reruns or DVDs or made-for-tv movies, or effing Caprica (which can just blow me). What a steaming pantload of a thank you to the fans.
Sorry, I'm still so pissed off about it.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
You're wrong. If it was the way you described, they could've just all jumped through the gate and waited till it shut down. As it was, the people already on the other side would've died if they shut down the gate - thus the problem.
The one in Antarctica was busted, the Russians owned the other dialer (and they broke it to save Tealc's life when he was trapped in the gate.)
The wormhole draws power from subspace.
Let's see from how many other movies or shows they have stolen ideas:
1) The Last Starfighter [video game prowess leads to gig as savior of the universe].
2) Voyager [stuck in the middle of nowhere, limited supplies, trying to get home].
3) Wagon Train [stuck in the middle of nowhere, limited supplies, trying to get home].
4) Sliders [time limit on stay in any one location] [stuck in the middle of nowhere, limited supplies, trying to get home].
5) Battlestar Galactica [Rush ~= Baltar] [stuck in the middle of nowhere, limited supplies, trying to get home].
6) Lost In Space [scientist with sometimes questionable ethics at odds with military command].
7) Red Dwarf [stuck in the middle of nowhere, limited supplies, trying to get home].
That doesn't mean you should trumpet this fact. If it gets around far enough, then geek programs will disapear from Network TV or Basic Cable.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Sorry, to any TV execs who may be listening, I watch every commercial with my shopping list in my lap.
Seriously, in a time when the Tivo sounds (bo-beep, be-boop, donk donk donk) are immediately recognizable to much of TV watching America, is there any point in pretending anymore?
Yes, I know the usual arguments, but I think Sanctuary, Doctor Horrible, et al, have proven that an engrossing story can be had through unconventional means.
And really -- I've only seen the first fifteen minutes of Stargate Universe so far (daughter wanted to watch Big Bang) but everything I've seen so far could be accomplished with a high school gym, a cast of unknowns, and a row of Macs. Maybe a small render farm on the back-end. It's the writing, not all the other stuff.
And interestingly enough, writers are the ones so often pissed on by the industry. This leaves the people responsible for the guts of the shows you watch looking for different business models where they can maybe get a larger slice of a smaller pie.
I think all that's holding together the old TV business model are the non-technical boomers who grew up with the old TV watching model -- climb into the barcolounger, remote in one hand, sixpack in the other, and let the TV connect to your brain from the beginning of prime time to the end of the 11:00 news. Once they start to die out, conventional TV is going to be in big trouble.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What happens when subspace runs out of energy in an area then? Is that bad?
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uhh... the rope was used in the black hole episode. it was not dangling through the event horizon, it was being used to lower a naquida bomb to the black hole.
momentum is conerved so the hook flys through teh stargate and hooked onto the cave when t'ilk enters.
um.... I didn't say that it removed things from one environment that were transported across the event horizon. I said it keeps the environments separate.
Lack of maintenance doesn't really explain the linguistic shift scenarios such as the Jaffa and Goa'uld randomly switching between Goa'uld and "Ancientese." Surely they've all traveled through at least one gate with a working mechanism and should be fully fluent in "Ancientese." I suppose a conscious choice could be made to use one language over another, but then there's no mention of that whatsoever. On top of that, never mentioning this "Ancientese" mechanism at all because it's "taken for granted" is not acceptable. Someone would most certainly mention this. There are plenty of moments in season 1 of SG1 or the pilot where it surely would have been mentioned by at least Daniel if this were the case.
Also, if the gate teaches everyone the Ancients' language, why is the Ancient language then constantly depicted as a distinctly separate language that nobody but Daniel (and a few others) can understand? Why would the Ancients' gate mechanism teach every gate traveller a distinctly different language than the one they used for everything else? See? There are just too many holes. Don't get me wrong, I wish it could work. I love the show. Maybe if some day there's an episode where they try to make us swallow something to the effect of this I might, maybe buy it if it's thought through well enough and covers up most of the holes. Sort of like the Klingon forehead problem on Star Trek and Enterprise's hysterical solution in season 4.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
"That's not really a problem. Stargates were placed exclusively on Earth-like planets intentionally by the Ancients."
But all at the same air pressure?
Remember - a stargate pair at sea level and Mexico City will have quite an atmospheric effect on both sides.
Conceivably, you could have airtight doors on the stargate room that would have to be locked before the wormhole is formed.
And, BTW, it's very weird light can't travel through a wormhole when radio waves can
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
I have to say that I didn't like the concept and was (still am a bit) of the opinion that the series is doomed if they don't bring someone or multiple people from SG-1 or Atlantis into the mix to get the series started (kinda like with Atlantis, where we all knew Dr King already). I do think several caracters are seriously miscast. The leading scientist genious caracter is just wrong, not only have I never liked that actor, but his acting style, accent and looks are more suitable for a crazy MD, history professor or classic english professor. Not the science type. For the "geek" they just choose a goofy looking fat bloke, rather then a geek/nerd. I personally don't know a single geek or nerd that looks even remotely like that guy, most of them are actually skinny or well built. None of them are fat retards. The main soldier is cast ok, the military head isn't. I do however like that they put the military commanders wife in the mix, so we'll see a softer kind of military man. I think we should see where the series takes us and if it picks up as well as Atlantis did after a few episodes, I'm sure we'll be seeing at least 5 seasons of this. With an entire universe opening up, there's plenty of stories to tell. I also hope that they brainstorm seriously about all the kinds of biological and non-biological life forms the universe could theoretically produce, so that we can be wowed about the wonders of the universe, instead of being stuck with more Grey Aliens, Insectoids, snakelike parasites and killer androids. Oh, yeah, lets not forget energy beings ....
I do have 1 question about the concept of the series.
Is the stargate on the Universe ship bi-directional?
The gate dials automatically and disengages at a certain time.
How are the ones that go trough supposed to come back?
And if the gate disengages, how are the ones that went trough supposed to know what adres to dial to get connected to the ship?
There's no reason to assume there isn't something in the Stargate that prepares you for air pressure changes. Same can be said for filtering certain parts of the light spectrum (visible light) but not others (radio). They could have designed the gates this way on purpose.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
MythTV is great for the WAF.
Loads of capacity and easy expandability.
Automatic tagging and skipping of commercials.
The ability to have her favorite show all online.
A client-server architecture that allows you to play anything anywhere and pick up where you left off.
Good WAF with the MythTV led to me getting carte blanche on computing purchases. ...bought 3 minis without any need to ask permission or forgiveness.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.