The Syndicate (408)

[Stargate: Horizon]

Stargate: Horizon
"The Syndicate"

Sivea is contacted by Minister Kalos, who reveals some unsettling news regarding the truth behind President Adari's assasination.

Check it out!

And then be sure to stop back here to share your thoughts!

[Alex Rubit]

Well, you've had nearly six months to speculate (which I'm sure you have been doing, even if not on here ), but today the answers shall be revealed!

Who was really behind the assault on Adari's life? Was Kalos involved? Some of you thought he was, when "A Matter of Faith, Part Two" initially aired. Well... today you get to see whether or not you were right. And who was Ambassador Ca'vel working with? How were they related to the rogue Kih'Andari? Why did they assasinate Adari in the first place? Tons and tons of questions that were left unanswered, and that have been unaswered for some time now.

If you have trouble recalling what happened (as, indeed, it's been nearly six months since the season three finale), you might want to reread "A Matter of Faith, Part Two" just kind of to refresh your memory. But you don't have to, because everything's explained in this episode.

Anyway. I'm very curious to see what you think!

[The Maneuver]

Yeah, not a bad ep. Really exceeded expectations. It's good you didn't kill off Ren too early. It's better that he has a few episodes before he dies (okay, going on a limb with a prediction there. For all we know, he could go on to become a great recurring villain like Dureg, or, looking abroad, Baal or Gul Dukat). I guess we'll see.

Kudos to all.

[peragrin]

ooh that was good. Good thinking about Daniel too. Honestly I think it was a bit rushed, this would have made an awesome two parter, now it's just an awesome single. Unless of course you have plans for ren to get away later. that could be cool too.


the bad guys almost always get away.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

i thought the Grant/Sivea Scene at the end of act two was really good. i thought it gaves us some more insight into their relationship. so what was Grant really going to say before "let me know when your ready" and will we see that kinda insight in future episodes before your guys little 2 month hiatus. and i thought the point of a mid season two parter is actually part 1 before the hiatus and not after hiatus but im not the creator of this thing so my opinion is worth squat.

[knowles2]

Well well after last week episode guest it was always down hill from their I guest.

I mean given the tactical awareness Christine showed last week the entire horzion team seem actually quite inept this week.

I mean seriously how much do we have to see transporters jammed before they rely this possibility at the beginning of the mission and suddenly seem surprise.
I mean seriously they should of planned for that.

Then logan, the gun hole of a warrior we seen in passed and this she did even the tactical officer if could take the jamming device out using weapons.

Then sending daniel, I can unstand why him, given his new arrival, even through he been their weeks, Ren must have **** intelligence network if he have not found out about him yet. but sending him on his own, given the wide range of people/spies we actually got train in covert surveillance and operations, it seem ridiculous and stupid to send Daniel/

Then we get to Ren a guy who hidden himself for so long and been shown to be so resourceful, meet with kados, seemingly expecting a traps, then having no reasonable way out or certainly a man like him would not even come himself and would of sent one of lieutenant out to get him.

Then Stargate, it obvious if you stop any ship leaving from orbit, our battle cruiser could take on most vessels on it own, making sure their a incoming wormhole to stop them from escaping that just made common sense.

What was also so stupid about this is that they had essentially unlimited amount of time to come up with the plan and execute it, instead of the one hell of mess that is turn into.
The only thing I like about this entire plot is interation between grant and sivea.

[Alex Rubit]

Yeah, not a bad ep. Really exceeded expectations. It's good you didn't kill off Ren too early. It's better that he has a few episodes before he dies (okay, going on a limb with a prediction there. For all we know, he could go on to become a great recurring villain like Dureg, or, looking abroad, Baal or Gul Dukat). I guess we'll see.

The ending was actually something we talked about in great length. For some time we were thinking about killing him off in this episode, but then the feeling was -- just like you said -- it would have been too soon. And then there were a couple of different versions of just the final moments of the episode, basically how exactly the confrontation between Sivea and Ren would go down.

The final polish was made just about a week ago actually, which was to make it look like she had actually killed him, even if just for a short moment. And then it becomes clear that she changed the setting to stun.

Anyway. I'm really glad you liked the episode. It's another one of my favorites actually; I thought it turned out very well.

[Alex Rubit]

ooh that was good. Good thinking about Daniel too. Honestly I think it was a bit rushed, this would have made an awesome two parter, now it's just an awesome single. Unless of course you have plans for ren to get away later. that could be cool too.

In early stages this was going to be two parter, but at that point we had a completely different story in mind that would have centered around Vahret's trial. We eventually decided to go in a different direction, which became this episode.

the bad guys almost always get away.

Hmm. That's an interesting point.

[Alex Rubit]

i thought the Grant/Sivea Scene at the end of act two was really good. i thought it gaves us some more insight into their relationship.

I'm glad you liked that. I thought it was a really nice little scene that just felt really natural between the two of them.

so what was Grant really going to say before "let me know when your ready"

That's a good question? What do you think?

and will we see that kinda insight in future episodes before your guys little 2 month hiatus.

I don't think there's anything like this in the next two episodes, but we do have some interesting plans for Grant and Sivea as the season progresses.

and i thought the point of a mid season two parter is actually part 1 before the hiatus and not after hiatus but im not the creator of this thing so my opinion is worth squat.

That's really just sci-fi's way of doing that, having a break in the middle of the season, and air part one before the break, then coming back with part two. I don't think it's really necessary, and I was never a fan of one very long break in the middle of the season. I think the better way of doing that is to just have two shorter breaks.

So there'll be a break until February, and, unless something changes, we'll be airing 4.11 through 4.16 without any breaks. Then we'll have short little three week break, before 4.17 will air straight through 4.24. And then... we'll probably be seeing 4.25 and 4.26 in June, the latter being the season finale.

[Alex Rubit]

Well well after last week episode guest it was always down hill from their I guest.

Well, that's your oppinion.

I mean seriously how much do we have to see transporters jammed before they rely this possibility at the beginning of the mission and suddenly seem surprise.
I mean seriously they should of planned for that.

That's arguable. You could definitely say they could have anticepated it, but you could also say there was no reason whatsoever to anticepate it. That's up to everyone to decide for themselves.

Either way, they wouldn't have had another choice but to go through with the mission anyway. Also, it makes for more suspense to not tell the audience in act two that we're going to be taking a shuttle down to the planet and blow some stuff up in act five.

Then logan, the gun hole of a warrior we seen in passed and this she did even the tactical officer if could take the jamming device out using weapons.

The jamming device was inside the trading complex. Taking it out with the ship's weapons would not have only resulted in them possibly killing their own people who were inside the trading complex as well, they would have also killed innocent civilians. Not everyone in that facility was a criminal.

Then sending daniel, I can unstand why him, given his new arrival, even through he been their weeks, Ren must have **** intelligence network if he have not found out about him yet. but sending him on his own, given the wide range of people/spies we actually got train in covert surveillance and operations, it seem ridiculous and stupid to send Daniel/

I definitely don't agree with that. First of all, Daniel has got his share of tactical experience. He's been at the front line longer than any of our other characters actually, counting all his years on SG-1. So he's definitely got what it takes to carry out a mission like that. And given their limited time frame, it wouldn't have made sense for them to get someone else involved, considering that Daniel's part of the senior staff and was already in on what was going on.

So that's the "in story" explanation. And here's the just the actual explanation: Daniel is part of the main cast. And it's much more entertaining if your regular characters are in jeopardy, rather than some unknown spy that we've never met before, and that we don't care about. So when it comes down to choosing between a potential red shirt or Daniel, I'm going with Daniel.

Then we get to Ren a guy who hidden himself for so long and been shown to be so resourceful, meet with kados, seemingly expecting a traps, then having no reasonable way out or certainly a man like him would not even come himself and would of sent one of lieutenant out to get him.

This is actually the one point that you made that I think is kind of valid. And we thought about that. But in the end, the only way for the story to work was for Ren, obviously, to be there. And he's not unprepared. He does know there's a jamming device; most likely it was his people who put that in place. And he does have a way out -- through the Stargate.

Even though we didn't see it on screen, there was a past releationship between Kalos and Ren. And for the longest time Ren didn't have any reason to not trust Kalos. Ren only captured Kalos' son as a precaution -- as he calls it -- when Kalos was captured, because Ren knew that the Vorian government could try and use Kalos to get to him.

But I think the real reason that Ren did agree to meet with Kalos was because Kalos was going to bring Sivea. Did Ren know for a fact it was a trap? No, of course not. Would he have killed Kalos' son had it not been a trap? Yup, definitely. That's just the kind of man he is. But did he have enough guts to be willing to meet with Kalos, and see how things played out? Yup, definitely.

So there's several reasons for why he was there, and why he agreed to meet with Kalos. Can that be criticized? Absolutely. But I personally think it works pretty well, and it makes for one pretty darn intense showdown.

Then Stargate, it obvious if you stop any ship leaving from orbit, our battle cruiser could take on most vessels on it own, making sure their a incoming wormhole to stop them from escaping that just made common sense.

I don't understand what you're trying to say, I'm sorry. You mean have the Bellerophon stop them from escaping through the Stargate? How?

The only thing I can think of, from what it sounds like what you're saying, would be to contact Horizon and tell them to dial the gate, thus having an incoming wormhole. That's a good idea. However, it's safe to say that the Bellerophon was out of reach of contacting Horizon. The only way would have been contacting the station by dialing their gate, or using long range sub-space communication like Horizon does it with Earth on occassion. But that only works if there's long-range communication relays in place. So there was no way for the Bellerophon to contact Horizon in the short time available.

Unless, you meant something completely different.

What was also so stupid about this is that they had essentially unlimited amount of time to come up with the plan and execute it, instead of the one hell of mess that is turn into.

I dunno. Don't agree with that either. Kalos didn't know exactly where Ren would be, and the longer they would have waited, the more likely it would have been that Kalos might not have been able to get in touch with Ren. And if you're trying to take down a guy who killed six million people, I think you're going to want to do that as soon as possible.

Also, I don't think this turned into a mess. Honestly, the way it sounds, you just would have preferred it to go all smoothly and according to plan, but the harsh reality is: that would have made for one boring episode.

Holy crap, that was a long reply.

[peragrin]

What I think knowles was saying about the stargate was have the bellerphron watch the sargate from orbit, if escape looked likely, then send a quickie message to Horizon who could dial the stargate into the world and hold up open the connection preventing escape. Grant and a security team could also be on the other side just waiting for the right moment.

As for Knowles the transport jammers should actually be used more often. I can see a shady trading outpost using several different style of transport inhibitors. it would prevent theft, as well as prevent authorities from entering at unawares. Several outlying area's could be designated transport clear zones. Also a facility like that should have several dozen landing pads for starships of small to mid sizes. (the bellephron still couldn't land though). Each pad like a parking meter, pay to stay your your ship get's processed.

I am surprised Horizon hasn't had something similar installed yet actually.

[Alex Rubit]

What I think knowles was saying about the stargate was have the bellerphron watch the sargate from orbit, if escape looked likely, then send a quickie message to Horizon who could dial the stargate into the world and hold up open the connection preventing escape. Grant and a security team could also be on the other side just waiting for the right moment.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I just wasn't sure for a second there. But like I said above, my reasoning is that they were just out of reach and unable to contact Horizon.

And I honestly just think that if they had done it that way, it wouldn't have been as great a showdown as it is now, with the shuttle coming down and everything. It would have just been another shootout, and here we were looking for something a little more unique. This would have made for some nice visual effects on screen.

[knowles2]

Actually yeah I would want it go to plan, I want them to actually plan missions down to exact details, like they would plan in real life, I want them to plan for the unexpected, and I want them to have plan b in place. And things going exactly to plan can be exceedingly entertaining, specially if done right and written well, one example of a mission going to plan come in a star Trek Deep Space episode Badda-Bing Badda-Bang, where their plan went perfect and with out a flaw, but it was still extremely entertaining.

Yeah I meant them use the sub space to contact horizon to dial the gate, or why not used a remote dialing computers, which we probably reverse engineer by now, to dial the gate from the Belleramorphon.

Very different daniel been trained for combat missions that very different to espionage and surveillance. As to having people come in that are trained for these kind of missions would of made more sense to me and to the story, also potentially the character could of open up other storylines in the future.

As to the planning of the mission a two or three day planning session would made sense, given that it would made little difference really.

And at the moment it a little hate of mine, that no matter what the mission our team can do it getting annoying and boring fact is our team cannot be train to do everything.

And actually catching the person who kill 6 million people very important indeed that why I would want people train for these type of missions and do it as part of their day job. Planning it down to the last little detail, to guaranteed the mission go well and according to plan.

Right now any legal institution would be force to let Ren go, they have no evidence apart kalos word, and frankly I did not get the feeling that meant a lot to the president. So in my book the mission was a failure simply because they did not get the evidence they needed.

And why at, the syndicate is far to familiar to the trust on earth.

[peragrin]

And I honestly just think that if they had done it that way, it wouldn't have been as great a showdown as it is now, with the shuttle coming down and everything. It would have just been another shootout, and here we were looking for something a little more unique. This would have made for some nice visual effects on screen.

Ah but how many times has an Alkesh or tel'tac came running down the gate only to be gunned down by our teams who then just barely escape? If Ren had gotten away, It might be different. but for someone who's been hiding and has done terrible things I would expect a draque transport beam to take him to a cloaked ship, on the other side of the system.

Just throwing out possiblities.

By the way i still love the episode

[Alex Rubit]

Very different daniel been trained for combat missions that very different to espionage and surveillance. As to having people come in that are trained for these kind of missions would of made more sense to me and to the story, also potentially the character could of open up other storylines in the future.

The truth is we weren't interested in introducing a new character just for this episode. And we weren't interested in using this new character in order to open up other storylines in the future either. It would have been possible, but it's nothing any of us were interested in doing, because truth is -- we've got plenty of characters already. So it would have been pointless.

Daniel was available. Daniel did have the proper training and experience, and it worked well. Now, how we would have done this if Daniel hadn't been part of the cast, I don't know. That never came up.

As to the planning of the mission a two or three day planning session would made sense, given that it would made little difference really.

There was nothing to suggest that there wasn't some time that went by after Sivea and Kalos came to Horizon. This isn't real time.

And at the moment it a little hate of mine, that no matter what the mission our team can do it getting annoying and boring fact is our team cannot be train to do everything.

That's ridiculous, I'm sorry. Our team is not trained to do everything, and I have no idea what you mean by "no matter what the mission is, they can do it." They are the main characters, and it would be a little weird to do an episode where they have almost no involvement, and let some red shirts do the job.

Please don't take any of this personally; it's just that I can't agree with most of these points. Valid critisizm is one thing, and everyone's entitled to it. But in response to the above, I just don't see it. It's the same like saying that on Stargate SG-1, SG-1 always does the job -- no matter what the mission is.

Right now any legal institution would be force to let Ren go, they have no evidence apart kalos word, and frankly I did not get the feeling that meant a lot to the president. So in my book the mission was a failure simply because they did not get the evidence they needed.

This will be addressed in a later episode. Which shouldn't come as a surprise.

And why at, the syndicate is far to familiar to the trust on earth.

Uh... I seriously don't agree with that. And I'm a little surprised that you'd even say that.

The Trust is an organization that works to protect the planet, albeit in their own weird little way. The Syndicate is a group of private business men, who don't give a damn about the saftey of their planet. They're driven by greed. The more money and profit they make the better. If people have to die for them to make profit, then so be it. That kind of sums up their mentality.

[Alex Rubit]

Ah but how many times has an Alkesh or tel'tac came running down the gate only to be gunned down by our teams who then just barely escape? If Ren had gotten away, It might be different. but for someone who's been hiding and has done terrible things I would expect a draque transport beam to take him to a cloaked ship, on the other side of the system.

That's true. But I've never seen that happening on a dark Stargate platform, somewhere on top of a mountain. It gets a little lost if you don't see it on TV, but this would have looked pretty impressive. Obviously the only real location would have been the Stargate platform, and everything else would have been a green screen background.

I think the thing with the bad guys beaming away and escaping like that, has been overdone. We've done that a lot; "Secrets and Lies" and "The Cold and Distant Stars" comes to mind, and that's just off the top of my head.

Just throwing out possiblities.

I still like this better than just some other boring shootout (already loved it in just the outline stage actually). That's my opinion. No one has to agree with it.

It's a little weird that so much time on here is spent talking about what could have happened, when the things that did happen don't even get mentioned. Personally I thought the ending was very powerful, and kind of thoughtprovoking, in that it leaves one question unanswered: should Ren have died? Should Sivea have killed him? Does he deserve to live out the rest of his days in some comfortable prison?

Well, actually that's three questions.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

I'm glad you liked that. I thought it was a really nice little scene that just felt really natural between the two of them.



That's a good question? What do you think?



I don't think there's anything like this in the next two episodes, but we do have some interesting plans for Grant and Sivea as the season progresses.



That's really just sci-fi's way of doing that, having a break in the middle of the season, and air part one before the break, then coming back with part two. I don't think it's really necessary, and I was never a fan of one very long break in the middle of the season. I think the better way of doing that is to just have two shorter breaks.

So there'll be a break until February, and, unless something changes, we'll be airing 4.11 through 4.16 without any breaks. Then we'll have short little three week break, before 4.17 will air straight through 4.24. And then... we'll probably be seeing 4.25 and 4.26 in June, the latter being the season finale.

so there are going to be 26 episodes in season 4? why so many?

[Alex Rubit]

so there are going to be 26 episodes in season 4? why so many?

Mainly really because there's so much that we're planning to do, and there's a lot of characters. Still some great things in store for every single one of them. And having two extra episodes makes a pretty big difference. It's kind of a crazy amount of work, but we're definitely on track to getting it all done.

And, of course, it's something we'll intend to keep doing in future seasons. It's like how Star Trek used to do it in the good old days.

[knowles2]

[QUOTE=Alex Rubit;7408012]The truth is we weren't interested in introducing a new character just for this episode. And we weren't interested in using this new character in order to open up other storylines in the future either. It would have been possible, but it's nothing any of us were interested in doing, because truth is -- we've got plenty of characters already. So it would have been pointless.[\QUOTE]

That fine I was just saying it would of been better, that what I think anyway.

Daniel was available. Daniel did have the proper training and experience, and it worked well. Now, how we would have done this if Daniel hadn't been part of the cast, I don't know. That never came up.

There was nothing to suggest that there wasn't some time that went by after Sivea and Kalos came to Horizon. This isn't real time.

Well if their was some time that passed they did not seem to be doing much planning or detailing of the mission then in that time did they.

That's ridiculous, I'm sorry. Our team is not trained to do everything, and I have no idea what you mean by "no matter what the mission is, they can do it." They are the main characters, and it would be a little weird to do an episode where they have almost no involvement, and let some red shirts do the job.

Actually that not a bad idea, bring in a team from outside of Horizon, it may if written right actually intimidate some other members of horizon and it be and interesting role reversal for horizon to play observers and take no direct part in the action themselves, it interesting how they react especially if they were the one to cause the mission failure in the end by getting in the way or believing they were right when they were not.

Please don't take any of this personally; it's just that I can't agree with most of these points. Valid critisizm is one thing, and everyone's entitled to it. But in response to the above, I just don't see it. It's the same like saying that on Stargate SG-1, SG-1 always does the job -- no matter what the mission is.

Exactly the same and it started pissing me off time to time, you need jet fighter pilot here o'neil, you figure out some technology bring carter.
I mean even SG1 it got a bit boring them being able to solve every problem. you need a diplomat here jackson. Change every now and again is good.

This will be addressed in a later episode. Which shouldn't come as a surprise.

Yeah but you said my point was not valid, the mission primary aim was get that confession in that area they failed, so far anyway, so in my books they failed the mission, was it their fault probably not, but if they got Kalos son and family into protected custody before their operation it more likely they would of pulled of the mission.

Uh... I seriously don't agree with that. And I'm a little surprised that you'd even say that.

The Trust is an organization that works to protect the planet, albeit in their own weird little way. The Syndicate is a group of private business men, who don't give a damn about the saftey of their planet. They're driven by greed. The more money and profit they make the better. If people have to die for them to make profit, then so be it. That kind of sums up their mentality.

The reason they work to protect earth , is because they probably wanted to protect their bottom line, seriously living under Gould would just have been bad for the share price and their pension fund and profits.. The trust all about money in the end, they just the protecting the planet as cover. They even show their real colours when they bought down aircraft maker company, which was soley for profits, if the man got his way and made the Stargate public the companies in the trust would of lost their monopoly for bring alien technology to the market. When start to analyze their only aim was money, always was.

And should Ren have died no of cause he should not have died, in fact if anything grant should have taken every step to take to protect him with all necessary force, as he was their only lead to the syndicate and far more important than Sivea at that time.

h but how many times has an Alkesh or tel'tac came running down the gate only to be gunned down by our teams who then just barely escape? If Ren had gotten away, It might be different. but for someone who's been hiding and has done terrible things I would expect a draque transport beam to take him to a cloaked ship, on the other side of the system.

Just throwing out possiblities.

A other very good reason for this mission being poorly planned and executed, and it always made Ren seem arogrant stupid and not a master criminal which could planned the events over the passed three years with out single person other kalos catching on about it. He should of had every eventuality planned out.

And do not worry I do not take anything personally, never, it just a little disagreement over this story, may be next week one I will like it more and we can have more agreement.

[peragrin]

Please don't take any of this personally; it's just that I can't agree with most of these points. Valid critisizm is one thing, and everyone's entitled to it. But in response to the above, I just don't see it. It's the same like saying that on Stargate SG-1, SG-1 always does the job -- no matter what the mission is.

Actually some of those are my favorites. what are the two main vorian techians really like, do they play random card games off duty? How much secondary interaction do they have with the main cast? an episode from station point of view listening helplessly to Horizon 1 team reports under fire would be cool. Maybe next season. this one seems to be planned.

As for the ending while good, it's not like he tortured sieva personally. It's like catching Osma bin laden or when Saddam was caught. She did her job, if she made it personal she would have been brought up on charges