Unnatural Selection (612)

[GateWorld]

DISCUSS ... UNNATURAL SELECTION EPISODE NUMBER - 612 The team is called into battle unexpectedly when the Asgard homeworld is overrun by Replicators -- which have evolved into a startling new form. (Part 2 of 2) Visit the Episode Guide >>

[bcmilco]

This was the first episode I saw and I really enjoied it because it wasn't a clear "victory" for the good guys. I liked the fact that it made me stop and think... "Was that really the right thing to do?", "Was it the moral thing?".

I liked the fact that they left it open ended.

When a TV show gets me to stop and think I sit up and take notice.

[Bacardi]

i wasnt happy about jack's decision even though i understood why it was done.. seemed a bit out of character.. good story tho n as ya all probably know, one that will be revisited ...

[bcmilco]

Why did you think it was out of character? (honest curiosity)

I thought it was very much in character after I had watched more episode.

My main reason being he accomplished his misison going to what ever lengths were necessary, just as he did in Shades of Grey.

[KorbenDirewolf]

really liked the way the Asgard managed to strengthen their enemy even more before kind of almost winning.

[Liebestraume]

Originally Posted by bcmilco

When a TV show gets me to stop and think I sit up and take notice.

I totally agree. I remember stumbling upon this episode before "getting into" SG-1. At the time I couldn't quite understand the characters' motivations, yet the episode made an impression nonetheless.

Now that I know all the back stories, I rank this among my favorite episodes of the series. I loved how it leave the ending open and let the viewers draw their own conclusions. It certainly made me see Jack in a new light.

[keshou]

I rank this as one of my favorite episodes of season 6, right after Abyss and Changeling.

I loved that Jack made the tough choices (I thought it was very in character), that they brought up Charlie again and that the episode dealt with some interesting scifi concepts.

I thought the evolution of the replicators was interesting. Maybe a little unbelievable but it worked. "First" said that they took human form to honor their creator "Reese". I always wondered if their outward physical appearances were people that Reese actually knew. For example, maybe "First" looked like Reese's father.

Anyway, liked it a lot and thought it had great visual effects. That last image of Fifth, frozen in time, has stuck with me.

[Elwe Singollo]

The only question that i had, why did they have to leave fifth!!!

[bcmilco]

Originally Posted by littlemigueljr

The only question that i had, why did they have to leave fifth!!!

Because if they didn't the other replicators would know he had left and they would be able to stop SG-1 and 5th before the device activated.

So Jack made the hard call and left 5th behind. He clearly wasn't happy with it, but he knew it needed to be done and he did it.

[SG_Mike]

The decisions made by Jack were based on the simple idea of Self Preservation. Look at what the replicators learned about earth, The SGC and SG-1. Kind of scary. So I do not blame Jack at all for what he did. I would have left Fifth behind as well. There was not enough time to build that kind of trust. There was a lot going against him. He is still a replicator.

[KorbenDirewolf]

I guess we can just hope they never manage to escape.

[Mr Prophet]

Jack was willing to leave Fifth because he refuses to see anything mechanical as having a right to life. His robot double had to die before he could accept that maybe it had been alive and he never had the slightest interest in reasoning with Reese.

[SG_Mike]

We've done this......Joking.

No seriously, I agree. Just trying to point out that Sam and Danial have changed Jacks mind before. Somehow I doubt it would fly in this situation, but I have seen stranger things in the SG universe.

[Liebestraume]

Originally Posted by Mr Prophet

Jack was willing to leave Fifth because he refuses to see anything mechanical as having a right to life.

I agree, but I also see this as his rationalization, not his motivation. It's not so much that Jack did the right thing, only what was necessary. IMHO his willingness to bear the burden of conscience for the others bespeaks a special brand of nobility.

[Mr Prophet]

If Fifth had been an actual human being, especially a young human, Jack wouldn't have left him like that; he would at least have tried to bring him along. Never leave anyone behind is practically his motto and he's stuck to that through thick and thin before now; look how reluctant he was to leave Elliot and Elliot was already dying.

I'm not saying he made the wrong choice; just that it was perhaps fortunate that Fifth lies outside the protection of Jack's particular code.

[Liebestraume]

Jack's sense of duty supercedes everything else, so he'd bring someone along only if doing so would not endanger his team/planet. The most fundamental problem here lies not with Fifth's being a "machine" but rather with this particular kind of "machine" -- his natural instinct to replicate poses a threat against which there is no known defense.

I agree that Jack would have a much tougher call had Fifth been inside the protection of Jack's code, and I am not saying that the "humanity" question made no difference to Jack. It did, but only in his rationalization, not his judgment.

[omnian]

Ooh, I love Fifth. He's so cool and yet I bet he's gonna turn so evil when he reaches that device.

The advanced Replicators were an interesting storyline. How they evolved from those blocks to nanites is quite interesting. At least I think they were composed of nanites...maybe I'm forgetting something.

[Dramaqueen]

I have a question... at the beginning Thor told SG-1 that they activated the single command that was left in Reese's programming to make the Replicators come to their planet (or wherever) to trap them in the time-bubble... so does that mean that Daniel was wrong in "Menace" and Jack right? Because in that episode the question whether Reese told the Replicators to shut down or not was pretty much left open.
And, was Reese lying when she said that she lost control over the Replicators... cause if there was a command in her programming telling the Replicators to go after the Asgard technology...
or did I just miss something explaining all this?

[KorbenDirewolf]

I think the command that was activated was a call for them to come to her, wherever she happened to be. And since the Asgard had her, that's where the Replicators went when the signal was sent.

[bcmilco]

Originally Posted by Dramaqueen

so does that mean that Daniel was wrong in "Menace" and Jack right? Because in that episode the question whether Reese told the Replicators to shut down or not was pretty much left open.
And, was Reese lying when she said that she lost control over the Replicators... cause if there was a command in her programming telling the Replicators to go after the Asgard technology...
or did I just miss something explaining all this?

Korben is right in that the command was just a "come to me where I am" command.

I think she was telling the truth in Menace about loosing control.

The replicators are programmed to replicate at all costs, so as they continue to replicate some will get farther and farther away from her. If just one got out of range she'd no longer be able to control what it does or where it goes, and it would stick to it's original programming: "replicate at all costs". And at some point she was turned off, so any replicators that she was still in control of would eventually start to do their own thing too.

I'm not completely convinced she'd lost total control at the SGC but that one replicator that Carter and Hammond were looking at did act on it's own, so she was either lossing control or she was ordering it to attack either way she had to be stopped and I think Jack did the right thing.