Underground (108)

[Grumpyguy]

'

I still can't figure out what the Wraith are supposed to be. On an individual level, they are so powerful that defeating them seems impossible: they don't seem to age, when they feed they are practically unkillable and so on. But their tech doesn't seem that incredible: the puddle jumper could take the ships out, even an Earth ground weapon could take out a ship, we walk right onto a hive ship--no problems. I still can't see why they ever got close enough to the Ancients to "feed" on them; the Ancients tech seems way superior, and they should have been able to get onto everyone of the hive ships and take them out.

It seems very inconsistent at this point.

J.

Don't get me wrong, I park my but every Friday night to watch SG-1 and Atlantis (just imagine if Sci-fi hadn't canceled Farscape, we'd have a triple header! ). Anyway, so far, from what I've seen, the Wraith shouldn't have been that much of a threat to the Ancients as they are presented now. Here's my supposition on how they challenged the Ancients:

1. The Ancients were small in number. 50,000 or less accompanied Atlantis to the Pegasus Galaxy.

2. The Ancients set out to seed the Pegagus Galaxy with life. Thus they teraformed thousands of planets and created human life on these planets. So in otherwords, these aren't Ancient colonies, they are humans created by the Ancients. So the Ancients allowed the humans to develop from hunter-gathers.

3. When the Ancients stumbled upon and awoke the Wraith, they really had no allies, because even the oldest of the worlds they had created would have been no further advanced, technologically, say than the Romans or the Greeks, circa 100 A.D.

4. Each Wraith ship holds over 90,000 hibernating, hungry, mean life-suckers. There are over 150 Wraith ships.

5. As a result, the Ancients were not overwhelmed by Wraith technology, but by sheer numbers. Even an advanced people like the Ancients, without great numbers of soldiers, fighters, and missles, couldn't have held off a foe like the Wraith forever.

Anyway, at some point, the writers will have to go with something like what I wrote above, or they will have to reveal more of the Wraith's "awesome" powers. But, they need to do one or the other, and soon to make the Wraith seem like a fearsome enemy.

[DJFavorite]

I liked this episode. I'm finding that each episode continues to have some good character growth.

I'm liking Sheppard, Teyla and McKay the best. Judgement is still out on Ford and Weir. Teyla reminds me of early Daniel. She is naive and trusting. Always looking for the good in others to the point of sometimes being blind to the bad. I see much growth potential in her character.
Sheppard and McKay, what can I say. They are both great characters and I'm looking forward to some good 'difference of opinion' bantering between them.

[vfxsoup]

Yes, being able to just click the 'render' button does have a few advantages....

Ummm... just being able to click the render button... if only it was that easy... To give you an idea, each frame of the city consists of about 8.2 million pixels, broken down into about 15 layers, z depths, mattes, rgbs etc... which means that for each city establishing shot you get, someone somewhere has baby-sat 124,416,000 pixels, which also means the average city shot can take about 4 solid days of artist-watched render time, 24/7... the "render button" is unfortunately a mythic beauty I am personally seeking! Enjoy those images... our blood is dried into them!

Mark Breakspear
Visual Effects Supervisor
Atlantis

[Mio]

Ummm... just being able to click the render button... if only it was that easy... To give you an idea, each frame of the city consists of about 8.2 million pixels, broken down into about 15 layers, z depths, mattes, rgbs etc... which means that for each city establishing shot you get, someone somewhere has baby-sat 124,416,000 pixels, which also means the average city shot can take about 4 solid days of artist-watched render time, 24/7... the "render button" is unfortunately a mythic beauty I am personally seeking! Enjoy those images... our blood is dried into them!

Mark Breakspear
Visual Effects Supervisor
Atlantis

Yes, I know. (I'm a pathetic lowly amateur with Maya) <g> Still, It's probably easier than getting a shot of the real Cheyenne mountain.

[AmyE]

Yes, the episodes are definately getting better, but agree that the Wraith seem to easy to overcome.

[waz]

Yes, 4-5 wraith seem easily overcome, maybe 8-10, but just say 50,00 wraith a mothership and at least 60 ships, so....
50,000
x 60
----------
3,000,000

At least 60 ships with 3 million troops who have massive numbers of darts available to them doesn't sound easy.

[AlphaBlu]

The thing about the anti-Wraith drug was that they had to wait for the Wraith to come and eat them. Once the Wraith find out about it, they'll just kill anyone who has the immunity.

With the Genii they were going to nuke all the ships while they were sleeping. It's a slightly more direct approach, and the Wraith don't know it's coming. It'd also be simultaneous, so the Wraith wouldn't have much time to react, if any at all.

Of course, that was when all the Wraith were sleeping. They didn't know about all the other ships, nor did they know that we woke them up.

BYE

[prion]

[QUOTE=Grumpyguy]4. Each Wraith ship holds over 90,000 hibernating, hungry, mean life-suckers. There are over 150 Wraith ships.

{/QUOTE]

Where did you get those numbers from? In "Underground," They said 60 ships, and that's a guess.

[Major Fischer]

Enjoy those images... our blood is dried into them!

Oh, but we do enjoy those images a lot. I do at least. We were simply pointing out that given the current climate in the country, getting more establishing shots of Cheyenne Mountain likely would require selling ones soul... much less one's blood

[vfxsoup]

Oh, but we do enjoy those images a lot. I do at least. We were simply pointing out that given the current climate in the country, getting more establishing shots of Cheyenne Mountain likely would require selling ones soul... much less one's blood

I work in television... what is this "soul" thing you mention?

Mark Breakspear
Visual Effects Supervisor
Atlantis

[Major Fischer]

I work in television... what is this "soul" thing you mention?

Darn it! And last week someone asked me to explain curling! What do I look like, answer woman? Seriously, I'm not usually one to be big on effects, but I'm generally really enjoying the work being done with Atlantis. And enjoying your comments on the episodes as they come out...

[watcher652]

Ummm... just being able to click the render button... if only it was that easy... To give you an idea, each frame of the city consists of about 8.2 million pixels, broken down into about 15 layers, z depths, mattes, rgbs etc... which means that for each city establishing shot you get, someone somewhere has baby-sat 124,416,000 pixels, which also means the average city shot can take about 4 solid days of artist-watched render time, 24/7... the "render button" is unfortunately a mythic beauty I am personally seeking! Enjoy those images... our blood is dried into them!

Mark Breakspear
Visual Effects Supervisor
Atlantis

The only problem with the special effects is that I can't fully appreciate them on my 20 inch TV. Yes, I know I'm living in the dark ages, but what can I say? If my television screen was any larger, I would really have no life, not that I have much of one now.

What hit me were the waterfalls in the center of the screen. Everything else in the cavern was rather dark and it went by so fast, it was all I could do to say "wow, that's a waterfall! what else.. oh, damn!" I kinda felt like McKay, with his mouth agape. BTW, that scene looking over their shoulders at the cavern would make a great photo.

I sure the folks with larger screens really appreciate your work. Especially those with full wall screens (green with envy).

[Taonas]

The only problem with the special effects is that I can't fully appreciate them on my 20 inch TV. Yes, I know I'm living in the dark ages, but what can I say? If my television screen was any larger, I would really have no life, not that I have much of one now.

What hit me were the waterfalls in the center of the screen. Everything else in the cavern was rather dark and it went by so fast, it was all I could do to say "wow, that's a waterfall! what else.. oh, damn!" I kinda felt like McKay, with his mouth agape. BTW, that scene looking over their shoulders at the cavern would make a great photo.

I sure the folks with larger screens really appreciate your work. Especially those with full wall screens (green with envy).

I downloaded the ep from the net, so in my case I could barely make out what the cavern looked like.

So if there's anyone with a clear picture of it, could you send it to me?

[Larry]

Best episode since the pilot imo. Has Chief O'Brien had any roles as a good guy other than Star Trek TNG/DS9?

One thing I don't like, and it seems like it's in every episode there is this debate between Weir and Sheppard.

Sheppard: We need to do this
Weir: No

Sheppard: Awe, c'mon, pretty please?
Weir: NO!

Sheppard: With Milk and Sugar on it?
Weir: Ohhhh, OK.

Kinda reminds me of a kid and his mother at the store with the kid begging for a treat of some kind. Small complaint in an otherwise very good episode.

[waz]

I downloaded the ep from the net, so in my case I could barely make out what the cavern looked like.

So if there's anyone with a clear picture of it, could you send it to me?

Email me on: waztoday@hotmail.com. I tryed uploading the image here but the file is 81k but the upload limit is 39k.

[Grumpyguy]

[QUOTE=prion]

4. Each Wraith ship holds over 90,000 hibernating, hungry, mean life-suckers. There are over 150 Wraith ships.

{/QUOTE]

Where did you get those numbers from? In "Underground," They said 60 ships, and that's a guess.

I didn't get them from anywhere . Just conjecture/advise to the producers on how to make the Wraith a little more fearsome. Right now it seems like the Little Sisters of the Poor, armed with M-16s, could hold their own against the Wraith.

[kryon22]

[QUOTE=derrickh]Is it just me or did the team's morals flip 180 degrees from last week? How is what the Genii planned of doing any different from what was going to happen in 'Poisoning the Well'? The SGA went all nutzo and cut off all relations with one group who planned on killing the Wraith, but along comes another group who want to kill the Wraith and all of a sudden they're all gung-ho. "Hey, lets help these guys build a nuke but we'll turn our backs on the guys with the anti-wraith injection." How does that make sense?

It is different because you're talking about the relative scales of destruction involved in the combat maneouvres. Extrapolate the level of destruction capable in one kg of nuclear ordnance (and the corresponding number of warheads you're able to construct from it) versus one kg of biological agent. That one kg of innoculated toxin, could easily decimate an entire population of Wraith specimens (for lack of a better term). And having said that, when one's in the frame of reference to engineer a weapon for OFFENSIVE capabilities, you would look at modifying the toxin into a bioweapon capable of efficient delivery and uptake by the enemy...maximum exposure and possibly infectious, ie, clone the necessary agent's DNA into a modified highly infectious airborne virus that is specific for Wraith cells. Once you infect one hive colony, you literally wipe that colony out in a matter of hours/days. And one could reverse engineer this agent to be slow acting in spread, meaning, you could highly increase the possibility of transmitting the agent to other colony ships. Think opening a vial of virulent smallpox in a centre with massive international (interplanetary in this case) traffic. Get the picture?

And before you say something about the high mortality rate, well, that was from the first batch. Who knows, they might be able to fix it in the next couple of weeks, but the SGA will never know cuz they're off helping the shady, lying, sneaky planet build a few nuclear bombs. Which of course could never have any civilian causualties...

Even with the most sophisticated massive supercomputing mainframes a lot of advanced biopharmaceuticals have to this day, the process of engineering a drug or protein or biologically viable agent to improve its characteristics and then testing it out on a population (or suitable animal model) takes many years of rigorous molecular design/testing as well as a lot of experimental application and study. There are also quite a number of host factors to study as well as taking into context the genetic heterogeneity of a population to which it is applied.

And it's not entirely true that a nuclear explosion would not have any civilian casualties. Ignoring the subsequent devestation of radiation fallout, what happens should the hive ship be located at a distance fairly near the stargate. We wouldn't know how the explosion of the Hive Ships would end up. What if it caused a catatrosphic overload and amplified the nuclear blast x number of times over. Talk about having that translated through an active wormhole back to the point of origin? Potential casualties i can definitely foresee.

And if Teyla is gonna tag along, then maybe she should learn when not to go telling everyone exactly who woke up the bad guys. You could almost see that Shepard wanted to put her on the first puddle jumper back the farmville. And what is with her trying to save the feeder mouse in the Wraith ship? She couldn't figure out that dragging that guy back would slow them down and alert all the bad guys? And guess what Teyla, you signed on to a plan that would NUKE all of these ships. And unless you planned on hoping the Wraith would let you pack all of these people into busses I doubt they would survive the blast. Plus...PLUS she was all for dragging back the feeder mouse but when her partner got stunned, she bolted. She didn't call for help and try to hold off the single Wraith. She didn't go get help and say, 'Hey, we got a man who needs help. Remember when I saved Shepard after he got shot? We should do the same for this new ally'. Nope. She waited until she got back to the ship and said 'oh by the way, your son in law got shot and I left him. Time to go.' Teyla just peeves me because it seems she abandoned her people. Teal'c did basically the same thing but some how when he did it, it was kinda honorable. Teyla just seems like she wanted to move out of the trailer park and into the comfy suburbs of Atlantis... and that aint cool.

Lots of inconsistencies in the train of thought here. If we're to believe the original premise of Teyla's character, then we have to focus on the bigger picture that she is the leader and representative of at least one major factor of the Athosians. As such, she has to think, respond and act in accordance with that role as well as being part of the Atlantis Team.

Remember that she has to upkeep the diplomatic ties the Athosians have with these trading partners. To not mention that she had a hand in the reawakening of the Wraith and that they had indeed been reawakened is plain irresponsible. And the Athosians being the more honourable race (as compared to the Genii), such honesty and transparency is paramount in maintaining these trade relations (regardless of the presence of the Earth Atlantis team).

Having suffered at the hands of the Wraith, wouldn't you feel compelled to try and save an awake sentient prisoner especially if you knew, at THAT point, you had the tactical advantage of anonymity. If you like the premise of SG-1, then it's just a variation on the WE-DON'T-LEAVE-OUR-PEOPLE-BEHIND bit. And about the variation in modus operandi and not leaving Sheppard behind, remember that they had several Atlantis team members to help drag his ass back after being stunned. She probably couldn't do rescue the stunned Genii Daddy-O on her own because look at the physical disparity between the two. He is so much heavier awkward than Ford was (remember Suspicion and there she already had trouble trying to get his unconscious ass back to Atlantis).

In fact, it is a testament to her character that she tries to help where possible instead of hiding behind the more tactical reason of, it would jepoardize the bigger mission. You can't really compare it with Teal'C because of the fact that Teal'C in a similar situation would be more physically able to effect a rescue operation. That doesn't mean that she should be shot down for trying.

As for Teyla only wanting creature comforts, I think it's laughable. In a situation like this where you're plagued by the constant possibility of death at a Wraith's feeding mitt, wouldn't the more attractive comfort be in the company of your own kinsmen, people who understood you, loved and cherished you and no matter the outcome, would stand by you, even if they were to fall? Instead she faces a higher risk of deadly outcomes by going through the wormhole in uncharted territory with the stargate teams, and not even with her own kinspeople. That speaks a lot for the character.

I think a deeper look at this is warranted before mouthing off on unfounded criticisms. No? Shadowmaat, piggy, your observations?

[Sicarius]

Enjoyed the humor in this episode, liked the whole thing overall.

One nitpick...

If you descended into a dark scary hole and found out your radio didn't work from the bottom, wouldn't you just climb back up the 10 feet to the top to shoot off a message? Or perhaps radio before descending into the dark scary hole? =)

[Major Fischer]

Instead she faces a higher risk of deadly outcomes by going through the wormhole in uncharted territory with the stargate teams, and not even with her own kinspeople. That speaks a lot for the character.

Not only does she face a higher risk of death by simply going through the gate with stargate teams, but the Atlantis teams have a demonstrated lack of understanding of for lack of a better term 'street wise' in the Pegesus Galaxy. They are probably just as likely to get her killed by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to someone, oh, like the Genii.

[kris]

To Kryon 22 (sorry still learning to use the board tools):

[Quote]>>>>>As for Teyla only wanting creature comforts, I think it's laughable. In a situation like this where you're plagued by the constant possibility of death at a Wraith's feeding mitt, wouldn't the more attractive comfort be in the company of your own kinsmen, people who understood you, loved and cherished you and no matter the outcome, would stand by you, even if they were to fall? Instead she faces a higher risk of deadly outcomes by going through the wormhole in uncharted territory with the stargate teams, and not even with her own kinspeople. That speaks a lot for the character.<<<<<<<<<[quote]

You have made a reasonable counterpoint to Derrick's plaint about Teyla but I also think his has plenty of validity. Thing is, we don't enough about Teyla yet, that is about her character. So far, we don't know much about the inner mind workings of Teyla. She knows about the Wraith--great way to introduce that exposition into the stories--and she is the established diplomat amongst some of the cultures. This is not depth of character. We have no idea how she really felt living amongst her people--okay, so she was happy and everything was perfect. Just like my family. She would want to stay.

I can't take this any further because scifi does not emphasize character study. I mean, if we found out she resented her family because they smothered her--nah, not going to happen on an adventure show. Maybe she's attracted to Sheppard--wouldn't some people love that storyline! People infatuated will give up a lot to be with their object of affection.

What I am trying to say is you both have good points and it's interesting to talk about them openly.

--Kris-----ready to arm wrestle