So... uh... what happened to travelling between galaxies?

[ahdvd]

Pain just feels so dis-jointed from the rest of the episodes, like the lost episode that they forgot about, got to 19 episodes filmed, and went back to make up the quota, people would have screamed 'filler' if they had done a whole episode in the void? Guess what, they're screaming 'filler' at Pain because it feels like more of a slap in the space in that they've spent 2/3 episodes setting up a pretty large event in the lives of these people we're supposed to be getting invested in, and then dismiss it without so much as a expositional piece of dialogue.
This would have been MUCH better being set during the void, at least then the whole thing of them being in the void could have been a mis-direct while they try to figure out what's causing people to be affected by the hallucinations, it could have been explained away that the ticks were hatched from eggs on some fruit that they had stored or something like that to explain why no one was affected until they were part way through the void.
You don't setup something like the travel between galaxies and then dismiss it, it's poor writing, especially when it's on a show that's trying to establish continuity and not have stand alone episodes.
I'm curious to know the production order this episode was filmed in, as i said, it feels like the episode was tacked on to make up the 20 episode season order and they run out of ideas (and maybe because of Huffman's progress at the time they decided they couldnt place the episode earlier in the season? - in which case a good writer can cover that up).

[Major_Griff]

Yeah this is the perfect story to have done in the void, which makes it extremely puzzling as to why they skipped over the void. They could have easily said they picked up the ticks either on the planet from Human or Scott, Eli and Chloe could have brought them back from the planet they were on when they gated back to Destiny.

[Krazeh]

What possible reason would there be to have set the episode in the void apart from to satisfy the people who think it's vitally important to have an episode set there? The void is a massive empty gap between galaxies, there's nothing at all there, running into anything would have been so improbable it's not even funny. So the only difference between having set this episode in the new galaxy rather than the void is that placing it in the new galaxy let's them use the stargate to set up both the initial infection by the ticks and the poignant ending where we can see that despite the dangers of stepping through the gate they're gonna keep doing it. To have set the episode in the void there would need to have been a logical and compelling storytelling reason to do so, and in this instance I can't see that there was one.

To be honest I don't really see what all the fuss about the void is anyway. It's only been mentioned because they have to travel through it to get from one galaxy to another, other than that it's of no interest whatsoever. On top of that I'm fairly sure it's been said that the plan is for the Destiny to jump galaxies on a fairly regular basis, i.e. you're not gonna have whole seasons set in one galaxy, so as long as SGU stays on the air there's gonna be plenty of other opportunities to have a story set in the thrilling environment of a sealed spaceship hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of light years from anything else at all.

[Taiko]

Yeah this is the perfect story to have done in the void, which makes it extremely puzzling as to why they skipped over the void. They could have easily said they picked up the ticks either on the planet from Human or Scott, Eli and Chloe could have brought them back from the planet they were on when they gated back to Destiny.

Maybe because TNG, Voyager and Enterprise all had similar themed episodes and on Destiny they are always in a void. Food is always short. Destiny decides when to stop and let them gate somewhere.

[Avenger]

I don't know that ST is really a great comparison here. In Voyager they were 70,000 light years from home., so there was never technically a void like we see in SGU that covers, potentially millions of light years.

[wingsabre]

I didn't realize that a lot of time had passed. My interpretation was that the tick came from the planet seen in "Lost." Individuals involved with the mission were affected. Many have said that the trip through the void would take a lot of time, but I think it's instead a short trip.

My theory is that traveling through a galaxy is rather slow, due to numerous gravity wells, course changes, and stops to gate different addresses. The constant starting and stopping is a rather slow process, however, when your in a void, you don't have to start then stop. You can continually accelerate, and since there's no friction in space, your speed can continue to multiply. You can then slow down safely once you enter a new galaxy. If you were to travel at a very high speed, only to stop suddenly, the occupants in the ship would maintain their motion and essentially be crushed. This is to assume that the internal dampeners of Destiny is not as advance as the internal dampeners seen on Asgard ships. The FTL trip could very well have taken a month or 2, and the tick could have been in a larval form or egg form, which just hatched.

I may have missed something, but that was my interpretation after seeing the episode.

[pipi]

My theory is that traveling through a galaxy is rather slow, due to numerous gravity wells, course changes, and stops to gate different addresses. The constant starting and stopping is a rather slow process, however, when your in a void, you don't have to start then stop. You can continually accelerate, and since there's no friction in space, your speed can continue to multiply. You can then slow down safely once you enter a new galaxy. If you were to travel at a very high speed, only to stop suddenly, the occupants in the ship would maintain their motion and essentially be crushed. This is to assume that the internal dampeners of Destiny is not as advance as the internal dampeners seen on Asgard ships. The FTL trip could very well have taken a month or 2, and the tick could have been in a larval form or egg form, which just hatched.

That's assuming our current knowledge of physics applies to Destiny's FTL technology. Using thrust motion and in a straight line. I don't seem to spot any rudders or directional flaps on the ship. It'll be more sci-fi worthy if there is the possibilities of wormholes and timespace distortion or something that gets from A to B without conventional thrust phsycis. Oh and don't forget about that dark matter that's been proven on tv that we can't see but is present in space. Maybe that's got something to do with it.

[Kanten]

Let's just pretend the episode was run out of order, like the Affinity-Covenant debacle on SG-1.

[Spimman]

I don't hate that a lot of time wasn't spent on the void. It's a void, with nothing in it...boring.

That being said I would have liked to have had one of SGU's famous montage scenes that in 1 minute let us know that 5-8 weeks had passed, just for effect!

[Kayzersoze]

Void. Move along. Nothing to see here.

[RedXian]

The Void was hyped up in Lost & Sabotage as being a problem. But only from the point of view of leaving crew behind and having enough power to cross. Once Eli, Chloe & Matt got back to the Destiny and power efficiency resolved the Void was an issue problem.

So it seems the Void was used as a plot device to create a sense of urgency in Lost and to demonstrate how much power storage potential the Destiny had lost through decay in Sabotage.

[pipi]

For the nit pickers, the crew of destiny managed to sneek aboard beard trimmers and razors that never need sharpening. Oh and laundry detergent. They could have elaborated on the void with at least one episode dedicated to diminishng supplies. That would be real space survival. Bear Grylls in space.

[J-Whitt Remastered]

I don't know that ST is really a great comparison here. In Voyager they were 70,000 light years from home., so there was never technically a void like we see in SGU that covers, potentially millions of light years.

Actually there was in Voyager. The Season 5 premiere.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Night_%28episode%29

It's a wiki site, but it's been accurate from what I've read.

[GoodSmeagol]

I think Pain and the final 3 episodes of the season could very easily have taken place in the void.
No off world travel needed.
Boring not at all... Pain was all on ship, could have explained the ticks from any of the dozen planets the crew visited looking for Eli and company...

[Pharaoh Atem]

Actually there was in Voyager. The Season 5 premiere.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Night_%28episode%29

It's a wiki site, but it's been accurate from what I've read.

good ep

[Gater83]

It was strange that they skipped so much. But I think that even after repairing Destiny to pass through the void that there was still only minimal power to get to the next galaxy. So maybe we just have to assume that they are not only kept from gating off the ship, but they are restricted from doing anything using a lot of power. They could have done a better job for sure.

[FromOutside]

I agree, I was very confused by this episode. They made such a big deal about how the ship was about to enter this massive void between galaxies. I thought for sure the next several episodes were going to explore the crew's struggles as they began to run out of supplies and have no escape from the ship. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me. Also, did we see the mission where the team picked up the ticks? I was confused as to what planet they came from. Finally, since Destiny reached a new galaxy, are we to assume that the bad aliens living in multiple galaxies? If they are THAT advanced, why do they care about Destiny so much?

My thoughts exactly. When I first heard of SGU, it was said to be an SG story in which the situation is what the crew fights with. True, that element is present but is diluted with the stones ("who wants to host a surgeon/genius/...") and now with this. Viewers are left to think that Destiny crossing the void was nothing more that a bus trip to the mall.

Which is ironic, seeing as people were complaining about too much "survival" stuff in the first half of the season... and people are now complaining that there's no enough of it.

Obviously I can't know what people complaining of this have thought but my I think the forst half was too much about the surviving and now I want survival stuff. This is because of what kind of survival stuff the first half was made of and how.

Fixing a rotten life support asap felt important, as did gaining food and water, but the problems were createrd and solved very fast. There was getting bit by snake-ish creatures, getting sick by untreated water... That wasn't just hostile situation and started to feel like bad h/c fanfic in which characters must get hurt because they must get hurt because it is the whole point.

Instead of it there should be reasonable and logical surviving stuff, like what happens when a crew travels through void with very limited resources. Some resource/survival things that already have happened could have happened during the traveling through the void, and that way the things wouldn't have been instant problems but slowly build up crisis. Building up would have helped to create the feeling of limited resources and clearly and effectively show that regulation is an elemental part of living on Destiny. Taking readings from water tanks and calculating rations is an important part of fighting with hostile situation and that wasn't shown very well. I admit it itself doesn't make a very interesting show but a skilled writer can write things like that in different plots and jokes so people pay attention in them and remember what happened.

Imho this is exactly one of the problems that bugged SGA's later seasons. Things just popped out of nowhere and people were left to deal with them and that gave the show the planet of the week feeling that grew old very fast. In SGU problems considering survival are portrayed similarly: the viewer knows that resources are running low (in SGA: scientist are exploring Atlantis) but actual work is rarely shown and the things come in attention only when the situation becomes critical.

This is a bit difficult to explain with my English -_- I guess I should have just said that the difference between too much and too little surviving is based more in quality, not actual quantity

[Looney]

Pain = Very poor execution. I am watching SGU for the first time. I am not going to lie, I am not a fan of this show at all. I think it is just another wasted fountain of SCIFI potential. I can't stand most of the characters and the plot 'Jumped The Shark' the second they started using those communications stones.

Anyway, putting aside my overall dislike of the show so far and focusing on the episode "Pain" itself. Everything they could have or should have done has pretty much been discussed and I agree with a lot of what has been said. In the end, they should have established that the void crossing was complete. Yes there are tells, like T.J.'s size, but that isn't good enough. In all honesty, they gave the impression that it would take a very long time to cross the void, which is easy to assume they meant more than a month or two. Regardless of whether or not they are trying to keep that aspect of the story for later, which would be yet another plot device stolen from BSG (another show I ended up ultimately thinking was horrible), you can't jump ahead without more of a transition. This seems like a filler episode and the void would have been full of filler episodes.

There just needed to be something more to tell the audience the void that was going to take a long time to cross didn't take a long time to cross and now they've been in this other galaxy and started going on missions in this new galaxy and you really didn't miss anything or what we skipped over we're going to come back and explore later because we think that is a cool storytelling device or we just couldn't come up with any decent story ideas except "Pain", which we all knew the fans would just see as filler and we didn't want to do filler while crossing the void because the fans were expecting filler while they were crossing the void. (Nice run on. I know.)