Atlantis Rising: The Virtual Series

[Belmene]

Episode 3 soon ? I look forward to new adventures.

[Southern Red]

Episode 3 soon ? I look forward to new adventures.

There will be a slight delay before Episode 3 is posted. We are working hard to produce the best story we can, but real life sometimes interferes. Be patient with us and you will soon be rewarded. Thanks for reading.

[s09119]

There will be a slight delay before Episode 3 is posted. We are working hard to produce the best story we can, but real life sometimes interferes. Be patient with us and you will soon be rewarded. Thanks for reading.

Story of my life right here. Take your time.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

There will be a slight delay before Episode 3 is posted. We are working hard to produce the best story we can, but real life sometimes interferes. Be patient with us and you will soon be rewarded. Thanks for reading.

take your time, i still haven't finished with episode 2 yet. been reading half a chapter when i have a chance but i've been housesitting for the past week so i've been busy trying to keep the house looking nice and tidy.

[g.o.d]

There will be a slight delay before Episode 3 is posted. We are working hard to produce the best story we can, but real life sometimes interferes. Be patient with us and you will soon be rewarded. Thanks for reading.

work harder! some of us hate waiting just kidding, take your time

[s09119]

Alright, finally finished "Return to Pegasus, Part 2"! So here we go:

Spoiler:

First the Positives:
- Dogfighting in the jumpers! Wow, I loved that whole scene in "Adrift" and it was just excellent to see something like that again.
- Just about everything to do with the Athosians. I personally don't think they would be so harsh, as they've generally always understood why Earth has done what it did, but my god. When Teyla started crying, it hurt inside just reading. That plotline really struck me as incredibly emotional, excellent work there.
- Team building! The Coalition really feels like an organized group here instead of just a bunch of human worlds acting largely independently against the Wraith. We never really got a sense of their cohesion from the show, but you've really cranked it up a notch. The interworld cooperation (Genii nukes on Traveler ships especially) worked great to get the message across. I hope we'll see more of that in the future.
- Can I just say that I'm in love with Mayel? She's such a fascinating character to watch develop, especially her interactions with Sheppard and Ladon. Their chat about her feelings for John was nicely done, and the budding possible relationship feels very natural.
- Todd. Oh, Todd. You write him perfectly, let me tell you, although I feel like he's just being wasted in that cell. I hope you find a way to spring him soon so he can eagerly double-cross the team as soon as possible.
- Kanaan continues to impress me, he's really skyrocketed from a nobody to someone I really enjoy seeing onscreen (so to speak). His speech in defense of the Atlanteans and Teyla was, in particular, very moving and effective. And his being excepted from exile was notable, I wonder if that will cause a rift in his marriage.
- Reading the first stage of the battle with the Wraith was awesome, I gotta say. I had quite a few flashbacks to "No Man's Land" and it was great to see that sort of old school space fighting come back. Not so much about LAUNCH THE PEW BEAMS AHHH and more tactical decisions on the fly.

Now the Negatives:
- I'll just say it and get it out of the way; the wormhole drive remains the worst part of this. Even ignoring the previous episodes' lack of explanation why there's no 50/50 risk of immediate destruction upon use, it was just so shoehorned in to fail. And literally right in the middle of a Wraith armada. I don't know, it was just way too convenient for my taste.
- Speaking of power failure, this episode just overloaded my intake of suspension of disbelief. I'm sorry, but using the wormhole drive drains just as much power as going from orbit to landing does? The fact that ~60% of a ZPM was wasted just touching Atlantis down makes absolutely no sense to me. You guys just drained the modules left and right here for no apparent reason other than to deny the Expedition power from the get-go. You could have at least used a method that fits in with the show, but you'll never convince me that flying across a galaxy, going up against a superhive, etc. uses less power than making a 30 second landing in the ocean.
- Having the Vanir show up at the last second to save the Coalition forces likewise just didn't make much sense to me. Aside from the question of how they happened to know where the battle was, why would they help out just to say "F off" and jump away? I hope there's more explanation coming there. On the same note, since when are the rogue Asgard so tough that their ships can withstand full-on Wraith bombardment and shred their ships in seconds? Last we saw them, they were outdone and destroyed by a Traveler warship. I'm all for beefing up the races here and there, but that's quite a leap in capabilities with no reason given.

Unfortunately, this one fell a little flat for me. Aside from the Teyla storyline, things just came across as far too convenient/contradictory to canon. You guys have a lot of awesome ideas, but I'm finding the execution really shoehorned at times. "Return to Pegasus, Part 1" would probably be a ***1/2 out of **** for me, but this was **1/2 in the end. You created some great drama and plot stuff with Nancy, the IOA, and the case for going back to Pegasus, but for now it looks like the journey was better than the destination.

[gateraid]

Alright, finally finished "Return to Pegasus, Part 2"! So here we go:

Spoiler:

First the Positives:
- Dogfighting in the jumpers! Wow, I loved that whole scene in "Adrift" and it was just excellent to see something like that again.
- Just about everything to do with the Athosians. I personally don't think they would be so harsh, as they've generally always understood why Earth has done what it did, but my god. When Teyla started crying, it hurt inside just reading. That plotline really struck me as incredibly emotional, excellent work there.
- Team building! The Coalition really feels like an organized group here instead of just a bunch of human worlds acting largely independently against the Wraith. We never really got a sense of their cohesion from the show, but you've really cranked it up a notch. The interworld cooperation (Genii nukes on Traveler ships especially) worked great to get the message across. I hope we'll see more of that in the future.
- Can I just say that I'm in love with Mayel? She's such a fascinating character to watch develop, especially her interactions with Sheppard and Ladon. Their chat about her feelings for John was nicely done, and the budding possible relationship feels very natural.
- Todd. Oh, Todd. You write him perfectly, let me tell you, although I feel like he's just being wasted in that cell. I hope you find a way to spring him soon so he can eagerly double-cross the team as soon as possible.
- Kanaan continues to impress me, he's really skyrocketed from a nobody to someone I really enjoy seeing onscreen (so to speak). His speech in defense of the Atlanteans and Teyla was, in particular, very moving and effective. And his being excepted from exile was notable, I wonder if that will cause a rift in his marriage.
- Reading the first stage of the battle with the Wraith was awesome, I gotta say. I had quite a few flashbacks to "No Man's Land" and it was great to see that sort of old school space fighting come back. Not so much about LAUNCH THE PEW BEAMS AHHH and more tactical decisions on the fly.

Now the Negatives:
- I'll just say it and get it out of the way; the wormhole drive remains the worst part of this. Even ignoring the previous episodes' lack of explanation why there's no 50/50 risk of immediate destruction upon use, it was just so shoehorned in to fail. And literally right in the middle of a Wraith armada. I don't know, it was just way too convenient for my taste.
- Speaking of power failure, this episode just overloaded my intake of suspension of disbelief. I'm sorry, but using the wormhole drive drains just as much power as going from orbit to landing does? The fact that ~60% of a ZPM was wasted just touching Atlantis down makes absolutely no sense to me. You guys just drained the modules left and right here for no apparent reason other than to deny the Expedition power from the get-go. You could have at least used a method that fits in with the show, but you'll never convince me that flying across a galaxy, going up against a superhive, etc. uses less power than making a 30 second landing in the ocean.
- Having the Vanir show up at the last second to save the Coalition forces likewise just didn't make much sense to me. Aside from the question of how they happened to know where the battle was, why would they help out just to say "F off" and jump away? I hope there's more explanation coming there. On the same note, since when are the rogue Asgard so tough that their ships can withstand full-on Wraith bombardment and shred their ships in seconds? Last we saw them, they were outdone and destroyed by a Traveler warship. I'm all for beefing up the races here and there, but that's quite a leap in capabilities with no reason given.

Unfortunately, this one fell a little flat for me. Aside from the Teyla storyline, things just came across as far too convenient/contradictory to canon. You guys have a lot of awesome ideas, but I'm finding the execution really shoehorned at times. "Return to Pegasus, Part 1" would probably be a ***1/2 out of **** for me, but this was **1/2 in the end. You created some great drama and plot stuff with Nancy, the IOA, and the case for going back to Pegasus, but for now it looks like the journey was better than the destination.

Spoiler:

- Re Todd, he gets a bigger role in the next episode.
- Re wormhole drive, I don't think you'd find a fan of it in any of the writers. Zelenka said in EatG that the ancients abandoned it both due to it's massive power requirements (ergo it was presumably only possible with three ZPMs) and massive safety risks. While I have some reservations about how Zelenka managed to get it to work so quickly during EatG, they had plenty of time to calculate it whilst on Earth. Also, consider that even with three ZPMs (which they didn't state how much power they still had left in them, so we can only guess), they still couldn't break orbit from Earth after destroying the superhive. I know, I know, they'd suffered damage, but their engines were okay, else they'd never have survived the landing. So we can infer from that that re-entry takes good amount of power (if they couldn't stop it) due to the massive strain on the shields and engines. Think back to First Strike - even with the drilling platform giving them a power boost (70% of the power required), they still didn't have enough power to actually take off without dropping the shield. While the city can fly, it's not exactly built for it. Also, consider the fact that the first time the wormhole drive was used, it actually worked thus proving Zelenka is smarter than Rodney, so they'd have reason to both use it again, and be confident in their calculations and power usage estimations.
- As for finding a method of draining the power modules that is consistent with the show: alternate reality bridge - been there, done that, severing power conduits - been there, done that, wormhole drive - abandoned because of massive power requirements - hinted at, leaving the door open this time. Either that, or they could've left two of the ZPM's back on Earth, in an implausible copy of Echoes.
- Re the Vanir, consider that the last time we saw them, they did get their asses kicked, and were forced to leave their planet. If they were forced to stay in their ship for an extended period of time, it'd stand to reason that they'd want to improve it's defences. We haven't yet been privy to what they've been doing while they've been gone - maybe there's a Vanir clone army out there. Probably not, but having them appear here is only meant as a tease. I understand there'll be developments with them in the future

I appreciate our tastes will be different (personally, in this ep, I liked the stuff in space more than the Teyla stuff, but bear in mind that the Teyla stuff is only part way through an arc). I'm glad you've liked so much of it thus far. As I said, in the next ep, there's

Spoiler:

more wraith and more Todd, as well as a continuation of the Teyla/Athosian storyline.

[Southern Red]

Thanks to all our readers for your patience, but I am happy to announce that Chapter One of Trust is now up on our website. I just finished reading the whole episode and am still amazed by the depth of emotion that our writer has managed to convey. If you are a regular reader, you probably know that we have given Teyla more to do than she had in the whole run of the show.

Trust also has a few scenes that advance the personal relationships of several well-known characters and get us better acquainted with a couple of new characters.

In addition, I present you with a bonus piece of artwork by Kreauxm.

Spoiler:

[Scary Kitty]

Hmm, you know, I had come up with a bit of a snarky rebuttal to some of the criticisms of "Return to Pegasus, Part 2," but I think gateraid handled it with far more grace than I. Probably just as well, all things considered.

Thanks for defending our honor, amigo!

[JT-2]

Just read the first part of Trust. Another excellent chapter!

Spoiler:

1. "New New Athos" - LOL!

2. “Gel-oh? What is Gel-oh?” - another LOL!

3. Poor Teyla. I just want to give her a hug! (And put Jinto on time-out) Kanaan's presence in the story is still quite excellent. I love his character, and their relationship, being fleshed out more than the show did. It's the relationship I assumed they had behind the scenes, but it's nice to read about it in the context of the story.

4. Enjoying the flirting between Mayel and John.

5. TODD! Yes!

[Bane]

I'm happy to see chapter 3 is up. I didn't really like the story line of Teyla and the Athosians much, but i'll read it anyway.

[Belmene]

Very good beginning for "Trust". I can't wait to read more... Thanks.

[Southern Red]

SGARising update: Chapter 3 of Trust is now up.

And thanks to our fabulous webmaster, you can now comment right on the website after each chapter. Just go to the website, read the latest post on the Writers Block and follow the instructions. Click on "contact" on the home page to register and login.

Now's your chance to let us know what you think as soon as you read a chapter. No more waiting to come here.

[gateraid]

SGARising update: Chapter 3 of Trust is now up.

And thanks to our fabulous webmaster, you can now comment right on the website after each chapter. Just go to the website, read the latest post on the Writers Block and follow the instructions. Click on "contact" on the home page to register and login.

Now's your chance to let us know what you think as soon as you read a chapter. No more waiting to come here.

I noticed that, that's a really good idea. Thanks KrisRussel (she's the webmistress). I'd like to say for the record that all comments are appreciated - for one thing, it shows that it's being read! - and we/they/I do take that sort of thing into consideration (again, I'm not a writer, merely a helper). There's a lot of work that goes into this sort of stuff that isn't obvious. For example, the current ep (I hope the writer doesn't mind me saying this) has been edited by a number of people, with respect to grammar, continuity (there was a really good, really convenient, and not crucial to the plot idea which had to be nixed due to that) and characterisation, and been altered somewhat from what it was originally conceived as. I think the team would be the first to admit that we're not professionals (after all, everyone is working full-time or doing the equivalent) but the aim is to deliver the highest quality product possible. So, my skills of excessive snark and unneccessary *****iness have finally found an outlet in the editing room

As I said earlier, there are some things that will play out a little differently in a written format than on screen. Things that are illustrated easily in a look, or a camera pass, will take more explanation on paper, hence the written version will be longer. Personally, I think that adds a lot to the experience, but other people may think the opposite. Also, everyone's tastes will vary. The writers are doing their best to write gen fic, but it's all in the interpretation. One person's version of gen may not mesh with another's. Heck, look at the arguements on GW re character's actions/motivations - sometimes it's hard to reach a consensus. Hopefully the overall product will be enough to keep people interested, which is the goal here. Nobody is making any money out of this. In fact, probably the opposite, if you factor in lost time and sleep.

[Belmene]

Chap 3 of "Trust" is just great. I love the differents storylines: Ronon/Teyla and their dissension, John and Mayel, Ronon and Amelia (good surprise for me...). It was pretty good. Thank you.