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Outcast Plothole? (or future spoiler? )

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    Outcast Plothole? (or future spoiler? )

    There were several shots where they showed pieces flying off the Replicator when Sheppard shot him. If he was made out of nanites, can't these pieces build him back? I understand that replicating was not the main thing they were programmed for, but they are capable of it, aren't they. If it is a matter of survival, won't they do it?

    #2
    According to the story, they're not just not programmed for it, they're incapable of it.

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      #3
      Asurans can't replicate either. It just made no sense that the bullets harmed him. No sense that Ronons energy gun harmed him too.

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        #4
        No self-replication = no self healing. No self healing = nanites are susceptible to physical damage. It was explained in the episode.
        I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

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          #5
          Originally posted by RepliVeggie View Post
          Asurans can't replicate either.
          Yes they can.

          It just made no sense that the bullets harmed him. No sense that Ronons energy gun harmed him too.
          Why wouldn't they harm him?

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            #6
            Originally posted by Avenger View Post
            No self-replication = no self healing. No self healing = nanites are susceptible to physical damage. It was explained in the episode.
            Yup.
            Proud Sam/Jack and Daniel/Vala and John/Teyla Shipper!
            "We're Americans! Shoot the guys following us!"
            Don S. Davis 1942-2008 R.I.P. My Friend.

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              #7
              He could self heal, but only to a certain extent, as he had no access to essential materials like neutronium.

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                #8
                I think what they are getting at is that in old episodes bullets just passed through Asurans and human form replicators. They were never really "hurt" as they could control the molecular bonds and expand and condense the nanites.

                This replicator seemed to be actually solid rather than made of nanites. We have never seen an Asuran get shot, chunks of nanites fly off, and then the "wound" heal itself. Rather, we just see the bullets pass through the Replicators and impact the wall on the other side.

                This just didn't make any sense based on replicator cannon to date. Just saying "they cannot replicate" does not explain why they were able to be injured by conventional ammuntion. At first I thought by saying "they cannot replicate" meant there was no danger of the male or female versions getting ahold of a bunch of material and making a replicator army on Earth, but somehow they made it so that they were just T1000's, nanites that for some reason were effected at the molecular level by a 3mm shotgun pellet.

                Ronans gun made some sense. His is energy/plasma based and energy weapons have been shown in the past to actually impact the Asurans and slow them down but not hurt them.

                I think the writers just couldn't think of a way to stop an Asuran, who couldn't replicate or be hurt by ARG's, and be limited to conventional weapons as they are running around the streets of Earth. The replicator should have been able to turn the "silver spots" back to flesh colored.

                All in all I thought it was a complex and somewhat good episode, I just think the route they took with the replicator was horrible and should have been thought out better rather than save money on CG by making him "hurtable"

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                  #9
                  I don't know much about the issue of the replicator and his (possible) replicating capabilities.

                  Here's what I thought might be a plothole or future spoiler:
                  When we first see "Ava," she is in a lab, with newspaper articles about Sheppard's dad, and also has photos of Shep and Ronan. Those photos look like they were taken while the guys were on earth: they were both wearing suits/dress clothes. I guess those photos were supposedly taken when they were on Earth saving Rodney & his sister-- but what a security breach THAT was, to allow it to happen!! Oh well, I guess I answered my own question.

                  ~~~nevermind!!~~~

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by jyh View Post
                    Here's what I thought might be a plothole or future spoiler:
                    When we first see "Ava," she is in a lab, with newspaper articles about Sheppard's dad, and also has photos of Shep and Ronan. Those photos look like they were taken while the guys were on earth: they were both wearing suits/dress clothes. I guess those photos were supposedly taken when they were on Earth saving Rodney & his sister-- but what a security breach THAT was, to allow it to happen!! Oh well, I guess I answered my own question.

                    ~~~nevermind!!~~~
                    I thought I remembered seeing someone taking pictures of Shep and Ronon when they pulled up to Jeannie's house during the episode Miller's Crossing.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      This may be another stupid observation on my part, but Sheppard was shooting the "replicator" with a shotgun. Shotguns fire "shot", lots of tiny metal pellets. I assumed that the things flying off were simply the pieces of shot bouncing off the neutronium skin. I actually considered it a thoughtful detail that they actually considered what would happen to the shot. Most shows ignore this.

                      As to the replicator's healing ability, keep in mind that this so-called replicator was created by humans from scratch. Yes, we used knowledge gained for studying other true replicators, but this one was built by us, and it's code was stripped down. It was unable to replicate and could not self-repair unless it had access to neutronium. The fact that the asked the doctor how to take him down seems to me that they weren't really expecting to be able to just shoot it. The doctor, however, apparently was only considering the anti-replicator "bond-disruptor" technology and never considered to write in programming that would allow the android to "melt" enough to allow the bullets/shot pass through him.

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                        #12
                        Yeah... I don't know if that is a plothole. Except that he should have been able to heal the silver patches, and he should have gotten slightly smaller as more and more nanites were knocked out of commission.

                        If you are looking for a plothole, then look no further than the method they used to destroy the replicator. Objects falling on Earth have a terminal velocity that is based on their mass and volume and surface shape (this is why a person with a parachute falls slower than a person without a parachute). For a human like thing this speed is about 200 kph at normal atmospheric density. At very high altitudes this speed is closer to 1000kph.

                        The reason something like a shuttle experiences such incredible heat is NOT because it is falling to earth. The reason is because it has to move very quickly to attain free-fall orbit, and it uses the atmosphere for controlled aerobraking when returning to Earth instead of wasting fuel to slow back down.

                        If you just took a shuttle up and dropped it from low LEO and it wasn't moving relative to Earth when you released it (like what they showed in the show), it would barely get warm. Same with this guy. They moved him from a position of relative stop on the ground to a position of relative stop way up in the air... then he just falls. He would accelerate into the atmosphere, but he would never move fast enough to burn up. He'd just fall and hit the ground.

                        In fact, one of the reasons why you don't blow up satellites in orbit is because the small pieces of debris *cannot* burn up. They lose velocity too quickly when they start encountering thin, wispy air, and they end up tumbling straight down at a few hundred kph. Then you just hope they don't hit anyone. Dropping a penny from orbit is no different than dropping it from a skyscraper as far as the poor ground is concerned.
                        Last edited by gopher65; 02 February 2008, 06:16 PM.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by gopher65 View Post
                          Yeah... I don't know if that is a plothole. Except that he should have been able to heal the silver patches, and he should have gotten slightly smaller as more and more nanites were knocked out of commission.

                          If you are looking for a plothole, then look no further than the method they used to destroy the replicator. Objects falling on Earth have a terminal velocity that is based on their mass and volume and surface shape (this is why a person with a parachute falls slower than a person without a parachute). For a human like thing this speed is about 200 kph at normal atmospheric density. At very high altitudes this speed is closer to 1000kph.

                          The reason something like a shuttle experiences such incredible heat is NOT because it is falling to earth. The reason is because it has to move very quickly to attain free-fall orbit, and it uses the atmosphere for controlled aerobraking when returning to Earth instead of wasting fuel to slow back down.

                          If you just took a shuttle up and dropped it from low LEO and it wasn't moving relative to Earth when you released it (like what they showed in the show), it would barely get warm. Same with this guy. They moved him from a position of relative stop on the ground to a position of relative stop way up in the air... then he just falls. He would accelerate into the atmosphere, but he would never move fast enough to burn up. He'd just fall and hit the ground.

                          In fact, one of the reasons why you don't blow up satellites in orbit is because the small pieces of debris *cannot* burn up. They lose velocity too quickly when they start encountering thin, wispy air, and they end up tumbling straight down at a few hundred kph. Then you just hope they don't hit anyone. Dropping a penny from orbit is no different than dropping it from a skyscraper as far as the poor ground is concerned.

                          I have got to disagree with you. While what you said about things falling at terminal velocity is obviously true. Debris/meteor do burns up upon entry in the atmosphere most of the time. Now part of the reason for that is due to the high velocity of the object (which is needed in real life for the object to be at that height in the first place) then the debris is destroyed by the friction. Having something beamed directly into space is a bit of a different situation (and one that's not really physical). I guess you have to believe that b/c Apollo is doing this, the replicator would be dropped with the same velocity that Apollo needs to maintain orbit? Even without that initial velocity, I'm inclined to say that objects will burn up from being dropped that high just for the shear amount of distance that it would need to travel. Just a quick wikipedia search showed that an object has quite a way to go if it is dropped at the edge of the exosphere.

                          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratosphere
                          I just love shows about wormholes!

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Here's another article about space debris which suggests that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

                            Space Debris Update

                            Clearly, space debris is a danger to operating spacecraft in orbit around Earth. Is space junk a danger to life here on Earth? Though pieces of space junk have been known to fall to Earth from Oregon, U.S., to Uganda, Africa, falling space junk isn't likely to endanger humans or other life on Earth. Most space debris is small enough that it burns up in the atmosphere of Earth. Otherwise, it usually falls into the ocean which covers 2/3 of the planet. The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Space Command (USSPACECOM) do monitor man-made objects in space using radar. They also track when space debris falls into the Earth's atmosphere or onto Earth.

                            Here is a news story about a piece of space rocket falling into an Ugandan woman's garden.

                            http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1922486.stm

                            Experts say it is extremely rare for man-made space debris to fall to earth - most of it gets burnt up as it re-enters the atmosphere.

                            But occasionally, perhaps once or twice a year, a big chunk of it gets through. What is virtually unheard of is for it to land in someone's garden.
                            sigpic

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                              #15
                              Yeah. The multi-tonne objects burn up *when dropping from orbit*.

                              Have you heard about that defunct US spy-sat that is going to crash into Earth in the next few months? One of the "solutions" that people keep emailing them is to "just blow it up". So they've been saying "if we just blow it up then the pieces are going to be too small to burn up, and then *all* of it will impact the ground instead of just a few little pieces". Things need to be at least a few tonnes before they will burn up reliably. The reason why people rarely find satellite parts is because almost all of them are purposefully brought down over the ocean. And even on uncontrolled reentrys (or for meteorites) the surface of Earth is 75% water, so there is a 3 in 4 chance of striking water, not land. Actually it is more than 3 in 4 because of the trajectory that almost any piece of manmade space debris will have, except those in polar orbits like spy-sats. That's why this one is of more concern than normal. It is in a polar orbit over land for as much of its orbit as it can be (which makes sense, cause it is a spysat).

                              However, having thought about it, it is clear that the transporters that they use must have some kind of kinetic compensators. Otherwise when beamed from the surface of a planet to a ship in orbit the velocity change would kill you. I hate that idea though. Adding that much kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy to an object over that short a time can't be good for you.

                              Even so, I'm not convinced that something with the approximate mass and volume and shape of a human could burn up. We'd slow down mighty fast before we hit the denser regions of the atmosphere. I've heard that there is a company that is considering doing "space drops" for adventure seekers, kinda like a paradrop, but from LEO. *shudders*. They couldn't do that if humans heated up in any substantial way during reentry. I wonder what the density of a replicator is?

                              EDIT: And those news articles you quoted are unfortunately wrong in many details, as are most articles about anything to do with space. I wish they hired reporters who had at least a basic idea about the field they were writing about. I'm not asking for doctorates here. Just some basic knowledge. Is it too much to ask to have a reporter writing on hospital related issues who actually knows something about the subject? Or Astronomy, astronomy? Or Physics, physics? Or Politics, politics? Where do they find such incompetent, knowledgeless people to write our news?
                              Last edited by gopher65; 03 February 2008, 06:22 AM.

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