(More of "Nod," see previous two posts for beginning and next post for conclusion.)
Spoiler:
Back on the surface, Chloe, Scott, and Wray are collecting berries when they hear a loud hummmm from behind them. They turn just in time to see the beam discharge through the clouds, and Scott immediately orders them to make a run for the shuttle and wait inside. The two women scramble to collect their buckets and then dash back toward the landing zone. Instead of joining them, Scott readies his rifle and starts sprinting in the direction of the obelisk, trying and failing to raise either Destiny or Lt. James on the radio. He sets his teeth worriedly, silently praying that nothing’s gone horribly wrong when they have so few hands available to deal with a crisis.
In orbit, Rush clicks off his flashlight as he enters the bridge, asking Young and a newly-arrived Greer what happened. The Sergeant shrugs uselessly, pointing out that he’s not the one with the doctorate. Then Rush sees the arcs spreading all over the hull, and asks Col. Young what’s going on. Unfortunately, the answer is no real answer at all; a beam just like the one they observed on Eden, and presumably emanating from the obelisk, shot past and then slammed into Destiny. They immediately lost power and have been slowly floating through the energy conduit ever since, unable to make radio contact on or off the ship. Even the countdown clock has gone dead. That’s really all they know, and it’s impossible to tell what damage they may have sustained or what the status of the away team is until the main systems are restored and the interference subsides.
For the time being, all they can do is try and figure out their situation when they have the chance. Control consoles continually switch on and off, and strange code runs across their screens intermittently. Rush folds his arms and says that the only way to ascertain a proper damage report would be to tap into the sensors, but they can’t do that if whatever terminal he’s working at will just reset every few minutes. Worse still, some subroutines look to be locked out from them entirely. Starting the same job at different workstations over and over again won’t get them anywhere, but Young maintains that he needs an update ASAP. Sighing, Rush picks up a laptop and says he can modify the mainframe to transfer whatever’s being done on a terminal to the next closest active one whenever it resets. It may be tricky to get it uploaded, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It may even be possible to use the patch as a means to restore their access to blocked systems. Then he can switch between active bridge consoles without any need to begin again each time the system reboots.
Young thinks it’s a good idea and tells him to go ahead, then turns to Greer. As much as he regrets having to wake Eli from some much-deserved sleep, they need another set of eyes and another brilliant mind going over this problem. He asks Ron to go get him from his quarters, then to swing by the stasis room to see if Brody’s still there checking the pods. The three of them need to be working together, and it won’t matter what shape the stasis chambers are in if they end up losing power completely and they all switch off. Greer shoulders his weapon and says he’ll stay alert for any signs of trouble or intrusion, then heads off to go as he’s ordered. Young waits for him to get out of earshot, then asks Rush if he can do anything to help. He knows that sitting in the command chair barking orders won’t do them any good, but he’s not sure he can contribute anything in this situation. The scientist looks surprised to hear him so humble, then quickly recovers and tells him to grab another two laptops from the closest lab for Eli and Brody to work off of in case he’s not finished when they get back. Nodding, Young claps him on the shoulder and does as he’s asked.
Meanwhile, James and Volker are still outside the obelisk trying to figure out what’s just happened. The beam’s still pulsing into the sky, and the lieutenant has her rifle up and scanning the immediate vicinity for danger. When she’s satisfied that nothing’s going to leap out and attack them, she motions for Volker to approach and investigate. Dale resists at first, giving her a frightened look, but he finally agrees and inches closer until he can peer inside the entryway. All he can see is the blinding glow of a swirling blue energy vortex, however. But the fact that he can see anything at all is a significant change from the last monolith they encountered. The one on the other planet had what they speculated was a doorway, but it was sealed the entire time they were there. Even when it began shooting up light, it remained closed. This one, on the other hand, is wide open for them to examine. What he can’t figure out is why they would be different if this whole planet otherwise appears to be a carbon-copy of Eden.
Running out of the woods behind them, Scott shouts to ask if they know what’s happening. James falls back to his position and replies that they’re just as in the dark as he is, having been a few meters from the obelisk when it suddenly went active. She goes for her radio, intending to contact Destiny for orders, but Scott tells her not to bother. For now, at least, both they and the group on the ship are on their own. Volker recommends they try and use the shuttle’s sensors to get a reading on the beam, since it’ll have to be more effective than them standing around dumbfounded. Scott thinks it’s worth looking into, and the three of them slowly back away from the obelisk and make for the landing zone.
In orbit, Destiny herself is now about a third of the way past the beam, still slowly gliding along. If the sublight engines had been active when the obelisk activated, chances are the ship would already be in the clear. But because it was simply drifting and almost perfectly matching the rotation speed of the planet, it will probably take another few hours before the beam moves off the hull. In fact, that’s exactly what Brody has to tell the others when he does the math for them on the bridge. Rubbing his eyes, Young looks over the graphs on the laptop and asks someone to give him a possible solution in plain English. The beam’s disabled the engines and a host of other systems, but nothing has been outright powered down. Instead, everything has gone haywire or refused to operate entirely. Rush sets down his computer and switches to a console next to him, telling the others that he’s finished his modification and is about to apply it to the mainframe. In addition to transferring any of their work to close by active terminals if theirs were to fail, it may be able to rectify some of the existing instability. He connects his laptop to a nearby port and waits for a beep to indicate the workaround is working as intended.
Eli gratefully switches to a console and opens up the external sensors, reporting with disappointment that there’s far too much interference to get a read on any potential damage. Their best bet now would be to send a kino out one of the airlocks and send the feed back, but even that has issues. The remotes in his quarters are shorting out just like everything else. That means that they could get a kino out into space just for their ability to direct it to fail. Still, it’s better than nothing, and Volker offers to grab the material and take care of it while Rush and Eli pursue alternatives. Once he’s gone, Rush finishes opening a systemwide diagnostic and takes a look over some of the preliminary results. What he finds is startling; within seconds of contact with the beam, the entire contents of the ship’s database was copied and downloaded offsite. Half a second later, their navigational information was likewise replicated and stored, as was the Novan archive and their own data ported over from Earth. Alert and worried, Young demands to know who took it and where it was sent, but Rush responds that there’s no way for them to find out. If it weren’t for the event log, he would never have believed someone infiltrated their system. There’s not a single marker or trace of outside intrusion or download, something that simply shouldn’t be possible no matter how skilled the hack.
What’s more concerning to Eli, though, is how quickly the theft took place. When they were attempting to upload the Testament on Novus ("Epilogue"), they determined that it would take them days to copy over. Someone just stole hundreds of times more data before any of them had even blinked, and all without leaving any evidence that they had done it. Whoever or whatever they’re dealing with must be incredibly advanced, far more than the drones or Followers or anyone else. Eli jokes that it’s possible they’ve run into V’Ger or some other hyper-advanced entity, but his laughter halts suddenly when he reads that the beam bypassed every firewall, safeguard, and password protection in every file registry in the database. It literally got into every crevice, even ones the crew couldn’t access themselves, and something about that terrifies the young man. He scrambles from his seat and yells that he needs to check something for himself, then bolts from the bridge. Young goes to ask Rush what he’s talking about, not understanding, but the scientist doesn’t appear to be listening. He furrows his brow for a moment, thinking, then realizes what Eli meant and runs after him without another word.
Paying no heed to the man chasing after him or their dire situation, Eli barrels down the empty halls with a singular and blinding purpose. He ignores the flickering lights, static-filled terminal screens, and eerie blue glow through the windows while descending three decks and making his way to an auxiliary control room. Opening the door, it’s clear that this is the chamber that Rush and Dr. Adam Brody escaped to during the Lucian Alliance invasion of the ship almost a year before ("Incursion, Part 2"). Eli powers up one of the consoles inside and waits for the system to stabilize, slamming his fists down in frustration when it takes longer than a few seconds. But eventually the interference clears enough for him to check the terminal’s local memory. The readout takes only a fraction of a second to load, and he scans it quickly in complete silence. The color drains from his face, and then he begins to shake angrily. Rush appears in the doorway and immediately recognizes his colleague’s pain, but he has to ask the question all the same. This console is where Ginn and Dr. Amanda Perry’s data was quarantined ("Hope"), but if every system--even the locked out ones--were penetrated by the scan, what does that mean?
When Eli doesn’t respond, Rush forces himself to look at the display for an answer, praying that the server was somehow spared. But the local event log confirms that all information on the console’s drive was copied and downloaded like everything else, meaning that somewhere out there, duplicates of their consciousnesses exist. Nicholas looks up with deadened eyes and whispers that he’s not sure what this is even supposed to suggest. He doesn’t understand what purpose someone or something could have this, nor does he think he even wants to. Eli doesn’t have any answers for him, but he eventually raises his head to look over at him and says only that whatever’s going on, it just got personal.
While they try to come to terms with the data theft, Scott decides to be proactive down on the surface. The shuttle’s sensors can’t penetrate the atmosphere; it’s suddenly become hyper-charged with interference, but they need to do something. Telling Chloe and Wray to stay put and watch for any activity on the display, he grabs James and Volker and leads them back toward the obelisk. Once there, Vanessa says that they should at least try to determine what the purpose of the vortex inside is.
In orbit, Rush clicks off his flashlight as he enters the bridge, asking Young and a newly-arrived Greer what happened. The Sergeant shrugs uselessly, pointing out that he’s not the one with the doctorate. Then Rush sees the arcs spreading all over the hull, and asks Col. Young what’s going on. Unfortunately, the answer is no real answer at all; a beam just like the one they observed on Eden, and presumably emanating from the obelisk, shot past and then slammed into Destiny. They immediately lost power and have been slowly floating through the energy conduit ever since, unable to make radio contact on or off the ship. Even the countdown clock has gone dead. That’s really all they know, and it’s impossible to tell what damage they may have sustained or what the status of the away team is until the main systems are restored and the interference subsides.
For the time being, all they can do is try and figure out their situation when they have the chance. Control consoles continually switch on and off, and strange code runs across their screens intermittently. Rush folds his arms and says that the only way to ascertain a proper damage report would be to tap into the sensors, but they can’t do that if whatever terminal he’s working at will just reset every few minutes. Worse still, some subroutines look to be locked out from them entirely. Starting the same job at different workstations over and over again won’t get them anywhere, but Young maintains that he needs an update ASAP. Sighing, Rush picks up a laptop and says he can modify the mainframe to transfer whatever’s being done on a terminal to the next closest active one whenever it resets. It may be tricky to get it uploaded, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It may even be possible to use the patch as a means to restore their access to blocked systems. Then he can switch between active bridge consoles without any need to begin again each time the system reboots.
Young thinks it’s a good idea and tells him to go ahead, then turns to Greer. As much as he regrets having to wake Eli from some much-deserved sleep, they need another set of eyes and another brilliant mind going over this problem. He asks Ron to go get him from his quarters, then to swing by the stasis room to see if Brody’s still there checking the pods. The three of them need to be working together, and it won’t matter what shape the stasis chambers are in if they end up losing power completely and they all switch off. Greer shoulders his weapon and says he’ll stay alert for any signs of trouble or intrusion, then heads off to go as he’s ordered. Young waits for him to get out of earshot, then asks Rush if he can do anything to help. He knows that sitting in the command chair barking orders won’t do them any good, but he’s not sure he can contribute anything in this situation. The scientist looks surprised to hear him so humble, then quickly recovers and tells him to grab another two laptops from the closest lab for Eli and Brody to work off of in case he’s not finished when they get back. Nodding, Young claps him on the shoulder and does as he’s asked.
Meanwhile, James and Volker are still outside the obelisk trying to figure out what’s just happened. The beam’s still pulsing into the sky, and the lieutenant has her rifle up and scanning the immediate vicinity for danger. When she’s satisfied that nothing’s going to leap out and attack them, she motions for Volker to approach and investigate. Dale resists at first, giving her a frightened look, but he finally agrees and inches closer until he can peer inside the entryway. All he can see is the blinding glow of a swirling blue energy vortex, however. But the fact that he can see anything at all is a significant change from the last monolith they encountered. The one on the other planet had what they speculated was a doorway, but it was sealed the entire time they were there. Even when it began shooting up light, it remained closed. This one, on the other hand, is wide open for them to examine. What he can’t figure out is why they would be different if this whole planet otherwise appears to be a carbon-copy of Eden.
Running out of the woods behind them, Scott shouts to ask if they know what’s happening. James falls back to his position and replies that they’re just as in the dark as he is, having been a few meters from the obelisk when it suddenly went active. She goes for her radio, intending to contact Destiny for orders, but Scott tells her not to bother. For now, at least, both they and the group on the ship are on their own. Volker recommends they try and use the shuttle’s sensors to get a reading on the beam, since it’ll have to be more effective than them standing around dumbfounded. Scott thinks it’s worth looking into, and the three of them slowly back away from the obelisk and make for the landing zone.
In orbit, Destiny herself is now about a third of the way past the beam, still slowly gliding along. If the sublight engines had been active when the obelisk activated, chances are the ship would already be in the clear. But because it was simply drifting and almost perfectly matching the rotation speed of the planet, it will probably take another few hours before the beam moves off the hull. In fact, that’s exactly what Brody has to tell the others when he does the math for them on the bridge. Rubbing his eyes, Young looks over the graphs on the laptop and asks someone to give him a possible solution in plain English. The beam’s disabled the engines and a host of other systems, but nothing has been outright powered down. Instead, everything has gone haywire or refused to operate entirely. Rush sets down his computer and switches to a console next to him, telling the others that he’s finished his modification and is about to apply it to the mainframe. In addition to transferring any of their work to close by active terminals if theirs were to fail, it may be able to rectify some of the existing instability. He connects his laptop to a nearby port and waits for a beep to indicate the workaround is working as intended.
Eli gratefully switches to a console and opens up the external sensors, reporting with disappointment that there’s far too much interference to get a read on any potential damage. Their best bet now would be to send a kino out one of the airlocks and send the feed back, but even that has issues. The remotes in his quarters are shorting out just like everything else. That means that they could get a kino out into space just for their ability to direct it to fail. Still, it’s better than nothing, and Volker offers to grab the material and take care of it while Rush and Eli pursue alternatives. Once he’s gone, Rush finishes opening a systemwide diagnostic and takes a look over some of the preliminary results. What he finds is startling; within seconds of contact with the beam, the entire contents of the ship’s database was copied and downloaded offsite. Half a second later, their navigational information was likewise replicated and stored, as was the Novan archive and their own data ported over from Earth. Alert and worried, Young demands to know who took it and where it was sent, but Rush responds that there’s no way for them to find out. If it weren’t for the event log, he would never have believed someone infiltrated their system. There’s not a single marker or trace of outside intrusion or download, something that simply shouldn’t be possible no matter how skilled the hack.
What’s more concerning to Eli, though, is how quickly the theft took place. When they were attempting to upload the Testament on Novus ("Epilogue"), they determined that it would take them days to copy over. Someone just stole hundreds of times more data before any of them had even blinked, and all without leaving any evidence that they had done it. Whoever or whatever they’re dealing with must be incredibly advanced, far more than the drones or Followers or anyone else. Eli jokes that it’s possible they’ve run into V’Ger or some other hyper-advanced entity, but his laughter halts suddenly when he reads that the beam bypassed every firewall, safeguard, and password protection in every file registry in the database. It literally got into every crevice, even ones the crew couldn’t access themselves, and something about that terrifies the young man. He scrambles from his seat and yells that he needs to check something for himself, then bolts from the bridge. Young goes to ask Rush what he’s talking about, not understanding, but the scientist doesn’t appear to be listening. He furrows his brow for a moment, thinking, then realizes what Eli meant and runs after him without another word.
Paying no heed to the man chasing after him or their dire situation, Eli barrels down the empty halls with a singular and blinding purpose. He ignores the flickering lights, static-filled terminal screens, and eerie blue glow through the windows while descending three decks and making his way to an auxiliary control room. Opening the door, it’s clear that this is the chamber that Rush and Dr. Adam Brody escaped to during the Lucian Alliance invasion of the ship almost a year before ("Incursion, Part 2"). Eli powers up one of the consoles inside and waits for the system to stabilize, slamming his fists down in frustration when it takes longer than a few seconds. But eventually the interference clears enough for him to check the terminal’s local memory. The readout takes only a fraction of a second to load, and he scans it quickly in complete silence. The color drains from his face, and then he begins to shake angrily. Rush appears in the doorway and immediately recognizes his colleague’s pain, but he has to ask the question all the same. This console is where Ginn and Dr. Amanda Perry’s data was quarantined ("Hope"), but if every system--even the locked out ones--were penetrated by the scan, what does that mean?
When Eli doesn’t respond, Rush forces himself to look at the display for an answer, praying that the server was somehow spared. But the local event log confirms that all information on the console’s drive was copied and downloaded like everything else, meaning that somewhere out there, duplicates of their consciousnesses exist. Nicholas looks up with deadened eyes and whispers that he’s not sure what this is even supposed to suggest. He doesn’t understand what purpose someone or something could have this, nor does he think he even wants to. Eli doesn’t have any answers for him, but he eventually raises his head to look over at him and says only that whatever’s going on, it just got personal.
While they try to come to terms with the data theft, Scott decides to be proactive down on the surface. The shuttle’s sensors can’t penetrate the atmosphere; it’s suddenly become hyper-charged with interference, but they need to do something. Telling Chloe and Wray to stay put and watch for any activity on the display, he grabs James and Volker and leads them back toward the obelisk. Once there, Vanessa says that they should at least try to determine what the purpose of the vortex inside is.
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