Destiny's mission is a pipe dream for Rush and Earth.

[garhkal]

Thanks.. i have them from time to time.

[thekillman]

Thanks.. i have them from time to time.

Given that subspace is apparently turbulent and can be tapped for quite a bit of power, it's very likely the signal in hyperspace will be completely lost.

And yes, it's unlikely a hyperdrive was invented back then. Of course, once the basic principle is known it would be very easy for other races to just develop a hyperdrive.

That, or a hyperdrive back then was a LOT slower and the Ancients invented the more cubersome FTL that is faster (a LOT faster)

[su27k]

Why does Rush think that any of the crews natural life span will be long enough to see Destiny complete its mission?

He knows the Ancients planned it, and they're not immortal, so clearly there's a way to finish the mission with limited life span. There're a number of possibilities:
1. Treat the ship as a colony/civilization, the ship is pretty big after all, his descendants can continue the mission
2. There's the stasis pods, also the chair

[Mister Oragahn]

2/5ths through the story??
No clear mission??
Gimmie a break, movies do it in 3 hours, let alone 30

Are you on a ... rush or something?

[thekillman]

He knows the Ancients planned it, and they're not immortal, so clearly there's a way to finish the mission with limited life span.

Given that the mission went on longer than planned, i think it's a data processing issue, not gathering.

[garhkal]

He knows the Ancients planned it, and they're not immortal, so clearly there's a way to finish the mission with limited life span. There're a number of possibilities:
1. Treat the ship as a colony/civilization, the ship is pretty big after all, his descendants can continue the mission
2. There's the stasis pods, also the chair

Maybe it's a combination of 1 and 2, with a little 'humanocentric ego tossed in'.

[Quizziard]

Given that the mission went on longer than planned, i think it's a data processing issue, not gathering.

I suspect that the expanding universe model, though well understood, doesn't operate to six-sigma accuracy and therefore there will be little wobbles for everything as it goes. For Destiny to fly through it, therefore, may not be precisely as the Ancients planned. However, just as an example, if the target of the search is a planet in the middle of the next galaxy, it's three more years flight time to the nearest edge, then flight time to the middle too. Okay, three, four, five years is not a lifetime away, but it's still planned and one of gathering not processing. And it might be five more galaxies away...

[Melbol Of Worlds]

with my last few moments of internet, let me say:
the universe was spawned some 13 billion years ago
and the EARTH is only about 4 to 5 billion years old
Destiny was launched from Earth, 50 million years ago
the 2 seasons cover only about a year, and in that time, they essentially covered about 2 galaxies.
so, for every year, figure 2 galaxies......50 million years, that is about 100 million galaxies away from the Milky Way galaxy
figure in general, that each galaxy is about 100,000 light years across
realistically, Destiny should already be outside of the expanding universe
200,000 light years, plus 2 voids between galaxies, and the voids
3 million light years between Milky Way and the dwarf galaxy Pegasus......plus, the further out into the universe you go, the longer the gap becomes between galaxies.
so for every year, the Destiny covered, essentially, 6,200,000 light years
50 million years, 6.2 million light years per year, and that is presuming that Destiny has always function at diminished capacity, that is 310,000,000,000,000 light years
and for those of you who can't QUICKLY recognize, that is 310 TRILLION light years. Destiny's mission SHOULD already be done and over.....in which case, Rush has every reason to believe that the mission WOULD be completed in his life time

[thekillman]

I suspect that the expanding universe model, though well understood, doesn't operate to six-sigma accuracy and therefore there will be little wobbles for everything as it goes. For Destiny to fly through it, therefore, may not be precisely as the Ancients planned. However, just as an example, if the target of the search is a planet in the middle of the next galaxy, it's three more years flight time to the nearest edge, then flight time to the middle too. Okay, three, four, five years is not a lifetime away, but it's still planned and one of gathering not processing. And it might be five more galaxies away...

i do not believe the ancients planned this mission 10 million years (or 50) ahead. I think it's simply an autoplanner plotting a roughly linear line across the universe and moving from galaxy to galaxy.

[jeri]

Destiny's mission SHOULD already be done and over.....in which case, Rush has every reason to believe that the mission WOULD be completed in his life time

I think the Destiny has finished it's mission, it was on autopilot waiting for a crew to interpret what all that data means. I think Rush knew this after his discovery of the data and I think if the show had continued, we would see these people discover that the only destination is understanding the true nature of our universe.

Because of the plague the Ancients learned to ascend, so at that point they no longer needed Destiny and it's a bit sad, this ship traveling endlessly through space, waiting for a crew that never arrived. But perhaps, the present crew was intended to use Destiny? Perhaps the Ancients thought there was a chance we would find Destiny? Why not?

[garhkal]

I doubt they foresaw that far in the future.. Unless janus had left clues to it after using the time jumper and seeing we would go there.

[jeri]

I doubt they foresaw that far in the future.. Unless janus had left clues to it after using the time jumper and seeing we would go there.

I'm going with the idea that people who would embrace an idea such as Destiny's mission to find this "message from God" (?) are big dreamers. Why not think of all sorts of possibilities. It's called imagination. Science progresses because one imagines the possibilities.

[Quizziard]

I'm going with the idea that people who would embrace an idea such as Destiny's mission to find this "message from God" (?) are big dreamers. Why not think of all sorts of possibilities. It's called imagination. Science progresses because one imagines the possibilities.

OR... logically considers there might be possibilities and systematically tests (that domain) looking for them...

[thekillman]

they specifically made Dakara reseed life after it's use, so it's almost a certainty that they expected someone to find it.

I do think destiny went far beyond it's original mission. However, i think that the mission has to be complete. it makes no sense that they would run an experiment for ~30-40 million years give or take.

That said, it's possible destiny indeed malfunctioned. In Sabotage we learn it barely made the last few jumps. If it even falls short by a few percent each time, that's easily hundreds of thousands of years of drifting, especially since it doesn't fly through normal space at near the speed of light. Hell, with what we see on screen, even a lightyear would take hundreds of thousands of year to drift.

So it's possible that, if destiny is 10 million years old (predating atlantis) and was expected to have a million year or so journey, a combination of a hefty war (=more damage than anticipated) + malfunction and drifting could easily cause it to require millions of years extra to get anywhere.

The last possibility is that the ancients had no clue what kind of mission it would require, and simply expected to get to Destiny, see how far it got and build additional ships as needed. With a gate connection, replicators and plenty of time they could easily construct additional pylons, uhm, Destiny's as needed while "on the road".

[jeri]

OR... logically considers there might be possibilities and systematically tests (that domain) looking for them...

Yeah, like I said, scientists are dreamers!

I see the beauty in science and embrace the power of imagination. There are no possibilities without imagination. Imagination and logic can go hand in hand.