communication stones - possible plot hole?

[Pharaoh Atem]

tinfoil

[jelgate]

No I don't think Rush had the stone. It would have been obvious a long time ago if one was missing when connections to Earth were made

[GoodSmeagol]

You are all forgetting that we played with the tech...
The stones need to be on the platform to be active at least to connect to Destiny.
We see this when they remove the stone from the box, and the real person comes to.

Box+Stone=Connection
No box no connection.
Now that equation is lost once aliens again play with the stone.
But to answer your OP question.
Rush did not connect because the stone was not on the box.

[erotavlas]

You are all forgetting that we played with the tech...
The stones need to be on the platform to be active at least to connect to Destiny.
We see this when they remove the stone from the box, and the real person comes to.

Box+Stone=Connection
No box no connection.
Now that equation is lost once aliens again play with the stone.
But to answer your OP question.
Rush did not connect because the stone was not on the box.

the aliens have no box / terminal, therefore by your logic Young cannot swap consciousness with the alien in Space. Yet he does exactly that.

[erotavlas]

i just realized we saw this happen in SG1 with Vala and Daniel swapped with those two in the Ori galaxy.
Daniel and Vala touched the stones which were connected to their active terminal
-->(similar to Young on Destiny)

while they connect to two others on the Ori galaxy who previously touched the matching pair of stones but which were not connected to an active terminal
-->(blue alien in Space)

so i think my original observation still stands, they could have connected to Rush is he handled the stone with his bare hands at some point before the alien touched it...

HOWEVER...
this actually makes me think of another problem. Do the stones work in pairs? If so how could Young even connect to a stone that Rush took from the set they had on Destiny? if the matching pair is on Earth?

[Daro]

I'm not entirely sure that Rush had a stone. I mean, he said he did. But he lies every time he talks to Young, or at least evades telling the truth. If he'd said "No way, not me," then Young certainly wouldn't have believed him. The response he made, "Oh well," was kinda hilarious.

[s09119]

the aliens have no box / terminal, therefore by your logic Young cannot swap consciousness with the alien in Space. Yet he does exactly that.

That we know of.

[MattSilver 3k]

I'm thinking that the fact it's been drilled into our heads the last two episodes that "We don't know exactly how the stones work" makes no big plotholes until its explained. And even if, I think the explanation that Rush had a stone that was confiscated and the aliens fiddled with it and Young hopped into one of them is a damn sight more explain-y than anything we came up with after Space was done.

[dacooker]

Umm it might not be obvious to Young because a lot has been happening on Destiny. However we've all watched the episodes, we've all seen the smurf mind readers, we can all pretty much connect the dots between these devices and the stones.

[Avenger]

I'm not entirely sure that Rush had a stone. I mean, he said he did. But he lies every time he talks to Young, or at least evades telling the truth. If he'd said "No way, not me," then Young certainly wouldn't have believed him. The response he made, "Oh well," was kinda hilarious.

That is definitely a point to consider. We don't know if Rush is telling the truth about having a stone or not.

[Commander Zelix]

I'm thinking that the fact it's been drilled into our heads the last two episodes that "We don't know exactly how the stones work"

Which is kind of a plot hole by itself since they are using a home made stone device. Maybe they should ask around next time they dial earth.

[pipi]

Here's two theories that could fill any plot holes.
1. The stones work by using an external device (aka a box) to dial the receiving stones. It wouldn't make any sense to dial just any stone in the entire galaxy, the stones probably have to be preconfigured like a remote key of a car. So these stones only work with each other and the ones preconfigured from Earth, so an alien having another stone by chance would be invalid based on this theory. Now, the proceedure for communicating with Earth always seem to be that Destiny dials Earth not the other way around. That's why no one from Earth has accidentally connected with Rush's hidden stone. And if they tried it'd be a 25% chance that they'd get Rush instead of someone else.

2. The stones need you to be near by to work. This is evident in SG-1 with O'neal's office directly beneath a storage facility of the stones. O'neal never actually touched the stones did he? But everytime O'neal wrote in his journal, that wacky barber listen in on his stories. And even if O'neal did touch the stones last, which I doubt (the clergy man was probably the last) the stones only communicated while O'neal was at his desk not while he was anywhere else. Although the communication was not a complete mind swap, hopefully the general principles still apply.

[escyos]

ok just watched the rerun .....rush was the first to open and use the stones by himself too....that's what

Spoiler:

young was getting at as far as if rush stashed one

then he comes out and tells everyone "in this case are 5 communication stones"

[ckwongau]

Maybe that is a plot twist , not a plot hole.
Dr Rush was the one who brought the stone communication system to Destiny, he was the one who activated first.
He probably kept one stone before he share it with the other.
We never saw Dr Rush use the stone after the first episode, but maybe he got his own stone , may be Dr Rush has contact with someone in milkyway and the other side send someone back in Rush's place.

The possibilities of Rush being the mole could be interesting.

[muz84]

Are the communication stones more of a plot give away.
The season 1.5 trailer had telford telling the crew of the destiny "They're comming". Did the smurfs figure out how to use the stones and contact earth. they would arrive at earth and mind probe whoever transfered to the smurf ship.