If Eli had dialed 10 seconds earlier

[pipi]

If Eli started to redial the gate after the first bad call instead of looking at his palm pilot like an idiot he would have made it back as well..

Eli is quite the keyboard noob it turns out. Tisk tisk.

Fat fingers, give the kid a break.

[Phenom]

Interesting question the who is smarter, Eli vs Rush. My sister is a very very bright girl, straight As in science/maths and all that yet she asked how to use a kettle. I put Eli firmly in the same basket. He can be very bright at some things but for a lot he is a flat out dumbarse. Rush doesn't have dumbarse moments, although he may not be as quick at Sudoku as Eli, but he is consistently brilliant.

[Daro]

Interesting question the who is smarter, Eli vs Rush. My sister is a very very bright girl, straight As in science/maths and all that yet she asked how to use a kettle. I put Eli firmly in the same basket. He can be very bright at some things but for a lot he is a flat out dumbarse. Rush doesn't have dumbarse moments, although he may not be as quick at Sudoku as Eli, but he is consistently brilliant.

Rush has some moments. Namely, all the ones that involve explaining himself to other people; he's been a habitual liar, yet he admits it when he's caught. He lacks the ability to make arguments without losing his temper. I personally thought "We'll never be done!" was a real 'failure of imagination' on his part.
But overall, I agree. Genius is not just the potential a person's mind has, but also the degree to which they fill it. Rush may have an IQ of 135, Eli might have one around 150, but whatever Rush lacks in raw intellect is more than made up for by his drive and then enhanced by his education. Rush works hard, no matter how bad he feels for himself or anyone else. If he's sick or not. If he's dying or not. Eli makes excuses, gets easily distracted, and has no direction yet. It doesn't help that, up until recently, his scientific genius has been diverted to the side-task of spying on Rush and others. Young should have had Eli teach someone else, a military person, to do that and then sent Eli back to work. Eli lacks any real education, so he can't possibly have caught up with Rush completely since arriving on Destiny.

I think Eli will match Rush only when he is in the structure that Young could provide and is non-judgmental enough to let go of the past and let Rush guide him in his progress as a scientist. Even then, I don't see Eli becomming so much like Rush that he works hard all the time; he wouldn't have to, though.

I think Rush, though he is harsh and given to temper tantrums occaisonally, would teach Eli a lot. The jealousy and resentment Rush feels, I don't think it's actually very personal. His bitter speech about Eli struck me as Rush condemning himself for being such a failure that a college drop-out gamer easily, and within a month's time, solved a problem that Rush dedicated the most difficult years of his life to. I think that Rush has tried to teach Eli, but is too impatient with him and gave up after a while; let's hope that changes also. If Rush only makes Eli miserable when Eli tries to seriously put his mind to the scientific issues, then Eli may make a bad association with work, which is already difficult for him to commit to. Finding enjoyment in a task is the key to unlocking that big brain; he's a gamer, he loves puzzles. Getting him to see Destiny as the ultimate puzzle and getting him excited about unlocking it would give the people on board Destiny a huge advantage.

[jelgate]

I couldn't disagree more. Rush's skillset may be expendable, but his dramatic role isn't.

If you remove Rush, you may as well remove Young, and throw away much of the drama on board. Rush plays Young's foil and equal; in many of the on board drama scenarios, he is also the instigator: the chair, the frame job, stranding them, etc. Even if he doesn't instigate the specific event, his conflicts with Young are the beating heart of much of the show's drama.

However, if you get rid of Scott/Chloe/Eli, who have limited dramatic roles (two young and eager lions, and one of the many potential damsels in distress on board), there isn't much lost, except angst caused by their love triangle (maybe quadrangle, if you include James).

Get rid of Scott, and you lose a shuttle pilot; his military duties could be taken by James. Get rid of Chloe, and half the fanbase will cheer, while the other will cry, but her "damsel in distress" role can go to anyone. We've got an invaluable (now pregnant) medic, and probably a curious child by next season.

Getting rid of Eli could be dramatically complicated, and I would think would hurt the show, since he's marketed as someone we're supposed to connect with. He also plays the naive, inexperienced voice of optimism, which would make SGU that much darker, so YMMV as to how much of an impact this would make.

I going to play negioater and say get rid of Rush or the trio is harmful to SGU. Rush is obvious given what you said before. He is the source of a significant force of tension on Destiny. Remove him you remove the tension and drasically alter the show. Remove the trio you remove the navity of Eli, the cluelessness of Chloe, and overwhelmesness of Scott. Remove the trio and you very much reduce the human aspect of the show

[ThePlut]

I'd define each of them as having different "smarts". Rush has knowledge (facts, figures) and experience on his side. Eli is young, obviously has a tremendous learning capacity and is relatively intuitive. Eli has the potential to learn things quickly and assemble them in different ways, frankly in my experience a "lack of experience" is what makes that possible. Once you learn how something should work, it's a lot harder to imagine it differently.

My father is a very smart man, lots of knowledge, which is completely unhelpful in trying to figure out how to make his Wii work. My 11 year old got it up and running for him.

I see this as a similar thing.

[Eternal Density]

If only Eli hadn't been wearing a red shirt...

[JustAnotherVoice]

I going to play negioater and say get rid of Rush or the trio is harmful to SGU. Rush is obvious given what you said before. He is the source of a significant force of tension on Destiny. Remove him you remove the tension and drasically alter the show. Remove the trio you remove the navity of Eli, the cluelessness of Chloe, and overwhelmesness of Scott. Remove the trio and you very much reduce the human aspect of the show

If they carry on TJ's baby's arc, by next season the humanising aspects of Scott, at least, could be transferred over to TJ. She's already established that she doesn't want to raise a baby on Destiny, so could very well be overwhelmed by being a "single mother*" on the other side of the universe as well as the CMO of a ship where every morning comes with the risk of getting blown up.

As for the other two, I hope they grow somewhat by S2. They can only be so naive/clueless for so long, especially having seen so much. But, I stand by my original position, in that I would rather see the trio go than Rush

(*) presumably everybody on board will help raise the child, like in many hunter-gatherer tribal societies. "One woman gave you life, but you have ten mothers", that kind of thing.

[EllieVee]

If Eli started to redial the gate after the first bad call instead of looking at his palm pilot like an idiot he would have made it back as well..

Eli is quite the keyboard noob it turns out. Tisk tisk.

I think Eli was actually waiting for the gate addresses to update on the DVD handset.

Interesting question the who is smarter, Eli vs Rush. My sister is a very very bright girl, straight As in science/maths and all that yet she asked how to use a kettle. I put Eli firmly in the same basket. He can be very bright at some things but for a lot he is a flat out dumbarse. Rush doesn't have dumbarse moments, although he may not be as quick at Sudoku as Eli, but he is consistently brilliant.

Rush works (even when he shouldn't). As he says to Daniel, Eli spends (note present tense) playing games. Aside from being on Destiny, he hasn't changed that much.

[pipi]

If the remote auto detects and refreshes it's addresses, wouldn't it make sense to have a speed dial, like a one touch? It's like having to lookup your friends number in your contacts list and manually dialling the number, sounds lame. Maybe the Ancients haven't discovered an iPhone yet lol. Lame joke yeas..

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

JAV,

If they carry on TJ's baby's arc, by next season the humanising aspects of Scott, at least, could be transferred over to TJ. She's already established that she doesn't want to raise a baby on Destiny, so could very well be overwhelmed by being a "single mother*" on the other side of the universe as well as the CMO of a ship where every morning comes with the risk of getting blown up.

As for the other two, I hope they grow somewhat by S2. They can only be so naive/clueless for so long, especially having seen so much. But, I stand by my original position, in that I would rather see the trio go than Rush

(*) presumably everybody on board will help raise the child, like in many hunter-gatherer tribal societies. "One woman gave you life, but you have ten mothers", that kind of thing.

I thought it was pretty clear that Young was going to be, at a minimum, co-parenting with TJ. I think his comment may have implied more. He may be getting back with TJ because of the child that's on the way. Actually, if he presumes that means a resumption of the relationship while TJ has moved on it could create some interesting drama.

[rlr149]

If the remote auto detects and refreshes it's addresses, wouldn't it make sense to have a speed dial, like a one touch? It's like having to lookup your friends number in your contacts list and manually dialling the number, sounds lame. Maybe the Ancients haven't discovered an iPhone yet lol. Lame joke yeas..

they did, it was left in the ori galaxy and thats what turned them 'bad'.

[JustAnotherVoice]

JAV,

I thought it was pretty clear that Young was going to be, at a minimum, co-parenting with TJ. I think his comment may have implied more. He may be getting back with TJ because of the child that's on the way. Actually, if he presumes that means a resumption of the relationship while TJ has moved on it could create some interesting drama.

That may be Young's intentions now, but who knows how it will pan out by the time she comes to full term, and it is also why I used inverted commas. When she gives birth, if Young spends as much time doing whatever he does as he does now, he may end up not being there for their baby much.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

JAV,

That may be Young's intentions now, but who knows how it will pan out by the time she comes to full term, and it is also why I used inverted commas. When she gives birth, if Young spends as much time doing whatever he does as he does now, he may end up not being there for their baby much.

Young does have a job to do. What I want to see is Young leading an away team or flying a shuttle into combat with the baby Bjorn and a sleeping child in there. It would be great echos of "Young Wolf and Cub".

[SG7]

I think Eli was actually waiting for the gate addresses to update on the DVD handset.



Rush works (even when he shouldn't). As he says to Daniel, Eli spends (note present tense) playing games. Aside from being on Destiny, he hasn't changed that much.

Except that on Destiny he is actually doing stuff to help out. Albeit, much of it may be initiated by others soliciting his help rather than just stepping up to the plate and just "doing" stuff with out being asked. Though he has offered to go down to some of the planets with out being asked.

[Wayston]

I wonder if the writers had a toss up on which team they wanted to get stranded behind while they were writing the story at that time

probably not since they had already done the rush is stranded story line and except for rush I don't think there was anyone noteworthy for the show in his team