'Awakening' (203) General Discussion

[mmu_man]

That is a very interesting thought and very plausible. Should have thought of that possibility. Great thinking out of the box.

Indeed, I didn't make the reasoning fully myself but I started suspecting Rush from willingly block the transfer.
Now as for if they realized what he was doing, I'm not so sure, as it seems they don't understand english, how would they know he betrayed ?

[wolverine_nl]

Since the beginning of Aftermath. Not before.

I am not sure that is really true...he was writing down things on a wall as i recall... so maybe at the end of S1 he already figured it out, but needed the location of the bridge
Cause at the end of Aftermath, he didnt look suprised, he had the code remembered out of his head.

[Artemis-Neith]

I am not sure that is really true...he was writing down things on a wall as i recall... so maybe at the end of S1 he already figured it out, but needed the location of the bridge
Cause at the end of Aftermath, he didnt look suprised, he had the code remembered out of his head.

Ah. You think, he knew before. For me, it's clearly not before, because we see him enter the bridge, looking all around like being the very first time in the biggest candy store in the universe.

Maybe he had an idea where to find the bridge before without being able to enter, without the code, or what's also likely, the message on the screen did not only tell him that he got the code, finally, but also where to find the bridge.

The things on the wall in "Incursion" was about the radiation of the pulsar, I think. He had to do some math, to get an idea how to handle the problem in that episode.

Rush is good with numbers , so I guess, he has no problems to learn some new numbers.

[Mortock42]

I think he may have have stopped the power transfer. The events do not play out in a way that suggests he reversed it. The aliens stunned him before the power drain began. If they were trying to reverse the process, why were they gone by the time the other team arrived?

If the Browns intent were to reverse the transfer, and since they had stun weapons, it seems odd that they would leave the only place in the ship capable of controling the energy transfer undefended. And since Telford was able to access the control consoles, it stands to reason that the Browns were incapable of "locking-out" control of the consoles (that is assuming of course that the specific function of locking-out is available on this ships control systems...but I wouldn't see why it wouldnt be...), meaning that they must have had a pretty good reason to leave that control room undefended and vulnerable to manipulation...
Some things just don't seem to add up....

And as someone else mentioned in a previous post, Rush might have put a delay into the reversal of the power transfer to make sure the most amount of people were in Desinty's gate room and far away from his position in the control room of the seeder ship...that way he could be like...."oh no! Power transfer reversed! There's no time, and I can't reverse it! Guess I'll have to go back to Destiny to try to do something there!...."

[mmu_man]

Yes there is something with these aliens that don't fit.
There are several things that seem odd :

• We don't see who stuns,
• We don't see any of those aliens actually stun anyone,
• The one who escapes doesn't stun anyone either, he just runs away,
• Before being stunned too, Rush seems to look in front of him, not downwards, despite the aliens being all smaller. Of course it could be bad acting (hmm really ?), or just a parallax error due to the camera angle.
• When Telford is surrounded they don't seem to aim at him with arms or guns, they are rather prudent.

Could it be someone else is also on the ship and does it, then they come to the control room and discover them laying down and try to do something with the console without really knowing, and leave when they hear the others coming, in fear they will be held responsible ?

• another alien race/faction ?
• an LA member (but then he's escaping would have been noticed unless he was hidden already aboard Destiny for some time) (btw we don't see the last one be brought back from the infirmary, but that'd be really stupid to forget him).

[Commander Zelix]

I think maybe the aliens were using sound to stun humans not weapons. It was not clear in the episode but it seems to be the case.

[mmu_man]

But still, why did the one alone escape ?
Maybe he felt the danger in some way but this is not fitting either.

[giancarmen]

I thought this was going to be a good episode. Nope It was too damn slow and dull. I am sorry but the first season and so far this season have been so lifeless and boring as hell. It has lost the spark that is stargate. Its to similar to Battle Star Galactic. All this doom and gloom, they need some excitement and this show has none of it. Its great that they took a chance to change it up, but it has not worked yet. I having been a fan of stargate since the original movie came out so many years ago and it seems that the creators have lost the touch and they now need new blood for the stargate brand. Thats my two cents on Universe, and I am sure i am not the only one.

[mmu_man]

I think maybe the aliens were using sound to stun humans not weapons. It was not clear in the episode but it seems to be the case.

Sound doesn't produce red light emission like this, or maybe it does with sufficient pressure to ionize the air but then it wouldn't stun but just melt the target I suppose...

[mmu_man]

• Before being stunned too, Rush seems to look in front of him, not downwards, despite the aliens being all smaller. Of course it could be bad acting (hmm really ?), or just a parallax error due to the camera angle.

Actually it seems some are taller than others, so this probably doesn't hold.

[giancarmen]

Sound doesn't produce red light emission like this, or maybe it does with sufficient pressure to ionize the air but then it wouldn't stun but just melt the target I suppose...

Yea that seemed like they got shot by a stun weapon.

[Kaiphantom]

You are reaching quite a bit with this one. How could the planet have been "clearly" too dangerous for the crew when everyone would have "clearly" died from CO2 toxicity in a matter of hours if the lime hadn't been found? The AI presented the only viable solution to their problem and prevented their imminent demise.

Maybe. Or maybe there are stores of the substance the Ancients used somewhere on the ship, and they would have found them if they kept looking (remember the Ancient crates they didn't open at the beginning?). Ship could have just skipped the planet because it detected that it was still carrying life support stuff. At any rate, we have a clear parallel here: crew in danger -> planet may have what you need, but there is risk.

How could they have gotten food when the ship crashed into a barren mountain? When would they have had time to go out and forage? I would say the only thing we can conclude is the AI was pretty smart to have blocked that address out and Rush's decision to override cost them the shuttle and a valuable member of the crew.

Remember, they dialed back. We don't know how much time they had, but Young told Riley they had plenty of time. And we do know for a fact there was vegetation (the shuttle itself tore up quite a few trees going in, which means said vegetation wasn't far from the crash site nor gate). Since they haven't complained about low supplies now for awhile, it seems very likely they at least got something from the planet. They may have lost Riley and a shuttle, but they get to live longer. And if you told Riley he was going to die, but that his sacrifice would enable the crew to restock, what do you think his choice would be? It's really funny people are trying to implicate Rush as a bad guy for saving the crew, and for him not being psychic enough to foresee Riley's death. And even if he did, deciding to kill the entire crew through starvation rather than the one individual.

It isn't clear yet what level of control Rush possess. But even if he doesn't have control how does that point support your argument in the least? Overriding the ship's AI when you don't fully understand or are able to control the ship's systems doesn't strike me as a particularly smart thing to do. Especially when the end result are no supplies, the loss of a man's life and the only shuttle. This fact adds to his culpability as opposed to mitigating it.

I dunno, overriding the ship's AI meant the crew would have more food and water, which is what seemed likely that happened. So looked like a good move from my end. Perhaps you'd prefer the crew to starve?

I think the "proof" is rather obvious. The ship's AI blocked the planet because it concluded the attempt to gather supplies would fail catastrophically. Rush thought he was smarter and overrode the AI - and look what happened.

Listen to what you're saying; you're essentially trying to say that what decision-making process is aboard the ship is somehow psychic. Machines aren't, last time I checked; not even Ancient ones. It can categorize risk, but as Air part 3 showed, it can still let them go to risky planets, and every damn planet they've been to has had risk and people nearly died several times on them. It's only through plot armor that they survived. How you can sit there and go "Destiny doesn't send them to dangerous planets cuz it's so smart!" is beyond me, when they died twice on the TIME planet, and Scott nearly died on the AIR and WATER planets.

You're also confusing classifications. The planet wasn't blocked or locked out. There was a unique warning on it, likely due to the fact that the stargate was nonfunctional. It is likely then that Destiny didn't consider it an option for that reason, especially when you consider above that Destiny has allowed them to go to other dangerous planets. Hell, the water planet was so toxic that they had to wear suits!

No, from the transcript the address was clearly locked out and the ship thought the planet far too dangerous to go to. Gloria and Franklin warning Rush is as clear evidence of this as is possible. And as I have said repeatedly the ship was right and Rush was wrong. A man died, the shuttle lost and no supplies obtained.

You have no proof about whether supplies were obtained. Preliminary evidence suggests they did get at least some supplies. So, it would seem Rush was right and the ship was wrong. But in truth, you're trying to fit everything into neat little boxes of right and wrong, when the real truth is more cloudy. You're also one who hasn't answered the question I posed before: If you were on the ship and starving, and the only viable planet was that one, would you give the order to go check it out? Hindsight is 20/20, but it's a different story when you're sitting there with unknowns. They take risks every single day, and not all of them go their way; should they just stop taking risks?

Seriously, answer that question. Should they just never step through the gate again? Should they stay on the ship and never venture off? Because it is damn dangerous out there, and you can either stay on the ship like a chicken and never get anything done, or take a risk. You're obviously not willing to take the chances needed to keep the crew alive.

The only thing Rush did was stop the ship at the planet. The other scientists were more than capable of seeing what the planet was like and saying something, and Young gave the order to go. Even if you want to place blame, you have to place it more on them than Rush. That's another question you need to answer: Do you blame Eli, Park, Brody, and Volker equally? Because they certainly didn't speak up and say anything. Or are they blameless? Because you're essentially damning Rush because he's not smart enough.

I would add another thought and I am done with the Riley death disagreements. It was said that fingers could be pointed to Eli, Brody, Volker, Park for not seeing the planet with vegetation or that it didn't have a working gate or even alerting someone about the up coming planet.

I was under the assumption that Destiny had it locked out and at this point in the season everyone is still under the assumption that Destiny is only going to drop out of FTL on it's on. Even if the science team saw the planet coming up there would be nothing they could do about it anyway unless Destiny drops out of FTL Why bother telling someone about a passing planet. It is locked out and if we have learned anything, is that Destiny will not stop at planets that are locked out. It is known that during their travels through two galaxies that they have flown by or stopped at planets where there were nearby viable planets but locked out. We saw it as early as in "AIR" when the female scientist and the soldier bypassed the lock out and walked through the gate to a different planet. They may be the Adam & Eve on a new planet. It has been drilled into everyone on the ship that Destiny locks out planets for some unknown reason and that no one would know when Destiny was ever going to drop out of FTL. Only that Rush was supposedly trying to tell Destiny that they were desperately low on resources in an effort to make the ship stop at the next viable planet for their needs. Am I correct in this assumption??

All planets are in the database, so the crew could see what the planet was like. They also have access to sensors which can scan the planet. They don't know, however, where Destiny will stop. They don't know that something is locked out, until they drop out and see a gate address, but it's locked out. We do know that Destiny doesn't stop at every planet, viable or no. As the episode LOST shows us, there were plenty of viable planets with vegetation that Destiny didn't stop at. So obviously, danger isn't part of what ever AI is on Destiny. We don't know what variables it considers, but obviously, a non-functional stargate would be cause for locking out a planet.

[Kaiphantom]

I'll give you that you were trying to be objective in this debate, but no one truly is. Some of us have already pointed out your seeming double standard between Young and Rush, and you can make your arguments against it, and we can make our arguments for it, but at end of the day that's all subjective - and when that is so, it becomes impossible to say whether someone was objective or not in an objective manner.

I think I need to restate my points concerning Young and Rush. Yes, it seems I was applying a double standard to Rush and Young, but it was done on purpose, because there were a number of people already applying their own double standard, by virtue of it all being Rush's fault, when Young was the one who ordered the shuttle and none of the other scientists gave out warnings about the planet. So I mimicked the stance by showing how ridiculous it was to place blame all on one person and make it sound like they he literally pulled the trigger on a gun (in my case, Young). I actually feel there is plenty of "responsibility" to go around (not blame), because what happened to Riley was a bad accident. They go on risky missions to dangerous planets all the time, and this was just another one that they NEEDED to go on because they needed supplies. Do we blame Young for sending everyone to the TIME planet? After all, everyone died there. Do we blame Young for taking Scott and Greer with him to the TIME planet? After all, that led to their deaths.

Or do we accept that risk is necessary to gather things vital to living, and there is always a possibility of death, and thus we are simply seeking someone to blame because we need someone to blame? Much like Chloe throwing her tantrum after her father sacrificed himself to save everyone else?

No human is like that, no matter how well they're trained. An argument I've used in the past is, if the Stargate program is really so up on the training, then why were there so many inept (or worse, criminal) people working for the Stargate program? General Ryan in Chain Reaction, Colonel Everett in Siege Part 2, those guys who were secretly working for Maybourne, Maybourne himself, etc. etc. They were all cleared to work for the Stargate program in some capacity, and yet they all "turned to the dark side", so to speak.

Heh, Jack was. Mitchell. Carter. Teal'c. Sheppard, and a lot of people on Atlantis. Regardless of what emotional decisions they made,

Hell, there were a boat load of complaints made about the dumb decisions made by the Atlantis team, including letting the city administrator and the military commander get taken over by aliens willingly.

Part of Atlantis's mission is to make friendly contact with aliens, though. On Destiny, the main concern is survival itself, and the LA are a known quantity and what should have been done is obvious to everyone here. However, what was done put everyone in greater danger. It's interesting to note that Rush had to save everyone, though. So, in one respect, Rush has earned some slack for any blame people might attribute to him here.

Either we say they're all stupid and they shouldn't have been in the Stargate program (but were, somehow), or we accept that no training can erase human flaws.

No, but significantly reduce them. Perhaps you haven't been to military training, but you drilled and nearly brainwashed into certain procedures and behaviors. You are told over and over about the chain of command, of actions you should or should not take, and this is repeated again and again. It can't take all individuality out of you, but it takes a fair portion. You are trained to be a soldier. It's why all the military personnel accepted Scott without question when he took command in Air.

It should be noted that Maybourne was also taking orders... just not from the authority he should have.

[Mortock42]

I think the entire situation with Riley's death shouldn't be about blame and should be attributed to "Stuff happens".

Rush initially thought that hey, maybe this planet, that we are so close to, might have some food or supplies for us! Therefore, not wanting to pass up a rare opportunity to restock, he stopped the ship to allow a team to explore the planet. But because of his diminished state, he failed to realize that the planet and its atmosphere was treacherous. When he did finally realize this, he tried to warn the shuttle, showing that he did afterall have some compassion for its occupants.

Young made a decision on the information he had at the time. Ohh, habitable planet within shuttle range. There's a gate, but it's not functional. Lets see what the planet has, and if it does have food, lets try to fix the gate so we can connect. Just like Rush, he didn't want to pass up a rare opportunity to scout for supplies.

Trying to find blame in this situation is pointless. If someone wanted, they could point the finger all the way back to the beginning of time.... for instance, let's blame the ancients for not building the shuttle stronger...let's blame eli for figuring out how to work the gate, which is why they are all there to begin with.... let's blame the first little fish creature that set foot on land that eventually gave rise to the human race, and with it, Rush and Young. Blah!

[myhelix]

I loved that episode, I´ll give it 9/10. IMO it has the right amount of drama, discovery´s, humor and action, packed with some very cool effects.

Like:
- the Seeder Ship and the small corridors, like they are in a big machine, cool
- scene between TJ and Simeon, TJ goes kick ass on this guy and you already know that he is going to be a sneaky troublemaker
- the snarkiness between Rush and Young, and overall Rush sarcasms in this Episode was funny
- Brody and Volker
- Scott and Greer all excited about their discovery of the Gate Factory and Rush goes something like, "and, that´s it?" lol
- the new aliens, the one ow faints in front of Volker (probably because he saw an alien)
- I am beginning to like Telford
- Rush and Young going to some very dark places, character wise
- Gloria Rush maybe is conscience or the ship itself?
- the effects, top
- Young and Wray´s exchange, IMO Wray makes the right decision here bur Young is ignoring her concerns, again
- the little chat between Chloe and TJ

Dislike, not much but
- I can´t decide if I like the road the TJ and Varro storyline is going to take
- Telford get´s left behind, but I am sure that it was not the last time we have heard of him
- Rush, not saying that he has discovered the bridge (would saved him and others from a lot of trouble)
- not enough Greer, Eli and Scott
- wonder why nobody ask why Rush is constantly absent?
- Rush and Young going to some very dark places, character wise