'Common Descent' (217) General Discussion

[Pharaoh Atem]

THESE gates PRE-DATE the SG-1 and SGA gates. It makes sense they would be a weaker and less-advanced gate!!

plus they have to be made and planted on a planet quickly by the seed ship so i'm sure the ancients made sure the gates materials wwere simple .

[tomaso88]

shouldnt of they ascended like if they ahve been around that long shouldnt their evolution be a lot further similar to the ancients since the asgard said we aren't that far behind well jack wasn't so should of they ascended or have powers?

[Space Gate12]

I have to agree with you, I was disappointed that it was so "perfect". There is no way they could have built those houses after 10 years without electric saws (my family owned a lumber yard and built a few homes). Where would they have gotten all the metal to fashion tools?

Also all the men were cleanly shaven when TJ was giving birth in the grass hut. Minor things but a little too much suspension of disbelief.

Yes, Not to mention injection molded plastic housings (case) for the solar panel. If it were just a solar panel with wires sticking out of it that would have been better. But its just one prop so Im not going to have a cow over it.

[Kaiphantom]

Interesting episode. I'll say first off, that we had more deliberate confirmation that there are 3 docking slips, since we have two shuttles (attached to the two forward slips) and yet they still had the rear facing one available to launch the drone out of. I wonder if people will still deny it? ;p

Anyway, decent episode overall. I think we all pretty much figured who those people were going to be, but I didn't quite expect 2,000 years to go by. Although when I heard that, I admit I was hoping to see that, somehow, they'd find a well-advanced civilization that could help repair Destiny somewhat. I still hold out some hope, because I'm betting more humans went off world through the gate and started other colonies. And given such a city (and nuclear weapons), I'm betting they had to have had at least a couple of ships.

As for the drones, I don't think they were created on Novis. Eli and Rush studied one, and would have been able to tell right away if it was human technology.

Now, as for Rush, my opinion as someone who understands him, is that he is just plain uncomfortable with the idea of being thought of as anything more than a man. He might also be uncomfortable with the idea of a fully developed planet where the crew might want to disembark and live out their lives there. It would have to be tempting to some, to get off the ship and live in a modern world again, even if it wasn't Earth.

I won't go into genetic diversity much, nor how they made some of the stuff, other than to say that human ingenuity shouldn't be underestimated, and going back through our own history, you'll find some interesting stuff developed many hundreds of years before you thought. Given people who already knew science, it's very possible.

11 Modern Technologies That Are Way Older Than You Think (Warning: Cracked.com can be a bit NSFW, but it's not too bad).

Pursue that article, and you'll be amazed; and again, that's with people who were merely guessing at times. Notice that batteries were actually invented in 200 BC. Pretty crazy, eh?

Now, back to the episode, although not much else to say. I did expect someone to mention the stasis pods at some point; it would have been the clear solution. Power wouldn't be an issue, when they can drop out and dip into a sun, but they would save on the CO2 scrubbers and supplies. It'll be interesting to see what the next episode does, because I fully expect that to be addressed if the people plan to stay on board.

Although, Destiny is a big ship. It would be interesting to see the crew expanded and the ship more fully occupied, with more people helping to repair it and such. As hinted, I expect more people to stay, so the only real remaining issue is food. Although they have a larger hydroponics bay now, and I'm sure they can establish more of those around the ship, so in time, they should be able to grow enough fruit and veggies for everyone.

But mainly, I'm getting a bit tired of having the ship falling apart all the time. I didn't want it to quite be like Atlantis, but I would have liked to see them make more progress on repairs. Still holding out some hope that the advanced humans survived somewhere, and they can get some better spare parts and repair tools.

I'm also a bit puzzled... Destiny has obviously been through a number of battles, yet almost every fight since they've been aboard has been a real dire situation with Destiny on the verge of being destroyed. I know it's for drama, but it doesn't quite track well with me. I really feel the ship should be handling better, especially since it has been pretty much shown before that the shield is all encompassing as long as it has power; nothing should be getting through.

But I digress. Decent episode, no real holes otherwise. Looking forward to seeing what comes next.

[BadOnion]

Just a guess, not a spoiler, but I think the stasis pods will eventually come in to play as to what to do with all those extra people they are now stuck with.

[SBN]

Sorry forgot to reply with quote

I have to agree with you, I was disappointed that the village so "perfect". There is no way they could have built those houses after 10 years without electric saws (my family owned a lumber yard and built a few homes). Where would they have gotten all the metal to fashion tools?

Also all the men were cleanly shaven when TJ was giving birth in the grass hut. Minor things but a little too much suspension of disbelief.

I think a group of normal everyday people caught out in the wild surely would have problems building anything resembling a decent village much less society. But this is a mix of military and science. I don't think it would take that long to identify resources that could be used to easily make tools, which could them be used to manufacture even more complex tools. Ten years is a lot of time, and should that planet which looked very lush with resources, should have given them all the opportunity to develop quickly. We have to assume they were able to find a natural resource for food which was easily attainable. With that in mind then more energy and time could be devoted to development.

So 10 years does sound at least plausible for me. Had it been 2 or 5 I would have thrown my coffee at the screen.

[KEK]

Yes, the crew was well educated, but except for military survival training most of them wouldn't have the skills (forget the theoretical knowledge about physics and math - much of it wouldn't be of much use) to build anything more than the most primitive of medieval villages - there just wouldn't be enough laborers.

You're talking about 2000 years worth of refinement and population growth aided by kinos (presumably) packed full of recorded knowledge from scientist and engineers. You don't they could reach our level of development? Hell, within a generation or two they could have running water and electricity, imagine what they could have in 2000 years.

[LeonK]

Liked this episode more than last week's.

Did find it odd, though, that the colony had no form of entertainment, like their version of a gameboy or tv.....and also that they didn't seem to have any real weapons other than a knife.....and why didn't they have some form of vehicle? Are they advanced enough to build giant cities or aren't they?

Meh, strangely enough the little annoying things don't seem so annoying to me tonight, probably because I liked the episode more than last week's.

[BadOnion]

this colony was cut off abruptly before they got everything they needed to function independently

[Airlock]

You're talking about 2000 years worth of refinement and population growth aided by kinos (presumably) packed full of recorded knowledge from scientist and engineers. You don't they could reach our level of development? Hell, within a generation or two they could have running water and electricity, imagine what they could have in 2000 years.

senilegreen wasn't referring to the "descendants." The comment was about the Destiny crew that had just arrived on that planet and had to build a village from scratch. As Col. Young says, "with our bare hands."

[KEK]

I'd have to re-watch, but it didn't look that advanced did it?

[Julian]

This episode had a classic feel, total awesome, can't wait for next weeks

+1. SGU has been getting better and better and it's such a shame. I really felt like this week's and two weeks ago's episodes were so reminiscent of SG-1 it's making me feel so nostalgic but very fond of SGU.

I love the concept of the civilisation created by the Destiny...

[Kilgharrah]

Ok, so I loved this one.
These people somehow remind me of Athosians. Advanced people forced to live in tents.
To think that people from our generation become the Ancients to these people. Just the thought of it...
Who knows??? Maybe they are more advanced now than THE Ancients that built Destiny.
That's why I think they would have evacuated by now. They could have built ships too. Who knows. They could have even re-built the civilizations.
Of course there would be disagreements and maybe even wars. They are still us even if they are more advanced. It's a shame technological advancements doesn't help us solve our problems or even make us more civilized. Not to mention that their ancestors already had their disagreements in addition to some new ones that must have formed later back then.

I just thought I'd discuss few stuff in this episode and say what fascinated me about it, but I'm not gonna give a full analysis or even rate this episode like I do with every other episode until I see the continuity.

Edit: I believe the drones are going (or in other words coz SGU is over, were supposed) to be just like the Wraith. They will appear everywhere to interrupt them and prolong the episode

[Shokada]

Going back to the idea of the Futurans creating the drones, does anybody think that it could have been alternate universe Rush for some higher purpose? After all, he did upload his consciousness to alt Destiny and was heading towards a star (possible time travel again). I'm thinking that the AI of the drones could be the consciousness of Rush. I can't see that the writers will go without telling us who the creators are. This episode raised this thought for me.

[Shadow_7]

Clearly they didn't create the drones. They didn't seem to have any space capabilities beyond just the gate. They didn't even recognize the drones. Even the city looked a bit low tech on the surface. If they created the drones, they probably wouldn't have roads. Much less tents or radio towers that fall over in the wind. So it had a little help, but still if they'd been there 30 years, they certainly didn't look to be settling in any.

Otherwise great episode. People to see, things to learn. Something that's been missing from most of SGU so far.

And other inconsistencies of sorts. For them to be there 2,000 years, the planets would have had to have been seeded 2,000+ years ago. So either the seed ships are faster and/or sent out more than just a couple of years before Destiny. And if more than a couple of years, probably not "the resources of an entire generation". But perhaps several generations. And for a 2,000 year old gate, it certainly didn't seem to be overgrown with vegetation. And/or burried in dust/dirt.