'Seizure' (215) General Discussion

[D Toccs]

When it comes to LA taking over the planet ad unsafely dialing tha gate, killing thousands then possibly destroying the planet, would Langara THEN "risk" letting earth safely dial the gate. Would the risk then be worth it? or would they say "nahhhh, well just let these guys have their go first. if we dont blow up, then you can come and save us and maybe then we will let you have a go"

Langara was never opposed to Earth dialing the gate, all they wanted was for their scientists to review the data, which is entirely reasonable. Langara constantly refused the LA's offers because they wanted to preserve their alliance with Earth, they were counting on Earth's protection from the LA.
All Earth had to do was defend the planet while McKay walked their scientists through the data. It might have taken months, but every indication was that once their scientists were happy the Langarans would have allowed Earth to dial Destiny.

Instead by doing what they did, Earth ends up protecting the planet anyway as part of a bargain to get prisoners back. The facility is dismantled meaning no one gets to dial Destiny, and diplomatic relations are probably severely damaged.

[Pecisk]

The part where that matters? So, you are telling me if you were in charge, you'd risk the lives of an entire planet to save 80 people and a rust bucket? You'd risk screwing over allies?

There is also that I don't buy the LA as some sort of major threat. Did not the Goa'uld prevent humans from advancing technologically. Wasn't earth mostly a unique fluke? How are they repairing their formly Goa'uld ships. How do they make more after we destroy them. They had to steal Rush to dial Destiny last time.

Even if there is a weapon on Destiny, it would be far less advanced than the ones on Atlantis, and what threat is it to the Milky Way?

Why are the LA going to be more of a threat in a few months after the Langaran's check the calculations to their own satisfaction than they are right now?

Screwing over "allies" which are probably making a deal with people who tried to nuke city with several million people? And I didn't say that it was right decision to make, but looking over, Telford had a very clear reason to be very angry and suspicious. He was nearly killed for frack sake, as several million people.

And please simply don't go how you don't buy that LA is serious enemy. It is now. Show says so. Just because you fixate on SG-1 view on them it doesn't mean that they are now fracking serious about their intents. They are now. "Alliances". In fact, making LA as "Al Queda" type of enemy is perfect twist from original series which I love.

They had to steal Rush because they had to dial to Destiny from very unstable planet. Rush said that isn't possible to do so. He was right.

About weapon - how can you be so sure? Destiny is old, that's quite sure, but it is only one with several secrets. It is not unpopular to discover nightmarish ways to destroy life just to abandon it later. It is also outpost of Ancient knowledge, with all it's limitess info about Ascension, thousand galaxies, resources, etc. You can't also easily drive them out if they get a stronghold there. Should I go on?

Because they suspected that LA have already made pact with Langarans. They had lot of facts to chew on. I can easily see how military and political leadership gave accept for this mission. It was very urgent, as Earth team on Destiny wouldn't withstand other attack.

[traylormatt]

I added some more to my post above.

It is a very educated guess. Then opening a tin can with a can opener COULD take a finger off, but after developing it we have now worked out how to do it and it is pretty damn safe. The minds working on the problem of the gate have determined it to be safe. Everything is ALWAYS a guess. We understand how some things kinda work but we always still test it then we decide if it is safe. They have decided it is safe.

Teal'c was not an engineer or sent to build anything. He was a warrior. Do you think that a Colonel could build a Nuke? or a pilot could build a jet fighter? hell no, couldnt even begin to. The engineers that built it for him could though.

And yes the threat could never happen, but the point s that it i there. Some one puts a gun to your head and says we are going to pull the trigger unless you do jump off a bridge. Someone else comes along and says "we can protect you from that bullet, we need you to jump of the bridge too, but we will save you with a bungee cord. There could possibly be unforseen problems with the cord but we are confident it is a better chance of survival than them just making you jump without"

[Kaiphantom]

You can not just say "good writing" is the answer to the problem.

Had to respond to this. I'm sorry, but this is really bad reasoning. The quality of writing is always up for critical review. There have been episodes with good writing, and episodes with bad. And you can't just excuse the bad with "Um, so what if it's bad; you can't point that out! Nobody pay attention to the man behind the curtain!"

And boy, was this episode a letdown. Now they're making Earth so incredibly stupid. Seriously, they couldn't wait a couple of months? After it's been almost 2 years since Icarus? They felt they needed to move faster because they didn't want to let the LA attack Destiny again.

Um, Hello? Did everyone suddenly forget that they can remove the atmosphere from the gate room? There won't be another successful attack on Destiny (unless Young is stupid again, which I have to admit is possible). The first group didn't get any information back to the LA; so far as the LA is concerned, they lost. I could have bought one rogue element possibly being this fanatically motivated to get to Destiny... but the whole LA? A bunch of thieves are united in trying to get to what is essentially a rust bucket so far out in space that there is no chance of getting any information or technology back to our galaxy?

A thief goes for the low-hanging fruit; more reward for less effort. Destiny is not a low-hanging fruit.

The_Asgard_Live is right; the reasons are not explained well or contrived or hold up poorly to critical review. I can imagine how the conversation in the writing room went:

Writer #1: "Um, you know, some of our fans will ask about Langara, considering they have naquadria. We should really address that."
Writer #2: "Well, we don't want to establish a supply line from Earth to Destiny yet, so we address it, we have to make sure it doesn't succeed."
#3: "But how? Langara is an ally of Earth that we've helped several times before! It pretty much has to succeed!"
#2: "I know, we'll have Earth mess it up somehow! They'll do something stupid!"
#1: "Suddenly do stupid? Against one of their allies? What possible reason would they have to do this?"
#2: "Um, we can have them think the LA is going to take over Langara!"
#1: "But Earth would know that if the LA had the capability to do that, they would have by now. And why would a bunch of thieves be so interested in Destiny, anyway?"
#2: "We just won't explain, then. I'm sure more ardent fans will ignore any plot holes or make up their own reasons to justify things. We don't need to explain. And if you keep asking questions, you're fired!"

It's a shame, too. Woolsey, right after his line about "we'll have no part in this" immediately does a 180 and betrays those principles to help them with their stupid plan. Is it too much to ask for consistency?

I was really looking forward to this episode, not the least of which was for McKay. But why was he there? A line about "recently discovered some calculations in the Atlantis database that will make the dialing program safe and easy" would have been nice. Justify the man's presence and make a mention of Atlantis at the same time. No mention of that, or Jonas. I understand if the actor wasn't available or couldn't be written in. But they made mention of Sheppard (which they didn't need to), so their lack of a Jonas mention is all the more glaring because of it.

In short, this episode was one they needed to address, but I can understand their fear of wanting to do so because of plot holes they wouldn't be able to address.

Moving on... the Rush storyline felt a little out of place. it was understandable, but I have to wonder why the parameter condition didn't work. Felt like a bit of "because the writers say so" type of thing as a way to get Mandy and Ginn out of the picture for now; because seriously, why Ginn, too? And what about Franklin? Surely the two would have run into him by now, unless he's not really there, and his image and memories are just part of the ship.

I might have been looking forward to this episode a bit too much, and thus my expectations were a bit high. But the LA angle was always poorly thought out and poorly developed, and even acknowledged as stupid in the show itself (so you know the writers are screwing with us), and now we have to drag Earth into the stupidity.

Once upon a time, I was disappointed at SGU's cancellation. That disappointment seems to be fading more and more with each episode. Shame, too, since the rest of the season started fairly strong with Deliverance and Twin Destinies. JM may not have liked the Ancients, but maybe the writers should have stuck to them and mostly ignored the LA.

[The_Asgard_live]

I read that and replied to that post. But I asked you what would be acceptable? Sure 80 may not be enough, what would be. When it comes to LA taking over the planet ad unsafely dialing tha gate, killing thousands then possibly destroying the planet, would Langara THEN "risk" letting earth safely dial the gate. Would the risk then be worth it? or would they say "nahhhh, well just let these guys have their go first. if we dont blow up, then you can come and save us and maybe then we will let you have a go"

I'm pretty much just repeating myself at this point, but...

That is not the choice. The Langaran's could just disconnect the gate from drawing power from the core. Move it somewhere else. What are the LA going to do? Take over the planet, build facilities it is not established they technologically capable of building on their own? No one tries to stop them? The threat is the same now or months from now.

and I did not ignore. Clearly you seem to be ignoring my point. They went there to make the viewers happy. they can't then keep delving deeper and deeper to just make YOU happy, or the others like you that want x y or z answer. Because then what about the other fans that want to know a, b or c answered. They added those to make you happy and make fans happy but then people get greedy and say they want more. Sure to you it is totally logical to include other stuff that you want to know, but that doesnt mean everyone else wants it.

I am saying its not greed. Talking about Teal'c = Greed. Addressing Atlantis while McKay, Woolsey and Sheppard are mentioned makes sense within the plot. So does mentioning Jonas while focusing the episode around his planet.

what baffles me is people who say they know good writing - why don't you write for a sci-fi show then? then it could be as you like. If you know good writing so well, the surely you could get a pilot picked up and make it a smash hit. Obviously you can't, and that is nothing against you, it is because it is extremely difficult to write for television or films and make them actual hits that appeal to more than a select few people.

Now this is silly. Whether a person has the talent to create art has no bearing on whether or not they can critique it, or recognize its beauty or reject its ugliness. And no offense to SGU fans, I knew enough about what appeals to the masses to know this show was doomed after the first couple episodes.

You could undoubtably write something that appeals to you and answers all of your questions. But that does not make it good writing by any standard. This really is not a personal attack but simply that a lot of people seem to think they know what is "best" and how to write well.

Some do. You seem to think your one of them based on your comments.

[knowles2]

Its not zero risk. Its a guess.

I'm guessing otherwise. In one of the early episodes Teal'c said he (and by implication the Jaffa) had no knowledge of how Gao'uld tech works, and he was first prime. I doubt slaves would know more.

As I said, mostly unique.

That is true of any galaxy in any direction. And the LA's interest in Destiny predates their knowledge of the planet builders (so far as we know) if they even have knowledge of them.

They could decide to do that now or in a few months. Its the same threat.

But then we also know that Sokar people and the planet he had as his capital was pretty technologically advance, looked like a very advance city was built there.

I suspect that there is and are groups of humans out there, in which the Go'uld taught all about there technology. Plus the Jaffa knew perfectly well how to control Ha'taks and fly them and repair the battle damage inflicted upon them. We seen humans able to heavily modified Go'uld cargo vessel with weapons able to disable other vessels engines and shields. We seen that Jaffa Nation was able to reconfigure the Dakara weapon. We also know that the rebellious Jaffa of the past had enough technical to reverse engineer ancient technical diagrams and build themselves wristbands to cloak themselves and to control a ancient transporter network. An to redesign the staff weapon into a smaller version.



Or may be Apophis just did not teach his people about his technology but other systems lords did.

We also never saw the numbers of Go'uld required to build entire mother ships and cities and slaves will only get you so much work done without giving them some training and technological info.

I suspect in reality the writers ignored Teal'c statement made in season 1 of the series.

[Starsaber]

Yes he is a former member of SG1, but no member of SG1 went to the planet, no one that worked with Jonas during his time at SGC went to the planet. Any mention of him would have been an "oh so Jonas used to work there, thats nice". it would have been a polite question about the actions of a person none of them have any personal stake or interest in (on the earth side that is). It would have just been a glaring and obvious shout out to older SG1 fans.

The Langaran ambassador could have said he'd have Jonas look at Rodney's plan instead of more generic "experts". With his experience on Earth, he probably would be their leading expert on the Stargate.

Though to be honest, I would have preferred an update on what's going on with Atlantis, this way of referencing Jonas wouldn't have taken any additional time.

[Naonak]

Really disappointed in this episode. After the last few episodes i was sad that this show got cancelled. But after tonight im back to being glad.

Sorry, but... Fickle much?

[morbosfist]

The Langaran ambassador could have said he'd have Jonas look at Rodney's plan instead of more generic "experts". With his experience on Earth, he probably would be their leading expert on the Stargate.

Which would be stupid. Jonas is not an astrophysicist, he's a junior archeologist/nuclear engineer.

[The_Asgard_live]

But then we also know that Sokar people and the planet he had as his capital was pretty technologically advance, looked like a very advance city was built there.

I suspect that there is and are groups of humans out there, in which the Go'uld taught all about there technology. Plus the Jaffa knew perfectly well how to control Ha'taks and fly them and repair the battle damage inflicted upon them. We seen humans able to heavily modified Go'uld cargo vessel with weapons able to disable other vessels engines and shields. We seen that Jaffa Nation was able to reconfigure the Dakara weapon. We also know that the rebellious Jaffa of the past had enough technical to reverse engineer ancient technical diagrams and build themselves wristbands to cloak themselves and to control a ancient transporter network. An to redesign the staff weapon into a smaller version.



Or may be Apophis just did not teach his people about his technology but other systems lords did.

We also never saw the numbers of Go'uld required to build entire mother ships and cities and slaves will only get you so much work done with giving them some training.

I suspect in reality the writers ignored Teal'c statement made in season 1 of the series.

Yeah I more or less agree with what you are saying.

That the Free Jaffa or LA have the know how they do has always bugged me and seemed like an inconsistency in the writing. If these guys can repair/build/reverse engineer tech that they were forbidden to learn - what is the hang up with earth building creating anything and everything in the Ancient/Asgard databases.

To me, the LA should have been a minor threat. There are limited Gao'uld ships remaining. Have one of earth ships fly around picking them off for a couple months, and then what do they do? And how did they even acquire these empty ships? Why didn't we beat them to it? We would have had more resources/know how than recently freed populations. We also with the help of the Tok'ra, knew exactly where the ships were since we could track them.

[traylormatt]

It is greed because it is not something to progress anything, just fulfill fans curiosity. I am all for that stuff, I am just saying it is certainly not needed.

You aren;t just repeating yourself. You said 80 vs billions. So i asked an acceptable number. You can get around it by saying to just disconnect etc, but i asked a different question you still have not answered. What would be an acceptable number. And by disconnecting the gate wouldnt help. The LA come and over power them and force them to get the facility up and running again.

It is also not silly. You were not simply saying you thought it was good or bad .You were giving input as to what you would put in place to make it better. You were seeming to say you could write in lines to make it better. That is not critique. Thet is assuming you can write better.

I am under no impression that I could write. I have could not write a film, I could not write a tv show, I could barely write a short story. I do however study television and film and it is my profession. this does not make me better than you or worse than you, simply stating that it is what i dedicate my time to. I would say that the writing is neither good nor bad just because they do not include a line or two about a topic they do not NEEd to talk about. It would certainly be nice to mention Jonas or to mention Atlantis, but they do not NEED to. They included McKay and Woolsey which was nice, they did not NEED to do that either, but CHOSE to. for their own reasons. The only time the writing I find to be bad, is when they ignore previously established things. Changing the age of Destiny, or atlantis or when people left or came back. When they do this, I find it to be bad and they are changing something to fit thrit needs. that is bad writing/research. Not including Jonas or Atlantis is neither good nor bad. What it seems a lot of people don;t understand is that the season is not over yet. We do not know if they will adress Atlantis or say a mention to anything else. Mayb they were bringin McKay in because in the future he would have appeared more. who know? The writers know.

[Trinary]

This episode remind me why SGU got canceled from SyFy channel. A direction that could cause the story becoming lame and has nothing in it.

I preferred the Langaran SG facility under the siege by the LA, instead. The LA that possessing Goa'uld weaponry don't have to wait to take anything they want. A rescue mission from SG-1, SGA and SGU team to free the facility should be interesting enough to show the scale of the threat by the LA around the galaxy to the new SG viewers. Rather than a hear say about the LA were so crazy in getting an access to destiny. The LA without Rush or Eli, is a no go to destiny. Period.

[traylormatt]

It would have been great to have a line or two about Atlantis or maybe had someone mention Jonas. I am happy with the writing, I think given who was in the episode and what was happening, they did not need to mention Jonas or Atlantis.

But for the sake of this arguement I have tried to think of something that I believe would have worked to fill both of those and would have made sense, rather than two strangers talking about someone they hadnt met (the earth side that is)

Had maybe one of the SG1 members gone along, well Sam/Jack/Teal'c, then they could have asked after Jonas.

Sam - "Im sorry that Jonas couldn't make it. Its been too long since we last spoke" or something about missing him, blah blah blah.

Langaran - "He sends his regards. Unfortunately he is off world etc etc"

Sam would make sense as she would actually have a reason to mention Jonas outside of any official capacity, but simply because they were friends.

Also for Atlantis, MCkay could have made some passing comment to her about it.

Sam - "Rodney, how is everything in Atlantis"

Rodney - "Not the same since being back on earth really. You've been missed though. Well not your mind, ha, they have me for that, but youre, uhmm" (assuming it is still on earth and not returned to Pegasus)

Woolsey "Rodney"

Rodney - "Huh, yeah, any way, it's nice to see you"


But obviously not thoss EXACT scenarios as like I said, I am no writer. But I would have only liked them to bring it up if there were the correct people to do so. Even the Shep comment seemed forced.

[ns2]

The writers didn't want to put a constraint on themselves by stating Atlantis' location in case they have to change the script for the movie or other stuff come up

You don't want to waste ZPM cause that's how Atlantis is powered and is beeing cloaked in the Milky Way

[The_Asgard_live]

It is greed because it is not something to progress anything, just fulfill fans curiosity. I am all for that stuff, I am just saying it is certainly not needed.

Your premise seems to be this show only ever includes items that progress the story. How did McKay staring at James rack, and the awkward, "after you" progress anything? Funny, sure. McKay, definitely. Progress anything? No. Answering where Jonas was or mentioning Atlantis would have been more meaningful in progressing various stories.

You aren;t just repeating yourself. You said 80 vs billions. So i asked an acceptable number. You can get around it by saying to just disconnect etc, but i asked a different question you still have not answered. What would be an acceptable number. And by disconnecting the gate wouldnt help. The LA come and over power them and force them to get the facility up and running again.

80 did not have their lives in danger. It was risk billions to supply 80. The danger came from the LA, so take away the focus of their attention. Disconnect the gate. If they attack, then it is in the Earth's interest to try to stop them. (and they can attack just the same if the Langaran's agreed to let earth use the facilities as they could if they didnt), which is how the show ended. I don't have an answer for you. How many would be acceptable? 80 people not currently in jeopardy isn't worth forcibly taking over an allies facilities. Not when there are alternatives.

It is also not silly. You were not simply saying you thought it was good or bad .You were giving input as to what you would put in place to make it better. You were seeming to say you could write in lines to make it better. That is not critique. Thet is assuming you can write better.

It is silly for the reasons I said. Also, again, you missing the point. The original post I replied to said there was no reasonable way to mention Atlantis or Jonas. I explained why I believe it makes more sense to mention them than not within the context of the story (more than Sheppard getting a mention) and how it could be done.

I am under no impression that I could write. I have could not write a film, I could not write a tv show, I could barely write a short story. I do however study television and film and it is my profession. this does not make me better than you or worse than you, simply stating that it is what i dedicate my time to. I would say that the writing is neither good nor bad just because they do not include a line or two about a topic they do not NEEd to talk about. It would certainly be nice to mention Jonas or to mention Atlantis, but they do not NEED to.

I'm not under the impression that I can't write. I've never pursued it to know. I also don't disqualify anyone else from having that potential either simply because they haven't tried. And as I said, it has no bearing on being able to critique.

Which kind of ties into another thread about accepting ideas/work from fans.