The True Mission

[wingsabre]

For all we know, they'll find the hidden message and it'll be "All Along the Watchtower," or 42

[PG15]

I'm not keen on having the "Messengers" be the planet builders - that would mean we've met them already and...well, that's a bit of a let down. I'd rather we meet them later after some significant build up from the Ancient database on Destiny.

Now, as for this mission...I freaking love it. I love how it's different from your regular quest of defeating the bad guy - instead, the mission is about reaching a better understanding of the Universe and gathering knowledge!

And on that theme, it's great how the writers took one of the most important scientific discoveries of our time, the Cosmic Microwave Background, and used it to tell their story. That is so...science fiction. It's extra special for me since I spent a summer doing research on the CMB - this means that, if this were the Stargate world, I'd've been studying this hidden message without even knowing about it! That is so cool.

Now, the most mindblowing thing about this is, the density fluctuations in the CMB is related to where matter gathered after its formation - denser areas became galaxies and clusters of galaxies, while less dense areas became voids. This means that, if this message showed up as tiny density variations in the CMB, then they would've had an effect on where matter gathered. This message could very well have shaped the way matter is distributed in this Universe! That is insane! It's not just a message then - it's a set of instructions on how to put this Universe together! Like, put this galaxy here, put this one there, and then let gravity do its thing!

Oh yeah, and one more mindblowing thing: it was Carl Sagan Day today. The mission of Destiny, one of the quest of knowledge of the Cosmos, was revealed on the birthday of the man who gave us "Cosmos". As he said, we are a way for the Cosmos to know itself - that seems to be exactly what SGU is doing.

This could not have worked out better. Best SGU episode yet.

[Sami_]

Now, the most mindblowing thing about this is, the density fluctuations in the CMB is related to where matter gathered after its formation - denser areas became galaxies and clusters of galaxies, while less dense areas became voids. This means that, if this message showed up as tiny density variations in the CMB, then they would've had an effect on where matter gathered. This message could very well have shaped the way matter is distributed in this Universe! That is insane! It's not just a message then - it's a set of instructions on how to put this Universe together! Like, put this galaxy here, put this one there, and then let gravity do its thing!

Yeah its pretty interesting. A question I was asking myself is whether the distribution of matter was designed to create a certain pattern in the CMB that someone would find or the pattern is simply an unintended bi-product of whatever took place.

[Archetype]

Also just at whimsical thought. What if the Destiny is laying stargates in a pattern, a pattern that will somehow fire them all once for the purpose of revealing a part of the message clearly? Kind of like candles lit up in the night to spell something out. The ancients walk by and place the candles on little Xs. They know WHERE to lay, but they don't know WHAT they are laying out until they light it up and see that that it spells out something.

Cool idea. Any way they can work the stargates into the story would be great.

[ussrelativity]

This will take some sharp thinking to figure out.

[The Destiny]

PG15 said it in another thread.

It's 42.

There we go, mystery solved, all we have to do now is watch how the crew struggles to figure it out.

[Eternal Density]

All I have to say is: WOW, that's a pretty amazing mission! I was silently SQUEEEEing though that whole scene!

[Nth Chevron]

It's not looking for God, it's looking for the pattern behind the existence of reality itself. Doesn't have to be theological

I wonder if the message is a mathematical equation that allows someone who understands the equation to modify reality as they see it?

Kind of like Block Transfer Computations ala Doctor Who.

If it is something akin to that then i wouldnt expect it to be stupidly powerful like rewrite the colour of space to be beige with multicoloured banana's floating around.

I would expect subtle manipulation of the base code of the Universe, such as only modifying what you can without giving way to paradox's, causality problems etc etc like getting the blue screen of death on the monitor when your trying to modify the universe...

N.C

[Gurluas]

I believe relating it to the Ori would be interesting.
The Alterans were originally an united society, and I doubt that the Ori were not interested in understanding and science. It is most likely they chose to live the agrarian life based on their religion and it is possible that the reason most Alterans chose to follow Origin, which meant truth could be related to Destiny.

[Huaracocha]

You could argue it's only Rush's interpretation or hope that it could give you the sort of power he talks about. It could be anything really, from configuration instructions from the computer system that created the Big Bang at the end of the previous Big Crunch to the drive signature from Janus' time travelling puddle jumper when he popped back for a front row seat at the Big Bang. Or yes, the voice of God if you want to look at it that way.

It's certainly interesting and has the potential to give the crew a larger purpose - beyond arguing with each other, drinking moonshine and looking sweaty.

[nesais]

posted this in the other thread concerning the mission of destiny, as well as "the center of the universe" argument, and why there are stargates along the way. remember, this is also assuming that the writers are choosing to be as scientifically accurate as possible (at least what we currently consider to be)

does the universe have a center? maybe it does maybe it doesnt. like sami said, we dont know the exact curvature of spacetime. imagine that the universe exists on an annulus. i.e. look at the picture on this page. where is the center to this object? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annulus_(mathematics) not as easy to define a center is it.

so we might not be dealing with a center to space and time, i'm open to the idea that we could be going to some "other center" of something , guess we'll need to watch to find out

secondly, let's clarify about the mission:

the "structure", or the "message", or the "signal" is something we cannot gain more information about. the only information about it is in the radiation we get from the big bang. assuming the writers try to be as scientifically accurate as possible we aren't going to be flying around analysing a signal the whole time.

to explain why:

it's like if you take a photo of a seemingly perfectly smooth white wall with no structural defects (the universe at the beginning). then zoom in, zoom in further (the universe expands as times goes by), you'll start to see imperfections (galaxies, stars, other objects forming). if there was a "message" or a "structure" at the beginning of time, i.e. if you slap a symbol on your white wall in a different color, then that would be noticeable when you zoom in, not only that but it would influence the large scale structure of the universe as it expands over time. that's the point here: any defects in the universe at the beginning of its formation would result in large scale structural differences/defects in the universe. so if the writers are going to be scientifically accurate (no reason for them to be since it's science fiction), then we won't be analysing this message from the beginning of time, but we'll be analysing the affect of it over time as the universe evolved. the here and now results of it. we might even get to go to some strange objects in space that were caused by this.

this is just assuming the writers want to be scientifically accurate. they might choose to go floating round in space analysing a signal. but in my own opinion, it would be much cooler for the story and individual episodes if we were flying around going to objects, discovering places that we didnt expect.

concerning the stargates:

it's useful to explore the regions around where these "large scale structure" differences (as a result of the structure/message of the early universe) are, to see how it affects the life, the sentient beings, to see what it MEANS. i think that's why they even bothered to put stargates on these planets along the way, other than the fact its interesting to explore them for their own merits

[randomking]

I suspect the intelligence will be from a being or beings that survived the last big bang and they will eventually discover that there have been multiple big bangs throughout history.

this is my same thought...maby some "matrix" type of test will be wating to start another big bang or let the universe thrive
and the other alien's there encountering are all on a race there?

[beafly]

This thread however provides ample support that people are fantastic pattern matching machines and use them only to support their own perception of reality.

[nesais]

This thread however provides ample support that people are fantastic pattern matching machines and use them only to support their own perception of reality.

sure, everything is a perception, everyone has unique perceptions. but the writers have been known to use actual science on frequent occasions. we can say a lot about what might be ahead if we assume this holds true for the mission. (not that it will completely, since the writers have begun to go into a vague unknown territory of cosmology)

[Nemises]

The mission doesn't have anything to do with God because god is percieved as being natural and rush clearly stated that what they were after wasn't natural.