Trinity (206)

[John Preston]

I watched the first 3-5 minutes of it and then stopped.

Why?

First off, they show up in their little jumper flying along, and that's fine and all and they have their banter going about(And I really thought Dex was Ford for a moment, it just doesn't feel like he's gone).

Then there's this big massive graveyard in space.

And they're saying "It's from 10,000 years ago".


NOW HOLD ON.

If it was that long ago the fricking junk would've been pulled into the atmosphere of the planet! There is no way in 10,000 years a large planet with seeming normal Earth Gravity could have a bunch of free floating junk! Satellites for Earth need to use little rockets to alter their alignment. A lot of space junk falls into Earth's atmosphere(and some burns up) because it runs out of power and gets sucked down.

Given 10,000 years the planet should've been somewhat covered with the remains(Which might've been neat...seeing large hive ship carcasses on a desolate wasteland).

Then there was the "There's a power source! It's coming from there!" and I swear that I was saying almost word for word what they were saying at that point, because it was predictable.

And of course they'd find a weapon.

And of course there'd be problems.

It felt very generic, like they needed something to fill up the season.

[SophieTucker]

Thanks for explaining the Trinity reference, I wasn't getting it either.

I realize if I knew a person like Rodney in real life - I probably wouldn't like him. The reason I've liked him onscreen is that DH is such a terrific actor he's been able to give a redeeming quality to the character. And last season I really enjoyed the McKay/Sheppard scenes. We haven't really seen much of that this season and this ep makes me wonder if we ever will again. I did feel a sense of pity for Rodney at the end.

What I do find interesting is how much more "wrong" people seem to find Rodney's ego than when other characters make such catastrophic mistakes. Remember Collins death wasn't a result of Rodney's "obsession" it happened before - although he did put Sheppards life at risk and that was definitely a disappointment for me with his character.

But other Atlantis members have also put lives at risk because of their "confidence" in their ability. I think Hot Zone was one of those episodes - Weir was going to let the city be exposed to a level 4 pathogen because she believed she could "talk down" a person clearly not thinking on a rational level. I marvel that she could still be in command of Atlantis with such reckless decision making. Sheppard also made some bad decisions in that episode. And did Sheppard put the entire city at risk when he didn't try to stop Ford from escaping? It just seems that while all the characters are flawed - it's Rodney's flaws that seem less "forgiveable".

The Ronon/Teyla sideline didn't do much for my opinion of Ronon. I thought it interesting that Teyla and Ronon now have secrets from the "others".

[alaskannut]

If it was that long ago the fricking junk would've been pulled into the atmosphere of the planet! There is no way in 10,000 years a large planet with seeming normal Earth Gravity could have a bunch of free floating junk! Satellites for Earth need to use little rockets to alter their alignment. A lot of space junk falls into Earth's atmosphere(and some burns up) because it runs out of power and gets sucked down.

I'll admit that I have not seen "Trinity" yet so I don't know the height at which the "grave yard" was orbiting. That said though;

that is not quite how it works--the "junk" that falls into the Earths atmosphere is primarily comprised of used stages from launcher rockets, with the odd satellite from low orbit (~200-400 miles altitude) where the atmosphere, however tenuous it is, still exerts some drag and the planets gravitational pull is much, much more prevalent. Beyond this altitude, bar unforeseen circumstances, a satellite is essentially there for the duration, and will generally only reenter if ordered to from the ground once it is deemed obsolete and thus expendable. Indeed a major avenue of research today is into methods of deorbiting satellites without using bulky fuel (to lower launch costs), since there are so many in orbit (since they don't tend to come down on their own), that as strange as it may sound, we are quite simply running out of "orbital slots" to put new ones into.

[keppiezbt]

i think the point of this episode was to show mckay couldn't get himself out of every situation and he wasnt perfect.

they were starting a trend where mckay saves the day and the point of this episdoe was to knock him down a few pegs...

[Hatcheter]

At this rate it'll only be a couple more eps before Teyla starts showing up to briefings with black eyes and bruises and saying she fell down the stairs or ran into a door and that Ronon would never hurt her on purpose...

<silliness snipped>

...Teyla is being written as a battered woman who makes excuses for her man while deluding herself into thinking she's in control of things.

I sure hope this was written in jest. Teyla, abused? Did you miss the knife she held to Ronon's throat? She'd have slit it if he tried to harm her.

I thought this was a great episode. Good development for most all the major characters. Rodney revealed how obsessed and tunnel-visioned he can get, refusing to heed the advice of Zelenka or others. And it's always nice, IMO, when a show is willing to nock its heroes down a peg or two.

I liked Caldwell's part, interesting to see him and Sheppard siding together to try to convince Weir. And her later dressing down of Rodney.

Teyla got to show some development as well. I think Dex is a great addition to the cast, if for no other reason then Teyla now has someone she can relate to. It was hard to give her anything to do when she was surrounded by people making remarks on things she was unfamiliar with. (ferris wheels?)

[A Whiter Shade]

I have to agree with the earlier poster that once again the episode was seriously lacking in beleivability! My big hang up this episode is the super gun destroying the entire planet.

Assuming that the planet's land masses were spread out like on earth there is absolutely positively no way a energy gun could wipe everything out because it shoots in straight lines! A vast majority of the planet would be outside its "line of site".

Sam thing applies to the wraith ships. If they didn't want to get blown up, and who would, all they needed to do was keep on the opposite side of the planet as the gun.

Granted it's not as bad as assuming several wraith patrol ships only need 12 prisoners to survive, but it's still pretty bad.

[prion]

At this rate it'll only be a couple more eps before Teyla starts showing up to briefings with black eyes and bruises and saying she fell down the stairs or ran into a door and that Ronon would never hurt her on purpose.

Say what? Hello? She pulled the knife on him, remember? If he hit, she'd hit him back and she CAN hit.

Ronon has a lot of issues. Mostly violence and rage, but also an alchohol problem, too. These aren't the sort of problems that build character or something that a relationship can fix. They're the type of problems that end up with Ronon hurting someone. (Hurt as in 'kill', not hurt as in 'feelings').

Having the character get drunk ONCE is not an alcohol problem. If he had an alcohol problem, he'd be dead. You can't get drunk and be on alert for the wraith 24/7. Howver, he does have 'anger management' issues. He has been accountable to no one but himself for years, and that showed when he shot Kell, although his former comrades in arms didn't disagree with his tactic. Makes you wonder what kind of world he came from.

And with each bad act, Teyla gets closer to him. She's going on a friendly trading mission and Ronon wants to make it a date. Teyla says sure, and then tells him to just bring concealable weapons. Huh? What? How about telling the ex-kidnapper not to bring any weapons at all because they're just going to the store to buy some seeds? But no, Teyla likes her men dangerous. And guess what happens during the negotiations? Ronon brandishes his knife and threatens a man. Now at this point. Teyla should be thinking that maybe Ronon needs to leave. But no, she gives him a good stern talking to, instead. I'm sure that'll work.

Teyla talks first, then resorts to action (violence) only if necessary. She's the leader of her people and if she used violence first, well, she wouldn't last long. I'm not sure where you get the idea that she likes her men 'dangerous.'


This is so by the book that it can't be an accident in the writing. Teyla is being written as a battered woman who makes excuses for her man while deluding herself into thinking she's in control of things.

This is the 3rd episode where this type of stuff happens so it can't be dismissed as a fluke.

If this were BSG, I'd give some credence to such a theory, but Teyla a battered woman? Uh uh.

[prion]

I have mixed feelings about this episode but somehow I think that that was the intention of TPTB. I like that they show how fallible Rodney is and how his arrogance gets the better of him, which is something that they never really managed to do on SG-1 very well, but at the same time I found myself thinking that even someone as conceited as McKay wouldn't put that many people are risk (the first time when everyone was telling him to shut it down) just because he was caught up. However, I think it's good that I was a bit disturbed. It gives you something to think about and I really hope that the consequences of this episode are addressed down the line.

Yup. Someone needs to make a video to "Blinded by Science" for Rodney in this episode. Like you, I hope the consequences/followup occur to this episode. Rodney was great in this episode - well, Hewlett was - Rodney was going a bit around the bend. Of course, he's been through a heckuva lot - saving the city, etc. in "Siege", being nearly killed by Ford, being sorta possessed by Cadman in "Duet." Maybe when Rodney 'snaps', it's not your typical go nuts type scenario, but just thinking he CAN do it all.


As far as the Teyla/Dex storyline goes I actually quite enjoyed it. It gave more insight into both Teyla and Dex's characters and they, like McKay, were found fallible in their own ways (just not on as large of a scale as poor Rodney). I understood Ronan's reasonings behind his actions but, like Teyla, found the way he went about executing said actions to be a bit shady. And I was honestly surprised that Teyla would suggest keeping something like that from the rest of the team. Might it not be important for them to know that Ronan used Teyla without her knowledge in order to kill a man in cold blood? Even if he may have really deserved it? That may be something that they might want to keep in mind when going out on missions with him but whatever.

We got some good insight into both Teyla and Ronon, and Teyla got more to do than kick people or beat them up with sticks. Her reaction to Ronon using her to commit murder was definitely justified, but I can also see why, to a degree, she said not to speak of it on Atlantis. Shepaprd would NOT be thrilled to know this new guy he recruited for the team used one of his team members to act out revenge. Whether or not Kell deserved it (we assume he did), Ronon used Teyla for his own means. In a way, just like Rodney used Sheppard to get back to the planet to continue the experiment.

THe whole episode was about breaking down trust, which will lead to more conflict later on, and like I keep repeating in a mantra <G> that we'll see that trust rebuilt.

I'm also not sure how I felt about the fact that Liz apparently can't say no to Shep and that everybody seems to be aware of that fact. I do think that when push comes to shove Weir is a strong enough leader to make decisions on her own but I'm not sure about the fact that she's swayed so much by Shep's opinion. Of course he is her second in command and she should value his opinion so maybe it's just the ship aspect of it that's making me so leery. I admit to starting to see a bit of ship between those two characters, though I'd not go so far as to call myself a Shep/Weir shipper.

I think she can say no to Sheppard, but then if she says no, he doesn't go anywhere, and our guys can't get into monumental trouble... But Caldwell was also pushing, and I think this was a position where she put her trust in Sheppard to keep McKay in line, and that didn't work, so she probably has some trust issues with SHeppard.

Gah, the entire group of them need to be sent off to a trust-building-team exercise thing at a retreat (weren't those popular several years back?) Even poor Zelenka. Man, McKay really ripped into the poor guy. I can see Atlantis being a very tense place for a few days.... if not more.

[AGateFan]

Gah, the entire group of them need to be sent off to a trust-building-team exercise thing at a retreat (weren't those popular several years back?) Even poor Zelenka. Man, McKay really ripped into the poor guy. I can see Atlantis being a very tense place for a few days.... if not more.

Heightmeyer has a lot of work ahead of her. Maybe she should hire some help.

[John Preston]

I'll admit that I have not seen "Trinity" yet so I don't know the height at which the "grave yard" was orbiting. That said though;

that is not quite how it works--the "junk" that falls into the Earths atmosphere is primarily comprised of used stages from launcher rockets, with the odd satellite from low orbit (~200-400 miles altitude) where the atmosphere, however tenuous it is, still exerts some drag and the planets gravitational pull is much, much more prevalent. Beyond this altitude, bar unforeseen circumstances, a satellite is essentially there for the duration, and will generally only reenter if ordered to from the ground once it is deemed obsolete and thus expendable. Indeed a major avenue of research today is into methods of deorbiting satellites without using bulky fuel (to lower launch costs), since there are so many in orbit (since they don't tend to come down on their own), that as strange as it may sound, we are quite simply running out of "orbital slots" to put new ones into.

So you're saying that if something is in orbit it can remain there on it's own power even if it has no sort of boosters or rockets, but merely is just a big hunk of metal?

That doesn't make sense seeing as gravity is pulling on it. I would expect it to have a steadily deteriorating orbital path o.O

[AGateFan]

So you're saying that if something is in orbit it can remain there on it's own power even if it has no sort of boosters or rockets, but merely is just a big hunk of metal?

That doesn't make sense seeing as gravity is pulling on it. I would expect it to have a steadily deteriorating orbital path o.O

I guess it could be steadily deteriorating at a very very very slow rate. Or it could be that the items have reached an equilibrium. I mean we are orbiting the sun and the moon is orbiting earth and then there are all the astriods that are orbiting in the galaxy... the rings of Saturn are just orbiting debris.. none of those things have crashed into anything yet.

[ShadowMaat]

Wow, derrick, what an excessively negative view you have of Ronon. Sheesh. I'll grant the anger management issues, but a drinking problem?? For pity's sake, the man just found out he ISN'T the last survivor of his doomed world, isn't he allowed to celebrate that fact? He isn't some cruel, evil SOB prone to uncontrolled fits of violence, he isn't a drunken monster, and he isn't some psychotic amoral b***ard who's as likely to kill a friend as an enemy. But that certainly seems to be the picture you've developed of him. Wow. I guess it proves that anything can be read into anything and that even seemingly innocent acts could be tell-tale signs of horror and madness. Thanks for your insights, but I think I'll stick to my somewhat boring view of Dex the Walking Cliche, who has moments of depth and some fun quirks but who still needs to be defined as someone different and unique.

And as for Teyla, well, I've never much cared for her character, but it was nice to see her given stuff to do in this ep and where you saw it as her slowly succumbing to the violent charms of a "dangerous man", I saw it as her feeling responsible for his wellbeing and a slight deepening of the "alien conspiracy" connection between them. I thought their chemistry was good, and not in a disturbing "he's going to beat the crap out of her and she's going to beg for more" kind of way. But again, wow, what an amazingly diverse outlook on something I thought was mostly harmless.

Shipmum, you made a very good point about the Weir/Shep dynamic. While I understand that Caldwell was brought in as a contrary element, I MUCH prefer to see it when Weir and Sheppard are the ones going head-to-head over an issue. IMO, they have better chemistry when they're fighting.

Regarding the arrogance of characters leading to greater danger: Yeah, Shep's "confidence" in Hot Zone led to problems that were ultimately resolved, Teyla's "determination" in LfP led to bigger problems which were eventually resolved, the ego of the crew in general for inviting perfect strangers into their home (so to speak) has caused LOTS of trouble, so I don't really see McKay's actions being any different except that for once, things didn't end happily. Sure, they all escaped, but vaporizing half (or 5/8's or whatever) of a galaxy isn't really what I'd call a "winning solution".

Incidentally, if nothing could stay in orbit then the moon would have crashed into us long ago. The debris field did seem pretty large for something that happened 10,000 years ago and I would have thought that the smaller pieces would have fallen by now, but I also know there are paint chips, nuts, bolts, and various other bits of debris still circling OUR orbit, so maybe it isn't entirely outrageous. And yeah, Saturn has a whole ring of rocky "debris".

re the space gun destroying planet: I don't think it was the gun that destroyed it, it was the power source of the gun. The gun was only going off in order to try and vent off excess pressure or whatever in order to prevent an explosion. That, obviously, failed. Hasn't SG-1 toyed with that? Attaching a naquadah generator to a bomb? Or having a staff weapon overload and explode violently? I know the "weapon overload causes explostion" theme is common in scifi. It just happened that this time, it was on a really big scale. Unbelieveable? I dunno. I don't have enough science to say one way or the other. But I'm willing to grant the benefit of a doubt since I've seen similar things happen on a smaller scale. I mean, if you attach a nuclear bomb to a naquadah generator, it creates a much bigger blast, right? So what would happen if you attached it to a ZPM? And if this "energy source" that they found makes ZPMs look like little batteries, well, you get even more bang for your buck, right?

Whatever. Like I said, I didn't have much of a problem with that aspect of it and I'm not really inclined to go looking for problems and trying to poke holes in the theories behind it.

[strivaria]

So you're saying that if something is in orbit it can remain there on it's own power even if it has no sort of boosters or rockets, but merely is just a big hunk of metal?

That doesn't make sense seeing as gravity is pulling on it. I would expect it to have a steadily deteriorating orbital path o.O

Yes, if the object in orbit is sufficiently far enough from the planet and orbiting in roughly the same velocity, it's called a Geosynchronous Orbit. And it's not just gravity working on an orbit, there is also the push of solar winds to consider as well. But for the most part, if it's a stable system, then there isn't any reason to think that space junk couldn't still be there after all that time.

No I'm not a rocket scientist, but I've been working with satellites for the last 14 years... both geostationary and low earth orbit...

[not so ancient]

Teyla is being written as a battered woman who makes excuses for her man while deluding herself into thinking she's in control of things.

Just when I thought nobody at Gateworld could surprise me any more with a new and very twisted way of viewing things, you come along.

Wow.

Just....wow.

[not so ancient]

I have to agree with the earlier poster that once again the episode was seriously lacking in beleivability! My big hang up this episode is the super gun destroying the entire planet.

Um, gee, maybe that's because it's not just a 'super gun'? I do believe it was clearly stated that the nature of the device is to create massive, massive amounts of energy.

I'm not even sure we can wrap our minds around this kind of energy. The Arcuturs is something on the order of a superconducting-supercollider-plus-controlled-fusion-nuclear-reaction.

There are, at the end of the Periodic Table of Elements, highly unstable elements that, as I understand, exist as a result of, and for a short time, in nuclear reactions. Einsteinum, Mendelevium. Remember those? Zelenka said that particles like that were being produced by the Arcturus. Those particles are one of the things that a superconducting supercollider can reproduce and study.

That should have told you this is so very much more than a mere 'gun'. Yes, it had a weapons platform attached as one of it applications, but that's like saying a nuclear reactor is really nothing more than a coffeepot because a coffeepot can be powered by it.