Rescue not possible? I don't think so!

[Corgano]

Even if they took the team (and Woolsey) through half a dozend stargates, there would still have been severals possible ways to find them!

For example:
Woolsey agrees to go to the tribunal but before leaving atlantis, a scientist from Atlantis prepares his shoes with a (weak) radioactive isotope.

=> Woolsey goes to the counsil, leaving behind a radioactive trail.
=> The rescue team dials the 50+ adresses in the first stargate, but since they only have to scan for the radioactive signatur, the don't have to search each entire planet and each settlement on it. They only have to check the area near the stargate. So for each adress they only need a minute or so.

=> Worst case scenario: It takes them a couple of hours to find them. Best case scenario: The rescue team finds them after a few minutes.

And this certainly is only one simple way they could have rescued the team. My point is: Is it just me, or did the author really leave a plot hole the size of a stargate in that episode?

[jelgate]

That doesn't change the serious consquence of escaping. We would lose a great portion of our alies. And it would take a lot longer than a few hours to search that many planets. Plus this isotopes do have ranges. If Woosley was taken far enough away from the gate an Atlantis team wouldn't be able to detect him.

[Corgano]

That doesn't change the serious consquence of escaping. We would lose a great portion of our alies.

Yes, but at least they could have searched for them in case the trial goes badly and the team (and Woolsey) has to be rescued.

And it would take a lot longer than a few hours to search that many planets. Plus this isotopes do have ranges. If Woosley was taken far enough away from the gate an Atlantis team wouldn't be able to detect him.

I think you misunderstood my first post: It doesn't matter how far the trial is from the last stargate! The radiactive isotope on Woolsey's shoes would have left a trail of radioactive particles from Atlantis, to the Area near the first gate, to the area near the second gate, to ...... , to the Area near the last gate and from there directly to the prison/trial.

Absolutely no need to search an entire planet. Just follow the trail.

[Pharaoh Atem]

escaping would be just as bad as being found guilty

[Xaeden]

Yeah, I never saw their escape being a huge concern. They could've gotten out on their own, if they really had to. Either by fighting their way through the tunnels or turning on their guards while being brought to the gate (presumably they had no reason to knock them out if they just intended to send them through the gate after sentincing). Ronon is plenty capable of dispatching large numbers, Teyla is an above average fight, and Sheppard can hold his own. Plus Ronon probably had knives hidden on his person that he could've passed around until they got ahold of the guard's weapons. But Woolsey was of the belief that it was smarter to try to get out by winning the trial before resorting to that. Which was partly because there's no reason to put yourself into danger if it turns out to be unnecessary and because they're in a bad spot with the coalition angry at them - As it grew they would've been in the same basic situation the Wraith are with the Hoffman drug. Which is to say that every seemingly harmless population they encountered could turn on them on a whim, which would put Atlantis teams in a lot of danger.

[The_Carpenter]

escaping would be just as bad as being found guilty

Other than Shepards team would not be abandoned on some god forsaken planet unable to continue the fight against the Wraith.

Besides what have our "allies" in Pegasus done for us? food maybe, but as the Gate Bridge is largely still intact we could ferry food from Earth in Jumpers, also they could use the Daedalus or the Apollo.

[female Wraith]

And this certainly is only one simple way they could have rescued the team. My point is: Is it just me, or did the author really leave a plot hole the size of a stargate in that episode?

Only one plot hole?! LOL. There was several plotholes in the episode. First they have done before reverse engineering to captured devices. And we have captured the first Wraith subspace tracking device since Season 2.
Then what is wrong with our trekking devices? Sheppard's beacon was ideal for the Travellers to find him.
Searching over 50 addresses? And what how long it would take? Month? Two?
The whole story about - We will leave you to an unhabitated wolrd and you would not be able to dial up the Stargate from there. HOW exactly the Coalition will do this??? Even if they have the knowledge how to remove the control crystals how will they go off the planet?? Teleportations? Or will take a ship and leave...Oh, wait I forgot that they have none...LOL
The messenger...tell me if today a group of terrorist captured for example a bunch of regular citizens and the terrorist send a messenger with the news how will the authoritues will react? Take him to the brig and keeping him there without an interrogation?
And then the big plot hole was when Woolsey went unarmed and without anything to track him to another planet. Is this part of the Atlantis security rules?? I remember in The First Contact how stuck was Woolsey to the security protocols and now WOW we have a brave new Leader going to an unknown location.

[Xaeden]

Searching over 50 addresses? And what how long it would take? Month? Two?

They searched all 50 by the time Woolsey appeared. The problem was that they weren't on any of those because they took them through multiple gates so they would've had to search all 50 (minus duplicate worlds) on each of those 50 worlds. Then they might have to search all 50 on hundreds, perhaps thousands of worlds (depending on how many duplicates there were) if they went through more than two gates to get to that planet.

The whole story about - We will leave you to an unhabitated wolrd and you would not be able to dial up the Stargate from there. HOW exactly the Coalition will do this??? Even if they have the knowledge how to remove the control crystals how will they go off the planet?? Teleportations? Or will take a ship and leave...Oh, wait I forgot that they have none...LOL

They should've had no problem taking the DHD through the gate. Once they dial, they'd just have to keep the wormhole opened while they prepare it for transport and then walk right through with it. The gate should continue to remain active with the DHD disconnected since we know that the gate itself stores up enough power to establish one connection by itself.

[Mitchell82]

Even if they took the team (and Woolsey) through half a dozend stargates, there would still have been severals possible ways to find them!

For example:
Woolsey agrees to go to the tribunal but before leaving atlantis, a scientist from Atlantis prepares his shoes with a (weak) radioactive isotope.

=> Woolsey goes to the counsil, leaving behind a radioactive trail.
=> The rescue team dials the 50+ adresses in the first stargate, but since they only have to scan for the radioactive signatur, the don't have to search each entire planet and each settlement on it. They only have to check the area near the stargate. So for each adress they only need a minute or so.

=> Worst case scenario: It takes them a couple of hours to find them. Best case scenario: The rescue team finds them after a few minutes.

And this certainly is only one simple way they could have rescued the team. My point is: Is it just me, or did the author really leave a plot hole the size of a stargate in that episode?

Bad idea. I understand Shepards desire to escape but escaping would be just as bad for Atlantis as if we were found guilty.

[gopher65]

Searching over 50 addresses?

They took them through multiple gates. It's 50 addresses per gate. Let's say they took them through 5 gates: that's 50*50*50*50*50 = over 300 million possible gate addresses to check, assuming no duplicates. Could you check 300,000,000 planets in a reasonable amount of time? (And even if 40 addresses on every gate were the same, and there were only 10 new addresses on every gate after the first gate, it would still be 500,000 addresses.)

Also, Earth doesn't have small subspace transmitters. Their transmitters have been shown to be large and bulky (ie, the episode where they have to go to a planet and "set up" a transmitter (it's like the fires on the mountains in the LOTR!)). The locater implants and bracelets that they use are sub-light. And uh.... space is big. Very big.

[JackHarkness_Hot]

I thought all SGC and Atlantis personnel been embedded with a subdermal subspace beacon, to track, locate.

Like in "Lifeline", Sheppard asks Carter to locate Weir's subspace beacon to beam her up but it was no longer active.

[JeffKnight]

Yes, they do have subspace beacons, but they are low power/short range.

[elbo]

They were in fact very easy to find. They had an hostage, who could have been 'persuaded' to speak (beat the crap out of him if we must). I see nothing wrong with making our own trials and condamnations, for accomplices to kidnaping.

Just remember that this wasn't a trial, was a rogue trial. They accused some individuals for actions that don't belong to them, none of them. For example in Michel experiment, Sheppard, Telya and Rodney had no part, Ronon wasn't even in the expedition same as ressponsible for awakening the Wraith. They weren't allowed to present proof or to exercitate a proper defence. Some judges were in conflicts, etc.

Even if the episode wanted to proove our lack of guilt and Woolsey's skills, i think we should take any messure necesary to protect the Atlantis residents against these abuses and agressions. Otherwise any team walking in Pegasus will be always under treat of being kidnapped and made ressonsable for the action of god know who, maby a Wraith we didn't kill 3 years ago even if we had this opportunity.

[Giantevilhead]

The whole story about - We will leave you to an unhabitated wolrd and you would not be able to dial up the Stargate from there. HOW exactly the Coalition will do this??? Even if they have the knowledge how to remove the control crystals how will they go off the planet?? Teleportations? Or will take a ship and leave...Oh, wait I forgot that they have none...LOL

Time bomb on the DHD.

[Xaeden]

Yes, they do have subspace beacons, but they are low power/short range.

They're called locator beacons, (aka subcutaneous transmitters) not subspace beacons. They do indeed have a very short range, but don't transmit through subspace at all.