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Earth Gate and Destiny Gate: Could Carter and Dr Rush both be right?

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    Earth Gate and Destiny Gate: Could Carter and Dr Rush both be right?

    Carter points out that the original earth stargate is ~50 million years old.

    Dr Rush speculates that the Destiny is "hundreds of thousands of years old" and contains a stargate that predates the MW gates.

    Given the damage Destiny has sustained we know it is far from invincible, so it seems at least plausible that at some point Destiny became stranded without hyper-drives between galaxies and had to accelerate to near light speeds. As a result it actually could be possible for Destiny to have only experienced 100,000 years while back in the MW it has been 50 million years. Eventually the Destiny would make it to a star and as per Mallozzi's comment on his blog that the ship can repair itself at least somewhat it could have repaired it's hyper-drives and continued onwards.

    To be clear I seriously doubt that this was what the writers were thinking but it is at least a possible solution to this continuity error and one that does not requite a lot of stretching or twisting to accomplish.

    I'm open to any thoughts or criticism.
    Last edited by Sqrl; 24 March 2010, 01:19 PM.

    #2
    1 million years is 10x 100 000 years. several hundred thousands years.

    besides, rush didn't seem very confident when he said that. i think it's more of a guess.

    Comment


      #3
      Well you just know Carter is right... It's Cater
      sigpic
      Thank you BBdreamer

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by thekillman View Post
        1 million years is 10x 100 000 years. several hundred thousands years.

        besides, rush didn't seem very confident when he said that. i think it's more of a guess.
        I'm not sure what point you're making about a million years being 10 instances of 100,000 years. Time dilation can still explain it and there is existing canon where the ancients have been known to use this tactic to travel between galaxies when their hyper-drives were irreparable (see Atlantis S3 E10 - The Return Part 1) .

        In fact we can calculate exactly how fast the ship would need to go to account for only 100,000 years passing in the 50 million years.

        The formula is t = t0/(1-v^2/c^2)^1/2

        So they should need ~0.999998c.

        Considering that in the episode I mentioned McKay estimates that the ship is about a million years away from the MW and that it would only feel like maybe 12 years to them. Those two numbers tell us that the ship was flying at ~0.99999999993c which establishes the plausibility of the Destiny being able to reach "only" ~0.999998c.

        Also I want to state again, I think this is obviously a writer mistake, but one that can be explained away with very little fuss. My point isn't that they didn't mess up, but that there is a very plausible way that they could both have been correct.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Whatsername View Post
          Well you just know Carter is right... It's Cater
          For the record, she never actually said that the 'Gate was 50 million years old; she said that it could be up to 50 million years old but she never gave a confident estimate of its age.


          Originally posted by Sqrl View Post
          I'm not sure what point you're making about a million years being 10 instances of 100,000 years.
          The point is that time dilation is not necessary to explain the "contradiction" because no contradiction actually exists: 50+ million years could still be described as "hundreds of thousands of years."
          "From East Middle School. Suzumiya Haruhi. I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, sliders, or espers here, come join me."
          - The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya; Best Character Introduction Ever.

          "And can we lose the ten thousand year old dead plants?!"
          - Stargate: Atlantis (1x03) "Hide and Seek"

          "Hammerheads do not load/unload units immediately – they must descend to ground level first. Initial experiments involving jump-jetting infantry into the Hammerhead’s cargo compartment met with unfortunate results."
          - Command&Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath Hammerhead Unit Spotlight

          Comment


            #6
            50+ million years could still be described as "hundreds of thousands of years."
            i tried to explain that, but thanks for saying it this way

            Comment


              #7
              Ah I see what you're getting at now. My fault, I thought you were saying the time dilation effects of near-c speeds couldn't explain it due to the vast difference in time.

              Still, I'd have to disagree that there is no contradiction. Hundreds of thousands of years quite literally means between 100 and 999 thousand years. It is hundreds (100-999) of instances of 1000 years. If he meant several million years or more he would have just said "tens of millions of years".

              The big reason I don't think he was mistaken is because aside from his comment in Air Part 1 of just having boarded the ship he also repeats later once he's had a chance to look at the ship's computers and get a better handle on it. What's more than that, and what should really settle any doubt that the writers are declaring the ship to be 100's of thousands of years old is that nearly every episode begins with the quote from rush about it being launched hundreds of thousands of years ago - and barring some sort of odd theory about trying to fake us out it seems extremely unlikely that the ship isn't hundreds of thousands of years old.

              Given the persistence of their stating the Destiny's age, I think if anything Carter got it wrong (a fairly rare occurrence). But I have a hard time believing her estimate is off by a factor of 500 or really even a factor of 10. Especially given that she was basing the estimate off the age of the ice around the gate which by that point would have been established (to within a reasonable MOE) by tests.

              Now obviously both interpretations are in the same boat as far as a lack of clear supporting evidence, but I personally like the idea of an explanation that does not require we discount existing canon.

              Ultimately they probably won't address the discrepancy though, and I think it may just be a case where everyone picks which explanation makes the most sense to them. So I'll leave it at that, I just wanted to make my case, and since there isn't a whole lot to go on people can go with whichever option they like best.

              Comment


                #8
                my two cents on this topic:

                IF destiny was due to its FTL affected by time dialation how come the communication stones work?
                if the destiny while in FTL were subject to time dialation no contact with earth would be possible.

                i still believe that "hundreds of thousands" IS and ALLWAYS will be an epic writer screw up a true inconsistency, and that itself shows to prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show they are making.

                Comment


                  #9
                  @Alx,

                  Because I'm not saying their FTL causes time dilation. Re-read it please.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Sqrl View Post
                    @Alx,

                    Because I'm not saying their FTL causes time dilation. Re-read it please.
                    hundreds of thousands" IS and ALLWAYS will be an epic writer screw up a true inconsistency, and that itself shows to prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show they are making.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Alx View Post
                      hundreds of thousands" IS and ALLWAYS will be an epic writer screw up a true inconsistency, and that itself shows to prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show they are making.
                      OK that is the exact same post as before minus the objection to my idea. I guess I'll take that to mean you don't have any? I guess....

                      ...

                      Anyways, as I said in the OP, I agree it is a continuity error on the part of the writers. As for it being an "epic writer screw up" and "prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show", well I think you're being overly dramatic about it. But I suppose that is a whole other topic, so I'd rather not get into it here.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        that itself shows to prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show they are making.
                        let us look at it from the writer's POV.

                        "how old would the ship be? "
                        *checks the history*
                        "approximately.... 10 million years or so"
                        "new audience is NEVER going to believe that."
                        "you're right. how about something more...unspecified"
                        "hundreds of thousands of years."
                        "that sounds nice"
                        "good, add it to the script then"



                        seriously, with no knowledge of the ancients, would you EVER buy that something can be millions of years old? i mean, the ship degrades because of the solar wind and cosmic radiation. without thorough repair, the ship degrades quite fast. it's never gonna make it to the next millenia. granted, this is an advanced piece of tech. i find it hard to believe, however, that the ancients themselves are 50 million years old and over that. 1 million years would've explained EVERYTHING, and made it more realistic. our society is a few thousand years old. the stuff we have now, well, 1000 years ago they could've never comprehended the possibility. just as we can never comprehend the possible stuff of the future. add several extra millenia to our advancement, and we'd be goauld-like. add some more, some more, some more. surpassed the wraith, surpassed most of the PG. by the time we're at 100 000 years in the future, our technology surpasses Asgard and well, 1 million surpasses everything stargate. i'm not sure what the ancients did in all that time, but it was mostly picking their noses.


                        to prove that TPTB have no idea or intrest in the show they are making.

                        TBH i've never seen them so dedicated to this show. aside from some unexplained stuff, it hasn't even contradicted itself yet. no major retcons in the same episode. SG1 retoconned bulletproof armor in 1 episode. Atlantis made the wraith vulnerable in a season or 2. SG1 has MANY inconsistencies, retcons, and continuity errors, Atlantis adds a dozen more, and the wraith storyline makes no sense either. in comparison, SGU does a very nice job. if it takes just some minor changes, then i'm fine with it.


                        we don't know what destiny has and hasn't done in it's past 10 million year travel. there are two things which bug me and i'll adress them here.


                        Jackson makes a clear timeline: 5-10 million years ago, atlantis left. the ancient empire was already destroyed by the plague by then.

                        if the Destiny is a billion lightyears from home, (10^9 LY's,) , then it travelled a meagre 1000 Ly per year. it would take 1000 years for Destiny to travel across the Milky Way. amp it up with a factor 10 and we got 10^4 LY per year. well, that's a decade for the MW. which is an incredibly long time. even the goauld didn't need that long, and they seem to use pretty old stuff. still, we're talking averages. we don't know how long it takes to refuel. so this is the average speed. still, it seems quite slow to me.

                        but if it's just a few billion lightyears away, a million years of age fits closer than 10k years. so, was Jackson wrong then?


                        however, we know of time dialation: it's possible some hostile race trapped it in a TDF, it ended up near a black hole, or whatever.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Why does Rush's statement have to be either written off completely or explained with a Time dilation effect.
                          How about; he had just got there, Earth had never before encountered tech that pre-dated Milky way tech and how could Rush figure out the rough 'relative' age of the destiny after just a few minutes on board.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble View Post
                            Why does Rush's statement have to be either written off completely or explained with a Time dilation effect.
                            How about; he had just got there, Earth had never before encountered tech that pre-dated Milky way tech and how could Rush figure out the rough 'relative' age of the destiny after just a few minutes on board.
                            Because he repeats it in another episode after having time to look at the computers and they replay the quote at the start of pretty much every episode to emphasize it - which as I said unless you think they're trying to fake us out is a pretty good indication.

                            Really I see no way around the idea that the writers think the age of the ship is around 100,000 years. What that means is debatable, but they've hardly been ambiguous about it.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Sqrl View Post
                              Because he repeats it in another episode after having time to look at the computers and they replay the quote at the start of pretty much every episode to emphasize it - which as I said unless you think they're trying to fake us out is a pretty good indication.

                              Really I see no way around the idea that the writers think the age of the ship is around 100,000 years. What that means is debatable, but they've hardly been ambiguous about it.
                              I'm sure he only said it once the rest are just sound bites.

                              I think we are readiing too much into it.

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