Destiny must have self repair.

[kwlafayette]

We have never seen any demonstration that the Ancients incorporated automated self-repair systems into any of their vessels.

You know, this would pretty much guarantee that the seeder ship were no longer in operation. Assuming similar level of technology, same drives and such, the seeder ships would be experiencing all the same problems as Destiny. They too would have "barely made" the last few intergalactic trips. They would have been attacked by all (or at least most of) the same races. Destiny itself was not going to make the last intergalactic trip.

The inescapable conclusion is, without self repair, some of the seeder ships would already have failed, and the rest would be at least as close to failure as Destiny. You have to assume that the chances of "drifting the rest of the way" when falling short via FTL is not entirely free of risk.

[Krazeh]

You know, this would pretty much guarantee that the seeder ship were no longer in operation.

It does nothing of the sort.

Assuming similar level of technology, same drives and such, the seeder ships would be experiencing all the same problems as Destiny.

Who says they're not?

They too would have "barely made" the last few intergalactic trips.

You're right they may very well have only barely made the last few trips.

They would have been attacked by all (or at least most of) the same races.

I don't see how you can make this statement, there's no evidence for it. Just because one or more races has run across the Destiny doesn't immediately mean they've also run across the seeder ships.

The inescapable conclusion is, without self repair, some of the seeder ships would already have failed, and the rest would be at least as close to failure as Destiny. You have to assume that the chances of "drifting the rest of the way" when falling short via FTL is not entirely free of risk.

Some of the seeder ships may have failed, there's no reason to believe that hasn't been the case. I don't recall anywhere in the show where they have confirmed that all the seeder ships are still in operation. As for the remaining ones they probably are just as close to failure as Destiny. However it must also be considered that as purely unmanned vessels the Ancients may very well have completely overengineered them in terms of robustness and redundancy.

[kwlafayette]

You have to assume that the seeder ships were launched pretty much at the same time as Destiny. Any more than a few decades apart, and you are into a new generation of technology, faster drives, more efficient energy storage, etc.. Also, the ships would have to be huge to store even more power than Destiny, and carry the mining equipment and such necessary to harvest the raw materials.

Unless of course, the Ancients sent out the indestructible seeder ships with all the raw material they would ever need for the rest of time. As you yourself have pointed out, you have to accept show canon; there has never been any evidence that the Ancients had automated mining vessels.

[Krazeh]

You have to assume that the seeder ships were launched pretty much at the same time as Destiny. Any more than a few decades apart, and you are into a new generation of technology, faster drives, more efficient energy storage, etc.. Also, the ships would have to be huge to store even more power than Destiny, and carry the mining equipment and such necessary to harvest the raw materials.

The show and the creators have already confirmed the seeder ships were sent out in advance of the Destiny and while not giving exact numbers it's been strongly implied they're a considerable distance ahead of the Destiny. As for the size of the seeder ships, firstly who's to say that they're not huge and secondly if they are unmanned then they'll be able to save a huge amount of space that would otherwise be needed for people to live in and the equipment to keep them alive.

Unless of course, the Ancients sent out the indestructible seeder ships with all the raw material they would ever need for the rest of time. As you yourself have pointed out, you have to accept show canon; there has never been any evidence that the Ancients had automated mining vessels.

And there has never been any evidence that the Ancients didn't have automated mining vessels. There's been nothing in any of the franchise series that has shown a situation where an automated mining vessel would be ideal but has then indicated that no such vessel or technology exists. On the other hand numerous examples have been provided of Ancient vessels that would definitely have benefitted from a self repair system yet at no point has it even been hinted at that such a system exists and all indications have been that it doesn't exist.

That also doesn't take into account SGU implies the seeder ships have some ability to obtain resources to manufacture stargates and that Joseph Mallozi has pretty much confirmed this to be the case.

[Mike.]

As you yourself have pointed out, you have to accept show canon; there has never been any evidence that the Ancients had automated mining vessels.

Regarding Resource gathering (ie. mining) this was hinted at by Joe Mallozzi several times at least in the case of the seeder ships. The Ancients also had several mining facilities - the mobile drilling platform on Lantea, the compound located on a caldera ("Inferno") and possibly the device Anubis used to overload stargates - it had "roots" that appeared to get energy from within the planet - so there are precedences - the Ancients do have experience in the filed and made use of it when it was deemed appropriate.

[Puddle-Jumper]

kwlafayette I really think your assuming that Destiny is in constant danger, which it more then likely isn't... if it weren't for the blue aliens shooting at it and trying to get aboard and the crew messing with stuff... the ship wouldn't have had any problems since the crew came aboard, its far more logical to assume that the ship doesn't have self repair and mining capability (since it doesnt have these) and only comes across an advanced space faring race that wants to attack it every couple of hundred thousand years or so.

If you look at it from a probability point of view, theres the odds of a galaxy containing an advanced race, which are pretty low Id say, then theres the odds of one of their ships being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, which given the size of a galaxy is pretty slim, infact the blues finding it and keeping on tracking it is literally a 1 in a billion chance. The MW and pegasus are full of life sure (because of the ancients), but from what we've seen of SGU other galaxies aren't like this...

Aside from that, the seeder ships are sending information back to Destiny regarding its course, Destiny also has its own sensors, so something that can damage the ship just popping in its way (like faith) is once again about a 1 in a billion chance..

Infact Destiny may have only sustained a small amount of damage once every 500,000 years or so.. or all of the damage could have been from 1 encounter.. I can completely see why you think the ancients should have put an auto repair on Destiny, but the ancients didn't mean the leave it uninhabited for this long, no where near this long, they may have only meant it for a couple of hundred years, and again, the odds of Destiny running across an extremely advanced civilisation that want to blow it up in that time are slim to none.

[kwlafayette]

kwlafayette I really think your assuming that Destiny is in constant danger, which it more then likely isn't... if it weren't for the blue aliens shooting at it and trying to get aboard and the crew messing with stuff... the ship wouldn't have had any problems since the crew came aboard, its far more logical to assume that the ship doesn't have self repair and mining capability (since it doesnt have these) and only comes across an advanced space faring race that wants to attack it every couple of hundred thousand years or so.

If you look at it from a probability point of view, theres the odds of a galaxy containing an advanced race, which are pretty low Id say, then theres the odds of one of their ships being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, which given the size of a galaxy is pretty slim, infact the blues finding it and keeping on tracking it is literally a 1 in a billion chance. The MW and pegasus are full of life sure (because of the ancients), but from what we've seen of SGU other galaxies aren't like this...

Aside from that, the seeder ships are sending information back to Destiny regarding its course, Destiny also has its own sensors, so something that can damage the ship just popping in its way (like faith) is once again about a 1 in a billion chance..

Infact Destiny may have only sustained a small amount of damage once every 500,000 years or so.. or all of the damage could have been from 1 encounter.. I can completely see why you think the ancients should have put an auto repair on Destiny, but the ancients didn't mean the leave it uninhabited for this long, no where near this long, they may have only meant it for a couple of hundred years, and again, the odds of Destiny running across an extremely advanced civilisation that want to blow it up in that time are slim to none.

Every couple hundred thousand years or so, works out to be maybe 15 to 20 advanced alien races attacking the ship over time. You factor in navigation hazards, like possibly encountering the shockwave of a super nova, rogue asteroids, comet, any kind of unknown hazard that you would get traveling through space that was not completely charted. Needing to refuel, but having to use a star that was less than ideal (say, a star that had entered the helium burning stage). Something like that has probably happened at least a dozen or so times. Being stranded without the power for shields, waiting for momentum to carry you to the nearest star, this scenario has been strongly hinted at, the ship would be very vulnerable. The damage would build up over time.

Not to mention, the most likely reason to attack the ship is to try to gain control of it, so the most likely targets are the engines and engineering sections of the ship. Attacks by advanced alien races would not just be on random areas of the ship; they would go after critical systems. And if 15 to 20 advanced alien races had all been attacking the same areas of the ship, how is it that all 16 drive modules have survived up until this point?

I know that many of you want to believe in unicorns and magic ships crewed by faeries made by perfect beings who had perfect designs and built things that lasted forever, but given the ratings of the show, you are clearly in the minority. Things have to make sense. And being in space for 5 million years, with all 16 of your original drive modules working, and navigation working, and shields working, and only superficial damage to the hull, that does not make sense. I can safely say that the majority of potential viewers are with me; if they were with you, SGU would be getting great ratings wouldn't it?

PS. There is that assertion again, about what the Ancients intended. You really have to stop with that. There are at least two problems with that statement. One, you do not know what the Ancients intended. And second, "this long" is completely subjective, it has no objective meaning. "this long" could mean 10 minutes, or 4.99 million years after launch. "this long" could mean that the Ancients originally intended to board it only 15 minutes before the humans did, but ascended before then. Nowhere, in any episode, have they been able to determine why the Destiny was launched, or the exact time/place the Ancients intended Destiny to be when they were going to come aboard.

I just wish people would stop making that statement, there is no basis for it.

[xxxevilgrinxxx]

Every couple hundred thousand years or so, works out to be maybe 15 to 20 advanced alien races attacking the ship over time. You factor in navigation hazards, like possibly encountering the shockwave of a super nova, rogue asteroids, comet, any kind of unknown hazard that you would get traveling through space that was not completely charted. Needing to refuel, but having to use a star that was less than ideal (say, a star that had entered the helium burning stage). Something like that has probably happened at least a dozen or so times. Being stranded without the power for shields, waiting for momentum to carry you to the nearest star, this scenario has been strongly hinted at, the ship would be very vulnerable. The damage would build up over time.

Not to mention, the most likely reason to attack the ship is to try to gain control of it, so the most likely targets are the engines and engineering sections of the ship. Attacks by advanced alien races would not just be on random areas of the ship; they would go after critical systems. And if 15 to 20 advanced alien races had all been attacking the same areas of the ship, how is it that all 16 drive modules have survived up until this point?

I know that many of you want to believe in unicorns and magic ships crewed by faeries made by perfect beings who had perfect designs and built things that lasted forever, but given the ratings of the show, you are clearly in the minority. Things have to make sense. And being in space for 5 million years, with all 16 of your original drive modules working, and navigation working, and shields working, and only superficial damage to the hull, that does not make sense. I can safely say that the majority of potential viewers are with me; if they were with you, SGU would be getting great ratings wouldn't it?

PS. There is that assertion again, about what the Ancients intended. You really have to stop with that. There are at least two problems with that statement. One, you do not know what the Ancients intended. And second, "this long" is completely subjective, it has no objective meaning. "this long" could mean 10 minutes, or 4.99 million years after launch. "this long" could mean that the Ancients originally intended to board it only 15 minutes before the humans did, but ascended before then. Nowhere, in any episode, have they been able to determine why the Destiny was launched, or the exact time/place the Ancients intended Destiny to be when they were going to come aboard.

I just wish people would stop making that statement, there is no basis for it.

It's interesting that you should use this (in bold) considering that your very argument that Destiny 'must' have automated repair, or does have this that or the next thing, without it being shown, because, without these things being shown as part of canon, it's you that are believing in magical fairies and unicorns. Which is perfectly fine. If you want to believe these things, that's okay. I have a pet theory that the ship is sentient, but it's just that, a pet theory. I don't try to pass it off as a definite fact and treat people as though they're stupid because they don't happen to agree with me. Perhaps you should try doing the same. As for your second point (again, in bold): Neither do you. And further, given your belief in all sorts of things that haven't been shown in canon, I'd suggest you may not be the one to ask if someone wanted to know about what they may have intended.

[kwlafayette]

I get it, I know you believe in magical indestructible ships. Can you please just leave this one thread for those of us who want to discuss more realistic scenarios?

You can say the Ancients intended to board the ship. There is evidence to support that. You cannot say when the Ancients intended to do this, because frankly there has been no hint.

All these arguments I hear, that since the Ancients didn't put self repair on everything, that they must not have had that technology. Well, the Ancients didn't put intergalactic hyperdrives on everything either, this should point you in the direction of your logical fallacy. They did not put stasis pods on the Atlantis puddle jumpers either. There is not a communication stone under the cushion of every seat.

Again, go and start your own magical indestructible ship built by perfect beings thread, and I promise I won't come and pollute it, OK? There you can talk about technologically advanced alien races, who had everything save for sensor technology, and had to literally be in the path of the ship to find it. You can talk about how the ship survived a dozen attacks over the years, and nothing important was ever damaged, because the Ancients couldn't build a life support system that would last a decade, but the drives, well those are a perfect design made with perfect materials, and perfectly assembled without flaw by perfect beings, and they never fail.

Go ahead, get your ideas out there. I am sure you will find people to agree with you, and you can go and be happy, and stop worrying about this.

[Krazeh]

I get it, I know you believe in magical indestructible ships. Can you please just leave this one thread for those of us who want to discuss more realistic scenarios?

I don't think anyone's said the Destiny's a magical indestructible ship. It clearly isn't given the state of disrepair it's in. All people have said is that the Destiny is far more robust than you seem to want to give it credit for. As for discussing 'realistic scenarios' they have to be realistic in the sense they're consistent with the rules of the environment in which you're discussing said scenario; inventing new technologies and disregarding anything that has been previously shown but disagrees with what you think should happen is not discussing realistic scenarios. To be perfectly honest if you don't like having holes poked in your theories then perhaps you shouldn't post them on a public forum?

You can say the Ancients intended to board the ship. There is evidence to support that. You cannot say when the Ancients intended to do this, because frankly there has been no hint.

Actually there have been hints, both given in the show and outside of the show in Q&As with the creators. All of which point in the direction that the Ancients meant to board the Destiny a long time ago but that the project was abandoned before that happened. I will however happily concede that we don't have any specifics on the exact time period in which the Ancients originally intended the Destiny to remain unmanned.

All these arguments I hear, that since the Ancients didn't put self repair on everything, that they must not have had that technology. Well, the Ancients didn't put intergalactic hyperdrives on everything either, this should point you in the direction of your logical fallacy. They did not put stasis pods on the Atlantis puddle jumpers either. There is not a communication stone under the cushion of every seat.

I fail to see how the Ancients not putting a self repair system on anything we have yet seen is in anyway comparable to them not putting intergalactic hyperdrives on all their vessels, or statis pods on puddle jumpers, or communication stones under every cushion. We have been given clear examples that these technologies exist and are used where appropriate, we haven't however been provided with any in-universe evidence that the Ancients ever built or used self-repair systems on any of their creations. The only logical fallacy here is your belief that the Ancients not putting all their known technologies on every thing they create can be used as an argument for proving previously unseen and, to this point completely unmentioned, technologies exist.

Again, go and start your own magical indestructible ship built by perfect beings thread, and I promise I won't come and pollute it, OK? There you can talk about technologically advanced alien races, who had everything save for sensor technology, and had to literally be in the path of the ship to find it. You can talk about how the ship survived a dozen attacks over the years, and nothing important was ever damaged, because the Ancients couldn't build a life support system that would last a decade, but the drives, well those are a perfect design made with perfect materials, and perfectly assembled without flaw by perfect beings, and they never fail.

Go ahead, get your ideas out there. I am sure you will find people to agree with you, and you can go and be happy, and stop worrying about this.

Again, noone has said that the Destiny is a magical indesctructible built by perfect beings. I think everyone has acknowledged that the Destiny is in a state of disrepair and heading towards failure. The only person having difficulty here is you and your inability to consider that perhaps the Ancients were pretty handy at building very robust technologies and had the foresight to include multiple redundancies and safeguards into their critical systems. As for the life support system there was nothing wrong with it apart from the chemical component needing to be, for want of a better word, refuelled. Once that was done then the system went back to working without a problem.

[Mike.]

how is it that all 16 drive modules have survived up until this point?

Ancient technology lasts a really long time. It's one of the premises of the show and you have to accept it at face value.

I know that many of you want to believe in unicorns and magic ships crewed by faeries made by perfect beings who had perfect designs and built things that lasted forever,

This is the show's established canon, if you don't like it, talk about another show. Simple as that. You can't modify (show) reality to suit your own belief system.

but given the ratings of the show, you are clearly in the minority.

The ratings are fine.

Things have to make sense.

They do. Very much in fact. Even if you don't realize it, the show has clear rules that have been put in place since the beginning, and the writers have always been careful to respect them. In the show's universe everything make perfect sense. If you just accept this you'll find yourself enjoying the show even more, you know "suspension of disbelief" and all that.

The rules are present, but they don't always have to match with ours, remember: "sci-fi".

And being in space for 5 million years, with all 16 of your original drive modules working, and navigation working, and shields working, and only superficial damage to the hull, that does not make sense. I can safely say that the majority of potential viewers are with me; if they were with you, SGU would be getting great ratings wouldn't it?

Everything make perfect sense in the Stargate in-universe, see above. Being unable to understand the show is a failure of your imagination.

Again, the ratings are fine for show on a cable channel (limited reach) AND in the Friday night death slot, and has a tech savvy audience that DVRs it or watches it from other sources such as Hulu that may not be counted in the same way.

The fact that Nilsen ratings are terrible at representing this particular viewer niche doesn't help make the figures more accurate other. Thankfully everyone knows this now, including TV execs (finally).

PS. There is that assertion again, about what the Ancients intended. You really have to stop with that. There are at least two problems with that statement. One, you do not know what the Ancients intended. And second, "this long" is completely subjective, it has no objective meaning. "this long" could mean 10 minutes, or 4.99 million years after launch. "this long" could mean that the Ancients originally intended to board it only 15 minutes before the humans did, but ascended before then. Nowhere, in any episode, have they been able to determine why the Destiny was launched, or the exact time/place the Ancients intended Destiny to be when they were going to come aboard.

I just wish people would stop making that statement, there is no basis for it.

You seem to have a lot of problems accepting canon, and yet you cite it if you (mistakenly) think that it will help your argument.

It is a very well know fact that the Ancients intended to board Destiny a long time ago but were prevented from doing so. Here's the proof:

From Air part II:

RUSH: [Destiny] The name of the ship, translated from Ancient.

(Eli stands and walks over to the console.)

RUSH: I've also discovered that they were never here.

WALLACE: I thought this was an Ancient ship.

RUSH: It is, but they sent it out unmanned, planning to use the Gate to get here when it was far enough out into the universe. But they probably learned to ascend before that time.

From Joseph Mallozzi's blog:

AaronNiGHTS writes: “It is a fact, then, that the majority of Destiny’s lifetime has existed before the Ancients ascended to a higher plane of existence. So much so that much less than 1% of Destiny’s life has been without the Ancients. If this is the case, then why is Destiny so far out and incapable of dialing home? Has that last 1% of its journey put it past the threshold of a viable solar powered Gate trip home? More over, if Destiny is such an important ship in the Ancients plans, why is it still running outdated technology? Atlantis had been around for Millions of years, but no Ancient ever thought of upgrading the technology aboard Destiny? Did they just abandon it?”

Answer: Yes, they did just abandon it. Destiny was part of a very long-term project that was put in play millions of years ago. What its mission way and why the Ancients abandoned it remains a mystery.

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...-some-mailbag/

South African Singularity also writes: “Also, wouldn’t the Atlantis database have some information regarding destiny? It obviously would have been built before the construction of Atlantis and / or the war with the Wraith, and they would have kept monitoring it’s progress in case it might stumble upon any new advantage they could gain against the Wraith at that time?”

Answer: While Destiny and the seeder ship were launched on their long journey, the Ancients never got around to manning the ship so there would have been no hard data to gather beside possible atmospheric information on planets long-since passed.

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...pdate-mailbag/

Joebags writes: “Are we every going to discover why certain planets were selected for gates? Why there are no DHD’s? How are these gates supposed to work and interact with each other? What is Destiny’s purpose? Make sure the gates work? Why? For whom? Destiny is huge, so what was its crew like? What happened to them?”

Answers: Planets were selected on the basis of their ability to sustain life. No DHD’s because the Ancients planned to use remote DHD’s instead. Destiny’s purpose was to explore the planets seeded by the advance seeder ships. Destiny never had a crew. The Ancients ascended before they could board it.

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...mucho-mailbag/

So you see - all this talk about the Ancients intending to board Destiny a long time ago (by our frame of reference) is completely based in fact.

They had other more pressing issues to deal with, like getting wiped out by the plague, moving to a new galaxy and saving as many of their kind as possible, ascending, the Wraith going to war with them and getting eventually overwhelmed by their sheer numbers, going back to MW and having more of the ancients ascend.

You are also wrong about not knowing where Destiny was launched from:

From Air par I:

SCOTT: What are we looking at?

RUSH: It's a star map.

PARK: That's the Milky Way.

RUSH: I believe it's a visual log of the ship's journey.

(Eli points to a flashing light close to the edge of the spiral.)

WALLACE: So this is where we are now?

RUSH: No. That's where the ship originally embarked from.

BRODY: Earth.

They also gave us an indication as to when Destiny was launched: before Atlantis, before going to Pegasus and before (or during at most) the plague in Milky Way that wiped out most of the Ancients.

Ian writes: “Some people in a forum i am in are debating about destiny and atlantis. Destiny is first right? and we know that Atlantis has to be a few million years old, since they wiped out life in the milky way and then restarted it and left for pegasus. So would you be able to give a range of years like Destiny is 30-35 million years old and Atlantis is 10-15 million years old??”

Answer: I’d rather not put a specific date on either (I’ll leave that to Brad or Rob), but I will confirm that, yes, Destiny IS older.

http://josephmallozzi.wordpress.com/...ts-curveballs/

[kwlafayette]

As I have mentioned before Krazeh, you do not really need self repair systems on a manned vessel. I would assume that a crew is a cheaper way to do maintenance, if you have the choice. Redundancy is good, and can carry you a certain distance, but you cannot have two identical systems. Two identical systems would mean they would both be likely to fail in the same way, at close to the same time. For proper redundancy, you need dissimilar system. Think about two computers, following the same path through code in lock step.

As for why self repair becomes necessary, you are failing to acknowledge just how good a shape the ship is in. If we take the Destiny gate as predating all MW gates, that is 50 million years in space. Even at 5 million, it still had all 16 drive modules operational?

At some point, you have to accept the laws of probability. Maybe Destiny could get lucky for maybe a million years. But 5 million? 50 million? In 50 million years, not one shield failure while refueling? In 50 million years, not one drive failing, or being successfully hit in an attack?

You point to superficial damage as evidence of how bad a shape Destiny is in. The key is, it is superficial. No fatigue that threatens to break the ship in half. No drive failures, no shield failures, no nav system failures. No failures of the collectors to open or close. Any and all damage just happens to be in areas of the ship that do not affect core operations. I call that magical and miraculous. You can call it whatever you want, but please don't discuss it here.

I really do want to theorize about why the system is no longer in operation. That the ship is still in operation, after all this time, is clear evidence of such a system being in operation for some period of time, and only recently being rendered inoperable.

The dwindling power reserves are clearly the result of heavier elements being scooped up along with the hydrogen. Either the self repair system is meant to clean that stuff out, or it is collected on purpose to serve as raw materials for the ship. Destiny simply does not make sense without self repair, and shows that do not make sense get canceled.

[Krazeh]

As I have mentioned before Krazeh, you do not really need self repair systems on a manned vessel. I would assume that a crew is a cheaper way to do maintenance, if you have the choice. Redundancy is good, and can carry you a certain distance, but you cannot have two identical systems. Two identical systems would mean they would both be likely to fail in the same way, at close to the same time. For proper redundancy, you need dissimilar system. Think about two computers, following the same path through code in lock step.

Who said anything about the Ancients using identical systems for redundancy purposes?

As for why self repair becomes necessary, you are failing to acknowledge just how good a shape the ship is in. If we take the Destiny gate as predating all MW gates, that is 50 million years in space. Even at 5 million, it still had all 16 drive modules operational?

The ship isn't in that good a shape, it's been stated several times that systems are working well below their original design capability, almost to the point of failure. Not to mention huge parts of the ship are inaccessible due to damage sustained at various points during it's travels. As for the drive modules all being operational, putting aside the robustness of Ancient technology, there's no evidence to suggest that all 16 modules are used continuously. The ship may very well rotate use through the modules when inside galaxies and only use all 16 at once when it's travelling between galaxies. This alone would massively cut down on the use each module was subject to.

At some point, you have to accept the laws of probability. Maybe Destiny could get lucky for maybe a million years. But 5 million? 50 million? In 50 million years, not one shield failure while refueling? In 50 million years, not one drive failing, or being successfully hit in an attack?

Who's to say things haven't been successfully hit in an attack? The whole point of redundancies is that the system would keep on running despite that damage. And to be honest I think you're overestimating the amount of times the Destiny has been under attack, apart from anything else the likelihood of someone stumbling across the Destiny (even with sensors) is astronomically small given the vastness of space.

You point to superficial damage as evidence of how bad a shape Destiny is in. The key is, it is superficial. No fatigue that threatens to break the ship in half. No drive failures, no shield failures, no nav system failures. No failures of the collectors to open or close. Any and all damage just happens to be in areas of the ship that do not affect core operations. I call that magical and miraculous. You can call it whatever you want, but please don't discuss it here.

Key systems would be, if the Ancients had any idea what they were doing which from all indications they did, placed as far away from vunerable areas as possible, would likely be hardened to withstand damage, would incorporate multiple redundancies and safeguards and would frankly be the last things on the ship to fail. It's been demonstrated time and time again that the Ancienst build things tough and to last, which would mean that you'd probably need some sort of catastrophic event to stop the Destiny at any point before it's systems died due to natural failure.

I really do want to theorize about why the system is no longer in operation. That the ship is still in operation, after all this time, is clear evidence of such a system being in operation for some period of time, and only recently being rendered inoperable.

No, you want to theorize about why an imaginary system is no longer in operation. The ship still being in operation is simply evidence that it's still in operation, it does nothing to prove your theory that there must be a self-repair system that was keeping the ship together but has now conveniently been rendered inoperable.

The dwindling power reserves are clearly the result of heavier elements being scooped up along with the hydrogen. Either the self repair system is meant to clean that stuff out, or it is collected on purpose to serve as raw materials for the ship. Destiny simply does not make sense without self repair, and shows that do not make sense get canceled.

This is just pure fantasy. There is no basis within the show for making any of these claims. The dwindling power reserves have clearly been stated to be due to the age of the systems involved and the fact they are slowly heading towards failure.

As for not making sense, it only doesn't make sense if you refuse to take account of the established canon and instead insist on viewing everything in respect of real world technologies and how long you'd expect things we could build would last.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I'd just like to say something that I don't think has been said in this thread yet.
If the Ancients used any kind of self repair technologies on their ships then surely they would be used all of the time.
Just because you have a crew, that's no reason not to have a self repair system.
If you want to talk about logic and what would make logical sense, then it would be to have your ship and all of your ships be capable of repairing themselves all of the time, not just when they're unmanned because then the vessel's crews can concentrate on more important things like their mission, tasks which the ship was built to accomplish.

If a self repair system was present on Destiny then surely Rush, Eli or some other member of the crew would have mentioned it.
As much as it makes sense for Destiny to have such a system, it simply hasn't been mentioned, until the system is mentioned then we don't know if it has one.

[kwlafayette]

Who said anything about the Ancients using identical systems for redundancy purposes?



The ship isn't in that good a shape, it's been stated several times that systems are working well below their original design capability, almost to the point of failure.

That is the things though, everything important is still working, nothing has actually failed, in all those millions of years. All the redundancies are still in place, not one major system has had to switch to a backup. Not one drive, not a single one, has failed. All those holes in the skin, yet not one lucky shot that actually disabled anything important. You just are not seeing it here.

Millions of years. Too long for nothing important to fail. If you cannot accept that, I do not see what your interest is in this discussion.