What do you like about Destiny as a ship?

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Hi all

Just thought I'd start a thread asking what you all like about destiny as a ship. It could be anything from a piece of tech to the way it looks.

For me I have a few..
The solar charging system - those collectors look cool and the way destiny flies through a star just always looks beautiful.
The many different alarm sounds on destiny - both on the bridge and in the engineering area. I used to like Atlantis's alarm but destinys alarms are awesome (anyone got them as sound effects for me? - I'd love them on my windows system so PM me!)
The shape of the ship - long, pointy, flat, wide wings but with a square shaped pyramid. Oh and it has what appears to be two eyes at the front on the nose (I always hoped we were going to see some ultra cool tech behind those!).
The big laser guns on the outside.. just gotta love those - millions of years and still working
The bridge - the way it tucks away and then pops up oh and war mode where the monitors drop out of the ceiling etc. Totally cool.
Most of all.. destinys semi self intelligence. From locking rooms, playing with youngs mind (to make him strong again) to communicating with rush on the bridge. Destiny is silently self aware and almost seems friendly (mind you after several million years alone following seed ships and being attacked I suppose the ship was grateful for the company ). Yes, i was very sad seeing the twin destiny from the future being destroyed - it felt so wrong! I wanted to see them tow it to safety somehow lol.

Bits I didn't like about the ship?
The chair! The worst looking design ever. Even the ancients knew how to design stuff properly and the chair just doesn't seem to fit with their normal designs.
The shuttles (and no, I didn't like the puddle jumpers either). For a ship that was designed to check out stargates they're the wrong shape and have no direct access to the ships own gate. That just seemed wrong for an ancient design. I didn't like the PJs but at least they could get through the gate!
It was the only ship to have direct contact with stargates. Atlantis was supposed to be the ultimately tool'd up ancient ship but even atlantis couldn't communicate directly with the stargates (that we know of) so it seems wrong that destiny was the only ship that could.
The main weapon - it was just an oversized normal weapon and didn't seem overly impressive if you ask me. It only seemed to point forwards so could only take on one 'big' enemy ship at a time and lots of smaller ones.

[rushy]

I liked all that you liked and I liked all that you hated.

[psl1]

Agree with Rushy....I like them all. I would emphasis the semi intelligence of the ship; adding an unknown mysterious element that was benign in nature but sometimes actually very helpful.

The ability of the ship to replenish itself in the stars is critical element that kind of 'blew my mind' when I first saw it. The ultimate solar powered space ship, that solves all long term power needs. Which has to be the all important -critical first step.

Me I'm as old school as it goes. So I don't just accept humans in a spaceship across the galaxy [to say nothing of universe], without massive time in future [IE Centuries] to give enough time to deal with what I refer to as the "Impossibility of space travel".

I'm also an avid "Ancient Aliens" admirer so the idea of hijacking an ancient alien spaceship is appealing to me.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Agree with Rushy....I like them all. I would emphasis the semi intelligence of the ship; adding an unknown mysterious element that was benign in nature but sometimes actually very helpful.

Yes it gave the show a totally unique feature. Benign yes until it felt it needed to interact with the crew for some mysterious reason. It was also very mysterious how it would calculate its flight paths with no explanation. In Blockade the destiny is smart enough to figure out that it needs to pace out the time between FTL and the approach to the star in case of drones - copied at the next star by the crew. Clearly the ship was intelligent not only in strategy but also survival and would attempt to teach its own survival tactics to the crew. A truly fascinating concept. I find myself thinking that Destiny was somewhat shy as it would only directly communicate when it was forced to or when something was troubling it - such as when Rush found the bridge. I also find myself thinking that this AI must have had some sort of fault if it wasn't part of Atlantis.

I'm also curious about the ship design. Do you think that Destiny may have been one of a fleet of destiny class ships all sent out on the same mission following their own group of seed ships? It seems like one hell of an expectation to send one ship to follow up on more than one seed ship all over the universe. What way would you go directionally and how would you pick between seed ships to follow? At some point you'd have to double back on yourself to cover the other side which makes me think there must be other destiny ships out there all doing the same thing. With that said, I also wonder if this was destinys primary role or if it was a former battleship that was retired from service and then given an automated mission for the rest of its days. It's clearly a battle ship anyway but what I mean is, was it once used for general space exploration with a crew before being decomissioned and then being sent off on its own? - Another interesting idea that could have been expanded on in the show.

[Dale Volker]

I agree with all the points especially the whole semi intelligence thing. I felt like destiny was a character and had a voice of it's own. I felt like those deep booming alarms (which I loved) were part of it's voice. But not only sound effects, the composed music for the show had a lot of deep and dark electric violin which I felt was the sorrowful voice of Destiny. I too hated the weapons. They just always seemed so useless and bulky

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

I liked all that you hated.

Steady on mate, I didn't say I hated any of it I just didn't like a few parts. There is a difference

[JadedWraith]

Hi all


Most of all.. destinys semi self intelligence. From locking rooms, playing with youngs mind (to make him strong again) to communicating with rush on the bridge. Destiny is silently self aware and almost seems friendly (mind you after several million years alone following seed ships and being attacked I suppose the ship was grateful for the company ).

Yes, apart from the design, that's the most attractive feature, being a character of its own merit in the show. I have to rewatch SGU. *sigh*

[min min light]

For a ship that was designed to check out stargates they're the wrong shape and have no direct access to the ships own gate. That just seemed wrong for an ancient design.

I was just thinking about that today. I suppose it was a plot device - so that everyone would have to go to planets on foot and get in more trouble that way - but it has the unfortunate side effect of making the Ancients look short-sighted. The people who designed that ship would have had more sense.

Anyway my favorite thing is the bridge, which kicks the ass of any Star Trek bridge for sheer beauty of design, and I say that as a Trek fan.

[callmezippy]

They way the ship let them charge up their ipods

[Quadhelix]

The shuttles (and no, I didn't like the puddle jumpers either). For a ship that was designed to check out stargates they're the wrong shape and have no direct access to the ships own gate. That just seemed wrong for an ancient design. I didn't like the PJs but at least they could get through the gate!

The problem isn't that the shuttles are the wrong shape, the problem is that they are too big - if someone asserted that you could fit a Puddle Jumper inside one of Destiny's shuttles, I would be hard pressed to disagree.

The point I'm trying to make is that, at the time Destiny was launched, the Ancients might have had the technology to build a shuttle small enough to fit through the Stargate.

However, the inability to fit shuttles through a Stargate wouldn't make shuttles useless - e.g., when attempting to land on a planet where the Stargate has been damaged or buried (see, e.g., "Aftermath," "Common Descent," and "Epilogue"), or when attempting to access a planet or ship not on the network (see, e.g., "Light," "Faith," and "Resurgence").

I also find myself thinking that this AI must have had some sort of fault if it wasn't part of Atlantis.

Or an AI might have simply been superfluous on Atlantis. Destiny needs some form of AI because it is supposed to operate for long periods of time without a crew. Atlantis, as a city, does not operate under the same conditions and thus has less need of an autonomous AI.

What way would you go directionally and how would you pick between seed ships to follow? At some point you'd have to double back on yourself to cover the other side which makes me think there must be other destiny ships out there all doing the same thing.

Not necessarily true:

There is another possibility that's I'm having a bit difficulty explaining well. The basic idea is that the Destiny's path approximates a set of spherical spirals on a set of concentric spheres (with Earth/Milky Way at the center). In this way, it would explore all "galaxies of interest" that are between, for example, 120 and 150 million light-years from Earth before moving on to the galaxies that are between 150 and 180 million light-years from Earth. In this case, Destiny's flight path could be tens of trillions of light-years long but still leave Destiny within a few billion light-years of Earth.

If this is, indeed, an accurate description of Destiny's flight path, then it wouldn't matter which direction you start out going because the ship will explore every galaxy within a certain distance before going any farther.