What plans do you think the ancients had in store for destiny?

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

Incorrect: the Destiny's flightpath from "Air" was clearly stated to start on Earth.

The fact that there aren't any Destiny-era Stargates in the Milky Way is no more surprising than the fact that there are no more Model Ts driving around: they became outdated and were replaced as they wore out.

Good point! (Just read the transcript). I can't help but wonder then why it has a pre MW gate onboard then?

Even if they were once in the MW and were old, work out and replaced, you'd still expect one or two to pop up here and there in the MW. Not just that but you'd expect the seed ships to have been sent an updated gate design to construct. Finally if the gates in the MW were knackered, how could those that are out with destiny still be functional?

I have a hunch that destiny was prior to its automated mission, a former warship that was used for other things by the ancients before being retired and sent out on its automated patrol. It would kind of make sense really.. you have an old ship that you're replacing with newer ships and you need to send out something to perform an automated task.. something solid, capable of astronomical mileages and able to defend itself robustly for a millenia. Something like destiny. It's already got a stargate onboard, ok old and not a great one but for its limited use it wouldn't be worth upgrading it so it'll do the job. Dump a few supplies on board, program it to float around out there following the seed ships calculated path and let it go into the unknown.

[Quadhelix]

I can't help but wonder then why it has a pre MW gate onboard then?

They aren't necessarily pre-Milky Way (indeed, the Ancients might not have even made Stargates until they reached the Milky Way). Rather, the Stargates used by the Destiny were simply the most advanced model available at the time; the current "Milky Way" model was developed later.

Even if they were once in the MW and were old, work out and replaced, you'd still expect one or two to pop up here and there in the MW.

Not really: we saw in "Common Descent" that Destiny-style Stargates are probably very fragile compared to contemporary Milky Way and Pegasus Stargates - it's very unlike that a Destiny-style Stargate would survive the millions of years since the Ancients left the Milky Way, let alone the tens of millions of years since they became obsolete.

Not just that but you'd expect the seed ships to have been sent an updated gate design to construct.

We saw in, e.g., "Critical Mass" that certain brands of subspace communications have trouble reaching even the million-and-a-half lightyears needed to reach the halfway point between Milky Way and Pegasus. It's quite possible that, by the time the Ancients invented better Stargates, the Seed Ships were too far away to reach.

Finally if the gates in the MW were knackered, how could those that are out with destiny still be functional?

If you remember "Awakening," it's because the Stargates on the Destiny Mission are built by the Seed Ships. Each Stargate Destiny encouters is probably "only" a few thousand years old. Conversely, any Destiny-style Stargate in the Milky Way would be tens of millions of years old.

As for Destiny's Stargate itself, it has been protected inside the ship in a complete vacuum, unused. No wear from weather or repeated, etc.

I have a hunch that destiny was prior to its automated mission, a former warship that was used for other things by the ancients before being retired and sent out on its automated patrol. It would kind of make sense really.. you have an old ship that you're replacing with newer ships and you need to send out something to perform an automated task.. something solid, capable of astronomical mileages and able to defend itself robustly for a millenia. Something like destiny. It's already got a stargate onboard, ok old and not a great one but for its limited use it wouldn't be worth upgrading it so it'll do the job. Dump a few supplies on board, program it to float around out there following the seed ships calculated path and let it go into the unknown.

The problem is that the design considerations behind building a battleship are completely different from those behind building an automated long-range exploration craft.

Most importantly, a battleship probably isn't designed to travel for prolonged periods without maintenance. For example, an Iowa-class battleship apparently cost roughly $58 million per year to maintain, which is apparently over half the cost of buying a new one. Ancient technology does seem to be less maintenance intensive than normal human technology, the fact remains that any battleship is going to be designed and built under the assumption that the ship is going to have semi-ready access to some sort of maintenance facility should parts wear out or become damaged. Conversely, an automated long-range explorer like Destiny operates under almost exactly the opposite conditions: once it's launched, it may not receive a maintenance for hundreds of thousands of years (which turned out to stretch on to tens of millions).

Also, compare Destiny with, e.g., Curiosity. Even though we don't expect Curiosity to find anything as groundbreaking as a message in the CMB, it was still purpose-designed and built from scratch, rather than using some off-the-shelf unmanned ground vehicle, because they wanted to make sure that it could do the job well.

[garhkal]

We saw in, e.g., "Critical Mass" that certain brands of subspace communications have trouble reaching even the million-and-a-half lightyears needed to reach the halfway point between Milky Way and Pegasus. It's quite possible that, by the time the Ancients invented better Stargates, the Seed Ships were too far away to reach.

True, but if that is the case, why do the comm stone platforms work over such vast distances?

And since destiny was made well before the exodus to the pegasus galaxy, talk about ascention being the reason is out of date.. Since the developers would more than likely be long gone before they even started ascending.

[YceQueen]

You see it would have to be a damn large small group to build a ship that size. Have you tried building an air craft carrier at all? - You need thousands of people for that! Imagine a space ship like destiny. I don't think it was a small project, I think it was one of their large research projects from a time gone by. I agree with you about them returning to it at some point though.

We have no idea what they had to work with. The way I saw it, the seed ships were creating the gates at one point, so who's to say they didn't have anything to build Destiny? We know they already had the knowledge and power to build something as powerful as the Ark. Yes, it's a much smaller object, but the concept remains the same. And if a large group of Ancients were involved, as you say, why didn't anyone ever speak of it? Why did no one, not even ONE person ever go back? There were still plenty of Ancients left of Atlantis. When they had to evacuate 10.000 years ago, why did no one opt to go to Destiny instead? Find a way to get there? I think all the Ancients working on the project were long gone by then, ascended or working on something else.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

I find myself thinking that perhaps destiny hadn't found what it was looking for and hadn't sent a signal back to say it was ready to be boarded.

I agree with you though that the building of destiny could have been completely automated although we've only seen evidence of the seed ships being able to build stuff automatically so far.

[sgelite]

We have no idea what they had to work with. The way I saw it, the seed ships were creating the gates at one point, so who's to say they didn't have anything to build Destiny? We know they already had the knowledge and power to build something as powerful as the Ark. Yes, it's a much smaller object, but the concept remains the same. And if a large group of Ancients were involved, as you say, why didn't anyone ever speak of it? Why did no one, not even ONE person ever go back? There were still plenty of Ancients left of Atlantis. When they had to evacuate 10.000 years ago, why did no one opt to go to Destiny instead? Find a way to get there? I think all the Ancients working on the project were long gone by then, ascended or working on something else.

I find myself leaning towards the school of thought that the Alteran/ Lanteans that sent out destiny eventually found out, in time a different faster way to reach 'the source'.
And I think that it was the discovery of the message that enabled them to ascend, but to the white level(for lack of a better description) of ascension as we know that the ori ascended but they had limits to their power.(unable to detect other galaxies for one).
So having worked out the secrets of the message they ascend but rather than recall or destroy destiny, they allow it to travel on with its journey, maybe with the hope that we would one day find a way to get their as we did with Atlantis.
Then we would be ready to start our own paths to ascension.

[thenimf]

In terms of the difference of the 'build quality' of the Destiny class gates.

Keep in mind that MW and (presumably) Pegasus gates are made of Naquadah. Relying on a single mineral for a mission like this would be crazy. I reckon seed ships would have to use whatever raw materials are available.

Think Replicators or the gate Orlin built in Sam's basement - the seed ships have a basic set of goals that their gate has to achieve... and they use whatever resources are available to construct that blueprint.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

In terms of the difference of the 'build quality' of the Destiny class gates.

Keep in mind that MW and (presumably) Pegasus gates are made of Naquadah. Relying on a single mineral for a mission like this would be crazy. I reckon seed ships would have to use whatever raw materials are available.

Think Replicators or the gate Orlin built in Sam's basement - the seed ships have a basic set of goals that their gate has to achieve... and they use whatever resources are available to construct that blueprint.

I agree and I'ver suggested that in the past myself (not sure if was this thread though lol).

[Ausfan]

Good point! (Just read the transcript). I can't help but wonder then why it has a pre MW gate onboard then?

Even if they were once in the MW and were old, work out and replaced, you'd still expect one or two to pop up here and there in the MW. Not just that but you'd expect the seed ships to have been sent an updated gate design to construct. Finally if the gates in the MW were knackered, how could those that are out with destiny still be functional?

I have a hunch that destiny was prior to its automated mission, a former warship that was used for other things by the ancients before being retired and sent out on its automated patrol. It would kind of make sense really.. you have an old ship that you're replacing with newer ships and you need to send out something to perform an automated task.. something solid, capable of astronomical mileages and able to defend itself robustly for a millenia. Something like destiny. It's already got a stargate onboard, ok old and not a great one but for its limited use it wouldn't be worth upgrading it so it'll do the job. Dump a few supplies on board, program it to float around out there following the seed ships calculated path and let it go into the unknown.

Frankly, it has more to do with the fact it is a different SG franchise so they want to create different type of Stargates to differentiate it from the other franchises, not sure there is really a story there.

That said from what I recall it is a bit like a movile phone network, eg smart phones are using 3G at the moment and we are all going toward 4. If you recall from the episodes they are looking for Greer and Eli, Chloe and Lt Scott, the early-form stargate that the sed ships were planting had only a relatively short range where they could dial nearby planets, hence the need to "planet-hop", whereas the MW era ones were capable of diallin any other SG in the Galaxy, even accounting for Stellar Drift. From this perspective it is understandable why there would be a complete and comprehensive rollout of the more modern versions in the MW

The Seed ships probably simply didn't have the hardware capacity to create updated models, it's a bit like how a factory has to be outfitted to allow it to construct more modern versions of technology, there needs to physically be someone there which obviously didn't happen

Destiny is deliberately named, can't be an old warship but rather a custom built scientific research vessel, as we can tell from some of the research rooms. What I find interested is it's called Destiny which relates to final destination, but is exploring the origins of the Universe. Then there is the fact it's a ship which facilitates the journey inbetween, after all, growthor achievemnet in life is not so much about the destination or end outcome but the journey that gets you there etc

What I am interested in is the interest that ascended Ancients would have in the mission or the journey on the ship, and whether they would have figured in the series later on, the 'new' planet was intriguing. They have probably found much of the answers they were looking for in their ascension process but it is interesting to wonder if they would have still had any lingering interest. Plus the people who later migrated to the Pegasus Galaxt for that matter

[woolsey]

i still hope that a feature film will be released at one point in the future and that it will reveal the mission and all the other mysteries. personaly i think the admins should write a letter to joseph mallozzi and the other producers and request some answers regarding desitinys mission

[garhkal]

I am thinking the writers already HAVE the finale done up, but have not gotten anywhere with development of it, due to no interest from the powers that be.

[Energizer_Vs_ZPM]

i still hope that a feature film will be released at one point in the future and that it will reveal the mission and all the other mysteries.

Well you're wrong. In case you didn't notice, MGM suffered huge financial troubles and filed for bankruptcy. They've sold all ALL the props and sets for SG1, SGA and now SGU. It will not be coming back unless all of this is rebuilt / replaced / bought or hired back.

personaly i think the admins should write a letter to joseph mallozzi and the other producers and request some answers regarding desitinys mission

Seriously? You think the admins of a website will make MGM commit to spending $Millions on bringing back SGU which in their eyes, was a commercial failure ? If millions of fans wrote in flooding their mail room they might seriously reconsider but people don't do that kind of thing these days. It's too much for people to sign an online petition these days yet alone write a real letter, walk to the post box and post it.

I am thinking the writers already HAVE the finale done up, but have not gotten anywhere with development of it, due to no interest from the powers that be.

Mallozi made it clear in his blog that the plot for destiny had already been thought up and decided on but they were never able to finish it due to syfy pulling the plug on MGM.

[TheAllKnowningGuy]

Good point! (Just read the transcript). I can't help but wonder then why it has a pre MW gate onboard then?

Even if they were once in the MW and were old, work out and replaced, you'd still expect one or two to pop up here and there in the MW. Not just that but you'd expect the seed ships to have been sent an updated gate design to construct. Finally if the gates in the MW were knackered, how could those that are out with destiny still be functional?

I have a hunch that destiny was prior to its automated mission, a former warship that was used for other things by the ancients before being retired and sent out on its automated patrol. It would kind of make sense really.. you have an old ship that you're replacing with newer ships and you need to send out something to perform an automated task.. something solid, capable of astronomical mileages and able to defend itself robustly for a millenia. Something like destiny. It's already got a stargate onboard, ok old and not a great one but for its limited use it wouldn't be worth upgrading it so it'll do the job. Dump a few supplies on board, program it to float around out there following the seed ships calculated path and let it go into the unknown.

Now the MILKY WAY Gates were made because of a large supply of NAQUADAH (The essential element to Milky Way Gates). They were virtually cheaper to make. The Destiny Gates on the other hand, were just a general alloy mix that would be easier to make in the uncharted regions of the UNIVERSE. If the Ancients of the time were able to send a subspace comunicae to the seedships (with the milky way design), it would be impossible to construct stargates (NO NAQUADAH).

Hope I Helped, Let me know if I missed anything!

-TheAllKnowingGuy

[ChekovsWig]

Beer run