Headscratchers / Stargate Universe

Ancient Communication Stones

• When the crew first arrive on the Destiny they have a case of Ancient Communication stones, a badly damaged ship, and a lot of useless civilians. Why don't they mind-swap one of the civilians with someone like Col. Carter or Dr. McKay while they're running out of air?
  • In most of the show the problem is a supplies, not a knowledge issue. More experts won't fix a broken air scrubber / hole in the hull / lack of food. In later episodes they swap in surgeons and particular scientists when their particular skillset is needed.
• Do accents move with consciousness or with body? Accents are learned, not innate, but in 'Subversion' it isn't the accent that gives away Scottish Rush inside of American Telford.
  • According to creator Joe Malozzi's blog the accents are kept in the original body, so a switched person sounds like their host. People who use the stones also don't have trouble walking around rooms in bodies that they aren't used to - no walking into things or tripping.
• Ethically, what's up with communication stones and sex? So far as we know, Telford didn't consent to his body banging Young's wife. And what happens if sex during a swap leads to pregnancy, so far as custody or abortion decisions? The body has to deal with the consequences.
  • In a Kino webisode it is revealed that those who switch with the Destiny crew sign a waiver. Most likely this includes details of exactly what each person is allowed to do in the others body. They do mention a set of rules, so obviously the guideline permits for getting drunk to some extent and casual sex.

Life Aboard the Destiny

• How do they shave?
  • They definitely have knives and other bladed tools. Young has an electric razor, and one scene shows Greer getting a haircut with electric clippers. Maybe those are part of the expedition supplies that made it, or the Ancients had them there already.
• How do they have stuff like supplies and furniture?
  • For supplies, they're shown unpacking a random assortment of crates in the series premiere, but they do run out of things the longer they go. For furniture, it seems to have already been there - it would make more sense for the Ancients to fully outfit the spaceship before launch than to try to drag couches through the gate when they moved in.
  • Creator Joseph Mallozzi's blog has stated that the "leather" couches were on the ship when they got there, and are made of a high tech material that looks a bit like leather, but will last a very long time.
• Where are their clothes coming from? They almost always wear the same outfit, but TJ wears different clothes later in her pregnancy and Chloe's outfit eventually changes. Young darns his socks in one scene, even.
  • The bigger question is where they get all the exercise clothes they wear when required to do laps around the ship. And if they were in the initial set of supplies, that raises the question of why that was a priority and not food or whatever.
    • It didn't seem like there was much thought given to "priority", just toss whatever is closest through the gate and hope for the best.

Episode Specific Questions

Season 1, Episode 3: Air (Part 3)

• What happened to the two people who walked through the gate? They just go through, and we never talk about them again. We're never given any reason why they can't just dial back to the desert planet, or to the Destiny. They walk through, another guy is shot before he can.
  • They gated to a planet that Destiny had made inaccessible with no idea if it was habitable or not. Eli tried to contact them and they never respond. Destiny had presumably locked it out for a reason. The third guy is shot because he's the one with the dialing remote, and him leaving could strand the other four.
• Since when do Stargates have a failsafe to keep them from closing on someone partway in? Decapitated Goa'uld hosts want to know?
  • It was a failsafe in the ship's computer, not the gate. The ship was set to close the gate and enter FTL when the timer ran out, but it detected incoming matter through the wormhole and waited.
  • In Stargate SG-1 S3 E18 "Shades of Grey", O'Neill says he'll be "holding the door open" so the rogue NID agents he's busted can't dial out to another gate, and when they come through we see him holding his arm in the event horizon. Not closing a wormhole on someone partway in is likely a standard safety feature of all Ancient-designed gate interfaces, given that as best I can recall all instances of gate-induced Portal Cut involved an outgoing wormhole from Earth.

Season 1, Episode 7: Earth

• Why does no one raise the issue that sun involvement with the gate has previously caused uncontrolled time travel?
  • It isn't the sun that causes time travel, it's solar flares. Those aren't constant, and time traveling from the gates is a rare enough occurrence that no one ever seems to mind it. Also, they happen *outside* of the sun.

Season 1, Episode 13: Faith

• They have a shuttle and the ability to choose anywhere on the planet to land. Why stay in a TEMPERATE ZONE to start their colony, especially after someone found 'evidence of sub-zero winters'?
  • They chose that spot to begin with because of the Obelisk they found, as evident by the fact that they made the initial camp in order to study the Obelisk while Destiny made its maneuver. The fact that the people who wanted to stay believed that the planet was made for them should explain why they probably didn't move from that location after the Destiny left...

Season 1, Episode 14: Human

• why didn't they just stuff something into the stargate to prevent the FTL jump?
  • The crew of the ship would have had to do it from their side since Scott and the others couldn't reach the gate. That means even if they did get out of the ruins, they wouldn't be able to go through the gate because it would be an incoming wormhole.
  • Assuming the did it from the right side, a wormhole will only stay open for 38 minutes. It would have taken days to dig Scott and co out. As soon as the wormhole timed out, Destiny would jump.

Season 1 Episode 18: Subversion

• In Season 1 Episode 12, there is a coup attempt because the civilians think the military is taking too much control. In late season 1, and in season 2, Young starts to act like an actual military dictator. He refuses to listen to orders from the US government and does not bother to consult with the IOA official on any subject. The most annoying to me was when he killed Telford (for a bit) before resurrecting him and then said he didn't have to explain why he killed a defenseless prisoner to anyone. His actions do make some sense, but no one seems to question his control anymore.
  • Young basically 'won' the coup. Yes, things were tense for a while afterwards, but he demonstrated pretty well that he was in control of the situation. Camille overplayed her hand badly, and her closest ally in the coup attempt was Rush whose ulterior motive was so selfish and stupid that it probably shifted control even further to Young than it otherwise would have.

TJ's Rank vs Job

• Just what the hell is TJ supposed to be? She is an Air Force Lieutenant. But she can't be a medic, because she's an officer (medics are enlisted).
  • It's possible to come into the military as, essentially, a civilian consultant that amounts to officer rank or at least something like an attache.
  • She could have been an officer, and then been trained as a medic. Or been a medic before joining SGC, then she underwent officer training.
• A nurse can get a commission as a First Lieutenant. A lady I went to high school with was commissioned as a Major in the Air Force for her doctorate in Psychiatry.
• When our unit deployed to Desert Shield/Storm our Battalion Surgeon, a civilian trauma surgeon, volunteered and was Direct Commissioned as a Major.

Gate Range, Seeder Ships, and Gate Materials

• A Stargate can connect to any other gate in its galaxy, so why is Destiny only in range of four (or one) at a time? The Stargate network of the entire galaxy should be available. For that matter, why is the 12 hour limit so important, if Destiny drops out of FTL whenever its gate is dialed?
  • Its explicitly stated on the show that these gates are of an older design, with limited power sources(the power source seems to be the handheld DH Ds).
  • Another reason / interpretation is unlike the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies, it's explicitly stated that these "Destiny" galaxies are only lightly seeded along a specific corridor. This, combined with the older gates' inability to "daisy chain" the dial-outs, mean that the ship gate can only directly dial nearby gates, rather than piggyback throughout the existing network.

• Why would you send X number of seeder ships out to drop stargates off and not bother to include frigging DHDs? They'll obviously deposit more stargates than Destiny can ever visit, even if there's only the one seeder ship - given that the seeder was launched first and is entirely automated, so what's the point? For that matter, why didn't the Ancients board destiny? Even with their horrible track record of follow-through, such a monumental undertaking can't have just been forgotten.
  • Destiny model gates are an older, simpler gate that can be mass produced by an automated ship. They do not form a network, and they don't use DHD's. Instead, they use a simpler system that simply "pings" all gates that are within its (much more limited) range. These gates weren't intended to form a permanent gate network. They were a stopgap measure that would allow the Ancients to get around until the more complex, permanent gate networks could be established.
    • Shocking perhaps, but consider: Rush is just wrong or speaking figuratively to indicate "really old." Plus <i>how do we know that the Milky Way Gates in general weren't simply replaced? The Beta Gate was the only one that could be somewhat reliably dated (though even then you can get around it) to pre-Atlantis departure.

    • Well, they've now explained and shown that the seeder ships make cheapie knockoff stargates with a very limited range; they clearly knew that extremely long range gates were possible, that was how the Ancients planned to get Destiny her crew, but it didn't make (economical?) sense to build the high end models deployed around the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies. Furthermore, thanks to the limited range, it appears that these short-range models just ping every stargate in range, so they don't need the big directory and update froo froo that the galaxy-spanning gates have.

• In "Common Descent" a stargate gets a sizable chunk taken off by the evil aliens. Hasn't it been established prior to that that stargates are pretty much undestroyable artifacts ?
  • These are early model stargates—they don't even have nearly the range the one on Earth does, for instance. It's probable that these aren't quite as hardy either.
    • But it still takes a crapload of power to subvert the laws of physics, and the medium for that power is the gate itself—even if it could be damaged there would also be a large energy release. A nuclear weapon sized energy release.
    • Naquadria absorbs energy. That blast may have been good enough to blow a hole in the gate through sheer force, but the excess would be safely contained in the naquadria. It takes a lot to make it explode.
    • Stargates are made out of naquadah. If they were made from naquadria, they would explode a lot easier.
    • I now refer the OP to the SG 1 episode Ascension where the Ancient being Orlin creates a Stargate out of a toaster, 100 pounds of titanium, 200 feet of optic fiber cable and seven 100,000 watt capacitors all of which was powered using the regular old US power grid. Proof that you can make a Stargate using exceptionally weaker materials and have it still work. After all I can't see that thing surviving an energy blast either. On a related note, although using far more unsubstantiated information than the Orlin gate, was the gate made by the Tollans. During the episode Between Two Fires it is stated in dialogue that Anubis's Hatak destroyed it using a conventional orbital bombardment - possible further proof that constructing and using a weaker Stargate is not an SG Universe original concept.

• Another couple "Gauntlet" questions: How were the drones able to find the Gates across the galaxy if they hadn't been activated before? Did they comb the galaxy to find the Gates, or did they detect the Novan SG teams as they scouted for colonies? And once they found the Gates, why didn't they destroy them? We already know they had the capacity from "Common Descent".
  • The gates do send out signals to coordinate with each other. The drones could have tracked them through that. They don't destroy the gates because they're trying to destroy Destiny. They are capable of basic reasoning. Destroying the gates would keep Destiny from using them, thereby betraying its presence.
  • That doesn't explain why they didn't destroy them before Destiny turned up. After all, the seed ship was undiscovered until the Ramming episode and there doesn't "have" to be a follow up ship in any case. Why would a destroy all technology focused drone, leave really advance technology where anyone could find it (the gates) just on the off chance it might help them find someone who they don't even know is coming.
  • They didn't treat the gates as advanced technology before Destiny started using them. With no energy signature being given off, the drones would never recognize it as such. The connection signal is weak enough that they don't detect it normally, so they could only have recently discovered it.

inbreeding

• How did 85 or so people manage to have enough genetic diversity to allow a globe-spanning civilization in 2000 years without them all being horribly inbred? If the next generation completely abandoned single pair mating and just swapped mating partners every time, they might last longer than a "traditional" society but I'm pretty sure they don't have a viable population size no matter how they do it.
  • There's enough of them to manage. None of them are related, so there's diversity right there. So long as the kids don't marry each other, in two or three generations there'd be enough drift for it to work out ok. So long as they're at least a cousin or two removed, the risk of dominant negative mutation is minimal.
    • Though they'd have been a lot safer/better off if they'd considered less monogomous relationships and asked the homosexuals to contribute as well.
  • And considering that they seemed to do a decent job of retaining knowledge, they might have been able to build the tech base genetic manipulation and analysis before any issues became crippling.
    • Which brings to question how they weren't able to devise some FTL technology, after having a long hard 18 month look at the tech - and 2000 years to ponder over it.
    • They don't know how Destiny FTL functions, the only hyperdrive expert didn't come with them, and they were a little busy just trying to set up infrastructure.
    • Why would you possibly need FTL technology when you're the only species in your sector of the Galaxy and you've already got Stargates on all the human inhabitable worlds in the vicinity?
    • Why did Sir Edmund Hillary climb Mount Everest? Because it was there. Not to mention they had no way of knowing they were the only species...
    • And should have suspected they weren't the only species, Drones and small brown aliens anyone?
    • This bothered me too — why didn't the people of Novus re-invent the hyperdrive? They advanced far beyond present-day Earth technology and science in so many ways. They didn't have experts for lots of scientific fields with them — even when it comes to medicine, they didn't have an "expert" in the full sense of the word, and yet they found cures for diseases that no-one on present-day Earth could cure. Hyperdrive technology was already thoroughly studied by the time SG:U started. Even if there was no dedicated expert in the tech with the Novus settlers, it seems counter-intuitive that their only option would have been slower-than-light ships.
    • There are many good reasons why Novus never invented Hyperdrives. For starters, although you are correct in saying that they are well researched by this point in history, was it ever established that any of the scientists were Hyperdrive experts? because the only guy I can think of is Rush and he wasn't there. Could you build me a nuclear reactor using only a textbook? Secondly remember just how much trouble Earth had to begin with despite all of its vast manpower, resources and technology? they were forced to steal a Goa'uld one until the Asgard came along. Without a reliable and safe power source such as Naquadah and without any experienced people they wouldn't have a hope in heck. As for the medicine that no one on earth could cure not only does one confirmed advancement over Earth in no way means they could invent FTL travel; remember that a good portion of the population are descended from TJ - and motor neurone disease is genetic. It would in all likelihood have been a global problem.
  • To get back to the original question: it's estimated that, under ideal conditions (optimal male-female ratio and a severe breeding regimen), it would take a bare minimum of about 80 people to keep up a long-term sustainable population. In order to keep sexual freedom and family units, double that number is required (so 160). There were a little over 60 people left aboard Destiny at the time of Twin Destinies (taking into account dead/stranded/Franklin people, and taking Rush out of the equation but adding Varro and possibly Koz). On top of that, subtract Volker (who dies of kidney failure), Wray (who does not breed due to her sexual preference), the implied other lesbian crewmember Wray mentions (though she could be bisexual and therefore a breeding candidate) and Brody (who, as far as we know, does not find a mate). Adding all that up, there is no way the population could have survived long enough to start a civilization that would survive for 2,000 years, barring extensive genetic manipulations about three generations in (we're talking manipulations so severe they would basically need to rewrite people's entire effective genetic codes and make babies look absolutely nothing like their parents). This is pretty much Artistic License - Demographics.
    • If our estimates are that 80 people are necessary to maintain a sustainable population, then sixty is more then close enough a deviation that it might turn out to be enough once you actually get to testing that hypothesis, especially if your population is more diverse then average, which it probably is because Icarus base personnel presumably came from all over America, and a few even from beyond. Also being lgb does in no way preclude you from breeding, you just can't breed with your partner. Wray might actually do better then most people, since she already has to accept that her children will have to come from some sperm donor, so she'd have less qualms about her different children having different fathers. Furthermore, if they'd anticipated the potential genetic diversity problem and set up measures to deal with them, they might have used sperm from Brody and maybe even frozen some of Volkers. Freezing sperm is pretty easy. Finally, (as has been pointed out earlier) they would survive quite a few generations before the problems became big enough that extinction was imminent, and in that time they might have rebuilt their medical base enough that they could combat the problem using genetics tools. Once they surpassed Earth even a bit in medical capabilities they might even have sequenced the genomes from the corpses of their founders (DNA has a very long "half-life") and used that to repair any genetic damage. I'm not saying these facts automatically get them out of trouble, but with a decent combination of luck and foresight things aren't nearly as bad as you claim them to be.
    • Pablo Escobar's four hippos have managed to give rise to a thriving population in South America. It's not ideal to have such limited genetic diversity (and a scene confirming Wray didn't have kids should probably have been dropped, especially since she's like the only Asian genes), but it is possible. The population would just have more inherent illnesses. And we do know medical science is one thing their civilization did thrive with. Also on the subject of their original gene pool, some of them were surviving Lucian alliance members so they'd be super distantly related from the rest with it being a coalition of alien planets that split off from earth a rather long time ago.

Original Purpose of the Destiny

• What was the Ancient's original plan? They use the Icarus planet to catch up with Destiny... and then what? Were they planning on using the sun powering the gate? Or were they just planning to stay? Or just hoping they built zpm level power sources before going through? It all seems very poorly planned to send the ship out and then figure out all the logistics of getting back and forth.
  • Since they planned to bring Destiny's findings to the rest of their civilization, the logical way to do that would be through its stargate. I don't think using an Icarus-style planet was their original plan- that was just the only suitable power source Stargate Command had access to. The Ancients probably had access to much better power sources, even back then. I'd bet if Destiny's batteries weren't so degraded by the time the humans got to it, they could power a gate back to Milky Way without camping on a star.

Age of the Destiny

• Rush says that Atlantis is 'nearly a million years old' (or something similar) but the ship is primitive compared to Atlantis - Destiny predates ATA gene technology, and the shuttles are technologically a downgrade from the Puddle Jumpers. But Atlantis left Earth 'several million years ago, so what's going on?
  • Maybe the Ancients upgraded Atlantis some during the millions of years they spent hanging out in Pegasus?
  • Rush might just be guessing wildly. They've just landed on a spaceship, to their total surprise, and they can't exactly carbon date anything or access most of the systems. Also, he's a math guy, not an archeologist.
  • Part of the reason that Destiny can only dial the gates it's closest to is that its Stargate is one of the oldest that SGC has ever encountered.
  • Creator Joe Mallozzi has said that "Dr. Rush may have misspoke" in regards to how old the Destiny is.
  • Didn't the show explicitly say Destiny was launched 500 million years ago?

Meta: Cancellation and Franchise End

• What really killed the show and the planned Stargate (SG-1, Atlantis) films?
  • SG:U was a pretty big transition from both SG-1 and SG:A. Darker, less action, less humor, MUCH more interpersonal conflict. The Neilsen ratings dropped off pretty quickly after the first few episodes. It's likely that people who liked SG-1 and SGA for those reasons might not have liked SGU, and people who *didn't* like SG-1 or SGA for those reasons wouldn't have given the show a chance due to the association.
  • MGM hit bankruptcy around the same time SGU was canned. That, more than anything, is what put the next direct-to-DVD movies on hold. At the same time, the MMORPG was cancelled because its developer went bankrupt. Basically, a whole lot of things hurt Stargate at the same time, not just SGU.

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