Nerd heaven

Following from the disturbing cliffhanger at the end of the previous episode, This one opens with the tragic death of not one, but two semi-regular characters. While Eli tries to handle his grief, doing what he can to help with the situation, Rush goes off in a revenge-fueled rage to kill the Lucian Alliance killer Simeon.

An emotion-filled episode shot in the beautiful Binti Badlands.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 79 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Malice.”

The description on Gateworld reads

Simeon makes his escape from Destiny, sending Nicholas Rush on a vengeful mission to catch him. But Young and Greer must attempt to retrieve Simeon unharmed.

This episode was both written and directed by Robert C. Cooper

And it first aired on the 16th of November 2010

Young is talking with Brody, Park, and Volker. They’re all trying to come to terms with the recent revelations. The bridge, Destiny’s mission, and how much they should trust Rush, keeping in mind that he was responsible for Riley’s death.

Young is being surprisingly lenient on that. “I don’t believe he intended Riley harm,” he says. And that is true. Rush messed up big time. He made a mistake that cost a man’s life, but it was hardly pre-meditated murder.

As Young says, Rush is going to have to live with that for the rest of his life.

The scientists are amazed by the importance of this discovery, assuming it’s true. As Eli says “you have planted false information in the computer before.”

Have you noticed that over the last year and a half, Eli has grown more dubious of Rush, and has less tolerance for him?

They’ve dropped out of FTL in a system. There are three planets in range. One is a wasteland but the other two show promise.

Rush is going to have to get used to the fact that the bridge is no longer his own private domain. That will be a pretty hard adjustment for him.

Nick goes to see Doctor Perry, who isn’t answering. She’s lying unconscious on the floor.

What did Simeon do to her?

Scott has quickly determined that all Lucian Alliance are accounted for except Simeon.

And he’s got a gun. Not sure how he pulled that off.

TJ doesn’t seem to be doing much to help Perry. We learn that this body is dead. That leaves them all fearing the worst for Gin. Nobody knows for certain what happens to the other person when a body-swapped person dies.

They use the stones to check in. And James confirms the worst. Amanda Perry is dead.

That means Gin is dead too.

Wow. I knew this was coming, but in my memory, Eli and Ginn’s relationship lasted a bit longer than this. I didn’t remember exactly how she died. We only really got to see them together for that one episode.

This is heavy.

And heart-breaking.

And both Rush and Eli are beyond heartbroken.

Rush goes on a rampage through the ship, screaming and hitting the walls.

Eli asks Young, in a trembling voice, for a gun.

Simeon’s motivation seems pretty clear. Ginn was telling Lucian Alliance secrets to homeworld command. Simeon killed Perry in order to kill Ginn.

So that was a pretty gutsy move. The show has just killed two semi-regular characters in one swoop. Reasonably likeable characters at that. It’s a big deal. But it kinda hurts.

And now we have a hostage situation.

Simeon is holding Park and orders Volker to dial the gate.

He’s already killed a couple of guards.

By the time Brody gets the door to the gateroom open, Simeon has already gone through the gate with Park. Rush lives up to his name and … rushes straight through after him.

The planet looks pretty desolate, but livable.

Park says that there’s something on her back.

And as serious and tense a moment this is, all I can think of is Doctor Who. I’m sure some of you will know what I’m talking about.

It turns out to be a bomb.

While TJ fights to save the lives of the downed guards, Young gets a team together to dial the gate back again,

There’s a problem. Several actually.

The bomb is an ancient device. So they only know what they’ve been able to piece together about it. Young has learned that Ginn told homeworld security that Simeon knows the location of the Lucian alliance base. His knowledge may be the only way to stop the impending attack on Earth. They need him alive.

Right now, Rush is on the planet, and while he’s currently distracted with the bomb on Park’s back, he has every intention of killing Simeon on sight.

Young and his team can’t come through the gate while Rush is trying to disarm the bomb. At least, that’s what he says.

He has no reason to lie at this point because he doesn’t know Young wants Simeon alive.

Simeon has a shot lined up on Rush’s back. But for some reason, he doesn’t fire. He seems to reconsider when the gate dials. I’m not really sure why.

Rush is on the verge of giving up, abandoning Park to her fate, because he has nothing small enough to remove the bomb.

But then he realises he can use his glasses.

Rush may have his own priorities, as always, but he’s not completely heartless.

Young has a little talk with Varro, the leader of the remaining Lucian Alliance people. He’s the reasonable one.

He assures Young he didn’t know about Simeon’s knowledge of the attack. And I tend to believe him. But he warns Young to simply let Simeon go.” You’ll lose more people trying to bring him in alive. He’s dangerous.”

That, they’ve already figured out.

Turns out there are more bombs. Simeon has booby trapped the desert with them.

Scott tries to reason with Rush. Once Colonel Young is done with Simeon, Rush can do whatever he wants with him. Scott doesn’t care. And Greer says “if you don’t kill him, I will.”

But right now, they have to bring him in alive. Even from so far away, they can still do their part to help save Earth.

And Rush seems to understand. He’s an intelligent man.

But right now he’s running on pure emotion.

Let’s see if he really can reign that emotion in.

After securing Rush’s agreement to play by the rules, Scott allows him to remain.

The location they used to film this planet is pretty cool. I love all the rock protrusions.

I found myself wondering where they filmed this. After all, the Stargate shows were all shot in Canada, and while I’m sure a landmass the size of Canada is more diverse that people would assume, it’s certainly not known for terrain like this. Are there any deserts in Canada? Not that I’m aware of, but I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, it turns out they shot the location stuff for this episode in New Mexico, which is a state of the USA. Air Part 3, and the Atlantis episode Vegas were also shot there.

They’re in a place called the Bisti Badlands.

The sandstone formations were formed by a glacier.

The funny thing is, the cast and crew joked that people will assume it’s fake, that it's CG, or that the rocks were built on a set. And funnily enough, when you see these rocks close up, they do kinda look like they’ve been made out of moulded concrete. But That’s what they actually look like. It’s all real.

Apparently the wind was pretty bad out there, and caused some problems with some of the equipment.

Eli is keeping busy trying to stall the FTL clock.

Volker is struggling with the fact that Simeon let him live. Why didn’t he kill him?

Rush and Scott are talking about the message the ancients found in the background radiation. He points out that Scott likely wants to believe that the message is from God, the creator.

Rush says “well, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Rush is implying a complete openness to discovering the answer no matter what. He’ll follow the science, even if the science leads to God.

And that’s actually the scientific ideal. Just follow the evidence with no preconceived notions at all.

Of course, it’s very difficult for any of us human beings to put aside our own biases enough to reach that ideal.

Greer really doesn’t trust Rush at the moment. While Young may have forgiven him, Greer never will. I think he’s almost hoping that Rush betrays them so he gets to kill him.

They’re not going to be able to figure out how to stop the clock in time before the ship jumps. However, they can stop the ship again. It has to remain in FTL for a minimum for 4 hours. At that point, they’ll still be in range of the planet.

That’ll be the last chance. They don’t have complete and full control over the ship, afterall.

Scott spots an animal. A big alien lizard thing, not too dissimilar from a dinosaur.

I love Greer’s first thought. “Is it something we can barbecue?”

In the 90s, I remember that while we might see creatures on the big screen, it was pretty rare to see alien animals or monsters on TV. They just didn’t have the budget for it. Today, of course, premium TV has similar budgets to movies and the results are often indistinguishable. Modern shows like Star Trek Discovery will often give us big CGI alien creatures. Stargate Universe was one of the very first shows to do this. I’m not sure it gets enough credit for that.

Back in season 2 of SG-1, it was such a huge deal when they splurged to give us the folding Horus Guard helmet, previously only seen in the movie.

Chloe is working on equations. She might as well use what she has. It seems she may have figured something out just as the ship jumps.

Rush is overcome with grief at the loss of Perry. He breaks down in the middle of the desert and cries.

He’s blaming himself. He brought her on board.

Scott tries to console Rush, saying that even if they don’t find Simeon, he’ll probably die a miserable death on this world. But he has a kino remote. He’ll probably wait for them to leave and then planet-hop, searching for the other Lucian Alliance people that were left on a planet behind.

Simeon has them in his sights. He fires.

Here’s a question. Is he deliberately just trying to warn them off, or is he a terrible shot?

From where he was, he should have been able to easily take out Greer.

I think it’s just the same story logic that makes storm troopers bad shots.

The bad guys have to miss, otherwise the heroes will be dead.

Eli is not coping very well. He’s biting people’s heads off, and actually acting a bit like Rush, like nobody else is smart enough to do anything. It’s completely understandable given his recent loss.  Usually, after suffering a loss like this, people don’t go to work. But he doesn’t have that luxury, and the last thing he wants to do is just sit around.

Lieutenant James’ team is compromised by one of Simeon’s bombs. They have to get their wounded back to the gate, which means less people looking for Simeon.

Rush has found a way to locate Simeon using the remotes. But how long has he known? Greer and Scott are not trusting him.

There’s a nice scene between Eli and Young. Eli can’t solve the clock problem, not any time soon. So he wants to go to the planet and help go after Simeon.

Right now, it’s all about having something constructive to do that will help him get justice and revenge.

Everyone keeps pointing out how unlikely it is that they’ll get Simeon to talk. I’m curious how they’re going to go about that. It’s not like they’re going to torture him. It does seem unlikely they’ll be able to extract the information they need from Simeon.

Young warns Eli that killing for revenge will change him.

They find Simeon. Greer shoots to wound. Rush is furious about this. And while Scott and Greer are distracted by him, Simeon wounds Greer. Now Rush is on his own, tracking Simeon. And it’s time to turn back.

Chloe thinks she might be able to help Eli stop the clock. It’s all about Rush’s equations. She is slowly starting to understand them.

Now, realistically, I’m not sure how useful those advanced equations of Rush’s are going to be here. What they’re facing is essentially a software problem. Trying to understand how complex code written by somebody else works is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my day job. And that’s with the source code. Eli is trying to reverse engineer an alien program written in an alien language. It’s not a physics issue. It’s a code issue.

Anyway, Brody and Volker bring up a valid concern. Who knows if whatever Chloe does will actually be helpful. It’s quite possible she’ll unknowingly sabotage Destiny, allowing the blue aliens to attack again.

It’s a risk Young is willing to take.

Wounded and unable to move very far, Simeon takes to taunting Rush over the radio. He doubts Rush cared enough about Ginn to pursue him like this, so it must have been that other woman. You must have loved her very much.

Rush spots a herd of those animals near where Simeon is limping.

Time is up. Scott and Greer are back at the gate. They have to return to Destiny. At this point, Rush is a lost cause. He won’t get back in time.

Rush really should have learned to shoot a gun properly before getting into a firefight with a soldier. But then, he has another plan. Hisgunshots are just a distraction to get Simeon in the way of the stampeding dinosaurs which Rush sets off with one of the bombs.

The plan works.

A badly wounded Simeon says he has information. Rush isn’t interested. He shoots Simeon in the head, claiming his revenge.

Chloe is clearly not in control of whatever is in her. At least not on a conscious level. But whatever she does helps.

But he reaches the gate to find it abandoned. Or so he thinks.

It turns out Chloe plotted a new FTL course. She brought Destiny back to the planet to get Rush. Perhaps Rush’s equations were more relevant to that.

At the end, Scott asks Rush if he feels any better, having taken his revenge.

He doesn’t answer.

I think we can guess the answer, but Rush doesn’t want to admit it.

I don’t have any first hand experience with Revenge. Not on a scale like this. Oh, there’s simulated revenge, like when you’re playing Civilisation, and another country takes one of your cities, and you want to get back at them, or when you’re a kid and somebody breaks one of your toys.

But an actual burning adult desire for revenge. I’ve never suffered anything from somebody that has given me cause to feel that. Which, I guess, makes me very lucky.

But I’ve heard it from multiple sources. “Revenge doesn’t make you feel any better.”

And I believe it.

One of the most important things that a story is supposed to do, is make you feel something. It could make you feel happy, sad, angry. It doesn’t really matter what. By that logic, this is a very good episode. It had some good human drama, some beautiful scenery, and plenty of excitement.

This episode will leave a number of our characters with far-reaching consequences.

Next time, we have a big arc episode which will bring back some familiar faces, and reveal what’s really been happening to Chloe.

It should be fun. I’ll see you next time for Visitation.

In the meantime, don’t forget, if you’d like to support me, you can check our my Jewel of The Stars series of books. Just go to AdamDavidCollings.com/books  or, you can read the first book completely free by searching for Jewel of The Stars on Wattpad.

Have a great two weeks, live long and prosper

Make it so.

In today's Stargate Universe podcast, we delve into the game-changing episode "The Greater Good". When Rush and Young get stuck on a derelict alien spaceship, Rush is unable to keep hiding his secrets. Not only to the crew discover Destiny's bridge, but Rush reveals the greatest secret of all - the reason the ancients constructed and launched Destiny in the first place! I do love these big episodes that change the status quo and give us big reveals.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 78 of the podcast.

I had a bit of a mis-numbering occur recently, but this one is definitely 78.

Today we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode, The Greater Good

The description on Gateworld reads

When Young and Rush are trapped on an abandoned alien ship, Rush has Amanda Perry brought on board in an attempt to steer Destiny to them while keeping his secret.

This episode was written by Carl Binder

It was directed by William Warring

And it first aired on the 9th of November 2010

Colonel Young is lying in his bed looking very contemplative. Probably still coming to terms with all he went through last episode. And he’s late for a meeting.

The powers that be want Gin to use the communication stones and share some of her knowledge with Stargate command.  She’s been the most cooperative of the Lucian Alliance on the ship. Not surprising, since she never wanted to be a part of the alliance in the first place.

When Camille goes to ask her to do it, she notices just how far Gin and Eli have progressed in their relationship.

Destiny drops out of FTL. There’s 12 hours on the clock but there are no gates in range. Rush isn’t responding to calls as usual.

When they look out the observation deck window, they see a ship. Not a seed ship, or the blue aliens they met before. This is something new. Exciting.

Volker sums up the crew’s feelings when he sarcastically says “New friends. Yay.”

This ship is pretty banged up, like it’s been through a battle.

Predictably, Rush is on the bridge, controlling the ship.

Young is getting pretty obviously sick of Rush going off on his own little secret missions that he won’t talk about. That’s gonna come to a head pretty soon.

According to sensors, the alien ship seems to be abandoned. They want to go over and explore, but they don’t have a shuttle.

Which, I suppose makes sense. They lost their good shuttle when it crashed on that planet where Riley died. But they did get that second shuttle working eventually. It may not be in as great condition as the first shuttle was, before it crashed, but in my memory, it was still quite usable. So….what have I missed?

Anyway, they’re gonna go over in spacesuits, and Rush wants to be the one. He’s familiar with alien technology and languages so it would make sense.

Young doesn’t argue, he can’t. But he trusts Rush less than he ever has. So Young is going across to keep an eye on him. He even promises not to leave Rush behind!

Eli is visiting Chloe. He tells her about Gin, and she’s happy for him.

There’s nothing like getting to explore a new alien spaceship. Young and Rush are sliding along a cable between the two ships in their suits. The bridge appears destroyed. It does have artificial gravity, though.

That’s when they see pods, like those they saw on the seed ship. So either this ship belonged to those aliens, or, more likely, they boparded it, and maybe tried to take it overe, like they did with the seed ship.

Things start to go badly when the engines engage on their own. Just for a moment, but it’s enough to cause a disaster. The cable breaks and the alien ship is drifting rapidly away from Destiny.

Rush has no way to turn the ship around, and the crew don’t have control of Destiny so they can’t follow. This, of course, presents a real dilemma for Rush. He knows about the bridge, but nobody else does.

Now he’s facing the prospect of revealing his guilty little secrets, or dying on an abandoned spaceship.

He goes half way. He reveals he’s been working on a program that will allow the crew to operate Destiny’s main engines. This is probably true. He’s been doing a lot of work on that bridge, probably trying to reverse engineer the bridge systems so as to understand how they work.

Eli and the others can certainly help, but it’s going to take somebody with more knowledge of ancient drive systems. Amanda Perry.

Remember her? Rush worked with her in the old days before Icarus. She’s heavily disabled. Camille once had to spend weeks in her body, being cared for night and day.

Young agrees. Let’s get her on board.

They shed their suits to preserve power.

Gin gets a visit from our old friend Simeon. You know, the Lucian Alliance jerk. It seems Simeon now has free reign of the ship. He warns Gin not to say too much to the people of Earth, and by warn, I mean threaten. I’m really not sure why Simeon was chosen as one of the alliance members to remain on board Destiny. He must have concealed his true nature long enough to avoid being stranded with the other jerks.

Gin is swapping bodies with Amanda Perry. They’re all acting like this is some big thing, which of course, it is, but they don’t even mention to difficulty Gin is about to face in Perry’s body. Camille says that Gin has given her consent, and that she’s “fully aware of the communication stones protocol.” But it’s not the stones themselves that make this a big deal. It’s the fact that Gin is going into a paralysed body that can barely breathe without mechanical aide. Camille has been there. She of all people knows the emotional challenges Gin is about to endure, and she’ll have to stay there until Perry has finished solving this problem. I all just read a bit odd to me.

The camera shot where they show gin place the stone on the pedestal, and them ,in what appears to be a smooth pan with no cuts, move up to reveal Perry’s face. I’m not sure how they did it, but it was cool. And the way the hand moves, like somebody who hasn’t been able to move her body in many years, that was a nice touch.

The visual aesthetic of the alien ship seems very similar to that of Destiny. That, combined with the fact that Rush seems to be able to read and operate the controls with no difficulty, suggests to me this may be an ancient ship, but they haven’t said anything along those lines.

They even had video communications between the two ships. Although that’s probably a Kino.

Rush conveniently gets rid of both Young and Eli so he can privately share some equations with Perry.

He communicates a message to her discretely with the algorithms. He wants her to go to the bridge. Perry is the only one that Rush can trust his secret with, for now.

On her way to the bridge, Perry bumps into Simeon, except her thinks she is Gin.He approaches her aggressively, saying “we need to talk.”

Perry explains that she’s not Gin, but that isn’t enough to get rid of Simeon.

Fortunately, Greer arrives just as things look like they’re about to go bad.

So Amanda Perry becomes the second human to set foot on Destiny’s bridge.

I don’t think she really appreciates being pulled into Rush’s little game.

Her absence has already been noticed. It’s harder for her to explain her disappearance than for Rush.

So Rush has complete control over all the ship’s systems now. Navigation, propulsion. He actually doesn’t need Perry at all. It’s just that she’s the only person he trusts. She steers the ship to go rescue the others. That’s gonna be a hard one to explain.

Rush tells Perry to tell the others he sent her to the engine control room, but not to answer their calls until then.

Eli isn’t buying a word she says. And that’s when he thinks to check the Kino feed. He looks at the algorithms Rush shared. Meanwhile, Young arrives to discreetly hear Rush and Perry talking. It seems the game is up. Eli, Brody and Volker find the bridge, with Perry sitting in the captain’s chair.

And Eli is NOT HAPPY.

Young hears it over the radio. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.” Young starts to beat Young up. “You’re the reason Riley is dead.” Suddenly all the weird things that happened this season make sense to him.

Young took Riley’s death very hard. Now he has somebody to blame for it, and rightly so. Rush IS to blame for Riley’s death.

The age-old rivalry between these two all comes back out. Rush has no illusions that people will follow him, but he doesn’t want Young to be in charge either.

Rush tries to justify it, saying he couldn’t let any of those vital system be mishandled.

Young counters with “Like causing a shuttle crash, and one of our best young people dying.”

Frankly, even with Young’s near breakdown last episode, nothing that Rush says seems to hold much weight with me at this point.

It’s funny, the fierst few times I watched this show, certainly the very first, I was pretty undecided between these two, thinking they both had good points. But the more I’ve come to like and appreciate Young’s character, the more I find myself on team Young.

Which is not to say I don’t Rush’s character. I really do. He’s a complex person underneath that exterior.

Rush’s biggest argument is that Destiny’s mission reqjuires more commitment than anybody on the ship is willing to make, other than him.

Young is confused by this. There’s no mission other than getting home.

But Rush has discovered the original mission. The reason the ancients constructed the ship in the first place. It’s not about getting home, it never was. It’s about getting where they’re going.

This is a huge moment in the show. It’s a turning point because nothing will be the same after this episode.

A long time ago, the ancients made a discovery. They found evidence of a structure hidden within the cosmic microwave background radiation, left-over from the big bang.

They believed at one time the structure had genuine structure. Complexity. Coherane. IT could not have occurred naturally. It’s not possible under our current understanding of physics. We can’t even see it with our current level of technology.

It’s a message of some sort, from some kind of intelligence.

From the beginning of time.

The big question is, sent by whom? That’s the very question the ancients sought to answer. That’s why they built Destiny.  That’s the mission.

A mystery rooted in the foundation of reality. A puzzle with piece scattered all over the universe.

Rush now has access to the ship’s archives. There are volumes of information about it.

The ancients left behind data about all of this.

Rush argues that somebody has to see this mission through.

Why not us?

Rush wants Young to stop saying they don’t belong on that ship. He wants Young to work with him on this. To actively pursue this mission.

Young rightly points out that it would be a lot easier to work together if Rush didn’t keep secrets from him all the time.

Rush now offers to put their rivalry behind him, for good. For the sake of the mission.

They previously made an agreement to do just that, for the sake of the crew, but Rush’s heart was never in that agreement.

But…..for the mission? Now that’s something Rush cares about.

So…is he being genuine?

I have no doubt that Rush would happily continue keeping all of this from Young as long as he could, and actively try to get Young removed from command.

But now the game is up. Now it’s all out in the open.

So, is Rush genuinely changing his strategy? Is he truly willing to put his differences with Young behind him and work together toward accomplishing this ship’s mission?

I think he is. Rush will use whatever tools he has to in order to achieve his ends. If that means sucking it up and working with a man he believes doesn’t have what it takes and doesn’t deserve to be here, he’ll do it. Because the mission is all that matters.

And I think as we observe Rush’s behaviour moving through the rest of this season, I believe we’ll see that.

Just as their conversation comes to a natural ending point, Destiny arrives. That’s just one of the conceits of TV writing. Actually not just TV. We control the pace of a story by conveniently having the next beat in the plot happen when our characters have nothing more to talk about.

They may have control of the ship, but that doesn’t mean they know how to fly it. Think about how long it took to learn to drive a car. Now think about how much training people receive to learn to pilot a plane.

There’s more to flying a spaceship than just understanding the equations. Perry manages to crash them into the alien wreck but she’s got them where they need to be. Unfortunately, the wreck is now spinning, which will make the rescue much more difficult.

Scott has now found the scientists in the bridge  He understandable wants to know what the hell is going on, but there’s no time for explanations.  Not until they finish their menourvres, anyway.

Eli is calculating a jump, so they can launch at exactly the right moment to reach the hull of  destiny safely. It sounds tricky.

Rush launches and makes it.

Despite what some space opera suggests, moving about in space with only a suit is not so easy. They don’t just have jet packs so they can fly wherever they want.

Well, at least they’re now on the hull. That means that can just find the nearest airlock and get inside.

Eli is excited and overwhelmed by the information in the archives. Eli is sitting in the captain’s chair, probably fulfilling all his nerdy dreams. It’s surreal but awesome to finally see the crew manning stations on the bridge. There’s a planetary system coming up . They see if they can make the ship drop out of FTL. Eli even raises his hand in a very Picard-like manner. I love it.

But while they’re all geeking out over the bridge and the mission. Rush goes to see Perry.

Rush reveals his true feelings about Young to Perry. He didn’t trust him before, but now, he’s got no choice. So yes, he is going to trust and work with Young because he has to.

Perry didn’t appreciate being put in that awkward situation, but at the same time, she is very flattered that of all the people he could have chosen, she’s the one.

He’s been thinking about her a lot since she last came on board the ship. She revealed her feelings for him then. Now he’s wanting to act on those feelings, and so is she.

Eli walks in on them just as they’re starting to kiss. Young wants them on the bridge.

How far would they have gone if Eli hadn’t interrupted them? We can’t know for sure, of course, but in TV / movie language, a passionate kiss is basically a prelude to sex. Kiss then cut to another scene means the characters had sex. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that’s where things were headed.

This, is the culmination of the theme I’ve been talking about since the beginning of the series, and I think, the last time it’ll come up. The theme of how you treat another person’s body when you are inhabiting it.

As rush leaves, Eli says to Perry, “You know, with the stones, it’s easy to forget you’re in another person’s body.”

Remember, from his perspective, he’s seeing Gin with Rush.

That means the woman he has feelings for was about to have intercourse with Rush, at least, her body.

And as I’ve said before, I feel that this is a violation, on a similar level to rape. It’s not exactly the same as rape. It’s a different violation, and probably a lesser one, because the consciousness of the person is not being violated in the same way, but their body is. And I find that unconscionable.

Of course, I can see why Perry would have done it. Her body doesn’t function. The one person she loves is on the other side of the universe. This is literally the only way she will ever be able to experience that kind of intimacy with anyone again in her life.

But it seems that Eli’s words really impact her deeply. She realises that she was about to do something wrong, and she feels pretty bad about it. His words have definitely made her think.

And then Simeon enters her room, and Greer is not there to stop him this time.

The episode ends before we see what exactly goes on. But this will be followed up next time.

So “The Greater Good” is a massive episode that alters the status quo of the show significantly. 

So let’s talk about the great revelation of the ship’s mission.

It’s pretty startling.

The show is revealing that there was some form of intelligence at the very beginning of the universe.

For a show that sometimes felt like it was rooted in more of an atheistic worldview, this was quite startling. 

And some people didn’t like that. They felt that by acknowledging an intelligence at the beginning of the universe, that the show was now endorsing the existence of God. I can appreciate that, especially for those who became fans of this show because of the whole “killing false gods” thing, that became a staple, certainly of SG-1. This revelation might feel like a bit of a betrayal of the show’s roots to those who really connected with that aspect.

Although, to me, Stargate never came across as outwardly atheistic as some feel it was. The laughable gods that were the Goa’uld system Lords were unrecognisable from anything I feel is worthy of the name. Even the Ori and their Origin belief, which were meant to be stand-ins for organised religion, were a far cry from my experience.

As somebody who does believe in God, I was intrigued, and maybe even pleasantly surprised by this turn. It definitely captured my imagination. I mean, a quest to find a message from the dawn of time is a very compelling story idea.

But would they have been able to pull it off? I think it’s a question worth asking, especially as in recent years, we’ve seen Star Trek shows setting up some pretty interesting things, but not always paying them off in overly satisfying ways. Pay-offs are hard.

So what endpoint did they have in mind for all of this? And I’m choosing to believe they did have an end-point in mind, rather than just making stuff up as they went.

It would have been almost impossible to come up with an ending that would have been satisfying to everyone. If they revealed it really was God, then they’d risk offending the atheists, and potentially theists as well, if the God of the show wasn’t portrayed the way the viewers believe.

If they’d revealed that the intelligence was something other than God, then they risk offending viewers who do believe.

I think an important thing to remember in all of this is that it’s just a TV show. A lot of the entertainment that I consume is written from a worldview vastly different from mine. I don’t choose to be offended by it, I accept it as a story that I enjoy that simply doesn’t line up with my beliefs. That’s okay. I mean, it’s par for the course when you’re a sci-fi nerd.

One route, they might have chosen to take it ultimately is to leave it all very vague and “unknowable”. Which is basically what Ronald D Moore’s rebooted Battlestar Galactica did. I didn’t mind that, but in a way, having it all unknowable could be pretty unsatisfying as well. Especially since the whole point of the mission was to discover the answers.

I guess I’m just saying that this was a very cool set-up but writing a satisfying resolution would have been challenging. But then, the writers working on this show were very talented, and I actually have faith that they would have done it justice, had they been given the chance.

One thing I’m pretty sure of is that they would have tied Destiny’s mission into the mysterious Faith Planet and the super powerful beings that created it.

In any case, the set-up is exciting and opens up so many interesting possibilities for where the show could have gone from here. It’s a very compelling mystery.

We’re heading into what I think a lot of people consider to be the best of Stargate Universe. Which is pretty exciting.

Next time, we’ll be talking about the episode “Malice.” where Simeon will take centre stage.

Until then, have a great two weeks.

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

"Trial and Error" is a perfect example of why Stargate Universe is so good. This is a beautiful character piece. It shows us the strain that leaders often go through. In this episode, Colonel Young must confront his own weaknesses and flaws, and the pain of the burdens he has been forced to carry since arriving on Destiny. It's fantastic television. Plus, on a lighter note, Eli and Gin meet for the first time, and their romance begins to blossom.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars,

And I am a Nerd.

This is episode 76 of the podcast.

Today we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Trial And Error”

And happy new year. This is the first episode that will air in 2022. We’ve made it through yet another year. The very first episode of this podcast went live in December 2019. That means we’re now 2 years old. How crazy is that? I'm very proud of what I’m creating, and I hope those of you who are listening are enjoying it too.

The description on Gateworld reads

“Colonel Young sees a recurring vision of Destiny being attacked and destroyed by hostile aliens, causing him to fear he is losing his mind.”

This episode was written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie.

It was directed by Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 2nd of November, 2010.

TJ has been running a bunch of tests on Chloe and Scott, ever since the transfusion of Chloe’s alien-altered blood healed Scott of his infection. Chloe’s blood remains altered, but Scott’s seems to have gone back to normal. That’s good news for Scott. It means he may not have been affected long term by whatever the blue aliens did to Chloe. But will Young be willing to trust him?

The truth is, Young seems to have something else on his mind. He’s very distracted when TJ recommends letting Scot out of isolation. He doesn’t even argue.

He reveals what’s bothering him to TJ. His wife, Emily, wants a divorce. We haven’t heard much about her since early season 1. Telford really messed things up for him, and honestly, he made things even worse himself. The tragic thing is that it was the modified Lucian Alliance personality that wrecked  Young’s marriage, not the real Telford. But let’s face it, Young’s marriage was already on the rocks long before he set foot on Destiny.

Young raises an interesting question. Is it legal to sign papers in somebody else’s body? I don’t know the answer to that. But it’s a genuine problem in the real world. Not the body-swapping part. But the law has always lagged behind technology. It makes sense why. Technology can move at a rapid pace. One advancement increases the speed of the next advancement. Laws are complicated and clunky. They take time to create and change. There’s a lot riding on them, afterall.

You can kind of understand Emily’s perspective here. She and Young were close to ending their marriage anyway, and now he’s on the other side of the universe and she’ll probably never see him again. 

So….Eli and Gin meet for the first time.

Camille introduces them to each other. It makes sense. She’s studied ancient technology just as Eli has. They should work together. You can tell that there’s a spark there immediately, at least from Eli’s side. Of course, he acts maturely and professionally. Gin is in a lot of ways, a female version of Eli. She’s close to his age, and quite attractive.

Camille suggests they dig out Eli’s old research on dialling the gate from within a star. He’d given up on it, but maybe Gin has some new ideas that could revive it.

I think Camille knows these two are gonna hit it off. You can kind of see the little smirk on her face. It’s a cute scene.

Scott goes to see Chloe. She’s having a hard time in lock-up. She’s not contagious but she’s being kept in isolation in case she blacks out and sabotages the ship. How must she be feeling? Scott tries to encourage her. She saved his life. That proves she’s still herself, not just some alien monster. But we know that deep down, Scott has concerns about Chloe. We saw that in his vision last episode.

This is when Chloe reveals that she is changing. The skin on her leg is going all blue, wrinkly, hard, and alien. And it’s spreading. That’s not good. What will she become?

We’ve left the blue aliens behind. We’re not even in the same galaxy as them now, but their legacy is definitely remaining with us.

The man whose marriage is ending, spinning his wedding ring on the table is something of a cliche now, but it does show what’s on Young’s mind.

Brody calls him to the science lab. 9 alien ships have arrived and are surrounding Destiny. The blue aliens. Maybe they are capable of travelling the void between galaxies as well. Their obsession with Destiny could be motivation enough to leave their galaxy behind and pursue.

They’re demanding we hand Chloe over.

It’s possible she’s been gathering intelligence for them this whole time even without her knowing.

When Young refuses, they open fire on Destiny.

Something doesn’t quite add up. Destiny is very important to the aliens. They wouldn’t intentionally destroy it, but they’re banging it up pretty bad.

The glass window in the observation deck blows out, throwing Scott into space.

The aliens keep firing and Destiny explodes.

Then Young wakes up.

Of course, this is sci-fi, so a dream is rarely just a dream.

Young had previously put the repair of Destiny’s weapons on hold until they have a greater understanding of the grid that powers them. Somebody was recently injured trying to repair them. We don’t even understand what’s wrong with them.

But Young has told his people that getting the weapons online is now top priority.

He’s taking his dream very seriously.

We know that the dreams likely mean something, because we’re watching a TV show. But what exactly is making Young think that his dream is anything more than that? A dream? There’s Chloe’s transformation, but that doesn’t mean the aliens are coming, or that they’re even capable of coming.

I think the whole thing has just been an uncomfortable reminder that they are pretty much defenceless right now. And that’s a difficult position to be in.

Maybe that’s enough.

Camille is worried that all Young has gone through emotionally in recent time is clouding his judgement.

Rush goes to visit Chloe. He uses the pretence of bringing food to ask her to look at some equations for him. Chloe asks if Rush’s efforts to help her with the chair were real or just for show. He answers “of course it was real,” but with Rush, who really knows?

Rush sees the advantage in Chloe’s situation. He feels he’s the only one who does.

Chloe’s ability to understand alien equations IS a benefit, and perhaps one they should be willing to make use of, but it doesn’t help her. And Rush comes off looking like someone who only cares about Chloe for what she can do for him. And that’s at least partially true.

Chloe worries he has a vested interest in keeping her this way, rather than trying to help her. Would he actively try to sabotage any attempt to help her?

Rush reveals to her that his research has taken a turn, and that he may be on the verge of understanding Destiny’s mission. So that’s a big thing.

I think Greer feels a bit like a chaperone watching two kids on a first date while he guards Gin and Eli. The poor bloke looks pretty uncomfortable. The tension in the room is pretty awkward.

At the same time, I think Greer is glad to see Eli happy.

Young has the dream again. The exact same dream. But he makes different decisions this time. He’s in control of his actions in this dream. He retains memory of the previous dream.

This time, instead of using their weapons, they divert all power to shields.

It doesn’t work.

Once again, Destiny is destroyed.

Now he’s ready to take Camille up on her offer. Good. It’s always annoying in shows when characters keep this stuff to themselves.

She immediately notices that he’s been drinking. But that’s not the cause of his dreams, or visions, whatever they are. It’s just another symptom.

But she thinks maybe this is not the time for a therapy session. And under normal circumstances, that’s probably correct. But now’s as good a time as any to tell someone about his dreams.

The dream feels much more real than a normal dream, to Young. That in itself is evidence that it’s more than just a normal dream.

Camille is a little concerned that he’s ordered people to do dangerous work in response to a dream, but Young believes there’s something else going on here. Young knows this is more than just a dream.

Camille suggests going to see Chloe. He hasn’t spoken to her in a while.

Chloe immediately knows why. “It’s hard for you because of what you might have to do.”

Wow. That’s insightful, but kind of horrible.

Chloe knows people are afraid of her. She also knows that if she keeps changing, Young is going to have to do something he doesn’t want to do. This is at the centre of everything that’s going on.

I love the brotherly interaction between Greer and Eli. As he says, he knew Gin was into Eli after the first ten minutes, and if Eli were ever to have a chance with someone, this is it. Which amusingly comes across as both insulting and caring.

We haven’t seen a lot of these two characters together, and I quite like it.

Greer is going to arrange to leave them alone, and encourages Eli to make his move. Now that’s a huge thing for Greer, because he’s very serious about security.

This time around, in the dream, Young decides to try handing Chloe over. And she doesn’t resist. She knew it might come to this. She said as much when they spoke in the real world.

Still, it’s a very brave thing the dream Chloe is doing. Willingly going with the aliens.

Scott reacts the way he would. He beats the crap out of Young for giving away the woman he loves But it was all for nothing. The aliens still attack once they have Chloe.

These dreams are helping Young try out strategies, seeing what works and what doesn’t. But, who’s to say that things would play out in the real world, the way it does in the dream.

TJ finds Young at the still and she reveals the whole story about her baby and the faith planet.

Young doesn’t believe her, but if anyone on this ship can understand that what appears to be a dream could be much more, it’s Young.

But it’s different.

If TJ’s dream is real it means her baby is alive.

If Young’s dream is real, it means they are all doomed.

You can see why he doesn’t want to believe.

Eli shows Ginn his documentary. There’s a clip where Brody demonstrates how ancient toilets work. I kinda want to see that. I’m rather curious to know how they might differ from human toilets. I mean, the ancients were physiologically the same as us.

Greer gets called away. “It could take a while,” he says, being deliberately obvious, which he thinks is a good thing.

But Eli runs after Greer.

The fact is, he has no idea how to make his move.

While Greer tries to scholl Eli in how to talk to a woman, Ginn watches some very vulnerable footage of Eli talking about his Mum.

Eli thinks he’s blown it. How is Ginn going to be interested in a grown man crying about his Mum. But that’s when Ginn kisses him. The truth is, that kind of honesty and vulnerability is what intimacy is built on.

Not that I’m an expert. I’m still not sure how I managed to win the heart of my wife. I’m just glad I did.

Destiny drops out of FTL. No planetary system. No countdown clock. When Scott goes to tell Young about it, he looks like crap, and seems pretty disinterested. “You’ll figure it out.”

Rush didn’t cause this. He’s on the bridge, trying to figure out why it happened.

When Scott asks Eli his thoughts he mentions he’s been working with Gin and then just kinda starts rambling about their potential relationship. It’s actually pretty funny. But nobody has time to hear this right now.

Eli has uncovered that the ship is running a simulation of its own. It’s a battle scenario where the ship drops out of FTL and is surrounded by alien ships. That sounds very familiar.

Camille immediately recognises it as Young’s dream.

Rush finds the simulation around the same time.

Ghost Franklin encourages him to look closer into it. Something about the simulation is overriding normal operations. The big question is why.

How is the ship affecting Young’s dreams? Perhaps it can manipulate a person’s brain waves. Could the ship be trying to warn us of an impending attack? 

Could this be related to Chloe’s blackouts?

Both Rush and Camille think Scott needs to assume command. Young is in no state to command if the aliens come. They theorise that the ship is testing Young’s emotional stability, and that he’s failing.

Scott doesn’t want to hear this. 

But the truth is, Young has locked himself away and has effectively abandoned his responsibilities.

Rush says the ship doesn’t have emotions but it can analyse data and form conclusions. 

It’s conceivable that the ship really does think that Young is not in a fit state to lead. Of course, that fits very nicely into Rush’s narrative.

Rush and Camille are not going to try to stage another civilian coup. That didn’t work so well last time.

I really feel for Scott. He’s in a difficult situation.

His chosen way of dealing with this is not to take command, but to go to Young and try to make him pull himself together.

Scott tells Young everything. The simulation, Camille’s theory about it all. Young concedes that maybe this is Destiny’s way of telling him he should be replaced.

Young has always been aware of his flaws. He’s tried every day to overcome them, but right now, he’s at a very weak point, probably because of his impending divorce.

Young confronts Scott with the hard truth he doesn’t want to face.

The day is coming when they may have to put Chloe off the ship. Everyone knows it’s coming. “How are you going to look at me then?” he asks.

It’s kind of good that all of this is coming out in the open. It’s stuff that needs to be dealt with.

But Scott has some hard words for Young too.

“Nobody asked for this. But you’re the commanding officer. You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, and if you don’t like that, too bad.”

This is the hard thing about people in senior positions. Military commanders, prime ministers and presidents. CEOs. senior pastors. When you’re at the top, there’s nobody above you to turn to. The buck stops with you. It can be a lonely position. It can take a huge toll, because you don’t get the luxury of being weak like everybody else.

But in the end, you’re still just human like everyone else. So what happens when you ARE weak. Either you fall apart and walk away, or you face it and deal with it somehow.

And that’s what Young tries to do now. He unloads all of his grief and pain onto Scott. Technically, this is inappropriate. Scott is his subordinate. But Young has nobody else. And honestly, he trusts Scott more than Camille, and things are too complicated with TJ.

Young is still hurting from when he had to kill Riley.

On top of everything else, it adds up.

Young feels that he can’t take it anymore. He asks Scott to leave.

Scott hasn’t had to live with what Young is living with. “I couldn’t do it,” he says. “Live with the burden. That’s not me. Or TJ or Camille.”

“Rush could do it,” Young ironically says. “For Rush it wouldn’t be a burden.”

And that’s exactly why they need Young.

Young is struggling so much because he has a heart. Deep down, he’s a good person who cares.

The ship is better off with a flawed and broken man who has a heart, than a capable and clinical man who ultimately cares only for himself.

And I agree with that.

Young is a good commander, because he still has a heart. And it’s never going to stop hurting. That’s the whole point. But for the sake of everyone on the ship, he’s going to have a learn to live with it.

Man I love this scene. It’s beautiful!

And so, Young takes a deep breath, washes his face and puts on his jacket.

I almost get the same emotional feeling from this as seeing Clark Kent suit up as Superman for the first time.

Young is back. He enters the science lab and asks Brody for an update.

He’s back for real. He’s making decisions. They may not be perfect, but they’re good ones.

And that’s when Destiny jumps back to FLT.

It’s satisfied that Young is doing his job again.

This all feels very triumphant.

I kind of almost wish the episode ended here.

But…there’s a twist.

Rush bypassed the simulation. That’s why the ship went back to FTL.

So….was the ship satisfied with its evaluation of Young or not? I guess we can’t be certain. As for me, I’m convinced Young is doing everything humanly possible. Young is the right man for the job.

Oh, he’s still going to need to find ways of living with all he’s going through. He’s still flawed and broken. But there is nobody better suited to the job on that ship than him. And I’m convinced of that.

But as Rush says from the captain’s chair “The ship may have been evaluating Young, but I control the ship.”

And at the moment that’s correct, because he’s the only one who knows about the bridge.

But it’s telling that even the ship itself sees Young as the real leader, not Rush.

And I think Rush is pretty put out by that.

The aliens were never a threat. The ship would have logged any signal that Chloe might have sent them.

But Franklin gives us a sombre warning, just because one threat is behind you, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t another one ahead.

I didn’t remember this episode. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it, but I loved this episode.

This is why SGU is such a fantastic show. It does character drama so right. 

This show doesn’t get near enough credit.

The writers really should be commended.

Young isn’t just going to be magically fixed by the next episode. This will be an ongoing journey for him. And that’s what I love about modern TV. Serialisation isn’t just about season-long plot arcs, raising the stakes more and more until you have to pay it off at the end. Serialisation is about consequences. Consequences for the larger world as a whole, but also consequences for individual characters.

And that’s what I love.

Next time, we’ll see how Young continues to deal with his problems as he gets trapped on an abandoned alien spaceship. I’ll see you then for “The Greater Good.”

Until then, have a great, live long and prosper, and happy new year.

Today's episode of Stargate Universe is a little different. We have two parallel stories. One, in our usual setting, where Scott has been exposed to a dangerous alien infection, and another, where our characters are oddly living normal lives on Earth. This episode gave the actors a chance to do something very different to their normal roles. It also allows us to really dig deep into Scott's mind, and learn what he's really thinking and feeling about things.

Having looked deeper into it, I find it's cleverly written. Join me as we see what Cloverdale has to offer us.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven.

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 76 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Cloverdale.”

The description on Gatworld reads

Lieutenant Scott is infected by a plant-like organism while surveying a planet, and suffers severe hallucinations of another life back home on Earth.

This episode was written by Brad Wright

It was directed by Alex Chapple

And it first aired on the 26th of October 2010.

Science fiction offers its writers some interesting creative freedoms that simply don’t exist in other genres. One of those freedoms is the ability to do an episode like this one. The opportunity to shake things up and offer a completely different setting. Allow the actors to play different kinds of characters than normal. To really explore a ‘what if’ idea without completely destroying the story’s world.

We open on a very strange shot. It’s a close-up of Scott’s eye. Various colours, out of focus, swirl around him. The eye blinks, as if he is waking up. It’s very disorienting, and deliberately so.This is one advantage film and TV has over books. They can pull out a lot of these interesting visual tricks. It goes a little way to making up for the things that books can do which film can’t.

After a few seconds, we cut to a normal shot. Scott is sitting in a car. The colours that were swirling around him was actually the view of the passing world outside the car window.

He’s being driven somewhere by greer. They’re both in uniform. It’s immediately obvious that this is Earth. 

This is the moment I realise they’re not in a car, and Greer is not driving. They’re actually in a bus, and this is their stop. A place called Cloverdale.

At this point we’re wondering what’s going on. Is this a flashback? A dream? A parallel universe? A flash forward to a time when the crew have returned home? The possibilities are endless.

Scott and Greer seem to be returning home from a deployment, given the very military-looking luggage they’re carrying.

Scott sees Eli and Young on the other side of the road. He’s excited to meet up with them. As he crosses the road, he is hit by an unseen car.

At that same moment, he collapses on the jungle floor of an unknown planet, surrounded by SG crewmembers from Destiny, clutching at his arm which is covered in some blue glowing thing, and screaming in pain.

Okay, so that’s interesting. We’ve got two parallel stories going on here. One is a normal SGU episode, with our characters exploring a planet, and another is playing out on earth, with the same characters, but they are somehow linked.

Whatever the blue thing is, it’s causing him a lot of pain, and TJ doesn’t know how to get it off him.

They’re trying to get Scott back to Destiny. Rush runs on ahead to the stargate, to bring medical supplies back.

Back on Earth, Young is standing over Scott, who seems remarkably uninjured given he was just knocked over by a car. The driver of that car turns out to be Brody.

Things are not quite right in this early scenario. Young is Scott’s father. Young and Greer have never met, Chloe is Scott’s high-school sweetheart, and Eli is Chloe’s brother. So these are not our normal characters. We’re using the familiar actors to play new roles with new relationships, and yet, there are similarities. Their names are all the same. Their personalities are very similar.

Scott is here to marry Chloe.

Eli is producing the wedding video, and treating it like a documentary. I swear that Eli and I are long-lost brothers. But then, I’m not as smart as he is.

Scott is hoping for a bachelor party, which Greer apparently hasn’t organised. This is a twist on a common trope, where the groom doesn’t want a party, but the best man incists.

You know, it’s funny, but I immediately buy the Scott / Chloe relationship in this false reality more than I ever have in the real world.

Chloe notices a big red welt on Scott’s arm, right where the blue alien thing is in the real world. He dismisses it as a minor injury from getting hit by the car. But then he collapses.

Rush is asking for various medical supplies. Prominent among them is the alien venom, which has sometimes proven useful. But the whole moment is sobred when Rush asks for whatever is appropriate for cutting through bone. If they can’t get rid of this alien contagion, TJ may have to amputate. On the jungle floor. And presumably without any anaesthetic. It’s too horrible to contemplate.

But, there are times in real life when it’s had to happen.

Personally, I think I’d almost rather die. You’d probably pass out quickly from the pain, but the time leading up to that would be unimaginable hell.

So back on Earth, Scott and Chloe are going to see a movie together. I had a good laugh when they walked into the cinema as the MGM logo played on the big screen. Amusing, of course, because Stargate is an MGM production.

The couple kiss, remembering the first time they came to this cinema, but on the screen, something familiar to Scott is playing out in the movie. A young man and young woman, who look somewhat similar to Schott and Chloe are on an alien planet, looking at a field of flowers that change colour when touched. It’s a nice little sci-fi worldbuilding thing like the singing plants on Talos IV in the original Star Trek Pilot, The Cage. As the characters touch the flowers, a wave of colour sweeps through the field.

It’s a very romantic looking setting.

Scott warns the characters to get out of there, as the woman suggests walking through the flowers barefoot.

Giant plant-based tentacle things emerge from the ground and attack the man. He cuts it with a knife, but a little bit of blue acid drips from the creature onto his arm, burning it, and becoming the contagion we saw on Scott’s arm in the real world.

So this, apparently, is a representation of how it first happened.

Scott is freaked out by all of this. It seems familiar to him.

He soon realises, talking to Chloe, that all of that couldn’t have really happened. After all, alien plants are not real, right?

Isn’t it interesting that the grounded, more realistic earth world in this story is very clearly the fantasy, and the science fiction world of aliens and spaceships is the obvious reality.

Now, of course, we know from the history of the show that this is the case, but somebody watching this episode for the first time, with no prior knowledge of Stargate, would easily come to the same conclusion.

Because the rules of reality just don’t work right in the Earth scenario. Things happen that shouldn’t. The characters are seeing and experiencing things they couldn’t if it were real.Of course, it’s also obvious that Scott is going to have a hard time convincing those around him that their normal world is false, but the one filled with aliens is real.

I find this stuff fascinating.

Anyway, Chloe is trying to keep Scott busy to help the preparations for some kind of surprise bachelor party.

And it seems Volker is in on it.

But they manage to pull the party together early, given Scott didn’t want to stay and watch the movie.

In the real world, we learn that the alien venom has had no effect, which sucks.

The contagion won’t react to anything.

Rush argues the only thing left to do is amputate. TJ says Scott wouldn’t want that, but Rush points out any rational person would give up a limb to save their life.

At the party, we see Lieutenant James playing the role of bartender and Scott’s ex, just like in the real world, but Scott is getting pretty inappropriately physical with her. Not just flirting but actually trying to lift up her shirt. 

And despite his questionable past when it comes to women, this is not Scott’s style. Not the real Scott.

James calls his bluff by offering to drive off and go all the way together. 

That snaps Scott out of it, but we see that this James is really not over him. I think the real James is. I’m sure she’s still got some hurt deep down about the way he treated her in the pilot, but she’s not holding out for anything from him.

Telford is the local cop, making sure these drunk party-goers don’t drive in their condition.

Scott is grappling with what is real, and what is not, feeling like he’s actually meant to be someone else.

The others just dismiss this as the alcohol, but Telford gets all weird about things. It’s like he knows the truth.

Mercifully, the real Scott is already unconscious, which is good considering TJ is about to cut his arm off.

The make-up effect of the contagion on his arm is pretty good.

But when TJ cuts in with a scalpel, his blood comes out bright blue. The contagion is in his bloodstream, which means amputation is pointless. It won’t solve anything.

Okay, so he’s not gonna lose his arm, but how are they going to save his life?

This was kind of their last shot

They have 3 hours before Destiny jumps to FTL. But Rush has already given up.

In reality, they have less than 3 hours because they’ll be overrun by the alien tentacle things in about 1 hour.

One thing they all agree on is that they can’t risk taking Scott back to destiny. He might infect everyone else.

Doctor Park points out there’s a good chance this infection is how the alien organism reproduces. They don’t know all the details of how it works, but as she says “We have to assume that the reason this thing infects people is so it can spread.”

And that makes perfect sense.

Greer is building a barricade. Anything outside that is the kill zone. We have to hold the gate for three hours. He is determined to give the scientists their 3 hours to find a solution to this.

In the real world, Chloe is concerned that Scott is only marrying her because that’s the expected thing to do. He dismisses that idea. He’s off to see the justice of the peace, to make sure he can perform the ceremony. That justice of the peace turns out to be Rush.

Rush also asks Scott if he’s having second thoughts. Which is interesting.

And we learn there is some tension between Rush and Young in this world as well.

The alien creature is pretty cool. What we see above ground is only a small part of what it is. It exists underground as a huge root system spreading out over the planet. It waits for its prey to get close and then strikes.

You have to wonder what it usually attacks. Humans are on this planet for the first time. There must be some native animal life on this planet.

Young wonders if it’s a plant or an animal. Park suggests it may share aspects of both.

Young orders all non-combatants back to Destiny, including TJ.

Which is weird.

So….he’s abandoning all hope of saving Scott? 

In which case, why the need for combatants. Might as well get everyone except Scott back on the ship.

It’s pretty weird.

They find a droplet of blue on Chloe's shirt. They cut it off. It seems not to have touched her skin. Greer tries to burn it, but it doesn’t burn easily.

Now it’s Eli’s turn to question whether Scott is truly committed to this marriage.

Unlike with the others, it feels like Eli has some grounds for concern. Scott has lost all his enthusiasm. He’s acting out of character.

Now, I’ve never had a hangover, so I don’t really know what it’s like, and how long it lasts, but this seems like more than just a guy with a headache. He comes across as someone whose heart is no longer in it.

Now, we know that Scott is questioning reality, so most of what he’s going through stems from that, rather than last night’s alcohol.

Eli says that nobody thinks of Scott as a one-woman guy. So apparently in this world, he also has a reputation as a bit of a womaniser. But he insists he wants to marry Chloe and raise a family with her. Eli doesn’t believe him, and doesn’t think Scott believes it either.

And then Scott collapses again.

Eli has a little moment with Scott in the real world. “Nobody is giving up on you,” he says. Chloe is right about Eli. he is the ultimate true friend.

Chloe does something rash and foolish. She infects herself with the alien contagion. They weren’t going to let her stay with Scott. Now they have no choice.

It may seem romantic, but it was a stupid thing to do. 

This is the last thing Scott would want.

It hurts him, and it hurts her friends.

Frankly, I think it’s a little out of character for her. Chloe isn’t this stupid or selfish.

I’m not saying she’s a saint, but I think she’s better than this.

On earth, TJ is a paramedic. Scott is still dismissing his fainting spells. I still can’t believe how lightly they’re all taking his getting hit by a car. That’s a serious thing. He really should have been checked out properly after it happened.

There is a lot of pain, resignation, and a little judgement, in Eli’s voice as he says “Bye” to Chloe.

But it turns out, there may have been a little method to Chloe’s madness.

The earlier injection on her clothes should have touched her skin. It should have infected her. And it didn’t.

So she’s decided to test it.

Maybe she’s immune.

And if that’s the case, maybe they can use that, somehow, to help Scott.

Of course, these kinds of medical investigations tend to take a long time. It’s not something that can happen in 3 hours.

Chloe’s hand doesn’t hurt. Matt was in agony.

Now earth-Scott is having doubts for real. Wondering if it’s right for him to marry Chloe. What if he hurts her.

He asks his father, Young, for advice. Young says “Wake up.”

Now THAT’s interesting.

Chloe’s blood is still red, and the contagion on her hand is already healing. The theory is that whatever the aliens did to her has given her immunity.

Her blood might save Scott, but it might also pass on to him, whatever the aliens did to Chloe.

TJ has no other options. She sets up a transfusion.

Eli is walking Chloe up the aisle, suggesting that in this world, as in the real one, that Chloe’s father is dead.

The scene plays out as Rush performs the wedding ceremony while Greer and his team fight off the alien plants with flamethrowers. It’s all good, but there’s not a lot for me to say about it.

There IS a cool moment when a tentacle nearly gets Chloe and Scott, but the kawoosh of the event horizon disintegrates it as the gate dials. It’s pretty cool.

As Scott is about to make his vow, he notices Chloe's face is all blue.

That’s when Scott wakes up. All the blue stuff cracks off his arm. They all escape through the stargate just in time before Destiny jumps.

Young is really not happy with Chloe.

They’ll both be put into deep quarantine indefinitely.

But maybe this is not because of the contagion on the planet they’ve just escaped. Maybe it’s because Chloe has now revealed that whatever the aliens did to her was not undone by the chair. And now Scott has been exposed to it as well.

How will Scott react to that one?

In the end, I’m left asking one important question.

What was the point of all the stuff on Earth?

Oh, it was fun to see the characters in a new light, and I’m sure the actors had a blast. But what does it actually add to the story?

My assumption is that all of that was Scott’s hallucination while he was under.

So I guess it can give us some hints as to what his subconscious is thinking about.

His relationship with Chloe is central to it all. It’s obviously of vital importance to him.

He sees Eli like a brother figure, well brother-in-law, which is kind of nice. He sees Young as a father figure. No surprise there.

So perhaps what we’re meant to take from all this is that Scott is thinking about his future with Chloe. Will they commit to remain together forever? We know he’s been asking these questions lately. Just last episode he vocalised some of it to Chloe.

But it appears he is also having some doubts. He’s worried that he’s not good for her.

He’s worried that his previous womanising ways might return and cause problems between them.

But in a way that feels like a cop-out.

We don’t use our past mistakes as an excuse for not making a change in our life and being better now and into the future.

I don’t remember them especially following up on these ideas through the rest of season 2, but you can bet I’ll be keeping a keen eye open to see any hints that they continue to address these thoughts.

The last thing we can glean from the dream is that Scott is concerned about the genetic modifications the aliens made to her. What does that mean? How human is she still? I think this is at the root of his relationship doubts. It’s all very interesting. 

And this is made ever more interesting now because he’s about to find out that he’s potentially been exposed to whatever is alien about her. Now he’ll start dreaming about himself as an alien. Scary stuff.

I wouldn’t have picked up on any of this if I hadn’t been looking for it. That’s an advantage of podcasting a show. It tends to make you look deeper into it.

So that was Cloverdale.

I liked it. The sci-fi stuff on the planet was cool. A good solid sci-fi story. And the character stuff in Scott’s imagination was interesting, and a little bit fun.

Next time, we’ll be talking about the episode “Trial and Error” and it’ll be Young’s turn to question whether he’s losing his mind.

I’ll catch you then.

In the meantime, have a great two weeks. 

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

Chloe is acting strangely on board destiny. But hidden within her is knowledge that Doctor Rush can use to unlock the secrets of Destiny. Meanwhile, back on earth, we do some deep character stuff with Eli and Camille. This is what Stargate Universe does best.

Join me as we dig into this episode of Stargate Universe.

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 75 of the podcast.

That means we’re 3 quarters of the way to 100, which is pretty cool.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Pathogen”

I’ve already recorded this podcast once today. But for reasons that will remain a mystery for all time, my microphone died so the whole thing was silent.

So I’m doing it all again now, and I’m not gonna bother with video this time around.

I’m curious. Those of you who watch on youtube, do you actually care one way or the other? The sound quality is probably better when I don’t use video because I can hold the microphone close to my face, which looks stupid on camera.

Anyway, curious to hear people’s thoughts.

The description on gateworld reads

Chloe's increasingly erratic behavior leads the crew to suspect that she may be under alien influence. Eli returns home when he learns that his mother has fallen ill, and Camille finds Sharon struggling in her absence.

This episode was written by Carl Binder.

It was directed by Robert Carlyle, who of course, plays Dr. Rush.

And it first aired on the 19th of October 2010.

Chloe is sitting at a console in a random room on Destiny. She has no memory of how or when she got there. She’s a little freaked out about it but so is Eli.

Scott is also concerned. Chloe has been acting strange lately. Withdrawn. Could any of this be related to her miraculous healing? It’s actually nice seeing these two talking together about their common concern for her.

Despite the fact they were both vying for Chloe’s affection, there has never really been any malice between them. Eli respects Scott because he knows that he cares about Chloe just as much as he does.

Scott asks her where they’re at. If they weren’t on the ship, would they even be together?

Chloe’s answer is “of course.”

This is when Scott admits that this is all new to him. He’s never been good at relationships, but he wants to make this work.

Remember back in early season 1, I was pretty hard on Scott.

To the point of being kinda judgemental, if I’m honest.

But at this point, you can’t deny that Scott has changed. He’s a different person than he was in the pilot. He doesn’t want to be the womaniser who uses women and then throws them away. He wants a real loving relationship with Chloe. 

I thought that needed to be acknowledged.

It doesn’t doesn’t get Chloe to open up, though.

Rush is still keeping news that he has control of the ship to himself. He’s having difficulty with the countdown clock. Franklin taunts him saying he’s making things more complicated than they already are by being one person trying to do the work of an entire crew.

He talks about how Young is reckless and unsuited to lead the mission. But right now, nobody is being more reckless than Rush. He’s the one putting everyone at risk. He’s become everything he despises. You’d have thought he’d have learned a little something from Riley’s death. But it appears he hasn’t.

But it’s not just that. Brody and Park are starting to get suspicious of him. The ship is acting weirdly and he doesn’t seem surprised or even interested. He says he’s busy but won’t explain where he is. The guy is really slipping.

Eli is informed he’s gonna have to use the stones to go home. His mother is sick. That’s the kind of news nobody wants to hear.

He gets to earth and speaks with the doctor. His mum has stopped taking her medication, which is causing her to get very sick. They can help her, but the doctor’s concern is that she’ll stop taking her medication again.

To Eli, the solution is simple. Don’t let her stop. Don’t release her.

But I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way. Patients have the right to refuse treatments. Doctors and nurses can explain, recommend, and plead with a patient to do what’s best for them, but they can’t force. At least, not under normal circumstances.

This is how it is in Australia, anyway. My wife is a nurse. I assume it’s the same in America.

It turns out that Eli’s mum has severe depression. 

She has to want to get better, and right now, it seems that she doesn’t.

Eli does his usual speel. “I’m airman Tracy and I work with your son Eli. He’s really worried about you.”

“Not worried enough to be here himself?”

And that’s the problem isn’t it.

She came home one day a year ago and her son was gone. The air force said he’d gone somewhere classified to do important work. And she hasn’t seen him since. Hasn’t even heard his voice.

Of course she’s got depression. No wonder she doesn’t want to get better.

She thinks her son doesn’t care. Might as well be dead. Because where is he?

Eli has always thought that his mum couldn’t handle the truth about stargates, alien spaceships and communication stones, but the lies are slowly killing her.

Young has made the decision to set the Lucian Alliance prisoners free. It’s something of an exchange. The more they give, the more they get. They’ve been generous with the intel lately, so he’s going to allow them out of the brig, to walk about the ship.

Now, while Camille thought Young was being too harsh on them, we now learn that Greer thinks he’s being too lenient. He thinks that releasing the prisoners is a mistake.

There’s an escort on each member, so they’re not completely free.

So what do they do with their newfound privileges? Simeon’s first act is to whisper something offensive in Doctor Park’s ear. Her crewmates are quick to come to her rescue, Volker probably biting off more than he can chew, standing up to the clearly stronger Simeon.

But Greer sorts him out quickly. Orders him to be taken back into his cell.

Now on one hand, it might seem that incarceration is a pretty serious punishment for something offensive, but I tend to think that Greer was correct here. Simeon has been given some freedom and he immediately abused that freedom. He needs to learn that if he behaves inappropriately, he’s gonna lose the freedom. Some of these people are a bit rough around the edges, and they have to learn that they need to coexist peacefully with the crew.

We learn that Chloe is missing. They’re forming search teams to find her.

Rush has taken them back into FTL.  He’s getting tired. He’s gonna make some nasty mistakes if he’s not careful. I’m finding I have little sympathy for him. If he’d just bring in other people to help, things would go a lot smoother.

When Young comes to see Simeon, he’s a lot more apologetic. Owning up to his behaviour, acknowledging that it was inappropriate. Sounds like he really wants to hold up his end of the bargain and earn Young’s trust. He’s not off to a good start today

They find Chloe in a dark room trying to pry open a case. When approached she seems to ‘wake up’ and not know where she is, again.

She fell asleep in her quarters and then James was talking to her.

TJ can’t find anything physically wrong with her.

.

Eli has come back to visit his mum again. He’s trying to be upbeat, but she’s not interested. She finally opens up.

“Why doesn’t he call me? It’s not like him.”

So it’s time for him to open up to her. To be honest.

He starts awkwardly, asking her about her favourite movies. He uses ET as a lead in to start blabbing the details of the Stargate program to her.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks in frustration.

“Because I am Eli,” he blurts out.

It’s a very emotional moment.

“I’m on a ship but my consciousness is in this person’s body. It really is me, mum.”

She looks pretty freaked out.

Trying to explain all the science about this is going about as well as he predicted it would. She doesn’t believe him.

So he tries a different tactic.

He talks about something personal. The day his dad left. 

But that doesn’t do the trick either. “He could have told you that.”

She’s really agitated and wants Eli to leave.

Man, just put yourself in Eli’s position right now. That must be really painful.

Chloe has been writing in her journal. It’s all in alien languages. Some of it is ancient.

Some of it is from the crashed alien ship. The blue aliens.

So did the blue aliens do something to her when they took her?

Rush theories it’s some kind of genetic manipulation.

Young thinks it’s dangerous to let her roam the ship like this, but Rush has a controversial alternative. Let her do what she’s doing, and learn from it.

Meanwhile, Camille has also come home to earth for a visit.

And speaking of people who are acting a little oddly in a relationship, something seems a bit off about Sharon.

She’s lost her keys, something she never does, and when Camille tries to make light of it, she snaps. 

Eli and Camille meet up. She’s the only friend he can talk to about all of this.

He often feared that his mum would give up if anything ever happened to him. Eli is fine but he’s seeing his fears play out in front of him.

As far as she’s concerned, the military took her son away and won’t let him talk to her. Eli would give up too.

Scott is escorting Chloe, but Rush wants to take over. “Time for shift change. Colonel’s orders.”

Do you think Young actually had anything to do with this? Oh, I’m sure Young ordered that there be shifts, so nobody gets burned out shadowing Chloe constantly, but Scott is worried that Rush is wanting to use her for his own purposes. Which, of course, he does. Let’s be honest.

Doesn’t mean he intends her any harm, of course, but Chloe has knowledge he wants to make use of.

He takes her to see something he obviously never showed anyone else. A place for study. Alien writing and mathematical equations cover all the walls. It looks like a mad scientist’s den.

The truth is, Rush and Chloe have something in common. They were both taken by the blue aliens. That common bond is still there.

He wants to know if she recognises anything on these walls.

Sharon asks Camille how Eli’s Mum is doing. She explains that physically she’s ok but all of this is taking its toll. Her voice slows as she says that. I think she’s suddenly getting some insight into how Sharon might be feeling.

TJ goes to meet Varro, the Lucian Alliance leader, to talk about Simeon. Young is prepared to release him again. Varro will talk to Simeon.

Varro is not impressed. “We’re trying to make this work and you’re ruining it for everyone.”

Simeon is not so apologetic when talking to Varro. “I was just talking to a woman.” It seems it was all an act for Young.  

And then Simeon says something very interesting.

“Sooner or later they’ll realise that all the information we’ve been feeding them in a bunch of lies anyway.”

But Varro answers “The information you’ve been feeding them.”

Simeon thought they were all giving misinformation. But Simeon and the others are cooperating. For real. We have to find a way to get along with these people.

Simeon is shaken by this. The idea of truly making peace and cooperating never even occurred to him.

When the ship drops out of FTL again, Brody and Park try to get their heads around it all. They can’t find a meaningful explanation, but it’s suspicious. The ship drops out, no gates in range, and changes course. And Rush is always absent when it happens.

And Young says it outright. “He’s making this happen.”

Brody doesn’t know how Rush is doing it, short of cracking the master code.

Young confronts Rush. He knows Rush is lying.

He demands to know where Rush was. The truth.

So Rush shows them his mad den. He gives up a minor secret to protect his big secret.

Chloe solved one of these equations. One he’d been struggling with for weeks.

He has successfully diverted attention from his secret.

As a result of this revelation, Young has Chloe put in isolation as a precaution.

Simeon is allowed out again, and Greer tells him to remain in his quarters. The section of the ship he was in before is now off limits.

Greer was correct earlier in the episode, but now he’s pushing things.

Now it’s personal. Now it’s macho chest thumping. Simeon is a dangerous variable that needs to be handled carefully. I think Greer is making a mistake by pushing him around in this way. He’s going to provoke him.

When Simeon points out Greer acts all tough with his weapon and his men, Greet immediately gives up his weapon and dismisses the men.

No doubt about his bravery. Greer is tough.

And that’s enough to make Simeon back down.

I dunno, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe what Greer did here helped to put Simeon in his place.

Camille and Sharon finally have a frank conversation. Sharon knows this is Camille in somebody else’s body, but she misses Camille’s real face. Her real voice. Camille realises that this is all harder on Sharon than it is on her.

But these visits are what is keeping Camille going.

Nothing is really resolved. Nothing is able to change.

But the conversation is important. Sometimes just sharing pain can help. It’s a good scene.

Eli goes to have one last conversation with his mum. She admits he is all she had. She didn’t realise that until he was gone. She asks if she’ll ever see him again, and he has to admit, with tears, he doesn’t know.

Camille pulls some strings to get Eli’s mum something that is technically beyond her clearance level. She’s allowed to know the truth about Eli, but she’s not allowed to visit Destiny. But Camille makes it happen. For the sake of Eli’s emotional stability.

And so, Mrs. Wallace is welcomed aboard Destiny by Colonel Young. And then she sees him. In the flesh. “I’m real.”

Call me a softy but I got pretty choked up when this happened. What can I say? I’m a parent.

He takes her to the observation desk where they can look out at an alien planet.

Eli promises he’ll never stop trying to get home. He doesn’t want to just leave her.

But at the same time, she can see the joy in his face at being able to see these things and experience what he’s experiencing.

And that’s what every parent wants for their children.

“We're gonna be okay, Mum. You and Me.”

That’s what she needed. She’ll be leaving the hospital tomorrow. Now she has a reason to go on.

Now that she knows the truth, even if she won’t be able to see him face to face like this again until he gets home, she has hope. She knows he’s out there, and next time he visits in somebody else’s body, she’ll know it’s him.

Rush has a controversial idea about helping chloe. The neural interface. The chair.

His theory is that the chair won’t allow any non-human to use it, so if she is connected, it will eliminate anything alien that is in her.

But that chair is the same thing that effectively killed Franklin.

And Rush doesn’t have a great track record of caring about people other than himself when it comes to the chair.

Not to mention, he can’t prove his theory.

Scott is understandably concerned.

TJ agrees this is the only option anyone has come up with.

Young won’t force her, but he will present the option to her and give her a choice.

And she’s willing.

She’s in there for a few seconds. She’s breathing and her pulse is steady. Rush thinks it worked, but they’ll find out shortly.

Eli thanks Camille, but more than that, he acknowledges that this is something that a lot of other people would want. This is especially meaningful given what went on with her and Sharon recently. Sharon would really benefit from a trip to Destiny, and Camille would love that too.

But when you think about it, why not? Why not allow loved ones to come visit destiny and see the crew? I mean, if they already have clearance to know about the stargate and destiny, what does it hurt if they see it?

Ultimately, I think the reason was more of an off-screen reason and an on-screen one.

The writers didn’t want family members traipsing all over the ship constantly. That would make it feel less remote. They wanted to maintain that distance, at least at this point in the show.

But Eli has had a good idea. I’m surprised nobody thought of it sooner. Sharon comes to visit Eli’s mum. The family of Destiny’s crew could be a great support to each other. They should be forming a support group together. I can very much see them all becoming a family, as much as the crew on destiny are becoming a family.

Rush admits to Chloe that she isn’t actually cured. Why he’s keeping that from everybody else is anyone’s guess. IT won’t remain a secret for long. Rush reveals the answer to his dead wife. He thinks Chloe can help her. She’ll play along and pretend to be cured if she values her freedom.

But what about next time she sleepwalks? I’m not sure how that is supposed to work.

Anyway, I guess we’ll find out as the season goes on.

This was a fantastic character episode. This is one of the things that Stargate Universe does best.

Next time, we’ll be talking about a very different kind of episode. One that allowed the actors to do something quite different to what they were used to.

I’ll see you then for Cloverdale.

Have a great 2 weeks

Live long and prosper

Make it so

This the Stargate Universe episode Awakening, we encounter an ancient seed ship and meet a new mysterious alien race. Exciting stuff. I had some technical difficulty while recording this episode. I lost the audio of most of it, and so had to re-record.

Despite that, let's dig in and get some enjoyment out of this episode.

Video Version: https://youtu.be/gHuLlgNzR6g

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Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a Nerd

This is episode 74 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Awakening”

The description on Gateworld reads

“Destiny encounters an Ancient seeder ship, which may hold the key to getting the crew home. But they soon find that the ship is not unoccupied.”

This episode was WRITTEN BY: Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie

It was DIRECTED BY: Andy Mikita

And it first aired on the 12th of October 2010/.

We left off last episode with Destiny approaching an object in space. It appears to be a ship. Eli notices the similarity in appearance to Destiny. It must be of ancient design.

Am I the only one that thinks it’s a bit premature of them to arm weapons and prepare to fire?

I guess they want to be cautious, given what they’ve been through with the blue aliens last season, but those who have seen BAbylon 5 will know this is just how the Earth Minbari war started.

Rush rightly predicts that Destiny is going to dock with the ship, as it does.

Astute viewers of Stargate Universe have probably already guessed what that ship is. The only other ancient ships we know of in this part of the universe are the seed ships. Those that travel ahead of destiny and place stargates on suitable planets.

There’s more than one of these seed ships. This one appears to have suffered some kind of failure.

As soon as they docked, Destiny started downloading all the latest information the seed ship has collected.

Rush wants to go over there and look around. Who wouldn’t? But he needs to be here to analyse the data that’s coming through. Honestly, that would also excite him.

And at this point in the recording, my microphone died. It just stopped working.

So..I’m now recording this for a second time, on a weekend I barely have time to record it once. I’m not even going to bother with video this time around.

So you’ll have to excuse any frustration in my voice.

Telford is wanting to be a part of things again, now that he’s finally himself. He’s still being briefed by homeworld security. I think there’s still a little bit of distrust going on with him.

It’s a very interesting dynamic having Telford on board the ship this season. I like it. But then I tend to like any kind of status quo shift.

Eli is pretty excited about the data. That’s before he even knows what it is.

Chloe is worried about TJ. She doesn’t fully appreciate what TJ means when she says her baby is in a better place.

Remember Chloe’s leg wound from the end of last season? It seemed to miraculously heal itself? Well now it’s almost completely better. TJ doesn’t know what to make of that. 

And as always, I’m glad they’re picking up these threads. It felt a little like the finale set up all these dangling things that had been forgotten. I don’t always remember which ones get addressed. But the more times I watch this show, the more trust I have that the writers had a plan. Not everything gets dealt with immediately, but they don’t just forget this stuff.

Rush has made an excuse to go visit the bridge where he can review the data in private. He thinks he’s found a potential way home, but the image of his dead wife thinks he’s not going to share that information with anyone else.

Rush has never wanted to go home. But will he really withhold a means for the rest of them to return to Earth? Is he really that selfish?

He doesn’t know.

He thinking about it.

Telford is willing to acknowledge that Young is the commanding officer of this ship. But he wants to be part of the loop. He wants to share the burden of leadership because Young has been slipping. He’s had to carry an enormous responsibility and he’s understandably tired.

Is he being genuine here, or is he trying, subtlely to wrest control of the ship from Young? If so, he’s doing it in a very different way than Rush. A much more friendly way.

This new dynamic between the character is fascinating to watch. Remember, they used to be friends once. Now, Telford has become that person again, and Young is trying to put aside the amnity he had with the brainwashed Lucian Alliance Telford, and give his old friend the benefit of the doubt.

But it isn’t easy.

Rush is watching all of this with keen interest. Rush doesn’t think much of Telford either, but he’s probably weighing his options. Who is the better leader to back? Young or Telford?

Brody and Volker have got the power working on the seed ship.

Now that the lights are one, we get to see a  bit more of the cool production design. The look of these ancient ships can be quite intricate.

Gin wants to help. She has experience with ancient technology, but Young will have none of it.

Varro wants to know how much longer they’ll be locked up. He and his people have cooperated with homeworld command. They’ve provided valuable intelligence on the Lucian Alliance to Earth.

Varro HAS been an ally to Young.

He wants to know honestly, what will it take for them to earth their freedom.

Young answer is they need to prove to him they’re not a threat.

When asked how they can do that, he honestly answers, I don’t think that you can.

Well….at least everyone knows where they stand.

But the truth is, at some point, Young is going to have to start trusting them. It’s a risk, but one that might just pay off.

It turns out, Camille told the prisoners about the seed ship. She feels they have a right to know what’s ging on. Young’s perspective is they’re prisoners. They don’t have any rights.

Young seems to be at odds with everyone today.

Camille expresses a similar sentiment to what I was just saying. They’re gonna have to learn to live with these people some time. But Young disagrees. No, we don’t.

I do get Young’s perspective. He wants to protect his crew. But he’s actually going against the will of his superiors back on earth now. Is there anyone Young is NOT fighting against at this point? He doesn’t want to risk his people on the whims of people on the other side of the universe. But...they’re still his superiors.

He’s forgotten one thing, though. Earth is at risk as well. The Lucian Alliance is making a move in the Milky Way galaxy.

We learn they’re planning a service for Riley, who died last episode. I’ve said it before, but I love it when they acknowledge the severity of redshirt deaths in shows like this. And yes, Riley was more than a redshirt, in the Original Star Trek sense. He was more of a semi-recurring guest. But still….

Eli has found something.

The seedship has significant power reserves. Enough for Destiny to use to dial the stargate back to earth.

So this was the secret Rush had already found. I guess he doesn’t have to decide whether the share it or not now. Eli was smart enough to figure it out himself.

The stargate factory is pretty cool.

Rush isn’t impressed, though. But then, a way home is kind of more important.

And that’s when Volker has a close encounter with our second major alien race in Stargate Universe. Once again, it’s a CGI creature, which, in my opinion, makes it significantly more exotic and alien than a human with bumps glued to their forehead. (and that’s nothing against Star Trek, I love all those bumpy races, but these aliens just suit SGU a lot better).

Anyway, the alien doesn’t pose much of a threat to Volker as it collapses on the floor. (of course there could be a threat from disease)

The plan was to get rid of the worst Lucian Alliance people and only keep those who were cooperative. But that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t still violent. One of them is pretty creepy. He seems to be getting close to potential rapist territory. Fortunately, TJ is a trained soldier and is able to put him in his place.

TJ is heading over to the seed ship to examine the sick alien. Young agrees to let Telford go along.

The alien isn’t dead. It appears to be breathing.

When TJ touches it it wakes up.

These aliens speak verbally, unlike the blue ones, but it’s clearly an unknown language.

I like the design. It’s bipedal but shorter than an average human. And the shape of the head is very different to ours, with round eyes. Its hands have very long claw like fingers.

Scott tries offering it some fruit. Turns out the alien doesn’t like the fruit any more than the humans do.

I wonder what they eat.

They’ve succeeded in initiating a power transfer between the two ships. That’s good news for everyone, well everyone except Rush.

Greer has found what look like alien eggs. The alien isn’t alone. Sounds like they’re more like space transport pods.

The gate is dialling.

But just as Eli says “we’re going home” the power transfer is interrupted.

Not only has the transfer to destiny stopped, it has now reversed. The seed ship is taking power from Destiny.

It’s the aliens. They’ve stunned Rush and are taking our power.

If their reserves get so low that they can’t do an FTL jump, there’ll be no way to recharge. They’re not near any stars right now.

Telford is trying to find a way to reverse the direction again, while Young wants to disconnect the ships. Telford’s plan is risky, because the aliens clearly don’t want the seed ship’s power drained.

They need Rush in the Destiny control room to figure out how to disconnect. But he’s disappeared. He’s probably still unconscious.

Telford is still their best hope at not being stranded.

But before he can complete it, the two ships disconnect. Eli coldn’t figure out how to do it, so how did it happen? Was it the aliens? Was it Rush?

And the answer is…. Rush.

He was on the bridge.

His wife asks, “Did you do it to save the crew, or to save your dream?”

Unfortunately, this means that Telford is stranded on the seed ship and Destiny is about to jump.

No time to send a shuttle over, I guess.

Imagine how Telford is feeling at that moment. Destiny has jumped, and is out of radio range. He’s completely alone on this ship, except for the aliens.

I guess he doesn’t have long to wonder what he’s gonna do with the rest of this life.

Given their number, he’s now their prisoner.

The mood on the ship is pretty grim. They came so close to being able to get home.

If Rush hadn’t disconnected them, Telford probably would have succeeded, and they’d be on Earth now.

And that’s where we leave it.

We’ll be picking up the threads of Telford and the Aliens, but I’m not sure when. Next week, we have more of a character-based episode, Pathogen.

In this instalment of our Stargate Universe podcast, Rush makes a staggering discovery. Destiny's bridge. But can he take control of the ship? Meanwhile, a team go to a restricted planet in hopes of finding food, and Young must deal with the aftermath of the recent invasion by the Lucian Aliance. Specifically, what to do with those prisoners left onboard.

This is a great episode of Stargate Universe, filled with tragedy, mystery and moral ambiguity. Come with me as we dig into it.

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Welcome to nerd heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars

And I am a nerd

This is episode 73 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode “Aftermath”

The description on Gateworld reads

Dr. Rush directs a shuttle to a planet inaccessible by Stargate -- but a crash landing threatens to strand those on board. Meanwhile, Rush makes a stunning discovery on Destiny, and Young must decide what to do with his prisoners.

This episode was written by Robert C. Cooper

It was directed by Will Waring

And it first aired on the 5th of October 2010.

In this episode’s recap, we revisit the chair device, which Franklin sat in and transformed into mist, and the code in human DNA that may eventually unlock control of the ship’s computer.

Rush is having nightmares about his recent torture at the hands of Kiva.

He finds Doctor Park in the computer room. He solvers the issue she’s struggling with in a few seconds and moves on, to continue roaming the ship. It’s an amusing moment.

But Rush isn’t wandering aimlessly. He approaches a door and opens it.

And enters a room. And as the lights come up, we begin to realise just where he is.

The bridge.

Rush has found Destiny's bridge.

It’s immediately recognisable to anyone who has watched science fiction before. There are consoles all about, and one seat in the centre.

The captain’s chair.

Evidently, this is not the first time Rush has been here, although there is still a look of reverence and awe on his face.

No, he walked here on purpose. He’s been here before.

And he’s seeing an image of his dead wife, Gloria.

And she voices what is going on in his head. He’s finally unlocked the master code. He has control over everything. And he’s not going to tell anyone.

This is a very Rush move, but we still have to ask the question why. We’ll be exploring that for a while.

This was a very exciting moment for me, when I realised what Rush had discovered.

You’ll notice we never saw the bridge of this ship during the entire first season. We weren’t even sure if there was a bridge.

That was a bit of a bold move, to do an entire season of a show set on a spaceship and never see the bridge, but it actually makes a lot of sense.

Remember, our characters are not in control of this ship. They’re not the crew. They’re just along for the ride, going wherever this ship wants to go. That itself was also interesting.

But having gone that entire year without it, it makes the discovery of the bridge feel like an event. It’s more momentous. It’s more exciting.

I thought this was brilliantly done.

So let’s talk about the bridge itself. It’s very in keeping with the visual aesthetic of Destiny, we’ve seen control panels before, but the internal layout is pretty reminiscent of Star Trek. It’s basically what all of us nerds expect, and want, a bridge to look like.

But the interesting thing is that it actually folds down into the ship, and retracts back up. Kind of like the blast shield in the original Battlestar Galactica, but in reverse. When it’s embedded down inside the ship, it can’t see anything out the front window. But it’s also safe and more protected from enemy fire. When it lifts up, they get a beautiful view out the front of the ship.

This was a nice bit of design.

Camille is interviewing Ginn, the Lucian Alliance scientist. Ginn is explaining what the alliance knew of the 9th chevron. The address that leads to Destiny was known in ancient legend. It was said that it led to the power of the gods. But Ginn isn’t thinking of the Goa’uld, who ruled over most of the Lucian Alliance people, until recent time. She’s thinking of the ascended ancients. Which is more accurate, since Destiny is an ancient ship.

The legends say that Destiny is capable of controlling time and space. And that get’s Camille’s attention. That’s why the Lucian Alliance wanted to come here.

Ginn explains that the alliance has actually been around longer than we might have thought. They predate the fall of the system lords. But they were quick to fill the power vacuum left over by claiming all that leftover Goa’uld technology.

They came to Ginn’s world and seized it. The only food they had to eat was what the Lucian Alliance provided. So they really were slave masters, just like the Goa’uld before them.

They controlled what was taught in schools, and they recruited children to fight on their behalf. Ginn herself was forced into service a few years ago with death threats against her family.

Suddenly we have a lot more sympathy, not just for her, but for a lot of people working for the Lucian Alliance. These people are not all willing members.

Does that justify the things they’ve done back in the Milky Way, and here on Destiny? Who do you forgive? Is Ginn innocent, but Kiva guilty? Where is that line drawn? It’s all very complicated.

Ginn argues that the alliance survivors are not getting enough food. Nobody on board is.

Welcome to Destiny.

You people chose to come here. Life on this ship sure isn’t easy.

Young has to decide what he’s going to do with these people currently being held. But he’s not going to make the decision alone. Camille will have a voice as well.

Ginn argues, as if pleading for her life, that some of them have been cooperative. They can be trusted. They can contribute.

But it keeps coming back to that difficult question. Which of them do you trust?

Conveniently, the Lucian Alliance still thinks Telford is one of them. So he’s still spying in the cell.

And now we see the other side of things. The crew in the mess hall are complaining about the lack of food. “Maybe we shouldn’t be giving our rations to the enemy,” one of them says.

It’s easy to treat your prisoners well when you have plenty of resources.

But when your food is running out, it becomes tempting to deny the prisoners first. But, they’re human beings too.

Riley says “The way we treat prisoners says everything about us as a civil and moral society.”

And that’s a very good point.

Young has a different perspective. He doesn’t think this is about the proper treatment of POWs. These people invaded the ship and tried to kill them. “I was just following orders” is not an argument that Young finds very convincing.

They’re not all as nice as Ginn. Park is afraid to go to sleep, just knowing there are people on board that would kill her if given the chance.

I don’t think Young has made up his mind yet, but he’s definitely trying to counteract Camille’s perspective. 

So…. what do you think? What would you do?

Rush thought it was going to be easier to control the ship, just like turning a key, but this ship was designed to be run by a crew. Gloria points out the ship has a crew.  But Rush means a crew that knows what they’re doing.

It always comes down to this with Rush, doesn’t it. Nobody else is smart enough. Nobody else can operate at his level. He has a similar arrogance to Rodney Mackey. And yet, expressed very differently.

Rush thinks this ship was never meant to run on it’s own. They were supposed to send a crew. But they never did.

He’s being smart, leaving the ship on auto-pilot until he knows what he’s doing.

Right now, he’s trying to understand why Destiny stops at some planets but not others. 

We still don’t know exactly what Gloria is. How is she here? Is Rush just losing his mind? Or is there something more?

The crew desperately need food and Rush has found a planet that should be rich in plant life, and yet, it’s locked out. Destiny won’t be stopping to let them gate there.

Why?

Rush makes the decision to drop them out of FTL.

Everyone is confused. Why did the ship drop out when there are no active stargates to dial?

Rush argues it away by saying the planet is in shuttle range. The ship knows about this planet because it does have a gate. The gate is just non-functional.

It’s actually pretty plausible.

TJ isn’t fully recovered from her ordeal, but she’s got skills they need, so she’s going on the mission. The shuttle ride will take an hour each way. That leaves them 5 hours on the planet. They hope to repair the gate. If it’s in range again next time they drop out, they might be able to gate back to it.

Gloria tells Rush he’s missing things. Making mistakes, but when he ignores her, she suddenly becomes Doctor Franklin. So that’s interesting.

Franklin is telling Rush things that he hasn’t noticed, which means he is more than simply a manifestation of Rush’s own mind. He’s separate.

That is fascinating, but what he reveals is of concern. The super-rotation in the planet’s atmosphere will cause some nast turbulence. Theoretically, the shuttle should handle it, but then, it is millions of years old.

Just as they think they’re okay, the engines just cut out and they crash, essentially falling out of the sky. It’s a thrilling sequence. It looks visually spectacular for its time and it’s pretty suspenseful.

Riley’s legs are pinned, and he can’t feel them.

The shuttle isn’t in good shape. If they can’t find the gate and repair it, they’ll be stranded on this planet forever.

Moving Riley could be dangerous for him, but if they don’t eventually, they won’t be able to get him to the gate. But when they try to move him they discover the metal is cutting off circulation to a wound. Even if they could get him out, he’d likely bleed to death.

Rush has really messed up this time. He’s not operating at his usual level and it could cost a bunch of people their lives.

The reason he says he’s keeping the bridge a secret is because the others won’t know what they’re doing. But he’s proving to be pretty inept himself at the moment. He really just needs to bring others into this. Keeping his discovery a secret could get everyone killed.

..And now the Lucian Alliance are rioting.

And Destiny has just jumped. So… that five hours went quickly. They’ve basically done nothing. I suppose they spent all that time trying to walk to the gate.

There is still some hope that the planet might still be in range next time it drops out of FTL, but there’s no guarantee.

Greer has found the gate, but it’s buried under a whole lot of rock.

Rush thinks that Gloria and Franklin are either hallucinations, because he’s losing his mind, or they’re the ship trying to communicate with him.

But they actually serve an important narrative job. With Rush keeping this to himself, he’s got nobody to talk to.

Now in a book, you can have internal monologue, but that doesn’t work on TV. Stories are primarily told through dialogue, and that means he needs another character to converse with.

Once at FTL, the ship needs to run for 4 hours. After that, Rush can stop it again, assuming he can think of an explanation again. But that will be his last shot to save the crew on the planet.

So why keep it a secret? Why not bring others in? Gloria is asking the right questions.

And Rush’s answer shows that he’s still not trusting Young. Young is mentally unstable. Young is not fit to lead the mission. Young allowed the Lucian Alliance on board.

Yes, Young is imperfect and makes mistakes, but Rush is making a bigger mistake right now. Honestly, he needs to get over this thing he has with Young or it might just kill everyone.

TJ and Riley have a great character scene together. As he faces the likelihood of his impending death, his thoughts turn to the spiritual, which often happens. His mother was Anglican, but his father didn’t believe. He was never very spiritual himself, but now he’s asking questions. He asks TJ what she believes.

She isn’t sure, but her recent experiences have got her wondering. They’ve seen some amazing things out here they can’t explain.

She reveals her experience on the faith planet with her baby. Something she’s not told anyone else.

After the recent riot, Young has made his decision. The next viable planet they find, the Lucian Alliance people will be left there.

Telford has used the stones to speak with Stargate Command. Young is ordered to keep some key Lucian Alliance people on board. If he doesn’t obey, Telford might relieve him.

Young asks a good question. Has he earned the trust of the people on the ship enough that they would follow him rather than Young? I’m not sure. I think most of them would be very torn between their loyalty to Young, and their loyalty to Stargate Command.

Digging the gate out could take weeks, so they take the risky move of blasting it out.  This could damage the gate, or worse, ignite it, which could take out half the planet. 

Rush has dropped them out of FTL. The planet is still in range, but still locked out. The thing that puzzles Brody is that there are no other planets in range and it’s only been 3 hours. So why did it drop out?

Rush has another excuse. It’s damage to the engine from the recent pulsar causing them to drop out at shorter intervals. You can tell from Young’s facial expression that he’s not buying it for a second. Rush is up to something.

They’re going to try to override the lockout and dial anyway. It’s a longshot.

But, they’ve managed to unearth the gate, so it works. They establish a wormhole!

I’ve never seen Rush so relieved.

But what about TJ and Riley?

Young goes to see Riley. It’s a difficult conversation. Young reassured Riley that he’s a good man. None of this was his fault.

Then Riley asks for help. He’s in pain.

What he wants is a quick merciful death.

Wow. That’s heavy.

So young suffocates him.

Honestly, I can’t imagine that would be a particularly nice way to go. But I guess it was quicker than waiting to bleed out slowly.

What do I say about this? It’s a difficult moral issue, and I don’t have all the answers.

What I can tell you is that it hit me harder this time around. Because I’ve gotten to know Riley as a character a bit more. He’s not just some no-name redshirt. He’s a significant character on the show. And how he’s dead.

And I’m sorry to have to say it, but his blood is on Rush’s hands.

Rush tries to justify it, but he knows that all of this was his fault.

And there’s something else. He says he’s found that this ship was named Destiny for a reason.

Most of the Lucian Alliance have been left on the planet to fend for themselves. I wonder what will become of them. Will they all die? Will they become the founders of a new human civilisation in this distant galaxy?

Meanwhile, the conflict between Earth and the Lucian Alliance back in the Milky Way is heating up, and there are fears that they may attack Earth.

Some of those who remain on board are Ginn, Varro and Simeon.

Young is not okay. While the others toast Riley in the mess hall, Young drinks alone in his quarters with tears streaming down his face.

And that’s okay.

Then something pops up on one of the monitors, and Destiny drops out of FTL.

There’s an object out there coming into range.

Whatever it is, they’re heading straight for it.

We’ll find out what that object is next time, when we talk about the episode Awakening. It should be pretty cool.

Don’t forget, you can find my original works of science fiction, including the Jewel of The Stars series, at AdamDavidCollings.com/books

Have a great two weeks.

Live long and prosper

Make it so.

Today we begin season 2 on our Stargate Universe podcast. This season opens with the episode "Intervention". Destiny is now under the control of the Lucian Alliance, but while TJ fights for her life in the medical bay, she finds herself, and her baby, transported to the mysterious alien planet from last season's episode "Faith".

Let's dig in and see how this ongoing plot from last season resolves.

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Last season, we left off with Colonel Young surrendering his crew to Lucian Alliance invaders who had come through the gate from an Icarus-style planet in the Milky Way galaxy and taken over the ship. The only way to save the crew from dangerous radiation levels from a binary pulsar was to give control of the ship to Kiva, the evil leader of the invaders.

Eli was rushing to open a hatch so Scott and Greer could get inside from out on the hull of the ship.

As is customary, we have a new prologue thing. It changes every half-season, so we’ll get another new one halfway through season 2.

This one highlights the conflict between Young and Rush, the problems with the blue aliens last season, the mysterious planet from the episode Faith, where TJ wanted to stay and raise her baby, and the recent events with the Lucian Alliance.

The episode begins with TJ waking up in a log cabin on that planet. The faith planet.

She feels her belly. She’s not pregnant, but she hears the cry of a baby.

Cain is there in the cabin. He was one of the crew who wanted to stay on the planet. He believed that the aliens who built the planet put it there specifically for the crew of Destiny, and that they had a plan.

So we have confirmation that Cain and some others did indeed remain behind on the planet. But Destiny left that planet, left that entire galaxy.

Cain says that for the aliens that could make a planet, a little intergalactic transport is nothing.

TJ asks “are you saying they brought me here?”

“Well, you’re here, aren’t you?” Cain replies.

So there he goes again, making assumptions. As I pointed out back in the episode Faith, last season, Cain’s faith has no basis. Faith is believing in what you can’t see, but you actually have to have something to believe in. Cain just believes in things that essentially come out of his own imagination.

TJ can’t imagine how or why she is there, but it seems that both she and the baby are safe.

Back on Destiny, Eli gets to the door and managed to open it. But it’s too late. Scott and Greer didn’t make it. We live in that for a few seconds, but then we immediately hear Scott’s voice. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to make it to Eli’s hatch in time so they headed for the back of the ship and the shields must have protected them.

It seems the Lucian Alliance have a new leader. But Kiva is technically not alive. The bald guy seems more interested in taking control himself than helping her, but one of the others convinces him. They’re gonna use the stones to try and get a doctor on board to help her. 

Apparently, not everyone in the Lucian Alliance is military. They have civilians too. And that makes sense. They are essentially a society. Humans who had been freed from Goa’uld slavery and wanted to band together to make a new life together. But they were pretty aggressive about the way they went about it. Many of them, presumably their military, wanted to fill the power void left behind by the demise of the system lords.

Eli gets Scott and Greer back inside the ship, and they’re all surprised to see Chloe walk in. She shouldn’t be able to walk. Last time Eli saw her she was barely conscious. Now her pain is going and her strength has returned. As if by magic. That’s an interesting mystery.

The countdown has started. That means the ship will soon be able to jump out of this dangerous region of space. But for some reason, Rush doesn’t appear happy about it. What is he hiding?

The doctors have arrived. Four of them. They’re working hard on all the wounded. Things are not looking good for Kiva. There’s a bullet lodged in her liver. The Lucian Alliance guy says it would be in everyone’s best interest if she survived, which sounds suspiciously like a threat, but I think it’s more than that. This guy is one of the more reasonable of the invaders. He knows that if Kiva dies, the bald guy is gonna go crazy and kill everyone.

As for TJ, she’s not dead. Not yet. But both she and the baby are in bad condition. They might both die.

So her body is still here on Destiny. Has her mind been transported to the planet, or is she just hallucinating while unconscious?

Whichever it is, she seems very happy here with her baby.

TJ is surprised that Cain and his people have built such a comfortable place. They haven’t had enough time to make all this. Cain agrees. They were still working on lean-tos with dirt floors when the winter was coming. Then one day, they just found these builds, abandoned.

But that doesn’t make sense. They scanned the planet and didn’t find any evidence of settlements.

TJ questions that buildings appear from nowhere and that’s just good enough for Cain. He says without the buildings, they wouldn’t have survived, and that’s good enough for him.

And I get that. I’d be grateful for the shelter no matter where it came from, but it wouldn’t stop me wanting to know how it got there. Curiosity would drive me to know more.

TJ is thinking this all through logically. Why was she brought here? Not just because she was wounded. There were many other wounded on the ship. Why would she be singled out?

I’d forgotten this whole thing happens so early in the season. I knew it was coming, but didn’t remember that it was in the very first episode.

Cain assumes the aliens were scanning them all from the moment they first step foot on the planet. They knew TJ was pregnant. He thinks that saved her because she was bleeding out on the floor. She and he baby would have died if the aliens hadn’t intervened.

So problem. Kiva is officially dead. I’m not going to shed any tears, but everyone needs to be worried about what the Lucian Alliance are gonna do next. Especially the bald one.

Scott and Greer have stashed Eli and Chloe somewhere safe and are sneaking around the ship.

That safe place turns out to be the lab. So they’re there with Rush and Brody.

Telford managed to transfer some control to Rush. He is currently slowly transferring power away from the shields. The same shields that are keeping them alive. He says he’s doing this to prevent the ship from jumping. Which is pretty weird. Surely they want to jump away from here. What is Rush’s perspective here?

Rush thinks the pulsar levels the playing field. It’s a danger to the Lucian Alliance as much as the crew. Sooner or later, the bad guys are gonna have to deal with it.

Interesting.

So an interesting thing about this binary pulsar.

The writers needed some kind of spatial phenomenon that would present jeopardy to the crew. Pulsars really are as deadly as portrayed in this episode, except, that cycle very very quickly, like every few milliseconds. If one was slowed down to pulse every 22 minutes, it would not have any devastating power behind it. You wouldn’t even know it was doing anything.

Stargate science consultant, Mike McKinnon, explained on a recent episode of Dial the Gate, which you should watch, by the way, how they invented a way to make it work. They theorised about a pulsar that was almost ready to start...pulsing….but it was in a binary system with another star that had a whole lot of mass that could feed the pulsar. Essentially, the other start would circle around and every 22 minutes, it would get near enough to the pulsar to feed it and make it go crazy. I’m not explaining it as well as she does.

This was a great idea, and it worked. It made scientific sense, and it met the narrative requirements of the story.

The only problem was, it was completely theoretical. No such system had ever been detected in the universe.

The cool thing, though, is that several years later, researchers found a system just like this in the real world. They called it a Black Widow star.

I just think this is such a cool story, and it shows how seriously the people making Stargate Universe took the science. They could have just invented any old nonsense, and most of us would never have even known, but they took the time to come up with something they thought was plausible, and then the universe said, “Yep, I have one of those. Here it is.”

Very cool.

The Lucian Alliance are arguing about what to do next. Bald guy wants to kill everyone. Reasonable guy wants to stick to the original plan of leaving the crew on a habitable world. Bald guy’s only reason for wanting to kill everyone is the fact that Kiva is dead.  I’m not sure how that logically follows. People on both sides have died. This is war. Seems he’s driven solely by emotion, and pretty unstable emotion at that.

But another of their number has a different idea. A young woman who we’ll come to know as Ginn. She’s been on board all this time but I don’t think we actually saw her on-screen in the last two episodes. I might be wrong, but if we did, it would have been a background non-speaking role. Seems unlikely they’d have hired an actor just for that and then give her a major role in this episode.

Anyway, she’s found one planet they can dial from their current position. It’s locked out, probably because it’s at the extreme limit of their range, but she can override that. If the planet turns out to be viable, they could send all of the destiny crew (Except for the doctors, who are still working) to the planet.

Reasonable Guy wants to keep TJ. She could be useful and moving her in her condition would kill her.

It seems Scott and Greer were listening in on this conversation.

TJ wants to know how Cain can have any knowledge of what’s happening onboard Destiny. Cain can’t explain. But he believes the knowledge came from the aliens.

And by the way, TJ’s baby is a girl.

Telford is alive. He’s just woken up. The bad guys still think he’s one of them.

Although I think Reasonable Guy is sceptical.

He’s already decided the planet is viable. Young says he can’t possibly have had time to determine long-term viability. This is a death sentence.

But they don’t have a choice.

The crew are ushered through the stargate.

Young is the last to go, taking one last look at his ship, the ship that has been taken from him.

The planet looks bleak. Cold and dark.

And there’s a storm coming.

But Scott, Greer, Rush, Brody, Eli and Chloe are still on board.

So there’s still hope.

Except most of them have just been discovered.

Ginn can’t figure out why the countdown has stopped.

Bald Guy nearly kills Ginn because he doesn’t like the answers she gives, or rather can’t give.

That’s how he treats his own people.

Scott and Greer arrive just in time to rescue Rush and the others.

Rush tells the invaders that he will keep diverting power from the shields until they lay down their weapons. He claims he and the others are willing to die to prevent the Lucian Alliance from getting their hands on the ship.

A bluff if ever I heard one. Rush isn’t going to die for any principles. Worst case scenario, he’ll try to work with these people simply so he can continue studying the secrets of Destiny.

I’m not saying he’d betray his friends, but he’s no martyr.

Bald Guy is officially taking command of the Lucian Alliance. “Anybody have objections?” Nobody speaks up. Even Reasonable Guy.

Rush thinks the crew are better off on the planet, because they’re out of range of the pulsar. But that only makes sense if the rest of them can survive and defeat the invaders so they can bring them back on board.

Bald Guy has sent Reasonable Guy and his followers to the planet along with Young and his people. So that’s an interesting turn.

Young has zero interest in seeing these people as allies, but Reasonable Guy says they’re there because he stood up for Young. And that’s absolutely true.

Anyway, it seems like Lieutenant James has found shelter. So that’s good.

Scott and Greer have taken sickbay. The stones connections have been severed. Camille is herself again. The others who served host to the doctors are somewhere else.

Camille confirms TJ is going to make it. But the baby isn’t. IT may already be dead.

And that sucks.

But great acting from Ming Na as she breaks down and cries over this. Camille is a very strong character who doesn’t readily expose any vulnerability. But this is the death of a baby. Nobody with a heart could fail to be broken by that.

Cain has taken TJ outside to see some glowing lights in the sky. A little like an aurora, but bigger, brighter and more impressive. It looks kinda like a glowing nebula.

It appeared last night just before TJ did.

Nobody knows what it is or what it means.

Cain expresses his gratitude to TJ. If she hadn’t returned with Young, nobody would have been allowed to stay on the planet. They all owe her for that.

He thinks that’s why the aliens saved her daughter and brought her here.

But then he says that only the baby can stay. TJ will not be allowed to remain because “she made her choice.”

But Cain has just acknowledged that TJ never wanted to leave, and he doing so helped all of them.

TJ is devastated. She doesn’t want to go back. She’s finally got her chance to be here on the planet.

Apparently, the aliens have told Cain all of this.

Rush is playing a hard and dangerous game. But he’s probably right.

It seems that Ginn is Eli’s opposite, on the other side. She’s the brains behind Bald Guy’s brawn.

Telford’s familiarity with Rush helps to convince Bald Guy. Telford knows Rush is a coward and wouldn’t sacrifice himself. He also knows that Rush would be willing to sacrifice his own people. Just not himself.

Eli makes a good point. Bald Guy is nuts you can’t reason with a person like that.

Telford argues against Bald Guy. In the end, Ginn is convinced. She shoots him. She calls Rush and surrenders. They’ll comply with his demands.

It looks like the good guys have re-taken the ship.

TJ doesn’t want to leave. She wants to be on this planet, but most of all, she wants to be with her daughter, who she has named Carmen, wherever they are.

Cain warns her that nobody on the ship will understand. They won’t believe that she was ever here, because what they’ve seen is different. Remember, her body is still lying on a bed in sickbay. 

And with that, she wakes up. Back on the ship.

“How long was I off the ship?” she asks. Camille tells her she was here the whole time. Then she breaks the news that her baby died.

What they have seen is different.

The rest of the crew have been brought back on board the ship from the planet.

There are still some Lucian Alliance on the ship, including those exiled with Reasonable Guy.

For now, Young is going to put them all together. In lock-up, presumably.

Scott tells Young that most of the credit for saving the ship goes to Rush. And he’s right about that.

We’ve set up an interesting new status quo for season 2. We have a bunch of prisoners on board, people we are going to have to learn to live with, but will find it very difficult to trust.

Young goes to see TJ. Remember, this wasn’t just TJ’s child. It was Young’s child as well. He’s lost a daughter too.

It’s a painful moment.

We still have the mystery of Chloe’s miraculous healing from her bullet wound.

Not to mention the weird dissolving man from two episodes ago.

Destiny has only made a short jump. They’ve dropped out where they were supposed to drop out all along.

The ship is safe and back to normal.

TJ doesn’t look like a woman who’s lost her daughter, and that’s because she believes her daughter is alive and well on the planet.

But what are we really to make of all of this?

Neither TJ nor Carmen were ever bodily on the planet. Their bodies were on board Destiny the whole time. 

So if they now have a dead baby’s body, in what sense is the baby on the planet? Did the aliens manufacture a new body for her? Maybe transfer her mind, and her soul into that body? Creating a new body would probably be within their established abilities. Mind transfer, possibly as well. As for the soul, well, that all depends on what you believe. Many people believe that the body and the mind are all there is.

So was any of it real, or was it all a dream TJ was having?

She has no evidence to support it. Only her belief.

Her faith.

That is, until she sees the nebula. The shining lights, exactly like she saw on the planet, here where Destiny has dropped out of FTL.

She couldn’t have possibly known what that nebula looked like before this moment. That is some hard evidence that what she experienced was more than a dream. That it was, in some way, real.

But it’s not evidence that can sway anybody else, because nobody else saw it. It’s internal evidence, but it doesn’t really help her prove anything.

In an interesting way, TJ’s faith is significantly more grounded than Cain’s was back in season 1. She has something tangible, a foundation for her faith to sit on. She believes what she believes because of what she saw and heard, and because of the evidence of the nebula.

Cain had none of that. He was just making up stuff. Ironically, despite that, he may have been right in some of his beliefs. It does appear that the aliens are aware of the Destiny crew and have taken an interest in them.

Back in the episode Faith, Cain had no basis for believing that, but now, TJ does.

It’s all very interesting.

I am absolutely convinced that we would have continued to see more of Cain, Carmen and the faith planet in future seasons. This was clearly being set up as a long-term story element. I can’t help but wonder how much the writers had figured out in their heads already. What does Brad Wright know about the mysterious aliens who made the planet? And might he reveal some of it if his new show ever gets made?

I live in hope, and, dare I say, faith.

So that’s what I have for you this time. 

Next time, we’re looking at the episode, Aftermath. I always like it when these big moments get subsequent episodes that deal with the aftermath. I’ve talked about how hard the writers of Star Trek The Next Generation had to fight to get their aftermath episode following The Best of Both Worlds.

Aftermath will also introduce an exciting new element into the show, which I’m looking forward to talking about.

I’ll catch you then.

In the meantime, you can find my original works of science fiction by going to AdamDavidCollings.com/books

I’d encourage you to check them out.

Have a great two weeks

Live long and prosper.

Make it so.

In the second half of Zack Snyder's Justice League, the heroes attempt to bring Superman back from the dead using the alien "change machine" that is the mother box. Thy must confront Steppenwolf in his lair and come face to face with Darkseid. I delve deep into this movie, talking about the story and themes, and even share my thoughts on Jared Leto's Joker. Thins concludes my analysis of the Snyder Cut.

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Transcript

Welcome to Nerd Heaven

I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars.

And I am a nerd.

This is episode 71 of the podcast.

Today, we’re continuing our coverage of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

We pick up at the beginning of the second disc with

Part 5

All the King’s Horses

With good reason to revive him, and a solid way to do it, they dig up Clark’s body.

Dianna is amazed to find herself working with an Atlantean, or at least, a half Atlantean. It’s been thousands of years since their people have spoken. I think she also mentions that actively fought a war with one another. I’d love to know the history of this. What was their conflict about? What precipitated it and how was it resolved? Did this war take place before the Atlanteans went below the ocean, or before?

Arthur says he hates the Atlanteans as much as the amazons do. Admittedly, he doesn’t know much about them. Right now, to him, they’re just the people who killed his mother.

But Dianna and Arthur discover that both of their people have a common saying.

Atlantis and Thymascyra both have a saying.

“None are taken back from the darkness. Not without giving up one in return.”

Well, that’s some common ground. But more than that, to me, it suggests a shared history, perhaps a time when these two powerful races tried to cheat death and it went horribly wrong.

And we get confirmation of Dianna’s age, which I’ve been wondering for some time. 5,000. This means that Zeus created her around 3000 BC. This was the beginning of what is called the Helladic period in Greece. It was also the bronze age. It was around this time when construction of StoneHenge began. The ancient city of Troy was founded around this time, which is famous in Greek mythology. So this was the time, in the DC universe, when the Greek gods, whatever they were, were walking the Earth. The time of Darkseid’s invasion of earth also seems to be dated at 3,000 BC, which makes me think that Zeus made the decision to create the ‘god killer’, that is, Wonder Woman, in response to the invasion from Darkseid and his ‘new gods’. We’re told in the Wonder Woman movie that she was created to destroy Ares, but I suspect Darkseid had at least something to do with it as well.

We also learn that Barry is interested in Dianna. Which isn’t overly surprising, considering he’s a young man and she’s an attractive woman. But given their multi-milennia age difference, I don’t think they’re overly compatible.

So Bruce’s plan is to take Superman’s body to the Kryptonian scout ship and use the mother box. 

Lex Luthor also tried to revive a dead Kryptonian in the genesis chamber of that ship, and we know how that turned out. What could possibly go wrong?

Alfred is skeptical about this. Perhaps even against it.

“You did it,” he says. “You put the team together to fight the war. You have fulfilled your promise. But to do this. Your guilt has overcome your reason.”

And then he makes reference to that line from humpty dumpty. All the king’s horses. And we all know how it goes. They couldn’t put him back together again. What makes Bruce think he can put Superman back together again?”

And this is when we get a very interesting line from Bruce. “I’m acting on faith. Not reason.”

This is a bit of a theme with Bruce’s character in this movie. Bruce is learning to adopt a mindset of faith. It’s the only way he can see out of this whole situation. And the movie portrays this in a generally positive light. You don’t often see that. I kinda liked that.

Of course, faith doesn’t always mean an absence of reason. Those two generally work best together. But Bruce isn’t operating out of a blind faith without reason. He’s actually got a well-reasoned argument about why he can and should attempt this. But reason alone can’t give him a definitive answer as to whether it’s the right call. To go that extra step, he’s going to have to rely on faith.

And then Alfred says “If you can’t bring down the charging bull, don’t wave the rep cape at it.”

And that’s an interesting line. I think Alfred is concerned that bringing Superman into the equation might make things worse. It will introduce an uncertain element into the whole situation.

But Bruce counters with “This red cape charges back.”

Which is also true. That’s why they want to do this, because Superman may be the only one strong enough to actually defeat Steppenwolf.

“Yes, but what if it doesn’t work?” Alfred asks. There is danger in this.

Alfred sounds a legitimate caution here.

It’s a wonderful exchange between two people expressing valid points of view.

Alfred’s dialog is so good in this version. The whole exchange is so much better than the equivalent scene in the theatrical cut.

All of Alfred’s dialog is infinitely better in this version of the movie.

Some cool music as they get ready to put their plan into action.

This is a good midpoint. We’re seeing some very solid story structure here.

The protagonists are no longer just reacting to all that has happened since Steppenwolf arrived in Themyscira. Now, they’re actively going on offensive with a plan. This is the turning point that makes the middle of a story feel satisfying. It re-energises us for the second half.

The first step of their plan involves breaking into the scout ship, which is under very strict controls by the US military.

Barry tries to play the part of a military officer driving the truck, but nearly blows it with his “aye aye”. And then his card doesn’t work.

Cyborg fixes it with his magical hacking abilities, but they were very lucky to have gotten in.

Especially when Barry is surprised to get admitted.

Honestly, they should probably have been detained for further investigation.

Silas has just been released from quarantine, having been exposed to aliens and their technology.

Now he has a plan as well. He knows the aliens out there are after the box. He’s gonna do something about it.

Victor creates a false bio hazard to clear the entire facility.

Silas knows it’s a false alarm. But in a situation like this, you don’t take chances. I’ve been a fire warden in the past. When you have an alarm. You ALWAYS treat it as if it’s real.

The Justice League break in. All suited up.

Silas confirms the alarm was false. He knows it was a hack.

Then he sees the justice league. His son, centre among them.

He knows victor was the one who hacked in.

So he changes his tune. He doesn’t know what his son is up to, but it’s his son. There’s an inherent trust there. This is another example of faith. The value of faith is all about what, or who, you’re putting your faith in. Silas knows and loves his son, so he’s willing to trust him, even without knowing what Victor is up to. He lets him do what he’s doing.

There’s a little nod of appreciation between them. It’s very subtle, and yet so powerful. Just that little move of the head evokes a lot of emotion in me.

There are dead bodies in sleep chambers on the scout ship. Ancient kryptonian space explorers. What I’d give to know their stories. The ship knows Clark is here. Different suits open up for him to make use of.

Arthur is hesitant about this.

We don’t get the Man of Steel theme here, as we did in the theatrical cut, but we’ve had it other places.

It’s early morning and Lois wakes up. There’s that little moment when she realises anew that she’s alone. That must be heartbreaking. 

Here we get the quiet Man of Steel music. Not the Superman / Krypton theme. A different music. The piece they play on the piano. I think of it as the emotional music. It was often used thematically for Clark’s relationship with his earthly parents, or with Lois. It’s very fitting here. 

Lois pulls out her press pass. She’s going to get on with her life.

But we see a pregnancy test.

So...is she pregnant? We don’t see the result, but I believe that Zack Snyder has confirmed that yes, Lois is pregnant. Ultimately, you’re not likely to keep a negative pregnancy test in your drawer, right? You throw it in the bin.

There’s a photo of Jonathan in Clark’s coffin. That’s a nice touch.

It’s fitting that he’s here with his son at this moment, saying goodbye, as the son goes back and the father moves forward.

Interestingly, there was a scene in the comics that played out the opposite. Jonathan was having a heart attack. He had a touching moment with Clark, who was heading off into the afterlife, while Jonathan was pulled back into the land of the living by his doctors.

Should Clark’s body have started to decompose by now? I’m not sure. How quickly does a human body decay? If he were human, he probably should look pretty gross right now, but he’s not. There’s something about his body here on earth that won’t quite give up.

Luthor’s experiment damaged the systems. There’s not enough power left in the genesis chamber to activate the mother box.

I was surprised that they included this scene with flash running past to wake the box with electrical charge. I had assumed, back in the day, that this was a Whedon addition.

But even this moment seems more meaningful, because it shows that Barry can do funny things to time. That will become important later on.

Lois gets her normal coffee.

She tells the policeman that she’s here one last time. She’s later than normal.

This is her final goodbye. She’s letting go, and moving on.

It doesn’t mean she’ll never come to Superman’s monument again, but she’s no longer going to make it a daily routine. She’s going to stop existing in her grief and start living her life again.

It’s interesting that she finally manages to do this just before getting Clark back again.

I’m not sure the whole box drop thing makes a lot of sense. How does one operate the change machine and tell it what you want it to do? It must have some kind of user-interface. We know it has something of a mind of its own, but they are using it to do something very specific. How are they feeding it instructions? There’s gotta be more to it than just letting it touch the water that Clark is in.

I kind of wish they’d explored all of this a bit more. There’s a complex interaction between the genesis chamber and the mother box in order to bring Clark back to life, but we really don’t understand how it all works.

Interestingly, this means that Darkseid’s race have the technology to bring back the dead. But maybe it can only do this in combination with kryptonian tech.

As Barry runs at super speed, somebody has a vision. Logically, you would think it’s Barry having this vision, since he’s the one doing the running, but it appears later that it’s actually Victor having the vision.

Anyway, things get weird with time, and we see a flash forward into the future.

Dianna  is dead.

Darkseid is on earth

But it’s not the Earth we know. It’s all been changed.

There are spaceships in the sky.

The Amazons are grieving.

This is when we see Darkseid using his omega beams to kill some Atlanteans.

A lot of fans got very excited when they saw the omega beams in the trailer. I wasn’t familiar enough with Darkseid to understand the significance.

They’re basically like Kryptonian heat vision, except they can turn corners. Darkseid can control their vector and re-direct them at will, making them pretty darn scary.

Next, we see Superman in a black suit grieving while holding a skeleton, and darkseid touching his shoulder. I’m going to talk about this at the end, when we get to the epilogue.

We see a Hall of Justice sign broken, and a destroyed landscape.

It’s all very dystopian and clearly is showing a future where Darkseid has won.

The box touches the water, but it’s too soon. They’ve failed. The box isn’t yet powered.

But Barry is doing time whimey stuff.

Time reverses.

The box goes up, as the photo bobs in the water.

Flash touches the box at just the right moment.

Power goes into the box as it touches the water.

The change machine does its thing.

This was a nice little way to add some extra tension to this whole scene. And it again reinforces Barry’s ability to reverse time.

I can see why Joss Whedon cut this. It’s an extra complication that you can remove, and the story still works. This is the kind of thing that you might delete when you’re editing a story, trying to shorten it, and looking for non-essential moments you can cut.

And that was the task he was given by Warner Bros. I disagree with Warner Bros’ brief, and I’m glad Zack put this back in, but I understand, from Joss’s point of view, why he did this. It’s an editing decision. In the writing world, we call it killing your darlings.

We’re told that the future has taken root in the present. But what does that mean? Does that mean the vision Victor just saw is now going to be an inescapable reality? Very possibly. Because as we’ll see, Superman is an essential part of that future.

Outside, water spurts out of the ship’s roof. The mother box crashes from the sky onto a car.

Superman is in the sky. Lois sees him. So does the policeman.

He draws his gun. Who is this? It can’t be Superman, he’s dead. Therefore, it could be a threat. Lois knows. She’d know him anywhere. But all the cop ses is a silhouette.

Clark lands at the broken monument.

This scene is another great example of having the same scene in two different movies, but it’s playing out so much better in one of them.

Everything here is interpreted differently. Better.

It has better music, better shots, better writing.

Clark looks at the monument, coming to terms with who he is and what happened to him. But he’s still not quite himself yet.

The way the battle starts is pretty much the same. Cyborg can’t control his automated defensive systems when Clark scans them.

Clark identifies threats from all of them.

Victor forms a weapon when he senses danger. He can’t control it.

Clark retaliates with heat vision, which Victor’s suit can repel.

Clark is confused. He doesn’t know who he is.

This scene plays move dangerously

Dianna’s lasso has power over him.

She uses it to help him remember who he is. He uses his strength to get out of it. But I think this has started something. This is what begins the process of him remembering who he really is.

Even the scene when Barry realises that superman is fast like him and can see him running at super speed in real time, plays more creepy than funny in this version. I like it.

I put myself in Barry’s shoes and I feel scared as hell in that moment.

This is an awesome fight sequence.

Why didn’t I feel that way in the other version? I think it’s a Combination of many factors.

Music, direction, colour grading, just the overall tone of it all.

The military have arrived to try to contain Superman. But of course they can’t.

Batman finally arrives. He can’t get there as quickly as the others . Some nice realism that we also saw in the other version.

Something in Clark recognises Batman. That guy who tried to kill him in another life.

He makes short work of victor who is just a minor obstacle to him.

They’re all just minor obstacles.

Maybe except Dianna.

But even she can’t quite compete with his raw strength.

He hovers over Bruce. It’s a dramatic moment.

This time around, there are no stupid jokes making fun of BVS. Man, I hated that!

Lucky Bruce has those kryptonian gauntlets. It’s the only way he survives the heat vision.

He says “Clark no. This world needs you.”

Lois arrives, not because Bruce called him, but because she was nearby already. In the theatrical version, this was the explanation for Barry’s “Lois Lane is the key” line in BVS. I always believed this was a retcon, that Zack had something else in mind. And we’ll talk about this more later on as well.

When Clark sees Lois, something clicks.

He knows her. He loved her.

And in a way ,that somehow doesn’t feel cheesy, the power of love breaks through his confusion.

He doesn’t remember it all yet, but he knows this feeling. This woman means everything to him. He would never let harm come to her. He is gentle with her. Together the two of them fly off.

Flash’s “I’m so sorry” is a slightly comedic moment, but unlike the “definately bleeding” it makes sense for the character in this situation.

Now we get to the very emotional heart of the movie. This is why Zack said that Cyborg was the heart of his movie.

Silas gets the box and runs into the ship. Remember, he still has his plan.

But Steppenwolf shows up. He’s found the box. He’s coming for it. Silas doesn’t have much time.

This is dramatic, scary and thrilling.

It feels dangerous and scary as Steppenwolf breaks in and enters. Such a huge guy. My son said “look, it’s Satan”

I’d be scared.

This version of Steppenwolf sure is intimidating.

Victor realises what Silas is doing.

He screams “No” as Silas activates a laser, shooting at the box.

And Silas disintegrates, sacrificing his life for his son.

Man, there’s some powerful emotion in this scene. Victor was just starting to forgive his father, and he loses him.

Remember that saying that the Atlanteans and Amazons share? I wonder if Silas was the one given up in return from bringing back Superman from the darkness.

“I didn’t save him. I couldn’t.” This actually echo’s Superman’s words from 1978’s Superman: The Movie, when he couldn’t save his father. “All those powers, and I couldn’t save him.”

Arthur says, “His father is dead because of us. I told you waking that box was a bad idea.

Whatever returned isn’t superman. His body and powers, but not him.”

Bruce argues, “It is him. He recognised Lois Lane.”

“Only because she wasn’t afraid of him. That was just instinct.”

These are all valid opinions, considering evidence.

Now Steppenwolf has all 3 boxes. He can syncronise then and form unity. Once he does that, the planet dies.

Victor realises something.

Silas wasn’t trying to destroy the box. He was trying to superheat it.

He was marking it so that the league could find it in the world. The core of that box is now the hottest thing on earth.

Part 6

Something darker.

Clark and Lois arrive at the Kent farm.

This version lets us see some of Clark’s journey to remembering who he is.

He remembers his childhood house.

The theatrical version didn’t let us see any of this. He recovered off screen. That was terrible.

Lois and Clark get to have some quiet scenes, just talking. 

“She loved it here.” he says of his mother. He IS remembering.

Family. Who he loves most. That’s what is in his memory the most.

He loved it here too.

This all makes perfect sense.

We get that emotional music from Man of Steel again.

We See the childhood swing.

It’s a beautiful quiet scene.

Then we get the arrival at the batcave.

Flash is still annoyingly enthusiastic, but nowhere near as annoying as in the theatrical version. This version plays out Much much better.

I love Alfred’s reaction to seeing Cyborg.

I love his reaction to seeing all of them. 

“Well, I’ll put on the tea,” he says. What a great reaction.

They find where Steppenwolf is hiding. Nobody will go there. It’s the site of a disaster. But he’s absorbed all the radiation to power the boxes.

Victor has a plan. He wants to plug into the unity. Hack into it and break it apart back into 3.

Dianna cautions him. “The boxes are world destroyers, Billions of years old. You’ll have to stream into the unit. It’ll find your weakness and destroy you.”

“I’ve got nothing left.” That’s a hard truth, but it motivates him.

“You want me to use these gifts right?”

Barry says we do it, but we gotta get in somehow.

And he says that line we all know from the trailer. “He would have fought superbeings on the other worlds he’s conquered, and we have to assume he’s won”

And Batman says, “He’s never fought us. Not us united.”

It’s an awesome exchange.

I love how this movie gives all the characters a reason to be in it. An important part in the plan. Especially Victor and Flash, who had no real reason to exist in the theatrical cut at all.

Clark notices the engagement ring on Lois’s finger. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he says.

He’s fully back now. Standing in the early morning sun in the corn field.

So I guess they’re engaged. Woohoo.

I love how she put on the ring after he died, accepting his proposal in her heart, even though he was gone.

“I’ve got a second chance Lo. I’m not gonna waste it.”

Clark’s hope is restored. He nearly lost it in Batman V Superman, with all that Lex put him through. But now we pay that off. That’s how story arcs work.

A ute pulls up. It’s Martha. The real Martha arrives.

Imagine this moment. Your son, who was dead, is alive again. Imagine seeing him for the first time.

I can’t help but get Mary and Jesus vibes from this. The Bible doesn’t exactly show the moment of their reunion, but we know it would have happened, as she’s among the disciples at the beginning of the books of Acts. Just imagine the emotion of that moment. It would be too good to be true. And yet it is. I can’t even imagine that feeling.

Clark says “they wanted me back for a reason. I Have to find out why.”

He wants to stay here with his loved ones, but has to help.

Dianna and Bruce have a fascinating exchange.

He admits he had a dream - a vision of the future.

It was the end of the world. Barry Allen was right here. He said “Lois Lane is the key.”

“She is,” Dianna says. “To superman. Every heart has one.”

Dianna, here, is explaining the Joss Whedon interpretation of that prophecy. Lois was the key to getting Superman to become himself again after reviving.

But Bruce doesn’t buy it. “No. I think it’s something more. Something darker.” This line almost feels like a poke at joss version. I wonder if this was one of the re-shot scenes. It proves that Zack had more in mind for that whole thing than what we saw  in the theatrical cut.

Victor has the troop carrier plane working. Just like he said he could.

Alfred had said earlier that there was no chance in hell they could get it flying.  Which just shows Victor’s incredible power over technology.

It’s a cool looking thing.

They get in. They have a good reason to go to Stepppenwolf’s lair in this version.

Bruce says to Alfred, “He’ll be here, I know it.”

Obviously talking about Superman.

“What makes you think so?” Alfred asks.

“Faith, Alfred.”

I love the continuing focus on faith in Bruce’s arc here.

In this case, I think Bruce has some reason to have faith in Superman, because he knows Superman’s character. He’s seen it.

We see Steppenwolf combining the boxes into the unity.

It’s time to prepare for his arrival. He says “My redemption is nigh.”

The boxes are fusing together. The unity is coming. There’s not much time.

And then, it’s done. The unity has been formed. The amazons see it.

All over the world it’s seen and heard

I’m not sure of the logistics of that, but it’s cool.

So here’s the plan

First, Batman needs to take out the tower. Then, the defensive dome will fall. With the dome down, they can get to unity. Barry will make a power surge from running fast. He’ll make physical contact with Victor. That should propel him into the unity.

Again, I’m not sure how they came up with all this.

Clark is back in the scout ship. Searching for answers.

We hear clips of his father’s voice. Jor-el. He talks of hope. Goodness. Kal-el was sent here for a reason. And Jonathan too. Motivating words from both his fathers. When you hear all these soundbites together, you realise just how positive and inspirational Man of Steel actually was. A lot of people just don’t see that.

Various suits emerge for him to choose from.

In a sense, this is the moment Clark fully and truly becomes Superman.

All this time, he’s been trying to find himself, to understand who and what he is. He’s been trying to live up to the expectations of two fathers, and those of the world.

But he’s been through the fire. Now he truly understands how to be a symbol of hope.

And he emerges in the black suit. 

I Love it.

It was important to see Superman in the black suit after he rose from the dead. It’s an important link to what is arguably the most iconic story from all of DC comics.

But why did he choose this suit?

In the comic, the black suit had a practical purpose.

Not so much here. It’s a nice callback to the comics, but would have been nice to give a  reason.

And now, we hear Jor-El and Jonathan saying new things. These are not clips from previous movies. This is new dialog. And it fruits beautifully with Superman’s new sense of hope.

We get a full on rendition of the Superman theme from Man of Steel. It’s such an awesome scene. A very emotional pay-off to the last two movies. I Love it as a big Man of Steel fan.

The Justice League prepares for battle as hard rock music plays.

Thankfully, there are no stupid gags about Arthur sitting on the lasoo this time around.

There’s a great shot of them walking out of the plane.

Bruce drops the others  off to do their bit. He’s gonna take down the tower with the plane’s weapons.

He manages to blast his way through the forcefield. Once in, he takes out the tower with missiles. The forcefield dome is down.

Steppenwolf sends the parademons to defend the unity.

Bruce, Dianna and Arthur are here to get Barry and victor to the unity. 

Bruce takes the batmobile out of the plane. Armed with machine guns. I Love it. That’s the batman we need in this story.

The Parademons are shooting lasters. The theatrical version added a red sky for some reason. Doesn’t make sense now the dome is down.

Bruce can’t win this fight alone against the parademons. He needs the rest of the league to help him.

This cut of the film still has the silly scene with Arthur standing on the Batmobile and then flying into the air. I really wasn’t expecting to see this sequence in the Snyder Cut.

It plays a bit better because the music makes it feel more serious.

But it still comes across as silly to me.

I still don’t like his cry of joy. He’s having too much fun for the situation he’s in.

And him sky surfing the body of a parademon is also silly. 

Arthur can’t fly. He’s way too comfortable up in the sky.

But, it still plays better than in the theatrical cut.

I find myself more forgiving of it because of the rest of the awesomeness and overall tone

We cut back to Alfred. Superman arrives in the black suit.

“I’m assuming you’re Alfred.”

“Master Kent. He said you’d come. Now let’s hope you’re not too late.”

Afred can fill him in on the details. Where he needs to be and what he needs to do.

The league have gotten through the parademons. Now they’re in the chamber with Steppenwolf.

I’m not sure what the shockwave thing is that happens when Arthur plunges his trident into the ground. There’s a lot of random magic associated with melee weapons in this movie. It’s all very loosey-goosey. I don’t mind magic, in fact, I like magic, but I prefer a hard magic system. Something that has understandable rules, cause and effect.

Steppenwolf tries to play mind games with Dianna. And I like this. His power isn’t just all brute strength. He uses his mind to attack Dianna psychologically. Probably because he knows she’s the one among them that can come close to threatening him physically. “You betrayed your sisters. You weren’t there to protect them from me and sadly you could have.”

That’s gotta hurt. Because it’s true.

Dianna is the most powerful of her people.

She’s the god killer, and Steppenwolf sees himself as a god. He’s like the old gods, Zeus and Ares. Dianna was created to defeat beings like him.

But she was off in Paris.

Victor is in position and Barry is building up speed to “push” victor into the unity.

Not sure it makes sense but it’s cool.

These guys are central to the plan in this version. In the previous version, they both might as well have not been there.

But Barry is too late. Before he’s built enough speed, Steppenwolf gets to Victor and pulls him away.

They’re all fighting him, but clearly struggling against him.

Steppenwolf is still playing mind games. “I watched your island burn. I heard them begging for their lives.”

Now he’s adding lies to the truth to make it seem worse.

Bruce is still outside taking care of the parademons. 

Barry is up to speed but has to wait for Victor to be in position. He can’t keep it up much longer. Finally, he’s in position, But Steppenwolf arrives again.

“For Darkseid,” he says. He’s about to kill Victor with his axe.

That’s when Superman arrives and stands in the way.

“Not impressed.”

And man. Superman is awesome in this, like we’ve never seen him before.

He’s no joke.

We’ve established how powerful and scary Steppenwolf is. 

Now, we show that Superman can stand up to him. Now Steppenwolf is on the defensive.

The axe shatters.

Honestly, I would have been more impressed by the destruction of the axe if I had been impressed by the axe in the first place.

Steppenwolf is no match for superman.

Superman cuts his horn off. I liked that.

Victor is finally ready,

But that’s when the parademon shoots Barry with the laser. Now he’s lost all that speed he built up.

This is great. It reminds me of the climax of a Back To The Future movie, where everything keeps going wrong, and keeps you on the edge of your sea.

And Barry is injured. He says he got the wind knocked out of him. But honestly, he needs more than the few seconds he asks for.

Barry’s side is on fire.

And then the unity forms. Ah crap

A Wormhole opens to Apocolips. Darkseid watches on.

The unity is fully formed.

It’s too late.

The unity sends out a wave to destroy the Earth and transform it into the apocalyptic future we’ve seen. That vision is coming true.

Barry’s side heals. He heals quickly because of this super fast metabolism. Or something like that.

He hasn’t given up. This isn’t the first time Barry has failed because he was too late. But that’s not gonna stop him. He just has to go faster than the speed of light.

It IS too late, but Barry is a speedster. He can travel through time.

This is the moment when Barry fulfils his arc. He speaks to his dad.  He becomes what his dad always wanted him to be. One of the best of the best. It’s not a huge arc, but it’s a heck of a lot more than what we got in the previous version.

The whole thing of him running in space is very poetic. I’m not sure how to interpret it, but he’s running ahead of the terraforming wave. The world is being destroyed around him, but he keeps running on.

And so Barry finally gets to be the hero, not just a stupid joke.

Now he’s turning back time. We see Superman, Victor, all their bodies re-form.

Very much like Superman turning back time in the 1978 movie, but makes a little more sense here. At least he’s not just reversing the direction of the Earth’s rotation.

Victor is now in the unity.

But it’s messing with him.

It shows him his family. He sees himself without the cyborg parts.

This is what he wanted. To be whole, with living parents.

The unity is trying to tempt him.

There’s a clear alien intelligence behind and within this unknowable thing.

But Victor fulfills his character arc, when he says “I’m not broken. And I’m not alone.”

This is an interesting statement, because in a way, he is broken. His body has been broken, and there are things that he has lost, that he’ll never get back again. But his new situation also gives him other new experiences he never could have had as a pure human.

At the start of the movie, Victor saw his cyborg body as a curse. Dianna tried to convince him to see it as a blessing.

In reality, it’s kind of both, but far better to focus on the blessing.

Victor has found the strength of character to reject what the unity is offering.

He pulls apart the boxes. He sees them as living beings. Maybe they are. It’s all very alien and spooky. I love it.

It seems this act requires not only mental strength, which he has, but physical strength as well. Superman helps him break apart the boxes. The unity is unmade.

But the wormhole is still there.

Darkseid watches as Arthur stabs step and sends him through hole. 

And at the last moment, Dianna gets her revenge by chopping off his head.

He kinda deserved that

We see how little Darkseid cares about his uncle, As he crushes his skull under foot.

Desaad says “I told you Steppenwolf would fail. Now that the mother boxes have been destroyed. How will you retrieve your great prize?”

Darkseid says “Anti-life is found and we will stop at nothing to get it. Ready the Armada. we  will use the old ways.”

So….darkseid is bringing an invasion fleet to earth.

This sets up the promise of even bigger things in the Justice League Sequels that would have been.

It’s fantastic.

There’s a character seen in the background here called “Granny Goodness”. This is another one that die-hard comic book fans were very excited to see. I know nothing about her, but after a quick google, it sounds like she’s a potentially interesting character - despite her absurdly ridiculous name.

So...it’s over.

The league have saved the world. And we see them all together, superman included, in an awesome heroic pose.

The music swells. It’s very cool. Very heroic. Very hopeful.

I wasn’t actually expecting this. I was half expecting that the league would fail. That Steppenwolf would succeed. That Darkseid would come to Earth and corrupt Superman, and that this movie would end with the creation of the knightmare future, ending on a massive cliffhanger.

Given the unlikelihood that we’ll get any sequels to this movie, I’m kinda glad it didn’t go that way, because at least we get something of a satisfying conclusion, but also with the promise that there was more epic story to come.

And that brings us to...

Epilogue

A father Twice Over.

This movie has a very extended epilogue.

Some of it, we’ve seen in the theatrical version. Some of it, we’ve seen in a very different form, and some is brand new. In fact, I believe most of the new scenes that Zack shot for this cut take place in this epilogue.

I like a good epilogue that gives us some closure for the characters.

So Victor reforms the tape recorder. That’s a neat trick.

He listens to the words his father wanted to share.

“Speaking as a father….” he says. This is the bit where Victor tunes out last time.

“I brought you into the world and back into it. You can’t imagine how proud I am. Have always been. I wasted years, so many wrongs I’ve left un-righted.”

It’s nice to see this closure for Victor’s relationship with his Dad. I see them as fully reconciled at this point. It’s just a shame Silas didn’t live to fully see things repaired with his son.

Then there’s a great scene with Arthur. Victor’s experience with his dad has inspired Arthur to go see his own father. It’s been a long time. This leads very nicely into the beginning of the Aquaman movie.

He’s still drinking, showing he’s still not entirely sure who he is yet, but he’s on a journey to figure it out.

Bruce decides to put a big round table in Wayne Manor. With room for more, hinting at a growing Justice League.

Barry shows his dad he’s pursuing his real dreams. He’s got a job in a crime lab.

I love his dad’s proud laughter.

This time, the scene really hits me in the heart, because we had build up toward it.

Bruce says congratulations to Clark. Implying the pregnancy. So I think we can officially say it’s canon.

Victor takes his place as cyborg, but doesn’t change his suit into the cartoon version. He stays with the more alien looking version for the movie. Honestly, that other suit was not necessary. I kinda felt the same way when Arthur finally put on the more traditional suit in the Aquaman movie. Not necessary.

We see Bruce standing on an epic looking machine.

And Dianna holds the arrow. Is she going back to see her people? I suspect so.

And then we see Clark Kent is back. With no explanation. I don’t like this.

The big difficulty with Superman’s death and resurrection is bringing back Clark. How oddly convenient that Clark Kent is unexpectedly alive after all, just after Superman returns from the dead.

The thing is, the comic book explains this quite nicely. And it would have been so easy to do the same thing here. In the comics, Supergirl was not actually a Krpytonian, but a shapeshifter. She took on the appearance of Superman and “discovered” Clark buried in the rubble from the battle with Doomsday. News cameras watched as Superman flew Kent to hospital.

We don’t have Supergirl in this movie universe yet, but we have Martian Manhunter, who could have actually used his shapeshifting powers for something useful to the story here. It seems such a missed opportunity that they didn’t do this.

Anyway, Clark pulls his shirt open, in a very Christopher Reeve kind way, revealing the Black suit. So...we have confirmation he’s still wearing the black suit.

Lex Luthor escapes from arkham. We’ve seen this before, in an after-credit scene of the theatrical cut, although this might be slightly extended. The cackling laughter of the stand in tricking the guards is fitting. 

During this, we hear the Luther music from BVS

This plays much more dramatic and dangerous.

Now we get deathstroke’s arrival at lex’s boat. But this is surprisingly, a completely different scene. The conversation is completely different, which fascinates me.

This isn’t about the formation of a legion of doom. 

Deathstroke has offered to kill Batman for free. It’s personal. Something to do with his missing eye.

Lex has a lot to live for, and important things to do, But he wants Batman taken out.

And Lex gives Deathstroke Bruce’s name.

Deathstroke is very happy to hear that.

This would have led into the Batman movie that Ben affleck originally planned to star in, and direct. I’m so sad we never got that. Seeing this scene now, It would have been a significant part of  the Synder-driven DC extended universe.

Then we get the really new stuff.

It’s another vision of the nightmare future.

Spaceships hover over the desolated landscape. Bruce has the trench coat and goggles like in BVS.

Victor is with him.

So is Mera and Deathstroke

Mera is not happy. She wants violent revenge against someone for what he did to Arthur. So Arthur is dead. 

There is a plan and Bruce wants to stick with it, not give in to revenge.

The Flash is here too, looking very much like his dishevelled appearance in Batman V Superman.

Mera asks Batman, who have you ever loved?

That’s when we hear the laugh. And we know immediately who that is!

The Joker!!!! WOO HOOOOOOO

So, I guess Batman’s arch nemesis is the latest member of this rag-tag Justice League. 

Let me just say that I have always liked Jared Leto’s Joker. He is extremely underrated. I liked the direction David Ayer took him in Suicide Squad. We’d just come off the Dark Knight Trilogy, which featured the unforgettable performance of Heath Ledger. The way I see it, Ledger and Nolan created the ultimate portrayal of a more traditional-looking Joker. If Ayer had gone a similar route, it would have come across as a cheap copy. Instead, Ayer drastically re-imagined the character, completed with tattoos and dodgy-looking fillings in his teeth. It was new and refreshing. It was different. And I think Leto imbued the character with the spirit of The Joker.

And what Leto and Synder do here only builds on what was done in Suicide Squad and make it even better. His performance here is nothing short of staggering. It’s chilling and creepy. Everything that I want from the Joker.

So the Joker informs Mera that Batman knows what it’s like to lose someone he loves. Like a father and mother.

Bruce warns him to be careful.

“How many can die in your arms, how many dead eyes can you look into before you die inside yourself?”

He says “You won’t kill me, I’m your best friend.” Which is a very interesting statement, and I think it encapsulates how the Joker views their relationship. The Joker is here to help what’s left of the league.

“You need me to help you undo this world you created by letting her die. Poor Lois.

How many timelines do you destroy the world because you don’t have the cojones to die yourself?”

So this explains a lot. Lois Lane is dead. And Bruce allowed her to die, or in some way, failed to save her. This explains Superman’s rage against Bruce in the knightmare vision from BVS. It explains why Superman says to Bruce “She was my world,” before killing him.

The Joker gives Bruce a truce. As long as he has the card, they’re allies.

He talks about how Batman sent  a boy wonder to do a man’s job. Reminding how he killed robin, which we already knew about from BVS.

But Batman has a comeback. “When I held Harley Quinn dying, she begged me with her last breath, that when I kill you, I’ll make it slow.” He’s going to honour that promise.

That nearly undoes the joker. He still had feelings (twisted as they were) for Harley.

“You’re good,” he says. Bruce almost had him. Almost manipulated him like he manipulates Bruce.

One of  them, I think it was Deathstroke, asks “Still think it was a good idea bringing him along?”

I Wonder what they need him for. It’s very telling that things are so separate they’d work with the Joker.

And then the villain arrives. The one they’ve been waiting for. The one Mera wants so desperately to kill for what he did to Arthur.

Their enemy that they want revenge against is none other than Superman.

Superman with red eyes.

This whole concept has been generating controversy for years. I mean, we saw evil Superman back in BVS.

Some find it impossible to accept that Superman would turn to the Dark Side, so to speak, just because of the pain from the death of Lois Lane. Because he is a beacon of all that is good. He’s too good to become evil, even with that grief.

But these people are missing half the story.

It’s not just the death of Lois.

Remember that anti-life equation? Long before this movie even came out, Zack Snyder confirmed that Superman was going to succumb to the anti-life equation. This thing allows Darkseid to bend the will of others.

It’s actually very telling of Superman’s extreme goodness that he was able to resist the anti-life equation. No, it took the death of his beloved wife, Lois, to weaken him so, that he would succumb to the anti-life equation - something that probably anyone else would have succumbed to straight away.

So far from portraying Superman as morally weak, I think this whole thing paints him as incredibly strong, morally. But not infinitely perfect. Because he’s still a person.

This is the Superman for me.

Now Bruce wakes up.

This was his vision.

What caused it? We don’t know. I had always assumed that the vision in BVS was caused by The Flash trying to send a message back through time to him.

But there seems to be no outside influence at work here.

But this explains the “something darker” that Bruce was talking about. Now we understand a lot more. Now we know exactly why Lois Lane was the key.

Martian Manhunter arrives to talk.

Bruce sees this green-skinned alien hovering in the air, and just says

“Can I help you?”

I love that response. He’s seen so much now that nothing much surprises him.

Martian MAnhunter explains that Darkseid is not finished. “Anti life is here somewhere. We Have to find it before he does. War is coming.” There’s actually a lot we still don’t know about anti-life. We only know that it’s on earth, and that Steppenwolf somehow discovered it.

“I’m here to help,” Martian Manhunter says. He’s finally realised he has a stake in this world and it’s time he started fighting for it.”

Why did it take him so long? I have no idea. He was helping in his own way, as a member of the US military, but not fully using his gifts. Maybe he was afraid to reveal himself, and had to be inspired by Superman’s example.

Of course, this was supposed to be John Stewart Green Lantern, but Warner Bros wouldn’t let Zack use the character, because they thought it would conflict, somehow, with the TV show that Geoff Johns wanted to make. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but whatever.

Anyway, he acknowledges that the heroes wouldn’t have come together without Bruce. 

His parents would have been proud.

The movie ends as Martian Manhunter says he’ll be in touch, and flies away.

And then we get those special words appear on screen.

FOR AUTUMN

This movie was dedicated to the beloved daughter that Zack lost while he was making it.

And as the credits roll, we hear the song Hallelujah, sung by a female vocalist.

This was Autumn's favourite song, and this arrangement, I believe, was performed at her funeral.

The performance of this song is heart-wrenching. Especially given the connection it has to Autumn. I sat through the whole song and it moved me powerfully.

There’s one moment when all the music stops, and it’s just the singer. And she’s singing with such emotion, well I don’t have any words for it.

But I thought this was a beautiful way to end the film. 

In a way, Zack Snyder films are all about showing us how in real life, joy and pain go hand in hand. He understands that because he’s lived it. And despite it all, he still comes across as a pretty positive guy.

So that was Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

I loved this movie, and found it a fitting book-end for Man of Steel and Batman V Superman.

I’m fully in support of the Restore The Snyderverse movement, although it seems Warner Bros has absolutely no interest.

There has been talk of continuing the Snyderverse in comic book form. I’d certainly pay for that.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on this movie. There sure were a lot of them.

Next time, we return to Stargate Universe, where we’ll begin the second and final season of the show.

I look forward to seeing you then.

Live long and Prosper. Make it so.

Today, we're doing a Snyder Cut Review. Zack Snyder's Justice League was the movie we never thought we would get. It was a massive blessing to get to see the movie as it was originally intended, and boy was it a great experience. Zack Snyder brings his unique visual style and sense of story-telling, combined with Chris Terrio's awesome script.

In this podcast, we delve deep and see what gems we can mine out of this amazing movie.