So, let me see if i understand the Ancient rulebook... Posing as gods to civilizations while you're physically living, thats perfectly fine, trying to protect innocent people from being murdered once you've ascended... thats wrong?

What you fail to understand in all of your infinite wisdom is that when you have infinite power, you have to draw yourself bold lines of conduct. If you have the ability to impose your will on all of the beings in the universe, there is nothing to stop your from getting out of control except for other beings with equal or great power than yourself.

Even if you only do good deeds, like the Asguard. Remember what happened in the ep where SG1 flew through that planets sun? The people refused to help themselves, because they had been so reliant on the Asguard. They were willing to die on their beliefs when the Asguard could not help them.

quest 2 spoilers


This post has been edited by JTMAG1: Feb 2nd 2007, 12:11 AM

Gasp - a flimsily thought-out, hard to swallow Atlantis plot? Who'd have thought!

It was nice to see Daisy from Dead Like Me again. Still, it just seemed as though the writers had had an idea (a good one, to be fair), and built a poor-constructed episode around it. There seemed to be little point to the whole thing, apart from hammering you over the head bluntly with its over-stated moral.

Playing God...bad?

A very poor episode and completely pointless too. The plot was bad, the script was bad and the acting by the supporting cast was bad. I was hoping that someone would shoot the dumb blonde in charge of McKay's country, she just annoyed the hell out of me.

Not great really. Kind of predictable and slow.

Weir gets a chance to show off her negotiating skills, her supposed area of expertise. But then gives up after a couple of minutes and decides to get Shepard and Mckay to sort out the mess. Bit of a waste really.

So i finally got round to watching this episode and if i'm honest i wish i hadn't. Very big letdown especially after "Tao of McKay".

It was as if nobody could be arsed for that week of filming, especially the supporting cast. And it just reminded me of the sims too much to be enjoyable.

I personally think it was the worst kind of filler episode and really its not not much of a benchmark for the remaining episodes. From what i've heard there going to be a bit hit or miss aswell! 2/10

Season 3 has been a tale of highs and lows, this being the lowest of the low alongside phantoms!

I agree that it's doubtful those satellites would still exist after the Wraith have been there. I thought all the pictures of McKay was funny, but how did they even know what he looked like? He never communicated with them visually.



I recognized her from Dead Like Me. Her name's Laura Harris: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0364977/
I thought she was kind of cute

I can't believe I forgot to mention my favorite part. I couldn't stop laughing after she mentioned citrus was toxic and Weir's comment of she knew why they thought that.

This post has been edited by Reignfire: May 11th 2007, 10:06 PM

He said he gave them instructions on how he looked like. By the way those pictures looked, he gave them pretty useful information.

Agreed.
And did you see her blue teeth in the scene where she was eating the "delicious" blue jello?
Why would they bother focusing on the jello and wasting a line on it being delicious?
Maybe the blue teeth was supposed to be symbolic of the stain of cultural corruption from paternalistic powers?
Or did they just not have the budget and/or time to either reshoot the scene or touch it up?

I had a hard time with willing suspension of disbelief here on a couple of fronts. For one, I don't believe that Sheppard and Rodney would just assume that the ancients were only playing a game, given the technology devoted to it as well as what we know of the nature of the ancients.

Also, the whole "god in a console" concept is hard to swallow as well. If they were advanced enough to make bombs, then they were advanced enough to understand that technology is just that and not a superior being/power.

Was this episode supposed to show why the ancients decided on the non-interference rule? If so, it seems pretty merciless that the ancients simply abandoned the peoples that they had spend years "guiding" without so much as a so long and thanks for all the fish.

Lastly, Zelenka and Lorne playing the "game" when they were fully aware of the true nature of the technology - in addition to Weir's orders to stop - seemed morally wrong to me and should have to them as well.

Anywho, thought it was a bit slow and predictable and poor Ronan and Teyla were, once again, completely superfluous.

I did get a good laugh at the end when Sheppard checkmated Rodney. Ohhhh, that had to hurt!

The civilization wasn't that advanced when Rodney started. The Ancient's were much more responsible with their developement.


The non-interference rule was started after the ascended. The Ancients had their hands in developing the societies that they created before they ascended.


I think that was just superfluous plot filler.

This post has been edited by JTMAG1: May 12th 2007, 12:56 PM

Saw this episode last night. It was okay. Definitely can tell why the Ancients have the non-inteference policy.

So the ancients seeded and began these worlds and when they had to leave Atlantis, these worlds were on their own. They had to live on their own and survive on their own. Some did and some didn't. I think it was obvious because of McKay and Shep and then Zelenka and Lorne, that too much power does indeed corrupt. They each only saw one side of things. I did like how they finally resolved the problems. They gave them an all-out war with casualties, not just a game board, but some realism. Of course, it wasn't real, but it felt that way to them.

I have been wondering why the Ancients, if they meant no harm... even made this a two sided thing. Why would you need two opposing factions on each planet? The two "players" are sitting accross from each other like they are playing Battleship or something.

But even so, JT...once they understood the concepts behind advanced technology, don't you think there would have been some questioning about who or what the "god of the console" actually was? They are obviously an intelligent and intuitive people - so it stands to reason that their intellect and logic would have led them to deconstruct the technology by which their "god" was conveyed and at the very least, ask some hard questions. Or maybe that's just me.


But therein lies a paradigm shift regarding the ancients. How can any race ascend (i.e., let go of the bonds of the physical by achieving spiritual and mental "superiority") when clearly they were arrogant, egocentric, and probably even meglomaniacs. (The bastards.) They believed themselves to be godlike, which doesn't seem particularly godlike, given that they made so many errors that were harmful to other humans.

If you noticed, when Rodney and Sheppard first found the "Game Room" it was only one screen and one terminal.

It only became "Command & Conquer" after Rodney adapted the equipment to be able to hook up their Dell PC's. It was Rodney's misinterpretation of the technology that made them think it was a game. It was the Ancient's scientific curiosity that required 2 sides, a control group and a non-control group. If one person were running the experiment (and understood what it was about from the get-go) your wouldn't end up (in theory) with the opposing sides. The moment you introduce a second "Oracle" in the experiment, you lose your controlled environment.

That's how I saw it anyways.

There wasn't a control group, but groups had an interface in their village.

You don't know that. Just as much as I don't know that there was. For all we know, the Ancient could have told the poeple of Group "B" not to move forward in their development, while simultaniously telling Group "A" how to advance. Truth is, we don't know.

The Ancients were all about science until ascension. And in every experiment, you need a control group.

In effective science, the control is the group that you don't do anything with. Even if the Ancients used the console to tell them to stay put, that's not a control, because they are influencing their developement.

When Sheppard came back with his guy, he told Mckay that he had the same story as Rodney's people.

The control group could have been on a different planet. As I recall, there were several planets in Pegasus that had the satellites orbiting them.

If I recall correctly, this episode was written by one of the new writers. It did have a sort of "classical" sci-fi feel. I think that is something that the series lacks. I'm not sure this specific episode provided the series with what it needed, but maybe the new blood can help the overall storylines a bit. Hopefully the rest of the season is better...

I agree, This episode could lead to much better storylines.

I think that this could be usefull to get a strong ally. You say to them that they must evolve and offcourse they would obey!

As we saw later in the episode, they started to ignore Sheppard and Rodney. What would happen if the players advanced their races only to have them ignore what the players said later?

Every race likes to get new technologies. I think they would not be so hurt But that is my opinion what would happen we could not know