Destiny Timing/Continuity

[Kemaiku]

Something has been worrying me constantly about the Destiny and apparent relation of her and her technology with regards to the rest of the Stargate universe.

We know from Solitudes that the oldest known Milky Way gate is the Earth Antarctic gate at 50 million years old, still in its original location and working, interchangable with any other MW gate.

The whole gate concept is given its origin in Ark of Truth, its designer carrying the design of the MW gate with him as the Ancients flee their home galaxy in a proto-Atlantis.

The gate network is seeded in the MW around 50 million years ago and is probably the largest production of them around. The Ancients are around long enough to have shaped the course of all sentient life in our galaxy over the next several million years, even reseeding life with the Dakara device bringing about Humanity on Earth (somehow we are their 'second evolution').

The virus created either by them or the Ori spreads and forces their retreat from the Milky Way altogether 5-10 million years ago aboard the 90% complete Atlantis from the Antarctic facility and its ZPM powered weapon, much like many other outposts powered by them around 10 million years ago.

They arrive on Lantea and spread across the Pegasus galaxy from about 5 million years ago until they mostly ascend or flee Pegasus 10,000 years ago.

So Destiny and her seeder ships leaving 900,000 to 1 million years ago represents a weirdly large project in the Milky Way when they were supposed to be in Pegasus and seems to be more primitive than everything else seen before despite being very much more recent than Atlantis and its version 2.0 gate network.

So yes she is very very old at 1 million years, and has received no upkeeping so shes run down, by why is everyone acting like she predates the previous Ancient developments?

 

[Brent]

I agree, they really need to clear this up. In the shows defense, our guys are just guessing at the age of the ship, I think. I don't think they really know for certain.

But you are right, reading all the material before SGU started, this ship was supposed to predate everything we had seen about the Ancients, it was supposed to predate the MW gates, the gate on the Destiny is supposed to be an earlier version of the MW gate, hence the vented steam it releases after use.

So, if the ship is only 1 million years old, it doesn't make much sense, cause we know that at the beginning of Stargate Atlantis the text on the screen said "Several Million Years Ago" when Atlantis left Earth. So Destiny would have been launched while the Ancients were in the Pegasus galaxy, and that makes NO sense.

So there you go, the timeline is a big mess right now, and I hope they clear it all up.

 

[Tom]

The big question is, are the writers aware of the inconsistancy and do they care?? Maybe they figure us fans are to dumb to follow stuff like that.

 

[Broccoli]

Considering 9 Chevrons were built into the Milky Way Gates, presumably, the Destiny's gates were designed/built first since you need 9 Chevrons to reach the ship.

 

[BenRoethig]

I agree, they really need to clear this up. In the shows defense, our guys are just guessing at the age of the ship, I think. I don't think they really know for certain.

But you are right, reading all the material before SGU started, this ship was supposed to predate everything we had seen about the Ancients, it was supposed to predate the MW gates, the gate on the Destiny is supposed to be an earlier version of the MW gate, hence the vented steam it releases after use.

So, if the ship is only 1 million years old, it doesn't make much sense, cause we know that at the beginning of Stargate Atlantis the text on the screen said "Several Million Years Ago" when Atlantis left Earth. So Destiny would have been launched while the Ancients were in the Pegasus galaxy, and that makes NO sense.

So there you go, the timeline is a big mess right now, and I hope they clear it all up.

A couple thoughts here.
1) Atlantis serves a completely difference purpose than destiny.

2) Since it was inhabited until the Wraith drove the ancients out of Pegasus, it would have been upgraded over time. Destiny sent out unmanned would have the same equipment it was sent out with.

 

[Kemaiku]

^The problem with that is that we are specifically shown Atlantis about 10 million years ago being more advanced than Destiny already.

The ZPM was not only invented but powering all Ancient outposts like Earth base Antarctica, Atlantis and Proclarush (spelling?) even before that to the point of being their standard power source.

Several Gates in Pegasus have not been moved since their initial placement and most glaringly of all, Atlantis' sister city was built right after their arrival in Pegasus, never moved, and because of that was buried under millions of years worth of soil preserving it as it was. And inside we find it identical to Atlantis more or less as she is now.

 

[SeerSGB]

There's a lot of WTF around Destiny that could could only be solved with a massive retcon, or the characters being completely wrong about everything they think they known about the ship.

It's possible that Desitny and the Seeder ship are even Ancient ships, or there's more behind their "dumb down" appearance than simply prototech.

 

[Kirby]

I'm kind of thinking that maybe the gates from the seeder ships are some kind of new "economy style" gates. Think of the MW gates as BMWs, the Pegasus gates are Mercedes, and the Universe style gates are Hyundai's (no offense to Hyundai owners). The Universe style gates don't include Naquada in their construction, are cheaper and quicker to build so they can load a bunch of them on to the seeder ships. Hence, you get the the steam blasts and only manual DHDs.
When the Ancients visited via the Destiny, they could decide which planets were worthy of a gate upgrade and then they would get the new style gates along with it's own DHD.

 

[Broccoli]

I'm kind of thinking that maybe the gates from the seeder ships are some kind of new "economy style" gates. Think of the MW gates as BMWs, the Pegasus gates are Mercedes, and the Universe style gates are Hyundai's (no offense to Hyundai owners). The Universe style gates don't include Naquada in their construction, are cheaper and quicker to build so they can load a bunch of them on to the seeder ships. Hence, you get the the steam blasts and only manual DHDs.
When the Ancients visited via the Destiny, they could decide which planets were worthy of a gate upgrade and then they would get the new style gates along with it's own DHD.

Hmm...I like this theory.

 

[Leroy]

What I don't get is why the crew is so worried about the time limit they can just dial any planet in that galaxies gate network from anywhere as long as they're stopped right?

 

[cylkoth]

What I don't get is why the crew is so worried about the time limit they can just dial any planet in that galaxies gate network from anywhere as long as they're stopped right?

These early model gates have a limited range, and thus cannot dial every other gate in the same galaxy as the later, Milky Way and Pegasus gates can.

 

[Kemaiku]

Theres also the problem of Destiny locking out all other addresses but the ones it thinks will help their current problem.

So yes not only do these Gates have much shorter range in-galaxy but Destiny prevents dailing to certain Gates even if they're currently in range.

Destiny and her tech work fine in the context of 'economy' and cut down designs that work just fine for her long voyage, designed to be followed up and built upon later.

My problem is that the writers and characters are trying to make out she predates everything else when we know from Atlantis that even 5 million years ago things were vastly more advanced than Destiny, they should make up their minds and do one of two things.

Have a revelation that Destiny is *a lot* older than they thought, which can't happen since she has a precise record of her flight. Or fix the gaff andhave Rush explain that shes much newer, but just done 'on the cheap'.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

^ Or they retcon the age of Atlantis, etc.

 

[Meredith]

I like the idea of the gates being short range gates built on the cheap, kinda like how dirt roads are built before paved roads.

Conceivable the ancients could go through the old gates with a disassembled NEW gate, build it, tear down the old gate and gate back to their home base using the newly built gate.....

 

[Kemaiku]

^Yeah the down and dirty Destiny idea fits just fine with me, since shes rather newer they would have had millions of years getting hard wearing tech right and sent her out.

And as for Retconning Atlantis, that doesn't work. It would mean retconning absolutely everything else in Stargate from the film/pilot to the Atlantis finale, ignoring vast amounts of Gate lore just to make Destiny fit, better to clear up the dialouge surronding her.

 

[O'Dib]

I guess in all my years of gate-watching, I never payed much attention to the timescale involved, so I hadn't actually noticed anything wrong until you guys pointed it out. It still doesn't bother me much, though. Fact is, it's unlikely Destiny was built after Atlantis, but with simpler, more durable tech. Rush specifically said about the chair that it was a prototype, built earlier in the Ancients' evolution, and thus more likely to be compatible with human physiology. He could be wrong about that, but he couldn't be wrong when speculating about the age of something he thinks is older than Atlantis, being an expert and all. So, the writers, whether purposefully ignoring previous continuity, or just simply having forgotten about it, expect us to take this age estimate at face value, and not seek hidden meaning in it. I know I won't.

 

[Kemaiku]

He openly stated that Destiny predated the ATA Gene tech, but both the Antarctic facility, Atlantis, her sister city and Proclarush had the ATA technology and interface chairs 5-10 million years ago.

The Repositories, I don't know, we don't have a date range for them, but the information O'neil was given from them was from about the time the Ancients left the Milky Way, since all starcharts from them were from about that long ago, the one at Proclarush had to recalculate the tectonics of Earth using O'neils knowledge of the current date to calculate it from.

 

[Brent]

Destiny should at least be 50 million years old, that would fit more in line with what we know.

 

[Kemaiku]

Which would fit in more with the sheer age of the ship we're seeing and the low tech approach. But I guess we have to wait and see what the writers have in mind.

 

[arch101]

[QUOTE Think of the MW gates as BMWs, the Pegasus gates are Mercedes, and the Universe style gates are Hyundai's .[/QUOTE]

Hey, Hyundai's ARE cheap, but they're GOOD.