Stargate Universe ”Deliverence” Detailed Analysis & Review

Nerd heaven

The second half of Stargate Universe season 2 begins with "Deliverence". We see the fulfilment of the Chloe transformation story, and possibly the end of the blue aliens, and the resolution of the battle with the drone ships. But is it over? We'll be seeing the consequences of this encounter for some time.

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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 82 of the podcast.

Today, we’re talking about the Stargate Universe episode Deliverance.

The description on Gateworld reads

With Destiny up against a fleet of drones, the crew is surprised by the arrival of an old foe. Chloe faces her former captors when the crew decide to hand her over.

This episode was written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie

It was directed by Peter DeLuise

And it first aired on the 7th of March 2011

So this episode was the first to air after the mid-season break.

That means, we have a new prologue recap thing. And this will be the last variation we’ll see.

This one starts very dramatically with booming drums and rapid shots of our characters. The clips focus on Rush’s discovery of Destiny’s mission, and his choice to keep that knowledge from the crew, as well as Young’s self-doubt about his ability to command, and Scott’s faith in him. Finally, it addresses the planned Lucian Alliance attack on earth and the tension between getting home and fulfilling Destiny’s mission.

So we left off last episode with Destiny geting pummeled by the alien drone fighters, almost sure to be destroyed, and Chloe, not quite herself, rampaged through the ship to the control room, where she did something. We don’t know what.

Greer rushes in, along with some othe soldiers. He points his gun at Chloe and tells her to stand down. Is this is? Is this where he’s going to have to kill her? That’s the moment he’s been dreading.

Chloe explains to Scott what she did. She sent a message. The blue aliens, the ones who captured and modified her, they followed Destiny to this galaxy, and they’ve been searching for our heroes ever since. Now they know where we are.

And they sure can fly fasat. They arrive almost immediately.

Greer said she sold them out. He says he knew it was going to come down to him and her. But Chloe says “It’s not time yet. I’m still in control. I did this to help us.”

The drone ships will attack anything. They don’t discriminate, so half of them have gone to fight the blue aliens. That means Destiny might be able to hold them off.

They can’t jump away to safety without an FTL drive. It seems the best option might still be to follow the plan of attacking the command ship. If they can disrupt the subspace signal between it and the drones, it might be enough.

The big question remains, were Chloe’s actions a good or bad thing?

For the moment, it seems it has given Destiny a fighting chance.

But … what will come later, should they survive?

They succeed in destroying the command ship and the drones are all dormant.

Great.

Two of the blue alien ships were destroyed. The other is just sitting there, probably just as damaged as destiny.

The ship’s in bad shape. Not only do they still need to get FTL working again, but several of their shield emitters are gone. Without full shield coverage, they can’t jump.

Volker and Brody are on the job.

Rush says that just because he took a pragmatic approach to Chloe’s transformation, it doesn’t mean he didn’t care for her. If he could have prevented it, he would have.

I wonder if that’s true. Knowing what she would become, knowing she’d be able to crack the equations. And he could have prevented her transformation, would he really have done so? I don’t know.

The ursini sent a message to their homeworld after the command ship was destroyed. The response came back from another command ship. Their homeworld has fallen to the drones. The Ursini on the seed ship are probably the last of their kind.

And that’s really sad.

But there’s a bigger problem. When they sent the signal, they gave their position away. That means there are more drones on the way.

The FTL drive is fixed, but the repairs to the shield are not going well.

The ursini believe the race that created the drones died out a long time ago.

What I’d give to learn more about them. I wonder if they were destroyed by their own drones? That’s a story that’s been done before.

Because these things are machines, there is no negotiating with them. They have simple programming, find alien technology and destroy it.

Eli has an interesting idea. Right now, the drones are dormant and harmless. This would be a good time to bring one on board and study it.

Park is coming along for the ride. I think this might be her first away mission.

She seems to be feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness.

They need Chloe’s help but she’s escorted under multiple armed guards. It turns out she broke Corporal Bear’s arm.

Park is definitely nervous about her spacewalk. Greer encourages her to breath normally.

They’ve got the drone but the surviving alien ship, the blue aliens, has parked itself right next to the shuttle.

When Scott tries backing away, the send a message. No Escape.

Both ships are heavily damaged. Neither has FTL capability. And more drones are coming.

These two long-term enemies are going to have to trust each other and work together if anyone is to be able to survive the rest of this day.

Rush comes up with a controversial idea.

Give them Chloe as a sign of good faith.

There is nothing more medically we can do for her. If anyone can help her, it’s them.

It’s a risk, given how much she knows about Destiny.

Young is not going to force Chloe to go, but if she doesn’t he’ll probably end up putting her off the ship at the next habitable planet. He can’t afford to keep her on board much longer.

TJ feels awful. She wishes they could have done more for her. But she just doesn’t have the knowledge or ability.

Scott is skeptical that the aliens will really help Chloe or keep up any of their side of the bargain, but he follows orders.

Chloe isn’t sure about going to the aliens. She’s been on their ship before. It’s not pleasant.

It’s nice to see Young and Telford getting along so well nowadays. For that matter, he and Rush are getting along as well.

The conflict between them is largly a thing of the past in this last half season of the show. I find this refreshing. Which is not to say I didn’t want them to have done the conflict, but I appreciate the growth.

Now apparently, part of this deal is that the aliens will heal Chloe of her modification and return her? Rush isn’t worried about what information they get about Destiny from her, because without her, they’ll be unlikely to be able to track Destiny again.

I’m really not sure why they’d take deal. I mean, they modified Chloe for a reason. We still don’t know what that reason is, but they had to have had a plan. So the’ll be pretty unlikely to want to just undo it.

Camille comments that if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was willing to risk the ship for one person, that person presumably being Chloe. He seems a little offended by this and says “That’s the problem. You don’t know any better.”

So is he saying she doesn’t understand his reasons for his opinions, or is he saying that he really does care about Chloe, and is willing to risk the ship for her, and Camille doesn’t know him well enough to believe that? I’m not 100% sure.

So they escort Chloe down the cooridor. Young and Greer. And it’s kind of like a dead-man walking situation, as somebody is taken to their death.

Chloe gives Young a kiss goodbye on his cheek. It’s a nice little touch. Young is probably the closest thing she has to a father figure since her father died.

How doe you study something like this alien drone? Brody and Volker are hesitant to open it. It could be dangerous, but Eli points out if they don’t open it, they can’t study it. Honestly, if they’re that worried, they shouldn’t have brought it on board. They could have tried studying it in the shuttle. That would then minimise the number of people put at risk.

Scott is flying the shuttle with Chloe on board as passenger. The docking bay opens and allows them in.

Scott and Chloe have a tender goodbye in the shuttle before the aliens open the door. It’s a decent scene. But I’m really not sure what I’m supposed to feel.

Is this supposed to be a final goodbye? If so, they’re handling it way better than they should. Especially Scott.

If they’re expecting Chloe to be healed and come back, then shouldn’t that be a happy thing, something to look forward to?

I guess they just don’t trust the aliens.

Chloe does make a good observation. Her time on Destiny has been hard, but some of it has been amazing. Scott has been one of those brights spots for her, but there have been others. Exploring alien planets, seeing amazing wonders, forming close bonds with the others on the ship.

As the door opens, I’m reminded of how much I love their design. They are really cool aliens. They just look so different, so other. If Chloe is going to spend the rest of whatever life she has left with them, it’s going to be pretty horrible. For the simple fact that these beings are just so different to her, she’ll never be able to relate to them. Humans with bumps, they are not.

So far Eli, Volker and Brody have managed to crack the machine code of the alien drone, but they haven’t been able to decipher it’s programming yet, specifically, where to find the subroutine that deals with communication between the drone and the command ship.

I have to say, that’s astounding. That you could map out and reverse engineer the machine code of a completely alien device like this in a few hours. That’s insane.

Rush is right when he says good job, this is excellent work. It is. It’s nothing short of staggering.

But, of course, he’s just trying to get rid of them as politely as possible, because they’ll just get in the way of him and Eli doing the real work.

I’ve got to hand it to Rush. He’s come a way. In early season 1, he’d rudley tell them to get out because they’re too stupid to be of any use. But now, well, he flatters them, he patronizes them, in the hope that they’ll take it as a complement and be more compliant. I guess from his perspective, he’s realised that this is a more efficient approach.

They’ve got their work cut out for them. Trying to make sense of a program when all you’ve got to look at is the machine code would be very challenging. And that’s if the machine code was developed in a human mind.

Honestly, I’m really not clear on this deal with the blue aliens. On Destiny’s side, what we get out of it, seems to be that they allowed us to take the drone on board to study.

What they’re getting out of it is Chloe.

But for reasons that still are not clear to me, they’re expecting the aliens to reverse her transformation and return her. I still don’t really understand what they are expecting this. If they do that, then what are the blue aliens getting out of this deal? Nothing.

Scott is in the shuttle. Waiting. He’s still expecting Chloe to be returned to him. He’s not leaving without her. And, interestingly, they haven’t sent him on his way. He’s still in their hanger bay.

The aliens are doing some kind of medical procedure on Chloe. This scene is pretty terrifying. It evokes every alien abduction story you’ve ever seen. Being tied to a bed while bizarre creatures poke and prod you with sharp implements.

Were I in Chloe’s shoes, I’d be terrified, which she is. It’s impressive how much fear an actor can evoke just with their eyes and their breathing.

Anyway, this was an awesome scene.

Ther second command ship has arrived, surrounded by new drones.

That’s not good.

The old drones are still dormant. That’s interesting. That means they’re not taking orders from the new command ship. They seem to be coded to respons to a specific command ship.

Again, why would their creators have used such an inefficient design?

Rush can jam the signal between drone and command ship for a few seconds, but after that, they’ll adapt.

Young is sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge. This may be his first time ever commanding a starship, but I guess there’s a first time for everyone. When the SGC first created the Prometheus, somebody had to command it for the first time. No human had ever commanded a starship before that.

But it’s even harder for Lieutenant James. She seems to be stationed at the engineering console. Her job is to keep vital systems protected and powered. She’s had about one hour of training. Simulated. None of our people know how to operate this ship, and now they’re heading into a combat situation.

The sheer lack of familiarity with the ship is what gives Stargate Universe such a unique flavour. And I love it.

Telford is on weapons.

Just a Scott hoped, Chloe is returned to the shuttle, held suspecnded in the air by a tractor beam which disengages when he grabs her.

She doesn’t seem to be showing any sign of the crusty alien skin. Certainly it’s no longer visible on her chest.

When Scott exists the alien ship, he notices the drones and wants to take them on. Young orders him to keep a distance. They’re not here to fight, just hold out until they can jump.

Scott disobeys that order.

He does have a valid pointg to raise. His shuttle has full shields. Destiny does not.

And it’s probably proper for him to raise that with Young. But it’s not sufficient cause to outright disobey an order. He just says “don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” He doesn’t wait for Young to give a response to his point.

Stargate characters have a bit of a reputation for not always following orders, but I’m surprised by this, especially in a show as grounded as Stargate Universe.

Things are getting critical. Whatever Rush is gonna do, he’s gonna have to do it soon.

And Eli has a great idea. He’;s found the friend or foe system. The older drones are not engaging in the battle because they don’t have a command ship to tell them what side they should be on.

The plan is to tell them to attack the newer drones and its command ship.

But in order to upload that instruction, they’ll have to power up the drone they have in the lab.

This is a good plan. I know I’m giving the show a hard time about the characters drcyphering alien programming languages with such ease, but I understand you have to give your characters a break so the story can happen.

My nature as a software engineer is at odds with my nature as a writer.

This is why I don’t often enjoy “computer shows”. And why many medical people can’t watch medical dramas.

Young orders Scott to pull out of the area, adding the word “that’s a direct order” and this time he obeys.

The Ursini, grieving that their people are gone, and they are the last of their kind, and feeling sorry for getting Destiny involved in all of this, begin a suicide run against the second command ship.

They ram the seed ship into the rcommand ship.

But Young still tells Rush to enact his plan, so, I assume they failed to destroy the command ship? That’s sad. So the Ursini sacrificed themselves for literally nothing.

Once activated, the drone floats above the table but seems to take no other hostile action. Greer is there with a gun pointed at it, not that he’d be able to do much, but in his words, he’s sure gonna try.

And the dormant drones wake upland join the fight. Fantastic.

Brody and Volker have managed to get the shields fully covering Destiny, but due to all the weapons fire they’ve sustained, the shields are only at 5 percent. They’ve never attempting jumping at anything less than 10%.

Eli doesn’t think that’s enough.

They’re gonna have to risk it. The drones on our side are vastly outnumbered by the drones attacking us. The shuttle is docked.

It’s now or never if they want to jump away.

They jump

The ship is shaking a lot, but it holds together.

TJ has been examining Chloe. It appears she is fully restored and healed. No lesions, No blackouts.

Young is gonna keep her under observation for a while just in case.

A surprising thing, Chloe can still do the equations. She has retained the knowledge she had when she was undergoing the transformation. That means they’ll be able to continue setting the ship’s course when necessary.

Then Rush makes some startling admissions. He says everyone on board is useful. Not just those who can do drive calculations. Everyone on board belongs.

That doesn’t sound like Rush at all. When Chloe questions if he really believes it, he says “more and more each day.”

So it seems that Rush really is going through some changes. He’s opening up to the possibility of seeing meaning behind events.

With Rush, it’s never easy to tell when he’s being honest and when he’s lying, but this feels like some interesting character development. And my memory is that he does change and slowly head toward becoming a better person in the second half of season 2.

So, it’ll be interesting to see how this progresses.

There’s a lot to like in these last two episodes, and I really enjoy them. Not just for what they are, but for what they’re setting up.

But I have to admit, I found the resolution of Chloe’s transformation very un-satisfying.

I was looking forward to understanding what was happening to her. What was she becoming, and why. What was the plan behind it all.

I couldn’t actually remember how it was resolved, from the last couple of times I watched through this show.

We never got any of those answers, and I’m still not sold on the alien’s motivation for just undoing all their hard work.

Sure, they may have gotten some information from her, but that seems minor. We know they’ve explored Destiny in the past. They’ve been studying it for a long time before our people showed up.

They had some kind of plan for Chloe, but it all seems to have come to nothing.

So I’m a little disappointed with that.

I don’t remember being so disappointed last time. Maybe it’s because I’m watching these shows with a slightly more critical eye in order to do this podcast.

But Gatworld collects production notes in each episode. I had a look and found a quote from Joseph Mallozzi’s blog.

Check this out.

"The [aliens'] plan was to eventually use [Chloe] to amass as much information about the Destiny's systems as possible and then, eventually, use her to gain access to the ship. They implanted her with an alien virus that slowly mutated, taking over her mind and body and acting as an organic satellite. Once the mutation was complete, she would have been entirely under their control."

The aliens eventually left Destiny in peace "because they had retrieved all the information they needed from Chloe when they divested her of the alien virus."

Okay. So that makes some sense of it. The virus was intended to put Chloe under their control. They had two goals for this. The first was information. They have successfully retrieved that. The second was control. They had hoped that Chloe, their agent on board, could have taken control of the ship and delivered it to them.

It seems they have sacrificed that second goal. They probably wouldn’t have survived the second drone assault without the help of the humans, so they cut their losses, took the information and removed the virus, thus destroying all hope of using Chloe to get control of the ship. They returned her, as Rush predicted, because she was no longer of any value to them, but the human’s cooperation was of value.

Mallozzi’s words above suggest the aliens are done with Destiny now. what they really wanted was the knowledge, not the ship itself. Of course, Chloe’s impression is that they won’t give up. That information is only going to make them hungrier to take the ship.

Honestly, we don’t know where the writers would have taken all of this, had the show continued for more than two seasons, so we’ve got to give it some grace.

I just feel that all of this could have been explained a little better in the episode.

But, that’s a nitpick.

As I said, I did love these episodes.

Next time, we’ll be talking about a very famous and iconic episode, Twim Destinies. This is a favourite among a lot of fans. I don’t remember loving it as much as others did, but having thought about the concepts behind it a bit more, I suspect I’ll be able to enjoy it more this time. But I’ll get into that next time.

Have a great two weeks

Live long and prosper

Make it so.