Stargate Universe ”Resurgence” Detailed Analysis & Review

Nerd heaven

We've made it to the mid-season finale for season 2. This one will leave us on a bit of a cliffhanger. The discovery of a mysterious alien signal will take the crew of Destiny a little off course and introduce a brand new and terrifying threat that will cause them a whole lot of problems for the rest of the season. Plus, things are coming to a head with Chloe.

Join me for the excitement as we talk about Stargate Universe "Resurgence".

----more----

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 81 of the podcast.

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

The description on Gateworld reads

The crew's new-found control over Destiny's flight path introduces new risks when they find themselves in the middle of a war between two races.

This episode was written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie

It was directed by William Waring

And it forest aired on the 30th of November 2010

Eli hasn’t shown up for work on the bridge yet. He is, no doubt, still dealing with his grief over the death of Ginn, which is completely understandable.

Rush gives the appearance of someone who is coping better. He’s back to work, focusing on what needs to be done. He got his closure when he killed Simeon. Does that meaning he’s feeling less grief than Eli right now? Probably not. He just handled it differently.

The crew are struggling to understand how to operate the ship’s controls. Rush has a better handle on it all, but then he’s had quite a head-start.

Brody has found something. An energy signature.

Investigating it would take destiny about a day’s detour from its predfefined course, following the seed ships.

They debate the pros and cons, but eventually decide it’s worth checking out. It could be a sign of intelligent life.

Interestingly, Volker, Park, and Rush all agree on that, but while Rush and Park think that’s a pro, Volker sees it as a con.

I love the exchange where Park says “you can’t judge a neighbourhood by a few bad neighbours”. And Volker says “You’re kidding, right. That’s exactly how you judge a neighbourhood.”

They’re both right. A neighbourhood gets a bad reputation because it has a number of bad elements in it, but that doesn’t mean that everybody in that neighbourhood is bad.

But, Destiny’s track record of encountering alien life hasn’t exactly been very positive.

Also, note, they still can’t quite figure how how to change the ship’s course without Chloe to do the calculations.

When they’re about to drop out of FTL to see the answers, Eli has to be fetched by Rush, but when that happens, he does come. He’s not completely locked himself away from life, but he definitely doesn’t have the drive and enthusiasm for his work that he used to.

What they find is a massive graveyard of spaceships. The sight of a great battle some time in history. How fascinating.

One of the ships is familiar. The ship that Rush and Young explored a few episodes back. It looks like that particular species were the losers in the battle.

Scott and Chloe are still having the same conversation. He alien transformation is spreading. Soon she wont be herself anymore, but something dangerous that has to be removed. Scott won’t let that happen, but what can he possibly do to stop it?

I can understand Chloe’s perspective, but I can really identify with Scott. If it were my wife there, I’d never give up on her. Even though there seems to be no possible solution.

But even he has to acknowledge that he has been pulling away from her. It’s been happening for some time. We first noticed it in Cloverdale.

I love how they’re continuing to develop this over multiple episodes. This is exactly the kind of thing I wished they would have done in Star Trek Voyager. If this had been a Voyager episode, Chloe would have been infected, at the star of an episode, the drama would all occur in a short amount of time, and it would all get resolved by the end of that same episode.

But this began all the way back in the middle of season 1. We’re now approaching the middle of season 2. I love this approach to story-telling, and I’m glad that it has become the norm. This is the kind of character-serialisation I’m hoping to see in Star Trek Strange new Worlds later this year, even though the plots will be standalone planet-of-the-week type stories.

Anyway, Chloe is putting on a strong face for Matt, but after she leaves, she breaks down and cries. She doesn’t want to die. And she doesn’t want to cause Matt pain, either.

Camille has pulled Eli aside to talk to him.

Before she can say anything, he launches into a defense. He’s not crazy. He’s come a long way in his 10 months aboard this ship. Once minute he was living at home with his mum, and the next, he’s stranded billions of lightyears from home. Unlike everybody else, he had no training and no preparation. He wasn’t even really given a choice. Jack had him beamed aboard the Hammond after he refused to get involved. Admittedly, once he was beamed up he went willingly to Icarus.

The point is, he’s done remarkably well, all things considered. And he’s absolutely right about that. Good on him, I say. Apart from all of that, someone he really cared for died.

Also, I love the Last Starfighter reference.

Turns out, they’re not worried because he’s a little distracted. They’re worried because given recent events, he should be a hell of a lot more than a little distracted.

Surprisingly, they start talking about Riley, not Ginn.

That loss is affecting him quite profoundly. Eli says something very meaningful. When your whole world gets reduced to about a hundred people, everyone becomes important.

Funnily, a hundred people sounds like a lot to me.

If I were to try to count the number of people I have a meaningful connection to, it would probably be a lot less than a hundred. But then, I’m an introverted hermit who talks to a camera instead of interacting with humans, so there’s that.

I really like how they spend time on Riley here. Once again, giving importance and significance to his death. He was no red-shirt, in the traditional Star Trek sense. Every life in this ship matters to the characters, even if that person doesn’t get their name in the opening credits of this show. In universe, they matter.

When Camille mentions Ginn, Eli’s face hardens, as if to say, “how dare you mention her name.” And then just walks away.

There’s a hell of a lot of hurt there, and he’s not remotely ready to talk about that.

This was a wonderful character scene. I loved it.

Until recently, they only had two working space suits. Brody just finished repairing a third, which Greer is wearing. He half-jokingly raises concern that he’s wearing the recently repaired suit, and brody replies, “easier to fix if something goes wrong, which it won’t, in all likelihood.”

Now this adds a little humour to the scene but it actually makes complete and perfect sense.

Better off having the repair guy wear the better suit because if there is a problem, he’s not compromised, and has the highest chance of fixing it. I can understand Greer’s discomfort, but Brody is right.

This is just more of the slow burn of them getting more and more of the ship and its technology undert their control.

This is their first time taking the newly restored shuttle out.

Brody remarks how weird it is to be flying amongst a fleet of damaged alien spaceships, but Greer just thinks it’s cool. I’d think it was cool too, but I’d also be feeling the awe, which I think is what Brody is trying to express.

As they fly past, one of the alien ships powers upo.

There is one particular ship the shuttle is heading toward, with the intention of boarding it.

I imagine this is the ship of the type Young and Rush explored earlier. I’m not entirely sure why they chose this particular ship. They’ve already seen one of these. Why not investigate one of the other ships, from whatever other race was involved in this battle?

The transfer from one ship to the other isn’t exactly smooth. Greer has to float through space.

In most sci-fi shows, every spaceship out there, even from races never encountered before, always have compatible docking ports, as if there is some universal standard that everyone knows about. And I’ll put my hand up and admit I’ve done this in my own writing.

This is a bit more realistic.

Varro, the leader of the remaining Lucian Alliance, is confined to quarters. Not because of anything he did, but because he didn’t sufficiently warn the crew of how unstable Simeon was. He thought he could control him. He was wrong.

It seems there is a bit of a friendship between Varro and TJ.

They talk about TJ’s recent revelation that the people who came back from Eden didn’t have her child.

She has accepted that she was misled by the ship.

Varro seems to be holding onto the possibility that there might be some other explanation.

That’s when TJ noticed something out the window. The powered ship.

Destiny has analysed the debris and figured out what pieces go together to make up the various spaceships. The destroyed ships, those are the ones we’ve encountered before. The others, they’re not destroyed. They’re just dormant. Perhaps they were drone ships that shut down after they’d accomplished their instructions. And that’s the ship that powered up, which TJ saw.

Eli says they have to get out of there right now, which is probably a good idea.,

Young recalls the away team.

The alien drone ships are waking up en masse now. They’re zipping around.

Young prepares to fire weapons. But he also asks Eli to send a message in whatever languages he can, explaining that Destiny is not a threat.

This is an exciting scene. Stargate Universe has a good balance between science fiction and character drama. I’ve encountered detractors who have said SGU is not science fiction, it’s just a soap opera. That is so not the case. If anything, I’d say that this show is the most genuine science fiction, in the truest sense of the term, than anything else in the franchise.

So we’re treated to a space battle as these alien fighters zip around Destiny.

Typical Rush wants to jump away without the shuttle. Ever the cold hard pragmatist.

Things are looking bad. The FTL drive has been damaged and weapons are failing.

The next thing that happs is a big surprise.

An ancient seed ship drops out of FTL, and Destiny is hailed by our old friend David Telford. Remember, he was left behind on the seed ship earlier this season.

So…in a sense, Rush was right. If the seed ship hadn’t shown up, they’d all be dead now.

Telford seems to know what he’s doing. Both ancient ships head into the star, pursued by the alien drones. Destiny and the seed ship are designed to enter a star. That’s how they rechard.

The alien ships are not, and they burnt up.

It bought them some time, but there are other drone ships still out there, and they just have to fly around the star.

But apparently, it’s gonna take a lot longer than I imagine for that to happen. The two ships dock.

Telford tells his story of what’s happened since we last saw him.

It turns out, the aliens that had boarded the seed ship were not hostile, just desperate.

Telford was at their mercy, but they didn’t harm him. They were curious.

Communication proved difficult. Their stasis pods have a neural interface to keep the mind occupied while the body sleeps. That concept has been done in sci-fi before. Voyager comes to mind. Anyway, Telford saw a whole lot of images. Some of it were clear. Telford was able to form an understanding of the aliens and their history.

They call themselves the Ursini.

They began to trust him. They worked together to get the seed ship online. They’ve been chasing Destiny ever since. Telford got nutrition from the alien pods.

And the Ursini need Destiny’s help.

A long time ago, the Ursini made the same mistake as our crew. They woke the alien drone ships. They had hoped the seed ship would give them an edge in their conflict.

Does that mean that the destroyed ships, including the one Young and Rush explored a few erpisodes back, are Ursini ships?

They were left behind by their own people and so went into stasis on the seed ship until Destiny showed up. They drained power from Destiny because they wanted to go home.

They don’t want to communicate with their homeworld until they’re sure that the drone threat is over.

The Ursini still have a working FTL drive. With the two ships docked, they could jump, and Destiny will come along for the ride, but the Ursini want our help. The drones are all controlled by a command ship. That ship is out of sublight range. They’d have to jump to its location and destroy it. That would make the drones inert. In theory.

This is a common sci-fi trope that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Why not give each drone its own CPU. I mean, the computing power necessary to program these things is currently sitting in my pocket. There’s no reason to centralise things like this. It makes them vulnerable.

Star Wars episode 1 did this with the battle droids. When the command ship in orbit blew up, the drones just shut down. That is so silly.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of cloud computing, but even now, we can build software that will continue to operate after it’s connection to the cloud is lost.

I’m sure we can invent some head-canon to explain why this is the way it is, but the real reason, of course, is because this silly vulnerability gives our heroes a fighting chance.

Rush thinks we should double-cross the Ursini. Get them to take us some place safe for repairs first. Play for time until we get our own FTL drive working, then say “see ya mate” and leave them without giving the help they need.

Both Camille and Young think this is a terrible idea, and I agree. The Ursini are the first potential allies our heroes have encountered out here. Why make them an enemy unnecessarily. Plus, the Ursini may hold the key to getting back to Earth some day, by combining the power of the seed ship with Destiny.

But there’s another reason as well. What if there are more drone ships out there. Taking out that command ship is a much better idea than leaving it, and becoming enemies with both sides of this alien conflict.

For such a smart person, Rush can be pretty dumb sometimes. And sadly lacking in compassion. I can’t help but wonder if he has an actual psychological coindition that makes it hard or impossible for him to feel compassion or empathy for others. Maybe, or maybe, deep down, he’s a bit of a jerk.

The thing is, the show has made us feel compassion and empathy for him at times. He’s had a hard life. That’s probably part of it too. And that’s what make us continue to somewhat like him as a charcter, even though he’s so unlikable.

Now despite all that stuff I just said about Rush having no compassion and empathy, he’s the one who is going to try to counsel Eli, who is continuing to make little mistakes.

Rush and Eli are in a very similar situation. They both lost somebody they loved that day. They both failed to save Amanda and Ginn.

Rush actually does a decent job. Partly, it’s because of that shared experience. Rush is able to describe exactly what Eli is feeling becauise he’s feeling the same. And he can tell Eli from personal experience, that getting revenge wouldn’t have helped one bit. He’d still be getting up in the morning, and she’d still be dead.

Then Rush says something interesting.

We’re taught from a young age that everybody is equal, but that’s a lie. Some people are better. It’s those who recognsie they are better, and learn to exploit it, who succeed.

He says Eli is one of those people, but the only way to achieve his potential is to make sure he doesn’t get beaten down. That’s why keeps Rush going.

This is interesting, and it might even be what Eli needs to hear right now, but I don’t agree with Rush.

I’ll admit that we don’t all have equal abilities. Some people are especially gifted, far beyond the rest of us. But I believe all human beings have equal value. Equal worth.

Telford has negotiated an agreement with the Ursini. We are going to go on a joint mission.

In theory, this jump will be no different than the shuttle jumping with destiny, because it’s attached. But the shuttle is small and was designed to do that. While destiny is significantly bigger than the seed ship.

They keep mentioning that it’s dangerous to jump within 4 hours of exiting FTL. And we’re still in that 3 hour danger window.

To my knowledge, they’ve never given a good explaination why this is a thing. Just another rule they invented for narrative reasons.

Luckily, the jumps works successfully.

Eli goes to share the good news with Chloe, and there’s one element of the agreement that hasn’t been mentioned yet. After the mission is over, the Ursini will help Destiny dial Earth.

But something is wrong with Chloe.

She’s unrespoonsive.

And something else is wrong.

They drop out of FTL early. They’ve arrived at the command ship.

Seems that Rush wasn’t the only one wanting to double-cross. The Ursini have forced our hand. No time to repair Destiny. Destroy the command ship now!

But what choice do they have? They engage the enemy.

Unfortunately, the command ship is guarded by a bunch of drone fighters.

Chloe suddenly wakes up and asks Eli to let her help.

She is REALLY not herself. She expertly takes out the guard who incists on talking to Young first.

If I were Eli, I’d be pretty scared right now. Scared that Chloe’s transformation into “something dangerous” is complete.

But maybe she can help them.

Brody seals off that section of the ship to contain Chloe

Meanwhile, the battle is not going well. They can’t get near the command ship.

Chloe gets through the locked doors. That alien knowledge inside of her is making her very capable.

I love the combination of the tensio with the battle at the same time as the tension inside the ship. The tension inside is even more powerful because it involves a charfacter we care about. So there is more emotional impact.

And Varro has a chance to help TJ.

Chloe is doing something at a console.

Whatever it is she’s done, it’s over.

It’s too late for Matt to stop her.

Let’s hope he doesn’t have to be the one to take her down. He’d never be able to forgive himself.

And them as Destiny continues to be pummeled by alien drones, the episode ends.

I do love serialised story-telling.

It turns out, this was actually a mid-season cliffhanger. That’s a big thing in American TV. Possibly because they need time to finish making the later episodes of a season. It’s never really been a thing in Australian TV, but one of the side-effects of getting shows at the same time as the US these days, is that we’re exposed to the oddities of American TV scheduling.

This was a fantastic episode. Some great action sequences, lots of aliens, some fantastic character moments, and even some humour that came naturally out of the characters, so it didn’t pull me out of the story.

We’ll have to wait until next time to see what happens next. It’ll be pretty exciting. The episode will be called Deliverance.

There’s some truly great stuff ahead of us. The sad thing is, we only have half a season left and then we’ll be finished Stargate Universe.

We’d best enjoy it while we can.

Incidentally, I do have some exciting ideas about what we’ll cover next once Stargate Universe is over. I might share some of that later.

But for now

Have a great two weeks

Live long and prosper

Make it so.