@Wolfen Moondaughter~Yes, I did enjoy Outsiders. It was a good Team episode and Keller wasn’t there to spoil the story.

Of course that doesn’t mean they actually *planned* it out in the sense of “This year we’ll get rid of Teal’C, and next year we’ll get rid of Carter,” it might just mean that they had some ideas in store for new characters, and trap doors to get rid of the old ones when they decided to go, I dunno. They were at least talking about it, in a theoretical sense.

So the moral of the story here is: never trust Sci Fi. Never. Ever.

That said, when RDA *did* decide to go, it freed up scads and scads of money for the casting budget.

As I said, it was just my hunch that Lam was intended to become part of the team. I could well be entirely wrong about that.

RDA left because he wanted to spend more time with his daughter and felt it was best for the show, not because he was let go or encouraged out by execs. Same with Davis.

As for Lam, I never heard anything suggesting she was intended to be anything other than recurring — when the announcement came out that she’d been cast, she was called “recurring”. In fact, I had the impression she only went for the role because it would mean seeing Michael a bit more. I also had the impression that the child she was carrying was planned/intended at some point, which would suggest, considering their current arrangement (one works while the other stays home, at any given time) that she had no intention for Lam to be a full-time role so long as Daniel was still a full-time role for Shanks ….

I don’t know for a fact they were looking at a Vala/Jackson/Lam triangle, that might just be a shipper rumor given that Shanks and Doig were married in real life. I do kind of feel like they were looking at adding her to the SG1 team full time eventually, though. No proof of this, just a hunch.

My theory: Clearly they intended to start cycling out the long-term cast members for newer, cheaper people as we’ve discussed elsewhere. Anderson’s leaving freed up enough money to bring in 3 new full time and one part time cast member. Eventually, one of the others would have decided to leave, at which point a new person would be added to the cast. The shift from O’Neil to Mitchell wasn’t done as well as it probably should have been, since they were forced to retcon Mitchell in as someone everyone knew, but just had never mentioned before. Probably they’d hoped to set up a few possible replacements in the wings so they could be attached to SG1 full time when Carter or Teal’c decided to leave. (Strangely, I don’t think Jackson would have left again) I think Lam was intended as one of these potential replacements.

So had the show stayed on and not gotten killed by the idiot suits at Sci-Fi, who do you think would have been next to leave from the ‘old guard?’ Carter? Teal’c? Jackson? My own hunch is it would’ve been Carter…

As for the crew, I guess the Daedalus is woefully understaffed, the! XD (Although seventy flight line and 20 staffers sounds excessive to me — my grandpas took care of multiple planes when they were in England & Korea, respectively …)

Dr. Lam, as I intend it, was intended to be a much more prominent character than Frasier had been, but she had a kid and so they wrote her out of a bunch of episodes as they couldn’t really hide that. Lam was intended to have a much more tied-in arc, what with her dad and possibly a romantic triangle between herself, Daniel, and Vala was one of the things I’d heard rumored about her. But everyone seems to agree she was intended for more than we ended up getting from her.

BTW, my Air Force friends tell me that a squadron requires about 150 or so people at a bare minimum: 18 airplanes, 30 pilots, 6 clerks, 70 flight line people (crew chiefs, armament, etc), 20 staff (commanders, intel, etc.) Even if you drop the paper pushers (Which isn’t really practical) you’re still talking a minimum of 100 people, who, of course, wouldn’t get paid, or even have a solid idea what they’re to go attack, nor would they be fed or have clothes or anywhere to sleep because you’ve eliminated all the desk folk. My Navy friends figure the number at about 200 people to a squadron.

Thing is,why would Rachel need more time with her son, when she can bring her son to the st? Whereas Flanigan and Momoa can only rarely see their kids, and Momoa’s daughter is only three months older than Luttrell’s. That’d be kind of sexist, if she got more time off and they didn’t. Hewlett’s baby is about the same age as hers, and he’s been in the season plenty! All I can figure is maybe she neede physical recovery time from birthing ….

As for the doc’s screen time, carson *might* argably have been as included in plots as regulary, buit other than a few key eps, Frasier and Lam always seemed more in the background. Not that they didn’t have speaking parts, but even when they were around, they were more *supporting*, ya know? I guess it’s less a matter of actual screentime and more of how they are used. Janet and Carolyn had a *few* eps where they were the focus, but *only* a few — they seldom stole the spotlight, and none of the core team’s worlds ever revolved around them (excpet for Janet’s death) the wat Rodney’s & Ronon’s have around Keller of late. Any othe rtime Janet or Carolyn were around, it was to move the story of the core team — to treat their injuries or explain any medical stuff that needed explaining. *They* revolved around the *team*. And even though carson had a bit more focus on himself, wheile he was a regular, it was nothing approaching what Keller’s got going now. Well, I don’t feel so, anyway ….

I think the question was pretty much rhetorical. It also shows that he’s open to the possibility of other explanations, since it might be a coincidence. (Stranger things have happened.)

“Daniel realises that they were expecting the Ancients — who wouldn’t exterminate them — to win. (Wouldn’t they have exterminated the Asgard?”

I assume they wouldn’t, because of the alliance between the four great races that we (the audience) first learned about way back in the SG-1 first season episode ‘Torment of Tantalus’. Which makes me wonder if we might see some Nox before the season is out. That’d be pretty cool. Who doesn’t love big, pink hair?

“Daniel notes that, from what he saw, the suits form around the wearer. (To that degree? There’s an awfully big height difference!”

I’m guessing the suits were originally constructed several millenia ago when the Asgard were closer to modern humans in stature. (Which, again, was referenced in an episode of SG-1 – in season 7, I think – but hasn’t been addressed on Atlantis.) But I agree that they probably kept building them the same size to maintain an equality with the other dominant races in Pegasus and as a sort of camouflage. That, and in the hopes that their experiments with human subjects might restore their previous physiology while they were still stuck on a planet with a toxic atmosphere.

“Hey, did they take Caldwell with them? Is that why we don’t see him again, either?”

I imagine Mitch has been rather busy with Sons of Anarchy, but you do raise a good point. Maybe he was wounded in a valiant effort to defend the ship and spent the rest of the episode unconscious?

I have to say that the whole Keller triangle is beginning to grate on me, too. It was cute last season when it was just some subtle flirting, but this is getting out of hand. As a Browncoat, I adore Jewel Staite, and this is a pretty shoddy use of her character. I don’t mind that she’s getting as much screen time as the other series regulars (Although, now that you mention it, Rachel has been given short shrift this year. Possibly by her request so she can spend more time with her son?), since we’ve seen the CMOs on both shows featured heavily over the years. However, I do wish they could’ve come up with something less cliched for her to do. Oh, how I long for the days of Janet-and-Cassie-Frasier or Lam-and-Landry family dynamics. I suppose it makes sense that the Atlantis expedition would have more single people with fewer ties to Earth volunteer to travel far, far away, so some romance is inevitable. I just wish the writers hadn’t fallen back on such a predictable trope.

@ hoobajoobah — maybe it uses TARDIS tech. XD But even if we figure that the shuttle, due to it’s triangular shape and space necessary for drives and such, and therefore estimate it as having 20 sq ft it does indeed seem that Todd could have fit upwards of at least 50 Wraith without needing a buffer. So if the shutt;e doesn’t have a buffer, he could have fit all of his soldiers and just decided there wasn’t space (nor time to wrangle them) to include the humans, either as bargaining chips, good will, or potential snacks …

They appear to be about 1/3rd the total length of the ship, so from the outside it would appear that the bays are about 78 x 247 feet. (The problem here is that when we see John running around inside ‘em, they appear much, much larger than that.)

Figure 20 feet of hull plating and machinery and assorted doubletalk on the sides of the bays, that gives us an internal space of 58 feet, and the Dart Shuttle appeared to fill up most of that, so call it 50 feet wide for the shuttle.

But again: the internal visuals don’t match the external visuals.

I blame the Keller thing on Firefly, actually.

Kaylee was just adorable and great and funny and cute and everyone had a crush on her, myself included. As a result, when I first heard she was joining the cast of SGA as part of Stargate’s ongoing TV Science Fiction Actor’s Retirement Package, I thought, “Kickass! My pretend-girlfriend actress from Firefly is gonna’ be on the show!” rather than “Dammit, that annoyingly bland girl from Hey, Dude is gonna’ be on the show.” It was total stunt-casting, and I completely fell for it.

And I learned that Kaylee was great because of the writing and direction, and Keller is merely tolerable for the exact same reasons.

>>>In regard to the Daedalus class battlecruiser, all references to the exact size are to be kept vague. This is not to limit the scope or the abilities of the craft, as is the case in other series….All Daedalus class battlecruisers have a hangar bay on either side, capable of carrying up to a maximum of 16 fighters. <<<

which I found online here: http://galacticabbs.com/index.php?s=4b7cd1f1f80c1a7f7120fb4382171b2a&showtopic=2422&pid=29303&st=0&#entry29303

As for Keller, I’ve been calling her “Mary Sue Keller” from the beginning of season 4, it was so obvious (to me at least) that the writers are in love with the actress and are acting out their fantasies through her.

I am really getting tired of Keller being thrust into the limelight, with the team being used as supporting characters. I watched SGA right from the beginning and especially enjoyed the John & Rodney interactions from Rising onwards – the ream episodes have been few and far between so far this season and I miss seeing them all together; and, like you, I’m not looking forward to Brainstorm from the spoilers I inadvertently came across.

My mistake, I misunderstood you.

Anyway, a US Navy Aircraft Carrier generally has a crew compliment of about 5000 and change. They can go above 6000 in an actual shooting war, counting platoons of marines and extra brass and what have you, so I picked the number from there given that the Daedalus-class are specifically called “Deep Space Carriers.” It’s one of those yardsticks that turn up a lot in TVSF. For instance, the original Galactica (78) had a crew of about 5000, and entirely independent of that, the new Galactica (03) producers coincidentally decided on a standard crew of 5000 people for the Galactica, though she only had about 2500 on her when the attack came.) So when in doubt about the crew of a space ship on an American tv show, the closest comparible US Naval vessel is usually the go-to number. Doesn’t mean that *is* the number, just a starting assumption.

And yeah, the suppliers themselves don’t really have to know what it is they’re providing supplies for. There’s still an awful lot of people in the loop though.

As for the F-302s, well you’ve got three Daedalus class ships, each w/ 3 squadrons so there’s nine there. There’s at least a couple squadrons based on earth, such as the one that Cam “Shaft” Mitchell was attached to before taking over SG1. So there’s 11 at least. Plus the Korolev had another three, so at their peak they had at least 12, probably more like 15, and now 12 is a pretty good guestimate. I mean, the Russians obviously have at least one squadron of the things, too.

As to cross-training the crews…I dunno. Being a fighter pilot is an extremely specific skill, requiring a lot of training and stuff. You couldn’t just throw a deck hand in a fighter, even if he knew how to fly. Likewise, it’d be a waste to put a fighter jock at work in the galley or what have you. No evidence to the contrary, of course, so you could be right. A crew of 200 seems awfully low for such a big ship.

I’ll try to figure out the size of a Daedalus and from that we can guestimate the width of a dart shuttle. As to the darts themselves, the space ships in the pegasus galaxy seem to be mostly floorspace on the inside (jumpers) with not a lot of machinery, with the exception of the Dart itself, which is obviously a fighter that needs a lot of power, so it’s got a tiny cockpit, and presumably a big engine and ‘storage buffer.’ But even so, humans and humanoids aren’t all that big, and you can fit a lot of ‘em into a fairly tiny space. Even more if it’s only a short trip. You can fit 10 people into a standard-sized elevator easy, and as it was a short hop from Todd’s ship to the Daedalus, he could have packed ‘em in like sardines.

I admit, I had not noted the size of the shuttle dart on the schematic in relation to the bay, though. How much of that space within the shuttle can actually fit living beings, and how much of it is tech? The other darts have very little habitable space in relation to their size, for example (and, I’d like to note, I think they are more like the length of three or four motorcycles strung together — they look to be about 2-3rds of the length of a ‘jumper, albeit not nearly as wide or tall) — are the shuttle darts just bigger versions of the smaller ones, or are they, structually, completely different despite the similar shape? And how big was that particular bay — are all the bays the same size? Was there an F-302 in the image as well, to judge the size by?

As for your q … They stated in this ep that the Daedalus had 200 crewmen aboard — where are you getting 5000-6000? And where did you find the info for the F-302 squadrons? (I had no idea they had dozens of squadrons …) Obviously they typically have at *least* three F-302s on board the Daedalus (that’s what we saw in the ep where the ship had the virus), and I doubt so many of the 200 crewman were there *specifically* for the F-302s — I imagine they multitask a lot. I bet even the F-302 pilots probably have other jobs — maybe some of them do maintenence for them as well. I’m sure they have to cover more territory/be much more creative with staffing with SG personel than the regular Air Force, so I don’t think there’s nearly as many people involved as you’re predicting. I’d say, judging by the fighting, the Space Bridge had a few dozen people manning it at the Midway Station, and that’s it.

Plus the space cruisers can get supplied from other planets — not just in Pegasus, but in Milky Way as well. Atlantis didn’t get *any* supplies from Earth for many months. If the SGC is ordering supplies and trade goods from various outlets around the US, why would anyone outside of the highest members of government know that there was an inordinate amount of supplies going into the SGC? Unless someone were camped outside, counting the trucks going in! Plus we know they have nondisclosure agreements with various outside companies, so those companies could be supplying them and keeping things quiet as well.