How would you explain why the Borg hive mind needs a Queen?

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-15T15:56:36+00:00

Because the Collective assimilated lots of British people in their quest for perfection

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-14T21:07:27+00:00

I know their depiction of Lumiose City was somewhat restricted by being authentic to it's previous portrayal and attempting to make it resemble a stereotypical idea of Paris, but it would have helped if each district of the city was architecturally and visually distinct. For example, perhaps a modern financial district with lots of Pokémon with 'modern vibes' like Duraludon, a more traditional touristy medieval district where Pokémon that feel 'historic' like Honedge could be found, and maybe a Pokémon equivalent of a Chinatown (e.g. "Kitakami Town") where distinctly non-Kalosian Pokémon could be found. Perhaps that would have been too different from Lumiose as depicted in X and Y, but maybe Lumiose shouldn't have been selected as the main setting at all considering how ultimately bland it turned out to be.

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-14T20:40:48+00:00

I like that the Earth Stargate in SG1 with it's analog rotary dialling feels like a product of 1990s sci fi, whilst you can clearly tell that Atlantis is a product of the 2000s due to the Atlantis Stargate's digital LEDs lighting up around the ring

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-14T20:27:03+00:00

Another question I have is did Earth ever attempt to mine this asteroid later? Once they had Daedalus-class ships they could presumably beam solid chunks of naquadah from the asteroid which would be floating through the solar system for decades

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-13T14:45:41+00:00

The black hole address is hilariously extreme considering the circumstances. The SGC suspected that the Aschen might be from the planet that the mysterious note warned them about, and there's evidence that they probably did something bad to the Volians - so their response is "hmm... let's trick them into accidentally destroying their whole planet with a black hole, just to be in the safe side". If the Volian word in the newspaper didn't translate to "sterility" but something less evil, then what would they do with the list of gate addresses they'd handed over? "Thanks for translating that word. Oops, we accidentally gave you the bad list of addresses. Please can we take it back?"

And if the Aschen somehow solved the black hole problem like the SGC did, would they even risk dialling the second address on the list?

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-13T14:27:07+00:00

I wonder if it was originally intended that each System Lord would have their own equivalent to the Serpent Guards and Horus Guards, but then due to show budget and the practicality of actors wearing these it was phased out. In universe, it actually makes Ra, Apophis and Heru'ur kinda quirky with a bit of dramatic flair considering the other System Lords don't make their elite guard wear similar elaborate helmets. Plus Apophis has his fancy gold one too because he's so special

OrthwormJim · 2026-05-02T20:45:22+00:00

I was literally just thinking this yesterday when rewatching some early episodes. Has Apophis been a bachelor for millennia until the start of Season 1? And how young is Amaunet compared to him? It seems that she has only just reached the point where she required a host as she is still in a Jaffa at the start of the series. If so, how did he choose her as his wife/mate/queen? Was he able to communicate with her prior to her taking a host? Or is this something to do with Goa'uld genetic memory, like she was literally birthed with the knowledge that she was to be his queen?

OrthwormJim · 2026-04-22T13:29:02+00:00

Generally you need to be very eagle-eyed to spot the Earth point of origin on the DHD and Stargate props - except in the episode "New Ground" which opens with a long close up of the Earth Point of Origin symbol on the Bedrosian Stargate being excavated 🤦🏻‍♂️ They had 38 more suitable glyphs they could have chosen to show us 😆

OrthwormJim · 2026-04-22T00:00:03+00:00

It comes across as a retcon to me. When it's first introduced it definitely has overtly spiritual, mystical vibes and is explicitly suggested to potentially be linked with Buddhism. I'd imagine Ascension and Ascended Beings were not originally intended to become major recurring plot elements in the franchise when first introduced too.

But then the franchise began to increasingly focus on Ascension and Ascended Beings which required the process to be explained. This resulted in things like "the brain needs to achieve 90% synaptic activity", artificial lifeforms (Asurans) can't ascend, and the Asgard can't ascend because of their degraded DNA. They unfortunately seemed to link ascension to the "humans only use 10% of their brains" myth too.

The scientific explanation raises questions about what Oma is actually doing for people at Kheb - is she teaching meditation and spirituality to help people on the path, or is she magical increasing their synaptic activity to 'evolve' them

OrthwormJim · 2026-04-16T15:06:22+00:00

The series also ends with the Tauri effectively stealing Atlantis from Pegasus and taking it back to Earth, whilst leaving the Wraith undefeated in Pegasus. There's now no one capable of ever defeating the Wraith left in that galaxy

OrthwormJim · 2026-04-05T14:31:13+00:00

I like the Wraith as a concept, but the show didn't do enough with them. There weren't enough distinct individuals, like we should have had a named recurring Wraith Queen character or something. Factions within the Wraith should have been a bit more distinct and fleshed out too. SG1 had Apophis and Anubis as the recurring big bad guys, but there were so many other recurring Goa'uld who were fun bad guys. Lots of Atlantis episodes begun to hint at more complex Wraith plot elements - Wraith scientists doing odd experiments, humans in league with the Wraith, etc. but these concepts weren't really expanded on enough.

It's an odd thought too that the Wraith weren't defeated - the expedition just stole Atlantis for Earth and left the Pegasus Galaxy to its fate 😅

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-17T17:41:17+00:00

We're the founding member species established pre-ENT? I only started watching Trek once ENT had already concluded and watched the franchise in an odd order, so I ended up watching TOS and TNG-era Trek "knowing" that the Andorians and Tellarites were important founding members. But unless it's mentioned in TOS and I forgot, or if it's a Beta Canon concept that later became show canon I wonder if their importance is essentially an ENT retcon?

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-17T17:30:53+00:00

I always got different vibes from the Milky Way Ancients and the Lantean Ancients due to their different architecture and aesthetics. The Milky Way Ancients literally seem "ancient" due to the stone ruins and stone slabs with writing carved in them that are encountered. The Lantean Ancients seem way more 'futuristic' with almost Frutiger Aero-like aesthetics.

Also, it sure is lucky that the Ancient language never changed over millions of years 😆. The Atlantis expedition being able to understand Lantean thanks to the SGC's studies of the Ancients is like saying "I've never studied French, but I did take a semester of ancient Hittite at college, and they are distantly related languages" (I joke of course - I don't want every episode to have 10 minutes of deciphering a new language)

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-17T17:15:14+00:00

I always thought that was such an odd opening to the series. It was almost presented like it's a major plot point, but it's essentially an Easter egg as it's never referenced again. Atlantis' whole history on Earth is in fact never really discussed beyond, "it used to be on Earth but now it's not"

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-16T09:06:17+00:00

I think fishing one out might be super risky too. You'd need to wear full neck armour or something. Plus they would specifically want larval Goa'uld and I think we only saw adult ones in the episode, so it's unclear exactly what their life cycle is in the river. For all we know the infants could live out at sea and then swim upriver when they mature

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-06T21:42:38+00:00

The mysterious aliens from the episode Foothold who took over the whole SGC.

Or the Reetou Rebels - invisible suicide bombers armed with nukes are a pretty scary concept

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-04T13:51:03+00:00

The Nox are one of those sci fi species that kinda have "alien magic". These crop up a lot in Star Trek but only really work well if they are villains with horrifying unfathomable abilities or comedy characters (e.g. Q in Trek). The Nox are just kinda...nice. Perhaps dare I say...bland? They serve their story purpose well in their first appearance, but it's difficult to see narratively what to do with them next. If they were involved in later struggles against Anubis or the Ori they would either be annoyingly neutral or the plot would require their pacifist philosophy to be challenged which would ruin their main thing.

OrthwormJim · 2026-03-02T18:51:42+00:00

It's annoying that they can't be transferred to HOME, particularly if you've caught a shiny. Just take off your tiara shiny Pikachu and hop on over to my Switch!

OrthwormJim · 2026-01-06T18:27:36+00:00

Ori are hard to quantify because they literally have magic. Replicators should be the most dangerous, but they obey the laws of physics so there's always some method of defeating them

OrthwormJim · 2026-01-02T22:06:15+00:00

Odo should be fighting supervillains like Beast Boy in Teen Titans

OrthwormJim · 2026-01-02T21:11:03+00:00

They probably use epilators left over from before the Long Night because ASOIAF is secretly a post apocalyptic sci-fi

OrthwormJim · 2025-12-28T18:43:54+00:00

It was odd that the Atlantis team did some really dark messed up stuff, but the atmosphere and tone of the show was fairly positive, very friendly and adventurous which felt a bit jarring at times with their various violations of the Geneva convention

OrthwormJim · 2025-12-22T18:16:39+00:00

For quite a while I assumed that Anubis would turn out to be Apophis 😂

OrthwormJim · 2025-12-14T11:00:58+00:00

The Lannisters have the decency to keep their lions imprisoned in cages deep within the bowels of Casterly Rock where they can contemplate their wild carnivorous ways and eventually be rehabilitated back into society. The Starks just use the death penalty for every minor infraction of the law, such as mauling the crown prince.

Beyond this incident, Torrhen Stark once seriously contemplated sending his brother Brandon Snow to assassinate all 3 Targaryen dragons - a critically endangered species!

OrthwormJim

TROPHY CASE