Friday night’s episode of Stargate Atlantis featured the computers of Atlantis being besieged by a group of entities seeking to move onto a higher plane of existence (warning, mild spoilers below!).
One of the entities turned out to be none other than Elizabeth Weir, onetime leader of the Atlantis expedition, who was believed to have been killed after her capture by the Replicators, technologically advanced humanoid life forms assembled from countless tiny nanoscale robots (played by a different actress in this episode). Weir has become a Replicator too, and has joined a small band interested in following in the footsteps of the Replicator’s creators (and humanity’s pseudo-ancestors), a super-duper technologically advanced race known as the Ancients. The Ancients are (more or less) no longer around, having long since ascended to another plane of existence. Ironically, it seems as if the fact that the Replicators are technological constructs is the limiting factor in preventing their ascension—the Ancient’s path to the next plane of existence appears to be a biologically-based one.
Part of the irony is because real-world thinking about the ability to transcend the bounds of our current existence is very firmly tied to progress in the computing realm. One scenario involves computers reaching a point where they can host a human mind, with silicon (or other, more exotic, materials) providing a substrate for a consciousness just as the neurons within our skulls provide a substrate for our minds today. Humans would scan themselves in, and digital versions of themselves would be free of the limits of our biological bodies, including death and disease. This scenario is only one of a number of possible futures that all fall under the rubric of the singularity, a term coined by futurist Vernor Vinge. Essentially, the singularity is a point sitting sometime in our future where the pace of technological change becomes so rapid, and makes such deep impact on our existence, that being able to envision what happens after the singularity is like a chimpanzee trying to figure out the design schematics for the space shuttle.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:19 am
i love this show!!! but it really would have had a bigger impact on me if they would have paid or settle whatever problem they have with Torri to come back to the show.. she was a very big part of the show and it really didnt give her or the fans the closer they deserve.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
I am starting to grow out of Stargate. Whenever I watch an episode it feels like I am watching old episodes of TNG. I mean I loved TNG when I first watched it, but since then I have watched better SciFi and when I go back it just seems so fake.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
April: True, I would have preferred to see Higginson in the role, but on the other hand I really enjoyed Michelle Morgan/FRAN in the last season and so that bit of continuity eased the pain. Also, Morgan did a great job here, emulating many of Higginson’s/Weir’s mannerisms. I don’t think the door has been closed either on seeing Morgan/FRAN or Morgan/Weir again.