My icon keeps being so, so accurate

[frith_in_thorns]

Frith: SGA has magic radios. They always seem to just automatically connect to the right people at the right times, it's wonderful.

Sholio: yep

Frith: I don't even care about trying to make them work properly in fic
they don't in canon

Sholio: I seem to recall at one point I tried to figure out how they worked for fic purposes and gave up.
Like ... can everyone hear the conversations, or just the person you're talking to? It seems to vary by situation.

Frith: clearly Atlantis has a sentient radio network and it adds people to the channel when they're about to be talked to

Sholio: XD
If they're like a normal radio (or walkie-talkie), then everyone is on the same channel, hears the conversations and the person you're talking to can answer when you address them. That actually MAKES SENSE.
But they don't always seem to do that.

Frith: like, maybe there are just a million channels and everyone's predecided which will be used for what and can pick up mutlple ones when there's activity in them
like irc
irc radios :P

Sholio: hmmm, that actually makes a weird kind of sense
especially if it's being monitored by a highly advanced computer

Frith: that's my theory and I'm sticking with it

Sholio: sure

Frith: so each team has their own radio chatroom, and there's one for department heads, and one for miliatary, and about a hundred set up by various gossip groups...

Sholio: and newcomers are thoroughly baffled


I'm now firmly convinced of this. Either that or the radio network really does run on literal magic. It's things like this that makes it very hard to write realistic-feeling fic, when the show can't decide what it's doing!

On a related note, does anyone know how exactly the transporters work? Do they de/materialise people to different locations, or is it a physical lift/escalator system which goes up and down and sideways a la Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? (They'd have to be going FAST...)

Comments

[schneefink]

We see people getting stuck in a transporter, that would indicate that they move, I think? I'd have to rewatch the episode. But they seem to go extremely fast from one tower to another. If there's no beaming a city with all the main areas situated in different towers seems extremely inconvenient.

I just assumed every team/department whatever had their own radio channel, but I never thought about how they know when to listen to which one. Atlantis' AI regulating it makes as much sense as anything else.
(Another canon in which I hated the magical radios was Gundam Wing. It could never decide on who could listen to what. And I'm sure there are others where I just didn't notice that it doesn't make sense.)

[frith_in_thorns]

...I just rewatched relevant bits of Quarantine (which I have to say is an ep I reeeeeeally dislike) and it doesn't make it any clearer. They're stuck and trying to pry the doors open, yes, but it's also at an actual stop-point, rather than somewhere in the middle, so it looks like they'd just got on (or just arrived) when the lock-down happened and the actual method of transport is still up in the air...

[princessofgeeks]

I"m all about the Magic City Being Magic.

[frith_in_thorns]

I am remembering that the last time I wrote fic for this fandom my approach to most of the tech descended fast into "ah, fuck it." MAGIC.

[sgatazmy]

There is an episode where there is a sudden flash and they are instantly at new location so must be teleportation?

I am always so confused by the radios. I figured they were a lot like the Star Trek communicators where once you say the person's name it connects to them.

[frith_in_thorns]

Which episode is that? I can't remember it...

Ah yes, I also love Star Trek's magic radios. Oh, my sci-fi shows.

[sgatazmy]

Remnants. Woolsey gets in elevator with his hallucination and then there is a flash and they are on the new floor.

At least Star Trek was consistent. On SGA sometimes they have coms in theirs room and sometimes not. Sometimes you hear PA to page them but usually not. Sometimes they are on open channels and other times not. So confused!

[dhampyresa]

The transporters are teleporters, iirc. I think it's a plot point in Hide and Seek?

[frith_in_thorns]

Again, though, that's not quite what was shown: one transporter "compartment" was simply swapped with another (that still had the crates in from earlier). Which could still mean either method!

I just went and rewatched the relevant bits in H&S: it's definitely frustratingly ambiguous :P