Dear Johnny Fanboy,

While watching Volume 4 of Stargate: Atlantis I think I spotted a couple of nitpicks.

First of all, in the episode Hot Zone the Atlantis team come under attack from a virus that makes them see things that aren't there and then die suddenly. When McKay realises he'll be the next to go, he asks his team to contact his sister and let her know he died a hero's death - creating an elaborate tale in the process.

How is that going to happen? His sister is on Earth and they have no way of contacting her.

Secondly, in the episode Before I Sleep we are presented with an alternate reality in which the crew of Atlantis die because the shields fail and the water comes cascading into the Atlantis city.

Since it was already established (in Hot Zone and other episodes) that the Ancients designed the city with many failsafes, such as not allowing access to any part of the city to anyone with a contagious disease, why then would they allow power to be diverted from the shields when this would surely kill everyone? If the computer is complex enough to not allow anyone to override its door-opening safeguards because of a disease, should it not also override anyone who is trying to divert power from the shields?

Stuart Landis

Johnny Fanboy replies:

On the subject of Hot Zone, since McKay is already affected by the virus at this point, he could be hallucinating that he is still on Earth or that the team have established contact with it. He may be confusing his memories of the false Earth in the episode Home with reality.

More likely, he is simply confident that at some point in the future the Atlantis team will regain contact with Earth, and he is preparing the message that he would like to be conveyed to his only living relative as and when it becomes possible.

On the subject of Before I Sleep, at the risk of sounding like Stuart Lee's Jesus from This Morning With Richard Not Judy: Ah! Do you not see, Stuart? Ah! But you must remember that this is an alternate reality - one in which the failsafe mechanism that allowed the city to rise up out of the ocean was never put in place. This is something that the time-travelling Dr Weir points out to the Ancients, who then ensure that such a precaution is implemented.

When they originally sank their city to protect themselves, the Ancients had no idea that it would still be underwater and operational all those centuries later. Until Weir's intervention, they saw no need to build in a failsafe that would make the city rise to the surface if its shields were compromised.

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