350k plus interludes, I don't even know where to start. It's not my pairing on not my show and yet I was suckered in before the end of chapter 2. If only because it's an Ancient device, this is going to end badly is a time-honored Stargate fanon trope. As are accidental telepathic links, creepy Ancient genetics, Groundhog Day incidents - seriously, SG-1 did it, I don't know how SGA got through five seasons without one, because fandom hit that so hard - and the tight third PoV helped with suspension of disbelief too.
Good stuff: plot. So much stuff going on. The Nekai, the planet trips, the constant power crises, the lovely way the relationship stuff didn't fix anything. Eli. Eli's note-rant - Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION ... Colonel Young: 5 DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS - Chloe getting to shoot stuff, and disarm bombs, and be a hardcore mathematician in a story where math = very high-value talent (RIEMANN HYPOTHESIS, even I have heard about that one!), the sense of ensemble, enhanced by the interlude fics.
The chewy bits: the trust issues. The backstabbing. For a nominally relationshippy action story with a nominally happy ending, there was an awful lot of lying, misdirection, and questionable consent (or outright pressure tactics, starting with "nice of you to wake up, by the way, telepathic link to your least favorite person on the entire ship and you can't keep them out of your head"). The Telford-Rush-Young tug-of-civilian felt a bit underdeveloped. If this had been posted as a complete piece instead of a WiP, maybe that would have gotten a little more organization/attention in the rewrite.
The Young-Telford dynamic may be a bit opaque to me because I skipped into this after half a season of the show two years ago. It was tough for me to get a bead on Young's character in FOD; if I'd watched more of the show (or, you know, been invested in a reading of the character beyond you abandoned one of your people onplanet, what the heck, the SG unofficial motto is "no one left behind", and that's when I broke up with SGU) I might have a better grounding for how Young evolves through the story.
The last two chapters sort of fell apart for me, because 1.) not that invested in how Young's brain is being colonized from the subconscious up, 2.) Arlington? Arlington? Seriously, wrong for Rush's character and doubly wrong considering what a pain in the neck Arlington burials can be for actual military, 3.) the setup evoked one of my favorite SGA fics, with serious cognitive dissonance. And yet, if you're going to try to sell an OTP, writing out the identity theme in the last section of the last chapter in blazing clarity is a great way to sell it to me.
BTW, I read "Mathematique" (what's up so far), and I am thrilled because the made-up genetics have overlap with SGA trash-talking I did in 2006. Apparently I am not the only person to call shenanigans on bad TV biology, yay!
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timeasmymeasure
Force Over Distance
Date: 2012-08-04 04:10 am (UTC)Good stuff: plot. So much stuff going on. The Nekai, the planet trips, the constant power crises, the lovely way the relationship stuff didn't fix anything. Eli. Eli's note-rant - Number of CRITICAL PIECES OF INFORMATION ... Colonel Young: 5 DNR: Unknown, PROBABLY AT LEAST ONE MILLION ITEMS - Chloe getting to shoot stuff, and disarm bombs, and be a hardcore mathematician in a story where math = very high-value talent (RIEMANN HYPOTHESIS, even I have heard about that one!), the sense of ensemble, enhanced by the interlude fics.
The chewy bits: the trust issues. The backstabbing. For a nominally relationshippy action story with a nominally happy ending, there was an awful lot of lying, misdirection, and questionable consent (or outright pressure tactics, starting with "nice of you to wake up, by the way, telepathic link to your least favorite person on the entire ship and you can't keep them out of your head"). The Telford-Rush-Young tug-of-civilian felt a bit underdeveloped. If this had been posted as a complete piece instead of a WiP, maybe that would have gotten a little more organization/attention in the rewrite.
The Young-Telford dynamic may be a bit opaque to me because I skipped into this after half a season of the show two years ago. It was tough for me to get a bead on Young's character in FOD; if I'd watched more of the show (or, you know, been invested in a reading of the character beyond you abandoned one of your people onplanet, what the heck, the SG unofficial motto is "no one left behind", and that's when I broke up with SGU) I might have a better grounding for how Young evolves through the story.
The last two chapters sort of fell apart for me, because 1.) not that invested in how Young's brain is being colonized from the subconscious up, 2.) Arlington? Arlington? Seriously, wrong for Rush's character and doubly wrong considering what a pain in the neck Arlington burials can be for actual military, 3.) the setup evoked one of my favorite SGA fics, with serious cognitive dissonance. And yet, if you're going to try to sell an OTP, writing out the identity theme in the last section of the last chapter in blazing clarity is a great way to sell it to me.
BTW, I read "Mathematique" (what's up so far), and I am thrilled because the made-up genetics have overlap with SGA trash-talking I did in 2006. Apparently I am not the only person to call shenanigans on bad TV biology, yay!