Ancestor episodes

[crystalswolf]

After watching Stargate Universe's version of what I've come to call the "ancestry episode," I stated to think about the other ancestry eps in Sci-fi. The first I can remember was DS9's that solidified my love of the Odo/Kira relationship. And of course we have Ent's ancestry ep, "E2," that offered several delicious what-ifs. And now SGU.

All three ancestor crews had to deal with the dilemma of their connection to their descendants in various ways. I think all three did a wonderful job with this, but I have to say, I'm impressed with SGU's problem the most. They had to risk their current lives (no security of knowing everything will eventually be all right because of their descendants' history) to save a bunch of people several generations removed but were the children of their children they never knew.

Thoughts on these eps?

[EntAllat]

I saw someone recently refer to descendant episodes as a "Star Trek trope" but I think it is a full-on sci-fi trope. H. G. Wells did it with The Time Machine when he takes his protagonist 800,000+ years into the future and we get to see humanity's descendants. It's a situation that allows us to explore a lot of huge questions: Will I leave something of myself behind? What will my descendants be like? What kind of world will they live in? What will human civilization be like 100, 200, 1000 a million years from now?

But putting aside the literary origins ... I think that when we get fond of characters in our shows its comforting to see them have descendants. Though we rarely like it when they are killed off (I'm looking at you TATV) we do take them to be mortal - for the most part - even in sci-fi. Descendants are a way of making a character go on.

Then too, it's always interesting to see character's reaction to their own descendants, which is what a lot of the episodes do. I like that in SGU's version Rush and Young were still a dividing force in society, even so many centuries later.

[crystalswolf]

I never thought of "The Time Machine," but it's true! But comparing these two ways in how to approach a glimpse of the future, I definitely prefer a character's direct descendants (or at the very least descendants with some close connection). I think it packs more of an emotional punch, at least for me. Didn't realize it was a subject already explored elsewhere and perhaps extensively, was just thinking about the SGU ep and my mind wandered.

Side note. I don't know what it says about me but I prefer the movie (1960) to the book because of one thing and one thing only. At the end of the movie when "George" leaves for good, it's noticed that 3 books are missing and the question is "Which 3 books would you take?" to rebuild a civilization. My imagination could live off of that question alone!

Added: "Back to the Future" movies. They not only had the character meet his descendants but his ancestors as well. So it's definitely not a ST thing.

[Aquarius]

They handled it up to a point in the TNG episode "The Neutral Zone". It wasn't the main characters, but you dealt with people from the past, out of time, and one was looking up present-day relatives as she reconciled her situation.

[crystalswolf]

Also, just realized TOS did as well (in a way). Kaaahhhn!