History Headscratchers / StargateSG1

** The Goa'uld does have genders as symbiotes that's why they have queens and is mentioned that they can be male or female (although sterile). Klorel is mentioned to be Apophis' son in the literal sense (as in made genetically from him). The simplest question is that Osiris was indeed male and identify himself as male but once he entered a female host he was fine with it and run with it, as for why he keeps taking care of his looks (with dressing, make-up, shaving and hair care) probably because Goa'ulds are vane and he doesn't want to look ugly or unkept.

* Carter was born December 1968, yet by the time of "Children of the Gods", she had a PhD in astrophysics, "logged over a hundred hours in enemy airspace during the Gulf War", and spent four years running research on the Stargate at the Pentagon. I could buy that she was a reservist during grad school then called up to active duty for 'gate R&D. But when the Gulf War started, she either would've still been in flight school (which nowadays is at least a year, more for training on specific fighters), or more likely ''she still would've been a cadet.'' Was she a TeenGenius who graduated high school early? It wouldn't be surprising, but AFAIK this was never said canonically.

** The assumption this troper has always made is that he’s retired. Retired officers frequently still go by their rank. Being retired doesn’t change the fact that you were once a Colonel or General. In a formal context he’d be referred to as ‘Colonel Frank Simmons USAF (Ret.)’.

** Judging by Daniel's leg, when they stopped Ba'al from succeeding (even though he and they had already gone back in time), it undid everything that happened since he was executed in the present. [[CloningBlues Supposedly executed]]. Which makes ''no sense'' based on how they treated time travel in previous episodes, and even earlier in the movie. Possibly psychic hallucination. Makes more sense than anything else would.

** Not knowing the upper limit doesn't necessarily mean that it's extremely high, either. It's just like those facetious arguments that [[Franchise/SpiderMan May Parker]] is the strongest being in the Marvel Universe because we've never seen an upper limit to her abilities.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Indentical Stargate glyphs]]

* If the Stargate glyphs are based on Earth constellations (except for the point of origin), why are they identical on all Stargates throughout the galaxy? And for that matter, if the dialing mechanics explained by Daniel Jackson in ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' are supposed to be true, how do constellation-based coordinates allow dialing ''a completely different galaxy'' with only one extra chevron?
** Actually, the one extra Chevron can be explained, as Carter said "It's some kind of new distance vector". Basically "Ok, we start here, point of origin, now aim the wormhole at the spot in the middle of co-ordinates dictated by the other six chevrons, now fire the wormhole, but skip the first gate that you come to, and/or go an extra hundred light years"
** Just to be pedantic, 100 light-years would not be nearly long enough to get to another galaxy. IIRC, the Milky Way itself is about 100,000 light-years in diameter, and the next-nearest Galaxy - Andromeda - is something like two-and-a-half million light-years away.
** Because the Ancients used Earth as the center-point for the gate network. The extra chevron is the equivalent to an area code.
** But even that doesn't make sense, because modern constellations look nothing like they did when the Stargate network was supposedly built.
** Remember how the original TV series pilot retconned the movie. Abydos was the closest system to Earth, and other systems couldn't be reached because the stars had moved enough that the Stargate coordinates no longer worked. Only when they learned to compensate for this drift could they get to other systems. In other words, the "constellations change" thing was taken into account from the very start.
** Still, this doesn't answer the question of why the constellation symbols ''physically carved on the gates'' match the way these constellations appear now, not the way they looked millions of years ago.
** Maybe it's not carved on the gates. Maybe it's nanotech that changes shape when correlative updates are done. That would also explain why the Point Of Origin on the gate was the original one when they used a different gate (but not why the old earth symbol changed to the at in the first place. head meet wall)
** In the original movie, the symbols ''were'' different on different planets. Of course, one doesn't have to think about the geometry very long before realizing that the whole "six points give three connecting lines that intersect at the destination" system really doesn't make sense. Change just one point (I think we've seen addresses that were only one symbol apart), and suddenly you have two intersecting lines and another that touches neither. I prefer to think that [[Main/{{Fanon}} the addresses are actually XYZ coordinates with three two-digit base-38 numbers]], which makes much more sense.
** But the Ancients use Base-8 math. Why would they use a coordinate system in base-38? (I know you said it was fanon and I should take it as such but I couldn't resist.)
** The base-8 math may have been for O'Neill's benefit because he was trying to contact the 4-fingers Asgard. The clocks on SG:Universe and the displays on Atlantis use a base-10 system.
** For what it's worth, there are symbols that aren't on every gate. This may mean that the glyph used to represent a gate address component is a localization.
** In ''Film/{{Stargate}}'', the Earth and Abydos Stargates had different symbols. However, ''Series/StargateSG1'' retconned away this aspect, making symbols on all Milky Way Stargates identical except for the point of origin, which is unique for every Stargate. But then, the movie placed Abydos "at the other side of the known universe"...
** Since the Stargates are spread all over the galaxy and beyond, "at the other side of the known universe"), would the marking constellations look different from each different point?
** A little clarification: "at the other side of the known universe" is a phrase from the movie, referring to Abydos, which is wrong in the series, where Abydos is one of the closest planets to Earth having a Stargate, and is within the Milky Way galaxy. Apart from it, Stargates are present in Pegasus, Ida (the Asgard home galaxy), probably in the Ori galaxy (how would the Priors travel otherwise?), and whatever galaxy ''Stargate Universe'' takes place in. But the Ancients had limited time to plant Stargates throughout galaxies, and with the limitations of the address system they could have linked 38 galaxies, at most.
** It's confirmed that there are Stargates in the Ori galaxy the instant someone from the Ori galaxy gets to our galaxy via a Stargate...
** The "one chevron" difference makes sense if you remember that the intersection point could vary because it might not be between the two stars that are points. Bear with me a second. If you imagine a space, say the room you're in right now. Use 4 symbols to establish a point on the wall to your right. Now put a 5th symbol in the "bottom left back" corner of the room. Now assuming the Stargate use some kind of "tolerance" to snap to a destination gate and two gates close together. You could place that 6th point anywhere in room to get a very precise intersection.
** More importantly, perhaps, how do you use 6 constellations to establish a point in space when constellations are groups of stars that only appear to be close to each other when viewed from Earth?
** I think this is being overthought. Not taking into account all the retcon of how the gate symbols (and the gates themselves) worked, lets look at it from the pure semantics of the symbols. If we assume that the gates are using the 6 points in space as a baseline for a possible destination, then why assume those points in space need to be so specific. It is not so much looking for the specific points in space as it is a general representation of the area. An address (as described in the movie and elaborated on with some retcon in the series) not specific points in space. Adding the 7th (and eventually 8th and 9th) symbol gives an effect of origin, and distance (or some such). It is all very imprecise when you analyze it, but that could be a little FridgeBrilliance if you think in terms of how this tech could have been designed. I would assume a tech this elaborate with this simple of an interface was designed expressly to be used by people that were not as advanced as the Ancients that created it. Like giving a "my first space travel" device to a toddler. Yes, in that analogy, we [humanity] are the toddler. So it more than likely uses some massively advanced AI in the design so that it works even when in theory it shouldn't.
** And let's face it, the movie was never meant to be anything more (aside from potentially a couple more movies) and when you make a series that is lasting 10 seasons (plus two spin-offs) there is going to need to be some serious retcon to keep things somewhat cohesive. They did the same thing with Star Trek over the years and now there is a much more cohesive overall universe that does not quite resemble what it was in the beginning.
** I still like my hypothesis that I typed up somewhere else that, instead of the simple to explain but impractical "6 points to form 3 lines of position to get a fix in space plus a point of origin" system, that it's actually the identity, azimuth and elevation from two pulsars plus the point of origin as a procedural glyph. The point of origin symbol is unique on each gate to indicate what planet you're on. To dial a distant galaxy, you add an 8th symbol just before the point of origin as a sort of area code, as if to say this point between these two pulsars in this other galaxy. The Milky way system uses constellations as seen from Earth as letters in an alphanumeric alphabet because Earth is really important to the Ancients' history, but they don't mean the actual constellations themselves. Other galaxies use local constellations so that no two addresses can be alike.

[[folder:Stargate Mechanics: KillAndReplace?]]

* Does a Stargate really transport you (as the same person), or does it kill you and build a replacement elsewhere? The whole "matter to energy and back to matter" conversion is one of the reasons ''Franchise/StarTrek'' transporters are so controversial with their treatment of personal identity, yet this issue seems to be completely unaddressed in ''Stargate'' fandom.
** It transports the person through Hyperspace to the other gate -- transport isn't instantaneous: it takes a couple fractions of a seconds to send the matter to another Stargate in the same galaxy.
** That sort of misses the point. The question I'm asking is, when you step through a Stargate, undergo "molecular deconstruction" and then get reassembled at the other side, is that person on the other side still ''you'', or just a copy of you, while you are irrevocably gone?
** That is an interesting question, but perhaps we should go into on the DestructiveTeleportation page?
** In the movie and early episodes of SG-1, people were half-frozen and slingshotted out of the Stargate. This implies transportation. I'm not sure, but early on they might have even mentioned sensations during the transport.
** IIRC, the story had no transporter feature - the gates created a stable wormhole that you just walked through. Later on, however, they decided to make it into some kind of teleporter system.
** The whole "Stargate is a kind of transporter" thing has some other problems. We've been told that ''wormholes'' (not specifically ''Stargates'') are one-way for matter, but bidirectional for energy. But if a Stargate works, as it is implied, by converting matter into energy, transmitting it, then reconstructing it on the other end, the reasons for it only going one way break down. We can of course, come up with other reasons for this (That it's a property of the gate mechanism, not the wormhole, or that the "bandwidth" is asymmetric: if there's not enough bandwidth for a radio signal, you get some static. With matter, you arrive without your kidneys) but they don't jive with the on-screen explanations.
** The bandwidth issue would actually explain it. Comparatively small upload is enough for anything we'd treat as energy. The amount of energy in a physical object is humongous compared to this, so the wormhole can't send such a huge amount the other way.
** From what I gather the Stargate disassembles you and sends you through the wormhole atom by atom. You are reassemble with everything in the same position, with no possibility of duplication. The Soul/Death issue is avoided.
** Perhaps it's just a safety precaution hardwired into the gate network. It's known there are dozens of safety precautions the gate system has - it being a plot point at one time that the Earth's custom built interface ignores quite a few of them, including not making a wormhole which goes through a star. It makes sense that after a [[BodyHorror single nasty incident]], the Ancients would quickly just make it impossible at all times to have matter travel in both directions.
** In one episode Teal'c gets "trapped in the buffer" of a Stargate, so presumably there is transference rather than copying, otherwise they'd just have downloaded a copy and erased the original.
** It would be impossible to create a wormhole to transport a person in one piece (more energy then there is in the entire universe). A Stargate creates a very small, stable wormhole (a feat in and of itself) and then the gate identifies the position of every particle in your body, breaks it down, transports it through the wormhole and then reconstructs the person on the other side, including the masses momentum. Electromagnetic radiation is immune to the one way restriction, most likely because the gates can only handle deconstruction/construction in one direction but electromagnetic radiation is already subatomic particles.
** Lets say the gate acts differently on fermions and bosons (look these up on wikipedia if you don't know what they are, I think this is the distinction the first poster was trying to find when saying "matter" and "energy", which wouldn't strictly be correct). Since photons and (conjecturally) gravitons are bosons, they are transmitted back through the gate (as seen in the episode with the black hole). People are made of electrons and nucleons, which are fermions, and it is established that these only go one way. Whether Cooper pairs of electrons can travel backwards through the gate, and what the effect of supersymmetry are left as exercises for the reader.
** Side note: this is a central issue in the 2006 film [[The Prestige]].
** Wait, aren't we forgetting that gate travel is extradimentional? They mention several times in the show that when you travel through the wormhole, that for those few moments, you're going through another dimension (I'm guessing something akin to Hyperspace from StarWars). So I see it not so much as "break you down, chuck your atoms through, piece them back together" as "pull you into another dimension, zoom you to your destination by virtue of space-time bendiness in said dimension, stick you back into your regular dimension upon arrival".
** When you are transported through the Stargate, the event horizon of the wormhole on one side allows the gate to disassemble you, whereupon you are essentially converted to energy that ''travels'' through subspace to the other gate, where the buffer stores the energy that you are made of and reassembles you on the other side of the gate's event horizon. Your consciousness is hence ''transferred'' through subspace. You are in fact traveling from 1 gate to another, however you are just disassembled in the process. It isn't a copy of your mental state but the ''actual energy'' your consciousness is composed of. The reason why the buffer in the gates is necessary is so your entire being - so to speak - can be collected and that energy is converted back to matter. This is how the gate is shown to be working in SG-1 (I haven't watched Atlantis or Universe so I can't speak for those series).
** I was under a completely different assumption based on the movie and the way they showed it. It looked to me like it is pure travel. No transfer of matter into energy (or some more science-y techno-babble). When the team walks through the gate, they just step on through and it makes that bloopy watery sound as they disappear. Daniel is the last to walk through and he "tests the waters" so to speak, sticking his hand in and then putting his face in the thing. It looked to me that what was happening at that point was a warping of his body as it is "stretched" through the space[=/=]time[=/=]dimensional space that connects the two gates. And on the other side, he seems to stumble out, fall down, and be completely disoriented. Something I imagine being stretched across the galaxy (or universe if you deny the retcon from the series) would do to you.
** I got the further impression that at a certain point the gate itself would forcibly pull you through if you put too much of your mass into the entrance, but that is pure conjecture on my part.
** The references to "molecular deconstruction" are just because it sounds cool. It doesn't really make sense, even for a matter-energy conversion transporter, which the Stargate ''technically'' isn't.
** The disassembly/transport/reassembly approach does ''not'' necessarily avoid the issues of death and personal identity invoked by Star Trek -- type teleporters. Yes, you could argue that the "same" particles/energy/whatever that you were originally composed of is making the trip, and that thus your identity is preserved. But is this really significant? Would it actually make any difference to your identity if, while the gate was re-assembling you, some atoms that ''weren't'' part of your original self found their way into your structure? You'd have no way of knowing the difference, as long as they were the same kind of atoms, and fitted into your body in the same way. Imagine it as a thought experiment -- suppose someone just took you apart into a pile of atoms, doesn't matter how, and then somehow put those atoms back together again using a very accurate instructions manual. Would you still be "you" after this re-assembly? Now suppose that instead of reassembling those same atoms into your original self, they used a ''new'' pile of atoms that still had all the exact elements and isotopes needed in the same proportions, but that never formed a part of your body before. They assemble these new atoms into a new "you" using the same "instruction manual." Would you still be yourself after this? Does it make sense for the answer to be "yes" in the first case, but "no" in the second? After all, how would you, or anyone, know the difference? It's not like your original atoms have your name on them somewhere -- a carbon atom is a carbon atom. Assuming all the "new" atoms were of the right type, and put together the right way, would the new "you" be effectively different from the old? So, the answer must either be "yes, you're the same person" in both cases, or "no, you are not the same person" in both cases. Either the Stargate has the same problems as the Star Trek teleporter, or neither has an issue.

[[folder:SGC no DHD]]

* If the slowness of manual dial is a pressing issue, why didn't the SGC integrate the DHD from the Antarctic Stargate (recovered in "Touchstone") into its own dialing mechanism (by, say, concealing it and making a remotely controlled manipulator to press the buttons)? Even if a DHD can only be used with its own Stargate, they could simply replace the Giza Stargate with the Antarctic Stargate when they had both in possession, and just dial it with the DHD.
** They spent an awful lot of time MacGyvering that system together and they're probably loath to get rid of it.
** And Walter has lots of fun EngagingChevrons.
** You can't use a DHD to get to Atlantis.
** For the rare cases when eight-chevron addresses must be used, the DHD can be temporarily disconnected.
** That always bugged me. Couldn't they allow eight-chevron addresses by hitting the big red button first, to tell the DHD "I'm doing a long-distance dial," then the eight glyphs, then the big red button again?
** It was demonstrated in one episode (when they used it for a Tok'ra funeral ceremony) that pushing the big red button before pushing any other buttons just activates the wormhole without a destination, causing an unstable vortex and then immediately shutting down again. Also, pretty sure it was mentioned that a regular DHD doesn't have enough power to connect to another galaxy on its own.
** In any case, the Antarctic DHD, being one of the oldest in the network, ran out of power sometime after it was found. Why no one's tried to recharge it is a different mystery altogether. There's also a security issue- anyone trying to escape the SGC can slap buttons on a DHD, but you'd need at least a password and familiarity with the system to use the dialing computer (though most villains don't seem to have a problem in that regard).
** The people who hijacked the Antarctic Stargate in "Touchstone" repaired the DHD. And I'm not proposing to allow someone to press it directly; it could be concealed and controlled via the dialling computer.
** The Antarctic Stargate's DHD was said to have run out of power ''after'' that. It was obviously an attempt by the writers to cover what would otherwise be a plot hole, but it does explain the problem away. Of course now that Earth has spaceships there's no reason we can't pick up a spare one from another planet.
** Yes there is: It would leave that planet without a DHD. This is just one tropers opinion, but the Ancients probably designed each DHD to only work with a specific Stargate to prevent this from happening. Of course, Stargates can be manually dialed with the help of the circus strongman or friendly neighbourhood Jaffa, so...
** The SGC probably prefers the control that their setup offers in comparison to the DHD.
** That's a good point. Anyone and his mother can activate a Stargate that's connected to a DHD so long as they know at least one valid address. But with the SGC's computerized system the Stargate can ''only'' be activated from one place: the gate control room. With this setup the SGC has much greater control over how, when, and why the Stargate can be activated and who can do so. They can install any number of security measures, such as identity scanners or password programs, making it next to impossible for anyone to activate the gate without official permission (or at least not without someone finding out about it). And when you have dudes like the [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Reetou Reetou]] and the [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Stragoth Stragoth]] running around, preventing unauthorized gate activations is a top priority.
** Another advantage: efficiency. The [[MacGyvering MacGyver'ed]] DHD may dial slower than a regular DHD but it also does it ''automatically'', meaning you can just log into the computer, select "dial Abydos", and let it run. You don't have to worry about "wrong numbers" (so to speak) like you would if you had to use a DHD to dial the gate up by hand (and considering how much it costs just to turn the gate on, the SGC would definitely want to make sure the address is dialled right the first time). Also, exploring the galaxy via Stargate means keeping a database of '''every single world you've ever visited or plan to visit'''. No one human has the mental capacity to memorize each and every one of those addresses, so having a digital database of every single gate address to select from every time you dial up the gate would be invaluable.
** No one, except Rodney [=McKay=]!
** We see in late season 8 that the Alpha Site gate has both a DHD and a Dialing Computer, and the address in dialed through the computer.
** Didn't they blow a DHD getting Teal'c out of the Gate's cache?
** No That was Russia's DHD, which originally went with the Giza Gate. The Russians found it somewhere somehow but didn't get a gate until they ninja-d the one that SG-1 crashed, so it was just the pretty magic button machine.
** Dialling computers can also input all 39 glyphs and have macros set-up for internal gate operations, while any individual DHD only has 38 glyphs (including point of origin glyph) and must be manually taken apart to override most automatic gate features.
** This has always bugged me - if your DHD has 37 glyphs plus one point of origin glyph, but addresses can have any combination of six out of '''''38''''' glyphs, how do you dial a planet that uses the one missing glyph?
** You don't, simple as that. Probably for good reason, like going through a sun or something. Probably have to bounce through a midpoint.

[[folder:Grabbing a new 'Gate]]

* When the Antarctic Stargate was destroyed, why couldn't the SGC simply bring a Stargate from an uninhabited planet (they had FTL starships at that point) instead of having to bargain with Russia about the use of their Stargate?
** I thought "Prometheus" came ''after'' "Redemption"...
** All right, why didn't they use the ''Prometheus'' immediately after "Unnatural Selection" to pick an unused Stargate, and then return the Russian one?
** The Prometheus didn't get a ''reliable'' hyperdrive until season 8: all the homegrown or Goa'uld ones they gave it before that either blew up or were too underpowered for it to do anything but patrol around earth.
** Okay, but go even later to season 9 or 10 and they're still acting like they need the Russian Stargate: the Russians use it as leverage to get a spaceship. Arguably, at this point the threat is more that the Russian Stargate program would interfere with theirs, since the network treats gates on the same planet as identical.
** Except that the Russians managed to find a way around this a third of the way into season 4 ("Watergate"), and they only picked it up at the beginning of the season.
** Better yet, why not just pick up several gates and allow each nation to run their own Stargate program? Admittedly, several gates on one planet could present a problem, but as long as they schedule their departures properly, it could work. As for returning teams, they could have all teams head to the Alpha site first (this would also deal with any issue regarding teams needing to return early for whatever reason) and arrange a "return to earth" schedule.
** While there's no excuse during SG-1's run, at the end of Atlantis, the titular city [[spoiler: returns to Earth, and becomes the dominant gate there. It pretty much cuts out Russia using the Giza gate as leverage, since Atlantis is an International Earth expedition, although it might still be under jurisdiction of the U.S. military. As Atlantis was brought to U.S. territory by U.S. personnel, though, it could justifiably be considered U.S. property at that point.]]
** Wasn't it landed in international waters by an international team?
** [[spoiler: At the end of the episode they say how they're going to return Atlantis to Pegasus, so that's moot.]]
** Note that the Russians sold their gate to the US for the short-lived Korelev. After that, they have no real leverage and don't act like it.

[[folder:Alternate Universes, who cares?]]

* Given the concept of alternate universes, how are we supposed to believe that the events shown have any significance if there is an infinite number of universes in which said events didn't happen? In fact, given that there are infinite universes where the Goa'uld conquered Earth, the entire series seems pointless from a certain perspective.
** You could say that about any concept of parallel universes, and a lot of existential theories too.
** It makes all the difference to the people who live in ''that'' dimension/universe.
** Exactly. It's like saying "Well, if there are other continents, who cares if all the people on this continent die? There'll still be people, with the same number of limbs and heads as the people here, so nothing will change."
** Teal'c said it best: "Ours is the only reality of consequence."
** Think of what you're doing: you're berating a work of fiction you care about enough to watch - that is, an imagined alternate version of possible (or impossible) events which does not exist, for not having any value because there are many possible universes with similar events. How does this not count for every work of fiction in existence, and since there is no reason to believe parallel world can't exist, for ourselves? With proper extrapolation, even your own life should be irrelevant by that criterion, since there are many others living similar lives. The existence of alternate realities then doesn't void the meaning of ours, it merely provides the necessity for the formulation of a [[ThreeLawsCompliant -1st law]] of [[strike:robotics]] universal ethics: You may not damage a universe, or through negligence allow a universe to be damaged.

[[folder:Disappearing Reappearing Jonas Quin]]

* It just bugs me that Corin Nemic was (apparently) summarily fired when Michael Shanks decided 'Oops, maybe I didn't want to leave after all'.
** Speaking of Corin Nemec, it bugs me that his name sounds more alien than that of the alien he played.
** That is because you are (most likely) American.
** Don't know about that guy, but I'm British and it's been bugging me too.
** Nemec could be derived from Czech "Němec" (meaning German), just without diacritics.
** I kinda missed Jonas. Why didn't they make him a recurring character? It seems really strange that Jonas was aware of the immense threat the Goa'uld posed to the galaxy, but didn't ever help in the fight against them after leaving SG-1.
** They mentioned his planet being conquered by the Ori fleet. Not "Jonas's planets," just "Kelowna." No mention of "I hope Jonas is okay." :(
** Nemec only had a one year contract (as they all did) so he was let go for the more popular character/actor when Shanks came back. There was talk of keeping him, but they had a rule of 4 to a team. (Which they "forgot" when Vala showed up) For whatever reason he wasn't considered to be a reoccurring character like Janet.
** To be fair, Michael Shanks didn't decide to just outright quit. It says in the DVD commentary that he left because he had a baby. I find it hard to believe that he would be so devoted to his job to not want to take some time off to be with his newborn child. That being said, it's fairly reasonable to assume that Corin Nemec might have had just a one year contract, after which Michael Shanks was going to return to the show full time.
** According to man himself Shanks left because he didn't like what the writers were doing with his character. He left looking for greener pastures & finding none, came back. The bring back Daniel campaign helped too. He still wasn't happy with the writing for Daniel and that shows in his acting sometimes.

[[folder:Which Came First, God or Goa'uld?]]

* Did the Goa'uld influence Earth mythologies, causing gods to be named after them, or did they themselves adopt the names of already existing Earth gods? And in the latter case... how does it make any sense?
** It's strongly indicated that Earth mythology is cribbed off the Goa'uld, not the other way round. Daniel's comments about how Ra and Apophis were 'living' the book of the dead and how the rivalries match up make it pretty clear that the mythology of the relevant cultures is basically a bastardized version of "At Home with the System Lords". For some reason, however, they never say it unequivocally.
** If that's the case, why do the !Egyptian Goa'uld use Graecophone nameforms? If they really ''were'' the Egyptian gods, Osiris would be Asar, Hathor would have called herself Het-Heru, and Apophis would have been Apep instead. And yet, they weren't. Why?
** They sometimes use alternate names. Notably, in [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/The_Curse The Curse]] Osiris asks Daniel where his (her?) brother Setesh (Seth) was.
** It's because none of the characters ''know'' unequivocally. The only sources of information are distorted ancient myth, and the Goa'uld, who have been bullshitting so long they believe their own press by now.
** Another problem: If ancient Earth mythology is based on (for lack of a better term) "Goa'uld politics", why are there different mythologies for every Earth culture? We've seen more than once that a single Goa'uld is capable of dominating entire planets (probably several planets) so why is there a separate Goa'uld-based mythology for each individual Earth culture?
** The RPG explains that as Earth was was a valuable resource to the Goa'uld (basically a source of human slaves and breeding stocks for their personal worlds), it was divided between them, and as such, each of the major Earth cultures got its own pantheon of "local gods". And they're called what they're called because those are conventional English names for the gods, so this is the result of the Main/TranslationConvention behind Main/AliensSpeakingEnglish at work. For all we know, the names of the System Lords may "really" sound completely different from both English and localized names.
** It's worth noting that there are historical parallels here. For example, in Edo-period Japan one of the policies of the shogunate was the sankin kōtai system. It required every daimyo to periodically move between the capital city of Edo and his han (domain), typically spending alternate years in each place. The whole purpose of the system was to control the daimyos and keep them loyal to the shogun. The idea was that constant travel to and from the capital would put a financial strain on the daimyos (since they would have to spend ridiculous amounts of money maintaining two different lavish residences) so they wouldn't go to war, as well as to encourage trade and economic activity through frequent travel. The shogun also required the wife and heir of each daimyo to remain in the capital year-round as hostages in case any of the daimyos got any funny ideas about independence. King Louis XIV of France also had a similar policy. French nobility had to spend six months out of every year at the Palace at Versailles to assist the King in his duties of state and personal functions (parties, banquets, etc.). We know that Ra ruled over the System Lords for many years. It's possible he instituted a similar system during that time using Earth as the "capital" of his empire.
** Just to expand on this, how come all the Goa'uld can speak English? I mean, call me daft of you like, but I can't see the Goa'uld passing for medieval European gentry (and even that wouldn't be close enough, 19th-century European gentry?).
** It's probably a case of TranslationConvention when the Goa'uld are among themselves or among their Jaffa/Lotars. Otherwise is just pure, shameless AliensSpeakingEnglish.
** It could very well be a mix of both. Remember that there are lots of Goa'uld, lots of different human cultures, and the Goa'uld ruled Earth - parts of it, at least - for thousands of years. Some Goa'uld may have inspired myths while others may have appropriated existing ones. It's stated that some Goa'uld specifically inspired myths about ancient gods, but a relatively young Goa'uld just making a place for himself in the world may have found it easier to impersonate ones that local humans already believed in.

[[folder:Opaque Event Horizon]]

* Why can't Stargates be seen through? Light is a kind of electromagnetic radiation, which can pass through a Stargate in both directions.
** Maybe they are. The event horizon of the Gate behaves like a moving fluid, so light striking it would be refracted and reflected in an effectively random pattern. It's not transparent for the same reason that snow is white and not clear.
** For that matter, the event horizon looks a bit on the blue side. Blue light scatters more through media like air and water.
** Also, the event horizon has some sort of surface tension-like property (I believe we are told this outright), which is probably a design feature to allow things like space gates to work safely. Non-coherent light may just bounce off the surface.
** Yes, in "Watergate" it is outright stated that surface tension prevents things that aren't trying to get through the gate from getting through. Thus, dialing out from a Stargate submerged in water doesn't flood the other end.

[[folder:Stargate Portal Shenanigans]]

* What would happen if you establish a wormhole between two Stargates, then stick one gate halfway into the other?
** Since the "wormholes" are more like dematerialization fields generated by the gates, presumably the gate which is stuck in would cease to function once part of its circuitry crossed the event horizon, collapsing the field, ending the connection, and amputating whatever part of the gate the event horizon covered.
** Assuming you ''could'' establish such a connection. It's been established that when Stargate dials its own address, it gets a busy signal- you can't dial your own planet.
** Yes. It isn't possible to connect two Stargates that are located anywhere near each other. By extension, this also avoids the "infinite fall scenario" that is possible in ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}''.
** However, with ''Series/StargateUniverse'' revealing that the ninth chevron is used to lock a gate address to a specific gate rather than it's location, it's possible that they might explore this scenario in the upcoming series.

[[folder:Building the Dialing Computer]]

* Why did it take the SGC "fifteen years and three supercomputers" to [=MacGyver=] the dialing system? Isn't it as simple as connecting the Stargate to an energy source, rotating the ring and locking chevrons? And for that matter, how did they determine the chevron order if they never successfully dialed it prior to the movie (the unregistered incidents in "The Torment of Tantalus" and "1969" notwithstanding)?
** It's getting the chevrons to actually lock in the first place that was the problem. They had the first six chevrons already via the discovery of the gate.
** They had the order of the glyphs, but how did they deduce that chevrons on the Stargate itself were ordered 7-1-2-3-9-8-4-5-6? And for that matter, how did they determine which chevron was the top one if it (retroactively) looks the same as the other eight?
** Um...what? Seriously, I have no idea what you're talking about.
** The question more or less boils down to "How did they know which end of the thing was "up"?" A gate's got nine or ten (can't recall which, but it's more than they use) chevrons, and you dial an address by lining symbol 1 up with chevron 1, and so forth. But there's not really a particular order to those chevrons. On a combination lock, you've got one mark at the top of the dial that means "Line the number you want up with this," but a Stargate's got ten of those instead of just one. But I think this goes back to the "How do you actually signal that you want the position the wheel is in now to count?" question: whenever you do the thing that means "I've got the wheel where I want it" (probably reversing direction), the "next" chevron lights up, which means you've only got to try dialing it once to deduce the location of the first six chevrons (It's only the seventh chevron that fails to lock if an address is invalid). And then three more tries to find which chevron is seventh.
** Yes, I was wondering exactly that. (There are nine chevrons, by the way.) And in the series, the top chevron is easily determined because it's the only one that locks, others just light up. However, here's another question: how did they determine which side of the Stargate was the front if it looks symmetrical?
** Uh, it isn't symmetrical that way: the back doesn't have the ring or the chevrons, it's just flat with some engraving on it. You just don't see it that often, is all.
** And in [[TheMovie the original movie]], it was even easier to orient the Stargate: most chevrons have a \|_|/ shape, while the top one appears to have more of a \\|-|// shape. This is seen when Daniel identifies the seventh symbol in the address.
** They spent 15 years, obviously, answering the "How do you actually signal that you want the position the wheel is in now to count?" question.
** A possible explanation for how they discovered the order is that when the SG-1 dialed the Stargate in 1969, there was a security camera watching. They would have seen the chevrons lighting up (And the order in which they did so), but the video quality might have been low enough that they couldn't make out details (Like which symbols were dialed).
** The dialing computer doesn't just manually dial the gate. It's tied into the gate and sends and retrieves information from it. That's how they get gate diagnostics. There are a number of episodes that show this but you just need to watch red sky or 48 hours to get the idea.
** RED SKY: SAM: (Somberly) No. Sir, we bypassed some of the normal dialing protocols. The fact is, this planet is dying, and it's probably because of us.
** 48 HOURS: MCKAY:The Gate wasn't meant to be used without a dialing device. Your computer system ignores 220 of the 400 feedback signals the Gate can emit during any given dialing sequence. It is a fluke that you picked up the buffer warning, for that matter, I'm surprised that you even bothered to abort the dialing sequence despite the error.
** Also, "connecting the Stargate to an energy source" isn't the most trivial thing in the world. The thing is made out Unobtanium and its control systems are crystals. Working out a way to deliver power to it was no small task, and once that was done, there was still the matter of working out voltages and amperages, and phases and frequencies and all that. With their resources, getting "enough" power wouldn't be a problem, but getting the ''right'' power would be rather tricky given that the physical properties and the principles of design were largely unknown. Ever tried to find a compatible DC adapter for some random electronic gizmo? And those at least are made from earth materials and some of the parts are almost certainly labeled. It's probably comparable to the scene in ''Back To The Future III'' where Doc and Marty try to come up with a replacement fuel source for the car -- except that blowing out the fuel injector during trial-and-error was not an option. The times we've seen them put a gate on external power in the show, it's generally been with a Naquadah generator (or quantum mechanical alchemy), and in those cases, they had the benefit of already knowing how to do it.
** Actually, not always. In "The Torment of Tantalus", they power the Stargate from lightning. (A very [=BTTFish=] solution...)
** And from ''car engines'' in 1969!
** It's been established that the Stargate's Unobtainium acts as a sort of capacitor for all sorts of energy. Basically they just had to throw any form of energy at it and wait until fully charged. Of course, as they didn't know that at first and as they surely didn't want to fry the supposedly delicate alien tech, they might have been wary to attempt a direct linkup to the nearest nuclear reactor...
** It will absorb any form of energy, but it might not be absorbed efficiently. In 'Heroes', Carter claims that the gate consumes 25% more energy in the SGC than with a DHD.
** It's also not all that safe to just plug the gate into any old power source. In a flashback from 'The Torment of Tantalus' Ernest tells Catherine that one of the generators exploded while they were trying to power up the gate back in the 1950s.
** Having done a bit of research (watching and looking at pictures on the interwebs) I looked at the gate and had a FridgeBrilliance moment regarding the gates and their theoretical limitations on combinations (and why it took them 15 years to figure it out). Look at this render [[http://images.wikia.com/stargate/images/8/82/Stargate_Render.png of a Stargate]] (it is nearly identical to the gate on the show). It looks to me like there is no one way up. Now if we do some extrapolation on things that have never been confirmed or denied on the show, what if EACH of the 9 chevrons CAN be a locking mechanism for a symbol. Now combine that with the potential of them also being able to be locked in any order... you have potentially millions or billions of possible codes that a gate could dial! Not just 38 galaxies, based on the 38 symbols, but taking those symbols and locking them in different places and in different orders and combined with the 9 potential symbols to lock in... the possibilities become insane for how many ways a gate could be dialed. In fact, if it were a possibility, then it is probably more of a miracle that they figured it out in ONLY 15 years.
** If we were to assume the number of chevrons locked for an appropriate address were between 1 and 9, that would be 79,460,340,751,779 possible permutations of glyphs without repeats and and 214,221,212,768,199 permutations of glyphs with repeats. That's a lot of choices. [[note]]This is based on adding the number of permutations possible for choices between 1 and 9 out of 39 different symbols. Look [[https://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/combinations-permutations.html here]] for some details.[[/note]]
* You're wondering why it took so long? Imagine trying to code something for Windows on a Linux machine without any reference manual or platform-independent coding language. Now imagine a Windows Machine [-FROM SPACE!-].
* There's also the matter of accidentally blowing the Stargate up were you to feed it too much or the wrong type of energy, sure in a life or death situation they might in a pinch, hook it up to a lightning conductor and hope for the best, but for day-to-day use by the military they might not want to risk destroying the planet. The DHD, regulates the power-flow to the gate, presumably when the military built their computer they had to build this bit too

[[folder:Mechanics of Manual Dialing]]

* On the subject of manual dialing: you can input power from any source and turn the ring by hand? OK fine, but once you've lined the symbol you want up with the right chevron, how do you tell the gate "Next symbol lined up, input this". It's not as if it has an 'enter' key, or any built-in controls at all actually.
** Maybe combination-lock style? Reverse direction once the glyph is lined up? (I think that's how it looked, anyway.)
** I think there is a signal, perhaps something that can easily be simulated directly from the "manual power source" provided the user is familiar enough with the tech (and honestly, why would you be rigging up power sources to [[Main/ImportedAlienPhlebotinum something you didn't know how to use?]])

[[folder:How, exactly, does the [=McKay=]-Carter space bridge work?]]

* Do you just dial the midway station and the intermediate gates all link up? Is there an episode that explained this more thoroughly?
** It's implied early on that matter is transferred from one gate to the next, in turn, so you are stored-and-forwarded some 18 or so times until you hit Midway. However, they very quickly use the gate-bridge for live radio transmissions, so that explanation doesn't work anymore.
** You don't dial the Midway Station, you dial the first Milky Way gate. Sam and Rodney hardwired the intermediate gates to automatically dial the next one in line (there was a graphic and everything!). Similarly the macro entered at the Midway Station dials the first gate on the way to Pegasus, and the hardwired gates go all the way to the first gate outside Pegasus. At this point the macro dials Atlantis.
** Also, [=McKay=] mentioned that they had altered the programming of the Stargates used to build the bridge to suit their purposes, as well as preventing any other Stargate outside of Atlantis and the SGC from being able to access them.
** Which is ''perfectly safe'' as long as the enemy doesn't remember that they live in a Hollywood Math universe where all encryption can be broken by any moderately smart person in the universe inside of eight hours, or two seconds before the deadline, whichever comes first. Oh, wait....
** This always bugged me. How could it possibly work? They'd need Stargates that can work in space. Fine for the Pegasus side of the bridge, but the Milky Way doesn't have space gates.
** The Milky Way gates work fine in space. Remember when Carter blew up a sun? They're just not usually kept in space, probably because there's only about one Puddle Jumper in the entire Milky Way. Or... two, depending on how you count it when it went back in time. And then didn't. I don't know. Moebius just bugs me.
** Any Stargate can be a space gate. Remember when they attached an external power supply to the gate, dialed it, and chucked it out the cargo bay into the black hole? We already know that Naquadah is practically indestructible, why wouldn't it work in space?
** The gate bridge cannot possibly work, the problem with dialing Earth from Atlantis was not having enough power for a long distance connection, but even if the travel is split over a whole bunch of gates, you still need the same total amount of power? Where do the forwarding gates get it from? is there a Naquadah generator strapped to each one? And clearly radio communication would be impossible.
** Who says every intermediate Gate is just floating in space with a couple Naquadah power packs on it? Furthermore, why leave behind the DHD when you steal the Gate for this bridge? And DHDs have the power source for the standard Stargate. Take the DHD apart to hardwire the power supply and dialing computer to the appropriate Gate, then place it in the right spot.
** It seems to me that, 1.) information is transferred much faster than matter, and 2.) gate power requirements are logarithmic or exponential. Sending a gate twice as far might take four times as much power.
** I'd regard the bridge as using the equivalent logic as a game of golf. One person is generally not able to hit the ball all the way to the green. Instead you hit the ball part the way and then from there you hit it again. The ability to hit a ball X meters 10 times is completely different from the ability to hit it 10*X meters in one go. In this case it'd be like the difference between having one golfer standing at the tee and trying to reach the green and having a whole bunch of golfers each hitting the ball to the next until it eventually gets there.
** Which episode(s) had them use live radio transmission through the gate bridge? I don't remember it off the top of my head. Transmitting a radio signal through the gate bridge makes as much sense as transmitting a person and would work the same way. Normally, radio signals can pass both ways through an open gate but since the matter is being stored (and the next gate doesn't actually open) the radio signal would be stored in the buffer too. Since multiple people can walk into a gate in order and then come out in order, the buffer must be cleared in some sort of order. So a radio signal could also be sent in advance of a person's arrival (to allow them time to open the iris) without violating any rules. However, if there's live back and forth communication that definitely doesn't make sense.
*** There is at least one episode where Daniel and others are in trouble on the station and he tells Teal'c to come through the gate as they're fighting someone.

[[folder:Iris Alternatives]]

* It rather bugs me that it seems even the Ancients couldn't come up with a friendlier way of preventing incoming travelers than a barrier over the event horizon that would smash unwanted guests into atoms (Excluding disabling the gate altogether by sticking something big in the middle or pulling the plug). I can maybe get behind humans not being able to do better (though I've got some clever ideas involving placing two gates face-to-face), but with the thing having a pattern buffer, you'd think the folks who built the darned thing could come up with a Sufficiently Advanced Decontamination Chamber.
** Good point - ''Anubis'' was able to build himself that 'send you somewhere else' device for the planet with his personal genetics lab, so why not the people he stole his tech from?
** For the most part the Ancients didn't go to war much--they were wiped out by a plague, with the exception of the Lanteans who didn't seem to be as smart as the MW-based Ancients.
** Anubis's "call forwarding" device probably ''was'' Ancient in origin, given that all of his other above-Goa'uld-norm technology came from his knowledge of the Ancients. Most likely it's something they invented after abandoning Atlantis, though. And given that when they were living in Atlantis, any unauthorized use of the Stargate would surely have been by the Wraith, having the uninvited guests splatter against the shield would've been considered a nice bonus, not a shortcoming.
** Is that canonically the ''only'' way to prevent it? It seems inconceivable that they wouldn't have designed some way to screen unwanted calls. On the other hand, AFAIK the gate system hasn't undergone maintenance recently; the Goa'uld (or the Wraith, or some other bad guy) may have discovered an unpatched exploit in the system which lets them bypass the filters on any gate.
** There ''is'' a way to "screen unwanted calls". When the Ancients left Atlantis in "Before I Sleep", they locked its Stargate so that it could be only accessed from Earth. It just isn't used widely because it's inconvenient, and the Tau'ri probably lack the knowledge to reprogram this defense system. Also, it's possible that this is limited to Pegasus, since its gate system looks more secure overall (for example, only the Atlantis gate can dial other galaxies).
** On the subject of dialing other galaxies, that's not a quirk of the Pegasus gate network, but rather one of Atlantis's control system. The dialer in Atlantis has a control crystal that allows input of an eighth chevron, which run-of-the-mill [=DHDs=] lack. Install that crystal in any given DHD and the gate it's attached to can dial other galaxies. The same applies to the Milky Way gate system. The SGC can dial out because it's using its own custom dialing computer rather than a normal DHD.
** What about a big room with metal walls, and you open the door when you're okay with the visitors? That always seemed like a quick fix to me.
** There are already Sufficiently Advanced Decon Chambers that act as big rooms with metal walls -- the Asgardian Thor's Hammer and Human Gate Room, for example. The problem is that we're talking a setting where people routinely make planet-busting bombs, and the gate itself is a very, very big bomb ready to go off if anything too big goes boom near it. You can block all incoming calls completely, or limit it to a very small number of gates, but if you're letting anything unknown through in the first place there's too much opportunity for damage. The Tau'ri don't set it to always-off mode because the gate system is also their only (in earlier seasons) or primary method of communication and travel; there's no telling when a Stargate team might need to dial in after gating or being moved to a different planet than they were assigned to, and the only way to check whether an incoming call is good or bad is to turn off call-blocking.
* Who says the Ancient's didn't have a better way? In canon there's a lot of the Stargate system humans don't understand (hence the episode where ignoring a warning led to disaster). Just because the Pegasus gate has an Iris doesn't mean that's the only way the Ancients knew of to prevent unwanted dialing. Seems to me that keeping out unwanted dialings and stopping enemy soldiers from attacking you are two different things, the fact that the ancients used an iris to perform the second doesn't preclude them from having something to do the first. To use an internet analogy compare blocking ports (iris) to firewalling (allow certain things through and not others). Both have their uses, neither negates the other.

[[folder:Where does the iris go?]]

* ''Into'' the Stargate?
** It's about three micrometers in front of the event horizon.
** This is not what I asked. Where does it fold into?
** Main/{{Hammerspace}}!
** Probably somewhere behind the gate. Unless the gate just has unused space inside the ring that the SGC decided to make use of.
** The took off the gate's faceplate added the machinery, then modified the faceplate to fit the machinery. Just like changing the faceplate on your computer so it can hold another cd tray except instead of replacing with a new plate they modified the old one.
** Speaking of the iris, with the way it folds around itself at the center of the gate, there must be a hole between the plates. I didn't hear any references to them using a metal that could be made as strong as a solid block of steel yet as thin as to make the hole in the center small enough not to let a high-pressure jet of gate-traveler puree through.
** The original iris was made of Titanium (outright said so in "Children of the Gods) which would suit this purpose just fine as it is stronger than steel at half the weight. The second iris (installed after the original was destroyed when they dialed into a black hole) was made of Trinium which is hundreds of times stronger than even that. Although there wouldn't be any traveler puree as the iris prevents any matter sent through the Stargate from reintegrating at all.
** This. They stated that the iris was close enough to the event horizon that matter did not even reintegrate. It didn't matter how much mass the bad guys threw through the gate. Matter doesn't even reintegrate, so what ends up hitting the iris is a subatomic particle stream. It creates heat and a burst of radiation (you often see teams analyzing the radiation, and from that they can determine what kind of matter they tried to send through). So the iris doesn't necessarily have to be "strong", it just has to be heat and radiation resistant.

[[folder:Forgotten Superweapon, Part I]]

* For that matter, what happened to Sokar's iris-melting weapon? Even if Apophis didn't use it because he was bound by the Protected Planets Treaty at that time, why didn't Anubis use it right after his plan to devastate Earth by blowing up its Stargate failed?
** Did they ever say that Sokar's weapon was something the Goa'uld could build? It might also have been a one of a kind Ancient device; alternatively, Anubis might not have thought of it. He pursued his goals, but was more fond of brute force than anything else. He tried to destroy the SGC from remote once, when it failed he probably gave up on the easy incrementally more powerful attacks one after the other motif and decided that next time he'd just bring a fleet of motherships and conquer the whole planet. You have to admit the whole "you beat my 10th most powerful weapon, so I will send my 9th most powerful weapon against you" thing is a bit stupid.
** They did manage to duplicate the effects of Sokar's weapon on Earth when O'Neill was trapped on an alien planet when the local Stargate was buried after an explosion (which made him believe it was destroyed). It took them several months, and it doesn't specify whether alien technology was used, but if the people at SGC can accomplish that, you'd think that it wouldn't be difficult for Goa'uld to do the same.
** I assumed it was Sokar's tech. The system lords don't generally share technology with each other. Unless anther system lord found the weapon no one else would have it.
** Which means that when Apophis took over Sokar's forces, he inherited the weapon. But when Apophis's forces were wiped out, the technology was probably lost.

[[folder:Earth's Correct Point-Of-Origin]]

* If the SGC's Stargate was brought to Earth by Ra, why does it have Earth's point-of-origin symbol on it? Shouldn't it have a completely different one?
** There is no "Earth point of origin" per se. Points of origin are unique to Stargates, not planets -- for example, the Antarctic Stargate, Earth's original one, has a different symbol. Sun-over-Pyramid just came to be associated with Earth in Goa'uld-associated cultures because nobody knew about the other Stargate.
** Hmmm. It seems like an awful big coincidence that the symbol which is only coincidentally associated with Earth is also the first letter of "Atlantis" in Ancientese.
** Maybe Ra took that Stargate from a planet that was once more closely associated with Atlantis than Earth.
** Doesn't O'Neill identify the lost city as "Terra Atlantis"? Supposing that Atlantis was at some point more closely associated with some other planet, and, by coincidence, Ra raided that planet for a spare Stargate.
** Now that I think of it, a simpler answer might be what we actually see: the At symbol is still on the gate even during the seasons where they were using the Antarctica gate. Maybe that symbol ''does'' mean "Earth", and whatever gate you plug in to Earth's position in the network will "grow" an At symbol in that position.
** This was probably just a production error -- they didn't bother to modify the main prop. And I only remember two episodes in which it was seen: "Window of Opportunity" and "Watergate". The DHD in "Solitudes" shows a [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Image:0eb.svg different symbol]]. Since it was Earth's original Stargate, it's logical to assume that the symbol is Earth's original POO.
** That still doesn't explain why Ancient databases like Merlin's phase-shifting device and the Atlantis hologram room show Milky Way addresses ending with the sun-over-pyramid symbol rather then the circle-and-line symbol.
** Perhaps 'At' is just the standard Point of Origin symbol, and only planets that were of particular importance to the Ancients had specific ones. Maybe that's the real reason that the vast majority of the other Stargates have the 'At' symbol on them - it's not that the prop department only had two mock-up gates (one of which was permanently on-set), it's that this just happens to be the placeholder symbol until the Ancients wanted to give it a planet-specific one.
** My concern with the whole point-of-origin thing was SGU. They had to use Earth's point of origin to dial Destiny no matter what planet they were on (Eli stated it was more of a code than an address). The problem: the original Ancient gate that would've been on Earth when Destiny was sent out was the Antarctic one, that had the point of origin from Solitudes. But they used the point of origin from the gate Ra brought to earth to dial Destiny. We know the system is intelligent in some way (perhaps Ra recoded the system to make that the new default Earth gate), and it knew to use the "current" Earth point of origin rather than the original. But it's still weird, knowing what we know from Solitudes. Other times when they are using the Antarctic gate and you see the Ra gate point of origin is just due to stock footage, I give them a pass on that.
** Solitudes established that the Antarctic gate point of origin was Earth's original point of origin. That was the original gate put there by the Ancients, and it would've been the point of origin for that gate that would've been part of the code to dial Destiny. All Ancient writings referring to Earth should've showed the Antarctic gate point of origin for Earth. Scenes from the season where they have that gate in the SGC, but showing the Ra gate point of origin can be excused - it's because they're using stock footage for the gate dialing (it was a very expensive effect to create). Ancient writings showing the Ra gate point of origin, and having to use that point of origin to dial Destiny are production errors. Most likely, the team writing the later season episodes simply forgot about Solitudes - it was a season 1 episode after all.

[[folder:Hammer Time Pressure]]

* In "Thor's Hammer," if I recall correctly, Teal'c is stuck on the wrong side of a doorway that can remove Goa'uld possession, and his offer of a heroic sacrifice is rejected and the device is destroyed. But, again if I remember right, there was no time pressure. Surely they could've at least tried to remove the machine, study it for duplication, temporarily disable it, or dynamite out a back door.
** Asgard tech was at that point so much more advanced than Tau'ri tech, that a Neanderthal would probably have more success with overriding a modern alarm system.
** Or make another trip to Chulak, retrieve a symbiote, and give it to Teal'c after he passes the device. Yes, there were many better options, and the only OOU reason to destroy the Hammer was so that they could meet the Asgard later. But that's one of the points of SG-1: they're just humans, they make mistakes, and every mistake has consequences.
** There is a good chance that if they picked up another snake, the hammer-scanner by the gate would find and take it into the labyrinth, leaving the team at square one. Besides, Chulak is unfriendly territory.
** I believe it's safe to assume SG-1 had to blow up the hammer statue, as well, in order to allow Teal'c to leave without being swished back to the prison caves, leaving the subterranean force field pretty superfluous. It was simply a time-saving measure.
** I believe the counter-suggestion is "Remove Junior, hustle Teal'c back through the Gate before he goes septic, then send someone off to Chulak to steal him a new belly-snake. Tremendously risky, but probably better for diplomatic purposes than destroying the Hammer. Either they didn't think of it, or their risk assessment process led them to believe such a plan risked more than it saved.
** By that point in the series, Chulak was more or less a no-fly-zone for the Tau'ri, since they'd been there a couple times already, and Goa'uld larvae in particular were ''much'' more heavily guarded. Stealing one would've been a mission unto itself, and valuable as Teal'c is, they probably weren't going to risk losing RedShirt after RedShirt just for his sake.
** It seems that the easiest way to steal a symbiote would be to find a Jaffa, shoot him in the face, and pull the snake out of his belly.
** AndAnotherThing, since we're on the topic of Thor's Hammer anyway: why, oh why, would you send a Jaffa with you on a mission to a [[ForbiddenZone world quarantined by the Goa'uld System Lords]] because [[NothingIsScarier an unspeakable thing occurs and all Goa'uld who go there never return?]] Even if they had no reason to suspect that the Hammer was an automated weapon, bringing with you a member of the race that these aliens are hostile to, rebel or otherwise, is just asking for trouble.
** If you think about how often Teal'c actually got them into trouble, you have to wonder if it was worth it. Or if they should have made him wear a baseball cap and leave the staff weapon. I mean, Wernher von Braun wasn't wearing his Nazi-uniform when he worked at NASA either.
** They were expecting to be able to ''talk'' with the Asgard when they got there. One assumes they would have explained that Teal'c no longer serves the Goa'uld and personally vouched for him. They weren't expecting a magic hammer to whisk him off to an underground labyrinth.
** Given the lack of time pressure, and the immense value of a device that ''cures Goa'uld possession'', especially that early in the series, I'm surprised (from a Watsonian perspective) that they didn't just opt to leave Teal'c trapped there permanently (or for however long it took to think of a workable safe alternative -- years, if necessary). This would be a cruel fate, but not *so* horrible -- they could keep Teal'c supplied with all the comforts of home through the gate, there'd surely be scientists constantly there trying to study the Hammer, so he wouldn't be alone, SG-1 could drop by for the occasional visit, he could be kept up to date with the news, etc. Heck, they could give him a portable generator, a TV with a VHS player, and let him spend a year or two watching every Earth movie ever made. :P And again, you get to keep a device that ''cures Goa'uld possession''.
** If nothing else, they could have at least discussed their options. They could have spent a day or two bringing some engineers in, seeing if they could safely dig into the cave and bypass the hammer and get Teal'c out that way, then seal it up again. As to the question of whether Teal'c would be unable to go back through the gate, the actual teleporting part of the hammer wasn't actually seen getting destroyed. Yet obviously they did get Teal'c off the planet. Either they'd have to have destroyed that separately or they'd have to have sneaked past it (keep in mind it had to scan everyone before finding Teal'c so it's possible that Teal'c could have gotten to the gate before the scan got to him, even if it took a few attempts and bringing a few people to distract it). If it did have to be destroyed, Goa'uld wouldn't be automatically transported to the cave anymore, but you can still leave the Goa'uld destroying part intact which would still be very useful.

[[folder:Slacking Soldiers]]

* In "Children of the Gods", what possible reason would the five {{Red Shirt}}s in the very beginning have for choosing to play cards on the lowest, [=28th=], level of a decommissioned facility when only a few top ones were actually in use by NORAD at that point?
** I just figured it was because they were slacking off and didn't want to get caught. As you said, anyone who could catch them would be on the upper levels. As for why they chose the room with the Stargate in particular... maybe it had some serious-looking "Keep Out" signs on the door and they just couldn't resist.
** My theory was they were assigned to guard the gate, but nobody had told them ''why'' it was important. They think they're just doing make-work, and nobody ever checks what they're doing, so it's not too improbable they'd get rather slack. If they were just slacking off, I doubt they'd have their rifles in the room with them.
** I always thought that this was pretty clearly the intent. Their standard post is to stand there and guard that room, they've been doing it for weeks if not months, and since nothing ever happens they got pretty complacent.

[[folder:Prior Daniel Failsafe]]

* Why didn't Daniel burst into flame at any point when he was turned into a Prior? He was against the Ori, wasn't he?
** That one Prior who did burst was a Jaffa. It may have been unique treatment. We don't know if such a "precaution" is installed in all Priors -- in fact, all de-brainwashed Priors in ''Ark of Truth'' remained alive. (No, we also saw the very first Prior self-immolate around the third episode of Season 9.)
** Also, Daniel had help from Merlin.
** It's also a possibility that Daniel was the exception, not the Jaffa. If we assume for a moment that the "burst into flames" thing is a failsafe placed in all Priors, then I think Adria deliberately left it out of Daniel because if he died, she would lose the knowledge needed to build Merlin's weapon. True, Daniel might betray her, but she likely assumed that even if he did, there would be no way he could outsmart her. But as stated by the previous troper, Merlin helped.
** Didn't Adria skip the mental conditioning part of the prior-making process because she wanted the knowledge in Daniel's mind? The self immolation thing is probably some sort of implanted subconscious command.
** I believe it's assumed that the self-immolation is a triggered ability (like everything else they do), as a Prior captured by SGC set himself ablaze in order to prevent them from gaining information from him. If the Ori had the ability to trigger it themselves he would have burst into flames the moment he stepped into the SGC under SG-1's control.

[[folder:Stargate: MadeOfExplodium]]

* According to the earlier episodes, Naquadah is extremely volatile. Why, oh WHY would the Ancients [[MadeOfExplodium build Stargates out of it? Or the Gou'ald for that matter...]]
** Naquadah is able to interact with neutrinos (subatomic particles emitted from nuclear events which pass through normal matter as though it's not there), this is what provides most of the energy to make the wormhole.
** Naquadah is stable -- it's naquadria, its unstable variation, which is problematic.
** ''Some'' Naquadah is stable. There is also weapons-grade Naquadah (Naquadria is unique to Jonas Quinn's world) which you can make bombs out of, and you can also make something like a nuclear reactor from the stuff. That said, it's not ''extremely'' volatile. They used it, I assume, for the same reason you can make stuff very strong by adding a bit of depleted uranium. It's a ridiculously heavy superconductive element with some unstable isotopes.
** Naquadah is stated to be a super-heavy element. It's located in a still hypothetical in the real world island of stability that's speculated to exist in atomic numbers higher than known elements in the periodic table. If such a thing exists in reality, it is *probably* radioactive, but in the way that bismuth is. Bismuth-209 was long thought to be stable, but presumed to be radioactive on theoretical grounds. It was finally proven mathematically to be radioactive, but its half life is 10 billion times the age of the universe. Naquadah is most likely the same - technically radioactive, but decays so slowly that it's safe to deal with as if it were stable. *Naquadria* on the other hand, is a highly unstable radioactive isotope of Naquadah (probably with an extra neutron or two).
** Naqadah magnifies conventional and nuclear explosions. As for the Stargates, that's a bit that was grandfathered over from the Emmerich movie.
** Didn't the nine-chevron planets have Naquadria cores?
** Maybe Naquadah is like nitroglycerin. It's naturally unstable, more effective when properly mixed, but can also be mixed to form stable compounds such as dynamite. And like nitroglycerin, it's safe to have in your body in small quantities (Carter and O'Neill have Naquadah in their blood because of the symbiotes).
** Because the very properties that make Naquadah so devastatingly explosive when triggered are also the properties that make a Stargate ''possible''. Stargates function ''because'' they're made of Naquadah; no other material would work.
** Ruled out by Orlin's 'toaster' Stargate in ''Ascension''. The ''Universe'' Stargates also appear to have a much more machine-like structure, and are very easily damaged.
** IIRC the toaster gate was specifically mentioned to only work the one time before burning out.

[[folder:Goa'uld Language]]

* How can the word "Goa'uld" even exist in their own language, considering they just call themselves gods?
** I think Daniel said in an early episode that "Goa'uld" ''is'' the Goa'uld word for "God".
** "Goa'uld" actually means "children of the gods". So that makes no sense.
** Not so. Gods are the children of other gods. Just like "children of men" is sometimes used to refer to all of humanity.
** Goa'ulds think they're gods. Sense doesn't enter into it.
** I always got the feeling that the name Goa'uld in its meaning as "children of the gods" referred to the species as a whole, who in their religious dogma were regarded as demigods, with only the System Lords being true gods. Consider the fact that no System Lord ever seems to think that ordering Jaffa to kill lesser Goa'uld might damage the belief that the System Lords are immortal gods.
** The writers needed to refer to them somehow, and I think they wanted to be clever combining "gold" and "au", the symbol for gold on the periodic table. Stick the "au" in the middle of "gold".
** Also, the bastardized pronunciation of "Goa'uld" used by much of the cast, "Gould," bears a strong resemblance to "ghoul," an undead creature that feasts on corpses. A fitting epithet for the overdressed, boombox-voiced snake-in-the-heads.
** The word Goa'uld probably predates the Goa'uld calling themselves gods. In [[Recap/StargateSG1S1E5TheFirstCommandment The First Commandment]] Hanson started calling himself a god. He no longer called himself a man. The Goa'uld word for their species was probably something different, such as Bobs. They had a concept of gods and hence a word for it (Goa'uld). When they decided to pose as gods, they started stopped calling themselves Bobs and started calling themselves Goa'uld.

[[folder:First Church Of Origin, Reformed]]

* At the end of ''Ark of Truth'', Tomin decides to revise Origin into a "real" religion seeking ascension and self-perfection. However, Origin is heavily based on accepting that the Ori are gods, and now Tomin's people know that the Ori are ''dead''. If the bits about the Ori are to go, how much of the original (pun not intended) Origin will remain at all?
** It's not all the bits about the Ori, it's the rules the Ori imposed which Origin followers now realize were in place to prevent others from actually ascending and gaining the Ori more power for themselves.
** The Priors learned the truth, not necessarily all the followers.
** Apparently, Origin contains some good moral messages in among all the "burn the heretics" stuff. Once Tomin had no need to worry about blasphemy he could focus on the good stuff while ignoring the bad, there's something to be said for a religion in which no one actually believes the supernatural aspects.
** Actually, it has been stated that the Book of Origin itself doesn't contain any of the "burn the heretics" stuff and the Ori and priors use their authority to interpret it that way to get the masses to kill for them. From "Origin":
--->'''Doci''': The book of Origin says, those who seek the path of enlightenment must NOT be led astray.\\
'''Daniel''': Right. See, that can be interpreted a number of different ways.

** From "Line in the Sand":
--->'''Tomin''': ...Hundreds will die because of your friends' treachery.\\
'''Vala''': Innocent people...You're not happy about that.\\
'''Tomin''': No... He twisted the meaning.\\
'''Vala''': Who?\\
'''Tomin''': The Prior. He changed the meaning of the story of Markon to suit the situation: to justify killing villagers.
** Speaking of the Priors, has there been any information on what happened to them following the end of ''Ark of Truth?''

[[folder: Tok'ra Tunnel Redecorating]]

* How come the look of the Tok'ra tunnels changed between the third and fourth season?
** Didn't they switch bases during that time?
** They changed bases multiple times over the series, but the ones seen in seasons two and three look different than the ones seen later on.
** EvolutionaryRetcon perhaps?

[[folder:Why even HAVE a Point of Origin?]]

* If you have to dial it every time, why doesn't it just automatically send it? I mean, we don't have to dial our own phone number every time we call for pizza. And what's it used for? There's no "Caller ID"
** One theory is that the Point of Origin serves as a sort of "Enter" key for a given Stargate, signaling the gate that you're done dialing.
** Except that the DHD already has an "Enter" key- that button in the middle. Probably a function to protect the unintelligent.
** AFAIK, that 'button in the middle' on a DHD ''is'' the Point of Origin key. I'll have to pay attention the next time I see Daniel dial on a DHD, but I'm pretty sure of this theory ...
** People are seen dialing six and seven symbols throughout the years. but i think the previous poster is right and any time they dial seven its a production error (like the chevrons lit up one by one on incoming wormholes. Although I have a theory on that ill put forth in the relevant section) But you can set a gate to only accept addresses from certain gates if you are smart enough so the idea of adding call id to the system is probably the reason points of origin exist. The Ancients were just showing uncharacteristic foresight :P
** I think it is a backup for manual dialing to let the gate know that you have entered the complete address (like the "call" button on a mobile phone)
** If the "constellations" are indeed some kind of co-ordinate system (problematic, but not impossible) then a Point of Origin is actually needed to chart a wormhole's course, and determine that nothing untoward will happen (for instance, the wormhole travelling through a star, which a properly-functioning 'Gate should prevent.) I also believe that this is why the Giza DHD exploded when they used it to rescue Teal'c. If the Giza 'Gate and DHD were indeed brought to Earth by Ra, then the 'Gate/DHD thought it was on another planet. When it tried to connect to a new Stargate, it would send it's POO information, saying "this is where I am." The receiving 'Gate would say "No, you're not, you're here." Subtle lag every dialing, because the Giza 'Gate always defaulted to whatever planet it was originally on, before being corrected and told it was on Earth. Finally, it was hooked up to the Stargate to reintegrate Teal'c (something neither the 'Gate nor DHD was ever intended to do) and the whole thing just shorted out, all because the Great System Lord Ra was too lazy to update his drivers.

[[folder:Going Through the Stargate Backwards, Part I]]

* What the hell happens when something goes through the other side of a Stargate. think about it. we only ever see things going through one side of the Stargate. i'm guessing that something that gets shoved through doesn't just go to the other side of the receiving Stargate, since the iris of the earth gate only covers one side (when the iris is closed and the gate active, you can see the shimmer pattern projected onto the wall behind the gate.) but that still leaves a question. does it just pass through unhindered? (could have some really freaky effects if something is going in the correct side.) does it get vaporized, what?!
** More importantly, what happens if you step into an incoming wormhole? you don;t go through, but what happens?
** The RPG says that any objects entering a Stargate in the "wrong" direction (such as from the exit, or from the back) are destroyed.
** What happens to matter that is caught in the horizontal flush effect, beyond just being destroyed? Conservation of mass and energy applies.
** Well, a couple times the remains are seen smoking afterward, so maybe they're flash fried so hot they just evaporate.
** Why doesn't the iris get destroyed by the horizontal flush?
** Its very close proximity to the event horizon prevents the flush from occurring in the first place.
** Also, they usually close the Iris ''after'' the incoming wormhole is established. That said, we have seen 'Gates open without a kawoosh, usually as a result of sufficiently advanced alternate dialing technologies, so it's possible that they eventually figured out the Iris would prevent the kawoosh.
** The matter is probably reduced to elementary particles, permanently, or (less likely) converted to energy, which is then absorbed by the gate.
** That would be a massive amount of energy, 100lbs of person, rock, whatever, equals 45,359.237 grams of matter converted to energy. For comparison the bomb dropped on Hiroshima converted about 3 grams of matter to energy. The phrase EarthShatteringKaboom ceases to be meaningful. How much ice did the kawoosh in Continuum shave off of the hull breach in the Achille's? 400, 500lbs? Safe to say the gate would have plenty of power. To wit, the Mark IX bomb is said to be multi-gigaton. Okay, a gigaton is 4.184×10^18 joules of energy. Let's say it's a 5 gigaton blast(209,200,000,000 joules). Matter releases 9×10^16 J/kg of energy. If we assume the gate vaporized an even 400lbs (181.436948 kilograms) the gate would of had to absorb 16,329,325,300,000,000,000 joules. Now I'm no expert, but uh, one of those numbers is waaay bigger than the other. The Stargate would of had to absorb orders of magnitude more energy than their "Gatebuster" bomb put out. Think of the two schmucks who vaporized themselves when SG-1 was trapped in that prison cave. Bet they had a combined weight over 400lbs.
** Maybe all that energy gets pushed off into subspace.
** The "kawoosh" is referred to as an "unstable vortex" in the series. Its appearance suggests strong turbulence similar to high-pressure [=CO2=] being released underwater, and it is "made" of the same "material" as the event-horizon. If we think of the unstable vortex as being a short-lived region of turbulent space-time that forms before the full connection is established, then there is ample justification for speculating that any matter caught in the vortex is violently de-materialized (like a regular gate traveler) but in a totally incoherent way. Further, because the wormhole connection was never fully established, the energy is dissipated into subspace, like opening a gate to everywhere.
** "Destroyed" is just the term they're using; nothing is actually getting destroyed in the scientific sense. I think that the kawoosh (yes, that is the canon name) is waste energy from the gate, and it vaporizes anything in its path. Some things could probably survive it, but not much.

[[folder:SGC no Sarcophagus]]

* Why didn't the SGC swipe a sarcophagus? I know that chronic use of it made people nuts, but that was more or less established as happening if you used it while you were ''already'' healthy. Why didn't they keep it around (or use that Ancient device to make their own version) for emergencies, like when Dr. Frasier got killed? Sure, it would ruin the drama a lot of the time, but it would be pretty damn practical if you ask me.
** Tried to do it, but they kept getting destroyed.
** In early seasons maybe, but why not after season 8, I mean the Free Jaffa ought to have had at least a few they could give (or exchange, for a mass of weapons).
** That might just barely be true in many other episodes, but in ''the very episode'' where they learn this ("Need",) the final scene has Daniel and the princess personally destroying the thing! Granted, the girl was going through a mixture of mourning and withdrawal, but they probably could have persuaded her give it to them.
** This has always bothered me too. The implication seemed to be that ''any'' use of the Sarcophagus is inherently wrong; that the Sarcophagus is almost symbolic (somehow) of the Goa'ulds' evil, and thus to use it is to become like them, at least a little bit. Remember the episode where they met the Tok'ra? Carter once wakes up from a dream yelling "we don't use the Sarcophagus" because of her Tok'ra memories. The implication is that refusing the sarcophagus is one of the things that separates the good Tok'ra from the evil Goa'uld. ... Of course, the point of all this is lost completely considering how many times various members of SG-1 have been in a sarcophagus ''without'' it being played as a turn towards evil -- especially Daniel, who, IIRC, has used a sarcophagus ''lots'' of times aside from the ''Need'' episode, without going crazy.
** Maybe they think that it would be much too tempting to keep a sarcophagus around, even for emergencies? Regarding the Tok'ra: Jacob/Selmak mentioned in season 7 that acquiring the Telchak Device in order to try and develop an addiction-free version of the sarcophagus would be something that should definitely be pursued.
** It's quite possible that the psychological side effects can occur even with the first use, and we've just never seen somebody who have that bad luck happen to them in canon with a Sarcophagus. This would actually explain well why the Tok'ra are unwilling to use it--the chance of insanity is always there, and that is something they'd consider an unacceptable risk.
** Another use would be de-Jaffafying Teal'c, since it has been demonstrated that he would wish to have that removed, and that the sarcophagus can restore the normal immune system of someone who has been made a Jaffa. I think both of those were shown before ''Need'', so they could've just yanked the symbiote out of Teal'c, stick him into the sarcophagus and ''then'' blow it up. Um, after Teal'c was out of it, of course.
** Yes, it's been demonstrated that the sarcophagus can restore someone who was ''made'' a Jaffa. Not someone who was ''born'' a Jaffa.

[[folder:SGC no Staff]]

* Why didn't the SG teams loot staff weapons off dead Jaffa and keep them for use? I know the whole "weapon of terror/weapon of war" thing, but staff weapons have proven pretty deadly anyway, and the idea of an energy weapon that has unlimited ammo, is more destructive that bullets and can double as a melee weapon, not counting the fact that Teal'c could have trained SGC personnel in its use, sounds really appealing...
** They're inaccurate, unwieldy and not easy to conceal. It's a weapon primarily designed for intimidation. Even Teal'c stopped using it after a while.
** Staff weapons are also obviously the symbol of the Jaffa, who most people would recognize as the foot-soldiers of the Goa'uld. Several episodes have SG teams having trouble convincing the locals that they're not Goa'uld just because they came through the Stargate, carrying staff weapons would make that even more difficult (granted, SG-1 decides to make that even tougher on themselves by having an ''actual'' Jaffa carrying a Staff weapon with them the whole time). In addition to negating just about all the training the soldiers of the SGC had up to that point with human weapons, Staff weapons just weren't significantly more efficient than Earth-made guns.
** And the SGC started using Zats after a while, which have several of the qualities you mentioned. Plus at one point I recall them having energy conversions for their own P90s.
** That was for the SuperSoldiers that couldn't be killed by normal means. But it's still a good point. From the looks of it, it seems like redesigning the staff weapons into a more traditional gun shape would solve most of those problems...
** They do have a cupboard full of staves and zats and stuff. It's just that P90s are really, really good. Remember the episode where they give P90s to some Jaffa folks, and Carter gives a demonstration where she obliterates a wooden post with P90 fire?
** If they have that many of them why not just strap a few to the F-302s just to give them a few weapons that don't run out?
** The Staff weapons were basically useless. The Zats however, were the uber-weapon. I don't get why they kept the P90s at all. I don't remember any major character EVER missing a single shot with a Zat, they had almost unlimited ammo, took down just about everything with one or two blasts and could even be used to just stun. They were comically overpowered.

[[folder:Earth Ship Naming Conventions]]

* Whose brilliant idea is it to name all of Earth's ships after mythological figures? If you spend all of your time fighting people named after ancient gods and heroes, would you really name your ships after ancient gods and heroes? It'd be awfully embarrassing if they ever ran across a Goa'uld named Prometheus.
** It makes sense for these names to be associated with the Tau'ri, at least the first two. Prometheus was a benefactor of humanity, punished by Zeus (who was a Goa'uld in the ''Stargate'' universe) for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans. Similarly, in ''Stargate'', the ship ''Prometheus'' is built by humans from reverse-engineered technology "stolen from the gods". In fact, that particular myth sounds so Stargate-ish that it's surprising it was never actually touched in the franchise.
** Besides, the practice appears to have been discontinued. The Odyssey is named after a legend, not a specific person (although it relates to Odysseus). The Korolev was named after a Russian scientist. The Apollo could have been named after the space Apollo missions. The Sun Tzu was named after a Chinese general. The Phoenix/Hammond should be fairly obvious. So it's really only the Prometheus and Daedalus that have this problem.
** Daedalus was an ordinary man who tried to fly with wings he built himself. Doesn't sound like a problem to me.
** Which is ridiculous, considering the amount of alien tech built into it. They should have swapped the names for the Prometheus and the Daedalus.
** The naming of the Apollo would still be quite problematic, since three members of the Greek Pantheon (Kronos, Athene and Ares) appeared as Goa'uld, and it wouldn't have been inconceivable that they might encounter a Goa'uld with the same name. But then again, the Apollo mainly operated in Pegasus, so it would have been very unlikely that it would have encountered its namesake.
** Even if there are Goa'uld with the names of these ships, these myths inspired our entire civilization. Naming ships after them has been common practice for centuries, and I doubt it would quickly change.
** I ''still'' think they should have used ''Enterprise''
** General O'Neill?
** The problem is that the United States already has an aircraft carrier and a space shuttle named ''Enterprise''.
** That just gives them plausible deniability. "Wait, what did you just say about the Enterprise?" "Um...the aircraft carrier, currently blahblahblah." "But you mentioned space!" "Well....they're planning on going to see the shuttle. Yeah."

[[folder:Abydos POO]]

* This is more a problem with the movie than SG-1, but why is the seventh symbol of the Abydos gate made into such a big deal? Daniel gets all worked up about it being worn off the cartouche, but you'd think all they'd have to do is dial the gate repeatedly, trying a new seventh symbol every time. At most it would take thirty three times (assuming the point of origin can't be the same as another symbol in the address).
** Similarly, just how did Daniel figure out the seventh symbol by looking at a picture drawn by Skaara? There was absolutely ''nothing'' to link it to the Stargate, he just draws a few lines on it and claims that it's the point of origin.
** The "just try all the 7th symbols" method could have been done in the movie instead of needing Daniel to explain to them which to try. They have done the brute-forcing on Atlantis on Universe so they didn't stay dumb here. :)
** Pattern recognition: The Earth symbol was a pyramid with one circle (the single sun) above it. It makes sense that its symbol would be similar to the Earth one, but distinct, so when Skaara draws the symbol, it makes Daniel realize what it is.
** There's also the fact that, while it is only obliquely stated, Daniel recorded all the symbols on the Abydos gate in his notebook. He recognized Skaara's drawing as matching one of the symbols he'd seen. As to why they didn't try multiple PoO. How much power did they bring with them? How many tries would they get at dialing.
** The gates have been in use for centuries, so there presumably 'would' be enough power to dial a few dozen times.
** When they find the first six symbols O'neil orders them to return to the gate. They probably were just going to randomly try over and over until they got it, but when they got back there Ra had landed his ship and they didn't have a chance. They got the seventh symbol before they defeated Ra and didn't have to random dial.

[[folder:Stargate Speed-Dial]]

* It's established as rock-solid theory that gate travel is "six points in space" plus "a unique identifier given to each gated planet". Here's a novel idea, Mister Ancient Inventor: Give each gate a lookup table of planet co-ordinates, then make the DHD only have to dial THE UNIQUE IDENTIFIER GLYPH!! Seriously, the gate is said to have onboard computers, so why couldn't they make a three chevron gate (one for the unique glyph, one for other galaxies, one for whatever special weirdness they might need)?
** The Point of Origin is specific to the ''gate'' not the planet. SGC's original gate (with the pyramid and sun) wasn't Earth's original gate; it was brought to Earth by Ra. The original gate is the one in Antarctica and has a different POO (a horizontal line with a large dot over it). If you just wanted to dial the gate, you'd need a DHD with thousands of symbols on it and that's just for the Milky Way gates. And you'd have the problem that you wouldn't be able to predict where you actually would end up. If you dialed the pyramid and sun symbol before Ra moved the gate, you'd end up on the original planet. If you dialed it after it moved, you'd end up on Earth. What you want to be able to do is say "connect to the gate at this location" otherwise it's pretty useless for travel.
** Because each point of origin symbol is unique to that specific Stargate. You couldn't say, dial Earth from Abydos using only Earth's unique symbol because that symbol doesn't appear on the Abydos gate or DHD. The theory was a little unstable in earlier seasons (such as Daniel claiming he dialed Earth's unique symbol as the point of origin on a different gate in season two), but I think this is meant to be the official rule.
** He says he used Earth as a point of origin, not that he used the symbol. He used that gate's unique symbol as the POO key, and the gate interpreted that as "Here," or as Earth, and it worked.
** Tho we know from the movie one thing, and they kind of continue to use that as their reference for things in future episodes of series and spin-offs, we also know retcon happens, and the show was not afraid to forget "facts already in evidence" when it suited them. Try not to think of it as a "simple point in space" and more that those 6 symbols are a unique address related to the approximate location of a gate. With this knowledge it makes more sense that they have all those symbols since it allows gate travel between thousands (millions?) of potential gates.
** I know that someone might say something about it being an address to a specific gate, but I don't think it works that way. The AI involved in the tech of the gates has some kind of spacial map inside it (extrapolation based on shown evidence) and can pinpoint a gate by an approximate location in space. This is also why the gates can't seem to open when dialing the same address in a nearby area (such as the two gates on earth). Just a theory.

[[folder:Ring Transporter Insecurity]]

* Why is it that no one has ever figured out how to make their ring transporters secure? Letting people ring in and out willy-nilly has been an Achilles' Heel for both the heroes and the villains on several occasions.
** For that matter, there's something even easier than an iris: burying a gate. Depending on just how much matter you need interfering in the event horizon to stop a lock, they might be able to secure their gate with a couple of Kryptonite-brand bike-locks.
** Rings ... what about the gates? Nine out of ten Goa'uld just left their planet's Stargate sit somewhere unguarded. Which seemed stupid for reasons of both security and accessibility.
** First, Goa'uld seem possessed by an innate desire for power, but (with a few exceptions) they're not generally all that militaristic; if they've got a bunch of people thinking they're god and all the immediate pleasures they could want, they're as happy as a snake in the sun. Which is, in fact, what they are. Militarizing requires a military-industrial complex, and that requires people to operate it. Since their only choices are other Goa'uld (who would eventually try to kill them because they're innately self-serving) or Jaffa who they're trying to appear magical to, they pretty much have to do everything themselves or risk getting bumped off.
** Second, most Goa'uld control more than one planet. Ever played Civilization? At the beginning of the game you've got a couple little villages that you can control instantly and micromanage to your heart's content, but by the time you reach the modern era you have tens if not hundreds of cities and armies moving around; at a certain point it becomes too tedious to give everything new orders every turn so you either hit "automate" or just let them sit doing nothing until you need them. And this is in a video game where you're omnipresent and your commands are obeyed instantly; it's not much of a stretch to imagine any one person who was in control of a couple dozen planets would say "ah screw it, it's good enough" when faced with the prospect of micromanaging each one individually.
** Similarly, and even more appropriate perhaps, try playing Spore during the space stage and take over the entire galaxy. Now imagine your one ship is your command ship and in order to do anything significant in your empire, YOU and you alone must go take care of it, because otherwise the people on the planet will not think of you as their god protector and fear you and your weapons of destruction.
** Another way to think about it is this... who goes to those planets? The system lord or maybe a lesser underling and... the SG-1 team. Every planet they went to was surprised to see someone other than the Gou'ald and usually going through the gate grabbed the attention of the local system lord and they would be in the system in a few short hours or days (in galactic terms that is really short travel time). And if you think about what might happen if you left some group of "soldiers" (even "loyal" Jaffa in small numbers) behind, they would probably get bored or just start rethinking the whole idea of being subservient and lead a rebellion on the planet they were supposed to be protecting.

[[folder:Jack and Teal'c Learning Curve]]

* What happened to all the knowledge and skills acquired by Teal'c an [=O'Neil=] in Window of Opportunity, the fourth-season groundhog day episode? The tech talk could have just been memorized to freak out Carter, and he never actually learned any of the underlying theory, but they were shown learning stuff.
** Was the whole situation resolved in such a way that the whole time loop never happened or not? I can't remember. But even if it wasn't, they probably forgot half the information. And in any case, Jack is big one for ObfuscatingStupidity and Teal'c's pretty reticent anyway, so they probably rarely had cause to use any of it, especially considering that Sam and Daniel are such geniuses in their respective fields that no matter how much was learned during the loop, it probably still wouldn't be any use to them.
** During the loop, Jack and Teal'c learned Latin, juggling, a little pottery and details of the time machine. There's no need of the Latin with Daniel around, and the time machine never worked as intended anyways so maybe what they learned about it just isn't generally applicable to much else. As for the hobbies, some {{Continuity Nod}}s about them later in the series would have been nice, but they were just ways to kill time. It's entirely possible that Jack and/or Teal'c still remembered them and just never used them again on camera.
** They likely didn't actually learn Latin. At most, they learned the words relevant to the translation they were working on, and that was probably just through rote memorization.
** Also relating to that episode: While Teal'c got a bum deal with his starting point, Jack's wasn't really that bad. Why did he never ask Daniel what his question was, so that he would know in future? RuleOfFunny?
** Well, he wasn't listening the first time, so he probably just doesn't care that much.

[[folder:Free Jaffa and Larval Goa'uld]]

* I haven't finished watching the series yet, but how does the Free Jaffa Nation get their Goa'uld symbiotes? As far as I know, free or not, symbiotes are still necessary for Jaffa to live, aren't they? Does that mean they breed or enslave Goa'uld young for use as immune systems (which doesn't sound so nice, bad guys or not bad guys), or do they have an alternative? Is it ever explicitly stated in the series?
** There's a couple episodes about it. The Jaffa replace the symbiotes with a drug called Tretonin that needs to be periodically injected. It was originally made of ground up symbiotes, but I assume the Tok'ra figured out a way to make it out of something else.
** "Ground Goa'uld" was just what O'Neill called it. They didn't ''literally'' get it by grinding up symbiotes, but by extracting and then modifying the chemicals the symbiotes release. Since the Tok'ra ''are'' symbiotes, it's probably easier for them to get said chemicals.
** Tretonin works on 90% of the Jaffa population. For the rest I'm sure they do breed Goa'uld specifically for use as Jaffa symbiotes. Teal'c boasted to Apophis that he would do just that way back when the SGC held a dying Apophis as a POW.
** Also, the SGC had found the original homeworld of the Goa'uld, which still had symbiotes swimming in its rivers. Harvest an "aboriginal" Goa'uld queen, use its symbiotes to supplement Jaffa immune systems, then discard them when they mature. Never stated in the show, but it seems logical.

[[folder:Tretonin replacement]]

* Why do they keep pushing Tretonin as a way out of dependence on the Goa'uld for the Jaffa? It's made of ground-up Goa'uld. Whether you keep them in a pouch and kill them when they mature, or ground them up young to inject them as a drug, you still need a continual supply of infant Goa'uld. The stuff's basically pointless.
** It's not made up of ground-up Goa'uld, it's purely synthetic, made by the Tok'ra. It was originally made using larvae Goa'uld, but the Tok'ra made it without Goa'uld symbionts at all.
** And as mentioned before, it's not literally made out of grinding up symbiotes. That's just what Col. Jack "Not A Scientist" O'Neill called it.
** Even if it is literally made of "ground-up Goa'uld", there's a big difference between dependence on a dietary supplement and dependence on a lord and master. Jaffa would probably relish the ironic revenge of using their former masters' race like that.
** There's no "probably" about it. Before Tretonin is developed, when Apophis seeks asylum at SG-1, Teal'c taunts him with this very thing. He tells him that once the Goa'uld are defeated, Jaffa will turn the tables on the Goa'uld and treat ''them'' as just a resource to be used and discarded when they're no longer useful.

[[folder:Alternate SG-1 compositions]]

* Why weren't any of the SG-1's in Ripple effect lead by O'Neill? Or even contain O'neil. Why didn't any of them still have Jonas in them? Why was Jackson in nearly all of them? Why didn't any contain some of the Jackson replacement's they tried at the beginning of season 6? This could go on for hours.
** I personally loved the fact that every single one of the SG-1's we see was led by Mitchell. I interpreted it as a, "yes, him taking over was inevitable. Also remember that these are just the ones we ''see'', It is stated that there are many more, just look at the number of Carters.
** Yes but there are a million things that could happen that would have kept Jonas on the team, but not ONE of the teams has him? Really? And I know we don't see all of the teams, but some of the ones we do see have some weird stuff (an Asgard, Martuf, a Carter who appears to be the one from Moebius, and a team with the upgrades armbands) but not something that should be relatively common in the multiverse? and If Jonas was on one of the teams we would have seen him since a good number of fans have been complaining for years that he has never been brought back (or even mentioned since the beginning of season 8 even in places where it would make sense to.)
** Logically the 'ripple effect' ones were SG-1s that ended up in a similar situation to the current SG-1: ie, they survived Anubis (so Daniel had to have come back), they pissed off the Ori, etc. Maybe it's rare for a non Cameron-and-Daniel team to have done so?
** The SG teams from "Ripple Effect" were only able to arrive because of the black hole created in "Beachhead," which means any team we see had to have experienced a similar set of events in their home reality for that black hole to form at all. Any reality that did not have that black hole couldn't have sent a team here in "Ripple Effect." Draw your own conclusions from that.
** There's an answer for that. In the episode they specifically say that the reason why so many of the 'same person' can exist in the same universe is because the parallel universes were ''so close together.'' This means that the similarities between the universes were so great that being in "our" universe didn't cause a cellular cascade failure. There would have to be a very great number of identical factors present. Obviously Mitchell leading the team was a common element for many. Remember that before when Dr. Carter came through from the [=SGA=], the differences between the parallel universes nearly tore her apart.

[[folder:Stargate: NoOSHACompliance]]

* Why don't the Stargates have any warning as to where the kawoosh will go to (such as the STAY CLEAR banner on earths gate.) These things are dangerous and you're not bothering to tell people how far away they should be to avoid it? shame on you, Ancients, shame on you.
** The Ancients chose which planets to build gates on, so I imagine they probably informed any settlers of the dangers first. But as the Ancients ascended and the Goa'uld, Wraith and Ori took over, I bet many worlds lost that information over the centuries.
** The majority of gates we see are ones that have been in use for thousands of years, with the steps and DHD intact, meaning that the locals know exactly which direction it comes from and about how far it shoots out, and thus don't need warning signs; you don't have to put, "Don't stand in the middle of the road" signs on modern roads for the same reason, people already know it. The others started the same way, even if they were buried and dug back up in the meantime.

[[folder:Don't Cut Vala A Paycheck]]

* In Avalon Part 2, after SG-1 find Merlin's treasure, Daniel assures Cam that they won't be letting Vala keep any of it. Considering she was the one who brought them the tablet to find it in the first place, this seems more than a little unfair. I know the treasure is priceless, but it's not like the SGC has any use for the basic jewelry and coins. It doesn't help advance their technology and they can't sell it to a museum without coming clean about the Stargate project. And I know Vala has a way of getting under Daniel's skin, but he's supposed to be the moral center of the team. It just seems out of place for him to just cut her out of a fair deal like that.
** Daniel was still bitter at Vala because of her actions in Prometheus Unbound. He doesn't like her. He's allowed to be a jerk sometimes just like anyone else.
** By "he doesn't like her" you mean "he lusts after her". But it's Claudia freaking Black so who can blame him?
** Being an archaeologist, Daniel would have been loathe to remove any treasures before they had been properly catalogued and filed, even then only to go off for further study. Also they were under Wales, so rightfully speaking it all belongs to the UK anyway.

[[folder:Jaffa, Born or Made?]]

* Are Jaffa born with symbiote pouches, are are they created as a coming of age ritual, as Hathor did to Jack briefly? In an early episode, I remember Teal'c wanted to stop his son being implanted with a symbiote, implying that his pouch had not been created yet (though he arrived too late), but in season nine, we have the Sodan Jaffa, who have been free from the Goa'uld for hundreds of years, but they still have symbiote pouches. Do they create them themselves (I know a symbiote gives a Jaffa strength, but I find it odd that they would willingly create such a dependancy for themselves) or is it just a retcon?
** They're born with them. As an aside, the writers declared "Hathor" non-canon a few years back as they felt it was the single worst episode that they ever wrote and that it conflicts with canon before and after it.
** What's wrong with "Hathor"? Granted it's a pretty weak episode, but I can't think of any particular continuity problems with it.
** Goa'uld don't take DNA from the host species to make them viable (later we see Goa'uld jump from Unas to humans just fine), Jaffa aren't humans who are altered by queens (they're genetically engineered that way as was stated before and after Hathor), if the Goa'uld had this drug the whole time, why not use the drug to easily enslave all the planets you want? I could go on but I think the point is made.
** It should also be pointed out that even though it seems to have general errors, it was never actually disavowed from canon. When the writers specifically reference the episode "Hathor" in the season 8 episode "Citizen Joe," to lampshade the errors concerning Jaffa and Goa'uld, one cannot claim they declared the episode non-canon.
** To add to this point, the errors are minor in retrospect. Jaffa are genetically engineered '''Humans.''' The pouch is not born into a Jaffa, but given to a Jaffa (or anyone, really) using the Goa'uld device for the process. The only serious contradictions are the DNA thing and how Goa'uld Queens work. But when the episode in general is lampshaded away 7 seasons later, it's hard to take the claim of "writers made it non-canon" seriously.
** There is nothing in "Hathor" that doesn't make sense given the rest of the series. Jaffa were originally humans that were genetically modified by devices like the one Hathor had. Once modified, they stay modified, and their offspring have the same modifications. The sarcophagus could reverse O'Neill because he wasn't born a Jaffa. It would not work on Teal'c because he was born that way.
** Goa'uld don't NEED DNA from the host species, but it is helpful if they can get it. Having DNA from the host species merely reduces the rejection rate, making it easier for them to blend with a host. This is stated in "Hathor". Nothing from the episode was actually retconned away.
** Teal'c wanted to stop the ''implantation''. Jaffa have always been born with them. The Sodan are free of Goa'uld ''control'', but still need them physically to survive. The Goa'uld created the pouches in the first Jaffa as a way of controlling them, because the Jaffa literally could not survive without them. All of this is pretty clearly spelled out through the series.
** Okay so if Jaffa are born with pouches, why did Teal'c want to stop the implantation of a symbiote in his son? Wouldn't his son die?
** Yes. But Teal'c didn't know that. (He's a soldier, not a doctor). So it's a good thing that mission failed or he would have had egg on his face.
** But how could Teal'c not know that? Teal'c may not be a doctor but he's not an idiot. He knows that a symbiote acts as a Jaffa's immune system. He knows that a Jaffa will die without a symbiote. Why in the world would he just assume that his son would be okay without a symbiote?
** Because the Symbiote suppresses the hosts immune system. Everything that Teal'c knows at this point is that a Jaffa with a Symbiote can't live without it, and that a Goa'uld fundamentally alters its hosts immune system. From those two points it would be a safe assumption that a Jaffa who had never been implanted might have a regular human immune system, how was he to know that they'd been engineered for their immune systems to fail at a certain age?
** Teal'c wanted to stop the implanting, because as far as he knew, up to that point, his son had been a fairly healthy boy without a the Goa'uld symbiote, and Teal'c wanted it to stay that way. Unbeknownst to our favorite Jaffa, his son Rya'c had come down with scarlet fever and needed a symbiote badly, lest he die. Cue an OhCrap moment for Teal'c.

[[folder:Altering Time, Continuum]]

* In Continuum, it bugs me that Daniel and the others continued with their insistence that they must SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong instead of go back to their own timeline. They ''explicitly'' have ''no idea'' how time travel works, so it's just as likely that they'll be sent back to something close enough to their own world that they won't notice if there are any differences. Trying to convince the guy to let them change everything back to what they're used to would be much harder than trying to convince him to let them go home.
** And how do they get back to their own timeline when it doesn't exist anymore? When Ba'al changed things, he essential destroyed their universe and created a brand new alternate one.
** Judging by Daniel's leg, when they stopped Ba'al from succeeding (even though he and they had already gone back in time), it undid everything that happened since he was executed in the present. [[CloningBlues Supposedly executed]]. Which makes ''no sense'' based on how they treated time travel in previous episodes, and even earlier in the movie. Possibly psychic hallucination. Makes more sense than anything else would.
** It's completely consistent with how time travel had been treated before. When they stopped Ba'al, the new timeline created from that over wrote the old one where he succeeded. Just like when he succeeded it over wrote the one where he never went back. Just like in "Moebius" when fiddling in ancient Egypt overwrote their timeline with the one with no Stargate, just like in 2010 where sending a note back caused that timeline to be over written. I'm not sure where your problem is.
** There was a big difference with Continuum's time travel--they could *see* the effects of Ba'al's time travel happening. If someone changes the past, you don't notice people disappearing, the timeline just gets overwritten. The best [[Fanon]] explanation I can make is that they had the same time frame to notice and travel on their own as when Ba'al had his original Stargate travel to the past occurring, but would anyone everywhere in the galaxy using a Stargate have been "saved" from the changing timestream?
** TV shows that use both Time Travel overwriting and multiple universe storylines are designed to mess with your head. The two concepts of multiple universe and overwriting are mutually incompatible.
** [Ad Speak]If your universe has been overwritten why not try this universe next door (TM) which is exactly the same, except it wasn't overwritten. [/Ad Speak]
** Another problem with Continuum is the sea Captain. It's implied and sort of stated that he ''is'' "our" Cam Mitchell (Carter calls him "A walking grandfather Paradox!") only aged a bit because they had to send him back "too early" and he ended up creating a Closed Time Loop. But if that's the case, then how come the captain is so passive when it comes to Ba'al appearing? He knows what a threat Ba'al is and that he could appear through the gate. OK, so SG-1 favors the "Many worlds" version of time travel rather than creating Stable Loops (though they use a loop in Moebius), but shouldn't he make a better show of stopping Ba'al the first time?
** You're totally misunderstanding it. It's never stated nor implied implied that the original captain is "our" Cam Mitchell. He's "our" Mitchell's ''grandfather'' from start to end.
** It's a pretty damn big coincidence that Cam has an identical grandfather who is roughly the same age as Cam would be if he was sent back to 1920-ish (which he was) who his grandmother refuses to tell him about.
** Actually, I think someone's confused here... The photo in the locker at the end had Cam's grandfather and an older Cam Mitchell ''both'' in the picture. And when Baal (or one of the clones... whatever) dialed into the ships hold, Cam was in the hold as well, waiting for the attack. He provided a crew member with a weapon to help him fight. Also, the final guy was killed by Cam's grandfather, who we saw when the gate shut down at the end of the battle. (if memory serves.) So, Cam was ''NOT'' his own grandfather.
** Where's it ever said his grandmother refuses to talk about him? The bit where Cam knows exactly what ship he was on? Or has his grandfather's photo in his locker? Yeah, Granny was keeping it a big secret there.
** This is a fantastic example of WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. Thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of film and TV have used the identical actor/actress as a sibling or forebear - its just something you have to accept if you are going to enjoy the show. If you are looking for an explanation as to ''why'' this happens look no further than ViewersAreMorons. Its the same reason most stories involving body-swaps dub over the opposite actors voice.
** I ''knew'' there was a reason "Holiday" was so funny...

[[folder:Stargate Two-Way Travel, Part I]]

* In the first episode ("Children of the Gods") we see Apophis & a Jaffa step through the Stargate to Earth, capture a female airman, then step ''back'' through the still open Stargate. Later in the series it's mentioned several times that matter can only travel ''one way'' through a wormhole. Explain.
** I rewatched the ORIGINAL version of the episode (not the final cut remake). After the Jaffa and Aphophis come through the gate and shoot the soldiers, you HEAR the gate shut down (and the "water reflection" on the walls disappears). You don't SEE them redial the gate, but it is operating again when Hammond and company come in and see them departing. But it is very clear that they had to redial the gate because you hear it shut down.
** The most popular theory is that the didn't go backwards, they redialed the gate. It's not a continuous shot and the Goa'uld are known to have Stargate powering devices and the knowledge/capability to manually dial, so it's not impossible to imagine that they simple stepped through, went off to grab the person, shut the gate off, dialed back, then went back through.
** ''Children of the Gods: The Final Cut'' addresses this... somewhat. Apophis orders his Jaffa to redial the gate (although it's not shown ''how'' they did that), and when Hammond and the other staff are rushing towards the gate room, the dialing sounds are heard in the background.
** How they were able to dial the gate with neither DHD nor access to the dialing computer is a fair question in and of itself.
** Cassandra did it with a device on her hand at the end of the episode 1969, so it is technically possible.
** Teal'c himself also did this in the final confrontation in ''Continuum'' with his electronic device, both powering-up an unpowered Stargate ''and'' dialing out to a gate address without a DHD. So it is entirely possible... but some on-screen confirmation would have been nice at least.

[[folder:Intar Ultimate Weapon]]

* This show seems to seriously underestimate the value of Intar technology. They seem to be a near-perfect weapon. Non-lethal, no apparent long-term effects aside from slight soreness, and can take the form of any weapon (ergo, no special training needed). So why doesn't the SGC equip all off-world teams with Intars? It would make things a lot easier since, as O'Neill himself pointed out, it would allow SG teams to "shoot first and ask questions later" with no consequences. No more Mexican Standoff scenarios. No more hesitation to fire on primitive peoples who don't know any better. They can shoot, shoot, shoot, and sort things out later. (And don't say they don't have enough Intars to go around. If they can spend Intar rounds on cadet training simulations they clearly have the ability to produce new intars.) On a related note, why don't the Goa'uld use intars when they harvest hosts?
** Goa'uld take LargeHam to a remarkable level, especially since they don't need many hosts. "Accidentally" killing a few dozen potential hosts is a feature, not a bug; they want as many of the survivors scared shitless as possible. As to the use of Intars by SG-1, they probably don't want to establish a "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset. There's too much risk of it encouraging native populations to try and kill you. It's also not clear how effective Intars are on armored opponents, meaning that carrying Intars would require a doubled weapons load-out. The x-699 suggests that the Tau'ri were working on more effective energy weapons, but it's not clear if such were successfully demonstrated.

[[folder:Which Came First: Antarctic or Giza?]]

* For a bit of fridge logic that literally came to me when I was looking in the fridge: So, if I got this right, the Antarctic gate was put there after the one in Egypt was lost. (I'm not sure, it's been a while since I've seen that episode.) In the future-wasn't-past (time travel doesn't just make verb tenses confusing) in ''Moebius'', Ra takes the Egypt gate with him, and the people who got the message have to get the Antarctic one. WHY was it there? I don't think it would have been necessary.
** The Antarctic gate was Earth's original gate (in fact Carter guessed it may be the first ever Stargate built), put in place by the Ancients. When Ra came to earth he, for what ever reason, brought his own Stargate with him. Maybe the original was already buried under ice, maybe Ra preferred his own because of the "sun-over-the-pyramid-esque point of origin symbol.
** The RPG explains that the Antarctic gate (which was indeed the original one left behind by the Ancients) was controlled by Apophis, who discovered Earth before Ra, so Ra had to arrive by ship and plant his own gate.

[[folder:Carter In Charge]]

* It bugs me that after O'Neill leaves, Carter doesn't get command of SG-1, despite Mitchell having the same rank and no off-world experience. The SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute trope taken too far with a hint of misogyny.
** Technically, Mitchell was given command of SG-1 after Sam had already left. When she came back, it's never officially explained, but apparently I think Sam and Cam co-lead SG-1. In one episode, Cam remarks that since Sam is the same rank and Daniel and Teal'c are not military, he doesn't really have any control over the team at all. At best it's just a formality.
** Also, Sam was in command in Season 8.
** In the military, rank is less important than role. For example, medical staff usually rank pretty high, but they will never lead a squad into battle. Here, Carter got her ranks primarily as part of an engineering career. In Next-Gen Star Trek, she'd be wearing a gold uniform. It's pretty reasonable that she wouldn't be put in charge and it's kinda silly that she seems hurt by that. TV usually portraits military ranks poorly. A rank is normally associated with a position. Promotions based on merit (almost) never occur. You get promoted when you get a higher ranking job. As such, Carter would never have been promoted to (Lieutenant) Colonel.
** Misogyny? Seriously? Carter was often portrayed as smarter than Daniel, as badass a warrior as anyone else on the team, and [[CloserToEarth the voice of reason and compassion in most situations]]. But not turning her into a BlackHoleSue by putting her in charge of the whole shebang too is misogyny?
** Promotions based on merit apparently ''do'' occur in the SGC. Also, she got to Captain as part of an engineering career, but she already had two promotions during her ''combat'' career.
** When two people are the same rank, time-in-grade determines who outranks who. If Mitchell was a Lt. Colonel before Carter, then he is indeed her immediate superior. If not, technically she is. Also, as pointed out, there's the question of role to consider. Carter is more of a scientist and technical specialist than she is a leader or fighter (though she's quite good at both.) Mitchell may have been more suited to combat and leadership roles, placing Carter nominally under his command even if she had more time-in-grade at the same rank.
** As mentioned above, Carter WAS given command of SG-1 for all of Season 8 before O'Neill left. Mitchell only got command of SG-1 after Carter left the position to accept another job as head of R&D at Area 51. She was also later given command of Atlantis and temporarily Stargate Command more than once ("[[Recap/StargateAtlantisS05E20EnemyAtTheGate Enemy at the Gate]]" and "[[Recap/StargateSG1S10E5Uninvited Uninvited]]" come to mind) and later her own ship, the ''George Hammond'', so there was no evidence at all that the writers had a problem with her being in charge of things and certainly not that they had a sexist attitude (as mentioned above, they made her the smartest character in the show and even promoted her twice during its run). At the point when Mitchell was given command of SG-1, there was no SG-1. Carter was gone, Daniel was transferring to Atlantis and Teal'c was busy with the Free Jaffa. It wasn't until "[[Recap/StargateSG1S9E7ExDeusMachina Ex Deus Machina]]" when Mitchell got to replace everyone's shoulder patches that they seemed resigned to rejoining. However, it wasn't clear how the structure would work. As mentioned, in "[[Recap/StargateSG1S10E4Insiders Insiders]]", Mitchell acknowledged, "Carter and I are the same rank. Teal'c's an alien. Jackson's a civilian. I learned a long time ago, I don't "control" anything." So it wasn't like she was his subordinate. There's a reason why he's listed against the TheAllegedBoss trope. They simply allowed them both to be the same rank so he could nominally fill the leader role to explain his position on the team, since if Carter was taking up the role of scientific genius and the role of leader, there wasn't going to be much for Mitchell to do. It's the same reason why, during her time on Atlantis, even when it would have made sense for Carter to help out, [=McKay=] ended up coming up with the scientific solutions while Carter stuck to leadership. Otherwise, you'd end up with a redundant character.

[[folder:Daniel and Sha're, Doomed To Failure]]

* Much of the plots that justified Sha're once again being spirited away from Daniel were pretty wall banger-y, but ''Forever in a Day'' really takes the cake. Amonet is all alone in the tent with Daniel and he has her at gunpoint, she slowly begins to raise her hand device, does he try to shoot it or tackle her? No. Teal'c sees Amonet tormenting Daniel, does he try to sneak up and overpower her? Does he just clap her on the side of the head with his staff? Heck, does he try shooting her arm? No, he shoots her in the chest.
** The torture device can be used to kill a victim instantly if so desired. Amonet hadn't noticed Teal'c, but had he tried to move to stop her, she would have killed Daniel instantly, so shooting was the least risky option. As for why he didn't shoot her in the arm or something, the staff weapons have been stated to be fairly inaccurate, so he really had to aim for the biggest target.
** It's inaccurate compared to rifles yeah, but Teal'ce good enough that he could probably take her hand off easily enough (about the same size as a person at 30 yards).
** Um, no. This is the same sort of argument people use to say "Well the police could have just shot him in the leg or the arm". Guns and marksmanship do not work like that, especially not in life-or-death situations. Guns are ''not'' as accurate as most video games and movies make them seem, and staff weapons are less accurate than guns. Teal'c did what he had to do to save Daniel's life, and Daniel understands that and forgives him.

[[folder:Foothold: Carter Agreeing To Go Back]]

* In "Foothold", an alien impersonating Jack tells Sam that she's been exposed to a perfectly terrestrial chemical (Tetrachloroethylene) that supposedly causes hallucinations and paranoia, and wants her to come back to the SGC so that Frasier can take a look at her. Carter believes that Jack is an alien in disguise, but has to consider the possibility that she may indeed be hallucinating, and so agrees to return to a potentially hostile base and risk being replaced by one of these aliens. Hello? Carter? George Washington University Hospital is just down the way. Tetrachloroethylene isn't a classified substance, nor would exposure to this common substance be out of the ordinary. Come on super-genius, let's just go to a '''civilian''' hospital that is not compromised and get a clean bill of health so that maybe Mayborne will believe you. The aliens impersonating Jack and Daniel may not like it, but they'll either raise a stink and thereby reveal themselves, or alter the test results (somehow) to convince Mayborne to take you back.
** ''Foothold'' occurs after ''In The Line Of Duty''. Even if tetrachloroethylene's not classified ''and'' the why someone who's only supposed to be looking at radio waves could have been exposed to it was not classified, Carter's blood almost certainly is. More significantly, even a 'positive' test for tetrachloroethyelene by normal standards wouldn't mean much; having been a host results in heightened resistance to many drugs.

[[folder:Incoming Wormhole Inconsistency]]

* Is it just me, or are there TWO alternate ways an incoming wormhole can announce itself: (barring aliens who click their fingers and just make it turn on instantly... what the hell is up with that?)
** 1) Identical to the dialing out: the circular part spins, and the chevrons lock like normal. Loads of time to close the iris.
** 2) The chevrons engage and light up one by one with '''no spinning'''. All they get is 'clonk-clonk-clonk' and then it's on!
** What's the difference between these two?
** I think they eventually settled on the second one being the way for an incoming wormhole to activate. Perhaps Sam upgraded some firmware in the gate which (inadvertently) caused the dial-in time to speed up? Or perhaps it's indicative of the method of dialing on the other end? Spinning means the dialing was "manual" (ie, not using an ancient dialing device) while simply clicking in is done by using a DHD?
** In at least one episode, the "chevrons lighting up" method is shown to have occurred on a planet that was dialed to from Earth, which we all know uses the "manual" method, so it's probably just an inconsistency.
** There's actually another way that's only shown in one or two instances: all 7 chevrons light up simultaneously, followed by the ka-whoosh a few seconds later. Some have claimed that this is the correct way and that all of the others were production errors, since the destination gate technically isn't going to know it's being dialed until the source gate has received the final symbol (or at least until it's got the 6th symbol). In "Solitudes", when Sam tries dialing Earth's address, the SGC gate is shown with all 7 chevrons glowing simultaneously, and Daniel later describes it as being just like an incoming wormhole.
** Treating the Stargate as a public utility, one would want safety. The kawoosh takes out anything and everything, thus you would want the receiving gate to make as much noise as possible to alert people "get out of the way, incoming wormhole!" The real reason is dramatic license, of course. One idea: the Stargate has some form of sensor related to nearby activity - if little to no activity, no need to warn anyone and instant on; the more people around, make more noise and buffer incoming travelers to provide a delay for arrival.

[[folder:Priors After Ark]]

* After the Ark of Truth was opened and all the Priors were converted away from Origin, what happened to them? Did the failsafe activate and incinerate them all? Did they stay and work to remake Origin? Did they disband? Is the galaxy now filled with wandering psychics with nothing to do but ascend or seek employment as mercenaries? I'm sorry, but unless I've missed some important scene, the series appears to have completely forgotten about the Priors: what happened?
** The series? There '''is no''' series after that. There's one movie after that. Perhaps universe will touch on it, but you're expecting a bit much for them to tell us what happened to the priors so immediately.
** An epilogue to the movie would have been nice, though, because the film wrapped up so quickly that the Priors were all forgotten about.

[[folder:Jack's Teenage Clone, Part I]]

* The ending of 'Fragile Balance', as it relates to O'Neill's clone just bugs me. Jack O'Neill harbors a secret desire to return to *high school*?! Ok, first, why would anyone in their right mind want to go back to high school? And also, ewwww in regards to the ogling of the teenage girls. And given SG-1's track record, wouldn't the Air Force be thrilled to have a second O'Neill running around (not to mention the ancient gene, etc)? Given that the actor did a pretty good job of getting the mannerisms right, I'm kinda disappointed they didn't bring back the clone in later seasons when the "real" Jack was promoted. Or at least for Atlantis. Or something.
** He should be in his early 20s now (his actor is). With all his (inherited) special forces training, he could be a fantastic officer right now. Well, except for the whole insubordinate wisecracking thing that he couldn't get away with as a lieutenant. Add him to the list of characters I want to see appear in SGU, along with Lt. Hailey (Who's probably a Captain by now, maybe even Major if she's been as extraordinary as she should be).
** ''Jack O'Neill'' didn't harbor a secret desire to return to high school. His clone, who ''was'' a teenager, wanted to go. As for why they haven't brought him back, I'm guessing they're anticipating the [[FridgeLogic Fridgetastic]] thought that Clo'Neill as an adult isn't going to look and sound anything remotely like the original.
** Well that could be easily hand-waved as part of the process that caused him to be in his high-school years in the first place. The clone wasn't perfect. Granted, the DNA was supposed to be identical when Frasier checked him over, but Thor had to screw with his genes to stop him from falling apart. Sure, it's pushing it, but all they'd really need would be an actor who looks close enough. To be honest though, even given SG-1's habit of bringing back characters from seasons long past, we're a bit past the point where it would ever be reused.
** Given the DNA shifting, therefore letting the clone look only similar to the original, it would be very much like the Stargate humor to beautify Kurt Russel into a twenty-something Jack.
** I blame the ogle teenage girls part on CompulsorySchoolAge. It's standard that anyone who becomes a kid gets treated like one in most respects. On a related subject, giving him an age equal to his physical age makes no sense--they're making fake records anyway, surely they can bump up the age a bit? Making him old enough to buy beer won't be convincing, but they can at least let him get a driver's license (16) or go to college (18 or even 17).
** Yes UnfortunateImplications abound, but I'm just going to come out and say it: most men don't stop fantasizing about High School girls they just realize they can no longer safely pursue them. Case in point, the Japanese schoolgirl models who are really 22 but are made to look like children... O'Neill wouldn't be the only man in existence who would pursue teenage girls if he was knocked back a few decades. As for the whole ''who would want to go back to high school?'' O'Neill Jr is now legally a different person. Unless the Air Force gave him a job (which ''wouldn't'' be anything like his former role, the most he could hope for would be a consultant or someone with a far lower rank) he would need to go back through the education system in order to acquire the qualifications to get a decent job. Finally you have to ask yourself this: would O'Neill Jr even WANT to rejoin the military? he has spent his entire life fighting - from the Gulf War right up to fully fledged alien invasions. Given a second chance at life maybe he would follow the alternate O'Neill's example from ''Moebius'' and run a boating business; not to mention the death of his son, which he still blames himself for. Stands to reason he would avoid guns and fighting altogether in an effort to stop things like ''leave a loaded gun/gun and ammo in close proximity around the house where your unsupervised child can reach it'' this time around.
** Firstly, not everyone had a shitty time in high school. I mean, I did, but I'm also self-aware enough to know that not everyone did and some people even had fun. Secondly, a ''lot'' of people have a viewpoint of "If I could live it all over knowing then what I know now..." which may be what Jack v2.0 is thinking. Thirdly, various bits and pieces of what the above said, but also living a new life will give him a chance to make himself wholly distinct from the original, which is something most clones who know they're clones are shown as wanting... going through modern high school and growing up in the 21st century will make him his own person.
** As for the High School girls, PowerPerversionPotential. Clo'Neill (love that, by the way) realizes that, knowing what he knows know, he'll be quite smooth with the ladies (at least, compared to other High School boys.) Plus, I can't imagine the Air Force saddling him with "fake" parents, so probably created an identity as an emancipated minor. He's got his own pad, the ultimate status symbol in High School. Regular Jack seems to realize what he's thinking, and suddenly knows why going back to High School isn't quite the horrible fate he thought it was. Plus, as mentioned, getting a modern education is the only way he can have his own distinct life. Though YMMV, TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot. Clo'Neill, Hailey (Mini-Carter), Teal'c's son Ry'ac, and Cassandra as a young SG team. Awesome.
** It might be pretty sweet to go through high school again with the wisdom and confidence of an adult intact.

[[folder:Time Travel, 1969]]

* "1969." After arriving in the past the Gate exists just long enough to spit them out, then vanishes. First of all, why does the ramp remain if the Stargate hasn't been installed yet? Second, how did this time-traveling wormhole create a virtual Stargate? Shouldn't the wormhole just go to wherever the Gate is at this point in history, which is (I think) a storage facility in Washington D.C. (and inside a crate, by the way).
** When a wormhole jumps in time, it always goes to wherever the gate is located in that time. In 1969, the gate was packed in a crate, the event horizon blocked so a wormhole couldn't form. This is probably why they ended up in a "virtual" gate. Because the actual gate was inaccessible, so the wormhole looped back on itself and put them in both timeframes at once until it closed.
** In Continuum, gate-time-travel works exactly the way you describe. I guess they changed their minds, plus they needed a way for them to get arrested by Young Hammond.
** Wasn't the gate room the floor of a missile silo in '69?
** The "virtual gate" in "1969" wasn't ever used that way again. Although in Stargate Universe they finally explain why sometimes the solar-flare-intersected-wormhole takes you to your destination, and other times back to your point of origin.

[[folder:Ships!]]

* Now, let's assume a typical hilarious enormously large secret budget and huge amount of talent. Earth goes from a standing start to having hyperspace capable fighters and ships in SIX YEARS. The ''Prometheus'' is quite an impressive ship... but then we have the ''Daedalus'' just two years later which is orders of magnitude more complex than the ''Prometheus''. Not to mention that SIX of these are manufactured in the course of seven years. While it's established in the canon that the Asgard pretty much spill their guts technology wise after the SGC repeatedly saves them -- were they pumping these out for them? The time it takes to build an AIRCRAFT carrier is years -- to DESIGN and build one? We're getting closer to a decade and that's not even taking into account the fact that this thing would be probably the single most complicated piece of engineering humanity ever put together... It's pushes suspension of disbelief.
** The reason it takes years to build an Aircraft carrier is ''because'' the US military diverts so much of its budget into building spaceships, Duh!
** To say nothing of the fact that humans have made no use of the incredibly advanced Asgard technology outside of those starships. The civilian applications for any of the technologies evident on the even just the ''Daedalus'' -- to say nothing at all of the ''Prometheus'' -- are immense. And yet those technologies aren't ever even integrated into the hyper-secrete SGC, just the ships themselves.
** And, for that matter, how the hell did they produce those ships at all? How did they replicate some of the Asgard's most advanced tech, without creating a whole Sufficiently Advanced Alien, elder-tech manufacturing base beneath the effort. Think of it this way: if we went to a planet with cave men, and left them a science text-book and a copy of an aircraft carrier's schematics, could they build that aircraft carrier in ten years? And even if they managed too... do you think they'd still be living in caves while they did it and after they did it, having not so much as even deployed electric lights anywhere except the ship?
** [[AnalogyBackfire Cavemen don't possess the scientific method.]] There already exist theoretical designs for spaceships. We can build airtight ships. Giving humans knowledge of advanced Asgard technology, giving them the materials required, and provided they have an army of scientists and engineers whose job it is to make the best system possible, and a budget 100 times larger than the ISS[[note]]because seriously, it's the most important piece of military technology of the century[[/note]] -- that's more like giving the people who made the Rhodian colossus a crash course on blast furnace technology, giving them a blast furnace, coal and purified iron and ask them to make a steel suit of armor. It's not easy, but it's not at all impossible. The ''Prometheus'' is the most important line of defense against planetary invasion. It took the Americans 12 years to go from designing a space rocket to going to the moon and back. And that served barely any practical purpose. The Prometheus project would receive ten times the funds and work the Apollo project did. And most of it would be naval ship design made airtight.

[[folder:So, which SG-1 writer suffers from [=McCarthyism=]?]]

* I love this show, but I don't think I've ever seen any other 90's series that has it in for the Russians quite like SG-1. Russian teams repeatedly destroy themselves using alien technology, Russian soldiers routinely die in uncharacteristically (for the show)horrific ways when off-world, leaving only SG-1 to save the day. The Russian commander even lampshades this with a "Then why does SG-1 always make it home?" comment, and he doesn't get a straight answer. Even their SHIP gets blown up at one point, presumably with all hands lost. The Russian submariners all died, too. Is this just a need for redshirts (hah!) taken too far? Discuss.
** Well not that the Russian's don't have it bad but lots of SG teams also die in fairly horrific ways (sucked into a black hole is pretty far up there) and a couple of SGC ships have been destroyed too.
** Yeah, 'lots', not, 'every damn one of them'. Allow me to recap: One Russian team member crushed in a trap door, two more buried alive in the same area, and later eaten by some space bug; One team member having the audacity to suggest a rescue mission, later in the mission he drowns in his own fluids before disintegrating; SGC regularly beats back foreign invaders from the gate, but during Russia's only independent gate mission, they gate to an underwater gate and bring back some alien water, only to have said water possess and kill several officers. this same event triggers a failsafe that nobody could turn off, forcing everyone in the facility to either be killed by nerve gas (quite unpleasant), or go through the gate and drown at crush depth (very unpleasant). One episode cold open has an entire squad of Russians gunned down by other Russians to steal a symbiote. The black hole incident is definitely freaky, but at least you don't see them torn to bits by the 'hole. Most of the Russian casualties occur on-screen, in the foreground. Russians on-screen have like a 90% mortality rate. I could go on. My point is, someone's writing these scripts like it was the cold war, as though it was vital that fiction show how democracy and the US-of-A prevails. Their level of incompetence is laughably inadequate, and like I said, smacks of [=McCarthyism=]. D.J. even says as much, but he gets shot down just like the recurring Russian general. Everyone else in the SGC says the word 'Russians' with the same inflection as 'the NID' or 'Gould.' At least Mayborne gets a little redemption, but all the way to Season 8, every Russian is a sucker. Who's idea is this, and why? Did we really need a whole country of redshirts?
** Before the Russian's had their water troubles the SGC was completely taken over by a group of aliens. Not to mention the Goa'uld SG member. Sure a lot of Russians have died on screen, but so have a lot of SGC members, and just about every problem the Russian Stargate program has suffered from was first a problem for the SGC.
** I'm sorry, but I've got to agree here. The moment when this realization really struck home for me was the one with the replicators and the submarine. Americans actively attempting to thwart you? Yeah, sure, be all cool and Borg-like, totally indifferent to the PunyEarthling[=s=]. A couple of Russians opening a torpedo tube, who have no idea what you are? ATTACKATTACKATTACK! Put quite simply, I can't think of a single episode with Russians who have a better-than 99% casualty rate. Aside from the way the show treats them, of course, is the way Jack treats them. It's perfectly okay for a character that spent the cold war doing dodgy black ops to spout prejudicial rants that paint all Russians as slimy evil scumballs, but it is VERY _not okay_ for the show to [[BrokenAesop repeatedly fail at proving him wrong]].
** And how many American SG teams never make it home and die in horrible ways? The events described take place over a handful of episodes, when the rest of the show is ''ten years'' of US Air Force personnel dying horribly at the hands of aliens. It's less about "any Russian team is going to die" and more "any SG team besides SG-1 is probably going to die." Keep in mind that later seasons outright state that there's at least one fully-Russian SG team operating out of Cheyenne Mountain, and they seem to be getting on fine.\\
\\
As for the replicator, remember that the replicator was on the ship that SG-1 just blew up. If any replicator has a vested interest in killing the first humans it sees, it's that one. The other reason it attacks them so quickly is by this point it's the only one left, and it knows that a few rounds of small arms fire will kill it. It also knows that those pesky fleshlings seem to carry around said small arms and are quick to use them.\\
\\
And the show doesn't "repeatedly fail" at proving O'Neill wrong when he says they're "slimy evil scumballs". Aside from wanting to run their own program and trying to use the DHD for leverage (which was mainly to get things the US had promised them to begin with), they're rarely actually antagonistic.
** It is because the show was BackedByThePentagon. It got a lot of help from the US military and in return it made the US military the outright heroes and any other nation's armed forces very inferior. It is the standard military assistance deal the Pentagon's PR dept offers. In-universe, Jack's attitude towards the Russians is partially because he is a natural ass to others and also because he did a lot of black ops against the USSR in the 1980s. He is just too used to thinking of Russia as the enemy and too much of an ass to dial it down.

[[folder:Alar's Cosmic Bellyflop]]

* Jack's decision to kill Alar in ''The Other Side'' really bugs me. The episode is spent pointing out how Jack is going about acquiring technology for saving Earth in the wrong way, offering fuel for an army without knowing who started the war or why. Now Alar is willing to exchange technology in exchange for nothing more than sanctuary on Earth, and Jack kills him. Um, what happened to needing technology to protect Earth from the Goa'uld Jack? What, the future deaths of all those SG members is totally acceptable if it means teaching one guy that racism is wrong?
** It wasn't about "teaching one guy that racism is wrong." It's hard to "teach" someone who's splattered on the Iris. It was about not dealing with people who are, you know, actively engaging in genocide. Would it have been fine and good for the US to give, say, Hitler asylum because he promised to tell us everything about V2 missiles?
** Alar wasn't just going to teach us about missiles, he was willing to share everything. Power supplies, shield technology and medicine. Things that could have been used to save Earth and protect the planet. Jack was perfectly willing to support a war he knew nothing about to get that technology, but not this? Besides, the man was no threat to him, he didn't kill him in self defense. Why not take him to Earth and keep him locked up in a cell for life? The scumbag gets whats coming to him and all of Earth benefits from better defenses and medicine. Win, win scenario.
** Simply put, Jack was outraged by Alar's actions and motivations. And, probably, he was a little mad at himself for supporting them once he found out just what they were up to. So, he took it out on the most deserving target available to him. Remember, Jack plays TheMcCoy quite often in this show, so he's prone to acting on emotion rather than rationality at times.
** The US did exactly that with Unit 731, the Japanese biological weapons research team during [=WW2=]. They were given immunity from prosecution in exchange for their research.
** See Operation Paperclip. The US wanted scientists from Nazi Germany to help in their own technological development but Truman didn't want any actual Nazis to be granted asylum. The people in charge of the operation gave Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph new papers because they thought that a guilty conscience was a small price to pay for American technological superiority. O'Neil really screwed up on that one.
** That's the logic of Senator Kinsey and the NID. Having historical precedent does not make something morally right. Stargate Command is supposed to be the Good Guys™, and General Hammond in particular has stated that as long as he is in command "the SGC will hold itself to the highest ethical standard", even if it goes against their immediate interests. The SGC has made a point of acting against human rights violations and war crimes within their jurisdiction (i.e. anywhere except Earth). Oh, I'm sure the NID under Col. Simmons would have been willing to do a Paperclip for Alar. I'm also sure they'd have kidnapped Apophis a host who wouldn't be missed before Sokar rendered the question moot in "Serpent's Song". The Eurondans trying to wipe out the rest of their planet's population for not being blond blue-eyed whites is no morally different than the Goa'uld wiping out entire civilizations because they could possibly be a threat at some unforeseeable point in the future, or the Aschen turning inhabited planets into farmland after sterilizing the inhabitants. Just because the USA put Earth Nazis into witness protection doesn't mean the SGC should do the same for Space Nazis. {{Telefrag}}ging Alar was a more merciful death than the son of a bitch deserved, and Jack even warned him not to follow SG-1 to Earth.
** Offering someone immunity from prosecution, and a free ride in exchange for tech? I can see the argument for that being morally cowardice. But slamming the escape door closed and leaving them to die? that's not the only other option. "Holding yourself to the highest moral standards" generally *doesn't* involve deliberately killing people in a judge-jury-and-executioner manner, following one person's snap decision based on information they've only had 5 minutes to consider and no chance to verify. It seems as if Jack decided to condemn a large number of people to death for being bigots. Where's the diplomatic option? "We'll give you enough heavy water to power your shield generators, if you immediately cease offensive actions and at least *try* to negotiate a peace"
** "We'll give you _____ if you'll promise not to continue offensive actions" is pretty much Europe's entire lead-up to World War II. It would only have encouraged them to string along the SGC with, "Yes, see? We're trying!" as they continued the war of extermination that they started. Peaceful coexistence stopped being an option when one side decided to start gassing literally the whole planet.
** All arguments about the morality of killing him are lost when you take into account that they're all too happy to give any Goa'uld asylum in exchange for information.
** "It seems as if Jack decided to condemn a large number of people to death for being bigots." Uh, no, he was condemning them for being ''genocidal maniacs'', or did you miss that part of the episode? Jack's decision was ''arguably'' a moral grey area. But hardly one he should be expected to apologize for, or even feel bad for. Suppose a person from a neutral country during WWII stumbled upon Adolf Hitler about to die from a fatal stab wound. He could save Hitler's life, but instead he decides to let Hitler die, because he knows all the horrible things that Hitler has done. Should that person feel bad about letting a genocidal mass murderer die? Has he done something wrong by refusing to save Hitler's life?
** Jack didn't just straight-up murder the guy. He ''told'' him not to follow them. Alar chose to try anyway, and got splatted. The SGC has no problem with hostile aliens going splat against the Iris, and Alar's people certainly would have been hostile to Earth sooner or later (we're "Breeders" too, after all.) Questions of asylum and the worth of technology are secondary: Alar's people started a genocidal war in the name of genetic purity, and they likely would have continued against anyone else who didn't meet their standards (every other human in at least two galaxies, really.) None of them belong in the SGC, period. [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot The real question is why didn't they try and dial the planet back later and make contact with the "Breeders," who seemed to have a similar level of technology.]]
*** They might have tried off-screen. The gate was probably buried during the bunker's destruction.

[[folder:Reappearing Disappearing Jonas Quinn]]

* Jonas becoming a complete nonentity after "Fallout". I know he supposedly was working with resistance against the Ori in the later seasons, but I actually liked him and his story was never really resolved. It was hinted, particularly in ''Prophecy'', that his brain was in some way special and that was the reason for his incredible intellectual abilities. I thought he might end up being the key to saving the Asgard because of this, but he just completely disappeared. Of all the plot threads left dangling in this show, I think that one might be the most annoying.
** My guess always was, poor guy had too many haters during season six. The writers a) thought that nobody cared about him after all, so why bother or b)decided to pretend he never existed, much like "the-third-shot-disintegrates" thing.

[[folder:A Simple Solution]]

* A much better solution to the too-many-minds not-enough-bodies problem in "Lifeboat," which can be summed up in one word: COMTRAYA!
** ^That, my dear fellow troper, is perhaps the most epic SG-1-related thing I have EVER heard. I applaud you. They seriously should have done this. Harlen would have loved the company.
** A simple solution, perhaps. But we don't know if the people on the ship would have wanted to be downloaded into robot bodies.
** Or if the mind-download would have worked without the bodies.

[[folder:The Peaceful Word Of The Ori]]

* This has always bugged me. Much is made, in the latter seasons, about how the Book of Origin itself describes a peaceful religion, and the priors deliberately corrupt it and artificially twist it to justify their actions. Here's my problem: why bother? Presumably, at least, the Priors and the Ori themselves created the religion of Origin. If they wanted to use it to justify tyranny and genocide... why not just *put that in the book in the first place*? It's not like Origin would be the first religion to teach that unquestioning obedience to authority, forced conversion or cruelty to non-believers are all good things: actually, some terrestrial religions have done very well for themselves, exactly *because* they provide an excuse to hurt, dominate and kill others.
** The reason, of course, is that, if you're corrupting a peaceful religion, that looks suspiciously like the Hollywood version of Medieval Catholicism, then the show becomes a message about how all religion is somewhat bad, and fundamentalism is very bad, without directly targeting anyone. If Origin's texts explicitly told you to "go forth and kill for the Ori!" the show would then appear to warn against specifically and only those religions that have that requirement (and would thus tacitly approve of some religions, while scorning only the bloody ones).
** Also they may have created the religion, but they had to convert people to it. Generally peaceful religions do a better job winning converts and any sort of violence comes later. Once they had people born in it they might have had people who were convinced the violent way was the proper way to interpret it though. Also maybe the energy put off by "You're so awesome, we love you," worship is more potent than "Please don't hurt us, we'll do anything," worship
** One gets the impression that Origin ''was'' a pretty peaceful religion for some time back home -- The thing that makes Vala's husband start questioning his orders is when he notices that the way the Priors are teaching it ''now'' conflicts with the way they taught it when he was a child. It may be easier to keep the faithful in line with a "good" religion for 90% of the time, and only switch over to the bloodier version when it's crusadin' time.
** Maybe the Ori, when making their religion, just felt too lazy to create a full doctrine and it's companion religious text, so they compiled two or more previously existing religious texts and replaced all instances of "God" with "the Ori" and "heaven" or "afterlife" with "ascending" and then inserted the appropriate rituals to gather power from their followers, they didn't bother to change anything else since they didn't care for morals and knew beforehand they could always twist the meanings of the book on the spot when needed, after all the only ones cultured enough to notice any inconsistencies in the book were their most devoted and fanatical followers anyway.
** I don't know if this is canon or not, but according to the [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Book_of_Origin Stargate Wiki]], when the Ori first wrote the Book of Origin their intent was to pose as ''benevolent'' gods. As they became more and more corrupted by power they allowed (or perhaps encouraged) the Priors to twist the stories and verses to suit their needs.
** This makes a lot of sense, and explains the Ancient's unwillingness to do anything that looks like playing god- they already fled from a shining example of good intentions paving a path straight to hell.
** Also when the Ori wrote the book of Origin they didn't know that there were other humans in the universe. They set it up to dominate their own galaxy, they never expected to go on a crusade originally.
** I'm not sure the peaceful religion thing was intended to be taken literally. Christians frequently claim their religion is about peace, despite the Bible being full of violent rhetoric. I think it was simply about the fact that, as Daniel put it when first confronted with the book of Origin, it can be interpreted a number of ways.
** It's part of the genius of the Ori arc, showing how even a peaceful faith can be corrupted to violence, and most religions are equal parts "be nice" and "but don't let jerks screw you over." The Bible has just as many passages stating "love they neighbor" as it does "burn the witch," and the most violent stuff is usually talking about things going on in the middle of massive ancient wars. Watching Daniel and the Priors engage in quote-to-quote combat is a thing of beauty, and very well timed, given the upswing in fundamentalist believers of various faiths getting up to distinctly naughtier things around that time in reality. SG-1 actually took a pretty responsible tack with the overall theme of "don't blame the book, blame the people reading from it." Saying anything more would be inadvisable.

[[folder:Why Are We The Only Ones Without A Non-Interference Clause?]]

* The Prime Directive. O'Neill should watch a little more Trek, because every time they go to a primitive planet, they intervene in cultural matters, break out the candy and guns, and basically mess up the status quo of that planet, for good or bad. Shouldn't they at least ''think'' about what they're walking into. I'm re-watching SG-1 and so far the best I've seen is a five-minute debate about saving a teenage girl (this is after trading weaponry with a chieftain, mind you).
** They don't have a Prime Directive equivalent. The Stargate Program's goals are to acquire technology, allies, and knowledge, rather than the Federation's goals of exploration, mapping, and interaction with similarly capable societies. They also don't have the Federation's technological or power base; the entire program is a very small part of an single country's budget. Sometimes it bites the SG-1 team in the backside, sometimes it saves lives, but that's just a basic part of their ideology.
** The SGCs goal is primarily to find things to make their own world better and SAFER. Star Trek has basically advanced past that point. Besides, it's always been funny to me that the Ancients of the Stargate world basically serve as an argument against such a non interference policy, since we are constantly seeing the damage caused by their failure to help.
** You don't see anything fundamentally wrong with an organization whose entire reason for existence was to acquire technology (likely from races more advanced then them) and getting Prime Directive'd nine times out of ten turning around and doing the exact same thing to other less advanced races? To me, that seems pretty hypocritical.
** Err, no. You are basically suggesting that SGC should risk having our WHOLE PLANET DIE HORRIBLY to whatever the Goa'uld throw at it and I remind you: orbital bombardment, slavery, extinction level asteroids, exploding gates etc etc. So some people on some planet learn that not only are they not alone, but also are lame-assed farmers who suck. I certainly do not want to see our planet die just to protect some farming communities' backwater way of viewing the world. Can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. In a fight for your life, things such as morals and principles have to go out of the window ASAP. Just remember how useful the technology given by that Nazi race could have been in all the near-doom scenarios the SGC had over the years. Especially since you can take what they have and then go dispose of them for whatever reason later on when its fitting your plans. SGC wasted a lot of chances to get tech just for morals and principles. It may have worked out well enough thanks to the incredible luck O'Neill had when befriending the Asgard. God knows this could have gone really BAD without those guys. Case in point: wasting your chances to get vital tech is bad - doubly so when doing it out of reason of non-interference rule or some such BS.
** Telford totally calls O'Neill on this in ''Series/StargateUniverse'', but we're not supposed to take him seriously. Regardless, Stargate Command isn't like the Federation. They really are looking out for number 1, and with the Goa'uld poised to snuff out their little corner of the universe should they feel the need to, you can hardly blame them for being somewhat lax in their interference policies. They do draw a line at helping other civilizations win wars, at least when the benefit for doing so isn't all that immediate.
** Also, Trek's Prime Directive was based on Gene Roddenberry's ''opinion'' on how best to deal with other cultures and it is not without its flaws. For instance, many have pointed out that if Captain Picard came across a less advanced culture that was being ethnically cleansed by their neighbors or about to be wiped out by an asteroid, he would stand by and watch as thousands or even millions of lives were snuffed out, even though he knew he had the power to stop it. Picard would consider that regrettable but necessary. Others might consider it morally repugnant.
** Exactly! Part of the SGC's mission is to develop alliances with other worlds. So if that means "Hi medieval people in castles! What say you trade us some of your naturally-occurring awesomesause medicine plants for us saving your people from an EarthShatteringKaboom? Do we have a deal?" - then the SGC has done its mission. Remember, the Stargate program cost the U.S. taxpayers $7,407,000,000 ''per year''. It is a sizable investment of America's budget, and it is completely reasonable that the U.S. government should expect some results that would give us an edge technologically (sorry Daniel, fascinating as [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Space Egyptians, Space Minoans, Space Mongolians]], whatever, might be, they alone don't justify a military expenditure of this magnitude, [[StrawmanHasAPoint as was pointed out by Seantor Kinsey in the season 1 episode "Politics"]]). Besides, the Federation in Franchise/StarTrek can usually handily defeat most any threat thrown at it by [[TheKirk Captain Kirk]] punching an alien in the face and sleeping with [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe his woman]], or Picard diplomatically talking it out (or if it's movie Picard, pretending to be Bruce Willis). In the Franchise/StargateVerse, Earth needs whatever allies/tech we can get our Tau'ri hands on. Even planets with technologically inferior civilizations can have natural resources we could trade for, or be a location we wouldn't mind having access to (in "Enigma" we see that SGC called in a favor with the Space Minoans they saved in "The Broca Divide" and the king there was willing to offer asylum to the Tollan refugees, and again in "Family" we see Teal'c's wife and son being given refuge in the Land of Light.) Besides, since many of the worlds that SG-1 comes across have already been visited by even more advance aliens (starting with the very presence of a Stargate), a Trekkish Prime Directive would be worse than useless.
** It bugs me that the main team they send off-world contains a soldier, a military scientist, a linguist/archaeologist and a Jaffa - one certain to antagonize the locals. Surely a better idea would be to send a few diplomats+ translators+ scientists with a military escort. That way they might make so damn many enemies.
** Manpower is always an issue. Four people has, apparently, been determined to be the most economical team they can send out, so you double up on roles. SG-1 has, as you suggested, a translator (Daniel) and scientist (Sam), with Daniel also doubling as a diplomat, as he can determine local customs and languages. Sam doubles as part of the "military escort" you mentioned. Teal'c is humanity's single best source for information on the other worlds and Goa'uld in general for the first couple of seasons, ''and'' he's a badass supersoldier. There is risk, yes, that someone will see the sigil on his head first and cause trouble, but that's a risk they're willing to take for the sake of his input--that said, I don't recall ''any'' enemies that the SGC gains just from having Teal'c go out with SG-1. Some single-episode conflict, sure, but nothing lasting.\\\
SG-1 is sent in to determine if there's anything there and if what's there can be reasonably approached; until the latter is determined, you ''are'' better off sending a mostly military outfit, otherwise that team of diplomats, translators, and scientists are more likely to end up fodder for the locals if they are hostile. You'll note that SG-1 just does ''first'' contact; there's plenty of episodes that establish that those teams of scientists and etc. ''are'' sent in, after SG-1 determines that A. there's something worth sciencing over, and B. that it is safe to science there; or, failing that, they have a military escort.\\\
So, I don't see any problem in the way the SGC handles things.
** More often than not, the SGC is ''fixing'' previously-established interference. The Goa'uld have a vested interest in not letting humans advance past a middle-age technology level, and generally prefer to keep them somewhere around the Bronze Age. It's even a clause in the Protected Planets Treaty with the Asgard, that no human civilization can advance to the point where it can become a threat to the Goa'uld. The SGC visits planets that have remained in their technological stagnation, sometimes without even their "patron" Goa'uld having been present in ages, and basically tells them that "Hey, with a little bit of work and ingenuity, you to can hold 'the power of the gods' in the palm of your hand! Let's start by talking about a little thing we like to call irrigation/iron forging/germ theory." Even then, the SGC is a far cry from the bumbling, do-whatever-we-want-and-damn-the-consequences group some seem to think they are (and in-show organizations, like the NID, would like them to be.) The Ancients and the Tollan are firmly on the Star Trek side, "we shall not interfere no matter what." The SGC tries to strike a balance between between when they should and should not interfere, not always successfully. A perfect example of this is in "The Other Side," when Hammond initially states that the SGC will not commit the resources to turn the tide of a world war. When it turns out they can just by offering water, Daniel points out that, aside from the logistics issues of putting Earth Human lives on the line in an alien war, there was a moral issue as well, which doesn't just "evaporate" once it's not "our" lives we're dealing with. Hammond reluctantly agrees, and orders Daniel to learn more about the war and its causes before he'll agree to help (this turns out to be a very good thing.)
** ''Trek'''s version of a Prime Directive is mainly (but not only) centered on the idea that warp-capable civilizations shouldn't interfere with technologically inferior species. But that is rendered completely obsolete on ''Stargate'' because every single civilization they encounter, be it advanced or primitive, tends to have either its religion or trade based completely around a complex transport system, which has been seeded on their planets by [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens SufficientlyAdvancedAliens]] millions of years before. Not to mention that some of those primitive species have either been enslaved by the Goa'uld (and are thus somewhat familiar with technology) or possess plenty of other tech, which they think of as magic and which they nonetheless employ. I don't think there's anything from ''Trek''!Directive which would be straightforward employable in ''Stargate'' context.

[[folder:Forgotten Not-So-Super Weapon]]

* Whatever happened to Felger's plasma cannon? One would logically assume that work on it would continue considering that it was intended to be a replacement for the Prometheus' missile armament, but we never hear of it ever again. It's like the SGC abandoned the idea of having a viable energy weapon just because it failed its first test.
** That's assuming it ''only'' failed the first test. Felger had a bad habit of overestimating his work. It's probable that he never perfected the cannon. And even if he did, maybe the power requirements were simply too great for the Prometheus to make good use of it.
** The SGC does have a working, human-built energy weapon. Carter uses one in the episode with the bounty hunters tracking SG-1. Vala also tries to bring one to Ba'al's extraction ceremony in ''Continuum''. Thing is, it's bulky, awkward, underpowered as far as we know (it certainly can't pack the punch of an anti-fighter gun), and for now only available in handheld form. Plus the spiffy Asgard weapons have rendered it obsolete for capital ships.

[[folder:Thanks, Anubis!]]

* Why didn't the SGC ever mine that Naquadah asteroid Anubis sent to Earth, it's 137 kilometers in diameter and 45 percent Naquadah. That is billions of tons of the stuff just waiting to be mined and used, yet they spend years afterwords searching planets throughout the Stargate network to find planets with reasonable supplies of Naquadah.
** You don't know that they didn't. Just that they hadn't done so by the time of "Enemy Mine", which was only two years after "Failsafe". Asteroid mining is not exactly a trivial endeavor when you have ''no experience whatsoever''. And the only large space vessel that the SGC possessed by then was Prometheus, which was a warship first and foremost. It would take a fair few years to build up the infrastructure for space mining, and Earth's demand for Naquadah wasn't ''that'' great. Planetary mining was a much better bet in the medium term.
** Unless they had some way of applying thrust to the asteroid, it was going to venture out of the solar system eventually. By the time the SGC had enough capital ships that they could theoretically try something like that, it may have been too far away to be worth it. Also, as mentioned, setting up asteroid mining is a difficult proposition, the SGC may have ultimately decided it was better to look for planetary mines the Goa'uld hadn't already stripped bare then undertake the risk of setting up an asteroid mining facility.

[[folder:Poor, poor Harlan]]

* Speaking of Harlan, wouldn't he be pretty much screwed after Robot SG-1 died? He made them because he needed more hands to run the facility, and he needed the facility to keep himself powered.
** I may be making this up, but didn't Harlan mention something along the lines of Carter having made improvements to the facility before developing portable batteries and developing wanderlust?

[[folder:Stock Footage]]

* I don't know if this is addressed anywhere else, but it just bugs me that the producers kept using the same wormhole-opening stock footage from the pilot in many episodes. Computers covered with sheets and a dark gate room can be seen from when Apophis first came through the Stargate. In some you can even see people standing close to the Stargate in one scene and then disappear in the next scene and replaced by a computer.
** They specifically mention in one commentary or another that they filmed the same shot from many different angles so they wouldn't waste money redoing the shot.
** They originally made that effect by shooting water through it, because they didn't have the money/technology to make it with CGI. Using 100,000 gallons of water for a simple effect is expensive and takes time.
** No way in hell did they use that much water. They probably used a gallon, tops, and just enlarged the footage.
** Uh, no. A gallon is a very very small amount. You're talking about a freaking milk carton. They did it by positioning a jet engine over a tank of water. That's a lot more than a gallon.
** I fail to see why you would need a jet engine to achieve that sort of effect. Look at the movie: The initial flush just looks like someone dropping something into water, which is then reversed. This is followed by the other end of the gate in some kind of whirlpool effect (this bit's entirely absent from the show). How do you need a bloody ''jet engine'' to do either of those?
** It doesn't matter what you think it looks like. That's how they did it. No two ways about it. But, to give an explanation, dropping something into the water does not create the same effect as the Stargate opening. Air does not sink, hence the jet engine. Furthermore, doing on a small scale and enlarging it would cause distortions. Doing it life-sized and pasting it in creates a more realistic effect.

[[folder:Why is the Stargate secret?]]

* The SGC hardly has any secrets from its enemies, but they work hard to keep the Taur'i public in the dark. It isn't just wasted effort. There are millions of scientists and engineers who would do useful things for the war effort if they knew about it. Imagine the earth's industrial base upgraded with Goa'uld technology! Six billion free people should be our biggest advantage... if only they knew.
** That might work now, but if they had tried it from the start, mass panic and outrage would have been the result. Regardless, people are going to be pissed when they find the US, Russia, and China have ''interstellar spaceships''. Look at how the ambassadors reacted to the X-302 and 303. "Uh, yeah, we kinda have a flying aircraft carrier." "You WHAT?!"
** But then, wouldn't the conversation continue: "Yes, we do. It has a force field which can withstand nuclear bombardment and has enough weaponry to blow up your capital city. Now what are you going to do about it." It's not as if Russia, the US and China aren't already the dominant military powers. Any weapon in the hands of the US, China and/or Russia which doesn't prevent their countries from being annihilated by firing 100 nukes at it does not change the balance of power on Earth. There is no difference between being able to destroy your enemy's cities in 10 minutes or in 60, as long as MAD stays true. Only now, they could better enforce the ban on nuclear proliferation. A simple WaveMotionGun attack on Kim Jong Il's palace and another ship on standby to deflect any missile launch, and Bam! Nuclear threat eliminated. Similar operations could be used to topple dictatorial regimes all across the globe, at a much lower cost than the present wars/peace missions. Yes, there would be a lot of rapid change, but ask yourself: would you seriously start panicking if the countries which already have enough bombs to blow up the Earth 20 times over within 2 hours get orbital death rays that can do the same thing in 5 minutes? No, I think this is standard ReedRichardsIsUseless.
** For starters China could (as in real life) greatly restrict the international sales of rare earth metals unless the U.S handed over the technology. Besides that it wouldn't be at all difficult for Russia or China to promptly show much more aggression in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe/Central Asia respectively. As for not freaking out, when China announced it had an aircraft carrier (something the entire world knew for years) it made international news. I suspect they would ''not'' calmly accept America possessing an interstellar aircraft carrier.
** It's secret because things got away from them. They started, not so much in secret but in obscurity, as just a weird science outfit. Then they got in deep, and events moved really quickly so they didn't have time to consider how to make things public. By the time they had breathing space to consider how to go public keeping secrets had become habit. Then of course they got so used to it, that they'd kept so many secrets, that any release would trigger a lot of public anger at being outright lied to for so long by the military. No matter their successes, heads may have to roll to satisfy public outrage and some of those heads would be politicians' heads. That was the whole premise behind that episode which had the documentary crew filming in the SGC, the outgoing president was trying to cover his ass for when things went public. And the longer they kept on lying and keeping secrets, the worse the bang would be when it all came to light. [=TL;DR=] version, they thought they were just keeping a little, run-of-the-mill, military secret and by the time they discovered they were keeping a mega-massive military secret that probably shouldn't be a secret it was too late.
** Because there is only ''one'' Stargate; which means that whoever has the most access to the Stargate has the biggest advantage. Maybe the next time an American SG-team comes back, they bring back some kind of rare, incredibly powerful technology; other nations would question if the U.S. was getting an unfair advantage. Every other country on Earth is going to demand access to the Stargate - which isn't just having a French or Chinese SG-team, because the physical Stargate is still housed in the United States. If the truth was disclosed, it would cause a '''massive''' change in the world. The existing economy would go to chaos: why focus on Oil when we've got Naquadah, which means the Arab countries are going to be utterly furious. Now ''maybe'' everything goes well and every single person in the entire world agrees on the priorities and agrees to completely scramble the existing economy and system. Knowing that HumansAreBastards, do you really think that would happen? Hell no - there would be riots on the streets, demands for the 'Gate to be turned over to X nation or X people, demands that this happen or that happen. Major industries and businessmen would fight as hard as they can to preserve their industries - industries which are now obsolete. The politicians of the IOC mostly agree on what they need to do; if the entire world knew, then a dissenting majority could vote those politicians out of office. Imagine if an ignorant majority voted an incompetent CorruptPolitician like Kinsey into office on the platform of 'Stop going through the Stargate'. Letting the world know about the Stargate is akin to allowing soldiers of a regiment to vote on what their regiment should do - it sounds great in theory, but fails in practice. Disclosure is definitely something that should happen, but not until the Earth is completely safe, so that a disruption of Stargate activities doesn't end up with the enemy of the week blowing us all up.

[[folder:Zat Gun Stun]]

* Can I just ask, why do the Zat guns knock the bad guys out cold for minutes, and yet when shot by a Zat, the members of SG-1 only have seconds of painful, but conscious incapacitation to endure?
** It's said in the show itself: people repeatedly knocked out by zats eventually develop resistance to them. SG-1 get more resilient the more often they are shot.
** The bad guys most usually being Jaffa, the above is justified because Jaffa are usually shooting at each other with staff weapons, not zats.
** Plus it's been shown that metal conducts a zat fire and when you consider that Jaffa tend to wear entire suits made of metal, it's possible that the energy is intensified.

[[folder:Jack's Teenage Clone, Part II]]

* I just watched the episode where O'Neil is abducted and a 16-year old clone of him left in his place. When the SG team learn of this and want to figure out what to call this clone, they decide on "Duplicate O'Neill". Within seconds of that I thought of an even harder nickname: "Clo'Neill" or (Cloneill) - I'm sure the writing staff would've thought of this too... why wouldn't they write it in?
** Because they didn't think of it, I'm assuming. Or, they thought of it, but decided it sounded stupid.
** Because the military is expected to be at least semi-professional? As are military scientists? If I'm not mistaken, it was Carter who named the kid... Do you honestly see her using the term 'Cloneill'? Or perhaps they rejected it because 'Cloneill' and 'O'Neill' would have been too easy to confuse when spoken aloud? A 'cl' sound can be pronounced really quietly if you aren't paying attention to it.

[[folder:Threatening [=McKay=] with citrus death]]

* What's wrong with Mitchell during "The Pegasus Project"? I know [=McKay=] isn't they easiest person in the world to get along with, but was it really necessary to threaten him repeatedly with something he was deathly allergic to? For that matter, why did everyone else act like he was something on the bottom of their shoe?
** Holding a lemon up to him wasn't going to kill him, it's only dangerous if he actually ingests citric. Secondly one point of cross overs is to bring awareness to shows an audience may not have experienced before, so you need to show them what the new series is like. In this case, they were exaggerating a few things slightly to show SG-1 fans who hadn't seen Atlantis, that [=McKay=] was annoying yet lovable.
** First of all, Rodney looked genuinely terrified whenever Mitchell brought out that lemon. Secondly, that episode doesn't portray him as lovable. It portrayed the other's reactions to him as though he were still in "48 Hours".
** The lemon wouldn't have hurt him. Rodney is a hypochondriac to the extreme. I don't think he was actually allergic to anything.
** Lorne wasn't all that fond of him at first, either. Obviously [=McKay=] is just more grating to people he hasn't met yet.
** I suppose. Still, in that season six two part opening Carter and [=McKay=] bonded a little. She went as far as to kiss him on the cheek. She couldn't have quietly told Mitchell "Yes, he's annoying, but he means well."?
** Would it really have helped? He wouldn't be any less annoying for the effort, and others would be less likely to put up with him. Part of the blame also has to fall on Sheppard for this, since he encouraged Mitchell's bad behavior.
** Yes, it most likely would have helped. Even annoying people appreciate being reassured that not everyone on the planet is out to get them. And yes, the blame should fall on Sheppard as well.
** "Rodney looked genuinely terrified whenever Mitchell brought out that lemon." Well, Rodney can be a bit neurotic. It's possible he overreacted.
** There's an even greater possibility that it was an incredibly tasteless joke.
** That too.

[[folder:Hammond Backing Rebels]]

* In the season 6 episode ''Shadow Play'' Jonas' professor suggested that Stargate Command provide overt military assistance to the resistance group. That isn't the problem, the problem is that Hammond was suggested to be considering it. Ignoring the legal issue that the United States is not legally permitted to support a coup, at no point in this episode do I remember even once seeing Hammond on the phone with the president or anyone else. In effect he was considering backing a coup on another planet, with no intelligence outside of what was provided by one old man who was not proven to be trustworthy, no preparatory knowledge of the layout of the city, and literally no knowledge at all about the group that they would be assisting. And he's doing this all on his own authority without any contact to his own Commander in Chief.
** The old man had indicated the only needed help was securing the gate. And, more to the point, Hammond wanted confirmation that they could pull it off first. After that, he'd discuss it with the President, more than likely.
** IIRC, it was either implied or outright stated that the coup was going down in matter of days. And even just securing the gate would still have been a violation of U.S law if it was to support a coup.
** It's not exactly on the up and up to have started no less than three ''separate'' interstellar/intergalactic wars, either. As far as US law goes, you can handwave it as only applying to Earth and call it a day. Or national security concerns. Really, as long as the entire project is secret, they can get away with a lot.
** Only if you assume none of their superiors are willing to hold them accountable. And recall that everyone who knows about the Stargate program is certain it'll one day go public. If and when it does, the SGC doesn't want a pile of illegal and morally questionable actions on their records.
* What happened to Mitchell in Continuum? Forgive me if I misunderstood something, but didn't he go back years before he was needed to stop Ba'al? How did he get out of wherever they were storing the 'gate at the time without someone noticing it activating? How did he explain his presence anywhere to anyone? What did he do with himself until he had to go up against Ba'al? How did he get on the boat? When was that picture he has in the other timeline taken? Did he explain who he was to his grandfather? How did the picture get to the modern version of himself? And what the heck did he do with the rest of his life? Inquiring minds want to know.
** As I suggested above, I think he ''is'' his own grandfather (though clearly, not everyone agrees). As for how he got back? He has survival training and presumably managed to make it from Egypt to the USA somehow (it's doubtful he could make it from the Antarctic Gate to the USA but I suppose it's possible). If they are the same person, then Mitchell just had to make sure he left his photo to his "grandson".
** The reason that not everyone agrees is that the movie clearly shows that you're wrong. Because among other things, Cam's nose didn't grow bigger over the couple of years he spent in the past.

[[folder:SGC World Designations]]

* Why the Pxx-xxx alphanumeric code for planets they have visited and know the name of? I live in Cardiff. I don' say I live in 51*30' North, 4*15' West.
** It's how their organization system works. The addresses are cataloged before they go there, and remain their Earthly designation so they can keep track of it and look it up easier. There's ''thousands'' of these planets; having a simple number system only makes sense.\\\
And they ''do'' use the names in informal conversation if they know them. They refer to Argos, Tollana, Kelowna, and Abydos with their names when they're talking about them in a non-official capacity.
** Numbering unnamed planets or planets whose names are unknown might make sense, but for the rest a number system makes no more sense than, say, listing the planets in alphabetical order.
** Because it's standardized. Say you have a list of 300 planets. When you got the list, they were all given numerical designations; since then, you've found 50 of them have names. Now, are you going to go with the sorting system that encompasses ''all'' the planets, or keep two different listings for the sake of a minority of those planets? The latter is just more complicated.
** They probably don't even know the names for most of those planets. Even assuming the planet is inhabited and they can ask the locals about its name, they need to actually explore it first. For ''some'' planets known to the Goa'uld, Teal'c may know their Goa'uld names, but it's unlikely he has that many of them memorized.
** Maybe they keep names. Maybe their database goes like this: Code(Pxx-xxx)-(Adress)-(Native name)-(Explored?)-(Owner)-(Notes). So, when you search for [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Langara Langara]], you get all the data, like ([=P2S=]-4C3)-(symbols)-(Langara)-(Yes)-(Langarans)-(Has Naquadria). It's like a library!
** Early on in the series (1998/99 or so) that some Windows .ini files included codes which were similar to the planet codes in SG-1 (i.e., in the format [=X0Y=]-123).

[[folder:President Signing Treaty]]

* In the season four episode ''Divide and Conquer'' part of the plot involves the president coming to sign a treaty with the Tok'ra. Apparently the writers were unaware of the fact that a United States president ''cannot'' sign treaties on his or her own. The Senate has to ratify any and all treaties before they can be legally binding, something a glance at the U.S Constitution would have told them.
** Does the episode say otherwise? Because while the Senate has to ratify them, I imagine the President is still the one who actually does the signing.
** The president would do the signing, but at that point in the show the vast majority of the country (including Congress) would have had no idea that any of this was going on. Normally you could assume that this was actually a memorandum of understanding, which is often used by the president when a legal treaty is impossible, but at multiple points they specifically referred to it as a treaty. Of course these are soldiers and not diplomats so they simply might not have known the difference.
** Or, y'know, it's a treaty being signed in a secret facility where a secret program is conducted and the other signatory is a bunch of aliens who are trying to help us keep our planet from being blown up, so maybe they figured they're in uncharted waters and just went with what worked rather than strict adherence to the way our government's set up. The setting has multiple secret space-warships zooming around, I really don't think they're going to quibble over not following our guidelines for treaties to the letter.

[[folder:Forgotten Needle Threader]]

* In the episode ''into the fire'' we're introduced to the Goa'uld equivalent of the Puddle Jumper - called a Needle Threader. What the hell happened to it after this episode? this was Season 3, long before Earth had something as basic as the F-302 - yet despite the fact it would of been useful in a good hundred episodes after this we never see this fully functioning craft ever again. Even if they didn't want to keep this at SG Command for whatever reason they could have, at the very least, sent it to Atlantis as a back up for their very finite supply of Jumpers.
** Yeah, because the Needle Threader is so much easier to replace. The reason they don't use it is because it lacked any sort of autopilot to get it through the gate, which made it dangerous as hell to actually fly through a gate. It's also far weaker than a Jumper, presumably slower, technologically inferior... need I go on? It was an odd-shaped death glider, nothing more.

[[folder:HumansAdvanceSwiftly Or Not At All]]

* Why is it that vast majority of the worlds with humans in them the technology level is either ancient or highly advanced? We see a handful that appear to be around modern-day Earth in technology (the world with the accidental mass de-aging and the one where they learn about Naquadria come to mind). The Goa'uld suppressing technological development explains some, but it's odd that none of the freely developing worlds are technologically on the level that could be found on Earth around the last 500 years. Hell, I would've loved to see something like a steampunk world based on Egyptian culture. I know the real-world reason is "we aren't going to spend all that money on neat props for a one-off episode when we can just have people huddling in stick huts in the forest", but some kind of in-universe explanation would be appreciated.
** Less advanced cultures are made into slaves while advanced cultures have either avoided domination or can defend themselves. The in-betweens tend to get the shit bombed out of them.
** However, there are a number of planets that apparently have been forgotten by the Goa'uld and left in peace for centuries, yet they show no sign of technical development. If things start progressing on such places, I do not see how the Goa'uld could notice anything before they get to the lever of developing something like wireless radio transmitters. (Even if you were sitting on the Moon, how could you observe anything about the level of technology on Earth before circa 1850?) Not to mention there's also several planets where the humans are free from the Goa'uld, yet they habitually use technology left behind by them or other space-faring species, and those escape notice as well.
** Admittedly, my memory of the series isn't that good, but a lot of civilizations are much smaller in population than Earth standard. A smaller population sample would hinder development. Some could have also deliberately regressed. Earth has also had a lot of wars to help spur progress.
** Another possible explanation is that the teams quite simply haven't come across that many civilizations due to pure chance. There are thousands of gate addresses in their logs.
** They do encounter a few. Off the top of my head there's the planet of people that all lost their memory shortly before SG-1 showed up and the planet that had been de-populated by an alien bioweapon so that they could use it as farmland. Both of those were roughly early 20th century-equivalent before disaster struck. However, look at it this way: The "ancient" civilizations they find range from know-of-agriculture-but-nothing-else up to just-pre-industrial-revolution. That's a span of roughly 8 000 years in Earth history, while a relatively "modern" society would only be recognizable in about the last 150 years. So the odds of them encountering a civilization even remotely on-par with ours is quite low. Odds are that they'll either be pre-industrial or will have had their industrial revolution 200+ years ago and so be far ahead of us (just look at how far we've come in 10 years, never mind a hundred). It's also worth noting that human history is littered with cultures that became quite advanced before eventually collapsing and losing their technology (the Romans had indoor heating and plumbing, for example, which were lost when the western empire fell.) so those "primitive" societies may have simply suffered a natural societal collapse that set them back.
** And on the note of significantly smaller populations - why? The settlements we see usually range in population from a couple dozen to 1,000 - how does that small of a population sustain any semblance of a civilization and not inbreed itself into retardation? I mean if there's one thing humans love to do, it's each other! A population cycle can generally sustain a healthy genetic diversity and stave off overpopulation if there is a balance between babies born and older people dying from whatever causes. One explanation I can see is that Goa'uld come to periodically purge the excess population, to keep them in line and prevent them from growing strong enough to rebel (kinda how the Spartans of ancient Greece would have yearly slave-hunts for that very reason, as well as train young Spartans in killing).
** Putting aside the fact that there are probably hundreds more of those settlements on the planet, many of these planets are aware of the Stargate system, and could possibly use it for dating (hell, even those people who kept Unas as slaves used it to get new blood for their Unas.

[[folder:These Are The Norse Gods?]]

* Is it me, or are the Asgard a lot more...restrained than they logically should be? I mean, these are the guys who inspired the Norse gods, right? How come they don't act anything like the Norse gods of legend? For example, the mythological Thor, while undeniably a benevolent god, was a boisterous, violent drunkard according to the most commonly accepted myths. Yet Thor in the show is nothing at all like this.
** The holograms they've sometimes used to appear as Vikings in battle armor may act more violent and drunken as a way to keep people from guessing that the real Asgard weren't like that.
** Fair enough, but it still seems odd though. You'd think that if their goal was to help humans become advanced and enlightened enough to join them as one of the Great Races, they'd create or co-opt a religion that's a little more more mellow.
** Actually, the Asgard's main goal seemed to be more along the lines of just keeping humans safe from the Goa'uld. To that end, co-opting a religion that promotes being a warrior among other virtues makes perfect sense.
** IIRC They didn't inspire the Norse Gods, they replaced previous Norse gods, and just took over their charade.
** More important than being violent and drunk, the Asgard are noble, fair, benevolent, and just. The mythological Norse Gods all have their warrior aspects, but above that they are noble. They treat humans with respect and honor, and place a big emphasis on personal growth and responsibility (just like our favorite grey clones.) The warrior aspects were likely either designed to promote humans being able to stand up to the Goa'uld (one Asgard worshiper tells a Goa'uld to his face that "Thor taught us to stand as equals!") and the drunkenness may just because humans like doing that already, so rationalized that their "gods" must like doing it, too.

[[folder:Daniel Jackson's Questionable Mythology]]

* In the episode ''Thor's Hammer'' Daniel gets the idea that there might be a benevolent race of aliens based on the fact that Norse mythology depicted their gods as protective beings. Was he somehow unaware that most of Egyptian mythology depicted the Egyptian gods as benevolent beings as well? Or that there are countless mythologies dating back well over several thousand years before most of Norse mythology? Or even that Norse mythology was so heavily influenced by Christianity that by the point it was being recorded it was very difficult to tell what was in the original myths?
** He was interpreting the Egyptian myths from a modern perspective. While the Ancient Egyptians believed their gods were benevolent and depicted them as such in their legends, by modern standards they were cruel and despotic. Whereas the Norse gods (particularly Thor) were not. Also remember that in the Stargate continuity, ancient Egypt was actually the seat of Ra's Goa'uld empire, and we all know the various dickish things the Egyptians got up to. Slavery, wars of aggression and conquest, ethnic cleansing, etc. If you accept the show's premise that ancient Egypt was the seat of Goa'uld power on Earth, then you have to conclude that these things were specifically ordered by the Goa'uld. Thor, by contrast, did not demand that his followers perform grueling labors or enslave/wipe out their neighbors. (Though I will admit that Daniel was interpreting Norse mythology somewhat liberally.)
** Except that Daniel Jackson should have been fully aware that the Viking history was (much like Egyptian) at least partially marked by slavery, piracy and wars of aggression and conquest which the Asgard didn't seem interested in discouraging. Also that still doesn't explain why he specifically chose the Norse when he should have known that Christianity had greatly skewed the mythology which could quite possibly hide a darker past. For that matter IIRC he never actually had anything before presenting before Teal'c to suggest that the Asgard had actually existed. Simply because aliens had taken the roles of Egyptian gods one wouldn't normally conclude that every major mythology was definitely based on actual alien visitors.
** Viking ''history'' is full of slavery, piracy, and war, yes. But we're talking about mythology here, and there's little evidence that the Norse gods themselves encouraged such behavior. Besides, the precise distinction Daniel drew was between "tyrant" gods and "knowledge giver" gods. Daniel's point was the Egyptian gods were tyrants, but the Norse gods generally were not (though as I said, he was using a rather liberal interpretation). Also, it seemed that he was merely suggesting that the SGC investigate the possibility. Drawing up a proposal, as it were. Obviously he couldn't know ''for sure'' that other "gods" were aliens who were hostile to the Goa'uld and friendly to humans, but the SGC didn't have anything to lose by at least trying to find out.
** Yeah, Daniel is just sorta outlining a theory at that point. As the previous troper said, making a proposal to, perhaps, look into it more in depth. It's only once Teal'c recognizes Thor's Hammer--and, in fact, recognizes it as something that scares the Goa'uld enough that they go out of their way to make sure the Jaffa know not to dial the address for it even accidentally--that they really conclude that the Norse gods were aliens and could be allies. Hell, if Teal'c hadn't spoken up, maybe Daniel would've continued his presentation with another set of benevolent gods.
** Norse myth was less influenced by Christianity than it was almost completely wiped out. The few surviving stories are likely fairly close to the "original" (which, since it was primarily an oral tradition, is a bit of a moving target anyway.) But the Norse gods, one and all, are painted almost exclusively in a positive light. Compare some of the Norse myths with, say, Greek/Roman myths. It's pretty hard to picture mythological Odin or Thor getting up some of the frankly despicable things that mythological Zeus got up to. Probably closest to Daniel's point in the line between "tyrant" and "knowledge-giver," in myth Odin hung for nine days and nights from a tree to gain knowledge of writing, which he then turned around and just gave to humanity. Compare/contrast what Zeus did to Prometheus for giving fire to humanity. More directly to the purposes of the SGC, Thor is consistently depicted as going into battle against frost giants to protect humans. Zeus hurls lightning bolts at us for the lulz.

[[folder:Tunnel Of Screaming Light]]

* What exactly is that animation they use when someone steps through the gate? The thing that looks like you're flying down a tunnel through space, I mean. Is that what you actually see when you're traveling through a wormhole? If so, how can you see if your body's been completely dematerialized?
** I think that's just artistic license for the viewer's benefit (which would explain why the Milky Way gate wormholes changed from "tunnel through space" to "blue version of Atlantis wormhole"). Look at the original movie or The Ark of Truth. Both times when Daniel passes through the gate, we see him being dematerialized, then he goes through the wormhole and then the camera follows. So we're seeing things from the camera's point of view, not the traveler.

[[folder:No Stargate Trade]]

* This one has ALWAYS bugged me about Stargate: Why would worlds where the inhabitants know how to use the Stargate be less advanced than Earth? The modernization of our world has been largely due to the trade in technology and information between countries. How could this not take place when groups of humans (that can apparently easily communicate) travel between PLANETS? This is at its most ridiculous on ''Series/StargateAtlantis''.
** Which worlds are you talking about? Most of the human worlds encountered are ruled by the Goauld, and most of the rest are heavily influenced by their dominance or isolationist. On Atlantis, did you somehow miss that the Wraith intentionally target anyone who starts developing technology beyond muscle power? Ronon's planet got wiped out for that, and there's a reason the Genii live underground.
** Technological advancement is dependent on countless factors. Trade is only one of them and, it's not nearly as important as you seem to think. For one thing, trade can only lead to technological advancement ''if you have technologically advanced trading partners''. Consider the Native Americans. The Native American tribes certainly traded with each other quite often, to the point where one or two Iroquois artifacts have been found as far away as the Great Plains. Yet for the most part they never progressed beyond stone-age technology. It wasn't until the Europeans arrived that the Native Americans got past longhouses and bows and arrows. Point is, if the Athosians don't have any technologically advanced trading partners ''then they can't bloody well trade for advanced technology, now can they?''
** Comparing the Athosians w/ Native American is very disingenuous,isn't it. Native Americans didn't advance for myriad reasons (no large native pack animals in North America,a very dispersed population,not developing sailing technology to any serious degree,etc) but they didn't have a ''a large machine that could transport them to other planets,did they?'' Given the ease of spreading ideas (which is really the key to making technological advancements)that a Stargate would allow it is amazing that more races didn't develop along the lines of Genii or even the Tau'ri, despite the presence of the Wraith.
** "Native Americans didn't advance for myriad reasons" Yes, ''that is what I said''. Thank you for repeating my own argument for me. As I said, technological advancement is dependent on numerous factors, trade is only ONE of them. And the ONLY way trade can lead to technological advancement ''is if you have technologically advanced trading partners that are willing and able to barter with you for technology''. The Athosians ''do not have this''. Most surviving civilizations in the Pegasus Galaxy are very primitive. The ones that aren't are either unwilling to trade (the Genii, the Travelers) or have been wiped out by the Wraith (the Satedans). Doesn't matter how many trading partners the Athosians may or may not have if none of them have more than Middle Ages-level technology.
** The presence of the Wraith is the whole thing. As the Genii explain, the Wraith keep an eye on civilizations and wipe out any that are becoming advanced. There's not going to be much tech trade if whoever develops the trade is burnt to a crisp as soon as they let it be known they have it. The majority of the Wraith are dormant, yes, but the ones active were still quite active.
** In the Milky Way, most non-Earth humans don't use the Stargate. The chappa'ai is the Ring of the Gods, using it yourself is likely considered blasphemy. Given the attitude of most Goa'uld, the people likely believe that they will be struck by horrific retribution if they dare try to usurp the gods power for their own (and if a Goa'uld catches a hapless human trying to use the Stargate, that's probably exactly what will happen.) And even if a society overcomes their fear of the "gods" and tries to use the Stargate, do they know any addresses to dial? If they've seen the Goa'uld using the 'Gate at all, they may know "you push six buttons and then the big one," but if they don't know ''which'' six buttons to push, in what sequence, it will refuse to open ("proving" that the only the gods have the power to "walk through the wall of water within the chappa'ai.") No Stargate travel = no trading partners, and as pointed out, you can't trade technology if no one has technology to trade. Now, a point might be made that the humans in Pegasus could trade, not necessarily technology, but ideas. Get two or three smart people from two or three different planets together, and they might come up with an advance that they wouldn't have on their own. But then the Wraith show up and Cull their asses.

[[folder:Goa'uld Maintenence Technicians]]

* With their human slaves in MedievalStasis and the Jaffa forbidden from learning the secrets of [[ClarkesThirdLaw Goa'uld "magic"]], who maintains the Goa'uld's high-tech infrastructure?
** Certain Goa'uld serve as scientists instead of rulers, and the Jaffa do know how to repair Goa'uld technology even if they don't know ''how'' it works.
** There are a lot of plausible explanations, low-ranking Goa'uld, specially trained human slaves, specially trained Jaffa, manufacturing technology which allows the construction of sophisticated devices such as hyperdrives and computers to be largely automated (such as something similar to Asgard materialization technology or real-word rapid prototyping technology). As a fan of WorldBuilding, it's the lack of an official answer that bugs [[GordonEcker me]], especially with the {{Flanderization}} of the System Lords into a SkeletonGovernment in later seasons.
** On a related note, it always kind of bugged me that one of the first thing we hear Teal'c say in English is "This is not Goa'uld technology." He should have said ''magic.'' But yes, it's entirely possible the Goa'uld keep some people just enough in the know to maintain technology, or manage to sufficiently couch it in "mystical" terms that the ignorant masses believe they're venerating their god while they perform maintenance (think Warhammer 40k, remove this piece, recite this prayer, apply that amount of this "sacred" oil, recite another prayer, put that piece back. Congratulations, you've just lubricated something.) On the other hand, most Goa'uld technology is based on what they could scavenge from the Ancients, and if the Ancients did one thing well, they made things that ''worked.'' Kick it, hit, shoot it, bury it in the sand for a thousand years, dig it up, plug it in, ''it still frelling works.''

[[folder:Rebelling Against Ra]]

* The idea that the ancient humans on earth could successfully rebel against the Goa'uld in the first place is effectively destroyed by the series, especially by the episode ''Moebius''. In the original film, we see only Ra, his Pyramid ship, a couple of death-gliders and perhaps a dozen guards. We do not see him in possession of a true army at all. Upon critical inspection, Ra appears to be a space-faring conman with some extremely advanced weaponry and a handful indoctrinated soldiers to back up his charade. The film really expects us to take this at face value: Ra has no empire of worlds, only Abydos and formerly the Earth. The TV series blows this out of the water by introducing an entire Goa'uld hierarchy of tyrants, all who controlled parts of Earth around the same time in history. All with powerful spaceships that could by themselves, bombard any civilian population into submission. The episode "Moebius" takes us back to Ra's pre-rebellion days in Egypt and we see him in command of an entire army of Jaffa policing his capital city, directly contradicting the flashbacks in the original film where he had perhaps a few guards and the power of intimidation as his main weapon. Since Ra was retconned to have this army, we can reasonably conclude that the other Goa'uld system lords had similar armies at their command around the same time. So how the hell did the humans successfully rebel? Ra could have threatened to wipe out all their newborn infants and had the muscle to back it up if he wanted to maintain order.
** The only reasonable explanation is that the Goa'uld system lords had enough human stock off-world already by this time and with no naturally occurring Naquadah to mine, Earth was simply not worth holding onto.
** Also Ra may have decided to use the rebellion as a tactical maneuver: if the natural inclination of the system lords was to crush the rebellion, that would take time and resources to achieve. Ra may have chosen to pack up and leave first while the rest tried to quell the rebellion, knowing that he had enough free resources and manpower to attack and seize assets belonging to the other system lords in order to gain more power and further secure his supremacy.
** Perhaps Stargate the film and Stargate SG-1 take place in alternate universes. That would explain variation in the Ra tale, Abydos being in this galaxy and not another as in the film and why there's an extra "L" in Jack O'Neill's last name.
** You say "Ra could have threatened to wipe out all their newborn infants and had the muscle to back it up if he wanted to maintain order." He could have, but it's conceivable that the majority of said "manpower" were simply on the OTHER side of the rebellion. Or the rebellion could have happened while he was gone. As for the difference in the size of his army, you do realize that there are thousands of years between the two events you are discussing? Completely possible things changed a little during that rather notable time gap.

[[folder:SGC No Army]]

* The US Army,the largest branch of the US military not been shown taking an active role in the Stargate program has always bothered me. While the USAF has some very skilled special forces (USAF vet here) the Army has more and a diverse variety of them. They could have thrown the Army a bone or two some time during the show.
** That's as may be, but is there much overlap in operations like that? The US Army presumably wasn't involved because the Stargate Program was an Air Force program.
** Oh yes, there's always overlap, Ground combat is actually the province of the Army (although, obviously the Marines have strong capabilities in that area and all branches have ground forces)so not utilizing people w/ the necessary tactical training for potentially prolonged ground attack/defense situations seems to be illogical.
** True, but they weren't getting into prolonged ground attack/defense situations very often. Most of the SGC missions are small exploration teams. Notice how at the first sign of trouble O'Neill would almost always order the team to retreat through the Stargate. They weren't equipped for ground assaults and the show doesn't pretend like they are.
** Also, the Stargate program already costs the U.S. taxpayers $7,407,000,000 ''per year''. Involving another branch just to get everyone in on the awesomeness would have been an unnecessary expenditure. They have the Air Force handling the majority of operations, with a few teams of [[SemperFi Marines]] for when stuff hits the fan and they need to send in some heavy firepower. You don't see them reserving spots for the Navy and Coast Guard, do you?
** ''That's'' all they're getting for seven billion?
** Training, Canteen, Hospital New technology research and development and you know....several interstellar spaceships.
** In answer to the original question, the Army actually ''is'' involved by the late seasons. [[http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/SG_team According to the Stargate wiki]], SG-25 is an Army unit that has the same role as the Marine units: combat support. At one point they were also deployed for surveillance of Ori troops ("Uninvited").
** Forgive my military naivete, but is the Army really geared for such small-scale operations? SG teams are usually four-to-six people, does the Army routinely operate in groups that small, with no additional mechanized support? Or does it make more sense to use Marines in that role? Please note that I'm making no claims about one branch being superior to another, or implying that one branch has CripplingOverspecialization, just curious.
*** A very brief bit of research would point out that the US Army can operate in small teams. The main combat unit for infantry is a fire team (four people), so working in small groups is not a novel concept. The Army also operates Special Forces teams of twelve people that are supposed to work largely unsupported. Ranger and Airborne units are also expected to operate without heavy fire support. In short, yes, the US Army can and does conduct operations that don't involve a lot of outside support.

[[folder:Why does US keep whole Stargate program secret?]]

* I can understand it at first, since of course they want best tech and such, but after it becomes clear that Goa'uld are a threat to Earth wouldn't it be better to tell it about to UN? And why is, even after its existence is revealed, whole thing run mainly by US? Considering whole planet is danger this seems like yet another AmericaSavesTheDay with everyone else being useless.
** We saw what would have happened if they revealed the Stargate program to the world in "Disclosure". The representatives they invited freaked right the fuck out. They were almost ready to declare war on the USA when Thor showed up and calmed them down. Also, as a rule, no nation ever wants to admit to a major political embarrassment. And admitting that the United States had dragged the entire planet into a galaxy-wide war against a vastly superior enemy would be a huge embarrassment.
** (reposted from above) Because there is only ''one'' Stargate; which means that whoever has the most access to the Stargate has the biggest advantage. Maybe the next time an American SG-team comes back, they bring back some kind of rare, incredibly powerful technology; other nations would question if the U.S. was getting an unfair advantage. Every other country on Earth is going to demand access to the Stargate - which isn't just having a French or Chinese SG-team, because the physical Stargate is still housed in the United States. If the truth was disclosed, it would cause a '''massive''' change in the world. The existing economy would go to chaos: why focus on Oil when we've got Naquadah, which means the Arab countries are going to be utterly furious. Now ''maybe'' everything goes well and every single person in the entire world agrees on the priorities and agrees to completely scramble the existing economy and system. Knowing that HumansAreBastards, do you really think that would happen? Hell no - there would be riots on the streets, demands for the 'Gate to be turned over to X nation or X people, demands that this happen or that happen. Major industries and businessmen would fight as hard as they can to preserve their industries - industries which are now obsolete. The politicians of the IOC mostly agree on what they need to do; if the entire world knew, then a dissenting majority could vote those politicians out of office. Imagine if an ignorant majority voted an incompetent CorruptPolitician like Kinsey into office on the platform of 'Stop going through the Stargate'. Letting the world know about the Stargate is akin to allowing soldiers of a regiment to vote on what their regiment should do - it sounds great in theory, but fails in practice. Disclosure is definitely something that should happen, but not until the Earth is completely safe, so that a disruption of Stargate activities doesn't end up with the enemy of the week blowing us all up.

[[folder:Don't Ask Don't Tell Hathor]]

* Hathor. Hathor, Hathor, Hathor. How would she be able to control any homosexual males?
** Well, she's still a [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Goa'uld]]. If she found someone she couldn't control through her wiles and pheremones, she'd probably just have them killed.
** Speaking of Hathor, would someone mind explaining why everyone hates her debut episode so much? Granted it's not my favorite ep either, but people always say it's one of if not the worst episode ever and I've never understood why.
** It's not so much that it's a ''bad'' episode as it doesn't fit very well with later canon, like with Hathor being able to make Jaffa, or needing human DNA to make little Goa'ulds. Sorta like how in the last few seasons they just quietly pretended the Zat guns never disintegrated anyone.
** Some fans actually consider it a ''better'' "female-empowerment" episode than the even worse Emancipation. What with all the female staff of the SGC having to retake it from the men, without killing any of them. The ladies be badass, indeed. On the whole, though, Hathor opens up some real cans of worms, from her [[GameBreaker game-breaking mind control ability]], Jaffa-Making belly device (and "un-Jaffa-ing" someone with a sarcophagus), the "Code of Life" (though it could be rationalized to just improve chances of blending, not a requirement), and her [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale mind-control rape of Daniel]], who was still all about finding and rescuing his wife at that point. And then there's how she got shot, caught fire, set ''water'' on fire, then walked away.
** I fully realize we're into UnfortunateImplications territory here but it depends on (for lack of a better word) ''how'' gay they are. If she is altering a mans brain and body chemistry, wouldn't it logically follow that anyone with even slight bi tendencies would be tempted regardless?
** Those aren't UnfortunateImplications at all. Some experts are saying now that really very few people are either 100% totally gay/lesbian or 100% totally straight. Something as complex and varied as human sexuality cannot be boiled down to a simple either/or binary. So yeah, it's possible that Hathor's "magic" ''might'' work on men who normally identify as gay. Gay men are still ''men'', after all, with a male sexuality.
** Also, it seems her abilities can target males on a biological level, regardless of an individual's sexual orientation, be it to deviate from biologically intended heterosexual relationships or to abstain from any sex whatsoever. She could probably walk into the Vatican and have the Pope and the cardinals drooling all over her. It doesn't seem too much of a stretch to assume that her powers work on anyone with an "Y" chromosome, what with all her talk of the "code of life" (DNA).
** So in short, even men who ''are'' gay would not be immune to the epic womanly wiles of Hathor and her Goa'uld agenda. And if a member of SGC *did* show immunity for such a reason, he would have had quite a bit of explaining to do, as Don't Ask, Don't Tell was still in effect back then.

[[folder:Heroic Military]]

* It bugged me, that Stargate SG-1 was the most militaristic show I've seen. Almost everyone with an American uniform was good and noble. Almost all human villains were distinctly civilian. Senator Cox made all valid arguments when he was first brought in. About the undemocratic, secretive nature of the SGC. But he was painted as a villain immediately. SG-1 was visiting friendly worlds - they'd been there before, nothing hostile, they are INVITED back- with their P90s dangling in front of them, often even holding them at the trigger. What kind of diplomatic behavior is that? How would it have looked if the Tok'ra always came armed to the teeth? But wait, everybody always had to give up their weapons at the SGC.
** First of all, there never was a character named Senator Cox. You're probably thinking of Senator Kinsey. Second, what exactly is it that bugs you? That for once we have a tv series that ''doesn't'' vilify the US military? One that actually portrays them as heroic rather than sinister, amoral, brainless drones? You do know there's a difference between an AmericaSavesTheDay plot and an "American soldiers aren't baby-killing maniacs" plot, right?
** He probably got Kinsey's actor Ronnie Cox conflated with the character.
** We're looking at a single command here. The SGC is just an organization which happens to be well-run. Regardless of your position, this just makes anyone who tries to take down the SGC in favor of a different management wrong. Not evil, just wrong, as NID investigator Woolsey shows perfectly. Lack of a democracy in the military is common among humans since [[UsefulNotes/ThePeloponnesianWar the fall of the Athenian republic]]. And they're not diplomats, they're soldiers who have to defend themselves. You don't honestly expect soldiers to allow themselves to be open just for good diplomacy? I certainly hope it's standard procedure in RealLife.
** For a military command to have a "democratic" system would be suicide. Can you imagine a commander saying "hey, let's take a vote on whether or not we should attack these guys" and then every grunt weighing in his proverbial 2 cents? [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure It's one thing when a commander takes into account the advice and suggestions of his subordinates as to how to run a specific op (like we've seen General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill do on many occasions).]] It's another for there to be a formal system of every grunt having a say in how the organization is run.
** And regarding the "always armed to the teeth thing". '''One:''' Holding a gun by the handle is just the standard way in which a modern rifle is carried. Why? Because it's ''safer'' than any other method. You don't want to be walking around with a P90 or an [=MP5=] or, god forbid, an M16 swinging freely from a shoulder strap. It's just plain unsafe. Also, they don't grip their guns "by the trigger". I always remember them holding their guns with their fingers off the trigger outside of combat, aka "safety position". '''Two:''' Visitors to the SGC often DO show up armed. Most of the time the Tok'ra are visibly carrying zat guns strapped to their hips. And every single time a contingent of friendly Jaffa visits Earth they step out of the gate with staff weapons in hand.
** SG-5 is the diplomatic team. It rarely, if ever, gets mentioned in the show; but logical thinking suggests someone has to be doing it since SG-1 can't be responsible for maintaining talks with every world. SG-1 is just a vanguard team like The Enterprise in Star Trek.
** I don't agree with this criticism at all;
** The show portrays the people at Stargate Command as heroic and noble, not the U.S. military as a whole. General Hammond, for example, was a good man who cared enough about collateral damage to listen to Jack O'Neill (who has a similar moral code) in the first episode. General West from the movie and General Bauer in Season 4, on the other hand, have absolutely no compunction tossing nukes around the galaxy like 4th of July fireworks (prompting the heroes to have to work against them).
** These people who're portrayed as heroic and noble aren't all soldiers. Jack and Daniel are a military/civilian duo that play off of each other really well, with each of them getting episodes that validate their background and methods, and the show's overall take on it seems to be that there isn't really one right or wrong approach. Different things work for different situations.
** The entire NID/Trust plotline is a glaring TakeThat to the nastier aspects of the American security state and military-industrial complex, and was a background arc that lasted through the entire series (it was explored in far more depth than, say, Section 31). I'd say there was plenty of cynicism and criticism thrown at U.S. militarism by the show.
** For that matter, the U.S. government itself wasn't always squeaky clean - they were smart enough not to piss off powerful alien races like the rogue NID did, but when they were dealing with alien races they thought were powerless (the Salish in "Spirits," the Unas in "Enemy Mine"), they acted just like the NID, to the disgust of the main characters.
** I'm sorry but I have to disagree with the points listed above. Specifically, the argument that the show doesn't portray the military as a heroic and noble organization. While I will grant you that there were ''individual'' military officers who were portrayed negatively, they were vastly outnumbered by the ones who weren't. The show clearly portrays heroism and nobility as the ''norm'' for the US military, and the few officers who weren't heroic and noble as the exception. The few times when Hammond was forced to act in a dishonorable fashion, such as the incident with the Salish, it was clearly at the behest of non-military superiors and they weren't happy about it. And in the incident with the Unas in "Enemy Mine" the military superiors were ''considering'' relocating the Unas but only as a last resort of Daniel's attempt at diplomacy didn't work out. At no point during either of those episodes was the military shown to be ''unreasonable''. As for the NID and the Trust, both those groups were rather obviously ''not'' affiliated with the military. The NID is a civilian agency, and the Trust is a conspiracy of private business interests. You could credibly call this a TakeThat at the CIA and Big Business, but calling it a critique of the "military-industrial complex" is a bit of a stretch, especially when both those groups were ''directly in conflict'' with the military. Most important of all, the ''actual'' US military considered Stargate to be a highly positive portrayal of them, so much so that they happily endorsed the show, made high-ranking Air Force officers available as guest-stars, and even ''loaned them a submarine'' to use in one episode.
** There was the season one episode "The First Commandment" in which the leader of another SG team decided to play god on an alien planet. He enslaved the population and threatened to kill SG-1 for coming to take him back to Earth. Not to mention his whole relationship with Sam has a ton of implications that aren't very fun to think about. Hansen was probably the worst portrayal of a US soldier since Colonel Kurtz.
** If you want to see a less militarized version of the show then Atlantis has you covered. Most of the supporting cast in that are scientists and diplomats who are portrayed far more positively than in SG-1.

[[folder:Ra's Army]]

* Ra was the Supreme System Lord from basically the time he found earth until the first movie. Too hold onto that power for so long, he must have had one hell of an army. In the series, why don't we ever see any of his Jaffa? Or really, anything left of his legacy? Worlds he formerly ruled, tech he designed, etc. We get that one episode where Anubis wants the Eye of Ra, and that's it. Presumably many of his Jaffa were killed by rival Goa'uld when Ra was killed, but surely not all of them. And it's been shown that sometimes conquered Gould enter the service of their "new god." Or, how about many of his Jaffa join with the rebels because they now know that the Goa'uld are not gods? That would have been interesting! A large portion of the Free Jaffa High Council could have had the symbol for Ra tattooed on their heads. But no! We never hear anything about this supposedly amazing Goa'uld. It just bugs me.
** A few possibilities here. One: When Ra was killed by the Tau'ri his Jaffa may have been absorbed into the armies of other System Lords (and had their head tattoos remade to reflect their new allegiance), hunted down and killed by Goa'uld who opposed Ra, or committed honorable suicide when they heard of Ra's death. Two: It's possible Ra's army was made up of Jaffa donated from other System Lords. In Japan during the Edo period the shogunate instituted a policy known as sankin kōtai. Among other things, it required every daimyo to contribute a certain number of soldiers to the defense of the capital city. Ra could have done something similar, requiring every System Lord to contribute a certain number of Jaffa warriors to Ra's personal army. It would not only explain why we never saw any Jaffa with Ra's symbol on their foreheads but also why the Jaffa in the movie all wore different helmets. Lastly, and I admit this is purely an attempt at FridgeBrilliance on my part, it's possible Ra's dominance over the System Lords was based not on military might but on control of the Stargate system. Consider the following:\\
1. The Stargate system is the foundation of Goa'uld civilization. While they do have FTL-capable ships they are only used for the occasional military campaign, diplomatic visit, or when traveling to a planet without a Stargate. Goa'uld hyperdrive technology is not advanced enough to make routine interstellar travel (i.e. trade) practical and it can potentially take long weary months to fly from one planet to another. Among the Goa'uld, control of a planet's Stargate amounts to control of the planet itself.\\
2. The Abydos cartouche represents the length and breadth of Goa'uld knowledge of the gate system. We know this because when the SGC discovers gate addresses not listed on the cartouche this is taken as irrefutable proof of Daniel's (then unproven) theory that the Goa'uld didn't build the gate system. In other words, the Goa'uld can only gate to planets listed on the Abydos cartouche.\\
3. The cartouche data exists only on Abydos and nowhere else. We know this partly because it's implied by the above, and partly because every System Lord has their own list of worlds known only to them. If every System Lord had access to every gate address charted by the Goa'uld then wars between rival System Lords would consist solely of a race to see who could dial up the other's home world and toss a planet-cracking bomb through first.\\
4. The planet Abydos is under Ra's exclusive control.\\
So if gate travel is the foundation of the Goa'uld Empire, the Abydos cartouche lists every Stargate known to the Goa'uld, the cartouche data exists only on Abydos, and Ra has exclusive control of the planet Abydos, then Ra essentially has total control of the entire Goa'uld Empire! He has the gate address of ''every single planet'' in the Goa'uld Empire (save for the ones without a Stargate but the Goa'uld generally aren't interested in those). As stated above, this is something that no other Goa'uld in the galaxy has. By carefully controlling Goa'uld knowledge of the gate system, Ra can control the entire Goa'uld Empire. If another System Lord displeased Ra he could see to it that that System Lord's enemies "discovered" the address to his home world or his main source(s) of Naquadah. Additionally, if Ra charted the gate addresses himself (I don't know if this is ever confirmed or denied outright) then there could be hundreds, thousands, or even millions of planets with Stargates that ''only he knows about''. He could use these secret planets as hidden caches of resources or technology, or dole out the addresses of valuable planets (i.e. ones rich in Naquadah) to Goa'uld who serve him faithfully. Knowledge, as they say, is power, and Ra's knowledge is supreme.\\
...Or at least it was, before he got punked out and killed by PunyEarthlings.
** Oh, and by the way: We actually ''do'' see former Ra Jaffa among the Free Jaffa (although not on the High Council). For starters, look closely at the foreheads of the Jaffa in "The Warrior". Presumably those went renegade after Ra was killed rather than be executed or absorbed into the other System Lords' armies, and joined up with K'tano later.
** Ra had a son who was knocking around in the early seasons and had presumably taken control of Ra's resources,did the show ever mention what happened to him. The SG-C didn't really interact with him much, but he is a thing and a reasonable explanation for what happened to the Ra army. Though Sokar coming right the fuck out of nowhere for the Goa'uld with a tonne of resources might have something to do with Ra being destroyed and absorbing whatever his son couldn't get.