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1Due to size this is being broken up into multiple pages.
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3[[Headscratchers/StargateSG1Technology Stargate SG-1 - Technology]]
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5!! Unsorted
6
7[[folder:Why aren't the Goa'uld better at fighting than humans?]]
8
9* They all possess superhuman strength, advanced regeneration, and genetic memory thorough enough to pass on advanced skills. With the only weakness for their personal shields being melee so you'd think they'd at least try to be better at it compared to mere mortals.
10** The Goa'uld genetic memory may actually be a liability when it comes to tactical and strategic innovation. Stagnation and a refusal to consider new methods has bogged down many an army's development through human history, and humans live for less than a century and would only be involved in the military for a handful of decades at most. New perspectives breed innovation. A Goa'uld can live for thousands of years and has the accumulated knowledge of its ancestors. That's ten thousand years of bad habits to fall into. Bra'tac explicitly mentions at one point that the greatest threat to a system lord's rule is another Goa'uld. No humans or even the Asgard have been a substantial threat to them before. That makes for terrible stagnation. The Goa'uld haven't had a reason to get better at fighting than they are for millennia because their only opponents are other Goa'uld with the same limited technology and tactics. Superhuman strength, healing factor and genetic memory don't account for much when you don't know how to use these things to your advantage, barely know how to fight a proper war, and are armed with SchizoTech.
11*** They also rely heavily on the Jaffa for their heavy lifting, who simultaneously are very good at fighting but are stuck in their traditional ways.
12*** They're also super-arrogant bastards who sincerely believe that nobody will ever attempt to lay a hand on their God. The idea that they'd ''need'' to resort to hand-to-hand fighting is simply beneath them.
13*** Humans--and probably other species--have a tendency to "prepare to fight the last war." After World War I the officers in charge expected another slow-moving trench-warfare fight, and were thus unprepared for a fast-moving tank assault better known as the Blitzkrieg. After World War II they were expecting another tank war in Europe, long after ballistic missiles made conventional warfare obsolete. If warfare doesn't change for thousands of years on end, then there's no reason to adapt.
14** Forced cultural evolution is a very real (and unfortunate) thing in human history. Social and economic dynamics in Europe changed dramatically, because the Black Death killed a huge percentage of the population, making human labor - in Europe - valuable. The Goa'uld never experienced that, and they've never had to look farther than "the next planet" for more slaves.
15
16[[/folder]]
17
18[[folder:Air Force, Navy, Spaceships]]
19
20* BC-303 Prometheus and BC-304 Daedalus is for all intents and purposes, a ''ship''. Why there's no Naval personnel on deck, when they are better suited for it and especially naval aviation? Related to this is F-302; Good ground based aircraft, bad carrier aircraft by the virtue of having ''no'' folding wings. It took roughly twice the parking space it should be had it unfolded. No wonder those battlecruisers don't carry a larger complement of F-302s. Not to mention their pathetic armament. There's smaller aircraft that equipped with more AMRAAM than F-302s.
21** In the United States the job of space based missions falls to the Air Force, not the Navy. This is a legacy of the 1960s high altitude spy plane missions. Changing that would involve public debate, and the SGC and the show-runners are all committed to TheMasquerade. Not to mention that from the Air Force's perspective it would involve a turf war that would diminish their prestige. As for the aircraft designs, well that is what happens when you have to design and build an aircraft funded and design team drawn solely from an off the books black box slush fund instead of normal channels. You're going to get compromises.
22** One: Navy have their own Space Command. Two: The cost could be hidden behind the development of other aircraft. F-117 and F-22 ware developed under the radar, while F-35 was derided once as a fund black hole due to DevelopmentHell. And Three: There's no way to explain the huge footprint that was F-302. If the Death Gliders equipped with folding wing for storage, why don't the F-302? And don't mention structural integrity, because it was disassembled on occasion when it was transported through the gate.
23
24[[/folder]]
25
26[[folder:Finding Osiris' Ship]]
27
28* In season 8, they made a big deal of the fact that they had a lot of trouble finding and getting to Osiris's ship, but couldn't they have just asked Sarah? Last time they showed her, she was VERY much alive, and she should have most, if not all, memories of when she was controlled by Osiris. Worst case scenario, she could help find where the ship is. Best case, she could use Osiris's hand device to ring up herself.
29** Doylist answer: they forgot about her. Watsonian: We've seen that hosts don't necessarily retain ALL of the Goa'uld memories (and that that's a good thing for their sanity), so she might not have remembered anything about the wrist device besides that it activated the teleporter.
30
31[[/folder]]
32
33[[folder:Why didn't the Tok'ra use cloning?]]
34
35* They're so worried about their numbers, but both the Tau'ri and the Asgard have access to viable cloning technology, and at least in the case of the Tau'ri have successfully cloned symbiotes before. They clone the Tok'ra and use the free Jaffa who don't want to switch to Tretonin as the new incubators. Two birds, one stone.
36** Cloning is what ended up giving the Asgard an irreversible genetic degradation. No thanks, I'd stick with pretty much anything before cloning.
37*** It took many generations of cloning to get the Asgard to that point. All the Tok'ra would need to do is create a single clone of Egeria. Since Goa'uld memories are genetic, this would've resulted in an exact copy of the original Egeria, who could go on to naturally produce new non-clone Tok'ra offspring. And presumably even give birth to another queen to be her successor.
38** Yeah, but surely, with all their technology, the Tok'ra could use cloning combined with genetic tweaking to create genetic diversity. Also, the Asgard cloning degradation happened after many iterations, because they weren't cloning from original DNA, they were cloning from clones from clones.
39** The Asgard are well established to have had much better technology than the Goa'uld for a long, long time and cloning was something they'd been doing for generations. If they couldn't do that, then the Tok'ra can't.
40** For that matter, once the SGC found the original home world of the Goa'uld, why didn't the Tok'ra find another queen there? Sure, she wouldn't have the Tok'ra genetic memory, and it's implied the "aboriginal" Goa'uld aren't that nice, but if Egeria got in her head that purely parasitic Goa'uld weren't the way to go, surely they could teach the same values to a completely "blank-slate" snake?
41** The Tok'ra may well have been able to teach their values to a blank slate, however it's unclear if the native Goa'uld were blank slates. They probably still have genetic memory, including their queens. The sarcophagus undoubtedly made the Goa'uld worse but they still decided to forcibly take other species at hosts and spread throughout the galaxy with just the genetic memory that they had on their home world. That was their nature and it's likely a primitive queen would retain that nature. The Tok'ra were made intentionally by an unusual Goa'uld who wanted to give them a better nature. It's unlikely that they'd be able to find another queen who would appreciate and understand what it was that Egeria passed on. They could get the Tok'ra genetic memory from their father but they'd still be influenced by the mother who'd give them characteristics and memories (albeit mostly of swimming) they didn't want. They'd be better Goa'uld but they wouldn't really be Tok'ra.
42
43[[/folder]]
44
45[[folder:Why was the Stargate program based out of Earth?]]
46
47* With all the times they brought back dangerous aliens, technologies, pathogens and who know what else. It would make more sense for the Stargate program to be based out of a less vulnerable and important planet like the alpha site or ANY other planet? It's not like members of the military aren't accustomed to spending extended periods of time away from their homes and families.
48** The Doylist answer was that made the sets easier, and expanded the number of dramatic storylines they could tell. The In-universe answer is that for the first few seasons at least they didn't have any secure off-Earth locations to use, so Earth was all they really had. We do see them start to use off-world locations after that though, but the need for control of the secret project has them continue to use the SGC as the main base.
49** In addition, Earth has a lot of production and research facilities already in place. It's easier to ship things such as food and supplies to Cheyenne Mountain rather than send regular shipments of supplies through the Stargate.
50
51[[/folder]]
52
53[[folder:Ra got a haircut]]
54
55* Why did the director/producer have a young man with super short hair play Ra in ''Stargate Continuum''? Have they never seen the original movie or did they give the guy short hair just so they could distance themselves from the original Stargate movie?
56** Goa'uld can change hosts, so it's not much of an issue. Maybe Ba'al killed or gravely injured Ra's previous host.
57** What's stopping Ra from getting a haircut?
58** Nothing, but I was wondering about the out of universe reason (the real life reason) that the director had for giving Ra a short hair cut.
59** The guy they used to play Ra in Continuum is the same actor who played Ra in the season 8 episode Moebius. Just like O'Neill and Jackson have different actors for the TV series, so does Ra.
60** Yeah, but they could have just given the Ra actor a wig of long hair. My question is why didn’t they?
61** It might be that they "just didn't care" because it "just didn't matter"... Snake Plissken turned into [=MacGyver=] between the movie and series, a character going from long hair to short hair in the transition doesn't seem like a big deal. Besides, reportedly the people who made the series and the people who made the movie didn't like each other very much... departing from the movie in such a visually obvious way might have been their [[StealthInsult subtle middle finger]].
62
63[[/folder]]
64
65[[folder:Why does Dr. Jackson still need glasses after being in the sarcophagus?]]
66
67** Its the same reason Apophis started to age dramatically when he was captured by SG-1. The sarcophagus is far from an immortality box; go without it for more than a day and all its miracles vanish with devastating effect.
68** Because he stopped using it. The effects you get from using a sarcophagus while already healthy are only temporary.
69** Alternatively, his sight really is fixed and he continues wearing them just for looks. Not even all the time.
70** Does the sarcophagus fix defects that someone was born with, or just injuries/aging? If Daniel was born with an eye defect the sarcophagus may not have fixed i
71** The sarcophagus supercharges both the Goa'uld and human regenerative abilities, but it doesn't fix things that were already genetically wrong.
72
73[[/folder]]
74
75[[folder:Aliens Speaking English]]
76
77* I have just one main thing which REALLY bugs me... Why does the universe speak English?! Or rather, why does most of it? The first movie, and the pilot of the series had the alien planets speaking their own languages, a bastardization of the original language used by the transplanted slaves in each case... But apart from the odd occasion where the alien race turned out to be not *quite* human (or as different as the Unas - and not even for all of those!), it seems like the writers just forgot about this limitation. Now I get that it was done to make the ease of storytelling better IRL, but why was no explanation given in-universe? Daniel doesn't even comment how handy it is to have someone like himself who can speak something like 8 languages come along with the team...to worlds where everyone speaks the only language the entire team understands. My own canon has always been that the SGC found the 'translator' switch after the first few episodes and flipped it, so that the gate travel pops you out the other side with the capability to understand (and be understood by) the natives, but then this doesn't explain when they get to a new planet by ship...
78** This is an artifact from the movie. If the series had launched on its own, without the movie (written by someone else) preceding it, there would be no translators, and we could assume some form of TranslatorMicrobes or TranslationConvention was in place. Unfortunately, one of the main characters was a linguist, so he had to be there, but the issue of ''why'' was glossed over. Eventually, it became a running gag--see the quote for AliensSpeakingEnglish.
79** Every TV has a built-in Universal Translator. That might be a smart-ass answer, but a Star Trek producer said it years ago & I use it when people bring this point up.
80** In-universe, the Starfleet communication badges are supposed to have built-in Universal Translators.
81** I think [[WordOfGod Word of God]] was that they gave up on the languages because it was just too time consuming and tiresome. Also, it really doesn't add anything to the plots after you've seen Daniel pop out another dead language with similar etymology for the tenth time.
82** There really needs to be some sort of explanatory trope for this. It falls under the Mantra, really, but too many people blow that off because they think it means "Don't question anything, ever!" What it should mean, and maybe what we need a new trope for, is that "When adherence to accuracy would get in the way of being entertaining, in subject matter created with almost the sole intent to entertain, then it is both understandable and preferable that accuracy be asked to go take a smoke break."
83** It helps that 90% of the galaxy's humans are former Goa'uld slaves. It's possible this is a case of TranslationConvention and they're actually speaking Goa'uld.
84** The books suggest that the gates have some built in effect that translates things. Honestly that makes less sense than "We decided not to bring it up." does but it is technically an explanation.
85** There was a throw away line to that effect in "Avalon: Part 2".
86** Additionally, the gates could plausibly add at least a basic vocabulary to those travelling through them. Why didn't it do that with the first travel to Abydos, and other early episodes? For the same reason they had to adjust for stellar drift - it had been out of action for so long.
87
88[[/folder]]
89
90[[folder:Body armor]]
91
92* They can build intergalactic starships, but why are they running around with nothing but Kevlar vests and P90s? We know they tried to develop those plates that didn't work very well, but they have at least one suit of Kull armor to reverse-engineer by the end of season 7. They probably have acquired at least one of those Goa'uld personal shields, as well as the Ancient ones in Atlantis, and the Asgard doubtlessly have similar technology. After they got the Asgard Core in Unending, they could probably whip up some super-armor in minutes. As for weapons, they did start using zats, and we know the staff weapons kind of suck. The Kull wrist weapon seems to be pretty cool. They seem to have given up on the X-699, though. I guess projectile weapons are still effective. Maybe miniaturize a railgun?
93** First: They aren't just running around in kevlar vests. The SGC developed a series of light and flexible polymer plates that can stop a staff blast easily. They even demonstrate it in "Heroes". They don't protect everywhere on the body but they protect enough while allowing greater freedom of movement. Second: Just because they have some Kull warrior armor doesn't mean they know how to make more of it. It could require a unique ingredient that doesn't exist on Earth or a manufacturing process that Earth science can't duplicate. Third: Goa'uld personal shields are part of the Goa'uld hand device, and the hand device can't be used unless you are or were once a host to a Goa'uld. (I can't speak to the Ancient shields on Atlantis because I'm not a fan of that show and don't watch it much.)
94** The plates were shown to be just about useless in the same episode and subsequent episodes. Surely they could make something with all the knowledge of the Asgard. It would be too late for SG-1, but would have made the last few seasons of Atlantis.
95** What do you mean "useless"? O'Neill's life was saved by one of those plates ''in that very episode''.
96** The far more pressing question is why they never carry Hand Devices around in their backpacks for emergencies. SG-1 have captured at least one (Seth) and it's Naquadah lockout could quite easily be circumvented by Carter or Vala. Whilst the Goa'uld shielding is far weaker than the Ancient or Ori equivalent, it has been repeatedly shown to be resistant to bullets and energy weapons. There is even an instance of it holding up against the Spider Replicators (just before Apophis died) - realistically its only weakness is the lack of mobility and it's inability to block bladed weapons.
97** The few hand devices and personal shields the SGC has captured are probably squirreled away at Area 51 for study.
98** Also, lack of mobility with the shield is no small issue. Suppose that, say, Carter decides to carry around a shield and activates it when the team gets ambushed by enemy Jaffa. Now she's out in the open, unable to move ''OR'' shoot out of the shield (which means if her team needs help with fire support she's unable to give it), and the instant she drops the shield she's exposed to enemy fire. An enemy could sit with his weapon pointed at her, essentially pinning her down to one spot while the rest of her team is battling the other enemies. Remember that the standard modus operandi of the Goa'uld is to throw up the shield and stand back while his/her Jaffa bodyguards take care of the threat. It's not suited for a combat soldier, at least not in the configuration the Goa'uld designed them. Redesign it as a mobile shield and we'll talk.
99** You can only use Hand Devices if you've got a symbiont in you. Carter can just ''barely'' use one because she had one in her at one point, and her ability to do so is incredibly unreliable. Equipping SG teams with them as standard would be completely pointless.
100** Because you just can't beat physics. Look at the history of weapons. When you want to be sure you hurt the other guy even in his armor, you don't use a bladed weapon. You use something blunt and heavy. Armor is usually made thin to account for weight. Metal is bendy. Armor might deflect a sword or a knife without issue to the person inside. But when you hit them with a blunt instrument, does it really make a difference whether he dies from the mace itself, or the fact that it put a huge dent in his close fitting armor? Kinetic energy, man, you just can't beat it. Someone is going to jump in and talk about the staff weapons and the Zat guns. Yes, they are good weapons. But they are also common. When O'Neill wanted to be sure to get Heru'ur, what did he do? He threw a knife at him. Heat can be isolated, energy weapons can be blocked, but kinetic energy is hard to beat.
101** They aren't even wearing kevlar vests. They're wearing Blackhawk tactical vests, which are really just convenient pockets. A couple of episodes might misidentify them as kevlar vests, but they aren't. Reverse-engineering better armor and weapons for small-scale deployment is less a concern, since the SGC is more focused on defending Earth from large-scale attacks by Goa'uld motherships. Automatic weapons are perfectly serviceable against Jaffa, and armor (aside from Auris Boch's) isn't terribly effective against either staff blasts or zat guns. The research, materials, and infrastructure necessary to make improved personal weapons and armor would be better spent on big honkin' space guns.
102** And as for miniaturizing a railgun, there wouldn't really be much point. The railguns described in the show have basically two advantages over regular firearms: they can throw their slugs a lot faster, and they don't rely on gunpowder so they can be fired in the vacuum of space. This makes them great as point defense against enemy fighters, but as far as person-to-person ground combat goes? Regular guns shoot plenty fast enough to kill what needs killin', and an SG-team member who finds themselves floating in the vacuum of space has more pressing concerns than whether or not their gun can shoot.
103
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Why didn't the SGC or Area 51 pull the power supply from a staff weapon and adapt it into an assault rifle?]]
107
108* Because they didn't need to. A staff blast coming from a Tau'ri assault rifle would probably either blow up the assault rifle, be large and unwieldy, or have too much recoil, and their source of ammunition would have to be stolen from the enemy. By that point it would make more sense just to steal more staff weapons.
109* And what, exactly, would just pulling the naquadah battery from a staff weapon and putting in an assault rifle '''DO?''' It's still a kinetic weapon that fires bullets propelled by a chemical explosion, the only thing the naquadah battery would do is give insanely long life to any electronic components in the weapon, or attachements that are then wired into that battery. Those liquid naquadah batteries are only useful if you have energy weapons to plug them into, and then you're looking at researching and developing a whole new weapons technology. And don't forget, the one time we saw a test of an Earth-built energy weapon, it was A) too big to be man-portable and B) didn't work.
110
111[[/folder]]
112
113[[folder:Four Great Lazy Races]]
114
115* Just how useless exactly were the Asgard, Furlings and the Nox in the infamous ''Alliance of the Four Great Races''? As we can see from SG-Atlantis, the Ancients were technologically superior to even the ''modern day'' Asgard - a people separated by thousands of years. This would mean that either Asgard technology entered a dark age of zero progress for several millennia, or they had even less technology than the Earth. The other two races couldn't have been much better off either, when we consider the sheer lack of machines that have been discovered abandoned in comparison to vintage Ancient and Goa'uld tech. To put all of this into a modern perspective it's the equivalent of America forming the United Nations with Easter Island, Somalia and Ethiopia. This all leads to the rather unfortunate implication that far from being the ''Alliance of the Four Great Races'' it was closer to the ''Alliance of One Great Race and Three Spongers.''
116** Suppose that the relative advancement of, say, the Asgard and the Ancients at the time of the Alliance being formed was comparable to modern day Asgard compared to us Tau'ri folk. Now consider how many times the Asgard needed us to pull their asses out of the fire. They're big on the benefits of working with people who don't think the way they do when it comes to problem solving. Maybe the Ancients taught them that? It's hard to say anything about the Furlings, since we never see one and only encounter a couple of their left-over things. Who's to say how advanced or capable they were compared to the other members of the Alliance? As for the Nox... do they seem like the sort to be inventing new things? If anything, they seem to have the 'back to nature' thing going on. Maybe they've been at their current level ever since they Ancients were around.
117** The Asgard have made some pretty decent technological breakthroughs. Look at their latest beam weapons. Capable of taking out an entire Aurora class Ancient Warship, in just a few shots. And to be fair, the Asgard have had two major distractions. The Replicators and their clone degeneration. By having to focus most of their efforts on these problems, reducing the amount of focus they can give to other projects. As for the Nox, we don't know much about them. We know they can turn invisible, possibly teleport, and revive the dead, plus they had a floating city, but that's all. They may have plenty of technology for all we know. Same with the Furlings.
118** The Asgard are also vastly superior in terms of FTL travel. In "Unnatural Selection" Thor's ship tows the ''Prometheus'' all the way from who-knows-where in deep space to the planet Earth in mere seconds, then tows them all the way to the Asgard galaxy in mere hours, all without any refueling in between. By contrast, the Ancients had to rely on the Stargate system which required massive starships like the ''Destiny'' to spend millions of years seeding the galaxy with gates, while periodically dipping into the corona of a star to recharge the batteries.
119** The Asgard are vastly superior ''now'', not back then. ''Destiny'' was probably flying around before the Asgard even ''had'' FTL. Ancient vessels are still far and away faster than Asgard ships. Atlantis is ten-thousand years old and can still outpace an Asgard vessel.
120** "The Asgard are vastly superior ''now'', not back then." Not the point. The point is they have advanced from where they were before, which counters the point that they have made no advancement since the time of the Four Races. I don't deny that the Ancients were definitely more technologically advanced than the Asgard. That fact is consistent across all continuities. But just because they were less advanced than the Ancients doesn't mean they were "useless" in comparison. It's possible that the alliance of the Four Great Races was based on something other than mere technological superiority. (Also, the fact that the Asgard were still around long after the Ancients were wiped out has to count for something.) Recall also that ''Stargate Atlantis'' was created quite some time after the Asgard's technology level was already established in ''Stargate SG-1''. It's hardly the Asgard's fault that ''Atlantis'' writers got a little lazy with their continuity.
121*** "It's possible that the Alliance of Four Great Races was based on something other than mere technological superiority." Definitely worth considering. After all, we know that the Ancients hold to their ideology as the most important facet of their culture: They believe in understanding the fundamental nature of reality through reason, systematic observation, and experimentation. At least two of the other Great Races have similarly noble ideals: The Asgard believe in protecting the weak from those who would seek to do them harm, and the Nox are pacifists to a fault. Perhaps the Ancients looked at these burgeoning cultures and said, "So what if they're primitive by our standards? They're clearly good people who have the best interests of others at heart." To put it another way, the Ancients didn't need their stuff, [[Recap/StargateSG1S3E18ShadesOfGrey they needed them]].
122** We have no clue how advanced the Nox are. The Furlings left behind a transporter doorway and possibly the Touchstone (planet-wide weather control device the size of a very small globe). The Asgard... were relatively pathetic, if their long-lost brethren (seen in ''Stargate Atlantis'') are any indication.
123** This whole situation has been made ten times worse by the release of ''Stargate Universe''. We now see that the Ancients had shields capable of giving Daedalus Asgard shields a run for their money ''thousands'' of years before the alliance was even conceived! I would like to point out that if you can build ''Destiny''-level ships that are, at least in part, more advanced than O'Neill class ships many thousands of years beforehand, the above quote that the Asgard were basically Ethiopia to the Ancients America suddenly gains an awful lot more credit.
124** When has it been stated that ''Destiny's'' shields are superior to Asgard modern shields? We haven't seen the ''Destiny'' in battle yet. So far all the shield has done is keep the air in, and even then, a fair amount of air still slips out (compare to an ''Atlantis'' episode where the Daedalus' shields were able to keep an exposed hangar completely pressurized for an extended period of time). The only hint of advanced tech on the ship is that it is able to "think" for itself, a system which I assume was put in place more because it was intended to be an unmanned ship.
125** Did you miss the part where the ship '''flew through a freaking sun'''? ''Nothing'' in the Milky Way galaxy has been shown capable of something like that.
126** And whose to say an Asgard ship couldn't fly through a sun with a strong enough power source? True, when a Wraith virus took over the ''Daedalus'' and tried to fly into into a sun, they were in trouble, but compare that to a later episode when the ''Daedalus'', powered by a ZPM, could use its shields to deflect a sun burst. The Destiny has the advantage that it's specifically design to draw power from suns. The longer it spends in the sun, the more powerful its shields are. Give an Asgard ship unlimited power and it could probably fly through a sun too.
127** 1. We have no idea what the energy output of something like an Ori Beam weapon is. None whatsoever. We can estimate a lower limit based on the energy required to tear through a Ha'tak's mass, but it's a lower limit. The actual energy released could easily be far higher than the energy absorbed during a short visit to a star's corona. 2. We do know of at least one thing capable of surviving in a star. Naquadah, as seen in Exodus (which is apparently capable of surviving even core temperatures, which are much higher).
128** Not knowing the upper limit doesn't necessarily mean that it's extremely high, either. It's just like those facetious arguments that [[ComicBook/SpiderMan May Parker]] is the strongest being in the Marvel Universe because we've never seen an upper limit to her abilities.
129** I object to the adjective "easily." Stars are... energetic. And hot. Having said that, I seem to recall an ''SG-1'' episode where Jacob hid a Ha'tak in the "outer layer" of a star to hide from a System Lord's sensors (and they lasted for a while, not just thirty sweaty seconds). If I'm remembering that episode correctly, then skimming through a star might not be the most impressive feat ever, in-universe.
130** A Season 3 episode of ''Atlantis'' shows the ''Daedalus'' taking a Coronal Mass Ejection directly to their shields and holding for a while. It's powered by a ZPM, and takes the hit pretty well. Assuming there's some degradation of the technology between Asgard ships, and being installed on inferior Human ships, it's not entirely unreasonable to think the Asgard ships would be very capable of performing similar maneuvers to the ''Destiny''.
131** The difference could be attributed to the different types of technology. Asgard shields eventually degrade over time regardless of the amount of power you pump into them. Ancient shields always stay at 100% until the required power runs out (so an Asgard shield has 100 power and 100 resiliency, while an Ancient shield just has 200 power and stays at 200 until the power runs out). Rush refers to it when he's trying to channel more power into ''Destiny'''s shields at one point -- the problem with the attacks the ship was taking is that they're depleting the power that ''Destiny'' is funneling into the shields, not that the shields themselves are degrading. Based on that, if ''Destiny'' had enough power stored up (and we know that it does), it could survive in a sun for an extended period of time to recharge while an Asgard-based shield would degrade even with a ZPM installed.
132** Put me down as thoroughly unimpressed with the Ancients as a civilization and as a people. Were they technologically advanced? Sure. Maybe even more advanced than any of the other Great Races. Were they particularly smart? Hell no. As John Sheppard once said, they made huge mistakes but refused to fix them. They created a defective time machine and just abandoned it on a planet for any shmoe to stumble across and play around with. They built terminals all over the galaxy that download their knowledge into human brains but also ''kill you'' after a few days. They created a DNA resequencer that ''kills you'' if you don't manage to reach a state of pure spiritual and mental enlightenment. They created a personal shield that prevents you from eating or drinking and therefore ''kills you'' if you aren't "mentally skilled" enough to turn it off. They created the Wraith and refused to do anything about them until it was far too late. They created the Asurans to fight the Wraith but not only refused to fix the defect in their design when it became apparent, they also wiped all reference to them from their database ''except the gate address to the planet they left the Asurans on'', thus making it possible for someone else to stumble across a planet of killer robots without even knowing it. Way to go, jerkwads.
133*** This is less a case of them being irresponsible with their technology, and more a case of us not understanding how to correctly operate it. If someone tries to drive a car and crashes it, it isn't the manufacterer's fault. If a someone tries to use a blender incorrectly and hurts themselves, the blender company wasn't being irresponsible. Much of our modern technology can be just as dangerous as the ancient's technology if used improperly and without an understanding of how it operates. These are dangers we take for granted, however, as the common knowledge of how to use them is so ubiquitous in our society that the risks can be completely overlooked unless dealing with very young children. Presumably, it's the same with the ancients. They don't include safeguards in things like the DNA resequencer for the same reason we don't include safeguards in blenders: it would interfere with the core operation of the device, and all ancients would know better than to stick their fingers in the machine while it's turned on. They can't be held responsible for us stumbling over their technology, misusing it without understanding it, and hurting ourselves in the process.
134** This has been pointed out in several instances by O'Neill, Jackson, and as pointed out, Shepard, from ''Atlantis''. This is the point that the writers were trying to establish, that the Ancients, for all of their technology, were as flawed anyone else, and that technological superiority is no guarantee of moral superiority or even cleverness. The Ancients, introduced as god-like in capacity, are eventually revealed to be as foolish as mortals, and no one is immune to hubris.
135** Or, the writers simply wanted to show how heroic the Earth humans (Tau'ri) are. This can be difficult when you have an established race of actually benevolent people (which the Ancients were originally portrayed as).
136*** Regarding the Ancient repositories killing people, keep in mind that these are devices that have been abandoned by their original creators for centuries; it could be that the devices were damaged from millennia of neglect and weren't originally intended to be an 'all or nothing' system of knowledge access, particularly when [[spoiler:Merlin's repository (likely created at a more recent date than the others) was able to precisely download just his knowledge into Daniel's mind and also program it to erase itself later]].
137** And the Nox, of course, are justified since they can turn entire cities invisible and don't like interfering with others. For all we know, they weren't doing anything when the Ori invaded because their super-tech told them that the Earth humans had everything well in hand. Oh, even better, here's an explanation for anything that doesn't make sense in the series: [[AWizardDidIt An invisible Nox did it without revealing himself]].
138** We have no idea at what point in time the alliance BEGAN. It may simply be that when the alliance began, the four races were equal, but the Ancients advanced more quickly than the others. And while the ancients were more advanced in terms of technology, the Asgard did make it possible to clone yourself into a new body for (ostensibly) all eternity.
139** What if the Alliance wasn't technological though? The Ancients seem to far exceed any other technological race, but as mentioned above they are idiots when it comes to responsible use of that. Now, which races have we seen that is very responsible with its tech and was part of the Alliance? Perhaps it was formed so that the Ancients had some form of moral compass in the Asgard (and possibly the Nox). The Nox, we have seen, don't seem to like interfering with anyone at all and keep everything they do in their own hands so it can't be misused, the Asgard slowly help other races get to a point where they can safely use their tech without killing themselves; the Ancients just leave it all lying around where it can kill you and do far worse. My personal theory is that the Ancients were smart but not wise, the Nox were wise and the Asgard somewhere between and the Alliance was to keep the Ancients in line and such.
140** Let's back up a little bit. Everyone seems to forget that although the Asgard shields are readily available for Tau'ri ships, it is relatively easy for very intelligent scientists to use the technology and understand it, human technological evolution has been ''vastly'' accelerated by the Stargate and the Asgard alliance. It would have taken many ''many'' thousands of years for humans to come up with equivalent technology on their own. Now, we know the Ancients ''started'' life in the Milky Way galaxy, coming from a different galaxy altogether at already a very high state of development, while the Asgard on the other hand, seem to have evolved from within their own galaxy and were awed enough by the Alterans that ''they'' called them an 'ancient' race. So already we can safely assume that the Ancients are far older than the Asgard. The Alterans were refugees who came to this galaxy and tried to keep a low profile. Their alliance with the Asgard, the Nox and the Ferlings was about knowledge and understanding. We know this from the meeting place where Ernest was trapped for a good half a century. Considering what we know from the characters of the Nox, Asgard and the limited benevolence of the Alterans, we can probably conclude that the Alliance was a communal sharing and search for enlightenment. Although a certain technological level was most likely required to be treated on equal footing, technology was most likely not the focus. And considering the peaceful nature of the Nox, they would not be involved in an Alliance where weapons technology was being shared. But all of that in perspective, think of this: the Ancient and Ori ships were the product of a race who were so old that they had biologically evolved to the point where they could Ascend. And the Asgard beam weapons - as seen at the end of season 10 - could wipe out an Ori ship with 1 barrage. I'd say that's a pretty good indication of how technologically evolved the Asgard were.
141** On the subject of relative shield strengths, a Goa'uld Ha'tak (base, no advanced modifications or anything) hid in the coronosphere of a sun for an hour without shields, and the one hour mark was less worry that the ship would be destroyed and more about lethal radiation building up. With the shields, they could stay in there for ten hours before radiation became a problem. ''Destiny'' may have dipped a little deeper into a sun, but its pretty clear the Ancients (and thus the Goa'uld) developed hull materials capable of withstanding intense heat and radiation for prolonged periods. By comparison, Asgard ships seem pretty tough, though most of that is due to arguably-superior shield technology (at least, superior to what the Goa'uld were using most of the time.)
142
143[[/folder]]
144
145[[folder:Alternate Universe, Part I]]
146
147* In "There But for the Grace of God", The SGA of the alternate dimension only had the time to open the gate one more time. They choose to send Daniel to [=P3R-233=] instead of going to the Beta Site themselves. Why didn't they just go to the Beta Site and take Daniel with them? They could dial out to [=P3R-233=] from there, thereby saving themselves AND helping him return to his own dimension.
148** Maybe they were afraid that the Jaffa would see the address they entered and learn where the Beta Site was. Presumably their plan was to all go to [=P3R-233=], then everyone but Daniel would turn around and head for the Beta Site.
149* Another one for the episode "There But for the Grace of God". Daniel from our reality, let's call it Prime, learns that his Alternate self never joined the SGC (SGA in Alternate reality) and died in Egypt when the Goa'uld attacked. Therefore, nobody at the SGA would have watched the videos sent from the Pentagon during the opening events of the episode The Torment of Tantalus. As far as everyone in Alternate knows, Katherine's fiancée Ernest Littlefeld is dead. Daniel, in a fit of confused ranting, yells that Katherine should be home with Ernest. Later, Alt Katherine tells Daniel that she is helping send him to [=P3R-233=] since he helped Prime Katherine reunite with Prime Ernest. The part that bugs me is that it's never mentioned that Daniel told her about how he and Prime SG-1 found Prime Ernest with Prime Katherine and brought him back. She's thanking Daniel for reuniting her other self with a dead man.
150** Katherine isn't stupid. Just because Daniel didn't tell her the whole story doesn't mean she couldn't figure a few things out. For starters, if Daniel is talking about Ernest as if he's alive in his reality, it's not an unreasonable leap of logic to assume that Ernest is, you know, ''alive in his reality''.
151
152[[/folder]]
153
154[[folder:Where do all the Goa'uld who aren't system lords live?]]
155
156* It seems that the only ones SG-1 ever runs into are system lords with their own little temples.
157** Likely the minor Goa'uld have their own temples as well, just smaller ones and presiding over much smaller and more obscure territories than the system lords. Also, we see that some minor Goa'uld serve system lords in scientific or military positions which would mean they probably have their own place to live in their respective system lord's palace/temple.
158** We saw symbiotes being eaten in one episode, around season 5. The DVD commentary said that the creators realized there was a problem with "what happens to all the symbiotes that graduate from Jaffa soldiers?" and made this to partially address it.
159** If you do the math, there are not actually going to be all that many of those. For any thousand Jaffa serving in your army, you get a thousand mature Goa'uld every seven years. As far as population growth is concerned, that is not actually all that many. If you deny most of them Sarcophagus access, keeping it as a reward for rendered services only, after one or two thousand years or so they start dying off, so we have about three hundred generations in that time, or about 300.000 Goa'uld for every one thousand Jaffa. With hundreds, if not thousands of planets in your domain, you can easily stash away a few hundred million Goa'uld on a dozen or so pleasure planets or low population industrial worlds. At the same time, the creators very obviously have not done the math, because there is no way a few System Lords could eat THAT many Larvae.
160
161[[/folder]]
162
163[[folder:This Belongs To Teal'c]]
164
165* The proper possessive form of "Teal'c" bugs me. "Teal's's?" "Teal'cs?" "Tealc's?"
166** Neither of these. It's "Teal'c's". Well, in Japanese, it's "Tiruku no", so they get off easy.
167** You know, except for calling the character "Tiruku"...
168** Lies, "Tiruku" is the greatest thing ever.
169** They show ''Stargate'' in Japan? Awesome!
170** Yea, doesn't end with "s" so " 's " is proper. Looks weird because there aren't any nouns in English that already have an apostrophe that close to the end. (At least none that I can think of.)
171** Even if it ''does'' end in "s" " 's " is proper, although it's become accepted (if not ''technically'' correct) for folks to leave off the "s" on singular possessives; lord knows you hear it when you say it, at least in the dialect of English I grew up with. It's not like English needs any more bizarre grammar rules.
172** One way to get an apostrophe that close to the end: "The apostrophes in most contractions replace a single letter, but can't's apostrophe replaces two."
173
174[[/folder]]
175
176[[folder:Grabbing a new 'Gate]]
177
178* 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?
179** I thought "Prometheus" came ''after'' "Redemption"...
180** All right, why didn't they use the ''Prometheus'' immediately after "Unnatural Selection" to pick an unused Stargate, and then return the Russian one?
181** 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.
182** 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.
183** 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.
184** 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.
185** 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.]]
186** Wasn't it landed in international waters by an international team?
187** [[spoiler: At the end of the episode they say how they're going to return Atlantis to Pegasus, so that's moot.]]
188** 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.
189
190[[/folder]]
191
192[[folder:Alternate Universes, who cares?]]
193
194* 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.
195** You could say that about any concept of parallel universes, and a lot of existential theories too.
196** It makes all the difference to the people who live in ''that'' dimension/universe.
197** 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."
198** Teal'c said it best: "Ours is the only reality of consequence."
199** 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.
200
201[[/folder]]
202
203[[folder:Disappearing Reappearing Jonas Quin]]
204
205* 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'.
206** Speaking of Corin Nemec, it bugs me that his name sounds more alien than that of the alien he played.
207** That is because you are (most likely) American.
208** Don't know about that guy, but I'm British and it's been bugging me too.
209** Nemec could be derived from Czech "Němec" (meaning German), just without diacritics.
210** 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.
211** They mentioned his planet being conquered by the Ori fleet. Not "Jonas's planets," just "Kelowna." No mention of "I hope Jonas is okay." :(
212** 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.
213** 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.
214** 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.
215
216[[/folder]]
217
218[[folder:Which Came First, God or Goa'uld?]]
219
220* 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?
221** 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.
222** 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?
223** 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.
224** 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.
225** 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?
226** 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.
227** 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.
228** 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?).
229** 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.
230** 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.
231
232[[/folder]]
233
234[[folder:Hammer Time Pressure]]
235
236* 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.
237** 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.
238** 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.
239** 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.
240** 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.
241** 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.
242** 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.
243** 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.
244** 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.
245** 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.
246** 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.
247** 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''.
248** 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.
249
250[[/folder]]
251
252[[folder:Slacking Soldiers]]
253
254* 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?
255** 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.
256** 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.
257** 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.
258
259[[/folder]]
260
261[[folder:Prior Daniel Failsafe]]
262
263* 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?
264** 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.)
265** Also, Daniel had help from Merlin.
266** 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.
267** 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.
268** 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.
269** Daniel lacking the failsafe may be part of Merlin's protection of Daniel's mind; just as he was able to protect Daniel from falling under Adria's influence, he was also able to prevent Daniel being implanted with the failsafe. Alternatively, it may be that the Ori's failsafe is only set off when the Prior actively uses their powers in a manner that acts against the Ori; if the failsafe was set off just from a Prior acting against the Ori, Gerak would have been incinerated the moment he came to Earth in peace rather than on a mission from the Ori.
270
271[[/folder]]
272
273
274
275[[folder:Goa'uld Language]]
276
277* How can the word "Goa'uld" even exist in their own language, considering they just call themselves gods?
278** I think Daniel said in an early episode that "Goa'uld" ''is'' the Goa'uld word for "God".
279** "Goa'uld" actually means "children of the gods". So that makes no sense.
280** Not so. Gods are the children of other gods. Just like "children of men" is sometimes used to refer to all of humanity.
281** Goa'ulds think they're gods. Sense doesn't enter into it.
282** 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.
283** 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".
284** 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.
285** 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.
286
287[[/folder]]
288
289[[folder:First Church Of Origin, Reformed]]
290
291* 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?
292** 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.
293** The Priors learned the truth, not necessarily all the followers.
294** 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.
295** 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":
296--->'''Doci''': The book of Origin says, those who seek the path of enlightenment must NOT be led astray.\
297'''Daniel''': Right. See, that can be interpreted a number of different ways.
298
299** From "Line in the Sand":
300--->'''Tomin''': ...Hundreds will die because of your friends' treachery.\
301'''Vala''': Innocent people...You're not happy about that.\
302'''Tomin''': No... He twisted the meaning.\
303'''Vala''': Who?\
304'''Tomin''': The Prior. He changed the meaning of the story of Markon to suit the situation: to justify killing villagers.
305** Speaking of the Priors, has there been any information on what happened to them following the end of ''Ark of Truth?''
306
307[[/folder]]
308
309[[folder: Tok'ra Tunnel Redecorating]]
310
311* How come the look of the Tok'ra tunnels changed between the third and fourth season?
312** Didn't they switch bases during that time?
313** 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.
314** EvolutionaryRetcon perhaps?
315
316[[/folder]]
317
318[[folder:SGC no Sarcophagus]]
319
320* 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.
321** Tried to do it, but they kept getting destroyed.
322** 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).
323** 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.
324** 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.
325** 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.
326** 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.
327** 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.
328** Yes, it's been demonstrated that the sarcophagus can restore someone who was ''made'' a Jaffa. Not someone who was ''born'' a Jaffa.
329** We've only seen about ten of these devices across the entire franchise and at least a third of them were destroyed on-screen. We can infer that every System Lord had at least one and yet the thing about your ''immortality machine'' is that you would want it to be in the next room over at all times otherwise it would be completely useless to you. Thus it is likely that pretty much every single one of them was lost alongside its master. From all evidence the sarcophagus has to be extremely rare and my personal headcanon is that this was intentional. You do not want your enemies gaining resurrection abilities nor do you want to dilute the perceived miracle of bringing someone back from the dead. Nothing makes you look more like a god than being able to defy death. It is also quite interesting to note that no one else in the franchise has ever mimicked this device nor made a ''safe'' version of it, not even the Ancients, Asgard or the Tollan who are all stated to be more advanced than the Goa'uld. This should really tell us something about how dangerous this machine actually is.
330
331[[/folder]]
332
333[[folder:SGC no Staff]]
334
335* 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...
336** 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.
337** 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.
338** 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.
339** 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...
340** 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?
341** 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?
342** 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.
343
344[[/folder]]
345
346[[folder:Earth Ship Naming Conventions]]
347
348* 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.
349** 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.
350** 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.
351** Daedalus was an ordinary man who tried to fly with wings he built himself. Doesn't sound like a problem to me.
352** Which is ridiculous, considering the amount of alien tech built into it. They should have swapped the names for the Prometheus and the Daedalus.
353** 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.
354** 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.
355** I ''still'' think they should have used ''Enterprise''
356** General O'Neill?
357** The problem is that the United States already has an aircraft carrier and a space shuttle named ''Enterprise''.
358** 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."
359
360[[/folder]]
361
362
363[[folder:Jack and Teal'c Learning Curve]]
364
365* 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.
366** 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.
367** 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.
368** 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.
369** 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?
370** Well, he wasn't listening the first time, so he probably just doesn't care that much.
371
372[[/folder]]
373
374[[folder:Free Jaffa and Larval Goa'uld]]
375
376* 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?
377** 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.
378** "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.
379** 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.
380** 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.
381
382[[/folder]]
383
384[[folder:Tretonin replacement]]
385
386* 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.
387** 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.
388** 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.
389** 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.
390** 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.
391
392[[/folder]]
393
394[[folder:Alternate SG-1 compositions]]
395
396* 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.
397** 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.
398** 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.)
399** 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?
400** 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.
401** 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.
402
403[[/folder]]
404
405
406[[folder:Don't Cut Vala A Paycheck]]
407
408* 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.
409** 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.
410** By "he doesn't like her" you mean "he lusts after her". But it's Claudia freaking Black so who can blame him?
411** 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.
412
413[[/folder]]
414
415[[folder:Jaffa, Born or Made?]]
416
417* 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?
418** 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.
419** What's wrong with "Hathor"? Granted it's a pretty weak episode, but I can't think of any particular continuity problems with it.
420** 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.
421** 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.
422** 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.
423** 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.
424** 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.
425** 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.
426** 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?
427** 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.
428** 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?
429** 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?
430** 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.
431
432[[/folder]]
433
434[[folder:Altering Time, Continuum]]
435
436* 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.
437** 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.
438** 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. 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.
439** 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.
440** 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?
441** 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.
442** [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]
443** 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?
444** 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.
445** 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.
446** 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.
447** 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.
448** 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.
449** I ''knew'' there was a reason "Holiday" was so funny...
450
451[[/folder]]
452
453
454[[folder:Which Came First: Antarctic or Giza?]]
455
456* 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.
457** 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.
458** 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.
459
460[[/folder]]
461
462[[folder:Carter In Charge]]
463
464* 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.
465** 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.
466** Also, Sam was in command in Season 8.
467** 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.
468** 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?
469** 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.
470** 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.
471** 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.
472
473[[/folder]]
474
475[[folder:Daniel and Sha're, Doomed To Failure]]
476
477* 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.
478** 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.
479** 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).
480** 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.
481
482[[/folder]]
483
484[[folder:Foothold: Carter Agreeing To Go Back]]
485
486* 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.
487** ''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.
488
489[[/folder]]
490
491
492[[folder:Priors After Ark]]
493
494* 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?
495** 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.
496** An epilogue to the movie would have been nice, though, because the film wrapped up so quickly that the Priors were all forgotten about.
497
498[[/folder]]
499
500[[folder:Jack's Teenage Clone, Part I]]
501
502* 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.
503** 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).
504** ''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.
505** 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.
506** 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.
507** 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).
508** 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.
509** 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.
510** 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.
511** It might be pretty sweet to go through high school again with the wisdom and confidence of an adult intact.
512
513[[/folder]]
514
515
516[[folder:Ships!]]
517
518* 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.
519** 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!
520** 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.
521** 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?
522** [[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.
523
524[[/folder]]
525
526[[folder:So, which SG-1 writer suffers from [=McCarthyism=]?]]
527
528* 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.
529** 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.
530** 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?
531** 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.
532** 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]].
533** 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.\
534\
535As 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.\
536\
537And 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.
538** 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.
539
540[[/folder]]
541
542[[folder:Alar's Cosmic Bellyflop]]
543
544* 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?
545** 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?
546** 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.
547** 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.
548** 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.
549** 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.
550** 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.
551** 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"
552** "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.
553** 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.
554** "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?
555** 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.]]
556*** They might have tried off-screen. The gate was probably buried during the bunker's destruction.
557
558[[/folder]]
559
560[[folder:Reappearing Disappearing Jonas Quinn]]
561
562* 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.
563** 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.
564
565[[/folder]]
566
567[[folder:A Simple Solution]]
568
569* A much better solution to the too-many-minds not-enough-bodies problem in "Lifeboat," which can be summed up in one word: COMTRAYA!
570** ^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.
571** A simple solution, perhaps. But we don't know if the people on the ship would have wanted to be downloaded into robot bodies.
572** Or if the mind-download would have worked without the bodies.
573
574[[/folder]]
575
576[[folder:The Peaceful Word Of The Ori]]
577
578* 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.
579** 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).
580** 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
581** 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.
582** 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.
583** 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.
584** 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.
585** 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.
586** 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.
587** 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.
588
589[[/folder]]
590
591[[folder:Why Are We The Only Ones Without A Non-Interference Clause?]]
592
593* 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).
594** 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.
595** 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.
596** 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.
597** 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.
598** 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.
599** 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.
600** 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.
601** 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.
602** 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.\
603SG-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.\
604So, I don't see any problem in the way the SGC handles things.
605** 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.)
606** ''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.
607
608[[/folder]]
609
610[[folder:Thanks, Anubis!]]
611
612* 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.
613** 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.
614** 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.
615
616[[/folder]]
617
618[[folder:Poor, poor Harlan]]
619
620* 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.
621** 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?
622
623[[/folder]]
624
625[[folder:Stock Footage]]
626
627* 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.
628** 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.
629** 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.
630** No way in hell did they use that much water. They probably used a gallon, tops, and just enlarged the footage.
631** 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.
632** 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?
633** 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.
634
635[[/folder]]
636
637[[folder:Why is the Stargate secret?]]
638
639* 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.
640** 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?!"
641** 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.
642** 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.
643** 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.
644** 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.
645
646[[/folder]]
647
648[[folder:Jack's Teenage Clone, Part II]]
649
650* 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?
651** Because they didn't think of it, I'm assuming. Or, they thought of it, but decided it sounded stupid.
652** 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.
653
654[[/folder]]
655
656[[folder:Threatening [=McKay=] with citrus death]]
657
658* 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?
659** 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.
660** 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".
661** The lemon wouldn't have hurt him. Rodney is a hypochondriac to the extreme. I don't think he was actually allergic to anything.
662** Lorne wasn't all that fond of him at first, either. Obviously [=McKay=] is just more grating to people he hasn't met yet.
663** 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."?
664** 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.
665** 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.
666** "Rodney looked genuinely terrified whenever Mitchell brought out that lemon." Well, Rodney can be a bit neurotic. It's possible he overreacted.
667** There's an even greater possibility that it was an incredibly tasteless joke.
668** That too.
669
670[[/folder]]
671
672[[folder:Hammond Backing Rebels]]
673
674* 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.
675** 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.
676** 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.
677** 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.
678** 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.
679* 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.
680** 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".
681** 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.
682
683[[/folder]]
684
685[[folder:SGC World Designations]]
686
687* 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.
688** 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.\
689And 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.
690** 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.
691** 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.
692** 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.
693** 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!
694** 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).
695
696[[/folder]]
697
698[[folder:President Signing Treaty]]
699
700* 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.
701** 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.
702** 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.
703** 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.
704
705[[/folder]]
706
707[[folder:HumansAdvanceSwiftly Or Not At All]]
708
709* 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.
710** 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.
711** 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.
712** 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.
713** 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.
714** 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.
715** 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).
716** 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.
717
718[[/folder]]
719
720[[folder:These Are The Norse Gods?]]
721
722* 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.
723** 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.
724** 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.
725** 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.
726** IIRC They didn't inspire the Norse Gods, they replaced previous Norse gods, and just took over their charade.
727** 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.
728
729[[/folder]]
730
731[[folder:Daniel Jackson's Questionable Mythology]]
732
733* 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?
734** 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.)
735** 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.
736** 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.
737** 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.
738** 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.
739
740[[/folder]]
741
742[[folder:No Stargate Trade]]
743
744* 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''.
745** 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.
746** 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?''
747** 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.
748** "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.
749** 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.
750** 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.
751
752[[/folder]]
753
754[[folder:Goa'uld Maintenence Technicians]]
755
756* 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?
757** 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.
758** 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.
759** 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.''
760
761[[/folder]]
762
763[[folder:Rebelling Against Ra]]
764
765* 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.
766** 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.
767** 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.
768** 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.
769** 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.
770
771[[/folder]]
772
773[[folder:SGC No Army]]
774
775* 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.
776** 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.
777** 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.
778** 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.
779** 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?
780** ''That's'' all they're getting for seven billion?
781** Training, Canteen, Hospital New technology research and development and you know....several interstellar spaceships.
782** 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").
783** 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.
784*** 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.
785
786[[/folder]]
787
788[[folder:Why does US keep whole Stargate program secret?]]
789
790* 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.
791** 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.
792** (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.
793
794[[/folder]]
795
796[[folder:Don't Ask Don't Tell Hathor]]
797
798* Hathor. Hathor, Hathor, Hathor. How would she be able to control any homosexual males?
799** 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.
800** 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.
801** 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.
802** 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.
803** 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?
804** 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.
805** 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).
806** 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.
807
808[[/folder]]
809
810[[folder:Heroic Military]]
811
812* 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.
813** 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?
814** He probably got Kinsey's actor Ronnie Cox conflated with the character.
815** 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.
816** 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.
817** 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.
818** 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.
819** I don't agree with this criticism at all;
820** 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).
821** 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.
822** 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.
823** 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.
824** 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.
825** 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.
826** 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.
827
828[[/folder]]
829
830[[folder:Ra's Army]]
831
832* 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.
833** 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:\
8341. 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.\
8352. 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.\
8363. 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.\
8374. The planet Abydos is under Ra's exclusive control.\
838So 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.\
839...Or at least it was, before he got punked out and killed by PunyEarthlings.
840** 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.
841** 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.
842
843[[/folder]]
844
845[[folder:Entropic Cascade Failure]]
846
847* In the episode ''Point of View'' an alternate Kawalsky and Carter arrive in the Prime universe but soon the alternate Carter undergoes something called ''Entropic Cascade Failure.'' *Thud* OK, 1) What the hell is supposed to be causing this? all we get is some vague reason that doesn't make any sense. 2) Why is Dr Carter the only one to phase out when Major Carter is identical in every way? 3) Much later in the series dozens of alternate SG-1's end up at SG-Command for a far longer period of time yet none of them die for no explained reason. 4)Even though Prime Kawalsky is dead; his body still exists. Somewhere in America there is a corpse or an urn of ashes that logically should be killing Alternate Kawalsky... what sense does it make that this Magical McGuffin Failure is only triggered by someone with a beating heart?
848** For 1: It was having two Carters in one universe, and they were sorta...interfering with each other, I guess. For 2: it's because Dr. Carter was the one who didn't belong. For 3: the handwave there was because all those other SG-1's didn't get there through the Quantum Mirror that was found in the first season; apparently, getting to an alternate universe via Stargate doesn't have those same problems. For 4: The dead/alive thing probably is the difference, probably not in the strictly biological sense that you're thinking, but in some energy/spiritual way.
849
850[[/folder]]
851
852[[folder:Two Unrelated Plot Holes]]
853
854* Two plot hole issues: 1) In the episode "Affinity", the bad guys escape by using a set of rings in a warehouse on earth. So when the police break in, they appear to have disappeared into thin air. However, it's been shown rings can either be sent from a scout ship or similar Goa'uld ship, or they have to be buried in the ground. In other words, they [[NoOntologicalInertia have ontological inertia]]. But the police (or whoever is supposed to continue investigations) don't find a ring platform, and there obviously wasn't a scout ship nearby. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse So what happened to the rings?]] 2) Why, for the love of god, do they send Replicarter to the ''Alpha Site''? Isn't that supposed to be a top secret last resort where the people of Earth could flee to as a last resort? Then why would you just give the address to someone you don't trust, and is directly connected to the enemy's hive mind?
855** 1) Watch the episode "Endgame". It is made clear that it is not a ring platform but Asgard beaming technology that they're using.
856** 2) Replicarter had all Sam's memories so there is a 95% chance she already knew where the Alpha Site was.
857
858[[/folder]]
859
860[[folder:Disclosure]]
861
862* "Disclosure" was all about Great Britain, China and France learning of the existence of the Stargate program. Russia had already found out earlier. Later when Anubis attacks Earth at the end of season 7 the U.S. President tells some people to inform Britain, Russia, France, China and CANADA of the attack. When exactly did Canada become aware of the Stargate program? NORAD command IS Cheyenne Mountain and is a joint Canadian-U.S. venture. It is usually what picks up incoming alien space craft. In the early seasons they explicitly said NORAD has picked up such and such. As time went by they stopped stating how they were detecting things. So was Canada in on the whole program since day one? If so, why not invite them to the meeting in "Disclosure"? and why does no-one ever talk about the Canadian's interest in the program? Rodney makes a point of mentioning he's Canadian several times but that does not necessarily mean the Canadian government was aware of the programs existence.
863** I'm almost positive this was all an obscure in-joke about the fact that the show was filmed mostly in Canada.
864** Likely the Canadians knew, but were too polite to say anything about it. Maybe they thought it would be rude to impose.
865** The thing about Canada is that everything else aside, it has an extremely high amount of resources, such as oil and precious metals. If the Stargate program needed more of those resources, who would they ask? The friendly country next door that works well with the States most of the time, or one of several countries that doesn't like the States very much at all.
866** Canada is ''technically'' still under the influence of Great Britain, and so was likely informed at the same time Her Majesty was. Or they were in on it from the beginning (as the joint American/Canadian NORAD points out), and enjoyed holding something secret from the Crown.
867** Just to clarify, Canada has not been UNDER Great Britain, in regards to its relations with other countries, since 1931. For constitutional matters, we got control in 1982. The previous poster is correct in stating there is a bond between Canada and Britain: military personnel and (I think) Members of Parliament) swear an oath to the Monarch & its heirs. That connection wouldn't be a reason for Canada (or any Commonwealth nation) to be informed just cos Great Britain was. As for possible In Universe reasons why Canada gets informed of the attack but wasn't at the meeting:
868
869a) proximity to Cheyenne Mountain and NORAD connection -- applies regardless of Canada knowing about the Stargate either officially, unofficially, or not at all;
870
871b) If Canada already knew, it may have been politically prudent for them to not attend the meeting as (China in particular) may see two countries secretly gaining a perceived military benefit as more threatening that US having kept it a secret from EVERYONE. If Canada had been informed prior to the Disclosure episode it would lend credence to the argument that the real reason the US kept secret from other countries was partisan and strategic for its own ends and not for the 'defense of the planet' as a whole. As in "we'll tell the people who have similar cultural background and ideology but not the Red Menace."
872
873c) If Canada already knew --- Just as China may have been pissed if they discovered that the US and Canada were keeping a huge strategic advantage from them, I don't know what view would be taken if Canadian military personnel had huge, world-changing information and had actively kept it from the Crown. If there is some sort of reporting set up from the military to the Governor General, omission could be construed as a breaching the oath. Canada's presence at the Disclosure meeting could be awkward --- If such a thing occurred IRL (and made it into the public record), the "Colorado Summit" would be one more event/date, along with the 1931 Statute of Westminster and 1982 Constitution, that future high school students would have to recount as yet another step in Canada's long trek to independence.
874
875d) Canada was not informed until Anubis was flying overhead. Certainly not officially. The four countries that were invited to the meeting are, along with the US, the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council; so, it could be reasonable for the US to inform those 4 and not include its NORAD buddy. Therefore, Canada was not at the meeting. Faced with imminent attack, the President wanted our firepower -- forget Ghostbusters "Who're you gonna call? --- Vimy Takers!"
876
877[[/folder]]
878
879
880
881[[folder:Ripple Effect]]
882
883* In "Ripple Effect" - alternate quantum states do not have a separate space-time and therefore can't connect through each other through a tear in space-time (also known as a "wormhole").
884
885[[/folder]]
886
887[[folder:In "1969," who was Michael?]]
888
889* I know, probably he's just some random hippie they ran into, but there's the one bit of dialogue where they mention he got drafted to go to Vietnam. O'Neill seems about to say something until Carter stops him, saying they can't change the past--this seems to imply they know something about Michael's future in particular, otherwise what would O'Neill have even said?
890** He might have been about to tell Michael some clever way to dodge the draft or something. Regardless, I don't think it necessarily implies they know something about Michael's future, just that Carter is being cautious about too much meddling with the past.
891** O'Neill having spent so much of his life as a career military guy, I assumed that he was offended and was going to tell Michael off for dodging the draft.
892** Not necessarily. Just because he's in the military doesn't mean he approves of the draft. Indeed, a lot of the modern opposition to a military draft comes from the US military itself. They'd rather have skilled volunteers who actually ''want'' to be there, than a random bunch of malcontents who will likely half-ass the job.
893** It may have been a wise move by the writer - keeping what O'Neill wanted to say quiet so it could have been either, depending on the viewer.
894** They don't know anything, that's the problem. Maybe he dodged the draft and lived a happy life, maybe he went to Vietnam and got killed, maybe he went to Vietnam and saved Cam Mitchell's dad's life. Whatever O'Neill tells him to sway his decision had the chance of altering whatever was "intended" to happen to him, and thus could have changed/destroyed their future. And it was certainly a brilliant piece of writing: we'll never know what O'Neill's opinion of draft dodging was, his character supports either interpretation, and all we know is that whatever decision Michael eventually made, he made for himself, and history unfolded as it should.
895** Speaking of "1969", why did [=SG-1=] feel the need to lie to the hippies? The story they gave them is just as far-fetched as the truth would have been, if a little less complex.
896** The lie made the hippies even more inclined to help them. Instead of just being a rag-tag gang of hitchhikers, SG-1 are now brave revolutionaries fighting against The Establishment. This causes the hippies to feel a sense of kinship with SG-1. On the other hand, the truth might have actually turned the hippies against them. SG-1 are all members of (or associated with) the US military, so in a sense they ARE The Establishment.
897** Plus, it wasn't that long ago and the Stargate program is classified. The hippies could still be alive today, or could have told people they know who would still be alive.
898
899[[/folder]]
900
901[[folder:Screwing The Aschen]]
902
903* In "2001" they give the Aschen addresses to dangerous Stargates, "first one being a black hole and all. They get progressively darker from there." Given what happens when you dial a Stargate orbiting a black hole, how could ''anything'' be considered worse than that? Furthermore, given that dialing such a Stargate would result in the destruction of the planet that dialed it, isn't that basically committing genocide? Either the Aschen dialed it from one of their vassal worlds, causing the deaths of untold numbers of innocents, or they dialed it from the Aschen home world, killing untold numbers of innocents and a lot of bad guys too. Why not just give them addresses to a dead world or a Goa'uld stronghold? Giving them an address that's guaranteed (barring the Aschen doing what SG-1 did) to destroy the planet just seems like a really dick move for O'Neill/Hammond/whoever to do.
904** If the SGC was ''just'' capable of surviving an encounter with a black hole when they dialed the gate, maybe the figured the technologically superior Aschen would be fine too.
905** BTW, giving them coordinates to a Goa'uld stronghold would fall into the category of Very Bad Ideas. Assuming they encountered a Goa'uld with half a brain, you've now got Goa'uld with Aschen knowledge.
906** The Aschen basically have genocide as their hat, so doing the same to them isn't exactly beyond the pale morally. We know (and the characters suspect) that the Aschen were planning to do the exact same thing to Earth, so it's really just a very heavy-handed form of self-defense. I'm still wondering what address the SGC found that could possibly be worse than a ''freaking black hole.'' Maybe that bug planet where Teal'c got infected?
907** The only thing that I can think of that could be worse for the Aschen than the black hole would be an address for a Replicator-controlled planet. Mechanical space bugs whose sole purpose is to eat advanced technology? Yeah, that'd put the Aschen back down to the level of their vassal planets.
908** Another really bad one could be any planet with those bugs from "Bane" that turn their victims into several more bugs. You can imagine that quickly spreading through the Aschen Confederacy, wiping them all out.
909
910[[/folder]]
911
912[[folder:The Goa'uld Must Be Crazy]]
913
914* It just bugs me that the Goa'uld structures (bases & ships) have these decorative walls in the hallways that are positioned a few feet away from the ''actual'' walls, and seem to serve no purpose other than to let stealthy people like SG-1 and Tok'ra operatives to sneak around. Pyramids I can understand, but you'd think that with all the enemies they have, the Goa'uld would be a bit more security-conscious and not include an architectural element that seems solely designed to allow clandestine infiltrators to escape detection.
915** In at least one episode it's stated that Goa'uld ships and bases usually have intruder detection systems which must be dealt with before you can conduct a clandestine operation inside them. So there's that. Also, you may have noticed that the Goa'uld aren't the brightest crayons in the box. There are ''sooo'' many instances when a System Lord chose to do something CoolButInefficient that promotes their own god-myths rather than something BoringButPractical that doesn't.
916
917[[/folder]]
918
919[[folder:ISO Standard Goa'uld Design]]
920
921* So other than some few bits of distinctive swag that differs from system lord to system lord (primarily Jaffa armor), it seems that the entire Goa'uld empire (as well as rogue Goa'uld outside that government) all use the same standard-issue gear: staff weapons, zats, Ha'tak designs (at least the "generic" motherships), shuttles, al-kesh bombers, death gliders, hand devices, etc. The most plausible explanation I can come up with is since the Goa'uld are parasites, they stole the technology way back in the day, never really bothered to advance or even personalize much of it (a Goa'uld experimenting with advanced technology is often regarded as unusual and kind of a big deal, in a "this is dangerous to us good guys, send SG-1 to blow it up" sort of way). And since the species has a lifespan of many centuries and a genetic memory, why would the kiddie snakes waste time and effort on modifying perfectly good tech that mommy and daddy snake stole fair and square?
922** They also retain all of the genetic memory of their parents, so it wouldn't be unlikely they would all have the same knowledge/technology. And all of the individual system lords are shown to have secret labs etc where they are working on developing weapons. Presumably any advancement by one represents a threat to the whole group, so action would be taken against anyone who tried to create new, "game changing" level technology.
923
924[[/folder]]
925
926[[folder:Forgotten Superweapon, Part II]]
927
928* At exactly what point did Anubis become aware of the superweapon on Dakara? If he knew about it prior to the events of ''Reckoning'' why didn't he look for it and then use it?
929** Anubis states explicitly that he has rules to follow and is not allowed to use the knowledge and powers of an ascended being; presumably that includes the knowledge of how dial all the Stargates in the galaxy at once, or modifying the device to emit a different type of energy. He had to manipulate others into modifying the weapon and modifying the Stargate (Carter, Selmak and Ba'al) because he wasn't allowed to it himself.
930** Anubis is forbidden from using a good portion of Ancient knowledge, he probably can't retain it when outside "the diner", but neither the Carters nor Ba'al used any ancient knowledge when they found then reprogrammed the weapon and did the dial all gates thing. Besides which, Anubis [=DID=] reprogram the device himself and was seconds away from using it in "Threads." So if he knew about the weapon when Dakara was still in his possession, via Ba'al, why didn't he use it? And if he didn't know at the time, when did he learn about it?
931** Because he doesn't know ''how'', like I said; or rather, he probably does know how, but he's not allowed to use that knowledge. Not every Goa'uld knows the exact same thing as every other Goa'uld. Ba'al had already shown that he knows how to modify DHD programs in "Avenger 2.0," and "Beachhead" reveals that he had Nerus' help in this episode. Anubis had probably never in his life tried to re-program a DHD to dial multiple gates so, even if he learned how after he ascended, he's not allowed to use that knowledge. He has to manipulate other people who ''do'' know how to do it for him. What he was going to do in "Threads" was use the device that had already been modified.
932** The truth of the matter is we have very little idea exactly what information Anubis had access to. The phrase "He can only use knowledge he could have otherwise gained as an ordinary Goa'uld" is ridiculously vauge. We know for a fact he had knowledge to recreate Telchak's cube from scratch, make those unnecesarily spikey implants that fit into your brain, design weapons and sheilds superior to that of an Asgard vessel and reprogram the Dakara superweaopn from "kill replicators" to "wipe out all life." Despite this he clearly did not know the location of Atlantis, nor did he know there was a [=ZPM=] on Proclarush Taonas. (If he did he probably would have taken it.)
933*** Actually, for Telchak's device, it was stated that Anubis defeated Telchak but didn't claim the device at the time; the SGC speculated that he just found it or built his own once he Ascended and had access to the Ancient knowledge, but even if he was forbidden from directly using that knowledge, there would be nothing to stop him, for example, sending an expeditionary force to the solar system where he knows the Telchak device is located with instructions that will lead to them 'coincidentally' finding the device.
934
935[[/folder]]
936
937[[folder:The ''Moebius'' timeline vs. the ''Continuum'' one.]]
938
939* In the ''Moebius'' timeline the gate was never discovered. In ''Continuum'' it was discovered then lost at sea not long after. It makes sense that Daniel is a loser and Carter worked in aerospace in both timelines, but why would Carter be completely spineless in ''Moebius'' yet basically unchanged in ''Continuum''? (We all know that if not for the Stargate program she would have been an astronaut.) Jack's son was still alive in the ''Continuum'' timeline. Was he dead in the ''Moebius'' one? That would probably explain why he's still enlisted in ''Continuum'' and retired in''Moebius'' but how could the changes that were made to the timeline have affected something like that?
940** The Butterfly Effect. Maybe when Ra took the Stargate in the ''Moebius'' timeline it resulted in someone getting killed that wasn't killed in the standard timeline. This person could have been the ancestor of someone in Carter's life that inspired her, and with this person missing from her formative years she's a different person. Similarly in ''Continuum'' it's possible that the deaths of the people on the ship meant that someone besides O'Neill was picked for one particular mission decades later, which gave Jack more time with his son, which prompted a talk on gun safety.
941** Lots of stuff seen in the alternate timeline created in ''Moebius'' can only be explained by very liberal use of [[BellisariosMaxim Bellisario's Maxim]]. That is, don't examine it too closely. The big basic problem is how similar the timeline is InSpiteOfANail. The timeline diverged ''five thousand'' years before, and yet everyone was still recognizable as the people we knew. Really? Seriously? It's always possible to FanWank some kind of explanation of that (Maybe Ancients were individually guiding the DNA of humanity to ensure that the same people wound up the same! There must be an exception to their noninterference doctrine we've never heard about before, just for time travel!), but it's much more likely to be simply a matter of RuleOfCool: we see the same people in the ''Moebius'' timeline with different life stories simply because it's [[AnthropicPrinciple easier to tell stories about existing characters]]. Basically, it's cooler that way.
942** There is an explanation for this in a novel called ''Moebius Squared.'' To quote the Stargate wiki: In the novel Stargate SG-1: Moebius Squared, it's revealed that the time travel events of this episode affected Carter's personal history: knowing that he would grow old and eventually send the note to himself in the past, the then Lt. Hammond took a great risk to save Jacob Carter a few months later in Vietnam, knowing he couldn't send the note if he was dead. In the timeline created by SG-1 traveling back to ancient Egypt, this changed as without this certainty, Hammond didn't take the risk and Jacob died. All Hammond did was make sure that Jacob's body was recovered. This led to Carter never joining the Air Force in that timeline due to being afraid of her mother's reaction.
943
944[[/folder]]
945
946[[folder:Stop Her Ascending]]
947
948* In the penultimate episode, when [[spoiler:Adria ascends]], why don't the ancients stop her? The Ancients didn't stop the Ori because they were in another galaxy, and didn't stop the army because it was a lower plane of existence, so why don't they prevent her [[spoiler:from ascending]]?
949** The Ancients seem to be of the mind that if you can ascend on your own, then you have every right to. What they object to is interfering with the mortal world after you've ascended. Presumably, Adria booked it back for the Ori galaxy once she ascended.
950** And there was the fact that the rest of the Ori were gone by this point. From the moment Adria ascended, she received the power of ''all'' the Ori worshipers in existence. It's possible that the Ancients just simply didn't have the power to stop her.
951
952[[/folder]]
953
954[[folder:How has the U.S managed to keep the Stargate program secret for years?]]
955
956* At the end of season 7, Anubis destroyed an entire carrier strike group. ''How'' do you keep that hidden? We are talking about many thousands of dead sailors and pilots, at least a couple dozen billion dollars in destroyed ships, tens of thousands of family members who are going to start asking 'how did my spouse/parent/child/relative' die and no way you could plausibly cover it up. What about members of Congress who don't know about the Stargate project but have been asked by their constituents to find out what happened? For that matter, what about all the people looking through telescopes across the world? Did they somehow miss the sudden ships appearing in orbit or the beam of light that hit them? What about the press? Even if we assume the U.S suddenly manifested the power to silence the American press at will that doesn't explain the lack of investigations in Europe, South America, North America, Africa, the Middle East and all of Asia.
957** The official explanation for those lost ships was a freak meteor shower. As for the people looking through telescopes, a Season 8 episode addressed exactly this, with a business man having realized it was a cover story and having photos of Anubis's ship. The short answer is the government rushed in and hushed him right the hell up. ''That'' is how they keep it a secret. You find out about it and try to tell someone? At best, you've got O'Neill or Carter coming to tell you to knock it off, at worst, they just nick the evidence.
958** Family and friends of dead soldiers aren't always told how their loved ones died if it would mean revealing classified information. This is even a minor plot point in season 1 when Gen. Hammond tells Daniel about the letter he's writing to the family of a soldier who committed suicide in the SGC. "I can't tell them how he died or what he was doing here. Only that he's gone. Do you get the point?"
959** While it's believable that the military covers up (or fails to explain) the circumstances of its soldiers deaths, by the end of the series we'd had a media mogul finding out about the program and only just stopped from going on air about it (which presumably means a lot of people who are pro-Freedom of Information now know), an asteroid mysteriously passing through Earth, a global plague, a building beamed into space and exploding... and that's just the weirdness I can remember. On top of that, now the Security Council Members know too, and of course, none of them would ''ever'' let secrets slip accidentally. I always thought that an interesting plot arc would be to have the Stargate program become public knowledge and how our heroes dealt with that.
960** If I'm not mistaken, that was the plan eventually, what with Atlantis showing up in San Francisco Bay.
961** TheReveal was intended for the 3rd movie "Revolution".
962
963[[/folder]]
964
965
966[[folder:Vice-Presidential Bird Hunt]]
967
968* In "Uninvited" Mitchell, Landry, and the locals are hunting the mutated monster thing and Mitchell says he "doesn't want this to turn into a vice-presidential bird hunt." When was Cheney ever VP in the Stargate universe?
969** Total {{WMG}}, but maybe they appointed Cheney to VP after President Hayes fired Kinsey in "Lost City".
970** It's pretty much stated outright that everything after the events of "Moebius" take place in an alternate timeline, where the SGC found a ZPM, there are fish in O'Neill's pond and a hotshot young pilot named Cameron Mitchell played a key role in the Battle of Antarctica. The events of the first eight seasons of ''[=SG1=]'' are therefore not necessarily true in season nine and beyond. Who's to say that in this new timeline Cheney wasn't always Hayes' VP? Or that Hayes wasn't beaten in the primaries by a Texan cheerleader by the name of George W. Bush?
971
972[[/folder]]
973
974[[folder:Why Keep The Stargate Secret, Again]]
975
976* Given I'm only at the beginning of season 6, but why keep the Stargate a secret on Earth when every single planet they go to regardless of technology level or political climate the team just blurts right out to the first people they meet that they came through the Stargate and there's many other worlds through the Stargate. So every single other planet has a right to know they are worshiping false gods, or to know the reality of religion except Earth? DoubleStandard, anyone?
977** There are plenty of double standards in domestic and foreign policy, reality prevents us from applying a single standard to the world. In this case the U.S government (and later many other governments) is worried about the social impact of telling the people that life does exist off this planet and a good deal of it is hostile to Earth, not to mention what might happen if evidence appears to suggest that current religions were based on aliens. Of course the longer they put it off the bigger the impact (and probably Congressional anger) but the double standard does have at least some justification. Besides, is an SG team supposed to tell the people they visit "Hi, even though we aren't anything like you we definitely aren't from another planet"?
978
979[[/folder]]
980
981[[folder:Killed In Stargate Action]]
982
983* What, pray tell, does the Air Force tell the families of all these SG members lost on other worlds, bodies irretrievable? Sorry, your spouse/child died in service of his country. Sorry, we don't have a body to give you. Enough of those and people would begin to talk.
984** It does sometimes happen and if they're SG teams then they've probably already been selected for special operations and their families know that something might happen. Of course eventually it'd get hard to keep it a secret but for the short term it could be done.
985** You don't think there's already ways for people in the military to die without leaving a body? People have been getting blown up, crushed, and just plain lost at sea since warfare began. Just not having a body isn't going to raise suspicions that much.
986** It's addressed in one episode. Gen. Hammond personally writes the family a letter saying their loved one died "in service of country" without saying how they died or what their job entailed.
987
988[[/folder]]
989
990[[folder:Jerk Jock Pilots]]
991
992* In ''Fragile Balance'' what is ''wrong'' with the pilots? Carter has experience with the F-302's, they've been informed that O'Neill wasn't available and they're showing outright disrespect to a ''major''? Are they ''trying'' to ruin their careers?
993** Good old-fashioned sexism and a jocks' dislike for a geek. The number of Air Force pilots that are female is drastically less than the number of male pilots; it still really is very much a male-dominated field, and Carter is also a scientist, not a pilot. They see it as them being given some second-rate instructor.
994
995[[/folder]]
996
997[[folder:Ba'al's Jaffa]]
998
999* Why do Ba'al's Jaffa continue to serve him after the formation of the Free Jaffa Nation? Surely this should have demonstrated that a Goa'uld is only as strong as his Jaffa, and that they could safely tell him to go pound salt.
1000** One thing that sets Ba'al apart from the average Goa'uld is his willingness to work ''with'' people instead of just trying to command them and bend them to his will. Recall how he got Teal'c's allegience in ''Continuum'', by promising the Jaffa freedom. Presumably he did something similar here, found out what the Jaffa wanted, and offered it to them in return for service.
1001** Plus, for Ba'al's Jaffa, relocating to the Jaffa Free Nation effectively means leaving their homes and place in their community behind, taking only with them the clothes on their backs, having to start over from scratch. Ba'al most likely treats his Jaffa well.
1002
1003[[/folder]]
1004
1005[[folder:What Happened To The Nox?]]
1006
1007* What the hell happened to the Nox? They were involved in the plot, helping the Tollans find a new planet and everything. Where were they when all of the Tollans were being massacred? The Nox could have saved the entire species, but they simply disappeared off the face of the universe. Unless of course I missed something and there is a reasonable explanation for the Nox no longer being mentioned. Ever.
1008** I suspect they didn't really like us much, when it came down to it.
1009** Maybe at some point, they all decided to Ascend? AFAIK, their powers were never fully explained, so they could well have been a near-ascension species.
1010** Maybe the Nox ''did'' show up to save the Tollans, or as many as they could. And the surviving Tollans (we know there would be some even ''without'' anybody coming to their aid, since Anubis only sent a single Ha'tak to attack them) just stayed in hiding with the Nox, thus explaining why we never saw them again either. We have no idea if Anubis's improved sensors could see through a Nox cloaking device, since it's demonstrably far superior to any that the Goa'uld ever used. They might well have been able to fly their invisible city-ship to Tollana and beamed away their friends, then left without Anubis ever being the wiser.
1011
1012[[/folder]]
1013
1014[[folder:No Busy Signal]]
1015
1016* It's kind of odd that with how many off-world teams there are reporting in and using the gate that SG-1 didn't get a busy signal more often. I mean most of us are on our telephones a comparatively small percentage of the day yet we still get busy signals and several people trying to call at once. There has to have been an SG team in trouble and in desperate need to get back NOW who lost their lives because it was a busy time at the SGC.
1017** Though thinking about that, that was probably the main rationale about setting up an alpha site.
1018** The RPG books explain this with "Gate Priority," which the party can spend "Resource Points" on prior to a mission. Basically, the mission schedules are set up such that your team will be more than likely the only one using the 'Gate for the duration, unless an emergency crops up. Plus, there are plenty of times in the series where O'Neill orders someone (or they ask permission to go) back to the SGC to report/retrieve something/run a simulation. We're rarely if ever actually shown that transit back and forth, and it's highly likely at least some of those had to wait around a few minutes for a busy signal.
1019
1020[[/folder]]
1021
1022[[folder:Hammond's Invisible Assistant]]
1023
1024* Does General Hammond have an assistant? At his rank, he should have a whole staff around to delegate things to - but he always deals with everything directly. (Yes, I know, if he had a staff we wouldn't see the character as much.)
1025** Or, we see Hammond so much because his staff is offscreen making sure he can deal directly with the important things, like giving orders and planning missions.
1026** We see him mostly dealing with SG-1, who are the team who deal with the initial first contact of planets, and he'd need to be concerned with what was going on there, and approve any future dealings with them
1027
1028[[/folder]]
1029
1030[[folder:Humans Are Morons?]]
1031
1032* The whole HumansAreMorons attitude other races give the Tau'ri. The Nox, the Tollans, the Asgard (In the beginning). Your race is not ready!
1033** Look at it from their point of view: Tau'ri had space flight capabilities that barely reached the moon, weapons that relied on primitive chemical reactions, a political system that still warred with itself and in which America AKA the SGC could have been overthrown at any time (as far as they knew), absolutely zero ability to defend itself from anything beyond a Goa'uld cargo ship and had apparently declared war on the System Lords by killing Ra whilst ignoring the political vacuum that it created. Would ''you'' trust these people? even if you can still answer yes lets change the scenario slightly; imagine you're America and the Tau'ri were Somalia. Because that is exactly the situation people like the Tokra or the Tollan were facing when considering the ramifications of an alliance or sharing their technology.
1034** The Tollan are humans too, and they had a very good reason for not giving away their technology willy-nilly (a previous attempted uplift destroyed not only the people they were trying to help, but their own planet as well.) The Nox are rather inexcusable, since we likely would have happily hidden behind perfect invisibility screens from the Goa'uld (even if Jack would rather have gone out and kicked Goa'uld ass.) The Asgard were bound by the Protected Planets Treaty, which prevented them using their technology to directly intervene on Earth's behalf except in event of Goa'uld attack (or, presumably, threats the Asgard themselves introduced, like the Replicators.) Even so, it was less HumansAreMorons and more that we just weren't ready to use the knowledge the other aliens had responsibly. The Asgard themselves state that humans have "great potential," and the fact that the Tau'ri went from space shuttles to space battlecruisers in seven years bears that point out, while simultaneously making you wonder if [[JerkAssHasAPoint the Tollan had a point.]] If they'd just up and given Earth advanced technology back in Season One, would they have done anything more than make things worse? The Tau'ri did a fine job of mucking things up ''before'' they had space battleships.
1035
1036[[/folder]]
1037
1038
1039[[folder:Apophis Wants A Harcesis]]
1040
1041* It's made very clear that the Goa'uld don't approve of making a Harcesis (a child born of two Goa'uld hosts) because that child would have all the knowledge of the Goa'ulds that birthed him. Obviously the System Lords don't want a human running around with all the knowledge of the Goa'uld, but Apophis wanted one as a new host. Why? What does he gain from doing this?
1042** It may be there's still some symbiosis that occurs even when a Goa'uld dominates their host. Two minds are better than one and so perhaps having two like-minded and equally intelligent minds would make Apophis smarter in a Harcesis host.
1043** I always took it, and keep in mind this is a personal theory and not in any way canon, as Apophis's attempt to have a "family." Looking at his history, and the Goa'uld at large, they ''do'' seem to have "families," just extremely odd ones from our perspective. Apophis views Klorel as his son, and Klorel views Apophis as his father, because Apophis granted him a host and gave him an army. Heru-ur is Ra's son, presumably for the same reasons since Ra was never stated to be a fertile Queen. Apophis married Amonet and seemed to genuinely love her (As much as a Goa'uld can love), even calling out her name as he died. I figure Apophis wanted a ''real'' son and thought that, when he took over that body, he and his son would be together forever.
1044** No, it's because Goa'uld have perfect genetic memories. Every host they take, they gain access to that persons memories. Now consider what a harcesis is; a person born with the memories of two Goa'uld, who have each lived thousands of years. If Apophis had taken his own harcesis child as a host, he would have gained all the memories of his queen, as well as doubling up on his own memories. He basically would have an entire extra Goa'ulds lifetime of memories. He would know everything Amonet knows, every thought she had ever had, every feeling. For an immortal being that's probably quite an experiance. This is also exactly why harcesis are forbidden by the Goa'uld; imagine every System Lord using harcesis' as hosts all the time, doubling up on memories, learning secrets and gaining knowledge they could never acquire otherwise. Left unchecked it could upset the delicate balance of power they have set up and cause them to self destruct, so they forbid it outright.
1045
1046[[/folder]]
1047
1048
1049[[folder:Medic!]]
1050
1051* As I understand it the SG and Atlantis recon teams are designed thus: there is a commander (O'Neill, Mitchell, Shepperd) a scientist (Carter,Mckay) to operate any alien technology they may come across, occasionally a linguist (Jackson) to better communicate with alien races and one or more fire support officers (Teal'c, Ronan) who exist to fight and protect the team from aggressors - fine, all perfectly reasonable and logical additions... so why aren't these teams equipped with a permanent medic? I could list at least two dozen occasions in which SG-1 or AT-1 having a fully equipped field medic on board would have not only saved scores of Tau'ri personnel, but that of the Tok'ra, free Jaffa and countless native civilizations that have been injured throughout the course of he show. As things stand, currently their only recourse in the event of injury is to either waste time limping back to the Stargate/waiting for beam out if it's in orbit (and only then if it's beyond series 5) or interrupting whatever Beckett or Fraiser are doing. There is literally no reason why these otherwise perfectly practical and realistic military teams are missing someone in charge of tending to their battle injuries. Ironically, despite the questionable military tactics of Starfleet Away Teams, this is one of the only things they get right by constantly beaming down [=McCoy=].
1052** Not all SG teams are made up of up the same configuration. SG-3 for example, is comprised entirely of marines and as such, is usually sent in as back up for another team. SG-1 and AT-1 are are more "Jack of all trades" teams, called in for extremely varying types of missions and as such, are more diverse in their team mates.
1053** (OP) Good point, I forgot about the configuration of the other teams; still the fact that SG and AT 1 are Jack of All Trades teams, personally speaking, makes the lack of a medic even worse. So many lives could have been saved across the course of both these shows if SG-1 had a fully equipped medic as a fifth member. After doing some more research, not only would this have saved scores of random extras but potentially Jacob and Dr Fraiser.
1054** That is not how special operations teams work, according to my uncle. Every single member of the team is supposed be at least a basic medic. You don't have to have an MD to keep someone from bleeding out. Any member of an SG team should be able to patch up another team member enough to get their butt back to the Stargate or other form of evac. Medics aren't as common as one would think. For example, a Marine Corps infantry company has only four corpsmen, or dedicated medics. There just isn't room on a four-man team for a medic when you can train the entire team to be good enough medics to patch up a soldier so he can be evacuated.
1055
1056[[/folder]]
1057
1058[[folder:So what happened to the Tollan?]]
1059
1060* I get that there wasn't a whole hell of a lot we could do when Anubis attacked, but by the start of Season 8 we had put the boot to Anubis and had at least one available long-range FTL capable ship. Why didn't we put out a general call to the Free Jaffa Nation for some bored, out of work warriors and come down on the planet like a ton of bricks to kick some ass and rescue the Tollan? Sure, sure, there probably weren't many left, but as I understood things Anubis was after technology and wouldn't have glassed the planet's surface, so there had to be at least a few that hid away from Anubis, and possibly a few more in captivity. Plus, neat bonus, after freeing them we could have poured resources into helping them rebuild (while at the same time saying "look how far we've came" and pointing to all the neat tech we borrowed from the Asgard) and possibly wrangled some scientific concessions. It wouldn't even have to be more than "Hey can we stick some really smart kids in Tollan high school and send them to Tollan university so we can get a basic understanding of the advanced rules of science and figure out how all this other neat tech we have works?"
1061** Some Tollan escaped, but it's not known if we know where they escaped to. Why humans didn't investigate the ruins is unknown, though Anubis may have simply laid waste to the city completely.
1062** Anubis wasn't going after the Tollan for technology--the fact Anubis was able to wipe them out would indicate he had better tech already. That was an attack to wipe them out as retribution for going back on the deal (which was along the lines of "Blow up Earth, or I wipe you out").
1063
1064[[/folder]]
1065
1066[[folder:SGC No Tanks]]
1067
1068* Why do ships like the Apollo or Daedalus not carry vehicles such as Tanks, Strykers, APC's, armed Jeeps etc? Asgard beaming technology would allow instant delivery of these vehicles to any SG or Atlantis team anywhere on the planet ''and'' from what we've seen the 302 bay could easily accommodate the inclusion of such equipment. Now admittedly the telekinetic powers of a Prior could probably engage a tank; but against the standard Ori, Jaffa and Wraith troops who appear to have no land based vehicles of any kind, the Tau'ri would win each and every single battle. In fact, whilst we're on the subject of tanks and other land based vehicles, the discovery of materials like Trinium, fuel sources powerful as Naquadah and weapon systems such as rail guns; Tau'ri should now be capable of building vehicles a hundred times superior to the M1 or the Challenger 2.
1069** In the series of novels based off of the original Stargate movie they do bring tanks, attack helicopters, Stinger missiles and Humvees to Abydos through the Stargate and use them to great effect against Ra's troops (now under the command of Hathor). The Stinger missiles are the most effective because the death gliders have absolutely no defense or countermeasure against them, whereas the tanks are the least effective because the staff weapons melt the wheels and tread and render the vehicle immobile. Presumably the reason they don't use such vehicles in the Stargate series is because they prefer stealth and infiltration rather than battalions of armored vehicles.
1070** There would be very little point loading tanks and such onto, say the Apollo for example, simply because when the Apollo arrives it would eliminate any need for tanks by it's very presence. Why beam down a tank when you can blow something up from orbit with much bigger guns? And in the situation of an on-foot fire-fight the beaming technology would solve that problem within seconds.
1071** Also, tanks and armored vehicles are ''big''. You'd have to custom design one that would fit through the 'gate, or else send the parts through first and assemble it on the other side.
1072** Failing the possibility of conventional vehicles, why don't the SGC have an armed MALP? I can understand the ordinary model being unarmed as it is a First Contact tool, but there is no reason why they couldn't design a second model with some form of mounted light machine gun or even a turret. A radio controlled tank would have come in handy on any number of occasions, the episode where SG-1 was captured by Hathor is one of the best examples.
1073** The Stargate is 6.7 meters in diameter, that's plenty of room for any ground vehicle to be driven through. The real reason why they don't have extensive military hardware deployed via the Stargate or 302s is because that's ''way'' beyond the show's budget. The producers probably thought of it but decided it's better to show than tell by have Carter report on the epic tank battles off-world.
1074** The diameter is how wide it is at the ''center''. Vehicles would have to be able to get through it about half-way to the edge from that, where the ramp usually is. And the 6.7 meters is from one ''outside'' edge to the other, and the vehicle would have to get through the ''inside'' edges, which probably has a diameter at least two meters smaller.\
1075[[http://stargate-sg1-solutions.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/teamthroughgate.jpg Look at this]]. Where the ramp is, it's ''just'' wide enough for four people, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, to walk through the gate at once. Tanks, as I understand it, are rather wider than that.
1076** The "Needle Threader" is 6.5 meters wide and tall, so the event horizon has to be a little wider than that or there would be literally no margin for error in piloting the thing. An Abrams tank is 3.66 meters wide and 2.44 meters tall so aside from adjusting the ramp height on the gates a little bit there's no problem fitting one through. As for the photo, chalk it up to SpecialEffectsFailure since they haven't always been consistent in how big the gate really is (in that pic it looks about 5 meters, tops). Hell, in the early season opening credits we see a Death Glider fly through a deactivated Stargate, which would defeat the entire purpose of making Needle Threaders in the first place.
1077** We never see any Death Glider flying through a deactivated Stargate. If it's the same image I'm thinking of, it fly ''above'' it, nearly crashing into, yes, but certainly not through. The wingspan of an ordinary Death Glider just never allowed it. There's no error from the special effect team here, just your eyes needing to be checked.
1078** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqDS6eOG_hM Season 2 intro]]. At 00:32, if that's not a death glider flying through the gate then at the very least shows another vehicle besides, needle threaders, jumpers or darts that can fit through a gate, which is a big oversight in itself.
1079** Bad eyesight crossed with poorly-timed cut-to-next-scene-in-montage. Look at the Season 1 episode that shot comes from, "Singularity". It clearly shows the glider swoop past the gate, clearing it with mere meters to spare. (It was strafing O'Neill and Teal'c at the time.)
1080** As far as sending armored vehicles through the Stargate to other planets? Here's an ArmorPiercingQuestion: How do you get it ''to'' the Stargate? Last I looked, the only way down to the SGC's gate is through two elevators, and the base's corridors aren't built to accommodate tanks. The crane from "Redemption"? Same problem. And factor in that they'd have to rebuilt the ramp to take a tank's weight instead of people and F.R.E.D.
1081** The same way the gate got in: the hatch above it.
1082** Which, how wide is that in the narrow dimension? Unless I miss my guess they'd have to tip the tank up on its side or something.
1083** At least wide enough for the gate, either 4.6m (http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Stargate) or 6.7m (http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Stargate).
1084** I mean how wide is the slot front to back (i.e. the ''narrow'' dimension, not the ''wide'' dimension). The gate looks to be only about a foot and a half thick.
1085** The SGC is a re-purposed nuclear missile facility and the gate room itself is at the bottom of the main missile silo. If you can fit a nuclear missile in there, you can fit a tank in there.
1086** The reason that they don't use tanks and jeeps and APCs probably has something to do with the fact that, in case you've forgotten, they're the ''Air Force'', not the Army.
1087
1088[[/folder]]
1089
1090[[folder:Origin Of The Replicators]]
1091
1092* How is it that Reese and the Replicators originated on a planet that was part of the Milky Way gate system, yet all the Repliicators we see for seven seasons are all in the Ida Galaxy? Shouldn't the Milky Way have been overrun long before the Replictors ever considered going to Ida?
1093** [[AWizardDidIt An Asgard Did It]]. No, seriously. Thor mentioned in either "Nemesis" or "Small Victories" (I forget which) that the reason the Replicators are such a big threat now is because the Asgard found them on an unpopulated world and brought them aboard for study, they infested an Asgard ship, and things went downhill from there. If you notice, he never specified ''where'' the planet they found them on was. Couple it with the fact that the Asgard regularly visit the Milky Way, and it makes perfect sense.
1094** I'm actually pretty sure that Thor does specify that they were found in the Asgard home galaxy.
1095** I checked "Nemesis" and you're absolutely right. So much for my first idea. Maybe the Replicators took off into space, struck out in a purely random direction and wound up in Ida (never mind the odds). In any case the writers fouled up.
1096** We know how the Replicators originated, thanks to Atlantis: the android version were the originals and meant to fight the Wraith, but were PutOnABus by the Lantean Ancients. At least one was created in the Milky Way (Reese) after the Lanteans returned to the Milky Way, and similarly abandoned. We also know that the Ancients and Asgard were allies. Thus, an Ancient for one reason or another conducted Replicator experiments in the Ida Galaxy, but it was abandoned. Eventually, it created the Replicator "bugs" like Reese, which were found by the Asgard.
1097
1098[[/folder]]
1099
1100[[folder:Ancients Vs. Darwin]]
1101
1102* So; humans evolved millions of years before we previously believed in a different galaxy and then traveled to Earth, died out and eventually became what we would consider modern humans. OK fine. So how do they explain the Neanderthal in the Stargate universe? as it stands, the Ancients who are identical to Homo sapiens in everything but the ATA gene and increased mental capabilities, either came to this planet and murdered/stood by as the entire Neanderthal race went extinct OR evolved from Homo sapiens into Neanderthal and then back into Homo sapiens again - and lets not even get into the fact that there are literally dozens of other genus of human that have also evolved and gone extinct. On that note, how do they explain the massive genetic similarities between Apes (an Earth animal) and humans (who evolved billion of light years away)... did they bring the Ape from the Alteran galaxy with them?
1103** Oh that isn't even the worst of it: the Stargate in Antarctica is meant to be 50 million years old... 15 million years after the '''Dinosaurs went extinct.''' Did they build their civilization on a planet that had nearly been rendered uninhabitable by an asteroid impact? why wouldn't they find another planet? were they forced to battle Woolly Mammoths or Sabre Toothed Tigers from time to time? so many problems with this time scale and so little time...
1104** Um, 15 million years is a ''long'' time. Considering the entirety of human history fits within about 10,000 years... A better question is why they placed Atlantis (and the Stargate) in the most inhospitable place on Earth.
1105** It wasn't always. During the ice age, the poles were downright tropical.
1106** Antarctica hasn't been tropical for tens of millions of years, certainly not at any ice age in recent Earth history. Still, you'd think the Ancients would be able to pick up and move once it started freezing over at some point.
1107** Frankly history is not the strong point of the show. They have aliens apparently creating/taking over religions around the same point in time even though some of those religions had completely disappeared thousands of years before the others showed up. The best approach is to ignore established facts about human evolution and human history and just go with rule of cool.
1108** They kind of addressed that. The same plague that the Ancients were struggling with millions of years ago wiped out most of the life in the galaxy. As such, the Ancients used the superweapon at Dakara to recreate life in the galaxy. The implication is that the new life was based on Ancient DNA, thus eventually giving rise to humans
1109
1110[[/folder]]
1111
1112[[folder:False God, Trust Us]]
1113
1114* Maybe I need to view more than the first season, but why do we keep seeing all these cultures, many of them thousands of years old, who throw over their gods and societies on the word of four strangers who tell them, "Hey, want to know a secret about your god Pullin-a-Kon? He's really some nasty parasitical worm with uber-technology and no god at all. Yes, I know we have no real evidence of any of this, but [[TakeOurWordForIt take our word for it]]." Real-world religions and mythologies are rather more resilient than that, and in RealLife people are often willing to stick with and even defend their ideals and beliefs. Especially when the argument "against" boils down to [[BeliefMakesYouStupid "Stop being dumb."]] Seriously, some of this makes [[EasyEvangelism Jack Chick's conversion stories look like models of intellectual debate]]. I know, I know, [[MST3kMantra it's only a silly SF show on the boob tube, so I need to simmer down]], but it really does bug me.
1115** Maybe because that's not how it ever happens? In every case I can think of, the whole episode has SG-1 trying to convince the locals that their gods are not gods, oftentimes ending up having to fall back on the argument of, "Well, now he's dead because we killed him. Gods can't be dead. QED." I can't think of one episode where it's ''that'' easy for SG-1 to convince the locals that a Goa'uld isn't an actual god.
1116** In addition, keep in mind that gods in Stargate are different from gods in real world religions. In Stargate, these gods can be seen, as well as their power. Apophis' followers got to see him in flesh and blood. They saw his technology which, to their relatively primitive culture, seemed like magic. In real life (forgive me if I step on any religious person's toes here), there is no such cold, hard proof that any religion is true. That's why it's called ''belief''. As a result, cultures in Stargate don't really need to put faith in their gods, they believe what they see. So once they see evidence to the contrary, it's easier to change their minds.
1117*** There's actually a bigger, more fundamental difference between modern religions and what you're seeing in SG-1. With modern religions, there's different kinds of evidence (and varies by religion and what they consider important), but all the ones with deities of any sort agree on one thing: the deity or deities are NOT like us but instead fundamentally different in some way. Most of the gods the Goa'uld are impersonating/based on/named after are basically powerful humans. That's how they behave, and that's how they think. You can understand them perfectly. The people SG-1 encounter don't technically even have to think the Goa'uld aren't gods anymore. Them being shown as weak (being defeated/killed) shows they're not worthy of devotion.
1118
1119[[/folder]]s
1120
1121[[folder:Attacking You Own Force Field For Fun And Profit]]
1122
1123* In ''Beachhead'', the Ori force field is powered up by weapons fire intended to destroy it, including SG-1's nuke. Why didn't the Ori send a nuke or two of their own? Would've been faster and safer.
1124** The Ori and the Goa'uld share two things in common: a love of theatrics and ridiculously large ego's. It's not enough to simply convert or conquer a planet; the population must also bow down and admit with every fibre of their being that you're the greatest in the universe. ''Faster and safer'' is not the objective to people who are trying to make you worship them - a fact that, unfortunately, has been played out countless times in real life by various religions and governments.
1125** The Ori only sent through a small group of Priors to our galaxy. It wouldn't make any sense for them to be carrying weapons grade nuclear materials as they go from planet to planet spreading the word of the Ori.
1126** Plus, "Your attempts to destroy us only made us stronger!" is a better propaganda message than just coming through and doing it yourself.
1127
1128[[/folder]]
1129
1130
1131
1132[[folder:Unflinching Faith In Chevron Guy]]
1133
1134* Not sure if it's ever touched upon but how do the [=SGC personnel=] know that the Iris has opened when returning to base? Does the [=IDC=] come with a light or something? Maybe Red = closed & Green = Open?
1135** If "Children of the Gods" is any indication, they didn't know, at least at first. I distinctly recall Sam saying that if the iris didn't open she'd be the first to know. AFAIK they never mention that kind of thing again, but it sounds like something the SGC would be smart enough to fix, so ... maybe?
1136** There was never any kind of dialogue or on-screen evidence to indicate there was, but character actions heavily implies it. Several times when the camera is in the SGC and there's a question over whether or not they should open the iris, whoever is on the other side of the gate radios in and asks why they're taking so long when we have not seen the people in the control room tell them to wait. That says to me that they somehow do know that the iris hasn't been opened, even if we've never been shown how.
1137** It seems like the kind of thing that would be incredibly stupid ''not'' to have--I mean, without it, every time someone comes home they risk a PortalSlam if whoever's on the other side isn't quick enough on the draw. Would ''you'' guarantee the deaths of your own personnel every time it takes more than a few seconds for someone to open the door? Even though we don't see it explicitly, there ''has'' to be some indication if only because it's really stupid not to.
1138** There are several incidences where they state receiving an IFF signal, and each signal is unique for each team. I recall there even being one that was stolen. Makes sense that the device that sends the signal also has a way of receiving confirmation that it's safe to come through.
1139
1140[[/folder]]
1141
1142[[folder:Politics Of The Stargate-Verse]]
1143
1144* A few questions regarding politics. Do we know what political party either the never seen president or Henry Hayes belonged to? Does the President have the ability to summarily fire his Vice-President on the spot? He had "enough evidence to have Kinsey shot" but it doesn't look like it was ever made public and was only used as a threat to ensure Kinsey co-operated. So as far as the average Joe can tell, the President of the States just fired his [=VP=] like an employee.
1145** No, we never learned their politics. My (personal) belief is that Henry Hayes was a Republican due to the (maybe correct, maybe flawed) perception that all religious Christians are Republicans and Kinsey, his running mate, was a frequent spouter of semi-fundamentalist rhetoric, but that is just supposition based on how political parties are portrayed on TV. Regarding firing Kinsey, he ''didn't'' (technically) fire him, he "accepted his resignation"; the implicit threat was that if Kinsey didn't agree to step aside then Hayes would use the evidence he has to formally remove him, possibly actually bring him up on charges. Now, you know and I know (And everybody else in the show knows) that it was a firing in truth if not in technicality, but according to the letter of the law he didn't fire him. If anybody in the public asks why, Hayes can just say "I didn't fire him, he resigned, you'll need to ask him as to why."
1146** To be clear, in RL the President (of the US) does ''not'' have the power to fire the Vice President (or have him shot). If Kinsey had refused to step down, Hayes would have had to ask Congress to impeach him, and I can certainly imagine an alternate history where Kinsey turned that into a giant media circus and made Hayes look like a twit. But Kinsey seemed much more concerned with getting his cowardly ass off the planet at that point...
1147** If Hayes released the information he had connecting Kinsey to illegal NID activities such as blackmailing an Air Force general, wouldn't impeachment would be the least of Kinsey's problems?
1148** My impression was that Kinsey was carefully crafted so we couldn't tell his political party. All we know about him is that he's hostile towards the military (a stereotype associated with Democrats), he's a religious fanatic (a stereotype associated with Republicans), and he's a draft dodger (which qualifies him for senior leadership in both parties).
1149** Um, when was it established he was a draft dodger?
1150** It's never explicitly stated, but when he says that "illness" kept him from serving that does tend to raise eyebrows with some viewers. There are enduring rumors that various political figures (who shall remain nameless) used ginned-up "illnesses" to get exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War. Of course that's hardly proof that Kinsey is a draft dodger, but still, they didn't ''have'' to give Kinsey that "illness" line. They could have simply had him say he "never served". It would have been perfectly plausible if, by pure chance, Kinsey's draft number was never called up. By giving him the "illness" line it feels like they're calling attention to it and inviting us to speculate.
1151** Actually, it's not so much that he's hostile to the military. Remember, at the end of season 1 he firmly indicates that he believes the US military can defeat the Goa'uld. He's initially opposed to the SGC (seeing it as a waste of money). When he can't shut it down, he tries to get his own people in charge and/or direct control towards his allies in the NID. He later tries to get direct control of it himself. So it's not so much that he hates the military. He just doesn't want them running the program. Most of his complaints that seem anti-military or more aimed at the fact that he is putting the blame for the current state of affairs with the Goa'uld on Hammond's decisions. IE: Government should propose and military should only dispose. Also, it's unclear if he's a draft dodger. He simply stated that "illness robbed me of the chance to ever serve in this country's military". Take that for whatever it is worth.
1152** Got a question about the good (right) senator: I'm not from the states, but some of the things he does seem to be a violation of separation of powers' laws. The biggest would be trying to get direct control of SGC: SGC is Executive while the Senate (and senators) is Legislative and add giving orders to military personnel - senators are not in the chain of command.
1153*** Yes. Kinsey's objections to the SGC initially are not unfounded: a secret military operation that is allowing military personnel to set policy among alien races on behalf of the entirety of planet Earth. That's a gross abuse of military authority under the ideals of the United States. But once Kinsey realizes he can't get the program shut down, he tries to gain direct or indirect control of it, attempting to consolidate it as part of a political power base to benefit his own ambitions. At best, Kinsey is RightForTheWrongReasons, at worst he's StupidEvil.
1154
1155[[/folder]]
1156
1157[[folder:Anubis, Master Of Escape!]]
1158
1159* How exactly did Anubis get off that frozen planet he was stuck on at the end of "Lockdown?" Moreover, when did he do it? At the start of Season 8 Ba'al was on the fast path to becoming the most powerful of the Goa'uld but by the end Anubis had co-opted his operation. Was there any hint in the show as to when Anubis did that?
1160** Wasn't there a Gate on that planet? That'd explain how he got off.
1161** True, but Anubis would have needed a body to dial the gate, and by the end of the episode the Russian guy he arrived in was not exactly up to the task. At least, that's what the camera shot seemed to imply.
1162** The dialogue, character actions and final shot did imply that Anubis was trapped and would not be able to escape the frozen world, but it was never ''explicitly'' stated that he'd be trapped (At least, I don't believe there was). When he re-appeared it was never explained, I think we were just supposed to accept that he'd done something wacky to get off the planet. Regarding retaking his old army, that one's actually easier to understand. The Kull Warriors, the key to his army and Ba'al's as well, obeyed him; Ba'al might have had the other System Lords running, but when Anubis showed up and said "Point your guns at him!" the Kulls would have done so. Ba'al could either resist, and be gunned down since his loyal Jaffa had no chance against them, or bide his time for his eventual betrayal.
1163** He roped a couple of snow turtles.
1164** The simplest explanation I can think of is that some random ship happened to land on the planet for some reason and Anubis used that opportunity to posses the pilot and travel to the nearest world with an active Stargate.
1165
1166[[/folder]]
1167
1168[[folder:Provoked Or Not?]]
1169
1170* Season 7, the episode ''Grace''. Does anyone else think that Colonel Ronson's orders may have contributed to the attack by the alien vessel? It's entirely possible that Prometheus was inside the aliens' territory, and as the ship approaches, Ronson orders shields raised and ''weapons armed''. Then, only after scanning Prometheus do the aliens deploy their own weapons and attack. I understand a military mindset when facing an unknown situation, but it's like barging into someone's back yard and then drawing your weapon when they come to investigate the ruckus.
1171** That's a fair point, but the aliens also never even tried to communicate, nor did they wait for an overtly hostile act (Arming weapons is a hostile act, but not an ''overtly'' hostile act. It's a precaution, like loading your gun, not a threat, like drawing it), and they continued attacking after the ''Prometheus'' began to actively run away. They might have felt threatened by Ronson's actions, but they reacted belligerently and beyond the notions of self-defense.
1172
1173[[/folder]]
1174
1175[[folder:Ascended Vs. Daniel, Let's Make A Deal!]]
1176
1177* When Daniel decided to go back to being mortal, why didn't he demand the same deal that Anubis got? Were the Ancients only willing to let power-hungry, genocidal maniacs keep the knowledge?
1178** Anubis didn't get a "deal," the Others allowed him to stay partially ascended in order to punish Oma.
1179** And by extension every other living thing in the galaxy.
1180** No, they didn't care about the rest of the galaxy (In a way, that was their very point). It was all about getting Oma to see that she shouldn't involve herself in the lower planes because of the potential dangers.
1181
1182[[/folder]]
1183
1184[[folder:Unintentionally Sympathetic Kinsey?]]
1185
1186* In ''Lost City'' why is everyone treating Kinsey like scum for wanting to get to the Alpha Site? Admittedly he does show fear for his life but he's apparently the only major official who actually wants to preserve the government when it looks like Anubis is about to take over. He even points out that there's no real reason for the president to stay on Earth.
1187** They don't treat him like scum for wanting to get to the Alpha Site, they treat him like scum for being scum. For ignoring the warnings of SG-1, for deliberately trying to get the project shut down, for getting into bed with illegal and terrorist organizations that are trying to subvert the very government (That's a big one), and for showing his personal cowardice at the end. Not for leaving for the Alpha Site, but for demanding that his transport is more important than protecting the SGC from attack through the Stargate.
1188** To simplify this very good answer: it's not just a pure judgement, it's also a punishment for his actions before. Yes, he showed cowardice in asking to go, but I think it's also Hammond using his (limited) power as commander of the SGC to 'reward' Kinsey for his jerk actions before. Note that Kinsey asked Hammond for permission, meaning that Hammond is the one person who can allow someone to go through the 'Gate - either that, or Kinsey didn't need to ask, but messed up and asked anyway, giving Hammond the chance to say no.
1189
1190[[/folder]]
1191
1192[[folder:Fate Of Cassandra]]
1193
1194* Kind of a minor thing, but what happened to Cassandra after [[spoiler:Dr. Fraiser was killed]]? She was still a minor the last time we saw her and I don't think enough time passed for that to change.
1195** It was never explained in the show who she was living with or where she was. She was mentioned on occasion, but but only in the vaguest sense of "Sam visited Cassandra," without details. Fans have thought up many theories, but nothing's canon to my knowledge.
1196** A foster family is the most likely explanation - probably one that is at least familiar with the Stargate program. Remember that in the episode ''1969'' she remains in the employ of the SGC long enough to send SG-1 back from the far future with her wrist mounted DHD.
1197
1198[[/folder]]
1199
1200[[folder:Forgot About The Zat Guns]]
1201
1202* Season 2, "Touchstone". Hammond tells SG-1 they're not allowed to use lethal force against the NID operatives in the hangar. Why'd nobody think to zat them once each?
1203** Hammond's exact statement was he doesn't want SG-1 shooting any American servicemen "who may just be following orders." In other words, they don't know for sure if the people guarding the hanger are NID operatives. They could have been ordinary soldiers who weren't told what they were guarding (which is not unheard of in the military; if you're guarding classified technology but you don't ''know'' what you're guarding, it's physically impossible to give away state secrets).
1204
1205[[/folder]]
1206
1207[[folder:Ra's Not-So-Big Domain]]
1208
1209* How far across the Earth did Ra's invasion and conquest spread and if it was confined solely to Egypt why is there no mention of it anywhere else? The Ancient Egyptians lived alongside the Ancient Greeks and Romans who were perfectly aware of everything that was going on within Egypt and also had things such as bustling trade routes. Cleopatra was even romantically involved with the Roman Empire. So why no mosaic's on the floors of villas or pottery that feature Death Gliders? Why no pyramids in Rome? Why was the ''most powerful Goa'uld of all time'' happy to just sit in his desert when his ships would be capable of conquering the planet in days? When you think about it logically there should have been pyramids in China too given their large natural resources and population just ripe for slavery. It really doesn't make any sense from any point of view as to why there is ''no'' cross-cultural contamination from the ''alien invasion'' anywhere else in the world.
1210** How far into the show did young get? They make it extremely clear that Ra ruled the entire planet, and the Goa'uld were set up all over the place. Yu the Great, founder of the Xia Dynasty in China, was revealed to have been a Goa'uld (Although they would later give that same Goa'uld the name Yu-huang Shang Ti, a Toaist deity, so there's some contradiction), as was Amaterasu (Japan), Kali (India), Zipacna (Mayan), Athena (Greek), Olokun (Yoruba), etc. Egypt was simply Ra's capital, which is why he built his pyramids there. Also, the reason the Goa'uld aren't described clearly in the histories of various ancient people is because they ''predate'' them, which is why they are the myths and gods of their regions; the Goa'uld left the Earth in 3,000 B.C.E., which was millennia before the rise of Rome, and the Greek civilization that people are familiar with, and almost all other written histories.
1211
1212[[/folder]]
1213
1214
1215[[folder:Worldwide Swamp Gas]]
1216
1217* How was the energy wave from the Dakara Superweapon explained to the citizens of Earth? It shows that it is big enough to reach space all around the planet, so what possible cover could the SGC use to explain it away if every person awake on Earth saw it? Not to mention all the footage/pictures of the wave.
1218** Maybe they simply didn't explain it? While a massive energy wave sure is mysterious, it wasn't even close to forming a perfect bubble, so it can't be traced back to Cheyenne Mountain. While it's clear that the wave originated somewhere in the United States or Canada, there were no apparent effects, so most people probably just shrugged and went on their way. Some nations and conspiracy theorists would have suspected an american superweapon, but all the major nations were in on the secret, so the political repercussions would have been minimal. It just became another mystery for the ages, with the only notable results being a growth in conspiracy theories, a few astronomy papers trying to explain this "rare stellar phenomenon" and probably a couple of cults based around this "sign of a greater power".
1219** Not saying people would start suspecting the US had a superweapon going on, but considering the world wide phenomenon this event would have cause I doubt it would just get shrugged off, maybe if only a few scattered people saw it this would happen, but major scientists saw this, reporters, world leaders, militaries of nations not involved with the Stargate program, and many many others, word would get around and the questions of what had happened would not really fade away. Plus since many intelligent people of good reputation would have saw the event an answer meant to mislead the average citizen would not go over as well.
1220** Shrug it off is maybe too passively worded, but there really isn't anything that people can do with only "a weird energy has passed over the entire earth". It was a single-time occurrence that passed in an instant (considering how fast it reached orbit on Dakara), so it's doubtful that any sort of accurate readings were taken. People would wonder what in the world was going on, but there is no information available to them that could lead back to the Stargate program. Maybe in an earlier season a civilian investigation could have led to the answer, as the Stargate required a huge amount of external power and could be noticeable through that. The president's probably going to have to give a few speeches about "I ain't got no clue what's been going on, but I got my best people working on figuring it out.", but there really isn't anything else people can look for.
1221** Let's be honest here, unless it was sustained or repeated, most people wouldn't have noticed anything other than a flickering light and maybe a tingle. Those that did take notice of it would stop, look around to see if it was going to happen again, and then when it didn't, just move on with their lives. The vast, ''vast'' majority of people aren't going to go investigating what--to them--is a brief, minor disturbance that they probably just imagined anyway.
1222* Not really, it's a moving wall of light. Hardly just a flickering light.
1223
1224[[/folder]]
1225
1226[[folder:Close The Blast Door!]]
1227
1228* Why is the blast shield on the control room so rarely closed? I'd have thought that closing it was the first thing to do when opening the iris for a team under fire, yet they always wait for a staff blast or two to strike the window before they get around to it.
1229** Doylist explanation: They left it open so they could get nice camera shots of the SGC control room with the Gate in the background. Watsonian explanation: They...uh...they want a nice view of the Gate and the team arriving?
1230** Or rather than a "nice view", they actually want to be able to see what's happening? If a couple of enemy Jaffa jump through the 'gate after the SG team, they need to see that immediately so they can respond appropriately, or whatever other situation it is. Yeah, they could use cameras and monitors and get much the same effect, but there's nothing quite like being able to see what's actually going on with your own eyes.
1231
1232[[/folder]]
1233
1234[[folder:SGA?]]
1235
1236* In the alternate-universe SGC, what does the A in "SGA" stand for?
1237** Probably "Administration."
1238** My money's on "Agency".
1239** Maybe "Alliance"?
1240** Obviously it is "Alternate" HA!
1241
1242[[/folder]]
1243
1244[[folder:Did Apophis Know What Earth Was?]]
1245
1246* In "Children of the Gods" Apophis decides to raid planets to find a suitable host for Amaunet. He's clearly not just picking from planets he owns, though, as he dials Earth and Abydos. The problem I have is whether Apophis meant to dial Earth (in which case Tealc' should have already known they were the Tau'ri), they were dialing all the gates in their address book and it just so happened our gate connected after being off the network for 10,000 years, or if they were randomly dialing addresses. Everyone seemed surprised that they were not from a Goa'uld planet so that suggests they didn't know where exactly they were dialing.
1247** They probably had the address but didn't remember where the symbols connected. After all it had been several thousand years since the Goa'uld visited Earth, and they don't strike me as terribly great record keepers.
1248** It might just be some ritual or protocol. The Jaffa might have some assigned ritual that's been passed down, "When the god says to gather potential bodies for his queen, dial these addresses on the Stargate. If the gate opens, go through and find some suitable hosts." The ritual might not have been updated in quite some time, it's just that this time when they carried it out the Earth gate opened instead of failing to dial. So, they went through.
1249** I had thought at first, that he was specifically coming to investigate the planet of the people who had defeated Ra, as a sort of threat assessment (or to issue a threat). But Apophis may simply be investigating Ra's former planets now that he knows Ra is dead, and so his planets are ripe for picking. So he perhaps just had a list of all of the planets Ra used to rule over, and Earth hadn't been removed from the list he received. This would also help explain the coincidence of Apophis turning up on Abydos so soon after he did so on earth. They're both former Ra planets, and they're both very close to each other. Presumably he went home, took a breather after that weird experience on earth, and then went to Abydos a few days later.
1250
1251[[/folder]]
1252
1253[[folder:Adria's ArmorPiercingQuestion]]
1254
1255* In the last 2 seasons of SG-1 when Adria was fully grown and Vala (and Daniel) had so many opportunities to speak to her, can someone please explain to me why they didn't ask her the simple question "How many of the Ori followers have been ascended?" It's obvious that the girl believes the propaganda, so why don't they just get her to check? She's part Ori so it wouldn't be too hard for her to either dig through her own memories of knowledge or link with the Ori directly. It wouldn't take much for her to find out that no one has been ascended. At that point she would have no option than to admit that her entire religion is a sham! The Ori are ''lying to their followers'' for fuck's sake, so Adria would be unable to deny that they aren't helping anyone to ascend! So why don't either Vala or Daniel confront her with this simple truth of her existence? Forget theological debate, why don't they just ask her to examine the false promise? It would have stopped her in her tracks long ago and no one does it. Why?
1256** Or she could, you know, lie. What makes you think she's under any kind of compulsion to tell the truth?
1257** I think the implication is that Adria believed the lies of the Ori, despite having the power to verify that they were lying. Why didn't they just ask her to verify that they were lying. (This of course, presumes that Adria really did believe what the Ori were saying, rather than just playing along with the lie for everyone else.)
1258** I think the original poster is confused as to who Adria was. Adria was an Ori who had retaken human form so she could lead the army. She wasn't one of the people being lied to, she was one of the peolpe doing the lying. She didin't just know that the Ori didn't ascend their followers, she was a member of the group that decided not to ascend them. Asking her any question like that could not have made her change her mind about the Ori in any way, shape, or form. Heck, she even ascends all by herself at the end of season 10 so she at least doesn't need help from the Ori to ascend.
1259
1260[[/folder]]
1261
1262[[folder:Hator Too Trusting]]
1263
1264* In ''Out of Mind'' and ''Into the Fire'', how in the world did a female Tok'ra agent manage to infiltrate the ranks of Hathor? Hathor's drug only works on men, so shouldn't a female 'Jaffa' defecting to her cause a lot of suspicion? Like, at least enough suspicion to check her belly-button?
1265** Not really. The Jaffa would presumably want to defect to anyone more powerful. Or indeed, maybe she just liked Hathor's style. The Goa'uld are arrogant and vain. It wouldn't have been a problem to convince Hathor that she was so amazing that they decided to defect to her (also, Goa'uld sometimes serve under other more powerful Goa'uld. Was it explicitly stated that the Tok'ra was pretending to be a Jaffa?)
1266** It seemed to me the Tok'ra (and for that matter, the guy playing the general) weren't Jaffa, but either minor Goa'uld or humans who had joined Hathor's cause. Jaffa all have that forehead tattoo, remember, which seems impossible to remove via normal means (we only saw Teal'c absent his in the BadFuture of "2010," where the Aschen's vast medical technology is implied to be responsible). Thus, Hathor would need people who could pass for fully human to interrogate SG-1, thus Hathor recruits some. Now, Goa'uld, Tok'ra, and Jaffa can all sense each other, so it's likely Hathor bamboozled the human guy with her sexy mind control gas, while the Tok'ra spun a story about thinking Hathor has the right idea and she wants to serve her to topple the other System Lords.
1267** Carter says when O'Neill reveals the ruse, "the drugs must have kept me from sensing the Naquadah," so my assumption was that those the team interacted with were Goa'uld (or Tok'Ra posing as such), and drugged Carter to keep her from realising it. Lowly human slaves wouldn't have been ordering the Jaffa around later.
1268
1269[[/folder]]
1270
1271[[folder:SG-1 Gets Captured All The Time]]
1272
1273* So here is the ultimate question (in my mind). Having watched ten seasons of the show, two truths seem to remain evident in the SG-1 team. One: They get captured all the time! Two: Their tactics when arriving at a new planet never seem to change much... leading to them getting captured again and again and again... and again. The Show could be called Stargate Escape from Capture. So my question is, why did they never adopt some new tactics or policies to avoid being captured or maybe even a shoot first response to being captured by people[=/=]alien race #8472?
1274** They are a contact team. They're job is to go out and introduce themselves in such a way as they can make connections and alliances. That means that getting shot at, beaten up, or captured by other people is just an occupational hazard they need to put up with or out-think. Anything that would cut that out would also cut out the alliances and connections they need to make.
1275** The only "new tactics" I can imagine them adopting are stealth and infiltration. But that would make them look like advance scouts for an invading army, and as the above troper said one of their primary objectives is making First Contact with other civilizations. When they know for a fact that they are entering hostile territory (like a Goa'uld world) they ''do'' in fact try to be as stealthy as possible, but sometimes end up captured in spite of that. As for a "shoot first" policy, that seems like a bad idea considering that many of the scrapes they've gotten into were the result of a simple misunderstanding, which is a known risk with any type of First Contact situation. More than a few 19th century Earth explorers found themselves in the same situation. In the long run it's better to ''correct'' those misunderstandings rather than try to fight your way out.
1276
1277[[/folder]]
1278
1279[[folder:Why did the Goa'uld all but completely abandon the Unas as hosts?]]
1280
1281* Unas are vastly stronger (and possibly faster) than humans, and when blended with a Goa'uld they essentially gain a Wolverine-like healing factor. (An Unas!Goa'uld can bounce back from multiple rounds to the chest, while a human!Goa'uld will die from one or two.) And before you say "Goa'uld are vain about their appearance" that itself begs the obvious question: Why? Why would a race of sentient snake-like parasite creatures have any sense of vanity about ''human'' appearance? Being [[BizarreAlienBiology decidedly non-human]], their conception of beauty and ugliness should be vastly different from our own, so an Unas should look no more or less ugly to them than a human, right?
1282** Several reasons:
1283### By the time of the series the Goa'uld had plain lost track of [=P3X-888=], the planet where the Goa'uld and Unas both evolved, and they have a taboo against breeding hosts. They had, in fact, lost track of it so long ago that regular Goa'uld and [=P3X-888=] Goa'uld had undergone divergent evolution (for starters, no Naquadah in the blood of [=P3X-888=] Goa'uld). The other planets where we've seen non-infested Unas are likewise abandoned. So, Unas just plain weren't widely available, whereas they seeded humans all over the damn galaxy.
1284** I'm not sure there's enough evidence that they "lost track" of the Unas homeworld. Certainly they abandoned it, but I don't recall it ever being said that the Goa'uld had completely lost track of the planet.
1285### The fact that they're vain about their appearance is a fact: they intentionally choose hosts they find visually pleasing. Why their concept of loveliness is identical to the human idea of loveliness is a RiddleForTheAges.
1286### Most Goa'uld don't ''like'' getting into physical combat. Unas bodies are tougher, but human hosts regenerate, too, and in fact they're easier to repair than an Unas. Humans also have more dexterous hands, making them more useful to somebody who prefers to stay well behind the front lines.
1287** I didn't mean to suggest that ''all'' Goa'uld ought to stick with Unas hosts, but I'm wondering why we don't see more more of a balance. A Goa'uld scientist, sure, he's got a good reason to prefer a human host, if only for the nimbler hands. But Terok (the Goa'uld who tortured Teal'c in "The Serpent's Venom") seems like a prime candidate for an Unas host. Since his whole job seems to be torturing/interrogating prisoners for Heru'ur, one would think being a terrifying demonic monster with teeth and claws would be a bit plus for him. And speaking of demons, shouldn't there have been tons of Unas!Goa'uld running around on Sokar's Hellworld? They even said in that episode that Sokar used Unas!Goa'uld to torment his victims, but we saw none of them there. See also "The First Commandment", another episode that makes a strong argument for why ''some'' Goa'uld ought to stick with Unas hosts. Intimidating primitive human tribes is a lot easier when you ''literally'' look like a demon.
1288** On a separate note, I strongly question the argument that human hosts are easier to repair than an Unas host. As I said, we see in the series that an Unas!Goa'uld is able to survive damage that would instantly kill a human!Goa'uld. The Unas!Goa'uld in "Thor's Hammer" is shot several times by O'Neill but survives, while every time a human!Goa'uld is shot with a Tau'ri weapon they pretty much die instantly. The Unas!Goa'uld in "Demons" takes ''several'' shots from a staff weapon before being too damaged to heal, but Cronos, Amaunet, and many other human!Goa'uld die from a single staff blast.
1289** "Easier" probably means "takes less out of the symbiote". The symbiote's healing powers to its host aren't unlimited, as demonstrated by A) Selmak being so weakened from keeping Saroosh alive that it was questionable whether it could heal Jacob's leukemia in "The Tok'ra, Part II", and B) Junior giving up the ghost after being shared between Teal'c and Bra'tac in "The Changeling". And again, most Goa'uld don't lead from the front, so the actual need for the extra durability of an Unas is sharply limited.
1290** I believe it is also that among other qualities the symbiote takes from it's host is general intelligence. Smarter hosts make smarter blended entities. Additionally, humans as a species seem to have a knack for being easily manipulated via religious imagery and generally form groups, meaning they could extend their control by setting up cults that worship them. It is unclear whether other species such as the Unas would share this trait, it may be possible to control one Unas and a few that can be directly intimidated, but there may not be bigger social structures that can be exploited.
1291** I think the "more easily repaired" line may refer to the compatibility of the host with the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus was based off the device Daniel found in "Evolution" and was designed to work on ancients. Since humans are physiologically the same as ancients the device and therefore the sarcophagi work on humans. However we have no way of knowing if the sarcophagi would work on an Unas. If that is the case then it's very easy to see why the Unas were phased out so completely. Also, if you read our OnlyMostlyDead page and look under the Live Action [=TV=] section it mentions a Stargate Tabletop [=RPG=] that explicitly says that Unas can not use a sarcophagus.
1292
1293[[/folder]]
1294
1295[[folder:Why didn't the Tollan get immediately promoted to the Fifth Race upon discovery?]]
1296
1297* They seem to have all of the necessary traits.
1298** Define "all the necessary traits". What those traits were was never specified, and they would be among the least likely candidates. They're isolationists, where an alliance kind of inherently requires international involvement. The Tau'ri are both willing and able to use the power they develop for the good of the galaxy.
1299** Being arrogant and isolationist didn't stop the Ancients or the Nox from being a member of the alliance.
1300** Neither were to the extreme of the Tollan though, the Nox was the most isolationist and they still got out of the cloud city enough to yank the Tollan out the fire (twice) and had enough humility and compassion to save and at least listen to SG-1 before shooing them out. The Ancients moved up and down the scale of arrogance (sometimes just pure arrogance, sometimes arrogance born of good intentions and experience), but they didn't become isolationists until they ascended. The Tollans were both Isolationist ''and'' Arrogant, and remained so even when it was demonstrated not to be a good thing.
1301** The Tau'ri were candidates to become the Fifth Race because the Asgard judged them to have "great potential". Potential that was apparently lacking in the Tollan. As the above troper said, the Tollan are extreme isolationists, and furthermore they are dangerously naive and arrogant. In their second episode their "invincible" defenses were nearly destroyed by the Goa'uld using a fairly simple trick (mark each ion cannon and destroy them all simultaneously). I think the Asgard took one look at the Tollan and decided their days were numbered.
1302** Quite likely. The Tollan seem to combine the worst aspects of the Asgard and Ancients with a badness all their own. The Asgard are self-aware of their weakness (over-reliance on advanced technology), and the Ancients are certainly arrogant, but their non-interference clause seems to be a means to curb that arrogance to the point where they can do a little harm as possible. The Tollan are both arrogant and over-reliant on high technology, while been too dumb to grasp the fact that other races can advance to counter or neutralize their advances.
1303** With the benefit of hindsight, in about fifteen years humans went from ''being at the mercy of pretty much everyone with a spaceship'' to ''being the most powerful superpower in two galaxies.'' They had a lot of help and a lot of luck certainly, but if you gave the Tollan that same help and same luck would they too have managed to defeat the System Lords, the Aschen, the Replicators, the Ori, the Wraith, and crack the ninth chevron to find themselves on a mission to seek out the creator of universe? The answer is a clear no. They are stagnation and jadedness personified. Besides which, the Tollan were never that advanced compared to humanity in the first place. They had some nifty gadgets such as the weapons scanner and the ability to walk through walls, but their weapons were outclassed by the merest brush with Ancient tech. All things considered if Anubis didn't wipe them out then the Priors absolutely would have done.
1304
1305[[/folder]]
1306
1307[[folder:Offended By Nirrti?]]
1308
1309* How exactly were the producers able to get away with portraying Nirrti as a fraudulent alien? I mean, it's all very well for Ra and Cronus, etc but Hinduism is still a relevant, major world religion. I can't believe that no one was offended by that...
1310** Possibly Hindus have a better grasp of the MST3KMantra than you're giving them credit for.
1311** Also, it's (quite wisely) never been made clear whether the Goa'uld created the mythologies based on them, or co-opted religions that already existed. One could easily assume Nirrti assumed the guise of a pre-existing Hindu goddess that appealed to her sociopathic views.
1312** For what it's worth, Nirrti is the Hindu goddess of death and corruption, so it's not like they were libeling a deity who is supposed to be good.
1313** So it's not all that different from Sokar passing himself off as Satan. Though granted they still went with the Egyptian name for him instead of literally calling him Satan or Lucifer.
1314
1315[[/folder]]
1316
1317[[folder:Why did SG-1 allow Brooks to escape with the Al'kesh at the end of ''Endgame''?]]
1318
1319* It was strongly implied that only three members of the Trust (Brooks, Hoskins and Jennings) were on-board; Hoskins was dead and Jennings incapacitated. Even if Brooks managed to enter hyperspace before being caught, Sam and Daniel could have easily piloted the ship back to Earth. Letting Brooks and Jennings escape with enough weapons to wipe out entire worlds of Goa'uld and Jaffa was an incredible setback...
1320
1321[[/folder]]
1322
1323[[folder:Follow-Up Ship]]
1324
1325* The question above about contacting the Eurondan Breeders reminded me of something that always bugged me: We know that Earth ships were sometimes used as SGC support when Stargates were out of commission ("Ethon" and "Off the Grid", for example). Why were they never used as an option to follow-up on earlier-seen planets? For example: the aforementioned Breeders had comparable technology to the Eurondans, but weren't genocidal racists; the Ancient elemental database on Littlefield's Planet (at least see if it still is in one piece after all these years); contact and support the Tollan survivors; recon hostiles like the Aschen, the Foothold aliens, or the machine race that possessed Carter; etc.
1326** Likely a question of resources. Earth only had a half-dozen 304s by the end of ''Universe'', not like Starfleet which has tens of thousands of ships and can afford to send a ''Nova''-class or whatever on long-term loiter, and the SGC is still engaging the Lucian Alliance among others. And their only off-world ally with the numbers necessary is the Free Jaffa Nation.
1327
1328[[/folder]]
1329
1330[[folder:SGC No Tanks, Part II]]
1331
1332* Why didn't SGC ever use tanks or derivatives? It would make perfect sense using an IFV there.
1333** How would they get a tank down into the SGC in the first place? Also, they are part of the Air Force, which to my knowledge doesn't use land-based armored vehicles much.
1334** The same way that the Stargate got down into Cheyenne mountain - with a crane, through the shaft that leads from the surface to the embarkation room. Cheyenne mountain used to have an underground missile silo that was re-purposed to house the Stargate. Still, while they ''could'' lower a tank into the complex and several variants of [=IFVs=] could fit through a Stargate, it doesn't make sense to do so on a regular basis, since the Goa'uld have spaceships. What good is sending a Tank through the gate for an artillery strike if an Al'kesh bomber can fly over and blow it to pieces? Better to send small teams that can disappear quickly after they arrive.
1335
1336[[/folder]]
1337
1338
1339[[folder:Picked The Wrong Mother Mary?]]
1340
1341* The Ori find out about the Milky Way galaxy and they prepare for an invasion. They decide that one of their number should take human form to lead the army. In order to do that someone has to bear a child. Even though they have a galaxy full of people who worship them they chose to have Vala bear the child. Why? What purpose does this serve?
1342** It's possible that was their original plan, but when Vala was pulled back to the Ori home galaxy, they saw an opportunity to use her. The Ori were overconfident, and thought she could be turned by her "daughter." Vala was a former Goa'uld host with ties to the Tau'ri and the Lucian Alliance, which made her a strategic asset.
1343
1344[[/folder]]
1345
1346[[folder:Simmons In A Nice Suit]]
1347
1348* If Colonel Simmons is still an active duty officer (like Mayborne was), why doesn't he wear a uniform? If not, why do they still call him Colonel?
1349** 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.)’.
1350
1351[[/folder]]
1352
1353[[folder:Jaffa Biology]]
1354
1355* When Jaffa fetuses are in the womb, what does the umbilical cord connect to?
1356** Their stomach pouch doesn't start carrying a Prim'ta until adolescence, so perhaps either the pouch starts developing after birth, or the umbilical cord actually attaches to the inside of the pouch.
1357
1358[[/folder]]
1359
1360[[folder:Kinsey Is Enlightened?]]
1361
1362* How come isolationism is wonderfully enlightened when "perfect" races like the Nox and the Tollans are doing it, but evil and heartless when it's being advocated by villains like Senator Kinsey?
1363** The Tollan got wiped out because of their isolationism, and the Nox have faded to irrelevance on the galactic scale with their commitment to hiding. They claim to be enlightened, but that claim is not just criticized by the narrative, but unequivocally proven false. Kinsey et al would have led Earth to the same fate.
1364*** That's a {{Deconstruction}} which came about later on. In the first one or two seasons, the portrayal of the Nox and the Tollans was in decidedly CantArgueWithElves territory.
1365*** Yes and no. the first episode with the Nox did lay on the pacifist message pretty thick, while ignoring how utterly inapplicable it is to Earth's situation. The Tollan's first appearance, their point was simply "We understand you might get blown up by the Goa'uld, but we won't share our technology to help because that will probably result in you blowing up, too." And at the end of the day, it is ''their'' technology, that they developed themselves, and they do have the right to choose who else gets to use it and how. As the Tollan were revisited and fleshed out, their arrogance and isolationism (the former actually more than the latter) led to them twice being outsmarted by the Goa'uld, the second time with civilization-ending consequences. The Tollan were shown to have contact with both the Nox and Tok'ra (the Nox helped them build a Stargate and show up for Skarra's trial, the Tok'ra to remove Klorel from Skarra once the trial was over), but they didn't maintain close enough relations with those two (especially the Tok'ra) that might have warned them there was a new Goa'uld player on the scene with tech that might challenge theirs. Nor did they take advantage of the Tau'ri's successes against the Goa'uld, despite being technologically primitive, to seek advice about enhancing their defenses. Pretty much every Tollan appearance beyond the first (and you could make an argument for the first even) is showing that they're hitting a developmental dead-end, where their smug faith in their utter superiority has turned them TooDumbToLive. The Nox never really got a humbling like that, but over the course of their limited involvement off their own world, seemed to settle into "we do not approve of your way, but this is not our planet, our mess, or our responsibility."
1366
1367[[/folder]]
1368
1369[[folder:Black Is The New Orange]]
1370
1371* So in Season 10, episode 5, a bunch of hunters are running around in the woods, in elk hunting season, without orange clothing. The first hunter that is killed is wearing orange, and so is his buddy, but the buddy is wearing a coat over that orange. That's illegal. At least 500 square inches of florescent orange must be visible above the waist, at 360 degrees, in Colorado. But the sheriff does not seem to have a problem with this, and later, when they're hunting the animal, neither he nor any of his subordinates are wearing orange. They're wearing brown. In the woods. When a lot of scared hunters are running around with large caliber weapons. Since they're not hunting, that's technically legal... but it's not smart.
1372
1373[[/folder]]
1374
1375[[folder:Are the Nox supposed to be infuriating?]]
1376
1377* They have all this power, and even with their whole "No interference" deal they just come off as being holier-than-thou annoyances who refuse to actually help those in need. As mentioned above, the Ancients apparently didn't need them. So why even have a species like the Nox involved in the show at all?
1378** I don't think they're supposed to be annoying, they just are. They're not really involved in the show that much, anyway. They appeared on three episodes, one of which was only a cameo. The Serrakin (those sort of reptile aliens which live on a planet with humans) had as many appearances. It's only really being a member of the "four great races" that makes them stand out because it links them to the show's mythology. The writers wanted to show an advanced species. The species couldn't be allowed to help us because it would pretty much solve all the drama in the show by episode 8. The Nox's personality was a way to explain away their not helping us. Unfortunately, it made them come across as jerks. The Asgard, by contrast, were allowed both to be more helpful and given a more likable reason for not being able to help more.
1379*** WordOfGod effectively confirms this; they'd had the idea of a benevolent race more advanced than the Go'auld, and the Nox were their first attempt, the Tollan their second, but the Asgard were when they finally created something they were proud of. The fact that the Nox barely appeared after their intro (I have not finished the show, so don't quote me,) not even to get a proper send-off like the Tollan, pretty much shows they were EarlyInstallmentWeirdness personified.
1380
1381[[/folder]]
1382
1383[[folder:Are the Tollan not considered to be human?]]
1384
1385* How exactly could Zipacna get away with the arguments he made in "Pretense"? He argued that humans were inferior because the Goa'uld had greater technology, on a planet of humans with superior technology to the Goa'uld. No one called him on it. He also claimed the Goa'uld could not live without a host which doesn't appear to be true (as Goa'uld have been kept alive in tanks and evolved outside of hosts) but it's understandable that no one present could immediately contradict that.
1386** Yes, the Tollan are human. Yes, Zippy is just arrogant enough to claim the Goa'uld are superior to humans to the face of a group of humans with such powerful tech they're forcing him into this argument in the first place (and one can imagine a smug "the defense rests" coming out of his mouth if he'd been successful in taking Tollana by force). Been awhile since I've seen the episode, but I think the argument was less based solely on technological superiority, and more on the Goa'uld generally believing they are superior to all other lifeforms just because they're Goa'uld (I refer you back to "arrogant"). This is part of his argument for why the Goa'uld should be given priority over the host, so dismantling that argument is part of proving that the body belongs to the host, not the Goa'uld, and thus Daniel and Jack's job. If memory serves, they take the more emotional plea route, not engaging at all which which species is superior and thus has the right to dominate the other, but rather demonstrating that forcing Skarra to live as host to a Goa'uld is forcing him to live a life of torture. This, I think, is wise, as there are all kinds of metrics you can use or ignore to try and "prove" which species is superior, and they'd be fighting on Zipacna's chose ground. Instead, they shift the argument to something Zipcana really can't refute, that the host lives in agony. All Zipacna can retort for this is that "Nothing of the host survives," which is patently false because, as Website/SFDebris pointed out, if that was true, ''they wouldn't be arguing this case before a Tollan court in the first place!''
1387
1388[[/folder]]
1389
1390[[folder:Ten Hours To Go Shopping]]
1391
1392* The time loop in "Window of Opportunity" only lasts ten hours. How did Jack get two golfing outfits? Even if we're to believe that he has his own set, it's next to impossible that Teal'c does. Did they really drive to Cheyenne just to get golf outfits? It would take half the loop to accomplish that, and I doubt they let Teal'c off the base without a more concrete plan and advance permission.
1393** RuleOfFunny.
1394
1395[[/folder]]
1396
1397[[folder:Burns As Goa'uld?]]
1398
1399* Aside from being ancient and evil, which is pretty generic as far as villains go, in what ways does [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Mr. Burns]] resemble a Goa'uld?
1400
1401[[/folder]]
1402
1403[[folder:Exactly when and how did Tok'ra-Tau'ri relations resume?]]
1404
1405* The alliance dissolved due to the Tau'ri's recklessness and the Tok'ra's zero population growth. But after the death of Selmak/Jacob Carter, it seems that everything's been forgiven and forgotten.
1406
1407[[/folder]]
1408
1409[[folder:Mothballed Stargate]]
1410
1411* So between the original Stargate mission, which happened in 1990 (or thereabouts) and then the Stargate Program restarting suddenly when Apophis came in in 1997... why wasn't the Program active between then? The military had plans for pretty much every conceivable invasion or disaster; including zombie outbreaks and alien invasions. The top brass just got confirmation that not only do aliens exist, but humans were kidnapped to be slaves elsewhere. Sure O'Neill lied and said the place got nuked, but the fact that all that happened wouldn't shut down the gate program but incentivize the military to at least prepare or make sure there would be better security than a handful of redshirts. What possible reason could they have had to not continue the program since the first mission?
1412** It is mentioned in Season 1 that they tried dialling up some random addresses, but none of them connected. With Abydoss theoretically nuked, no random addresses responding, and a background policy of not wanting to put Earth out there and at risk to unknown invaders, the military simply mothballed the project.
1413
1414[[/folder]]
1415
1416[[folder:USAF Ship Designations]]
1417
1418* Where does the "BC" designation used for the BC-303 Prometheus and BC-304 Daedalus class ships come from? While the abbriviation for battlecruiser seems obvious, the US hull classification system would normally label such ships as "CC".
1419** That is the US Navy classification, the SGC is an Airforce operation. The "ships" the SGC operates are more properly deep space aircraft, for all that they do use naval terminology, and there is no current USAF designation (as far as we know) for deep space aircraft. That means a new designation was created for these craft; perhaps it stands for "bomber-carrier", as they do have aspects of both types of craft. Or the in-universe USAF decided that if it was operating battle-cruisers, then it would use the "BC" designation since the USN doesn't.
1420*** Under the US's Tri-service designation system, designations use a (modified mission)(basemission)-(model number)form. BC-303 would be a cargo aircraft (C) modified into a bomber (B), with the model designation 303. the BC-304 would be the next in the series. this is in keeping with the secrecy of the program, as anyone who sees a reference to a BC-303 or BC-304 would not immediately think "spacecraft", they'd think the USAF had converted some cargo plane to drop bombs. which while not exactly usual, isn't going to attract attention. the choice to use a 300 series desgination is odd, but it would prevent number conflict with existing aircraft, and the USAF has been known to use atypical series numbers to designate captured aircraft and other unique/small batch programs. captured Mig-23's for example were internally designated as F-113's for example. which is also why the F-117 Nighthawk has a century series designation and the "F" rather than "A" mission code. it was desginated like a captured aircraft to help hide its existance. So the high series number might have been chosen for similar reasons, to give the impression to anyone who just happened across a reference to think the USAF had a small number of foreign cargo planes that had been converted into a bomber role for some black op or research program. which is a lot less interesting than a spaceship (mission code = S) or some new "starship" designation. presumably once the entire world is publically made aware of the existance of these vessels and the stargates, they might redesignate the Daedalus class as the MS-304 (Multimission, spacecraft, model 304).
1421
1422[[/folder]]
1423
1424[[folder:Tollans x NID methods]]
1425
1426* At end of the Shades of Grey, Makepeace as NID agent blame Tollans and other species for their resistance to share technologies with Earth. Jack answer „We don't need their stuff Makepeace. We do need them.“ Two seasons later, Tollans betray Earth for Anubis, not only they did not share any technologies, but they also completely deny O´Neill ethics and projections. While do not agree with NID methods and stances, after „Shades of Grey“, I found out this sad irony and more understand their way-of-thinking. It is just strange SGC remained such firm in their "high morals" after (not only) Tollan betrayal. I know Asgards later dedicated their technologies to Humans, but it was at their near extinction and after many sacrifices of humans.
1427[[/folder]]
1428
1429[[folder:Cassandra's cover story]]
1430* Why, of all places, did they choose Toronto as Cassanda's cover story? While she's shown to be adapting to her new life on Earth remarkably quickly, she doesn't know what swings are! This is far from the only Earth custom she's going to be unfamiliar with. Why not claim she was from a less developed country so that people wouldn't question why she wasn't familiar with myriad parts of western civilization she would have been exposed to in Canada? Granted, she doesn't have an accent, but the lack of an accent would be far easier to explain than the countless things she's going to be unfamiliar with. It's far easier to claim 'Her parents were from Canada but she was born and raised in South Africa' than to come up with constant explanations for all the things she's never encountered, or customs she might bring from her homeworld, take for granted, and assume things are the same on Earth.
1431
1432[[/folder]]
1433
1434[[folder:Carter a Gulf War veteran?]]
1435* 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.
1436
1437[[/folder]]
1438
1439[[folder:What was Osiris's gender?]]
1440* Re-watching the series recently, one subject that I think the show handled poorly was that of Osiris's gender. A lot of this is probably due to the time the show was made but it's interesting to muse on nonetheless. Zipacna for example does seem very suprised that Osiris is now a woman, and the show does state that ''he'' was a male for centuries without once taking a female host, so that does seem to imply that ''he'' was always very happy identifying as a male. On the other hand, ''he'' really does take very quickly to being a ''she'' given the wardrobe, hair and willingness to use feminine wiles against Daniel. There is also the problem that whilst it is rather odd that asexual beings would have a gender at all, every Goa'uld so far has clearly been shown to have a steadfast preference. Both Ra and Apophis for example kept the same two Ancient Egyptian hosts for at least four thousand years. There is no evidence at all that they are gender fluid. The exact opposite in fact. Osiris seems to be an absolute outlier in terms of how Goa'uld behave and is demonstrating rather disconnected actions based on the character's in-universe history. Was his/her obsession with Daniel really just that great?
1441** 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 vain and he doesn't want to look ugly or unkept.
1442[[/folder]]
1443
1444!!Unending Questions
1445
1446[[folder:Part I]]
1447
1448* In the series finale, when Teal'c was send back in time, why did he not encounter the younger version of himself?
1449** Sam described the backwards time travel as a sort of [[OurTimeTravelIsDifferent rewinding of time]]. Since Teal'c's molecules were excluded from the effect, they didn't reform into his younger self, but stayed as his older self. Never mind that most of his molecules should have been cycled out by that time...
1450** No, no, that covers it perfectly if you consider the whole thing as a rewind. Teal'c's molecules would have cycled out, yeah... but been replaced by his current molecules. Since his current molecules are staying, they aren't being cycled out (backwards) during the rewind.
1451
1452[[/folder]]
1453
1454[[folder:Part II]]
1455
1456* In the final episode of the series, ''Unending'', Sam has to engage the time dilation bubble because the Odyssey's shields are too depleted to withstand another direct hit. Why not just get the shields recharged enough to handle the hit and go back to blasting the Ori ships? Even if the shields required extensive repair, it would surely take less than 50 YEARS. For that matter, why were they even in that situation in the first place? It had already been made quite clear that the new Asgard weapons could easily destroy an Ori ship, so why, after destroying the first, were they suddenly unable to deal with the others? They even had a chance while in hyperspace to conduct repairs and lick their wounds, so to speak.
1457** If one hit will destroy your ship having giant guns won't help in a battle with two ships. Especially if more will come every time you have to stop. Also a ship only has so much power. I always assumed they couldn't use the hyperdrive/time dilation field and charge the shields at the same time.
1458** How about turning the time dilation down to only, say, 1:1000 and letting a little bit of the Ori beam hit their ship, turning the time dilation field back up. They could fix the ship each time.
1459** Considering they were almost out of energy by the episode's climax, that's probably how it was intended to be taken.
1460** On the topic of ''Unending'', why is it that when they chose who to leave behind for the “salvage a miracle out of the Asgard core” mission out of the entire crew, they chose just one single technician hypothetically capable of accomplishing that goal (Carter) and five useless tag-alongs?
1461** Because they would've had no idea how many people they would actually need to make the adjustments. As we've seen, someone would've needed to stay old and Teal'c is the obvious choice because of his long life. If it was just Carter, she'd emerge from the dilation field as a ~80 year old woman. Plus I think anyone would go insane while stuck in an enclosed space for several decades.
1462** How come they didn't just spend a couple of years researching ways to upgrade the shields and hull integrity so the blast wouldn't destroy them? They have all the resources of the Asgard, so why don't they just spend a couple of years dedicated to refining the ship so it can survive the blast intact and then just destroy the Ori ship with the weapons? At that point you would have plenty of time to re-configure the hyperdrive. Can someone explain to me why they didn't do this? Or better yet, extend the time dilation field around just the blast itself, essentially isolating it in space and slowing down its progress so they can get away? In fact, there are a number of ways out of their predicament without trying to re-write the laws of time and space, particularly since they have a nigh unending supply of matter that they can shape to their will (as long as the zpm isn't drained). How come Sam chose the most difficult way out of their predicament?
1463** What makes you think that SG-1 can improve in a couple years what the Asgard have been working on for ''centuries''? Eventually, there's an upper limit to what you can do with the techniques, knowledge, and materials available to you. Technology isn't a linear function where things will always improve if you just put more time into it.
1464** The reason that the time dilation field was engaged in the first place was because the shields were down and another hit would take them out. By the time the field activated, we can see that the blast is within the range of the shields, so upgrading them would have been pointless, even if they were fully functional. As for hull integrity, there's not much that can be done on that front. The ship was already built out of one of the sturdiest materials available (Trinium), which the Ori beam weapons can tear through like copy paper. The hull is just not meant to take that kind of punishment; that's what the shields are for.
1465
1466[[/folder]]
1467
1468[[folder:Part III]]
1469
1470* in the final episode [[spoiler:when they travel back in time]], why don't they put a tape recorder in the force field instead of [[spoiler:letting Teal'c age over fifty years]]? Also, if they can only [[spoiler:revert time to when they made the time-dilation bubble]], they would only have 0.8 seconds to get the [[spoiler:hyperspace-enable-program]] to Carter, not nearly enough time, [[spoiler:let alone executing it, removing the core and starting the hyperdrive]]
1471** Good thinking. However, [[spoiler:They had to have a human get it to her because the exclusion field was located in the cargo bay, not the Asgard Control Panel room, and they would have to get someone to run the crystal to Sam.]] In response to the time problem, [[spoiler:Sam was able to get the rewind to around 30 seconds to a minute before the creation of the TDB. In other words, convenience.]]
1472** Why not use the Asgard matter synthesizer to build a little robot to run the crystal back to the control room? Or just leave a videotape with the assumption that once the TDB is turned on, Sam will find it fairly quickly, and send HERSELF back through time, aging only a few hours (or weeks, if they don't notice it right away). Fact is, there was no need for Teal'c to have to age so much. When you can run time forwards and backwards at will, there's no rush.
1473** Because all of that presumes a whole lot. It presumes no one will step on the tape or kick the robot over while the ship is being evacuated. It presumes someone will actually find the tape or pay attention to the robot. It presumes this would all even work with something that was created entirely after the time stop began rather than having previously existed. Teal'c going back was the only way to be absolutely certain that they wouldn't just be caught in an infinite loop, and after spending all those years on that ship, they wanted to be absolutely frikkin' certain.
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1475[[/folder]]
1476
1477[[folder:Part IV]]
1478
1479* Did anyone else find the season 10 finale treatment of the Asgard as essentially a racial IdiotBall? Thor repeatedly uploaded his consciousness into computers and Asgard reproduction essentially amounted to popping another clone out the vat and downloading an existing consciousness into it. They establish that for reasons of plot, they can't ascend... so, they decide to just all DIE?! They apparently had several generations left and presumably, by uploading their minds into computers -- they could last for centuries. Yet, they just decide it's time to blow themselves up. The Asgard were involved in what amounted to a war that took them to the BRINK of extinction with the Replicators -- a war that saw them survive and vow to rebuild. Then one day they just go "Guess it's time to commit mass suicide!" A grievous mistreatment of one the SGC's greatest allies.
1480** Not to mention that the idea of cloning having a wear out point is ridiculous. Increasing degradation by making copies of copies is fair enough, but why the hell are you doing that in the first place. Pick an original. Put it on ice. Each time you need a clone, make the clone from the original. People are currently (sometimes) smart enough to do this with photocopies. I think you'd take a bit more care with your racial survival than your meeting agenda.
1481** You could go one further, if you combine the fact the Asgard have beaming technology and the fact that Carter was able to knock up the Stargate equivalent of a replicator in Endless... we're essentially at a point where you have the capability of scanning bodies perfectly and the ability to create just about anything - seems like the Asgard could make just about any type of body they wanted, even one that was capable of ascension... but no, they decide to just blow themselves up.
1482** After reading the above comment, this thought hit me: why didn't the Asgard start cloning and using Human bodies? We know they can at least clone humans, as they've done it to O'Neill, at least. For that matter, why don't they use clones of the *Ancients*? We've never met any alive? But we have, we thawed one out in Antarctica, and I see no reason we wouldn't still have her body (and her genetic material) around. Hell, for that matter, why don't they try seeing if the Nox would let the Asgard sample their DNA? Do you think the "We <3 Everyone" Nox wouldn't let the great and noble Asgard clone them to save their race from extinction?\
1483And yes, the way they just off-handedly decide to blow themselves up in the first two minutes of the series finally... deeply dissatisfied me, to say the least. I actually really liked the Asgard.
1484** I guess they couldn't just start cloning older bodies if we are to take into account that the current Asgard's brains have evolved. The older bodies' brains couldn't handle the knowledge. Maybe that's why they just keep cloning their last body (just making it look younger and more fresh) and that's why the degradation keeps building up to a point where it's impossible to keep cloning. I think it is mentioned that by the time they realized of these degradation problems it was too late to do something to correct it.
1485** Thor actually says that the reason they could no longer clone themselves is because their final attempt to forestall the process generated an irreparable genetic degradation. While cloning had blocked off their ability to evolve to ascension because of how they were tampering with their bodies (more brainpower etc.), it was their attempt to fix that very problem they created for themselves which wound up screwing them over.
1486** Irreparable in the ''current generation of clones'' I can believe, but are we supposed to believe that that they have somehow managed to contaminate ''every single sample of Asgard DNA in their entire genetic library''!!? Every cell sample that could have been used to create a new generation of clones? Sorry, but that was just lazy writing. A convenient explanation for why the Asgard would dump every single piece of technology they possess into our primitive laps.
1487** We have to remember that the Asgard have been pushing that rock for a long, long, long time. Simple answer is they were weary and saw nothing but perpetual degradation. Not only that, but in the previous few years the Asgard had been beaten up by virtually every power on the show. The Goa'uld via Anubis, the replicators, one of the Stargate Atlantis episodes almost had the Asgard on the Daedalus get munched by the Wraith (along with the rest of the crew), even the Earth Humans took out an Asgard (Clo'Neill zatted Loki) unaided. The replicators destroyed their old home world, and they had to transfer most of their populace into computers, they had some of their most powerful vessels swatted out the sky. Then the Ori showed up and the Asgard could do squat to help stop them, worse than squat really. The victories against the Ori were Earth and Jaffa driven. That is one long HumiliationConga for a race like the Asgard who used to be so all powerful. Their ass-kickings didn't end with the replicator war. With no end in sight to trying to overcome the clone degradation, and the continual sapping of their power and loss of all that entails, and the rise of humanity as galactic protectors, maybe they just thought it was time. Imagine it as someone with a terminal disease, not everyone fights to the end. Some people just get to a point where they say "it's time, man. It's time" and give in. The Asgard had a good run, but it was time.
1488
1489[[/folder]]
1490
1491[[folder:Part V]]
1492
1493* The Odyssey's Asgard core seems like it would be a StoryBreakerPower. Sam once said if you want to create something in the core, you more or less just have to explain what you want and the core will figure out how to make it. So why not use it to create a hundred [=ZPMs=] or something? They clearly haven't, as we can see in seasons four and five of Atlantis, where the city still only has one ZPM.
1494** It may "make anything" but logically that should still be limited by raw materials. So it can't make something that contains more energy than it already has.
1495** Yeah, look at the stuff it does manage to make: Food, oxygen, and a cello. There's clearly limits to it, otherwise Unending would have been a much shorter episode.
1496** Sam was generalizing at the time. The reason it so easily made the Replicator is because it had the schematics on hand. Without knowledge of how the ZPM is built (which incidentally they do have on Atlantis), it wouldn't be able to mass produce the object.
1497** Making a ZPM is easy; they have several [=ZPMs=] that are 'empty.' (which is obviously shorthand of some kind, since it's not a giant battery, it's sucking power from the aether, right? Yeah, shorthand...) Presumably they could build many non-functional [=ZPMs=], since they have the specs. But if they are unable to restart a de-powered ZPM, then, again, presumably, they couldn't start up a new one either.
1498** Actually, according to Zelenka, it basically [[LiesToChildren ''is'' a giant battery that is impossible to recharge.]] [[TechnoBabble It extracts vacuum energy from]] [[HammerSpace an artificially created region of subspace-time]] until maximum entropy is reached and the artificial region of subspace-time collapses, at which point you're left with an utterly useless giant crystal. The difficult part therefore is not creating the physical component (which, with the Asgard fabricator, you can pretty much do all day long), it's creating the artificial region of subspace-time and then presumably containing it.
1499** Indeed. [=ZPMs=] are not, and never were, an limitless energy source. If fully-charged [=ZPMs=] could be run off a production line located somewhere in Atlantis at a rate of knots, then a) there'd be more of them lying around; b) it's difficult to see how the Ancients could ever have lost the war with the Wraith; and c) Project Arcturus would have been completely unnecessary. [=ZPMs=] are used for applications that require incredibly high energy/power to weight/volume ratios, such as interstellar vessels and planetary defense platforms. It wouldn't surprise me if the mechanism for creating them wasn't a Naquadah reactor the size of a small moon that got blown up by the Wraith at the beginning of the war.
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