The Stargate Franchise

Why did they call it Stargate: Universe and not Stargate: Destiny? Really makes it hard to refer to the universe of Stargate as "the Stargate universe."

Because the Destiny's entire purpose was to seed Stargates throughout the entire universe, I think, hence why it was launched from the Milky Way and, by the time it had been rediscovered, had been through multiple galaxies.

I was thinking how would a reboot be if it follow the formula of modern “prestige” streaming television. I’m assuming it will consist on 8 episodes for a first season.

Episode one: will show the discovery of the gate in Egypt. We will see Daniel Jackson’s life as a disgrace academic, loosing his house, his girlfriend and his office at the university all at once. We see him ridicule on social media and having memes made of him (liking saying “Aliens”). We will have flashbacks on his childhood were we discover his parents were pricks who mistreat him and forced him into science because he came from a long line of scientists. They were emotionally negligent and abusive in many ways. After a whole episode on this he receives a call were a mysterious voice tell him they need him for a life-changing discovery.

Episode two: This is focus on Jack O’Neill. He’s an embittered alcoholic who became drunk after his son’s death which his ex wife blames him for. He also has a dark past as someone who took part in several black ops committing horrible crimes in the name of the US government mostly in Central America fighting the guerillas. He also was taken prisoner and tortured while in Afghanistan. During his captivity in a Taliban prison he had some visions of the desert were some mystical voice told him he will save the world someday.

Episode three: “Carter” deals with Samantha. An intelligent and strong-minded military woman who however faces constant machismo from his coworkers and is often overlooked by her superiors. Even in a meeting a general mansplains things to her in front of everyone who end up laughing of a joke made at her expense. She has a lover but the relationship doesn’t work and things are getting awkward. We see several flashbacks including her bad relationship with his father who wanted her to be an astronaut and the way how they last see each other in a terrible fight that ended up with her storming out. Of course we have some mysterious scenes too about her seeing a woman in fire in the middle of a forest with some cryptic declaration in the middle of a dream.

Episode four: Daniel Jackson arrives to Egypt were the political situation is crumbling. Insurrects are placing bombs and doing terrorist attacks while the US military is helping the government repress the insurrection causing frictions and making regular people hate Americans. After a car-bomb explodes near him Daniel is kidnapped by insurrects who take him to a fortress in the desert. Meanwhile Jack arrives to Egypt. He meets with Gen. Hammond who is a prick but get the work done. Hammond is a jerk but at least does what he has to do. Hammond tells him that the only person who can solve the mystery of the gate was trapped by insurrects and is his job to rescue him alive.

Episode five: Daniel is been tortured and interrogated. But in the time he’s left alone in his cell he meets an Egyptian Oldman and mystic who’s imprisoned in the next cell. Jack meanwhile has a team working on rescuing Daniel which would require gathering some intel in a bar full of mercenaries. There Jack reunites with a hot but strong African freedom fighter who was his lover years ago. They make love again and he finds the information he need it after betraying her. Her men try to kill him but he escapes with the info. Daniel meanwhile finds out thanks to the Oldman that the gate is an entrance to another world and the meaning of the symbols. Jack and his team organized a rescue against the insurrects storming the fortress to save Daniel. They succeed, Daniel insist in saving the Oldman too but discover his cell empty. Meanwhile Daniel and Jack (sole survivor of the rescue team) have to hide in the city. They’re help by a boy who take them to their poor but friendly family who help them hide. The boy and the family are Black as they’re supposed to be Egyptians.

Episode six: we see Carter’s life through many flashbacks as she is traveling toward Egypt. We see her daddy issues, the relationships with his first boyfriends in high school and her experiencing with drugs and alcohol at parties. We see how she enters the Army to upset her father. She probably has some trauma because her mother died of cancer near to her and she and her father had another big fight. She starts the hard training on the Army and there’s a rape attempt from one of her superiors, but she manage to fight him off. She reports it but everyone sides with him and she gets mock, ostracized and blame for what happened. The episode ends with her reaching the site where the Gate is located.

Episode seven: Daniel and Jack escaping the insurrects have to live with the poor Egyptian family, knowing the many problems and difficulties they live under US rule and all the inconveniences that US military occupation causes them. Jack feels terrible guilt and has flashbacks of his previous crimes, but escapes alongside Daniel leaving the Egyptian family behind who helped them escape undetected through some ancient catacombs. Meanwhile Hammond reunites with Carter who manage to humiliate him and his toxic masculinity by showing she knows much more than him and Hammond concedes trying to change his ways. Finally the team gets together. Now the difficult part will be to manage to open the gate but Carter and Daniel manage ending the episode with the Door opening a wormhole to a mysterious world.

Episode eight: we see a flashback to ancient Egypt. All Egyptians are Blacks of course (is in Africa duh) and we see thousands of slaves working in the pyramids with a huge space ship in the sky. The slaves stop their work when Ra (again, play by a Black actor) comes out of the pyramid surrounded by his Jaffa (who use some complicated Ironman-like suit similar to a Predator). The slaves start praising him. But this is just a dream that Daniel had. The first travel through the gate shows an alien landscape with weird CGI animals and creatures that make noises like those of the Jurassic Park dinosaurs. In the distance the ruins of a pyramid. Hammond is reluctant to let Daniel go as he’s a scientist not a soldier. The fighting ends with Hammond ordering Daniel to be place on a cell. However Jack and Carter disobey Hammond and take Daniel out of his cell and dial the Gate to make the first travel without Hammonds authorization. There they meet a race of mindly humanoid creatures who praise a god in the pyramid. We see some body horror scenes with a snake-like creature intermixing with a human body twisting in pain. The Gate inside the pyramid activates and through it enter a group of Jaffa. They open the sarcophagi and Ra (the one from the dream) comes out of it and in a strange language says “Teal’c, my loyal Prime, bend in front of your God”. The Jaffa do that and then they realized they’re not alone and in the forest around the pyramid they detect the SG-1 on heat-detector cameras. Ra says (in weird language with subtitles): “Infidels from another world, bring them to me, we’ll see from where they come and soon their world will be mine”.

The episode ends with TO BE CONTINUED.

[And yes this is sarcastic]

...

So you necroed a thread that had been dead for nearly a year for...sarcastic fan-fiction?

Isnt that Wattpad is for?

Nah, fan-fiction is much better writen.

Since we're all here, does Atlantis get any better in the second season? I've tried watching it twice and couldn't get past the first season because I couldn't stand how the main guy was a cliched sci-fi human special chosen one, which I thought the parent show had done well to avoid.

I think it does.

It also helps that the show rapidly downplays the "chosen one" thing. Like, yes, Shephard is way more attuned to the ATA gene than anyone else, but most Ancient tech doesn't really work like that. If you can turn it on and off, you're good, and they do a gene therapy thing that lets the rest of the main cast use Ancient tech just fine. The chair is the main exception, mostly because of how complicated it is and other people use it sometimes still. Rodney basically never has to ask Shephard to use any Ancient tech for him once he gets the gene therapy with the only exception being the puddle jumpers and...since it's Rodney, him just not being comfortable with flying them is pretty in character. And when he's forced to fly one himself, he's fine with it anyway.

Basically, John is a "chosen one" in the same way that O'Neill is in the parent show. Most of the time, it's irrelevant, but he is the only member of the main cast that can use ATA locked Ancient tech on his own. The difference is that SG-1 reveals it way later and most Ancient stuff in the Milky Way isn't ATA locked.

Basically, every single one of Shephard's chosen one things boil down to "sits in chair, does thing" and his most active use of the chair is as part of a much larger operation where he's not even a deciding factor at all.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 29th 2024 at 12:07:12 PM

Yeah I don't really remember John as being "The Chosen one" at all.

I wouldn't say Atlantis get significantly better overall but it does tweak itself season to season. I don't think it has the same main cast two years running (wait 2 and 3?)

And it tries to play to what it thinks are its strengths which means more and more focus on Shepard and McKay especially the later as time went on.

Louis Gossett Jr. Dies at 87.

He played Gerak in Season 9 of SG 1.

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 29th 2024 at 10:10:21 AM

Atlantis is very uneven. They have a complex ensemble with a lot of potential, which they then fail to develop, and they put far too much focus on a combination of gifted actors and quirky characters. Sort of as if the original Star Trek put all the emphasis on Dr. Mc Coy and Spock.

Even worse, they not only fail to have meaningful arcs that stretch between episodes, it's as though the writers are fighting with each other, with one episode opening interesting new possibilities and the next shutting them down.

Atlantis' biggest issue is the recurring problem of Protagonist-Centered Morality and Designated Hero, where the show has the main characters repeatedly do some very awful things, but refuses to call them out on it, or even acknowledge that they are doing shitty things but for good reasons. Anyone who questions how they handle things is a fool, corrupt, or an idiot. Kavanaugh is one of the biggest example.

Like, the whole Michael thing, you can justify the experiment by saying that sure, the Wraith basically exist in a state of total war against the humans, so finding a solution that turns them human is preferable to basically anything else.

But what you can't excuse is the entire crew also setting this up as some weird social experiment where they gaslight Michael (all the while knowing that Ronon isn't gonna play along) and then go surprise pikachu face when Michael takes it badly to find out his entire life is a lie.

Like, it's fine to have protagonists do questionable things, or immoral things, but Atlantis wants to have its cake and eat it, where they do awful things but also are strictly heroic figures and anything bad that happens isnt their fault.

Edited by Ghilz on Apr 11th 2024 at 2:36:25 PM