Jack's Son - Alternate Timeline

[patssle]

How does the SGC not existing change the fact that Jack's son, Charlie, does not kill himself with his gun in the alternate timeline? Jack was selected for the first Stargate mission after his son died.

[silly sally]

I'd like to point out that Jack doesn't wear a wedding ring. Is he still married to Sara?

[IrishPisano]

How does the SGC not existing change the fact that Jack's son, Charlie, does not kill himself with his gun in the alternate timeline? Jack was selected for the first Stargate mission after his son died.

it's called the butterfly effect... which is best summed up as: 1 small, seemingly miniscule event could have huge reprecussions over time.

one of the best examples, albeit a cartoon, is the Simpsons episode (one of the Treehouse of Terror eps i think) where Homer makes a time machine out of his toaster and keeps going back to dinosaur time and makes mistakes like killing a bug... or sneezing on another creature... or killing all the dinosaurs... and when he gets back to the present, it has completely changed from what he was used to... its a cartoon, and there are completely impossible changes, like raining donuts... but the principle is the same



the Stargate not being discovered could have resulted in a different dispersion of military personnel over the course of 50 years... different personnel are given different assignments... different decisions are made... etc etc etc creating a snowball effect and eventually resulting in O'Neill experiencing a different military career and thus having different effects on his family...

[MrClark]

Having no SGC would mean that anybody that was assigned there are in other positions. Maybe Jack was assigned to a different unit and away from home and had his pistol with him instead of in the closet.

Also in the old time line Gen Landry is either divorced or separated and still active duty. In the new time line he is happily married and retired Gen Hammond on the other hand who is retired in the old time line is active duty in the new and a three star.

Also Jack is just a colonel in the the new time not a major General

[tayradio]

I'd like to point out that Jack doesn't wear a wedding ring. Is he still married to Sara?

In Cold Lazarus the wedding ring was in a box in his locker. That ring might have been in the box for a long long time. Some people wear rings on their dogtags or a chain instead of on their fingers if there's a safety reason, etc. I'm not sure that he would have been wearing a ring at all on a regular basis if he was a special ops officer taking on a training exercise on the ice in Antarctica.

Then again he didn't say, "He's at home with his mother", but then Charlie would have been... in his late teens I would assume by then.

Hard to tell. I guess it's up for individual interpretation. I'd like to think that Jack had caught a break in some timeline and hadn't lost his family. Even "our" Jack seemed to value the memories of home and family very much. He had that picture of himself with Charlie and Sara both in a couple of prominent places in his house - on the wall in the living room (in Lost City) and in his bedroom on the nightstand (Fragile Balance).

[Gate gal]

Somebody will cover this in a fanfic. I'm sure there will be lots of speculation there. Personally, I agree with IrishPisano. He was probably on a different assignment.

[tayradio]

Somebody will cover this in a fanfic. I'm sure there will be lots of speculation there. Personally, I agree with IrishPisano. He was probably on a different assignment.

Sometimes I like it best when things are just left to the viewer to decide, depending on their own wishes and points of view!