Ask the Authors (Fandemonium)

[ChristianGateFan]

I should probably mention here that Blood Ties, written by Beth Christensen (author of Casualties of War) and I, will come under the Atlantis banner, however Daniel Jackson is assigned to the team, several Earth-based characters from SG-1 put in an appearance, and a good chunk of the story takes place on Earth.

Sonny

Whee! I am VERY excited about the Daniel part. He's my favorite character. For some reason I'm really curious about this...i know they're two different types of scientist, but will Daniel be interecting with Rodney at all? Is Rodney even on the Atlantis team to earth? Don't know why, but Daniel and Rodney talking or interecting on any level seems like it would be great/hilarious/etcetc.

And just a shoutout to you and Jennifer Fallon, I'm in the middle of Roswell right now and I LOVE it. Time travel rocks in any form. And hey, any book where Daniel gets shot is A+ in my book. Sorry; I'm a whumper too. I write waaaay too much fic...

Okay, shutting up and going to sleep now; it's past midnight here.

[Jennifer Fallon]

I'm not being confrontational I am genuinely curious why an author would chose a date particularly resonant to one character and then completely ignore it.

I've been reading this Daniel's Birthday thread with some amusement for a while now, but I feel compelled to put my two cents worth in. Allow me to give you the reason, although I'm not sure you're going to like it.

Firstly, July 8, 1947, as has been previously stated several times, was the date a newspaper first carried the story of an alien craft found in Roswell. We didn't chose the date for any other reason.

Secondly... and this is the bit that cracks me up, when the issue of the dates came up during the writing of Roswell, we consiously decided stay away from whether or not it was Daniel's birthday.

So, why didn't we go there? Because we would have had to step into the murky waters of Daniel's actual birthday.

Just because he said it was, doesn't make it so. In 1969, Daniel claims to be 4 and a half when they are there. But therein lies the problem. They land in 1969 on August 4th (I remember that because that's my birthday). Daniel, if his DOB was July 8, would have just turned 4, just three and a bit weeks earlier. If this was the case, he'd not be 4 and a half at all. He would be only just 4. You could forgive a discrepancy of months, but not of that much.

So, take your pick, either he was lying in 1969, or in he was confused and only just conscious in "Forever and a Day" the episode where he nominates Jul 8th as his birthday. I'm going with the latter.

In fact, July 8 is probably not his birthday...

According to the script from the episode, the conversation goes as follows...

DOCTOR - Hey... How do you feel?
DANIEL - Confused.
DOCTOR (OS) - I bet... Can you tell me your name?
DANIEL - Daniel Jackson.
DOCTOR (OS) And what’s your birthday?
DANIEL - July 8th.

So... do we really want to slow the entire story of Roswell down while we investigate this entirely irrelevant issue? Of course not, because, bottom line, it is not certain that July 8 1965 is Daniel's birthday, and therefore we decided not to go there.

As Sonny said, during our discussions, "Birthdays aren't just about cake and candles, you know."

[sonny1]

Here’s something to think about re time travel.

Let’s say you’re born February 10, 1970 and on August 10, 2011, you use an instantaneous time machine to travel ahead to, say, February 10, 2050.
How old are you when you get there?
1. 41 years and 6 months
2. 80 years

This is not a trick question, btw. I put it to my 11 year old son, and he replied, answer 1, because no matter when you are, by virtue of using a time machine you’ve skipped the whole ikky aging thing and your body is still only 40 years and 6 months old, not 80.

Let’s go the other way. Let’s say you’re born July 8 (no, this is not in reference to Daniel because as Jen said in her post above, that whole question of his birth date was so iffy, it was dismissed in a 20 second coversation as irrelevant very early, this is just an example).

Okay, so you’re born July 08, 1965, and on February 08 2007, you travel back in time to July 08, 1947.
How old are you when you get there?
1. minus 18 years and it’s your non-birthday because you haven’t yet been born (which breaks the converse of the Grandfather paradox)
2. 41 years and 6 months

Answer: 2. No matter what date it is, you’re still only 41 years and 6 months, so no cake and candles for you, but as my son said, if you’d left to go back in time on July 08, not February 08, then it would still be your birthday until the 24 hours on your biological clock is over.

I admit, my son got to thinking about all of that, and decided that he was prepared to toss physics to the four winds and go back and forth in time 364 years to every January 25 (his birthday), day after day, just so he could have 364 consecutive birthdays (cake+presents), and he’d arrive back in the present, having aged only a year, on his 12th birthday—how cool would that be?

Kids, ya gotta love ‘em.

Of course, then there are the twins, one of whom stays on Earth while the other goes hooting around the solar system for a year in a ship travelling close to the speed of light. He, of course, ages only a year, but then he arrives back on Earth to find his twin brother has aged 50 years.
See Einstein for a remarkably succinct explanation.

Bottom line is that time travel has more conundrums than you can poke a stick at. Some readers don’t want to wrap their brains around that, some can’t, some just plain don’t like it, and yet others love its story telling opportunities. Everyone’s wet-wired differently.

As to the placing a gun on the wall and not using it, if we attempted to address every stray end the Stargate universe has out there, every book would be delivered on a flatbed truck and the story we chose to tell would have been killed by irrelevant minutia. July 7 and 8 are keynote dates in Roswell’s history. The story that Jen and I wrote is titled Roswell. That’s the gun.

Boy, wait’ll you guys see what Jen and I did in the short story for Titan’s Stargate magazine <vbg>.

[Gate Geek]

Here’s something to think about re time travel.

Let’s say you’re born February 10, 1970 and on August 10, 2011, you use an instantaneous time machine to travel ahead to, say, February 10, 2050.
How old are you when you get there?
1. 41 years and 6 months
2. 80 years

This is not a trick question, btw. I put it to my 11 year old son, and he replied, answer 1, because no matter when you are, by virtue of using a time machine you’ve skipped the whole ikky aging thing and your body is still only 40 years and 6 months old, not 80.

Let’s go the other way. Let’s say you’re born July 8 (no, this is not in reference to Daniel because as Jen said in her post above, that whole question of his birth date was so iffy, it was dismissed in a 20 second coversation as irrelevant very early, this is just an example).

Okay, so you’re born July 08, 1965, and on February 08 2007, you travel back in time to July 08, 1947.
How old are you when you get there?
1. minus 18 years and it’s your non-birthday because you haven’t yet been born (which breaks the converse of the Grandfather paradox)
2. 41 years and 6 months

Answer: 2. No matter what date it is, you’re still only 41 years and 6 months, so no cake and candles for you, but as my son said, if you’d left to go back in time on July 08, not February 08, then it would still be your birthday until the 24 hours on your biological clock is over.

I admit, my son got to thinking about all of that, and decided that he was prepared to toss physics to the four winds and go back and forth in time 364 years to every January 25 (his birthday), day after day, just so he could have 364 consecutive birthdays (cake+presents), and he’d arrive back in the present, having aged only a year, on his 12th birthday—how cool would that be?

Kids, ya gotta love ‘em.

Of course, then there are the twins, one of whom stays on Earth while the other goes hooting around the solar system for a year in a ship travelling close to the speed of light. He, of course, ages only a year, but then he arrives back on Earth to find his twin brother has aged 50 years.
See Einstein for a remarkably succinct explanation.

Bottom line is that time travel has more conundrums than you can poke a stick at. Some readers don’t want to wrap their brains around that, some can’t, some just plain don’t like it, and yet others love its story telling opportunities. Everyone’s wet-wired differently.

As to the placing a gun on the wall and not using it, if we attempted to address every stray end the Stargate universe has out there, every book would be delivered on a flatbed truck and the story we chose to tell would have been killed by irrelevant minutia. July 7 and 8 are keynote dates in Roswell’s history. The story that Jen and I wrote is titled Roswell. That’s the gun.

Boy, wait’ll you guys see what Jen and I did in the short story for Titan’s Stargate magazine <vbg>.

Ah...nothing like a little time travel paradoxes and Einstein to wake up tp in the morning. It was refreshing change from teaching Newton's laws of motion and how they apply to rockets these past three weeks.

[JMSwallow]

Bottom line is that time travel has more conundrums than you can poke a stick at.

You are so right. And there's gonna be a lot of stick-poking in Relativity...

[Alipeeps]

You are so right. And there's gonna be a lot of stick-poking in Relativity...

Well, with a title like that, there'd have to be!

[ChristianGateFan]

No kidding. Stick-poking is fun!

[sonny1]

Whee! I am VERY excited about the Daniel part. He's my favorite character. For some reason I'm really curious about this...i know they're two different types of scientist, but will Daniel be interecting with Rodney at all? Is Rodney even on the Atlantis team to earth? Don't know why, but Daniel and Rodney talking or interecting on any level seems like it would be great/hilarious/etcetc.

And just a shoutout to you and Jennifer Fallon, I'm in the middle of Roswell right now and I LOVE it. Time travel rocks in any form. And hey, any book where Daniel gets shot is A+ in my book. Sorry; I'm a whumper too. I write waaaay too much fic...

Okay, shutting up and going to sleep now; it's past midnight here.

Thanks - glad you're enjoying Roswell. It really was a lot of fun to write.

As to Blood Ties; we haven't had final word back from MGM, and although the last few times their required changes amounted to about 15 minutes work, one of these days that may not be the case, so I'd sooner wait until we get the final, final approval. What I can say is that in general terms, it's set towards the end of Season 3, so there's some emotional fallout from the death of Dr Beckett. There's some serious whumping because its a necessary part of the story. There's also interaction between all of the major characters, and there's considerable moving around from place to place.

The latter two points are because when you have so many major characters vying for page space, you need to break them apart like billard balls, and then have them recombine and interact according to whichever way the billiard cue (events in the story) direct them, otherwise you'd have seven or eight people on the one page, which is just unworkable in a novel over any length. (I'm doing double duty here with this answer, as someone emailed me recently asking why I didn't write all the team together all of the time and instead kept breaking them up).

Within this framework, each character will act according to their personalities, and the results can be incredibly interesting.

cheers

[Alipeeps]

Theres's some serious whumping because its a necessary part of the story.

Eeeep! *quivers*

Whumping for who? Eh? Hmm? Is it Sheppard? Is it? Is it?

*squeezes eyes shut, crosses fingers and toes and mutters "PleasebeSheppardpleasebeSheppardpleasebeSheppard.."*

[sonny1]

Question for the astronomers in the class...

Given that Earth does a complete oscillation once every 52,000 years, and the universe is expanding (ie, things are moving away from
us) would the night sky from Earth have looked similar 52,000 years ago, albeit a little brighter? Or would everything have shifted around too much?

This is not for a Stargate novel but for a YA novel, where my character is tossed back in time 52,000 YA. She's a bit of a geek, and she's not prepared to accept the fact that she's been sent back in time...so,I can play with this night sky notion either way, it doesn't matter, but I would like to address it given the coincidence in timing.

thanks...

[Alipeeps]

Urrrrrrr... science questions make my brain hurt. Where's our resident astronomer GG when we need her?!

P.S. If I had to guess, I would say the sky would look different. But I know nothing. Seriously... about this stuff, I know nada!

[Elizabeth Christensen]

Eeeep! *quivers*

Whumping for who? Eh? Hmm? Is it Sheppard? Is it? Is it?

*squeezes eyes shut, crosses fingers and toes and mutters "PleasebeSheppardpleasebeSheppardpleasebeSheppard.."*

Who said the whumping would be limited to just one character?

<whistles innocently, wanders off to cause trouble somewhere else>

Like Sonny said, it's dictated by the plot at a couple of points. When you've got Wraith-related (Wraithish?) beings involved, their abilities, for better or worse, will tend to be crucial to the goings-on. And that's all I'm going to say about that ... much as I would enjoy making various forum-dwellers squee.

(Hmm. What happened to my smilies? Something's buggy in my browser. Darn it, I wanted that chasing-Wraith one ...)

[Alipeeps]

Who said the whumping would be limited to just one character?

<whistles innocently, wanders off to cause trouble somewhere else>

Like Sonny said, it's dictated by the plot at a couple of points. When you've got Wraith-related (Wraithish?) beings involved, their abilities, for better or worse, will tend to be crucial to the goings-on. And that's all I'm going to say about that ... much as I would enjoy making various forum-dwellers squee.

(Hmm. What happened to my smilies? Something's buggy in my browser. Darn it, I wanted that chasing-Wraith one ...)

*gack* You... you... you tease, you!

Okay so I never assumed the whumping was limited to one character... I'm all for equal opportunity whumping! Just as long as one of the whumpees (um... I think I just invented a word?) can be Sheppard? Any chance? A hint? A teeeeeeeeny tiiiiiiiny smidgen of a clue? Pwetty please?

I offer Wraithy smileys in return...

[ChristianGateFan]

Who said the whumping would be limited to just one character?

<whistles innocently, wanders off to cause trouble somewhere else>

And please I hope Daniel is one of them too! Eeek! He looks so much cuter unconsious....lol, yes you have a pond hussy invading this thread. Sorry, going away now.

[Gate Geek]

Question for the astronomers in the class...

Given that Earth does a complete oscillation once every 52,000 years, and the universe is expanding (ie, things are moving away from
us) would the night sky from Earth have looked similar 52,000 years ago, albeit a little brighter? Or would everything have shifted around too much?

This is not for a Stargate novel but for a YA novel, where my character is tossed back in time 52,000 YA. She's a bit of a geek, and she's not prepared to accept the fact that she's been sent back in time...so,I can play with this night sky notion either way, it doesn't matter, but I would like to address it given the coincidence in timing.

thanks...

Well first off, let me say I am NOT a professional astronomer nor is this an area of expertise for me. i've been an amateur astronomer for the past 15 years and well, I tend to enjoy/focus on our solar system.


To answer your question, the sky would look somewhat different 52,000 years ago. All stars have proper motion but because of the 'lack of speed' and their great distances, it is hard to see this change over a short period of time. However, given enough time (say 50,000 years) some shift in star positions will be noticeable. Do I think it would be enough to not recognize the constellations we see today? I don't think so. I think the general patterns would still be there. But I don't have any software to let me go back that far in time to see the night sky.

Also taking into account the precession of the Earth's axis every 26,000 years, there is a shift among the stars - the most prevailant being which star would be the "North Star". Right now we are lucky to have Polaris very close to the north pole. 12,000 years from now the "pole star" will be near Vega in the constellation Cygnus.


I hope that answers your question somewhat. I did post this question to our astronomy club forum and when I get their replies/consensus (some have some great software to find out such things), I'll PM ya.