Ask Martin Gero - Spoilers for SGA (S1, S2)

[ToasterOnFire]

Hi again Martin,

Thank you for answering my questions and all the other questions so quickly, it's much appreciated! I've got three more questions and I'll happily wait at the end of the ever-lengthening queue for a response.

1)It was specifically mentioned in The Storm that Weir does not have the ATA gene. Was the ATA gene therapy tried on her and it failed or did she refuse the treatment entirely?

2) In real life gene therapy often fails suddenly and without explanation. Any thoughts about an episode where the ATA abilities of McKay and others who took the treatment temporarily/permanently fails or behaves oddly?

3) Most of the fans around here love the well-developed secondary characters of season one (Zelenka, Bates, Kusinagi, etc.). Has there been any talk about doing a episode completely from the secondary characters' POV?

Thanks again, and now I'm really looking forward to Duet!

[MartinGero]

Hi, first I just want to say that I love the show. I really do, and the relationships between the characters, especially the McKay/Sheppard stuff. Yes, gen guys I know they're friends and not having a torrid affair.

In anycase, the questions:

1. Carson wears a Scotish flag, yet Grodin wore a British flag. I know that some Scots are like that, "I'm Scotish not British" and all that. But does there exist an option for the Welsh and English (and even those from N. Ireland) to wear flags for their countries instead of Britain in general, like Carson does. Will we see any of that?

2. Do the different military groups, the US and Russian guys for example, live by their own rules and regs like they normally do? Or is there some kind of new over all rule bood? If so, which rules were taken from the US, or UK, or Russia ect and put in the overal one. And I'm sure the slashers would like to know the position on DADT in this case.

3. Do we get to see Radek in the promotional pics? I mean, Carson was in the promotional pics for S1 before he was made a regular after all, and Radek is in the show a lot.

4. Do we ever see more of Chaya? I don't mean as a romantic interest for John, the shippers and slasher wouldn't be to happy, but as a friend of Atlantis. Even if she can't offer protection to others, surely she could help out in other ways such as trade agreements for food and the like.

5. Is the fact that the Colonel in Siege (we weren't supposed to be big fans of him were we?) took control of the situation so harshly due, at least in part, to Kavanaugh's report to Jack in Letters?

6. In Rising, we see John flip a coin whilst sitting on some grass. Now, presumably he's in America there because he sure isn't anywehere near the Antartic. Surely if he was in America he'd already decided to go to Atlantis in the first place, so why was he flipping the coin? Was it just something to do, was he debating if he should contact his family (any left?) or what?

7. We've seen hints of how clever John is, especially with maths. Like the number of possible gate addresses in Rising, and the magic square in Brotherhood. That and the Mensa thing. Will we see anymore of that? How?


And that's it... well it's not but I wont ask too much. But thank you (and every one else over there at Stargate, the actors and TPTB alike) for giving us such a great show, with great characters, humour, action and.... everything else that makes Atlantis what it is. Thank You.

1. That’s more a question for costumes, but yeah, sure…there’s a chance.

2. The military on Atlantis is mostly US and is under the command of Col. Sheppard.

3. As of right now there are no plans to put Zelenka in the promos. Six leads already makes those shots crowded. I’m sure if you write him, David Nykl would be more than happy to send you a head shot.

4. We never close doors…right now there is no plan to see Chaya in the early part of Season 1.

5. No. Col. Everett had, say, a different management style than Sheppard or Weir. Some people don’t care about feelings.

6. I don’t think Sheppard was 100% sure he was going to go until he crossed that event horizon.

7. Yes we will…I don’t want to ruin it.

[MartinGero]

Hi Martin *waves*

This is so cool of you to do this.

I know I am supposed to ask a question, but I am totally clueless at this question-asking thing so:

1. Would you think of a question you would really like to be asked.
2. Consider that I asked it.
3. Tell us what the excellent question is I asked.
4. Please answer it.

I am so clueless that I did this to Joe too.

Thanks very much, Kliggins the clueless.

Come on...you can do better than that.

[J_B]

Hi, Thanks for taking the time to answer questions here, I know it's really appreciated by everyone here.

In Rising II, You see the Puddle Jumper fire 7 Drones, Yet there only seems to be 6 launchers, 3 on each side. From the brief glimpse we seen of it. I say there must be more probably 6/9 on each side. can you please say anything more about how many Drones a single Jumper can fire.

You seem to be pretty young, 5 years older than me. How exactly did you get involved in writing for Atlantis. Did you submit scripts or were you approached.

I also seen a picture of an early artists concept of a Puddle Jumper. It looks like something you would see out of Star Wars, Any chance we will get to see Ancient Fighter's either this season or next. Hopefully useable ones at that.

Here

It's the first one on the second row.

Thanks..

[the Fifth Race]

How many writers are there?....I have heard that SG and SGA hire dozens of writers to submit episode ideas and they the producers choose and pick through them to see if theres any ideas they like....Has any of your ideas made it to production and which episodes do you have a hand in?....Thanx

[Gilder]

Slightly OT here, please don't ding me, just want to say Hi and Thanks to Martin for taking the time.

[MartinGero]

Hi Martin

1: Will the Atlantis team return to Earth at some point this season?

2: Is there any plans for SG-1 and the Atlantis team to team up in the future for a joint mission especially with the new threat in Season 9 of SG-1.

Many Thanks

Mike

1. Yes, if episode 2: "Intruder"

2. We hope so...we're still trying to iron out all the details. (See previous posts)

[MartinGero]

Thank you for answering our questions, Martin!

My questions are:

That nanovirus, will it cause more problems elsewhere? Or we're just going to see its creators?
Oh, by the way. Are the creators humans?

And my final question: are there more female Wraith? It would be nice to see some of them.

Thanks.

PS.: Sorry for bad grammar, I'm a Hungarian.

1. I just came from a meeting where we were talking about the Hot Zone virus creators...we hope to have an episode about them this season.

2. Yes, we will see some female Wraith this season. Most notably in an episode called "Intinct".

ps...my Dad is from Hungary originally. Nice to know we have so fans there.

[MartinGero]

Hi Martin,

What a treat to have you here to answer our questions, I'm sure we'll all be keeping you very very busy!

As no one else has asked about my favourite Doctor I was wondering if you could give us any hints, tease or maybe a little insight into what the season has in store for Dr Carson Beckett?

Will we be treated to a Carson-centric episode like Poisoning the Well? Will we be seeing the character develope outside of the standard doctor role such as his Puddle Jumper flying exploits now that Paul is a regular? And most importantly, is there a possiblity of a Rodney & Carson centric adventure episode? The two of them together on screen is always garenteed to be priceless and I would love to see what kind of trouble Beckett & McKay could cause/get into in their own episode!

Thanks for taking the time to be here!

Best Wishes,

TJ

There will be plenty of Beckett this season and he’ll be doing more than just being the base doctor. My fav episode so far this season is “Duet” and David and Paul have LOTS of scenes together (it’s as close to a Beckett/McKay episode as you’re going to get for the first part of season 2)…I hope you’ll like it.

[knocknashee]

Hi Martin, thanks for taking the time out to answer questions here. I think it's grand that yourself and Joe are willing to spend time doing this...

Anyway, the questions.

1. Are we going to be seeing some of the main characters' back stories this coming season? We heard about Shep's black mark and past disobedience, and also McKay being shipped off to the a-hole of nowhere...but nothing that really connects them to their past...

2. Who would be your dream guest star for Atlantis, and what role would you have them play??

3. Since we're sort of interviewing you here, put the situation in reverse - what three questions, given the chance, would you most like to ask a Stargate fan???

[marimba26]

2. The military on Atlantis is mostly US and is under the command of Col. Sheppard.

I thought I read somewhere that Mitch Pileggi was going to be a regular on the show(could be wrong about that)--wouldn't that put him above Shep in the chain of command? If so, will Atlantis be militarized with his arrival? And if it is militarized, what will happen to Weir?

Sorry, I'm a bit confused now (nothing new there I'm afraid lol)

Thanks for taking the time to answer questions btw! And thanks for attending the GW dinner!

[MartinGero]

Hello Martin and thanks for spending your time here answering our questions. I read through each post, to make sure my questions had not already been asked and answered, so here goes.

I am sure that many people ask how to submit scripts for the show. What I would like to know, is whether or not the writers have an outline, within which scripts must fit. Is there a general consensus on the direction each episode must go in order to carry the overall flow in the desired direction of the show? Could a serious writer gain access to this "outline" and write a script? If so, would it be considered?

One thing that many fans absolutely hate is a show where writers fail to take into account things that have gone before, or they twist them from their original and/or seemingly obvious meaning, to fit what has been written later. Does the writing staff have a means to prevent that for SGA? Small things like on ST:TNG when in some episodes, people would hit their com badges and say "computer" and other episodes where they would just speak into the air. Things like SG-1 sometimes dialing 6 and most times dialing 7 chevrons to open the gate. Personally, I think 6 is much more logical because of the 38/39 glyph set up.

Although it may seem that I have strayed from my original point, I have not. I am very interested in writing at least one episode and continuity is something that I think is very important. That being said, I do not want to waste time writing a script, never to have it even considered, let alone submitted. My email address is arcamanthus at hotmail dot com. It would be nice to know if serious endeavors are worth the effort. Thank you for your time and I look forward to your reply.

We never accept spec scripts from anyone…it’s just the way we have to work considering all the legal ramifications.

The only way you can get to be a writer on the show is if you have a writing agent. We let agents know when we’re looking for another staff writer or just some original episode idea’s (usually in January when we’re gearing up.) Your agent will submit a sample of your work, and if we like it, we’ll invite you to pitch some story ideas.

If you pitch an idea we like, you’re usually sent to write an outline and if you ace that, you get to write a draft. Now, if your draft is kick ass and we need another staff writer, you get hired.

That’s how I got here.

So, yes, I think it would be a waste of time for you to write a spec script and send it in. You’d just get a form letter back saying we don’t read unsolicited material. If your interested in becoming a professional writer, look into getting an agent…it’s very hard to get started without one.

[MartinGero]

Okay, who convinced Martin to come here? Kudos to you for getting him to stop by. Hope this doesn't overwhelm you Martin, nice to have you here

My only question right now involves the Wraith. Will we get more backstory on their origins and civilization, if any?

Thanks

Droops

Don't you worry, Droops...you're gonna find out A LOT about the Wraith this year. All that back story we worked out last year and never got any air time, will finally make it to some episodes (most notably the mid-season two-parter).

[Ugly Pig]

Hi Martin, fan from Norway here with a couple of questions.

First, how come every Atlantis episode you've written rocked? Hmm, nevermind, no need to waste your time answering that (but it needed to be said!).

Anyway, in an earlier post here you said:

Ford is in at least four episodes this year, maybe more. We're taking Ford in a really interesting new direction, but that means he can't be in every episode.

My question is this: Was Ford being "reduced" to a recurring character done to serve the plot, or was the plot written this way because he will be a recurring character?

[MartinGero]

Olli, you're better off posting SG-1 questions to Joe Mallozzi, unless you want to talk about Martin's SG-1 ep(s).

Speaking of which, Martin, what can you tell us about that ep and how does doing a script for SG-1 compare to doing as script for Atlantis? With all the backstories and history on SG-1, is it more difficult to manage than the relatively new Atlantis? Or does the addition of new cast to SG-1 make it a little easier?

I had a blast writing my SG-1 episode this year…I had all last season to get caught up on all my SG-1 mythology. The new characters are so much fun to write for (not that the old characters aren’t)…Vala is like writer candy. You just can’t go wrong with that character.

I must say, however, that this script owes a lot to the contributions Rob made during his pass…he’s (obviously) got a better handle on writing Daniel and Teal’c than I do.

The dallies have just started to come back for this ep, and I think it’s turning out to be the best SG-1 I’ve ever written…cough.