The Asgard.

[adam4evelyn]

I recently re-watched the episode you're referring to and it was The Torment of Tantalus (cool episode), Daniel seemed to think that each race played a part in creating that universal language, perhaps there's a copy of it in the Asgard knowledge base, I'd love to know what that thing said, even if I didn't understand a word of it.

sorry now i may be wrong but im just going to throw this out here ............wasn't that meant to be a sort of meeting ground........not an actual database . but a way for them to communicate with each other in the simplest form ??? correct me if im wrong

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

sorry now i may be wrong but im just going to throw this out here ............wasn't that meant to be a sort of meeting ground........not an actual database . but a way for them to communicate with each other in the simplest form ??? correct me if im wrong

Oh yes the castle/building/whatever was supposed to be the meeting place of the Alliance, well perhaps at least one of the places they met each other in.

I didn't actually say it was a database though, what I meant when I wrote that post was their may have been a copy of that text (the Universal language and what it would mean in Asgard that could be translated into any other languages the Asgard were fluent in) within the Asgard knowledge base that they gave us in the episode Unending, as there was supposed to be a copy of their entire recorded history in that device.

I think Earnest said "turn the page" to Daniel so I get the feeling that it's meant to be used like a book and represents the atomic make-up of various different objects that are contained within the Universe that the races would be aware of to be used to create a common thing they would, or could understand.
But it had to mean something, so perhaps it contained the 'dialogue' of each meeting and things that they all talked about in that Universal language amongst their discussions there must have been some juicy information that Earth could use other than the advanced Asgard tech, perhaps things the Asgard didn't consider to be of interest to them.

Hopefully that makes sense now.

[Finger13]

Keep in mind that Western Civilization, the pinnacle of Earth's current technological and social abilities, is only a a few thousand years old.

The Asgard are obviously much older than 100,000 years, just as we are older than 2,500 to 3,000 years.

So basically, while humans are 200,000 years old or so, Western culture is only a few thousand. So the Asgard could be 200,000 years old as well, or 300,000. Who knows.

But they wouldn't have to be that much older than us to get to their current state of technology. Can you imagine Earth's technology in 10,000 years? Which is a very short span of time in the grand scheme of things.

It's quite possible that the Asgard existed much as we do on Earth today, and define the beginning of their civilization as when they banded together or something. War was stopped, cooperation and technological progress were pursued, etc.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

Keep in mind that Western Civilization, the pinnacle of Earth's current technological and social abilities, is only a a few thousand years old.

The Asgard are obviously much older than 100,000 years, just as we are older than 2,500 to 3,000 years.

So basically, while humans are 200,000 years old or so, Western culture is only a few thousand. So the Asgard could be 200,000 years old as well, or 300,000. Who knows.

But they wouldn't have to be that much older than us to get to their current state of technology. Can you imagine Earth's technology in 10,000 years? Which is a very short span of time in the grand scheme of things.

It's quite possible that the Asgard existed much as we do on Earth today, and define the beginning of their civilization as when they banded together or something. War was stopped, cooperation and technological progress were pursued, etc.

I'd agree with basically everything you've said Finger13 but predominantly the stuff highlighted in bold.
Everything you've said here makes perfect sense to me especially the last part of your post.

With regards to the "Can you imagine Earth's technology in 10,000 years?" part, I'd bet as long as we don't destroy ourselves with some dodgy experiments/technology or some terrorist cell group doesn't wipe us all out, then in 10,000 years provided that the Universal laws allow it we may have technologies and gizmos that science fiction can't even think of today.

[AncientWorshipper]

This is wrong, the lost tribe was formed so that they could work on their cloning problem without distractions and the cloning problem only became a problem 10,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago they had their first bodies.

So why would the lost tribe be formed 100,000 years ago to work on a cloning problem that they did not have or knew they would have?

The only body they could get hold of that was able to reproduce was the one that crashed on the planet in "Revelations". I cannot remember the quote but I'm quite sure Heimdall mentions the body also being a clone but still being able to reproduce sexually, although I may well be wrong.

[AncientWorshipper]

I recently re-watched the episode you're referring to and it was The Torment of Tantalus (cool episode), Daniel seemed to think that each race played a part in creating that universal language, perhaps there's a copy of it in the Asgard knowledge base, I'd love to know what that thing said, even if I didn't understand a word of it.

I havn't seen that episode in a while but wasn't the 'universal language' a holographic periodic table, basically the elements?

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I havn't seen that episode in a while but wasn't the 'universal language' a holographic periodic table, basically the elements?

Catherine, Daniel and the others in the room during the scene you're talking about did mention I think 146 elements, but Daniel went on to say "how do you insure true Universal communication between different species? you reduce it to the basics common to everyone and everything in the Universe" or something like that.
I'm sure being that he was an archeologist and not a chemist, if the device in question was just a small catalog of 146 basic elements then he wouldn't have been quite so interested in it, plus Earnest had been able to study it for like 50 odd years and he said he'd tried to understand it, which he wouldn't really need to if it was just a list of elements.

My point is I think it had a much bigger meaning than just being a list of elements.

[AncientWorshipper]

Catherine, Daniel and the others in the room during the scene you're talking about did mention I think 146 elements, but Daniel went on to say "how do you insure true Universal communication between different species? you reduce it to the basics common to everyone and everything in the Universe" or something like that.
I'm sure being that he was an archeologist and not a chemist, if the device in question was just a small catalog of 146 basic elements then he wouldn't have been quite so interested in it, plus Earnest had been able to study it for like 50 odd years and he said he'd tried to understand it, which he wouldn't really need to if it was just a list of elements.

My point is I think it had a much bigger meaning than just being a list of elements.

I did not mean the devise just being a list of the elements although after re-reading what I put I can see why you may have thought I did.
I am saying was the universal language not the elements as from this you could create anything and I literally mean anything as everything is composed from elements.

[Rise Of The Phoenix]

I did not mean the devise just being a list of the elements although after re-reading what I put I can see why you may have thought I did.
I am saying was the universal language not the elements as from this you could create anything and I literally mean anything as everything is composed from elements.

Sorry, I did think that was what you meant.

Well Daniel made the assumption that the language was in the form of elements, but of course there's no other thing that thing could be so he must have been right.

[Ltcolshepjumper]

The only body they could get hold of that was able to reproduce was the one that crashed on the planet in "Revelations". I cannot remember the quote but I'm quite sure Heimdall mentions the body also being a clone but still being able to reproduce sexually, although I may well be wrong.

Yes. that clone was 30,000 years old, before the degenerative effects became irreversible. The Asgard probably reached their current state at 10,000-20,000 years. It makes sense that the Asgard's current societal infrastructure would be 100,000 years old. It's far older than the Goauld or humanity, but still young compared to that of the Ancients.

[pwells]

It doesn't really matter to me if 100,000 years from "The Lost Tribe" is exact or not - maybe a few hundred thousand years ago might be when the race actually existed. What it does seem, however, is that the Ancients/Alterans, as a race, existed far earlier than the Asgards, maybe by two orders of magnitude. The Alterans that existed 50 million years ago were already scientifically advanced. Compare this with any reference to Asgard dates, which were always in the thousands or tens of thousands years ago.

[Mclean]

The only body they could get hold of that was able to reproduce was the one that crashed on the planet in "Revelations". I cannot remember the quote but I'm quite sure Heimdall mentions the body also being a clone but still being able to reproduce sexually, although I may well be wrong.

This was a time when the Asgard were just beginning to explore outside there own galaxy so I doubt they would have the ability to clone.

[Professor D.H.D. Puddlejumper]

If the Asgard civilization is 100,000 years old and they only gained faster than light propulsion in the last 30,000 years of their existence (which is a reference to the episode Revelations at the end of season 5 of SG1 from when Heimdall tells carter about her research into their genetic history) there is no way the Alliance could have been formed before the Ancients left for the Pegasus galaxy.

Although we've theorized previously that the Alliance could date back as far as 30,000 years, it could actually go back even further to 100,000 years. Having hyper-drive technology isn't necessarily a prerequisite to be part of such an alliance as the stargates were readily available. Just speculating here but perhaps at one time the stargates were the principal means of traveling the galaxy. Kind of an interstellar transit system. The Ancients may have invited many races, including the Asgard, Furlings, Nox and others to use the system. With the gate system lasting 50 million years maybe Dinosaurs used the gate too. ( Sorry, couldn't resist. Just kidding about that last one. That would go back 65 MY.)

In fact the more likely thing to have happened is that a portion of Ancient's civilization remained in the Milky Way galaxy after setting off the Dakara genesis device and then contact was made with the other members of the Alliance over time.

Yes, quite possible, or some of them returned later. The Dakara device was a reseeding device, so some Ancients could have returned just about any time after it was used, that is, assuming the plague was eradicated.

I recently re-watched the episode you're referring to and it was The Torment of Tantalus (cool episode),

Yep, one of the best.

With regards to the "Can you imagine Earth's technology in 10,000 years?" part, I'd bet as long as we don't destroy ourselves with some dodgy experiments/technology or some terrorist cell group doesn't wipe us all out, then in 10,000 years provided that the Universal laws allow it we may have technologies and gizmos that science fiction can't even think of today.

And by then you'll be able to get 10 million channels on your TV, and there'll still be nothing on worth watching.

[Giantevilhead]

We don't know what kind of technology the Asgard had 30,000 years ago. They had to have had hyperdrive since when that episode was written, we thought that the closest galaxy to the Milky Way was 70,000 lightyears away, and it could barely be considered a galaxy.

We don't know if the 30,000 year old Asgard was a clone, Heimdall only said, "He is from a time before our program of genetic manipulation became irreversible."