Ancient Repository Device - design?

[Sparrowcat]

Hello,
I'm kind of new here.. and it's probable that this has been discussed before.
I've been rewatching Stargate SG-1, and was wondering about the design of the ancient repository device that grabs O'Neill.

What is it supposed to depict? It has teeth like a Goa'uld symbiote, claws like some demon Unas, and some kind of scaly/reptilian look all over.
Why would the ancients make something so creepy looking to store all their knowledge? Especially since everything else they made looked quite different.

I mean, it looked kind of ominous. I wouldn't have stuck my head in that hoping that it belonged to a benevolent race (granted, O'Neill didn't have much choice). Had they said that it downloaded all the knowledge of the Wraiths I'd believe them.

Same thing for the "temple" structure where they find the second device. It's clearly a statue of some clawed monster figure, rather in the same spirit as the device itself.

Any thoughts on that? Or did they explain it at some point outside of the show?

Cheers!.=)

[Falcon Horus]

Welcome!

Looks like you have given quite a bit of thought about the subject, which I don't think has been discussed in as much detail over the years. At least, not that I can remember.

On that note, I've not given it as much thought. Most of the environment was barren and thus the repository the only thing of interest, making it the focal point of the room... and considering humans are curious to the point of "curiosity killed..." I'd probably have to say that it wouldn't have mattered how "dangerous" or "ominous" it looked... Someone would have stuck their head in eventually, which Teal'c did but he didn't see anything of interest cause of Junior's presence, while Jack as a human saw cool colors and lights.

The design of the claw... it had to fit around a head to keep it in place... claws are ideal for that sort of thing. Hands too.

[Krisz]

I think it was designed to be more of a lure, to lure in "curious" races. Any race with an element of curiosity and a level of intelligence will be drawn to the meaning of the sculpture wondering what it is. As for the temple structure which I found interesting, I've always wondered what the head must have looked like.

[Falcon Horus]

Anyone who's ever been to a museum or a place where there are tags stating "don't touch" knows that humans have a tendency to stick their heads/noses where it shouldn't belong anyways.

[Sparrowcat]

Sorry, late answer. ????

Blogs Really? That's funny cause the design immediately caught my notion. It looks like something out of the Alien movie.

But you're probably right, they would stick their heads into a anything new no matter how dangerous it looked.????
I was more intrigued why the design was so obviously non-ancient. It doesn't resemble any previous nor later ancient technologies on the show. (Unless there's something on SGU).

I suppose it will remain a mystery.

[Xaeden]

The long-range communication device has a similar design, I think. They're both darkly colored and have scales between a series of segmented ridges.

There's also some similarly to the base of the Sangraal.

[Sparrowcat]

The long-range communication device has a similar design, I think. They're both darkly colored and have scales between a series of segmented ridges.

There's also some similarly to the base of the Sangraal.

Good catch I totally missed that, you're right, there are definitely similarities. It's funny how they never found anything similar on Atlantis or the Pegasus galaxy. You'd think the ancients would have left something behind.

Maybe they only started with that look after they met the Goa'ulds.. that may have explained the design inspiration.

[Xaeden]

Well, we know the communication device's design is over 50 million years old because they found one that the Ancients left in the Ori galaxy before leaving for the Milky Way. sg1_903_1004.jpg

Ori galaxy copy of the device from "Origin."

There was also one in "The Ark of Truth" flashback, so it's pre-Destiny. It's possible the device had essentially become a museum relic that they stopped manufacturing ages before the plague, and Merlin may have tracked one of the last surviving original devices down because he wanted to explore the Ori galaxy. The Ancients wouldn't have had much use for it after they became well-established in the Milky Way as the gate network allowed them to travel between different parts of their civilization in seconds and it doesn't appear they spread to other galaxies before Atlantis left for Pegasus.

A long-range communication device was found in Pegasus, though, so that means one of the following is likely true: They did continue to manufacture new long-range communication devices but did not change the design after the plague, Atlantis or another ship that may have also survived the plague had outdated relic technology onboard, or Merlin traveled to the Pegasus galaxy after descending and left one there. PDVD_785.jpg

Device in the Pegasus galaxy from Atlantis' "Identity" (Season 5, Episode 18)

Merlin was found with a device that closely resembled the Repository of knowledge, but it lacked the head grabbers and had hand inputs. Also, while it was used to download information (in this case, Merlin's consciousness), its primarily purpose appeared to be to act as an interface for a molecular construction device.

DANIEL
Now this is obviously some sort of virtual interface, like a computer-assisted design program. Only in the past, we've seen it used to download information into someone's mind.

VALA
What sort of information?

DANIEL
All the knowledge of the Ancients.

VALA
That's a lot.

DANIEL
Yes. As a matter of fact, it's too much for a human brain to handle. It's fatal. But what if you could control it? Use it to store and load something more specific.

sg1_1011_0820.jpg

Merlin operating device from "The Quest, Part 2" (Season 10, Episode 11)

It could be that Merlin modified an existing Repository of knowledge or perhaps the device in Merlin's cave was the original. Some virtual interfaces may have been repurposed and slightly redesigned to serve as Repositories. In which case, the pictured device could have, like the communication device, been designed 50+ million years ago and some of those were made to serve as Repositories much later on.

It was never resolved how Merlin managed to keep his knowledge after descending, so I've wondered previously if the Repositories were created as a cheat to allow a mind-wiped Ancient to get back up to speed after returning to the physical plane. However, it's also possible that the Ancients repurposed or designed them when they were dying from the plague as a way to preserve their knowledge and it's coincidental that Merlin recovered a variant of that device.

[Xaeden]

Just rewatched "Ascension" and I noticed that the weapon that Orlin told the Velonans how to build also had a similar scale and ridge design.

Weapon:

normal_sg1_503_045.jpg


Weapon's control crystal "cabinet:"
normal_sg1_503_672.jpg

Daniel noted that it was "a completely different design from the rest of the civilization" at the beginning of the episode.

[Daryl Froggy]

I've never really thought about the difference in designs between all of the Ancient's tech. I've always just presumed that the Ancient's weren't a monolithic people/empire and while they shared an original language they developed different societies and styles throughout the galaxy and beyond.

However given that this strange "organic" metal design seems to be the most ancient of all their tech maybe it came from an advanced civilization that predated the Ancient's and helped jumpstart their tech forwards... In fact that race may have 'ascended' which was how the ancients even knew about the process in the first place.

In that regard some of "The Others" that were mentioned by Oma De Sala may have originally been part of that race, which would explain why the weapon that was given to the destroyed civilization shared a similar esthetic.

[Xaeden]

I found another one. Sort of.

Early concept art for "Lost City, Part 2" include a "drone portal," with a proposed design that shared similarities to the Repository and other technologies mentioned in this thread:

https://i0.wp.com/josephmallozzi.com...e_portal02.jpg

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Flost-city-concept-art-part-3-v0-2fv0h14wzvba1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D6620%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D7d3f714ad43 8f5e7a9638456ebc8124040b9f808

At that stage, the idea seems to be that it was a device that appeared when activated, per the text on the first image:

The missle/drone portal is a CGI element.

In scale it will be approx. 12 feet across.
O'Neill activates the portal from the "chair" interface. It suddenly
appears in the floor of the ice cave area just inside the arch
piece leading to the bore-hole.

Hundreds of drone/missles issue from this opening and swirl/fly up the bore-hole like embers from a massive bonfire.

See separate drawing for drone/missle concept

portal appears as a deep well with an energy field from which the drone/missles issue

In the final episode it became a tunnel that revealed itself when the ice covering it broke apart (presumably because the drones O'Neill activated produced heat):

sg1_722_785.jpg

sg1_722_793.jpg

That the dark ridge design was considered for a piece of Ancient technology from this era is interesting as it could have lead to a whole different aesthetic on "Stargate: Atlantis."

I also found concept art for the statue from the Ancient ruins, which Sparrowcat asked about in their original post.

Here it appears to have been conceived of as a four-legged animal with a reclining posture reminiscent of the Great Sphinx of Giza:

lost-city-concept-art-part-3-v0-4pzg3swqzvba1.jpg?width=615&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfaaa309672339533897aba44fdd723117493e05.jpg

Here we have a sitting humanoid that looks much like the final version we were presented in but the figure's head is still intact:

https://preview.redd.it/lost-city-concept-art-part-3-v0-bb26vswqzvba1.jpg?width=4704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d5eb9adffebf4401414511c1fb da3c97cea2e3b

Here are close-ups on one of the claws:

lost-city-concept-art-part-2-v0-9z1ze7knzvba1.jpg?width=2764&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3d1bdb2f7e0e1375a97c087e0c26e18a23326cf2.jpg

lost-city-concept-art-part-2-v0-5t70y1knzvba1.jpg?width=1026&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33bfc6f8359d2743394667f23b5a143ff4c2a53f.jpg

And, for comparison, here's the final version as it appeared in the episode:

sg1_721_157.jpg

Those and other images, including concept art for the Ancient Control Chair and an early version of Atlantis that was created when they intended for the actual city to be found in Antarctica, were posted by Joseph Mallozzi in the following locations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/co...pt_art_part_1/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/co...pt_art_part_2/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/co...pt_art_part_3/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stargate/co...pt_art_part_4/
https://josephmallozzi.com/2018/02/1...james-robbins/
https://josephmallozzi.com/2018/02/0...e-concept-art/

It looks to me like the claws may have originated in the reclining animal concept and, for whatever reason, it got carried over when the sitting humanoid was drawn (maybe the artist simply liked it or set design already started working on the right claw when Brad Wright or whoever soured on the idea of an animal statue). I couldn't find a version of the animal statue that is high quality enough for the date to be legible, so I can't confirm that it came first, but look at how the position of the claws change. In the animal statue, both claws are parallel, while the humanoid statue's right claw is further forward than its left.

That's undoubtedly a money saving trick. Because the animal statue's legs are horizontal, the production would have been able to film the physical claw structure by itself just by showing that the right leg was missing and shooting the structure from an angle. As the ends of humanoid feet, the claws would normally be too close to the statue to film one of them without having to add a CGI background. To get around that it looks like they decided to suggest that the right claw got pushed forward when the right leg collapsed. The end result is that the physical set and CGI statue never had to share a frame (the screengrab below shows how they framed the only portion of the statue actually built by set design), but it's a sloppier workaround than simply removing the animal statue's right leg.

sg1_721_160.jpg

In any case, I didn't see Mallozzi comment on the statue anywhere, but I haven't looked through his Tweets, where it seems he also posted a lot of these, and am thus not sure if he provided any background information there.

Someone in the "Part 3" Reddit thread did ask about the similarity of the dark ridge designs, though:

digitalae:

Thanks for sharing.
Always wondered why some ancient tech structural design looks very different, almost biomechanical; like the Drone portal here, the drones, the repository of knowledge, and maybe the Stargate destroyer. Are you able to share the originating idea or lore reason behind the different style?

Maybe something they adapted from another species, or could always be simply artistic licence from the people who work on the stories and concepts.

Mallozzi answered as he commonly does when he doesn't know something (the design predates his involvement with Sg-1, so he wouldn't have been involved in the initial approval process):

This would be a question for series co-creators Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper.