Sam Carter/Jack O'Neill Ship Discussion Thread

[XFchemist]

This morning I had a long conversation about the fact S/J kid would be a Harcesis or not.

[fems]

Nice review! SJ_green.gif

[selene0789]

This morning I had a long conversation about the fact S/J kid would be a Harcesis or not.

Whoa wait, what? Why would they have a harcesis?

[fems]

Whoa wait, what? Why would they have a harcesis?

Because Sam was host to Jolinar and Jack to Kanan, I guess.

[Samantha-Carter-is-my-muse]

Thanks for the excellent reviews, nei and Amber

[XFchemist]

Because Sam was host to Jolinar and Jack to Kanan, I guess.

Yes for this reason. My theory is no but we talked about it and some things are not so clear.

So they say that a Harcesis is a child from 2 hosts.
They never said if Amanuet was a queen like Hathor or not. We don't really know how the knowledge is passed (naquada in the blood????). Does a Queen is required to have a Harcesis or 2 "simple" hosts are enough? There weren't so many Queens around so maybe the first theory is less possible. Then again I doubt Goa'uld female hosts are on birth control and the number of Harcesis children wouldn't be so low. Even though it's possible they just prefer to use slaves for sex.

Back to Sam and Jack.
Sam has a protein marker in her blood because Jolinar died inside her and they said it was the reason she could use Goa'uld technology. But Vala and the woman from Thor's Hammer could do the same and their symbiontes didn't die inside them. So what? It's then the naquadah? And how does it work? Does it enter in the blood stream when the Goa'uld takes posses of the host's body?
They never said that Jack had naquadah in his body though
Does the DNA of the Goa'uld remain somehow in the blood of the host even when the symbionte is dead/removed?

She also asked me if I believe Jolinar's memories could pass somehow to Sam's children (no matter who the father is).
I don't exactly know what was she's writing cuz I don't read all her stuff.

[selene0789]

My short answer is no. Sam and Jack could not have a harcesis child. My reasoning for this is because they are not CURRENT hosts. For me that's the deciding factor.

As far as Sam's children and Jolinar's memories go, I don't think humans are capable of passing on genetic memory. Sam has Jolinar's memories because they had a partial blending when Jolinar died. There was a link between their minds, and Sam's child would not be a part of that link, regardless of the naquadah or protein marker the child may or may not have.

[fems]

Yes for this reason. My theory is no but we talked about it and some things are not so clear.

<snip>

She also asked me if I believe Jolinar's memories could pass somehow to Sam's children (no matter who the father is).
I don't exactly know what was she's writing cuz I don't read all her stuff.

They never said that Sam can use the Goa'uld tech because of the protein marker. It's more likely that it's the naquadah, as both current and former hosts have naquadah in their system and are capable of using Goa'uld tech. Only former (or current) hosts who've had a (previous) symbiote die inside of them have the protein marker, as is explained in Legacy:

FRAISER
The Goa'uld died before their hosts. We know this due to a unique protein marker left in Goa'uld bodies, or host bodies, after a Goa'uld dies.
CARTER
(to Fraiser)
The same protein marker that was left in my body after Jolinar was killed.
FRAISER
Yes.
HAMMOND
How did they die, Doctor?
FRAISER
Well at this point, sir, I can't really give you an accurate answer, and I may never be able to.
HAMMOND
Why not?
FRAISER
As with Major Carter, when these Goa'uld symbiotes die they rapidly decayed and were absorbed by the host. There's no Goa'uld corpse for me to study.

(...)

CARTER
That has to be it. Janet said that when a Goa'uld dies, it dissolves into a host and leaves a unique protein marker.
DANIEL
So these Goa'uld killing inventions died because they detected a protein marker? Well, that doesn't make any sense. Why isn't Jack immune? He should have some sort of protein marker left over from Hathor's Goa'uld.
CARTER
No. No, that Goa'uld left Colonel O'Neill's body and died before it had a chance to take over.


Besides, Vala had her symbiote extracted by the Tok'ra IIRC and she can still use the Goa'uld tech, even though she has no protein marker. The host of Apophis would have no protein marker either, since he was taken host way back in Ancient Egypt and his one and only symbiote was still alive until they both died, so he only had naquadah in his system and could use Goa'uld tech. I do believe, however, that Kendra's (former host on Cimmeria) Goa'uld died inside of her as it seemed to me that Thor's Hammer killed the Goa'uld/symbiote while it was still inside of the host/Jaffa who could survive the process but would suffer a lot of pain (and a Jaffa would probably die soon thereafter without a symbiote).

The genetic memory can't be passed on via naquadah in the blood since we know the primordial Goa'uld on P3X-888 (Chaka's world) didn't have any naquadah in their bodies and evolved by taking over Unas before they eventually moved onto humans and presumably somehow introduced naquadah into their physiology as well as scavenging some other race's technology which probably led to them having ribbon devices etc (might be that they needed the naquadah to operate this tech or they altered the tech to make it operable only by them after already acquiring naquadah in their systems).

Queen-thing

Spoiler:

The whole Queen (as in Hathor) vs queen (as in regular Goa'uld in female host) thing is vague at best in the show and they've never given a proper explanation for it. They said Queens can reproduce sexually, either because they like it or need to fine tune their offspring's DNA to make future blending more successful, but they can also reproduce asexually, like Egeria on Pangar. That makes no sense whatsoever, though, if you take the genetic memory into account: if the Queen reproduces asexually then she can only pass her own knowledge onto her offspring and if she does it sexually then it's her and whichever Unas or human's knowledge she mates with that is passed onto the offspring.

We don't know what makes a Queen a Queen but regardless of that all the knowledge she could possibly pass on is through her line alone, so either just her mother (also a Queen, whose mother is a Queen whose mother is a Queen etc) or her mother and a human, unless they can somehow mate with a Goa'uld (in a human) too without ending up with harsesis offspring because then it could be the genetic memory of both Goa'uld lines that is passed onto her batch of prim'ta.

Therefore, I choose to believe that it's the joining of a Queen and a Goa'uld (in a human) that produces Goa'uld with (valuable) genetic memory and they're most likely the Goa'uld we meet in the show, like Klorel claiming to be Apophis' son.

Spoiler:

Within the Serpent's Grasp

KLOREL
Ah, Teal'c, the traitor. I will take great pleasure in delivering his head to my father.
O'NEILL
He's not your father.
KLOREL
He is my father. He seeded the queen mother. He chose the host in which I will live out eternity. Apophis gave me life.

Anything else, like Hathor mating with Daniel (a human) would probably lead to weaker symbiotes and are quite possibly the ones that get eaten by the System Lords (SL) once they're mature. They're pretty useless after all, with no 'extra' knowledge from their genetic memory (only from the Queen) and will only become extra competition for the SL. So, those kind of symbiotes as well as the ones produced after asexual reproduction are, in my opinion, only good for foot soldiers - to keep the Goa'uld's Jaffa alive - and are probably discarded once they are mature. Of course, it's hard to tell whether a Goa'uld would know which symbiotes are the good and bad kind, so perhaps not all the weaker ones are eaten and when they mature and take a host they become under lords or informants, like Tanith.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past the Goa'uld to give their priests the good kind of symbiotes, like Shan'auc who 'carried' Tanith and the female Jaffa who 'carried' Amaunet in the pilot. It would, after all, be a bit of a waste to give your footsoldier Jaffa the good kind of symbiotes considering how many of them end up dead.

It's also possible, with the (current?) low number of Queens, that only the mating of a Queen and a Goa'uld results in another Queen among the rest of the symbiotes. I can imagine that they don't really need many Queens considering the longevity of a symbiote once it's mature, so perhaps there's only one Queen every few batches of prim'ta. Or maybe the Queens are weaker or harder to identify etc, which makes it more difficult for them to survive into adulthood to start producing more Goa'uld. Perhaps they only have a relatively short amount of time in which they are fertile or their offspring are weaker the older the Queen is.

Like I said, vague at best.

Amaunet vs Hathor

Spoiler:

I don't believe Amaunet was a Queen like Hathor, simply because it was never mentioned before (and they were around at the same time) and Amaunet isn't associated with any major fertility goddess. She is, however, called a 'mother goddess' and 'the mother who is father' because she needs no husband (asexual reproduction?) so I guess it is possible. Interestingly enough, Amaunet wasn't Apophis' mate or even associated with him in Egyptian mythology. Hathor, though, is associated with Isis and Aphrodite and, according to Hathor "Ishtar of Babylon, Astarte of Syria, Ceres of Rome". So, I'm more inclined to believe those Goa'uld are all Queens and Amaunet is simply a 'queen', a Goa'uld in a female host and, like many women, expected to be subservient to her powerful mate, Apophis (that has got to suck if you're a powerful Goa'uld and end up in a woman's body).

Harsesis

Spoiler:

Anyway, they say that a harsesis is the human child of two hosts, so I'm inclined to believe it's between any two hosts as long as one of them is male and the other female. And considering the power a Goa'uld has over its host, I don't think it's too much to expect them to be able to regulate fertility and such as well, which means that two mated Goa'uld could have sex without one of them getting pregnant with a harsesis. Plus, a harsesis is forbidden and punishable by death, so it stands to reason that it would be possible for two Goa'uld to choose to go for it or not.

We don't know if there are any other regular Goa'uld queens who were impregnated by their mate but personally I think it might be uncommon yet not unheard of. It's just that most Goa'uld we've met seem to be rather vain and power hungry, so I can imagine a Goa'uld in a female host is not very willing to carry a child to term, especially not if they have to 'sleep' throughout the duration of the pregnancy like in Amaunet|Sha're's case. I mean, who's to say the host doesn't suddenly rebel and undo all the "great" things the Goa'uld had accomplished? It would be much easier for them to tell their mate to impregnate the lo'taurs if they need/want human offspring for whatever reason. Then those lowly humans will have to deal with the pregnancy and childbirth, plus it gives them incentive not to rebel against their god or they might never see their kid(s) again.

To make a long story short, I think it's a conscious choice of a Goa'uld to impress their memories on someone, be that a host or (human) offspring. If that's true then two mated Goa'uld can do whatever they want without producing a harsesis and if they do want one then they have to both pass along their genetic memory. I guess you could say it's a bit of a half-breed thing: two Goa'uld can't make new Goa'uld unless one of them is a Queen, and if they have sex with a human or fellow Goa'uld (who is not a Queen) then it can become either a normal human or a half-breed known as harsesis (a human with all the knowledge of the Goa'uld).

Having said that, I still think the concept of a harsesis is ridiculous, since it would only be two lines of Goa'uld who would pass on their knowledge and that simply cannot result in the human offspring knowing all of the Goa'uld knowledge. Granted, there is quite a bit of inbreeding in the Goa'uld society, so many of them are probably related to each other in one way or another and that will result in lots of knowledge but it's still just two contributors and not the entire race.

The whole Kanan thing is still vague too as they imply the blending was never entirely successful and with him not dying in Jack it's unlikely the coward chose to impress his memories on Jack like Jolinar did with Sam. Still, even if Jack has managed to keep all that to himself and no one ever noticed he had naquadah in his system (I don't believe he does), I still don't think Sam and Jack could produce a harsesis simply because neither of them are current hosts and thus don't have the ability to pass on the genetic memory of their former symbiotes.

And yes, as you can imagine, I have given this quite a bit of thought! The issues first came up for one of my fics (Lost) and then there was one for A Karswyll (unpublished) and there's another one I'm working on that deals with some of the minor stuff of the whole Goa'uld reproduction.

[Starship Trooper]

I haven't even seen Alien yet.

WHAT?!?! Only one of the best sci-fi movies ever made!!!! Go watch Alien and Aliens now. I ignore the rest. They don't exist. Ripley and a power loader. Awesomeness.

That's part of it. My parents had wildly inappropriate notions of movies suitable for young children. You wouldn't believe how young I was when I saw Aliens for the first (and last) time.

I will stick to Disney cartoons and Stargate rewatches.

My problem was having older brothers with age gaps of more than a decade. They would watch stuff and I'd just sit in with them. I've been watching 18 rated movies since the age of 7. Funnily enough, the only movie that I ever felt really traumatised by was The Neverending Story! A film meant for children! I had nightmares about that black wolf-thing for weeks!

And to bring this back on topic, I think Jack would be more a Predator fan, while Sam goes for the original Alien. I think she would enjoy the suspense of it. Jack would like the big explosions of Predator.

What do you guys think?

And so I don't make this post completely OT, since Sam clearly demonstrates a fondness for blowing stuff up, I think Sam would also like the big action films.

[Sparky She-Demon]

They never said that Sam can use the Goa'uld tech because of the protein marker. It's more likely that it's the naquadah, as both current and former hosts have naquadah in their system and are capable of using Goa'uld tech. Only former (or current) hosts who've had a (previous) symbiote die inside of them have the protein marker, as is explained in Legacy:

FRAISER
The Goa'uld died before their hosts. We know this due to a unique protein marker left in Goa'uld bodies, or host bodies, after a Goa'uld dies.
CARTER
(to Fraiser)
The same protein marker that was left in my body after Jolinar was killed.
FRAISER
Yes.
HAMMOND
How did they die, Doctor?
FRAISER
Well at this point, sir, I can't really give you an accurate answer, and I may never be able to.
HAMMOND
Why not?
FRAISER
As with Major Carter, when these Goa'uld symbiotes die they rapidly decayed and were absorbed by the host. There's no Goa'uld corpse for me to study.

(...)

CARTER
That has to be it. Janet said that when a Goa'uld dies, it dissolves into a host and leaves a unique protein marker.
DANIEL
So these Goa'uld killing inventions died because they detected a protein marker? Well, that doesn't make any sense. Why isn't Jack immune? He should have some sort of protein marker left over from Hathor's Goa'uld.
CARTER
No. No, that Goa'uld left Colonel O'Neill's body and died before it had a chance to take over.


Besides, Vala had her symbiote extracted by the Tok'ra IIRC and she can still use the Goa'uld tech, even though she has no protein marker. The host of Apophis would have no protein marker either, since he was taken host way back in Ancient Egypt and his one and only symbiote was still alive until they both died, so he only had naquadah in his system and could use Goa'uld tech. I do believe, however, that Kendra's (former host on Cimmeria) Goa'uld died inside of her as it seemed to me that Thor's Hammer killed the Goa'uld/symbiote while it was still inside of the host/Jaffa who could survive the process but would suffer a lot of pain (and a Jaffa would probably die soon thereafter without a symbiote).

The genetic memory can't be passed on via naquadah in the blood since we know the primordial Goa'uld on P3X-888 (Chaka's world) didn't have any naquadah in their bodies and evolved by taking over Unas before they eventually moved onto humans and presumably somehow introduced naquadah into their physiology as well as scavenging some other race's technology which probably led to them having ribbon devices etc (might be that they needed the naquadah to operate this tech or they altered the tech to make it operable only by them after already acquiring naquadah in their systems).

Queen-thing

Spoiler:

The whole Queen (as in Hathor) vs queen (as in regular Goa'uld in female host) thing is vague at best in the show and they've never given a proper explanation for it. They said Queens can reproduce sexually, either because they like it or need to fine tune their offspring's DNA to make future blending more successful, but they can also reproduce asexually, like Egeria on Pangar. That makes no sense whatsoever, though, if you take the genetic memory into account: if the Queen reproduces asexually then she can only pass her own knowledge onto her offspring and if she does it sexually then it's her and whichever Unas or human's knowledge she mates with that is passed onto the offspring.

We don't know what makes a Queen a Queen but regardless of that all the knowledge she could possibly pass on is through her line alone, so either just her mother (also a Queen, whose mother is a Queen whose mother is a Queen etc) or her mother and a human, unless they can somehow mate with a Goa'uld (in a human) too without ending up with harsesis offspring because then it could be the genetic memory of both Goa'uld lines that is passed onto her batch of prim'ta.

Therefore, I choose to believe that it's the joining of a Queen and a Goa'uld (in a human) that produces Goa'uld with (valuable) genetic memory and they're most likely the Goa'uld we meet in the show, like Klorel claiming to be Apophis' son.

Spoiler:

Within the Serpent's Grasp

KLOREL
Ah, Teal'c, the traitor. I will take great pleasure in delivering his head to my father.
O'NEILL
He's not your father.
KLOREL
He is my father. He seeded the queen mother. He chose the host in which I will live out eternity. Apophis gave me life.

Anything else, like Hathor mating with Daniel (a human) would probably lead to weaker symbiotes and are quite possibly the ones that get eaten by the System Lords (SL) once they're mature. They're pretty useless after all, with no 'extra' knowledge from their genetic memory (only from the Queen) and will only become extra competition for the SL. So, those kind of symbiotes as well as the ones produced after asexual reproduction are, in my opinion, only good for foot soldiers - to keep the Goa'uld's Jaffa alive - and are probably discarded once they are mature. Of course, it's hard to tell whether a Goa'uld would know which symbiotes are the good and bad kind, so perhaps not all the weaker ones are eaten and when they mature and take a host they become under lords or informants, like Tanith.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past the Goa'uld to give their priests the good kind of symbiotes, like Shan'auc who 'carried' Tanith and the female Jaffa who 'carried' Amaunet in the pilot. It would, after all, be a bit of a waste to give your footsoldier Jaffa the good kind of symbiotes considering how many of them end up dead.

It's also possible, with the (current?) low number of Queens, that only the mating of a Queen and a Goa'uld results in another Queen among the rest of the symbiotes. I can imagine that they don't really need many Queens considering the longevity of a symbiote once it's mature, so perhaps there's only one Queen every few batches of prim'ta. Or maybe the Queens are weaker or harder to identify etc, which makes it more difficult for them to survive into adulthood to start producing more Goa'uld. Perhaps they only have a relatively short amount of time in which they are fertile or their offspring are weaker the older the Queen is.

Like I said, vague at best.

Amaunet vs Hathor

Spoiler:

I don't believe Amaunet was a Queen like Hathor, simply because it was never mentioned before (and they were around at the same time) and Amaunet isn't associated with any major fertility goddess. She is, however, called a 'mother goddess' and 'the mother who is father' because she needs no husband (asexual reproduction?) so I guess it is possible. Interestingly enough, Amaunet wasn't Apophis' mate or even associated with him in Egyptian mythology. Hathor, though, is associated with Isis and Aphrodite and, according to Hathor "Ishtar of Babylon, Astarte of Syria, Ceres of Rome". So, I'm more inclined to believe those Goa'uld are all Queens and Amaunet is simply a 'queen', a Goa'uld in a female host and, like many women, expected to be subservient to her powerful mate, Apophis (that has got to suck if you're a powerful Goa'uld and end up in a woman's body).

Harsesis

Spoiler:

Anyway, they say that a harsesis is the human child of two hosts, so I'm inclined to believe it's between any two hosts as long as one of them is male and the other female. And considering the power a Goa'uld has over its host, I don't think it's too much to expect them to be able to regulate fertility and such as well, which means that two mated Goa'uld could have sex without one of them getting pregnant with a harsesis. Plus, a harsesis is forbidden and punishable by death, so it stands to reason that it would be possible for two Goa'uld to choose to go for it or not.

We don't know if there are any other regular Goa'uld queens who were impregnated by their mate but personally I think it might be uncommon yet not unheard of. It's just that most Goa'uld we've met seem to be rather vain and power hungry, so I can imagine a Goa'uld in a female host is not very willing to carry a child to term, especially not if they have to 'sleep' throughout the duration of the pregnancy like in Amaunet|Sha're's case. I mean, who's to say the host doesn't suddenly rebel and undo all the "great" things the Goa'uld had accomplished? It would be much easier for them to tell their mate to impregnate the lo'taurs if they need/want human offspring for whatever reason. Then those lowly humans will have to deal with the pregnancy and childbirth, plus it gives them incentive not to rebel against their god or they might never see their kid(s) again.

To make a long story short, I think it's a conscious choice of a Goa'uld to impress their memories on someone, be that a host or (human) offspring. If that's true then two mated Goa'uld can do whatever they want without producing a harsesis and if they do want one then they have to both pass along their genetic memory. I guess you could say it's a bit of a half-breed thing: two Goa'uld can't make new Goa'uld unless one of them is a Queen, and if they have sex with a human or fellow Goa'uld (who is not a Queen) then it can become either a normal human or a half-breed known as harsesis (a human with all the knowledge of the Goa'uld).

Having said that, I still think the concept of a harsesis is ridiculous, since it would only be two lines of Goa'uld who would pass on their knowledge and that simply cannot result in the human offspring knowing all of the Goa'uld knowledge. Granted, there is quite a bit of inbreeding in the Goa'uld society, so many of them are probably related to each other in one way or another and that will result in lots of knowledge but it's still just two contributors and not the entire race.

The whole Kanan thing is still vague too as they imply the blending was never entirely successful and with him not dying in Jack it's unlikely the coward chose to impress his memories on Jack like Jolinar did with Sam. Still, even if Jack has managed to keep all that to himself and no one ever noticed he had naquadah in his system (I don't believe he does), I still don't think Sam and Jack could produce a harsesis simply because neither of them are current hosts and thus don't have the ability to pass on the genetic memory of their former symbiotes.

And yes, as you can imagine, I have given this quite a bit of thought! The issues first came up for one of my fics (Lost) and then there was one for A Karswyll (unpublished) and there's another one I'm working on that deals with some of the minor stuff of the whole Goa'uld reproduction.

Nice explanations fems.

[Starship Trooper]

Great review AmberLM!

Other moments of note include Jack's comment that he'd rather be blown up than eaten by bugs. I found that quite moving that he asked Daniel to kill him to save him the pain. Major Davis, as always, is delightful. He's incredibly passionate in his pleas to SG-1 to give him a viable plan that he and the Pentagon can work with; he, unlike most of the Pentagon windbags, knows it's a big ask but he clearly has faith in their abilities to come up with the goods. He's also clearly distressed at the thought of being ordered to kill O'Neill and Teal'c. His relief at the end is palpable, just as it is in 'Tangent'.

Definitely agree with you about Davis. I think he is fantastic. I genuinely thought I spotted him shedding a tear in Tangent when they think Jack and Teal'c are goners.

The Russian at the start translates as "What was that noise?" "Maybe it's the bug from last week's episode!" Lol.

LOL! Thank you for this factoid! I often wondered why they never used subtitles. Now I know!!

Sam's distracted from her work worrying about Earth. Funny how Thor directly relates her being worried to her thinking about Jack (I think we have another shipper on our team lol!)

Yes yes yes! Thor is definitely a shipper.

[hlndncr]

This morning I had a long conversation about the fact S/J kid would be a Harcesis or not.

The real take away from all of these theories and discussions is that the information we have is unclear and contradictory. There is no definitive answer. Therefore, I think if your friend wants to write a story where Jack and Sam have a harcesis child she should do it. I believe there is enough evidence in the show to come up with a plausible arguement for it. It doesn't have to fit other's theories or conclusions. It's an intriguing idea.

[Sparky She-Demon]

I'd say it's possible, but unlikely.

[hedwig]

Personally I think that only two fully "hosted" people would be able to produce a Harcesis, since they still have symbiotes.

[Lt.Colonel John Sheppard]

i always thought the kid of sam and jack would have both naquadah and the ancient gene.