Gerak jaffa nation

[ancient1]

The character Gerak was a stupid idea. He came out nowhere and all of the sudden he became the de facto leader of the Jaffa Nation. Who was he before Baal/anubis was defeated, where was he. He wasnt even a first prime of one of the system lords. The entire premise was stupid because at the battle for Dakara, it was teal'c and bra'tac that were there and being celebrated by the other jaffas. No back story for Gerak, no nothing. Also the fact that teal'c nor bra'tac or other Jaffa didnt call out Gerak on his credentials as a jaffa rebel, on where was he when teal'c was known as the Shol'va' throughout the galaxy, it is what grieves me the most. This guy just shows up out of nowhere and takes over. Now i can understand him claiming leadership if he had the most jaffa following and the most hataks vessels under his control but how did he come to have those?. As i said, he didnt serve any major system lord nor was renowned, how does he had the most jaffa following him and from where did he get those ships.?

[thekillman]

Teal'cs ties with the Tau'ri made many question his true loyalty. Bra'tac was probably too wise for his own good, as many Jaffa lived in the old ways until recently.

I don't see why Gerak would have to become leader by force, or a leader by reputation. Considering the difficult heritage of the Jaffa, a political outsider may in fact be the best choice.

[ancient1]

Teal'cs ties with the Tau'ri made many question his true loyalty. Bra'tac was probably too wise for his own good, as many Jaffa lived in the old ways until recently.

I don't see why Gerak would have to become leader by force, or a leader by reputation. Considering the difficult heritage of the Jaffa, a political outsider may in fact be the best choice.

political outsider?. The council was formed by those who had the most military resources. Bra'tac and teal'c wanted to dissolve this and make a leadership by democracy but Gerak wanted no part of that.

Again, the council leadership was formed by those with most military resources, and gerak supposedly had the most. I dont think you remember most of that storyline.

[Xaeden]

Gerak was the first prime of a minor Goa'uld in service to Ba'al and therefore worked alongside Ba'al's forces and possibly had a leadership role among them. After the Goa'uld fell, Hubrok controlled Ba'al's armada, but he "disappeared" four months prior to the start of season 9. The implication was that Gerak got rid of him and used his authority to take his place (Hubrok may have even elevated Gerak to his number two for all we know), thus giving him control over the Free Jaffa's most powerful force.

[ancient1]

Gerak was the first prime of a minor Goa'uld in service to Ba'al and therefore worked alongside Ba'al's forces and possibly had a leadership role among them. After the Goa'uld fell, Hubrok controlled Ba'al's armada, but he "disappeared" four months prior to the start of season 9. The implication was that Gerak got rid of him and used his authority to take his place (Hubrok may have even elevated Gerak to his number two for all we know), thus giving him control over the Free Jaffa's most powerful force.

Your speculating a lot and even with that the story is lacking a lot. He was a first prime of a minor goauld, basically he was a nobody, he wasnt even Hubrok second in command. Why would any jaffa outside of the ones he commanded, follow him?. Even if he were lets say allied with the Hubrok's following, the time for him to acquire a leadership position was fairly small or non-existence. When did the jaffa allies stopped following Baal and start following Hubrok or should i say bra'tac because Bra'tac was the one commanding the jaffa forces at Dakara?. Gerak came out of nowhere and his claim to leadership is really non-sense at least when what we were shown. The whole story of the jaffa nation and gerak was just a "Put a sticker on it and lets concentrate on the ORI and mitchell at full force" by the writers. Basically they came up with a quick nonsensical story with the jaffa nation instead of developing a full understandable story arc to them. The ORI, the last two seasons that some complain a lot were not bad because jack O'neil wasnt there, it was because the show runners, the writers decided to create and dedicate the whole story on These so called ORI who by the way were never shown, it was the powered Priests story-arc. The ORI were not needed and it was a mistake. If they wanted to do a story about the ascended then please do that and make their presence felt. Dont do a powered priests story arc and dress it up as an ascended story arc.

What the show runners should have done with nine season was make stories about the organization of the galaxy now that the goauld had fallen with sg1 and the jaffa nation leading the way. I think creating factions within the Jaffa nation was the way to go but take your time and build up story around the characters. They wanted a Gerak, ok create a story that make sense on how gerak rose up to leadership. Have a few episodes where he indeed gets a lot of Jaffa to follow him because what we got was the Jaffa celebrating teal'c and Bra'tac at Dakara, and all of the sudden the next season, "im Gerak, look at me, look at me, im the leader now". The show runners should have put all their effort on organizing the galaxy and not bringing a new super enemy right away. There were a lot of goauld ships/tech left behind, have different factions take control of them and let them try to fill the vacuum on the good and evil side. The Lucian alliance was a nice idea, work more on that. Have the Asgard actually give SG1 and the tauri their technology instead of some database, give them some of those Oneils and daniel jackson's ships and have then organize the galaxy and be in the mix of the power struggle.

[Xaeden]

Your speculating a lot and even with that the story is lacking a lot.

Understanding fiction requires analysis of the gaps within stories.

he wasnt even Hubrok second in command.

Under the Goa'uld, no. How the power structure was defined following the fall of the system lords is unknown. Hubrok may have elevated him, possibly because the Jaffa directly under him remained loyal to Ba'al. This is speculative, true, but it's also a reasonable scenario for his rise to power.

Why would any jaffa outside of the ones he commanded, follow him?.

The same reasons human generals have gotten soldiers outside of their command to follow them in the aftermath of a successful coup. Power vacuums are tricky things, especially in times of upheaval as, for example, when an entire belief system crumbles and your god-king is overthrown. Someone smart, charismatic, rich, experienced, respected and/or authoritative can step in and co-opt a line of succession rather easily, especially if the person directly in line is not up to the challenge. History is filled with people like Garek who all of the sudden came into power after being a minor/unknown/seemingly unimportant figure prior.

Basically they came up with a quick nonsensical story with the jaffa nation instead of developing a full understandable story arc to them.

The writers skipped forward six months in time in order to allow the Jaffa situation to settle so that they could pick things back up in the aftermath because they felt that developing it as it happened would be less interesting to people. This is a fairly basic writing technique, but it does tend to create problems for some readers/viewers as a greater onus is put on them to fill in the blanks since the gap tends to be larger than your average transition between scenes.

You disagree with their decision to do that and think there was an interesting story to be told there. That's perfectly fair, and I am not going to argue with you in the slightest. My point is simply that it's also valid to tell a story with large gaps and trust the audience to be able to use the threads given to them to draw reasonable conclusions.

I have no problem with Garek's rise to power and in no way think it doesn't make sense, in part, because I've read historical description after historical description where someone died or was maimed (in many cases, under suspicious situations) and then all of the sudden in pops a newcomer to take his place. Sometimes their presence is under explained by historical accounts and requires heavy analysis, other times not. And although I don't know the specifics of how Garek took power after eliminating Hubrok, I can easily imagine many different scenarios because I've read about many different scenarios where this type of thing happened. That Hubrok elevated him to number 2 prior to his death is one of them. The point was never to say that was what happened, only to demonstrate that there are perfectly logical ways that he could have taken over that we were not told about.

A writer's job isn't to provide people with explanations for every gap, only to ensure that a gap can be reasonably explained. For example, if a character works on a high floor of an office building in which the elevator is broken and that character is on the street in one scene and then upstairs after cutting to another scene, does time need to be devoted to explain this or would you just assume that person took the stairs and move on? That's the type of thing a writer might trust the audience to figure out on his or her own. Garek's rise to power is the same thing. There's a greater level of trust because the knowledge to make sense of it is more involved, but the principle is the same.