Why did I only like SG1??

[ReganX]

I don't think that there's anything wrong or abnormal about liking only one show in a franchise. It could be something as simple as enjoying one or more of the characters on one show, while you don't feel the same connection to the characters on the others.

Stargate: SG-1 was my favourite largely because I loved most of the main characters. With Atlantis, I grew very fond of some of them, but not to the same extent.

[Chaka-Z0]

Nothing wrong indeed. I used to be a huge SGU fan and somehow got really emotionally involved in this show. I was so salty when it got cancelled that I *renounced* SG1 and SGA.

Needless to say I ended up rewatching again, and now I'm unsure which one I like the most!

[jelgate]

Nothing wrong indeed. I used to be a huge SGU fan and somehow got really emotionally involved in this show. I was so salty when it got cancelled that I *renounced* SG1 and SGA.

Needless to say I ended up rewatching again, and now I'm unsure which one I like the most!

Stargate Infinity?

[Davey]

Actually I DID like SG1 season 1-7. I was just pointing out the problems with some of the built in limitations of presenting a story that encompasses literally the whole galaxy if not the universe an entire planets ( made up of a few dozen people)........The points I raised were elements I didn't like, but compared to the other series it was far better.
Personally, I don't understand the meaning of fandom that adores "everything Stargate". Does such a person not examine things critically and just gets excited about anything called Stargate?!

[Falcon Horus]

Personally, I don't understand the meaning of fandom that adores "everything Stargate". Does such a person not examine things critically and just gets excited about anything called Stargate?!

Wait till they start on the "true fans" thing... that's always an interesting conversation to have.

[Davey]

All the points of criticism are very well taken and express how I feel. I disliked the Ori storyline very much. And once I saw the stuff about the Wraith on Atlantis I couldn't take it anymore. I found it disgusting.
One other thing I noticed after rewatching some episodes of SG1. They would go to a planet to some enemy who ruled "the planet" and found that of the enemy there were just a handful of them, and even just a handful of the subjugated population on an entire planet. Take Broca Divide in season 1. The number of the "touched" seen in the episode was about 10. And the untouched on the Side of Light of the planet was two plus two guards. I realize very well that the producers were not going to provide hundreds of bit part actors just to make it more realistic, but it seemed to stretch credulity to imagine that a few rulers exist along side just a handful of subjugated people. Another case was The First Commandment. How is one supposed to believe that there are merely a handful of people existing on an entire planet. Beyond that, if a planet were truly populated, what would it mean that a single stargate was located only in a single isolated location. It would be like Earth having its single unsupervised stargate located in Hawaii far from the rest of the entirety of the world's population. What good would that be?

I just rewatched Cold Lazarus from Season 1 and was struck by the issue of visiting a small area of an planet with a few beings, leaving me to wonder "what was everywhere else on that planet?" And then even more than that I was left wondering why the writers left poor Sarah hanging all alone to wonder what Jack was doing with the "stargate" after seeing his double and the double of Charlie. Too bad these things were never pursued somehow to enrich the context of his personal life and to give context for the problem of visiting tiny areas of entire planets.

[Davey]

I think I just realized that the greater context of a single stargate on a sparsely populated planet could have been explained to say that the installation of a single stargate on a planet of a tiny population was intentional by the stargate builders (the Ancients). In other words they realized a stargate could not serve any purpose for a planet of millions or billions of people. For purposes of asserting control, or experimentation, or slavery it was eventually to be understood as serving its purpose being installed specifically at the location of a relatively small population. Stargates for this purpose on populous planets could have no benefit to the creators, the conquerors or the subordinate population. This would even apply to the planet of Jonas Quinn, which seemed to still have a relatively small population. So Earth itself was not originally intended to be a heavily populated planet either when the original stargate was installed in Egypt. A context such as this would have helped address concerns about realism, so that the planets visited by SG1 were specifically those types of planets.

[NickEast]

I think I just realized that the greater context of a single stargate on a sparsely populated planet could have been explained to say that the installation of a single stargate on a planet of a tiny population was intentional by the stargate builders (the Ancients). In other words they realized a stargate could not serve any purpose for a planet of millions or billions of people. For purposes of asserting control, or experimentation, or slavery it was eventually to be understood as serving its purpose being installed specifically at the location of a relatively small population. Stargates for this purpose on populous planets could have no benefit to the creators, the conquerors or the subordinate population. This would even apply to the planet of Jonas Quinn, which seemed to still have a relatively small population. So Earth itself was not originally intended to be a heavily populated planet either when the original stargate was installed in Egypt. A context such as this would have helped address concerns about realism, so that the planets visited by SG1 were specifically those types of planets.

You have to remember that the stargates were built by the Ancients for the Ancients. There were no other civilizations in the galaxy at the time the Ancients lived here; all current civilizations evolved after they left, mostly due to the Dakara device seeding new life in the galaxy after the plague. And while there can be multiple stargates on one planet, or one solar system, like Earth, only one can ever be used at the same time. And the Ancients would only put one gate on a planet because placing more gates would be useless and a waste of resources.

The gate in Egypt was placed there by Ra somewhere after his arrival in 8,000 BC, because the original gate was buried in Antarctica and he didn't know it existed (the Lanteans came back through that gate by the way as it wasn't yet frozen in ice). The other planets are sparsely populated because the Goa'uld only ever took as much slaves as they needed and would control the population to avoid too much growth and expansion. It's also logical that the main population would remain near the gate, or that the gate would be brought closer to their operations, like mines, so they won't have to travel so far (in addition to the presence of the gate instilling fear). In Cold Lazarus, the crystal explained that the Jaffa brought all crystals they could find to that clearing to destroy them all, so they could have been all over the place.

[Davey]

Good point, Nivao. However, isn't it the case that a single stargate on a heavily populated planet would signify that whoever came through the stargate at that particular location who not be able to have contact with the rest of the planet and control travel through the gate from very far locations? That's why I wanted to assume that the gates were installed for use on planets with small populations nearby the gates. Either way, it would have been a good idea in the movie(s) or SG1 to give some kind of context. I hate to think of what it would imply for the Wraith to have access to stargates. <yuck>

Furthermore, realism could have been established if SG1 travel through the gate was assumed to be restricted to going to planets with very small populations in terms of research and making contact. Because even if their tests showed this or that positive situation, there is no way on earth (no pun intended) that they could have possibly known what dangers lurked hundreds or thousands of miles away from the gate. Of course there is no guarantee that even with a small population some natural danger might exist somewhere that could endanger them. Just imagine a population of whatever type of a few dozen or a few hundred people having an ENTIRE PLANET to themselves! Such as in the the Broca Divide, Brief Candle, Cold Lazarus, where the entire population of the planet was limited to a literal handful of people! On Argos the people wanted to know what was out in the planet beyond their village. Of course we would assume that the planet may have had animal and plant life but no other human beings at all.

[NickEast]

The gates were there first and the population was brought through the gates to those planets, so it's the other way around. The Goa'uld would discover the planet, find out there are naquadah deposits, or other valuable resources, and bring slaves to mine it. If the gate was too far away from the mines, then it logically would be brought closer so that it would be easier to travel from the gate to the mines.

The reason SG teams don't travel further from the gate doesn't really have anything to do with dangers far out. It's difficult to bring vehicles through the gate, and they wouldn't know what dangers are on a planet period. They want to be able to get in and out fast if necessary and don't want to expose themselves so easily, so they go by foot. And they can't really travel dozens of miles from the gate without sufficient supplies and knowing their way back, not to mention the limited range of radio communications. And since most populations would be found close to the gate, there would not be any reason to explore hundreds of miles unless they had a good reason. And even then, they have UAVs that can explore a larger area more quickly, later with spaceships.

And don't forget, Wraith do have access to gates (in the Pegasus galaxy). They just aren't able to reach the Milky-Way, and even if they did (hint), they won't know where to go since they don't know any coordinates in our galaxy. Besides, they much prefer Earth. If, hypothetically, they arrive in our galaxy and use the gates, then yes, other worlds would easily fall prey to them. That is what happened with the Ori basically.

And yes, a small population would have the entire planet to themselves. With ships like the gliders and Ha'taks, the Jaffa would have made sure the planet is safe for them and their slaves. It's not so difficult to scan and clear an entire planet with that many ships.

EDIT: @Davey You do make some interesting points about these things, which was quite interesting for me to explore. Could be very inspirational for some fan fiction...

[Davey]

I think our discussion is making a nice contribution to the overall context issue of Stargate in general. It would be nice if those involved in producing future films and series would sit down and think about these things. I enjoy our exchange on this, and I hope others do too.
Now, does one imagine that theoretically if there were additional populations far away from the gate they too would be worth investigating? Or would it simply be beyond the realm of financial and material reality for the SG Command? They must have "thought" about the implications of having access to ENTIRE planets. But as you point out there are inherent limitations. One would have to assume that such populations far away would simply be ignored and never even know about the stargate.
Am I correct that on Jonas Quinn's 1940s planet there were TWO different countries facing a war? Or was that a different episode? Those scenarios would have had ALOT of potential to explore this whole issue of a larger population, no knowledge of the gate, access by SG Command, interactions, etc....

[NickEast]

I think our discussion is making a nice contribution to the overall context issue of Stargate in general. It would be nice if those involved in producing future films and series would sit down and think about these things. I enjoy our exchange on this, and I hope others do too.
Now, does one imagine that theoretically if there were additional populations far away from the gate they too would be worth investigating? Or would it simply be beyond the realm of financial and material reality for the SG Command? They must have "thought" about the implications of having access to ENTIRE planets. But as you point out there are inherent limitations. One would have to assume that such populations far away would simply be ignored and never even know about the stargate.
Am I correct that on Jonas Quinn's 1940s planet there were TWO different countries facing a war? Or was that a different episode? Those scenarios would have had ALOT of potential to explore this whole issue of a larger population, no knowledge of the gate, access by SG Command, interactions, etc....

Theoretically, there could indeed be other populations further away from the gate. It could be that people would leave the main village after the Goa'uld had abandoned them, or when they were freed by the Tau'ri. In an Atlantis episode, the plot deals with the inhabitants of many separated settlements having to travel to the gate in a hurry. I believe there have also been a few examples in the Milky-Way. In these cases, the people don't really care about the stargate at all, or want to live as far away as possible hoping in vain that when the Goa'uld or Wraith would come, they would not find them.

As for Jonas' world, that is Langara. It had three Industrial Revolution-style nations locked in a Cold War (Kelowna, Terania, and the Andari Federation). This is the planet where naquadria originated from. In another episode was the planet, Tegalus I now remember, I previously mentioned with the Rand Protectorate and Caledonia, both nations also locked in a Cold War. SG-1's arrival eventually caused a coup-d'etat which resulted in a short nuclear war. Sounds harsh, but it wasn't SG-1's direct fault. It was simply an excuse used by pro-Goa'uld religious extremists to take over one country, forcing the other to respond in self defense.

[Davey]

I suppose that an alternative format could work theoretically. Where every few weeks a different SG team would be covered on their ongoing visit to a planet, i.e. that they have come for an extended visit of several weeks or months and set up camp to survey more of the planet. Of course this would require hiring more cast for the show only a part-time basis and probably wouldn't succeed. And of course moving far away from the gate would create great risks of being at a location of the planet that was inaccessible to the gate anyway. So I guess it's a conflict of reality versus reality.

[Davey]

One other issue that always comes to mind with SG (as well as SciFi in general) is the impression that somehow all beings in the universe converse in 20th century idiomatic American English, or at least standard non-slang English without the benefit of any kind of language conversion technology.

[NickEast]

One other issue that always comes to mind with SG (as well as SciFi in general) is the impression that somehow all beings in the universe converse in 20th century idiomatic American English, or at least standard non-slang English without the benefit of any kind of language conversion technology.

The reason is simple: would you like to see the characters learn to speak a new language in every episode, then spend the last 5 minutes of the episode on the actual story? Not to mention the amount of languages the writers will have to come up with, and which every actor, and every new guest actor, would have to learn.

Daniel "learning" the language in the original movie was helped by the fact that they were all speaking an evolved variation of Ancient Egyptian, which he could speak. It took him several more episodes to learn the rest of the Goa'uld language, and several seasons to learn Ancient.

In the rest of the sci-fi, it's all relative to the listener since in those cases it's always a variation of a universal translator. Star Trek has the universal translator; Mass Effect has cybernetic implants. In both cases, everyone speaks their own language most of the time, with the translator adapting it to the native language of the listener. You then have to look past the fact that everyone seems to still be speaking English (since everyone actually speaks English, so their mouths match the English words and not their native language), and that sometimes certain slang gets through (like with Klingon).

I believe a Stargate novel explained that the DHDs/stargates themselves somehow allow anyone that travels through a gate will be given some form of "translator microbes", or an understanding of a "universal language", to be able to understand the alien languages. But this opens up a whole other can of worms, because why would Daniel then have to learn Ancient and Goa'uld in the first place?