Stargate musings
I'm in the (long) process of rewatching Stargate SG-1 with lark_ascending. While my general impression of the series as being awesomely wonderful is unchanged, there are some annoying bugs I've noticed in the process.
Film How did the team dial home? Daniel unearthed the DHD after everyone else left (he says so in Children of the Gods). But in Torment of Tantalus, SG-1 behave like they've never dialled manually before. And they didn't seem to need a thunderstorm in order to leave Abydos.
Thor's Hammer Isn't the obvious thing to do, once Unas has been properly dealt with, for Teal'c to stay in the labyrinth while a team goes back to Chulak and steals a Goa'uld larva (again). Once that's safely at SGC, Teal'c can leave junior behind in the caves and take off through the hammer archway, past the transporter thingummy, through the gate back home, and implant the new larva. (It doesn't take that long to get there - about as long as it took O'Neill and Teal'c to wander around the caves a bit and almost get eaten by Unas! Of course, this means that Heru'ur can't invade Cimmeria and we don't get to meet Thor in Thor's Chariot next season. And Sam doesn't find out that she can use cool toys like the hand device.
Solitudes The Antarctic gate has a DHD, and it looks as if the DHD actually works (but Carter botched by trying to dial Earth, so it didn't actually lock). So, why did the SGC not take the Antarctic DHD and replace their grim (and slow - the SGA missed a dial-out opportunity in There but for the Grace of God because Apophis's forces could dial faster) computer lash-up thing?
Hathor and Need Why does a Goa'uld sarcophagus detonate after being zapped by a hand device but not after being zapped with a staff weapon? After all, staff weapons seem to damage people rather more than hand devices do (unpleasant burning and usually death, versus being thrown about a bit).
Prisoners Linea seems to have a small device, which she uses to kill Vishnoor and to disable various SGC personnel. It sounds a lot like a Goa'uld device, but if so, (a) where did she get it, (b) how come she still has it in prison, and (c) how come she can use it? Is, or was, she a Goa'uld host? If she was but isn't now, then did the Taldur remove the parasite, and why is she still behaving so badly?
Secrets Stop pratting about, Daniel. Remember, Thor's restored his Hammer on Cimmeria now, so just take Sha're there. But if we do that, then the rest of Ammaunet's arc doesn't happen, and, worse, maybe Daniel gets to live Happily Ever After. Come to think of it, how come Bra'tac's still running around? I'd have thought Klorel would have had him declared shol'va by now, given his activities in The Serpent's Lair.
And finally, I'm totally confused by the gate addressing system. You dial seven symbols into the gate, chosen from an alphabet of 39. The first six represent constellations: you take them in pairs to define three straight lines: your destination is the intersection of the lines. The seventh represents a `point of origin'. Problems:
Film How did the team dial home? Daniel unearthed the DHD after everyone else left (he says so in Children of the Gods). But in Torment of Tantalus, SG-1 behave like they've never dialled manually before. And they didn't seem to need a thunderstorm in order to leave Abydos.
Thor's Hammer Isn't the obvious thing to do, once Unas has been properly dealt with, for Teal'c to stay in the labyrinth while a team goes back to Chulak and steals a Goa'uld larva (again). Once that's safely at SGC, Teal'c can leave junior behind in the caves and take off through the hammer archway, past the transporter thingummy, through the gate back home, and implant the new larva. (It doesn't take that long to get there - about as long as it took O'Neill and Teal'c to wander around the caves a bit and almost get eaten by Unas! Of course, this means that Heru'ur can't invade Cimmeria and we don't get to meet Thor in Thor's Chariot next season. And Sam doesn't find out that she can use cool toys like the hand device.
Solitudes The Antarctic gate has a DHD, and it looks as if the DHD actually works (but Carter botched by trying to dial Earth, so it didn't actually lock). So, why did the SGC not take the Antarctic DHD and replace their grim (and slow - the SGA missed a dial-out opportunity in There but for the Grace of God because Apophis's forces could dial faster) computer lash-up thing?
Hathor and Need Why does a Goa'uld sarcophagus detonate after being zapped by a hand device but not after being zapped with a staff weapon? After all, staff weapons seem to damage people rather more than hand devices do (unpleasant burning and usually death, versus being thrown about a bit).
Prisoners Linea seems to have a small device, which she uses to kill Vishnoor and to disable various SGC personnel. It sounds a lot like a Goa'uld device, but if so, (a) where did she get it, (b) how come she still has it in prison, and (c) how come she can use it? Is, or was, she a Goa'uld host? If she was but isn't now, then did the Taldur remove the parasite, and why is she still behaving so badly?
Secrets Stop pratting about, Daniel. Remember, Thor's restored his Hammer on Cimmeria now, so just take Sha're there. But if we do that, then the rest of Ammaunet's arc doesn't happen, and, worse, maybe Daniel gets to live Happily Ever After. Come to think of it, how come Bra'tac's still running around? I'd have thought Klorel would have had him declared shol'va by now, given his activities in The Serpent's Lair.
And finally, I'm totally confused by the gate addressing system. You dial seven symbols into the gate, chosen from an alphabet of 39. The first six represent constellations: you take them in pairs to define three straight lines: your destination is the intersection of the lines. The seventh represents a `point of origin'. Problems:
- Constellations aren't useful landmarks. What we think of as a constellation are a bunch of stars which happen to be in the same general direction from our point of view; actually they're all totally different distances from us, and moving in different directions. Look from somewhere else in the galaxy, a few thousand years ago, and you won't recognize any of them.
- You only need two lines to specify a point, even in three dimensions. The third is entirely redundant. And given that you have to use the same collection of 38 to specify them, I'm surprised that there are a significant number of valid coordinates.
- The point of origin seems completely useless. The gate seems to know where it is already (it doesn't work if you get the point of origin wrong, for example), but it doesn't act as a particularly effective bar if kept secret to prevent Bad People activating gates (after all, you only need to try at most 39 possible point-of-origin symbols before getting a lock). It gets worse though! In Within the Serpent's Grasp, SG-1 travel to a gate aboard a Goa'uld Ha'tak. The gate fails to dial while the Ha'tak is en route to Earth. But in the next episode, The Serpent's Lair, Daniel (and, later, Apophis and Klorel) use the gate aboard the Ha'tak to escape. At this time, the point of origin must be Earth, but the gate (and DHD) won't have an Earth PofO symbol on it. So how did they manage to dial out?