i can't get enough of this local color!
when it came to writing up my reactions to my most recent viewing of SGA season one, i started ranting again about everyone in the pegasus galaxy being JERKS, because i get so worked up during "underground" and "the storm/the eye." PEOPLE IN THE PEGASUS GALAXY ARE JERKS, i wrote in all-caps in my notes. (i took notes! of course i took notes. jules
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it's unclear how much contact there is, on average, between the worlds
Another factor that contributes to the isolation of many Pegasus cultures is the fact that so many of the galaxy's stargates seem to be located in space. Off the top of my head, I count the Wraith planet from "Rising" and "Thirty-Eight Minutes," Proculus, Doranda from "Trinity," the planet in "Instinct," and Edwin in "The Hive."
As cjandre and I discussed how the Wraith limited technological development in Pegasus, I figured if the Wraith had some criteria for when they needed to wipe out a civilization for being too advanced, the line would probably be drawn at refined space travel as their power depends so much on air superiority and the untouchability of the hive ships. Without spaceships, there's no access to these worlds, and I have to wonder whether many learned this lesson the hard way-by sending people through the stargate and seeing if they ever returned alive as opposed to dying horribly of explosive decompression. A few times, and anyone would be wary of setting off into the unknown.
'Course this only underscores your point that the Ancients were really the only ones with a good chance (or any at all) of uniting the galaxy against the Wraith. Though you have to wonder why the Ancients built the spacegates in the first place. Was it a way to make the natives beholden to them? A purposeful splintering of the humans in Pegasus? Some grand experiment to isolate certain cultures and study the impact of the stargate?
Then again, the Ancients might not have been responsible for the spacegates. It seems most stargates in the Milky Way system, which predates Pegasus, were nicely situated on terra firma, and I thought the whole purpose of having stargates was to faciliate travel between planets for pre-space cultures. It's possible the more enterprising Wraith-who in "The Siege" somehow dragged asteroids around-flung the stargates of the planets in their territories up where nobody but them would have access.
if [the Ancients]'d disseminated their technology and the means to produce it among the planets threatened by the wraith, i think the outcome of the war would have been drastically different.
I suppose, in defense of the Ancients, it's not entirely clear what the general technological level of Pegasus was when the war with the Wraith broke out. If the human cultures were too far behind, and the Wraith advance began rolling over worlds quickly, keeping the Ancients occupied with trying to contain them, there might not have been enough time to properly arm those in danger. For one, the more sensitive Ancient technologies (i.e. weapons) all seem to run off the ATA gene, which not many in Pegasus possess, and even supposing this could somehow be sidestepped without completely nullifying the technology's effectiveness, the Ancients would have to do the equivalent of teaching medieval knights how to drive a car.
In addition, I get the impression there simply weren't that many Ancients. If they were truly spread that thinly, I could see the Lord of the Flies planet, Doranda, the other outposts, and maybe even the planet of the mist people from "Home" being concentrated attempts to work out a viable means of defense against the Wraith with hopes of then applying this solution to other worlds. The shield from "Childhood's End" faced impossible logistic problems, and Doranda was destroyed; the other attempts likely met similar ends. Meanwhile the Wraith are razing worlds and gathering strength, making it harder and harder to defeat them.
Finally, the Ancients couldn't hold out and fell back to Atlantis. Because while they "seeded" life in Pegasus, which in a way makes the humans... their experimental test tube babies, Pegasus and all the people in it weren't important enough to spend more Ancient lives on what seemed to be a pointless endeavor when, as you said, they could escape. This is selfish, yes, but understandable.
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Another factor that contributes to the isolation of many Pegasus cultures is the fact that so many of the galaxy's stargates seem to be located in space.
YES. i thought about this too, but i'm not sure exactly what it means. i like your wraith-removal theory, though the ancients had their puddlejumpers and it would have been all the same to them; i also think it would take a much more delicate and time-consuming operation to uproot the gate, unharmed, and set it in orbit still functioning; if i were actually in the pegasus galaxy i could test your theory by searching nearby planets for a gate-less DHD or evidence of its removal! it would make sense for the wraith to limit, absolutely, all space-ready technology, but from what we've seen they stop development well in advance of thati.e. no pegasus civilization has made it anywhere near that level.
Without spaceships, there's no access to these worlds, and I have to wonder whether many learned this lesson the hard way-by sending people through the stargate and seeing if they ever returned alive as opposed to dying horribly of explosive decompression.
teyla said to sheppard in "sanctuary" that proculus's gate was in orbit and therefore her people would never have been able to visit the planet, and i remember thinking at the time, how would they have known? really, stargate travel must be terrifying, all the time, because it's a completely blind entryyou can't even send a scout to report back, so even if something *did* happen to the first wave of people you sent, you wouldn't know *what.* i'm thinking especially of an entire genii squadron (squadron?) walking into atlantis's iris. that would be a damn good deterrent to exploration, which makes me wonder how teyla et al. know which gates are safe to dial; i'm guessing a combination of trial-and-error, as you suggest, and a very long cultural knowledge handed downleading back, i guess, to the ancients themselves. they had to have shown people how to work the gates at some point, right?
For one, the more sensitive Ancient technologies (i.e. weapons) all seem to run off the ATA gene, which not many in Pegasus possess.
a couple of things (and this might be my ignorance of the larger stargate canon shining through): when they say the ancients seeded new life, what does that MEAN? they spawned new worlds? they bioengineered, as you say, experimental test-tube babies? there was (humanoid) life already in the pegasus galaxy and they stepped in to add their superior genes to the mix? and what exactly *is* the ATA genedid all ancients have it? if so, and if they're related, directly and genetically, to the overall human population of pegasus, then some percentage of those humans should have the gene as well; is it the same situation as on eartha small segment of the population, and most of that in a weak form? has there been any indication that any pegasus native has (or could have) the ancient gene?
rodney's pretty sure the ancients developed the ATA technology in direct response to the wraith, to shut them out of it; of course, we only have his theory to go on, but it seems sound (if they'd developed it prior to the wraith, then it would have been for the purposes of shutting the *humans* out (or other unfriendlies, i.e. the ones running around the milky way? again, i'm unfamiliar with stargate canon) which would entail a whole other set of implications about human technological capability and the relationship they had with the ancientsand vice-versa), in which case i see your point about midieval knights driving carsthough i'd still be struck then by the gaping disparity between the ancients and everybody else; if they'd been sharing technology and culture all along, it wouldn't be an issue.
This is selfish, yes, but understandable.
yes, exactly; though my view of it is more like, this is understandable, but selfish.
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I say we ponder over the mysteries of SGA together! ^_____^
i also think it would take a much more delicate and time-consuming operation to uproot the gate, unharmed, and set it in orbit still functioning...
Agreed. Since I never watched SG-1 and SGA usually takes the stargates for granted, I have no idea what would need to be done in order to move a stargate into space without trashing it. I gather that the stargates are pretty durable though, and the Wraith have already demonstrated a certain facility with Ancient technology (notably in "The Defiant One"), so I think it'd be possible. Not only to control access to the stargate and cut off a means of escape or communication but to prevent the desperate from burying the thing or whatever.
Now that I think about it, assuming the Wraith could do it, putting the stargate in orbit is such a good idea there has to be an explanation for why there aren't more spacegates. Hmm.
makes me wonder how teyla et al. know which gates are safe to dial; i'm guessing a combination of trial-and-error, as you suggest, and a very long cultural knowledge handed down-leading back, i guess, to the ancients themselves.
I was pretty bored and feeling geeky when I typed up these comments, so I did try to come up with ways the Athosians could've used to check stargate addresses for viability before sending someone through. First, I thought MALP-on-a-stick. That was quickly shot down when I realized there's been no sign the Athosians have anything similar to cameras and that the stargate wouldn't rematerialize something on the other side until the entire thing had gone through on your side, which would then make it impossible to retrieve anything. And the Athosians don't seem to have radio equivalents either. Besides trial-and-error and knowledge passed down through the generations, all I could picture was a trained dog/bird/whatever that would go through the stargate and come back before the wormhole closed. It's that or a boomerang device of some sort...
when they say the ancients seeded new life, what does that MEAN?
From the Stargate Handbook, part of Melia's (a.k.a. the hologram lady from "Rising") little speech:...in the hope of spreading new life through a galaxy where there appeared to be none. Soon, the new life grew, and prospered. Here, (as before, we built a system of stargates, so the fledgling civilizations could travel between the stars), exchange knowledge and friendship. In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form.
Sadly, I'm probably as ignorant of the larger SG canon as you (the blind leading the blind, lol), but from what I can gather, humans will eventually be the Ancients and, presumably, with all the fancy ATA stuff. The Ancients sped the evolutionary process and weighted the subsequent development of life in favor of beings like them wherever-Milky Way and Pegasus-they found empty worlds. They possibly also terraformed planets to support human-Ancient life.
nuhiep's A Brief Examination of Biological Concepts in SGA does a much better job speculating about what the ATA gene is than I could ever hope to, but I do have one idea to add in regards to how rare the gene seems to be in Pegasus and gene strength. As I said before, the Ancients are humans who are further along the evolutionary path. Since the Ancients were in the Milky Way first, Earth's people are "the second evolution" and have, simply, had more time than the natives of Pegasus to develop. And without the stuttering effects repeated Wraith cullings that drain huge sections of the gene pool in a evolutionary blink of the eye must have had. So, weak expressions of the gene are the result of evolution while freak mutations or more immediate descent from an actual Ancient are responsible for rare cases like O'Neill and Sheppard.
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"aha!" i thought. "what a great idea! why don't the pegasus humans do that? they're pretty desperate already." and then i remembered that the wraith don't actually use the stargates to descend upon the planets they're culling, they drive their big-ass hive ships through hyperspace and drop from the sky. as seen in "letters from pegasus" they then dial out from the planet's stargate to keep anyone from escaping.
Besides trial-and-error and knowledge passed down through the generations, all I could picture was a trained dog/bird/whatever that would go through the stargate and come back before the wormhole closed. It's that or a boomerang device of some sort...
the MALP was really the logical action on the part of the SGC, a non-human first-toe-in-the-pond. but even animals and boomerangs wouldn't work: wormholes only go one way; you can't go through and then back without waiting for the gate to close and then dialing again.
thanks for the links! honestly, i should do some homework, though their science makes me cringe and the idea of humans being further along the evolutionary path to ancienthood makes me laugh, or possibly cry, or even both at the same time.
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Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. ^^;;
Would explain why-assuming the Wraith are responsible for it in the first place-not every Pegasus stargate is in orbit. I'm thinking maybe certain worlds have spacegates for security reasons. From "Rising," it seems the Wraith land the hive ships on a planet before going into hibernation; perhaps before they do this, they drag that planet's stargate into space to prevent hapless humans from stumbling across hive ships protected by only a Keeper and her guards. Then the spacegate planets we've seen thus far were host to a hibernating hive at some point during the 10,000 years after the Ancients left.
even animals and boomerangs wouldn't work: wormholes only go one way; you can't go through and then back without waiting for the gate to close and then dialing again.
Damn! If a civilization isn't capable of building a MALP equivalent that leaves sending people through with orders to turn around and dial back. The risk of explosive decompression probably discourages exploration, huh?
the idea of humans being further along the evolutionary path to ancienthood makes me laugh, or possibly cry, or even both at the same time.
Personally, I don't feel one or another about this. The science is always going to be bad, so I just accept it, try my best to retcon it away, and move on. It's what I do. ;)
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but that wouldn't totally explain it. i've been trying to think up ways and reasons for the ancients to have established gates in space originally, rather than the wraith removing them there (because i'm contrary like that), and i suppose this might be a reason against the wraith theory&#namely that if the wraith simply took moved *all* the stargates into space, it would effectively isolate every planet without spaceships (which would be ALL THE PLANETS), allow the hive ships to hibernate undisturbed, and leave this awesome means of interplanetary travel for the wraith alone to exploit. so why would they have moved some gates but not all of them?
The risk of explosive decompression probably discourages exploration, huh?
EXACTLY. exactly. which makes me either admire the athosians greatly, or wonder why they have intel other planets don't.
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so why would [the Wraith] have moved some gates but not all of them?
Up-thread, you wrote:
i also think it would take a much more delicate and time-consuming operation to uproot the gate, unharmed, and set it in orbit still functioning...
Assuming this is the case, one possible explanation is that the Wraith are too busy feeding, warring amongst themselves, and hibernating to bother turning every stargate on every planet in the galaxy into a spacegate when chances are most Pegasus civilizations will suffer a major culling before attaining space travel anyways. The spacegates serve only as an added security measure for hibernating Wraith hives. This is perhaps optional, too, because I don't remember the stargate on the planet with the hive in "Underground" being in space-though I suppose that particular hive might not have been hibernating as Sheppard's team and the Genii thought but making a quick stop to feed. Or something. Was the thing covered in vegetation like the one in "Rising"?
Now that I think about it, the Wraith probably don't want the humans to get too isolated. Space travel or any other challenge to Wraith power would be a big no-no, but other technological advancements and cultural exchange would allow humans to proliferate throughout Pegasus, living longer and healthier lives. The Wraith would love that, of course.
On a somewhat related note, I recently watched "Rising" with a friend of mine and noticed an odd protrusion on the spacegate. Perhaps where the stargate was once affixed to the ground?
Regarding the Athosians and stargate exploration, either Teyla's people are very brave and/or an extensive record of safe addresses was left by the advanced race they used to be. That is, if "the city of the ancestors" refers not to the Ancients but to the Athosians as they were before the Wraith drove them to a nomadic lifestyle. I never could figure out which it was.
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Wanna be spoiled? Then highlight away!
In the upcoming episode "The Tower," Sheppard et al. come across a civilization protected by an Ancient control chair and drones. The chair has been traditionally operated by the Lord Protector and his bloodline, who not only have the ATA gene but are aware that's what allows them to use the Ancient weapons. Unfortunately, the gene expression is becoming weaker with every generation. You can imagine how thrilled these people are when they scan Sheppard and find he's got the gene stronger than they've seen it in hundreds of years. At any rate, that the Lord Protector is treated as royalty implies the gene is indeed rare in Pegasus.
So, there will be more on the ATA gene. Please, please be good. :p
rodney's pretty sure the ancients developed the ATA technology in direct response to the wraith, to shut them out of it; of course, we only have his theory to go on, but it seems sound
The human-Ancient evolutionary connection aside, I wonder if the genetic key wasn't an accident of sorts. See, the hybrid physical/mental/emotional interface the Ancients designed into their technology seems to me a logical extension of a natural impulse to make technology as user-friendly as possible. I could see the Ancients trying to get their technology to respond to individuals through DNA recognition and unknowingly writing in the ATA gene lock. That their technology now requires a genetic key is a bit surprising at first, but the benefits in security are immediately obvious. At which point, the Ancients start refining the ATA system.
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I wonder if the genetic key wasn't an accident of sorts. See, the hybrid physical/mental/emotional interface the Ancients designed into their technology seems to me a logical extension of a natural impulse to make technology as user-friendly as possible.
that's . . . huh, that's an interesting theory. though right away once you talk about DNA recognition, that immediately strikes me as an issue of security, not mere ease of use. i mean, we have DNA-recognition technology here on earth (or haven't we gotten that far yet? if nothing else we have retinal scans, fingerprint and handprint recognition, etc.), and that's absolutely what it's for. stuff we want *everybody* to be able to use we make dependent on motion-sensors, heat sensors, etc. DNA recognition is going to be way more specific from the outset; if anything, they would have had to work to make it respond to everyone with a certain gene, not just to any single individualand again, it was a gene that *they* had and the rest of the galaxy didn't.
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I'll have to be extra careful! I've been posting in the new episode discussion threads at the GW forums for a while now and sometimes forget Skiffy hasn't started the second half of S2 yet. Got lucky with those spoilers. Whew! ^^;;
the knowledge that we're going to be returning to the ATA gene (though probably in a way that has nothing to do with actual genetics, woe woe) is tantalizing; i'm curious to see how it plays out. heh, for the love of GOD, please let it be good.
WORD. The whole ATA gene thing can't be avoided forever-though damn if TPTB haven't done a pretty good job of that so far. Maybe if the entire fandom prays hard and concentrates on sending good science vibes to Vancouver, we'll get something that's ‹gasp› realistic. Or at least something that'll be easy to retcon.
though right away once you talk about DNA recognition, that immediately strikes me as an issue of security, not mere ease of use.
Hmm. I was thinking more along the lines of personalizing technology. And you can't tailor technology to an individual much more than DNA recognition and the Ancient hybrid interface. I thought maybe the Ancients didn't intend for their technology to only recognize the DNA of certain people, but that they designed the stuff to scan the DNA of all users and modify functions based on the information recorded. It just happened that most, if not all, users were Ancients and a coding flaw (or the very aware and responsive OS or whatever) picked up on the baseline ATA gene and embedded it in the system. The Ancients, then, didn't know about the gene lock until the next non-Ancient tried to access the technology and couldn't. The security benefits are obvious, so the Ancients decided to keep things that way.
Actually, with the exception of the ATA gene, Ancient security seems rather lax. The Atlantis stargate has the shield, but the IDC system was brought by the expedition and the room itself is a bit too pretty and not so defensible. As is the rest of the city, really. There are also no automated security systems that we know of besides the quarantine procedure. And, apparently, anybody who knows where to find the right panel can open it and start rewiring crucial systems.
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huh, interesting. i have absolutely no idea, but it's an interesting theory.
Actually, with the exception of the ATA gene, Ancient security seems rather lax.
totally and completely lax to the point of nonexistence. the show seems to go back and forth on the ancients' stance on failsafesthe system was incredibly vulnerable! the system was incredibly redundant! (that joke never gets old)depending on what the episode calls for, so it's hard to say. i get the impression the ancients had complete faith in the city's shield (which was obviously rewarded, or they would have done other things), which rodney tells us explicitly in "the storm"; but they also have the weapons chair and the drones, and the puddlejumpers are all weapons-equipped. honestly, i imagine the ancients were so ridiculously dominant that they never had anybody to defend *against* until the wraith; and when the wraith finally showed up, the shield was ample protection against them. i don't know what the ancient equivalent of an IDC would have been, but the mere fact that their gate had a shield implies that they didn't let in just anybody who dialed; and if they didn't, then they would have needed (and presumably had) a method of discerning who was doing the dialing.
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IMO, failsafes are something else entirely. Security restricts access; failsafes prevent the people who already have access from doing stupid things like erasing the entire mainframe or overloading the power systems or spreading a deadly contagion.
the mere fact that their gate had a shield implies that they didn't let in just anybody who dialed
Point. I didn't think of that. ^^;;
At any rate, I think you're probably right: the Ancients had no one to defend against until the Wraith. The humans hadn't advanced enough, and the Ancients were allies with the other three great races.* So, Ancient security isn't as tight as war and necessity would force, but the Ancients still developed weapons and shields.
The ATA gene lock remains, I think, the single best security idea the Ancients ever came up with or stumbled upon. I'm less and less sure it was in response to the Wraith though-the timing is wrong. The Ancients didn't encounter the Wraith until long after they left the Milky Way for Pegasus, but the Antarctica control chair is keyed to the gene. Conclusion: ATA must have been developed before the Ancients left Earth.
Plus, looking at the timeline, the city's strict quarantine protocols might have been put in place in response to the Ancients suffering from that plague back on Earth. I can't remember when exactly the Ancients started to get sick, but if it was before they left for Pegasus, they'd be sensitized to biological threats in a way they aren't to attack by other races.
*Why were the Ancients, Asgard, Nox, and Furlings in an alliance again? Don't these pacts usually grow out of conflict?
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