SG-1: Solitudes

[Sir Will]

My only gripe with the episode is why Carter didn't just dial a more hospitable planet and go there. You can't get to earth and you are freezing to death here so go to a better planet. Leave a note on the DHD in case they send a Malp or team to your location.

First she was chased from a previous mission and came through a rough ride to land in sub zero wonder land. She is extremely cold, hungry, and frustrated. To her the failure to reach earth was not a dialing issue. It was technical. So she fixated on it. In a way her training to focus was working against her. She focused on what will get help. Fix the device, get home. Not step back, big picture time.

I don't agree. Carter is one of the smartest women alive. ''Try the Alpha site'' is not big picture time. Its ''the obvious second step.'' Especially as the whole point of the Alpha site is where off-world teams go when Earth is for some reason inaccessible.
Sorry, i'm sticking with retcon and/or plot hole.

And I think it's perfectly possible the fixation thing is true under the circumstances. Even the smartest people can be 'dumb' sometimes.

[FaxModem1]

My definite favorite for the first season. A clever subversion of a science fiction trope, coupled with great character work, coupled with some very interesting lore tidbits.

Speaking of those lore tidbits, there is a very interesting implication in this episode that the antarctic stargate is the reason that there's so many cultures dating from after the rebellion against Ra found throughout the galaxy. I wonder how much time Ra spent being baffled by all these mysterious groups of humans popping up without figuring it out.
However, that does result in kind of a weird unfilled bit of backstory. We know why Ra stopped using the Egyptian stargate. But why did the other goa'uld stop using the antarctic stargate? The vast majority of goa'uld civilizations we see throughout the franchise have their roots in human civilizations that formed millenia after Ra was driven off the planet, who would have had to be taken through the antarctic gate. The medieval villages from Demons are an obvious example, which would place goa'uld visits to earth as late as the middle ages. Going into the expanded universe, the episode backgrounds from the kinda-canon RPG had the goa'uld involved on both sides of the second Mongolian invasion of Japan (the planet from Emancipation having originally been a prison world set up for captured invaders), which took place as late as 1281.

I have a hypothesis. Goa'uld ignore Earth for the most part because of pressing matters dealing with each other, and because it's easier to work with an established powerbase than to create your own. It's only the new ones who go to Earth and rename themselves as such and such deity and snatch some more people.

Consider how many planets are abandoned or wiped out by the Goa'uld due to technological progress, it could just be that controlling such a place isn't worth it while dealing with more major threats (such as Ra, Lord Yu, or other system lords). Nirrti could come back to India for human subjects, going through several neighbor's territory and having to deal with such problems as warring with each subject, since the gate is buried. Or she could just breed her own, as she does, trying to find her version of the perfect host by breeding.

Goa'uld have learned the hard way to avoid the sunk cost fallacy, while also having problems living in a culturally cooperative society. This leads to Goa'uld who are minor going to Earth to establish a new religion or yoinking an existing one, and bringing their followers into a new world as ruler, establishing a power base, until things go wrong. Better to have your own breeding ground of loyal subjects, workers, warriors who will do as you demand, rather than having to spend the time and effort cultivating a land and making it loyal to you from whole cloth.

After all, it's hard to have people do things for you as their god if they're starting to reach Renaissance or Enlightenment levels of thinking.

Why?

Biologically, the Goa'uld are parasitic. This affects their culture and way of thinking to an extent. Even the technology they develop is a hodgepodge aping of Ancient technology. Their route to power is by having hosts, and having these hosts worshiped as gods. Without that, they are, at best, occasionally grabbing random people or animals who veer too close to their spawning pools on a random planet.

So, for those who are new Goa'uld, they HAVE to go to Earth, because there is no choice of creating a domain elsewhere, as the competition is too hard. Look at Seth. He created his own cult on Earth and just hid out because competing in galactic affairs was too hard, and he was considered a joke by everyone else.

But, it doesn't matter, because destroying Earth is an investment in resources that isn't worth it when you're dealing with other System Lords who will destroy your territories and holdings because you committed to destroying a non-threat.

This is probably why there are so many advanced human cultures out there. It's easier for the Goa'uld to pretend they never existed than to commit to a total war against them and opening yourself up to an attack by your neighbors.

[Ghilz]

It's a low-key episode, but it's constructed very well. Stargate writers tended to do well at utilizing in-universe rules and technology to put an interesting spin on the problems/scenarios of the week.

Except that the fact, that the Antarctic Gate is in, well, Earth's Antarctic, would be immediately apparent to Carter and quite likely even O'Neal as soon as they had found the DHD. Why? Simple. Very simple. Remember how Stargate-adresses are described? That each pictogram coresponds to a constellation of stars? These constellations are obviously unique to every planet everywhere and that there's not just one or two, but all of the constellations that are on Earth's primary gate are also on the DHD to this gate, is a dead giveaway.

Even if you want to argue that the Antarctic Gate is so old, that the constellations are not up to date anymore and current Earth's gate was replaced and the pictograms "updated" way later, after the Ancients realized that Earth's original gate was not adressable anymore, there's still one more obvious clue. The seventh pictogram is always the point of origin, yet another symbol that is exclusive to each and every planet. Even if a number of constellations are visible almost identical on several nearby planets and thus you could argue that symbols could repeat on different gates, this one symbol is always unique to the planet. The presence of Earth's symbol on the DHD is impossible to ignore to a military unit whose very symbol is identical to Earth's symbol on Earth's stargate. They carry it on their damn patches.

That's only true for the movie. In the series proper, ALL Milky Way Stargates use earth constellations (Partially so they don't have build a million props). It's how Ferreti in the pilot can give everyone the coordinates for Apophis' planet and they can dial those from earth, despite Ferreti seeing them on the Abydos DHD.

I don't agree. Carter is one of the smartest women alive. ''Try the Alpha site'' is not big picture time. Its ''the obvious second step.'' Especially as the whole point of the Alpha site is where off-world teams go when Earth is for some reason inaccessible.
Sorry, i'm sticking with retcon and/or plot hole.

Remember that the Alpha site doesn't exist yet. It's introduced (As the Beta Site) in the season 1 finale (When Hammond briefs the people they want to send out so the human race survives), which is after this. Prior to this there's no mention of an Alpha site, and it's reasonable to assume it didn't exist until the end of season 1.

There's no Alpha site for her to try at this point. In fact, the first mention of an Alpha site is when Jackson jumps to another reality in the Quantum mirror. It's probably from that that the SGC got the idea for the actual Alpha site. In fact since the Alpha and Beta sites are chosen from address not from the Abydos set (ie: From the Address O'Neill added with the ancient knowledge), it means the Alpha site as a permanent location as we know it can't exist before season 2's "The Fifth Race"

[Cheerilee]

My definite favorite for the first season. A clever subversion of a science fiction trope, coupled with great character work, coupled with some very interesting lore tidbits.

Speaking of those lore tidbits, there is a very interesting implication in this episode that the antarctic stargate is the reason that there's so many cultures dating from after the rebellion against Ra found throughout the galaxy. I wonder how much time Ra spent being baffled by all these mysterious groups of humans popping up without figuring it out.
However, that does result in kind of a weird unfilled bit of backstory. We know why Ra stopped using the Egyptian stargate. But why did the other goa'uld stop using the antarctic stargate? The vast majority of goa'uld civilizations we see throughout the franchise have their roots in human civilizations that formed millenia after Ra was driven off the planet, who would have had to be taken through the antarctic gate. The medieval villages from Demons are an obvious example, which would place goa'uld visits to earth as late as the middle ages. Going into the expanded universe, the episode backgrounds from the kinda-canon RPG had the goa'uld involved on both sides of the second Mongolian invasion of Japan (the planet from Emancipation having originally been a prison world set up for captured invaders), which took place as late as 1281.

As I understand it, the Alterans flew in a ship from the Alteran/Ori Galaxy to the Milky Way Galaxy to get away from the Ori faction of their people, and settled on Earth, spreading Alteran tech (like Stargates) across the Milky Way.

Then a plague hit them and killed almost everyone, so the last survivors piled into Atlantis and flew off to the Pegasus Galaxy. Atlantis had been located on Antarctica, but Antarctica wasn't on the southern pole of the Earth at the time. The continent moved during the massive amount of time that Atlantis and the Alterans were gone. Earth's Stargate got frozen over and disconnected (Major Carter was the one who eventually reconnected it).

Then the Goa'uld arrived on Earth via starship (having evolved and grown and left their planet after learning to use the abandoned Alteran tech that littered the galaxy) and found Homo Sapiens (who evolved on Earth from monkeys and were not Alterans, despite appearances) and no Stargate (because it was disconnected and buried under ice), and the Goa'uld figured Humans would make great slaves so they captured and sold them. All the Human cultures in Space are supposed to have come from the Ra era, or from something that had some sort of distant roots in the Ra era.

Then the Alterans/Atlanteans got their butts kicked by the Wraith in the colonized Pegasus Galaxy, so the survivors decided to use intergalactic Stargate (only possible with a ZPM, or something equivalent) to retreat back to the Milky Way Galaxy, and Earth.

Since Ra had brought a Stargate to Earth, it took priority over the disconnected one (some Jaffa were occasionally deposited in the ice cave by accident, but none of them figured out how to escape), and the Atlanteans/Ancients were deposited in Ancient Egypt, while Earth was under Goa'uld control. The Ancients gave up, settled down, married Humans, and introduced the Ancient Gene to Humanity (allowing some Humans to unlock and use high-security Alteran tech). The Ancients also screwed around with Human culture, introducing Alteran stories and legends along with giving Humans their DNA.

Sometime later, the Humans staged an uprising, killed some Jaffa, and buried the Egypt Stargate, and Ra thought they were more trouble than they were worth so he didn't bother retaliating (until the Humans unburied the Stargate and came gunning for him).

The big question is: Since they now had a functional DHD after this episode, why'd they keep using that jerry-rigged system that took like half a minute to open the gate and would sometimes screw up in weird ways?

The computer-based Stargate control system was already set up for daily use and it worked. The DHD was sent to Area 51 to be studied. Studying the DHD means they can improve their understanding of Ancient tech, and use that info to improve their daily-use computer. Putting the DHD into service means less chance to study it, and more chance of breaking it.

[Marko Kujundžić]

The big question is: Since they now had a functional DHD after this episode, why'd they keep using that jerry-rigged system that took like half a minute to open the gate and would sometimes screw up in weird ways?

That always bugged me too. someone said the existing system was better. can't they use them both?

[Madner Kami]

The big question is: Since they now had a functional DHD after this episode, why'd they keep using that jerry-rigged system that took like half a minute to open the gate and would sometimes screw up in weird ways?

That always bugged me too. someone said the existing system was better. can't they use them both?

No they probably can't. Remember, Earth's Stargate is the only one that rotates to lock in the symbols, so they must've modified it, somehow.

[Eishtmo]

All the gates can rotate, but the DHD doesn't require it. The rotation is a backup in case the DHD doesn't work or is damaged.

They did use the DHD once, with Baals assistance I believe. Something stupid with it. It blew up afterwards.

In anycase, the reason they don't use it is because it was more valuable to study it and they had a lot more control over their own systems (easier to lock out the dialing computer for example).

[Cheerilee]

They did use the DHD once, with Baals assistance I believe. Something stupid with it. It blew up afterwards.

The Ice Cave DHD was initially taken to Area 51 for study (along with the Ice Cave Stargate). The NID used it to run their own secret missions and steal offworld technology, before they were discovered and stopped.

Carter later said that the Ice Cave DHD's internal battery went dead, and they can't recharge it. They used battery analysis to figure out that the Ice Cave DHD might be the oldest DHD they've ever seen.

The Egypt Stargate was discovered by America, but the Egypt DHD was discovered by the Nazis. The Russians got the Egypt DHD after the Nazis were defeated.

At the end of Season 3, SG1 beamed the Egypt Stargate up to Thor's ship so they could use it for an escape. Hammond immediately had the Ice Cave Stargate moved from Area 51 to Cheyenne Mountain so SG1 could use it for a return. Thor's ship then crashed in the Pacific Ocean, and the Russians retrieved the Egypt Stargate from the ocean floor before the Americans could find it.

The Russians then reunited the Egypt Stargate and Egypt DHD and had a priority Earth Stargate they could secretly use whenever they wanted (usually disconnected so America wouldn't know they had it). After they screwed up in season 4 and needed America's help to fix it, they shut down their Stargate Program.

In season 5, Teal'c got trapped inside the Ice Cave Stargate's pattern buffer, so Daniel negotiated to borrow Russia's unused Egypt DHD to rescue Teal'c. Teal'c was saved, but the Egypt DHD blew up.

Anubis used a "Stargate killer" weapon to blow up America's Ice Cave Stargate at the start of season 6, so America purchased the Egypt Stargate back from Russia.

[Quixotica]

The big question is: Since they now had a functional DHD after this episode, why'd they keep using that jerry-rigged system that took like half a minute to open the gate and would sometimes screw up in weird ways?

A pattern that becomes increasingly clear as SG-1 went on is that the writers hated anything that shook up their formula. The show does make big changes, but those come like pulling teeth and mostly either from pure length of time due to the series lasting a decade, or from the couple times they feared cancellation. Otherwise they do the "hey we just found this awesome piece of tech/obtained this awesome tactical advantage.. but oops its gone" plot numerous times. Usually whatever it was they found was lost/destroyed/made unusable by the end of the same episode, but a couple of times they just forgot to bring it back later.

SG-1 was an awesome show don't get me wrong.. I just wish they had been a little more open to changing things up. I felt that was the reason the series went so thoroughly down hill the last couple seasons. They only changed because they had too with RDA leaving, and even then they really just tried to rehash their own narrative with Ori essentially just being Goa'Uld 2.0 with power creep.