Random SGA Questions
5 Apr 2006 00:51![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muccamukkThings I have been wondering for a while:
- Why does Teyla not have babies? She's in her late twenties and the leader of an basic horticultural/hunter people. I'm not an expert in such areas, but I understand that reproducing as quickly as possible is a popular concept in places where life spans are short, and with the Wraith around people don't tend to live long. Also, she has the Gift of Wraith Sensing, which is genetic, so she should totally have a passel of fat babies by now.
- What happened to the International Oversight Advisory? Those who watch SG-1 know that the committee composed of governments from around the world put most of its funding behind the Atlantis extradition largely because they have more say in the way it's run. They don't like the SGC because they can't control an American Military base as well. Fine, so where are they? Are they just assuming that Weir is doing a good job? Does she get instructions from them? Does she follow them? Do they have an observer in the City?
- What happened to the Wraith Antibody from Hoff? Are we ever going to hear about it again? Okay, so the first version didn't work out so well, but why couldn't they keep working on it so that it doesn't kill half the population as a side effect? Beckett's sold as a clever guy with such things; I'm sure he could do it. I think perfecting that and then immunising the entire human population would be an extremely effective solution to the Wraith. It might take a while, but it's just as practical as certain other ideas.
- Does the City have a dentist? What about a barber? If so, how does one get that job? Are they military dentists and barbers?
- If someone wanted to get married, is there a JP in the City? Could Weir do it? What about Caldwell? He's a ship's captain after all. How would you fill out the paperwork, by country of origin?
- Have they finished exploring the City yet? It's supposed to be the size of Manhattan. Can you completely explore that in two years or will they keep running across frozen people and evil viruses for seasons to come?
- We hear Sheppard and company make human pop culture jokes all the time, why don't Teyla and Ronon make Athosian and Satedan pop culture jokes? They appearently don't have TV or movies, but they must have at least an oral tradition and mythology (and Sateda looks pretty advanced before it got Wraithed). I guess it's partly because we don't see them with their own people very much, and unless you're John Crichton alluding to things that only you get wears thin pretty fast.
- Why was that last Wraith Queen orange?
- If the Doctor appeared on Atlantis, how long would he last before McKay tried to kill him?
- If you locked the two of them in a room, would Roslin have twisted Weir around her little finger in under five minutes, or would it take her as much as ten?
- Does anyone else think about these things?
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Ficlet for you
Date: 5 Apr 2006 15:17 (UTC)"I only take the best," said the Doctor at the door of the TARDIS.
Rodney nodded happily and shouldered his bag and his laptop.
"I've got Rose." The Docto said, just before he shut the door.
Rodney stared, open-mouthed as the TARDIS wheezed out of existence.
John gently took his bag and put it back on the ground. "He was an untrustworthy alien with a his own agenda."
"But he had a time machine!" It wasn't quite a wail, but Rodney's eyebrows were doing that "deeply disappointed" thing they sometimes did.
"You hated him. He hated you."
"Oh please," Rodney scoffed, "As if that's different from any place I've ever worked."
"I would have missed you."
"You would? Oh." Rodney considered this. "That is different from any place I've ever worked. Huh."
John grinned and they turned towards the door. "I bet he didn't have any Powerbars, either."
Re: Ficlet for you
Date: 5 Apr 2006 16:57 (UTC)Re: Ficlet for you
Date: 5 Apr 2006 17:58 (UTC)Re: Ficlet for you
Date: 26 Apr 2006 05:01 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6 Apr 2006 06:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 6 Apr 2006 06:32 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 7 Apr 2006 03:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 21 Apr 2006 15:08 (UTC)I am not sure if this counts as a spoiler or not, but I have heard that this issue will be addressed in the opening episode of No-Man's Land. Atlantis will be getting a visit from someone at the IOA...
(no subject)
Date: 21 Apr 2006 15:16 (UTC)Question being, where were they before now.
(no subject)
Date: 22 Apr 2006 05:49 (UTC)#1 had not occurred to me, and since pre-industrial cultures are one of my topics of interest, it's a very intriguing one. I imagine the actual explanation is "because the writers didn't think of it", along with the fact that even if they *had* thought of it, they probably would have chosen to keep the character single and responsibility-free for dramatic reasons -- although the idea of having Teyla, or any of the other characters, saddled with a kid is really quite interesting to me. I can think of a number of possible explanations that would work, though I doubt if any of them is the real reason (see actual explanation above). Might be interesting for fanficcing, however...
-She was betrothed/had a husband, but he died.
-She is unable to bear children, and is single because of it.
-She is not allowed to get married because of her role in her society, akin to nuns in Western society. Perhaps leaders/negotiators must remain single, or perhaps she belongs to some other proscribed cast, such as a religious group. Maybe there are special rules for when and whom people with Wraith-sensing ability can marry.
-Perhaps the Athosians are strictly exogamous, and there was no one for her to marry, or at least no one in the permissable clan groups for someone of her clan to marry. (Now I have a highly amusing mental image of the Athosian elders trying to force Teyla to marry one of the SGA members -- ha!)
-Perhaps Athosian marriages are traditionally arranged by parents, and since Teyla's parents are dead, she's taken matters into her own hands and refused all suitors, either because none of them appeals to her or because she feels she can better serve her people as a single person.
#3 is the main reason why I didn't like Poisoning the Well. It was just such a huge plot hole. Hey, idiots on Atlantis, it's a weapon that kills Wraith! The idea that they'd simply abandon it because of moral qualms about the way the Hoffans used it is a huge load of implausability to swallow. Obviously you wouldn't want to innoculate humans with it until you've done a LOT more testing, and you may never come up with a version that can be used in humans, but at the very least you can load up a ton of tranquilizer darts with Wraith killer and go at them! Considering how hard they are to kill, a weapon that effective shouldn't just have been abandoned. And it appears, from when they used it on Steve, that a Wraith which has received a dose cannot in any way transmit it to human beings. It really bothered me a lot that it was just abandoned and never mentioned again.
#5 - The only place on Earth that seems comparable to Atlantis for those purposes (i.e. isn't under some sort of national authority) is Antarctica, so this led me to Google for how people in Antarctica would go about getting married, and this is what I found: you can't get married in Antarctica (http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/oldissues2000-2001/2000_1119/marriage.html) unless your home country recognizes non-state-sanctioned marriages (i.e. common-law marriages) as valid. In other words, no authority can marry you if you aren't in a legally valid country. You can have a religious blessing ceremony, but not a marriage that would be recognized as universally valid. So, basically, if the same holds true of Atlantis, people in Atlantis can't get married, period. They would have to go home to do that. But they can go through the motions and some countries and states will accept that as a valid common-law marriage. Obviously, before the connection to Earth was re-established in season 2, this would have been a moot point since the only thing that makes a marriage legal or not is whether the state recognizes it as a legal marriage, and the only local authority to make that judgment call would have been Weir herself.
Since I'm running out of the LJ character limit, continued in another post...
(no subject)
Date: 22 Apr 2006 06:18 (UTC)Hey! I’ve seen you over at Derry’s LJ, so I do sorta kinda know you. I’m just happy to have someone else to talk to. I’m not much for communities in that they seem to lead me to too much wank.
1. I always regretted that no one in SG-1 had a proper family on Earth. I would have loved to see Daniel or Teal’c’s families try to adapt to American society, talk about War Bride syndrome! I would also have liked to see how Jack would have dealt with keeping Sara in the dark if they were still married. We got a little bit of that with Sam and Pete, but not nearly enough.
I’ve never studied a non-industrial culture where the leaders or priestesses are discouraged from having children, usually more power = getting to reproduce more. However, I’m sure there is one, somewhere.
I’ve seen that she was married before in fic, that seems to work quite well. I though of the barren one, but haven’t seen anyone else pick it up.
I would think that a culture that deals with people getting killed off so regularly would have some contingency for death of parents, required exogamy, but maybe not.
I just wish someone would address it.
3. AGH!
5. Okay, I didn’t know that, makes sense though. Thanks for the info.
(no subject)
Date: 22 Apr 2006 06:00 (UTC)#8 - We've seen quite a bit of color variation in Wraith, especially the females, like that one in Rising with Kool-Aid colored hair. I figure they come in every color of the rainbow; it's just that blue and green ones are most common. It may also be that the females have more genetic variation while the males are much more uniform, maybe even clones of each other.
#11 - obviously not, because now I have a couple for you:
#12: When the Atlanteans are looking for safe worlds and Alpha sites (as during Seige), why do they never think of the planet with the kids from Childhood's End? It's almost completely safe from Wraith and they're on good terms with the kids, so why do they never use that planet as a refuge in times of trouble?
#13: Why are all of the planets they visit through the Stargate:
a) culturally uniform; that is, there are never a mix of tribal societies and more advanced societies, or even different states at a similar technological level;
b) possessing a perfect, uncorrupted oral/written tradition going all the way back to the Ancients 10,000 years ago? Why is it that none of these cultures seemed to decide along the way that the Ancients were gods and the ZPMs religious artifacts, or assumed that the Wraith were divine retribution for some local transgression rather than evil aliens intent on wiping out their society, or totally forgot what the Stargates were for? Whenever the SGA team grills a local about the history of their world, they get the unvarnished truth (except for those cases where they're being deliberately lied to). Try wandering into Madagascar and asking the nearest tribesman how his people got to the island, and see if the answers you get will jibe with the commonly accepted historical explanations. Most likely not.
#14: Why haven't the Atlanteans (and the SGC teams for that matter) introduced hundreds of new pathogens onto all these first-contact worlds ... and brought some home, for that matter? Where are the outbreaks of Athosian Flu and exotic STDs?
(no subject)
Date: 22 Apr 2006 06:36 (UTC)8. The green/white one’s look better. May be a reason for their similarity in appearance though –g-
11. Oh good.
12. Or why not just transplant the kids and take the ZPM for their own defence (see
13. Because the writers never took Anthropology.
a) because it’s just that much trouble to make up even one bland culture (and they never really stick around that long anyway, so maybe they just run into the one) -g- also, that could kind of apply to the people in “Condemned” with the high class main society and the prisoners living in mud huts. Plus the Wraith keep pretty much everyone beat down, so…
b) Well, to be fair, the people in “The Brotherhood” did exactly that. And the people in “The Tower” were a bit fuzzy on the concept too, their history only went back generations. Lots of good fic (especially Moka, in my memories) but not nearly enough in actual episodes. But yeah, it usually takes about six months of constant contact to get a straight answer out of the locals, which would be a pain in the ass to write.
14. That’s also why all the planets look like the BC lower mainland. Constant contact has lead to invasive species taking over all the planets (after all, there was lots of contact even after the gate was closed down. I am working on a fic on this topic, which you may see soon.). -g-
I like this game!
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 11:49 (UTC)2. I have no idea about what might have happened to the International Oversight Advisory. To be honest, I hadn't thought about it much since it first popped up on SG-1. Weir has previously indicated that she has the ear of the American president and he can get her things that she wants despite the wishes of Stargate Command (like Sheppard's promotion). What's his link to the International Oversight Advisory? Is he and/or the SGC telling them what's going on in Atlantis? Or does Weir actually report back to them too now that they have contact with Earth again? Hmm... I don't seem to have any answers for you - just similar questions.
3. As I remember it, Beckett and the other Atlanteans had two problems with the Hoff antibody thingy. One was that even when it did work, then it killed half of the people treated. And the other was that if the Wraith discovered a population of people they couldn't feed off, they may very well kill off that population as a danger to the rest of the food supply. The Wraith may not know that it's something that was cooked up in a lab. They might think it genetic and try and wipe that trait out of the gene pool. That might be a deterrent of sorts. But really, as you say, it does make as much sense as a strategy as other things they've tried. On the other hand, there's nothing to say that research into that area has been completely stopped. They just might not be talking about because they haven't made any breakthroughs. There was a fairly long quiet period when then didn't mention the de-wraithing retrovirus either (because it just wasn't relevant to what they were doing at the time). So, yeah, Atalantean research into the "Hoffan Solution" may be ongoing in the med labs, but just not talked about on the show coz there's nothing exciting to tell yet.
4. I assume that they have a dentist and someone has to be responsible for Sheppard's hair! LOL!
5. Marriage, huh? Would it matter if the people involved were religious? Anyway, it's not as if they can't pop back to Earth to get married these days. I suppose if they wanted to do a Big Wedding Episode, someone in with the right qualifications would turn up. But can I just say here now… OH DEAR GOD!!! PLEASE NOOOOOOO!!!!!! to the whole idea of having a Big Wedding Episode. Hopeless romantic? Me? Not so much. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 11:59 (UTC)7. I'd like to see Teyla and Ronon make some pop culture jokes, at least once or twice. I still remember Teal'c Jaffa joke (not the words but his Tauri friends' reactions) and it was funny as! Don't think he's tried since though. As you say, hard to keep making references that no one else really gets. John Crichton was obviously amusing himself with his pop culture references most of the time. Teyla and Ronon don't really seem the type to entertain themselves in that way.
8. Orange is this Spring's new White.
9. McKay's reaction to the Doctor appearing on Atlantis? Hmmm... an interesting question.
I think it would depend on a few things. Was the Doctor passing himself off as another human brilliant scientist? If so, McKay would probably pull out all the stops to try and prove that he, Rodney, was smarter after all and get very frustrated doing so. Intelligence aside, the Doctor just has some much more information at his disposal - so McKay is never going to win the "I know more than you do" game and the Doctor would no doubt enjoy baiting him.
Or would the Doctor actually tell McKay that he was from a race of super-intelligent beings? And would McKay believe him? Rodney would probably still try and prove that he was equally as smart. After all, look at how he does that with Hermiod.
Or would Rodney see the Time Lords as some sort of equivalent of the Ancients? In which case, Rodney would probably try to pick his brains - and then also show that he was actually just as smart as a Time Lord.
Yeah, it's a recurring theme. The McKay ego is such that he's just never going to accept that anyone from any race is simply smarter than him. The way he talks about the Ancients, I'm pretty sure that he only acknowledges that they had more advanced research, not that they were smarter than him (he stops just short of saying it but the implications have been there).
Actually, I once read a Dr Who novel (can't remember what it was called but I think it was the Seventh Doctor with Ace & Benny) where the Doctor met Sherlock Holmes and kept confounding the great detective, much to the latter's frustration. It was just wee bit too Holmes-bashing for me at times, but they did eventually form an alliance. If the Doctor ever met Rodney McKay, I wouldn't be surprised if it went along similar lines. And I for one, would pay good money to see Hewlett & Tennant playing off with each other.
10. Five minutes is being generous. I give it two minutes.
11. These particular issues? Possibly, some of them. I didn't think of No.9 myself but it fascinates me. Definitely wonder about other obscure minutiae about the shows though ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 17:26 (UTC)9. I don’t think that the Doctor would human bait just for the sake of it, he has his moments of childishness, but that’s just low. With McKay on his case all the time, he might do something swift and final, but he wouldn’t drag it out. Unless he made it a game, I suppose. I haven’t seen enough of Ten to figure out what he’d do, but Nine pretty much just ignore people who thought they were superior and weren’t, unless he needed them to do something.
Sheppard would be the one doing the baiting. -g-
No, McKay would not acknowledge his superior intellect, but he would probably figure out the Doctor had superior knowledge pretty fast, and I bet he would spend most of his time trying to get access to that, one way or another.
Did you see my comment fic?
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 03:13 (UTC)Sheppard would be the one doing the baiting. -g-
Actually, I was thinking more in terms of the Tenth Doctor. We don't know him all that well yet, but he shows some signs of being reminicsent of the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) - perhaps not surprisingly, since he was apparently David Tennant's childhood hero (and mine too, actually). Hence, I can see him playing mind games with arrogant intellectual type such as McKay. I think of it more in terms of being mischievious rather than malicious though.
And I totally agree that Sheppard would be baiting Rodney too!
Actually, I could see it playing out this way. The Doctor (Ten) arrives and McKay immediately treats him as an intellectual inferior. The Doctor then undercuts Rodney (perhaps in a way not unreminscent of the way Sheppard himself does). McKay is nonplussed but resolved to come back fighting. Sheppard sees Rodney taken down a peg and puts the boot in - but in his standard "friendly" way. The Doctor would watch this and realise that baiting McKay is an adventure sport on Atlantis (let's face it, other try it as well, it's just that no one competes with Rodney as well as Shep does). However, the Doctor would definitely be competitor in the league of McKay and Sheppard - hence he would continue the mind games but they would take on an obviously "friendly" feel - like with Sheppard. I could see him throwing a few mind games Shep's way too, when he realises the dynamics of the game. Ideally, we could end up with great 3-way snarking. Oh, wouldn't that be a sight to see? But it will never happen, unfortunately.
No, McKay would not acknowledge his superior intellect, but he would probably figure out the Doctor had superior knowledge pretty fast, and I bet he would spend most of his time trying to get access to that, one way or another.
Oh, yeah. Definitely!
Did you see my comment fic?
No, can't seem to see it. Could you let me know the link? Cheers!
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 04:25 (UTC)That would be so much fun.
Mine as in it was written for me, not as in I wrote it: http://muccamukk.livejournal.com/19
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 05:00 (UTC)I liked "New Earth" quite a lot on first viewing although the "solution" at the end jarred badly. When I rewatched it this weekend, I found it a little less impressive. It's like "Pantomine Dr Who" - cute in jokes & large broad characterisations that are quite entertaining, but not the real meaty drama that the best episodes have.
However, the next ep "Tooth & Claw" makes up for it in those areas. The Doctor doesn't get everything going his own way. There are very interesting revelations about Torchwood. There are really dark moments and yet, there are great light-hearted character moments too.
I'm gonna write up my own little review thingy - and I'm debating with myself whether I should read yours before or after. Hmmm... I actually haven't really read a lot of people's opinions about it yet. Do I want my own un-influenced opinions or do I want to bounce off other people's ideas? Hmmm...
And I read the fic. 'Tis cute! ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 05:10 (UTC)And you are welcome to the icon. The pic's from a wall paper over at the beeb site.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 17:04 (UTC)That one’s actually the explanation that makes the most sense. Though patrilocal rearing of children only is rare if not unheard of here (save male children after they hit puberty, so maybe she has boys), it must crop up eventually. So the answer I’m going with now is that she does have kids, and she’s just not involved in raising them. That’s so going to come up in fic at some point. This is not supported by Halling and Jinto, but by Brother pointed out that a communal child rearing system would actually make the most sense (that way the Wraith could take parents and the kids lives wouldn’t be disrupted as much).
3. I thought about the culling thing (in the actually sense of culling, not harvesting), and it seems to me that if they could het most places fairly quickly, the Wraith would be SOL, and since they still communicate, they would realize that it was wide spread. I hope they use it again.
4. My going theory on Sheppards hair (inspired by its total lack of change in “Epiphany” is that really early on in season one, he and McKay were playing with some Ancient dodad and it zapped him and now his hair is stuck that way perminently.
5. Oh God help us, no, I was thinking more in terms of Mike Gilchrist marrying Miko Kusanagi or something like that, no big weddings, please than thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 19:18 (UTC)Weirdly enough, I started a fic where the Console Canuck (aka Mike Gilchrist) was secretly sneaking around with a Japanese scientist (but it wasn't the Rodney-worshipping Miko Kusanagi from "Letters"). But it stalled long ago and if I were to go back to it, it would require a heck of rewriting. I think I lost my fic-muscles quite a while ago...
These questions (and a lot more) always abound. I think I tend to question sci-fi shows more than contemporary "real life"-based shows because there are always different reasons and motivations touted for the characters and there is supposedly a different reasoning behind their actions because they're alien. Basic fact is, no matter who the character is, the writer of the show is human, and they write from their perceptions and experiences of humanity, whether it's within their own culture or based on another one.
I've often wondered about the lack of female writers and directors on SG-1 and SGA, and how SG-1 managed to pull off some great character moments for Carter and other female characters without it being a "special woman's issue". For some reason, SGA hasn't been as successful, although I think that the inherent nature of the characters as they were designed/written means that romantic relationships are more difficult to allow to grow. I also worry that if they *do* hire a token female writer then we will end up with over-feminised/weakened female characters, that the right balance won't be struck. If only they'd hire someone who writes good women! Just like you don't have to be a man to write men... A crash course on anthropology and diplomacy might help too. I like the SGA writers (especially Gero), but sometimes I feel they "wing it" too much when actual research might be required (or would at least help).
The day someone puts a hair gel quip in SGA is the day I shake my head in sadness/piss myself laughing: someone's reading all the fanfic out there... :)
(no subject)
Date: 24 Apr 2006 22:27 (UTC)Mike nedds more fic!
I'd be more willing to go for the "I didn't expect the aliens to be so alien, I mean you look at them and... they're alien" arguement if they were actually sold as being the least bit different than any culture on earth. As it stands, I study "Stranger" cultures in Anthropology all the time. I'm willing to give them more leeway on the Wraith, but Athosians and Satedans and so on need to start acting like something.
I'm liking Teyla this season. I don't think we can blame it on an entirely male writing staff though, because Doctor Who and B5 have/had all male staffs and they have wonderful female characters on sci fi shows. I think the first start would be to write the women like men, and maybe just work from there.
Ah, we all know they read fic.
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 03:20 (UTC)4. My going theory on Sheppards hair (inspired by its total lack of change in “Epiphany” is that really early on in season one, he and McKay were playing with some Ancient dodad and it zapped him and now his hair is stuck that way perminently.
ROTFLMAO!!! You are so right. Even stuck in a dark cave for days, there is no change. The beard grows but the hair atop his changes not a jot! That's just spooky! LOL!
5. Oh God help us, no, I was thinking more in terms of Mike Gilchrist marrying Miko Kusanagi or something like that, no big weddings, please than thank you.
I'm not even big on minor character weddings. That one in ST-TNG where O'Brien and Keiko got married worked for me because it was mainly a character study for Data. And then O'Brien graduated from minor character to major character on the spin-off show. And actually, I didn't mind the way they handled that whole marriage scenario. Even though they had to have the "OMG birth during a crisis" episode, etc. Maybe the actors sold it for me. I dunno.
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 04:31 (UTC)You probably shouldn't worry about it. I don't think they will. I just think about these things.
(no subject)
Date: 26 Apr 2006 05:03 (UTC)