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Cleaning Up After The Ancients (Stargate SI)

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BethofDeath said:
sigh Maybe Babylon 5's carefully structured and planned-out ahead of time writing spoiled me.
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Definitely, most shows only plan for a season or two they are scheduled for since more isn't guaranteed and only start properly planning when the series gets popular and they don't have to worry about suddenly being cancelled. Early Instalment Weirdness is a trope after all. That plus episodic, monster of the week, story telling doesn't lend itself towards long running plots.
 
KyleDaScourge said:
So, he's creating a new subspecies trading their ability to use existing Ancient technology (Although he could theoretically fabricate new tech for them without the ATA Gene requirement) and download data and skills in exchange for an increased lifespan.

...How much of an increased lifespan?

Because on it's own that seems like a bad tradeoff. Particularly given that the technology they're losing access to includes effective options for immortality already, and absent the option to just download the information they're going to spend probably decades at minimum learning everything "the old fashion way".
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I mean, if they're proper Alfar/elves? It's forever as a life span.
 
AlphaOmega said:
Definitely, most shows only plan for a season or two
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I need a sobbing react now, it's too true.

Just another thing crapitalism ruins, when everything needs to be for enough profit to make the execs satisfied (ignoring entirely that something already made the money back that was spent)
 
Pyro Hawk said:
It says something that one of the simplest is 'a Goa'uld wanting to get close to me decided to manipulate time through the standard methods to abduct her just before she probably would have died, took over her body and returned to the current time period to reveal 'her' survival to everyone'. I'm not saying it's the most likely nor most probably to achieve it's goals, but it is one of the simpler ones that could happen.
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Sounds to me like multiple time-travellers will turn-up, together. Then, have to fight it out. There's reasons I suggested the need for invisibility (which includes a really good sensor cloak) If you are planning to extract living people from the past. The 'clone a corpse-candidate', with accurate stomach contents, scarring, implants (and their contents) and makeup (hence a rouge clone? :) ) is part of the CYA logic.

Of course, retrieving a 'nearly dead' person, then finding their body only has physical reflex-level memories might... mean someone else tried the trick earlier in the time-line???

if a Goa'uld found themselves in this position, they could still then be driving a physically accurate body???

Time Travel. It can really mess with your head...
 
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BethofDeath said:
Which brings up a lot of questions the series doesn't bother explaining.

Did ALL these completely different species just evolve from the same genetic stock over only a few million years? Quite possible, sure, it happened on Earth; a much wider pool of worlds only increases the odds. I just don't see what Earth thing something like the Goa'uld would evolve its form of possession from. Maybe they really were made by another species...

Did these species already exist, and were killed off and reseeded by the Dakara Device, starting their civilizations from zero? Or did some survivors exist on colonies or ships somewhere far from any Astria Porta? Do they hate the Alterrans for what they did to their people, and want revenge on them for the genocide, or on their descendants now that they are out of reach?

Did the PLAGUE ITSELF survive in such a place, just in hibernation of sorts? I mean, it remained on Earth in that one frozen lady left behind risking reinfection of at least that world if not the galaxy.

...for that matter, why didn't the Dakara Device wipe *her* from existence?


And why didn't the Lantaeans use another such device to wipe out the Wraith? This one I can kinda understand if the Wraith had tech which was immune to the effect and would shield them from it.

sigh Maybe Babylon 5's carefully structured and planned-out ahead of time writing spoiled me.
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because the dakara device is only purpose in the show was to reseed the galaxy with life
the idea of it being used to wipe out the plague is not mentioned at all in the show.


the dakara device had to be modified to wipe out the replicators
and then when anubis was doing his fuckery his goal was to wipe out all life and start from scratch

I doubt you could modify it to target a single species

when the Jaffa used it against the Ori they targeted specifically human planets and it killed everyone apart from adria who was protected by a piece of celestus
 
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Pyro Hawk said:
Okay, so I see I am not the only one that's reading this as 'looks like Eventus is eventually going to find out first hand just how accurate his mental impression of his girlfriend's opinion about the elf was'. I really look forward to finding out just how that Chekov's Gun ends up being resolved because there are a lot of ways in the Stargate universe it can be done.
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Keep in mind she was still a semi-mad scientist. :lol:

Pyro Hawk said:
How many of the Lanteans had the belief that Eventus' preferred form of 'actual' Mad Science was all the shenanigans he and his crew had to do in order to manage, contain and clean up everyone else's 'accidents', 'fission mailed', 'mission failed successfully', 'mission unfortunately succeeded' and 'succeeded too well' moments?
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The Lanteans on Atlantis mostly considered him one of the "weirdo's on the maintenance squad".

The Lanteans on other planets and facilities mostly didn't know about him, those that did had varying opinions that mostly amounted to the idea that he was way too cautious with things.


Shadow Archon said:
Let's hope that box isn't a fridge.
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I can assure you, if she is found to be alive I will not just kill her for real.


KyleDaScourge said:
So, he's creating a new subspecies trading their ability to use existing Ancient technology (Although he could theoretically fabricate new tech for them without the ATA Gene requirement) and download data and skills in exchange for an increased lifespan.

...How much of an increased lifespan?

Because on it's own that seems like a bad tradeoff. Particularly given that the technology they're losing access to includes effective options for immortality already, and absent the option to just download the information they're going to spend probably decades at minimum learning everything "the old fashion way".
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It's roughly a 10x increase, with a lack of mental decline, and staying generally late 20s early 40s looking for the majority of that.

Also, it wasn't a full removal of the gene structure as you'll note a "shadow" was left behind. Tiny bit of technobabble again, it was removal of the portions of the gene structure having to do with the brain. So she can still initialize things, and have ancient technology used on her by anyone, she's just limited to the same capabilities with that technology as a bog standard human using an already initialized bit of technology would be.

Yes, the Ancient's traded an extended natural lifespan for a better ability to access and translate information with their brains. (Which is fair given they have technology which can do the same.)


BethofDeath said:
...for that matter, why didn't the Dakara Device wipe *her* from existence?
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We learn from Adria that ancient shield technology can block the effect, so I assume she was shielded.

BethofDeath said:
And why didn't the Lantaeans use another such device to wipe out the Wraith? This one I can kinda understand if the Wraith had tech which was immune to the effect and would shield them from it.
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Never explained officially, but in story it wasn't tunable to the point that it could differentiate "Wraith" from "Human".
 
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Vaermina said:
in story it wasn't tunable to the point that it could differentiate "Wraith" from "Human".
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Honestly, it might've been a mercy to use it anyway, then -- thousands of planets, up to millions each, all getting eaten by the Wraith? Vs a one-time instant, painless extinction of everywhere they couldn't evacuate to being under a (temporary, so no need to use up limited ZPMs) shield? I would've picked the latter then stayed there, on the first world to be wiped, tbh. (I ain't no "make hard choice that doesn't affect me" asshole type.)

I think you already said the Wraith had partially hacked the gate network somehow, so the Lanteans couldn't simply shut down the parts in Wraith space without shutting the whole thing down and preventing evacuation efforts? Might be better to just say the Wraith also managed to corrupt whatever's needed to dial multiple gates at once to spread the effect, I dunno.

Of course, if the Dakara device really couldn't be used for that (which doesn't make much sense -- that kind of massive, galactic-scale matter reshaping is inherently a weapon the likes of the Genesis Wave, just needing booster relays in the form of the Stargates), that works too.
 
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Vaermina said:
I can assure you, if she is found to be alive I will not just kill her for real.
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Yeah, one of my least favorite episodes of Atlantis is when an entire ship of living Lanteans and their female captain is fridged off screen in the very episode they make their debut.

Literally, they didn't even have control of Atlantis for a single week before being killed.

It's also the laziest two parter the writers ever made in Stargate, since it also ends with Atlantis getting 3 fully charged ZPMs out of the mess.
 
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Option 4: "If you wanted me to try some pointed ears out, all you had to do was ask, honey."
Option 5: "Wait, that's how I look when I make that face?!"
Option 6: "She looks just like her daddy!" "But none of my DNA is in her?" "I meant the cloning vat."
 
EmperorArthur said:
I'm pretty sure one of the first series involving time travel had an agent looking away when someone was going to be killed so he could go back and save them later.

In a world with time travel, no communication is the perfect excuse for "Saved by a time traveler."
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Ah the classic quantum uncertainty information continuity trick where not reading history or anything works or just falsifying records works beacuse then it's not a paradox
 
the swarm said:
Ah the classic quantum uncertainty information continuity trick where not reading history or anything works or just falsifying records works beacuse then it's not a paradox
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Rhe key is the person dying without a body or being saved doesn't impact what the time traveler will do next. Thus avoiding the whole predestination paradox or time loop shenanigans. Same with not seeing themselves.


Shadow Archon said:
It's also the laziest two parter the writers ever made in Stargate
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Stargate is unique in that Earth does advance, however they also stick to the tropes of never letting it be by too much.

It's why SG-1 abandoned their android clones, and didn't have contact with them until they ended up killing themselves. That's stupidly advanced tech and a guy who understands it just left on the table.
 
EmperorArthur said:
It's why SG-1 abandoned their android clones, and didn't have contact with them until they ended up killing themselves.
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Eventus. Time machine. Robo-SG1, *yoink*!
(If he can't fix their power-supply issues, take regular backups, or stuff them in bio-bodies, if they want that, I'd be very surprised...)
 
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EmperorArthur said:
It's why SG-1 abandoned their android clones, and didn't have contact with them until they ended up killing themselves. That's stupidly advanced tech and a guy who understands it just left on the table.
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To be fair, Mr. Contraya is an asshole and I don't want to think about what the NID would pull with that tech.
 
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Ace Dreamer said:
Eventus. Time machine. Robo-SG1, *yoink*!
(If he can't fix their power-supply issues, take regular backups, or stuff them in bio-bodies, if they want that, I'd be very surprised...)
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They returned for one episode, wherein the SG1bots and SG1 killed Cronos and stole his ha'tak. The SG1bots got killed in the process, and the Ha'tak got eaten by the Replicators and ramped into Sokar's industrialized (for a Goa'uld) homeworld turned Apophis's throneworld. Delmak? I'm blanking on the name of the planet ATM. Resulted in the true and final death of Apophis as well. That was after loaning the Ha'tak to assist the Tok'ra in relocating to a new planet, and then setting a trap for Apophis's fleet by blowing up the local star.
The Season Four finale and Five Premier episodes, IIRC.


--
But seriously, the SG1 bots and Harlan's tech, and planet, represented an incredibly valuable potential asset that got utterly ignored. Harlan would have been happy to share his knowledge in exchange for assistance, and the personality copy androids would be rather useful for facilitating research and development programs. And Harlan's people had some nifty tech, and probably even more tech that never got shown.
 
Kytheros said:
They returned for one episode, wherein the SG1bots and SG1 killed Cronos and stole his ha'tak. The SG1bots got killed in the process, and the Ha'tak got eaten by the Replicators and ramped into Sokar's industrialized (for a Goa'uld) homeworld turned Apophis's throneworld. Delmak? I'm blanking on the name of the planet ATM. Resulted in the true and final death of Apophis as well. That was after loaning the Ha'tak to assist the Tok'ra in relocating to a new planet, and then setting a trap for Apophis's fleet by blowing up the local star.
The Season Four finale and Five Premier episodes, IIRC.


--
But seriously, the SG1 bots and Harlan's tech, and planet, represented an incredibly valuable potential asset that got utterly ignored. Harlan would have been happy to share his knowledge in exchange for assistance, and the personality copy androids would be rather useful for facilitating research and development programs. And Harlan's people had some nifty tech, and probably even more tech that never got shown.
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there is a moral arguement against creating robot clones of people

given that they would share every single memory
and lose access to every single human connection they made to be shoved onto an alien planet.

also good luck finding flesh and blood humans who are comfortable with a copy of themselfs walking around

and even if you find a human who is comfortable with all that
Imagine being the copy and releasing this other guy signed you up for this and its your life now.
 
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Valmond said:
*waves hand*
You called?
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Heh. Pretty much.
My arguments against it boil down to two separate issues, one on my behalf and the other on my clone's. In order:

1) I don't want a robo-clone impersonating me on accident or intentionally.
2) I don't want my robo-clone to be stuck homeless/jobless, or stuck in a situation I wouldn't want to happen to me.

Solve those two issues, and there's another candidate for replication.

Harlan was arguably one of the bigger wasted opportunities of Stargate.

Advanced technology. Probable immortality.
Minimal security (bonus for the unscrupulous ones).
Friendly native (bonus for the diplomatic ones).
 
Obviously any further robot copies of people would be based on fully informed volunteers. And there'd be other rules required.
But you don't need to create robo-people to benefit from or to help Harlan. His people had energy weapons (demonstrated when he vaporized the first robo-Teal'c that included his Goa'uld symbiote), and a whole host of other advanced technologies to study and learn.

Plus, the androids are demonstrably stable technology that could have been used to help buy the Asgard time to solve their issues.
 
I think Vaermina is going to thread the needle here by going spiritual, there's already been mention of souls in this and how they can develop but aren't something inherent to AI. The Android Copies may not have a spiritual component to them. And as Stargate is really Space Fantasy pretending to be Sci-Fi then it's not that much of a divergence.
 
SemiSaneAuthor said:
I think Vaermina is going to thread the needle here by going spiritual, there's already been mention of souls in this and how they can develop but aren't something inherent to AI. The Android Copies may not have a spiritual component to them. And as Stargate is really Space Fantasy pretending to be Sci-Fi then it's not that much of a divergence.
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Or, "free soul with every new parallel incarnation"? But. Young souls may need a bit of... careful contemplation/maturing, or, their motivations might go... a bit wonky?
(Think about the alleged wisdom attributed to 'old souls' - reverse that.)

((I recall a reference to 'bit-part player souls', those on the 'wheel of incarnation' who are prepared to take a chance on incarnating into quite possibly short-lifespan sapient beings, like AIs (AGIs). Which come with an 'off'/reset switch. If really unlucky, things like sapient bombs...))
 
I made a rather large update to the first part of the chapter, so general question to the thread, does this work at least somewhat better?
 
KyleDaScourge said:
So, he's creating a new subspecies trading their ability to use existing Ancient technology (Although he could theoretically fabricate new tech for them without the ATA Gene requirement) and download data and skills in exchange for an increased lifespan.

...How much of an increased lifespan?

Because on it's own that seems like a bad tradeoff. Particularly given that the technology they're losing access to includes effective options for immortality already, and absent the option to just download the information they're going to spend probably decades at minimum learning everything "the old fashion way".
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From the perspective of creating an equal, true. But this is some kind of fetishised sex slave and lab assistant - thus limiting her ability to operate Ancient technology is probably quite deliberate. And assistants don't need to have agency or complete educations, so this helps stop her from gaining them. Actually I guess the elven thematics also isolate her from other humanoids, making it harder for them to leave.

At least there doesn't seem to be much behavioural slave programming, though obviously an emotionally stunted newborn adult is going to be extremely vulnerable.

...well, at least Dr Weir will understand how fucked up this is.
 
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