Where should Stargate go now?

[Temis the Vorta]

Skywalker wrote:

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My ideal "feel" for the show would be somewhere between the inane goofiness of SG-1 and the relentless moodiness of SGU.

So...DS9ish?

[RoJoHen]

Since this is a plot point that has been constantly debated throughout the entire run of the Stargate franchise, here's something I would change:

Make the Stargate public knowledge from the very beginning, and actually allow the world to react to the news instead of keeping it a secret the whole time.

[Gaith]

Where should Stargate go now?

Judging from what I've read upthread, the answer is: "wherever it's gone to, it should stay there."

[gturner]

RoJoHen wrote:

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Since this is a plot point that has been constantly debated throughout the entire run of the Stargate franchise, here's something I would change:

Make the Stargate public knowledge from the very beginning, and actually allow the world to react to the news instead of keeping it a secret the whole time.

Thinking about the ramifications of that makes my head hurt. There are a ton of plots that Stargate couldn't do, from huge and dramatic (like whole nation states wanting to up and move to other worlds, and then getting into conflicts) to alien fast food franchise rights.

I forget the name of the two episodes with the Ashen (one was a year number), but those had a future where people were aware of the gate.

[The Grim Ghost]

Gaith wrote:

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Where should Stargate go now?

Judging from what I've read upthread, the answer is: "wherever it's gone to, it should stay there."

So do you have any better ideas??

[Skywalker]

The Grim Ghost wrote:

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So do you have any better ideas??

Gaith really isn't an "idea" guy so much as a "trash everyone else's idea" guy.

[Temis the Vorta]

RoJoHen wrote:

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Since this is a plot point that has been constantly debated throughout the entire run of the Stargate franchise, here's something I would change:

Make the Stargate public knowledge from the very beginning, and actually allow the world to react to the news instead of keeping it a secret the whole time.

That's the kind of thinking I'd want to see from the people I hire to reboot it - don't get hung up on preconceived notions about how a show must be this way or that way. Be daring or don't bother. Maybe that's not the right approach but someone needs to give it a good think-through before coming to that conclusion.

Skywalker wrote:

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Gaith really isn't an "idea" guy so much as a "trash everyone else's idea" guy.

Heh. Yeah.

[The Green Mushroom]

I once read that there were Stargate novels written after the movie but before the TV series. While I never read them, I heard that their premise was that the planet the series calls Abydos had other settlements that our heroes contacted as well as some of Ra's human servants who still wanted to stay in power.

Something like that could work, either as a full reboot or a series where the cast is a team sent to a world that has just overthrown its Jaffa after they clung to loyalty to the Go'aulds for several years after everyone else.

[Dream]

Start a new show with all the actors being played by pine trees.

[dru]

The answer is obvious: a DARKER, GRITTIER, REIMAGINED REBOOT.

/sarcasm

[gturner]

Temis the Vorta wrote:

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That's the kind of thinking I'd want to see from the people I hire to reboot it - don't get hung up on preconceived notions about how a show must be this way or that way. Be daring or don't bother. Maybe that's not the right approach but someone needs to give it a good think-through before coming to that conclusion.

Well, a Stargate reboot does have the really unusual out of screwing continuity all to heck and calling the program "Wormhole Extreme!"

"Of course it's totally wrong. It has to be because this show is a cover for the real show, unless it was the other show that was the real cover, and this one is..."

It might be easier to think outside the franchise and pull in vaguely similar premises from science fiction.

Here are a few ideas:

1) More advanced and diverse human enemies.

The Go'uld kept humans as primitive laborers, but perhaps it would be more interesting if the alien races had been using us because we're adaptable, trainable, and good with technology (as opposed to pushing plows and stabbing people), perhaps much more so than the aliens.

Then instead of constantly encountering medieval villages and Egyptian settlements, we're encountering technically advanced humans who could believe all sorts of crazy things, making them far more dangerous and threatening than the Jaffa ever were.

Stargate used elements of advanced humans many times, but usually those plots were written as a way for us to get some non-Go'uld technology to fight the Go'uld, or to provide a doomed love-interest for Carter. Humans were never a significant adversary on their own till the show ran out of Go'uld and came up with the post-Go'uld Lucian Alliance, which was never very well developed. Basically, all the humans we fought seem to be either still enslaved, free but primitive, or using Go'uld tech. The humans who had advanced were allies, if often irritating ones.

What if there were very advanced humans out there, coming from a variety of alien "owners" (so their technology and cultures would vary more widely), and upon discovering us, they frequently decide to reclaim their Earth homeworld or destroy it before someone else can claim it, or naturally assume that they should be running it?

2) Greater diversity of conflicts

What if the humans often fight bitterly amongst themselves, perhaps in concert with aliens or dragged into alien wars, providing any number of story arcs as needed?

That would allow shades of Babylon 5, including occassionally losing the Earth to hostile forces through direct action, intrigue, and misguided trust of Greeks bearing gifts, while retaining the exploratory character of Stargate (along with fun stand-alones) by not clinging to a single arc.

3) Greater diversity of rules (what works where, and why)

You could make it sort of a meta-science fiction show, where we might encounter equivalents of Colonials fighting Cylons, the Federation fighting Romulans, rebels fighting the Empire, not locking things into a particular type of ship or set of rules. This could prevent the characters from reaching the state where they have everything figured out and all the tech they need, which afflicted SG-1 in the later seasons.

4) Divide the galaxy into zones.

One way to do this is to have the galaxy divided into zones where the rules of physics are slightly different, like Vernor Vinge's "Fire Upon the Deep" to explain why ships and technology don't seem to work universally, why ships in some areas "jump", others warp, some use fusion drives and missiles, and some don't. The nature of the different zones would keep one type of technology and culture from becoming dominant everywhere, and provide a reason for episodes that only work with certain tech (this plot needs a warp core breach, that plot needs a starfighter to jump into hyperspace).

This would have to be spelled out explicitly very early in the show so viewers don't think the writers lost their marbles and are making things up on the fly without any regard to continuity, and would have to be brought up periodically as a reminder, perhaps with plots concerning aliens trying to obtain weapons and drive systems that would let them expand into a neighboring zone.

The one constant would have to be the gate system.

The reboot:

Perhaps the best way to reboot into this would be the discovery that the equivalent of the Ancient weapons platform on Tokara was used to rewrite the rules of physics across local domains, which was done to prevent any one of a number of threats from taking over the entirety of the galaxy just by possessing an edge in just one propulsion or weapon technology. It would be the same as preventing the possibility of a single predator from becoming dominant over a planet by dividing the planet into wildly diverse ecosystems, knowing that no animal would work well in swamps, oceans, deserts, forests, ice flows, and grasslands.

For continuity, the SGC could notice that the Go'uld, Replicators, and other threats were only operating in certain areas of the galaxy, travelling above or below the spiral arms when they crossed certain regions, which wasn't very obvious when the Tok'ra map display only showed the galaxy from the top. Then we notice that the Gate system doesn't seem to extend into any of these areas, either.

As we send ships to try and explore the neglected zones, their drives cut out, and we realize that the physics are changing, and different. Our ships have to back out slowly on reaction thrusters. Probes show that even F=ma and momentum breaks down a little further in, and the speed of light drops dramatically, so the only way across would take thousands of years of low-speed coasting.

We consult the Asgard database and they never found a solution, having explored almost every conceivable propulsion system. The Go'uld never took things further than that, and both they and the Asgard assumed the whole region would be similar, and assumed that the Ancients never put gates there because the Ancients couldn't get in there, either.

But we discover that the problem is one of the borderlands between zones, where one set of physical laws is being replaced by another set, and that both sublight and FTL propulsion is still possible within the zones, away from the borders, and that there are gate systems within the zones, too. We figure out how to use the Ancients' equivalent of dialing a country code with a password to get between zones and explore what's inside, realizing that the Ancients split the gate system into seperate sections to reduce the chance of a single species takeover, the same reason they'd created the zones themselves. Inside the zones we might discover - a whole new series! ...Stargate Ecosystem...

And then the whole thing is rebooted.

[Starkers]

Actually I tell ya where Stargate should go from here...years from now some creator of a brand new show should reference the influence the SG shows had on him/her and how their new show is a bit of a homage. Kinda like JMS with the Prisoner/Blakes 7 etc, or Chris Carter with Kolchak.

[Gaith]

Skywalker wrote:

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Gaith really isn't an "idea" guy so much as a "trash everyone else's idea" guy.

Slander! I have tons of awesome ideas. Like Gods of Allocation, a Sports Night-esque sitcom about the oft-discussed "suits" who decide what movies/shows live or die, and what sort of budgets they get.

There could totally be an episode where one of the guys agonizes over what to do with the Stargate property. On the one hand, it's got strong name recognition, a devoted following, and lots of canon to draw on. On the other hand, it's best known for a show in which military types teleport into Canadi-er, alien forests, and, uh.... from what I've gleaned above... beat some people up?

Meanwhile, the same guy promised his eight-year old daughter he's been neglecting that Johnny Depp will come to her birthday party, but he's doing last-minute reshoots on a movie in Lisbon! Can our hero find an adequately convincing impersonator in time? Find out this Tuesday on... GODS OF ALLOCATION!

[stj]

There is a huge problem with any reimagining of Stargate that wants to be grittier or more solemn: The basic premise is completely stupid. Every effort to reimagine SG-1, from the Ori on, broke on this fundamental problem. The viewer can accept the nonsense with willing suspension of disbelief but then he or she cannot simultaneously mentally engage with the supposedly serious drama. The car is either in idle or in high gear. You might keep it up for a two hour movie, but most people's minds wake up for the commercials. (I hope.)

On the other hand, SG-1 was a very successful action/comedy show. It's premise was "We came, we snarked, we conquered!" All the elaborate mythology was just clever writing.

In other words, a reimagined SG-1 should aim for revamping the comedy matrix.

Step 1: Re-do the discovery of the stargate as a civilian project. The original civilian team under Dr. Samantha Carter goes through, falls foul of Ra. When Ra sends troops through the gate on recon, Gen. Hammond sends Col. Jack O'Niell through. The hardbitten soldier saves the civilians and establishes a base on Abydos for further investigation.

Step 2: The new base discovers that Ra wasn't the only one and the key to the gate system. The military can't take over the project because they lack the expertise, so the military has only limited authority and limited resources in the new search for the gatebuilders.

Step 3: Further develop characters and mythologies by stand-alone episodes. If they are decently written the characters will be defined by their actions. And if the writers are half as clever as the original crew, a fun mythology will grow.

But it all depends on the casting and the comedy matrix, as you might call it. G.W. Bailey for General Hammond I think, and Stephen Lang for Col. O'Niell. Tony Shalhoub for Kasuf, to play off Hammond as local leader. Lang would do the badass ticked off at the sloppy civilians who have the upper hand over the tech. Dr. Carter would be an older actress who can do no-nonsense (Sigourney Weaver would be ideal, but maybe Janeane Garafolo) and play off Lang. Dr. Jackson could be gay (Sean Maher, yes, that could work) and really play off Lang. The teams going through the gate would vary, with military members including Kowalski and Freeman, with locals like Skaara and Share insisting they share (like the Russians in the original series.) These would be played by relative unknowns. Dr. Frasier would be a biologist from the university mounting the expedition. She would be friendlier, more tomboyish (culture clash with Abydonians,) maybe played by Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer's Body/Gone mode.

Standard missions would include a scientist, a soldier and an Abydonian "observer." The difference in viewpoints between the three sets would build in conflict for humor (and the occasional real drama sneaked in for variety.) Deemphasizing the physical stakes to Earth would decrease the need for storyline megalomania.

[Locutus of Bored]

Each successive Stargate series has attempted to one-up the last. First it was set in the Milky Way, then they went to the Pegasus Galaxy, and then the universe. The natural progression if you continued to follow that pattern would seem to be time travel or the exploration of other realities. But that's been done before both on the various Stargate series and in other scifi franchises.

I think they should take the opposite tack and pull back to the have a more Earth/Milky Way-centric show again, still set in the same universe with no reboot or reimagining, and show the implications of revealing the Stargate Program to the world at large, and the fallout from that revelation. It's frankly something that should have happened in the first series (and did to a lesser extent with the IOA) and is inexcusable that it didn't happen throughout Atlantis and Universe.

By returning to an Earth-based series, you can occasionally have follow-ups with the characters and settings from the three previous series to show us how things are going. Hell, even if you can't book someone from Universe, just have them appear in the body of a human avatar using the stones. CGI sets have made remarkable strides if you can't afford to rebuild the standing sets from the series themselves for a brief appearance.

I'd be interested in seeing how all the medieval and Egyptian themed human planets have come along in the post-Goa'uld-era, and whether they have started to build relations with their human counterparts on Earth and other planets. I'd like to see some missed opportunities or mysteries addressed (like the Furlings) and the return of some classic villains now that Earth is much more powerful (see if the Aschen Homeworld survived for example).

Then you can have different factions on Earth vying for control of the Stargates and alien technology.

Basically bring the show back to its more down-to-Earth roots from SG-1 but use that to explore new perspectives on existing characters, aliens, and tech, while introducing new planets, people, and factions we've never seen before. It's stilla big galaxy out there, and there's no need to go further and further out to tell interesting stories.