The tollans had the unfortunate circumstance where at first they were totally down to share and expand, unfortunately the first group they ran into was on a neighboring planet, and when they went about sharing openly that planet decided to not be with that program of comity and seeing beyond its borders. It fell apart so fast and so aggressively it fucked up the whole solar system, doomed the tolan home world and set the tollan back immensely. This is recent history for the tollan I believe.
The tollan weren't so much beyond helping, like the ascended ancients. They were afraid to help because they fucked it up so bad the first time. They pursued isolationism at first out of fear they might cause more harm than good.
However I would assume that eventually many rose in tollan ranks that did believe they were beyond helping outsiders, especially those from a world like ours that would definitely tear itself apart over ion cannons. As well as others that believed their isolationism and seeming neutrality protected them from the larger ire of the goa'uld.
They became super arrogant without a lot to back it up.
The tollans had the unfortunate circumstance where at first they were totally down to share and expand, unfortunately the first group they ran into was on a neighboring planet, and when they went about sharing openly that planet decided to not be with that program of comity and seeing beyond its borders. It fell apart so fast and so aggressively it fucked up the whole solar system, doomed the tolan home world and set the tollan back immensely. This is recent history for the tollan I believe.
The tollan weren't so much beyond helping, like the ascended ancients. They were afraid to help because they fucked it up so bad the first time. They pursued isolationism at first out of fear they might cause more harm than good.
However I would assume that eventually many rose in tollan ranks that did believe they were beyond helping outsiders, especially those from a world like ours that would definitely tear itself apart over ion cannons. As well as others that believed their isolationism and seeming neutrality protected them from the larger ire of the goa'uld.
They became super arrogant without a lot to back it up.
Kind of why I find them so fascinating. The whole events surrounding the Tollan feel like they would go into an officer's training manual on galactic-scale strategic planning for new SGC commanders.
But I do also like imagining the alternative, where we got a view of the clash between Tollan's taking on human military influences, and traditionalists. But I absolutely adored the cultural mashups like Jacob being a Tokra (though they were always somewhat more compatible with the SGC since the Tokra's whole thing was "oh our endgame was always to blow their planet. Why are you looking so shocked?"
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
edited April 2020
There seems to be some sort of cultural law in the SG universe towards arrogant superiority complexes, how those complexes manifest depending on the culture and psychology of the various groups and being quite telling of them.
Lord_Asmodeus on
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
There seems to be some sort of cultural law in the SG universe towards arrogant superiority complexes, how those complexes manifest depending on the culture and psychology of the various groups and being quite telling of them.
I had been watching through all of Stargate for a few months now. Usually an episode or two before bed. I'm late in Season 3 of Atlantis right now.
I forgot what a fucking gut-punch Sunday was. I remembered what was going to happen about 10 minutes before it happened, but it didn't make it suck less.
I really, really like the spaceship designs in this.
The only ships that are really even remotely aerodynamic are the ones explicitly designed for atmospheric missions. None of the other ones were. And the Terran fleet specifically is really just very simple and classic when you get right down to it.
I really, really like the spaceship designs in this.
The only ships that are really even remotely aerodynamic are the ones explicitly designed for atmospheric missions. None of the other ones were. And the Terran fleet specifically is really just very simple and classic when you get right down to it.
The Stargate designs are so iconic there's a fun game you can play. I spend a lot of time looking at book covers, and oh boy, you can just go to Amazon, look up science fiction and play 'spot the Daedelus'. That ship gets around apparently.
The Earth designs are the epitome of simple design; start with a box, and only change bits when you have to.
Probably in-universe someone sketched out a design with a saucer section and separate engines on spars, and Carter looked over their shoulder and said "That looks cool, but I'm seeing half a dozen points of extreme tactical vulnerability. It'd help with the plausible deniability if they got spotted though, I'll give you that."
The Tollans are all but explicitly a satire of Star Trek's Federation, and they work really well at that.
I saw them and the Nox as more based on the Superior Peaceful Space Elves, personally. The difference was that the Nox had the means to back up their claims (at least that we saw. I was waiting for the Ori to kick the shit out of them, as they'd surely be capable), coupled with the complete lack of interest in stopping atrocities that didn't concern them.
I really, really like the spaceship designs in this.
The only ships that are really even remotely aerodynamic are the ones explicitly designed for atmospheric missions. None of the other ones were. And the Terran fleet specifically is really just very simple and classic when you get right down to it.
The Stargate designs are so iconic there's a fun game you can play. I spend a lot of time looking at book covers, and oh boy, you can just go to Amazon, look up science fiction and play 'spot the Daedelus'. That ship gets around apparently.
I just spent a few minutes doing this and you're totally right.
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Stargate Universe had some good ideas. Turning it the central idea on its head so that instead of the best and brightest, you had the wrong people in the wrong place could have been spectacular. You can do some good character development by establishing weaknesses for your characters and having them face situations that don't play to their strengths. But they went overboard with it to the point of it seemed like all the military personnel at Icarus base were flatly incompetent and should have been drummed out of the program years ago.
Also they completely screwed up by having one of the recurring characters outrank one of the main characters. So you have this weird situation where a M.Sgt. is routinely being given command over a lieutenant with seemingly no responsibilities.
And it seemed like there were two competing writing teams. One would do some stuff that took the show in a positive direction by fleshing out some characters to make them complex people and explain why they were the way they were (like Rush) and then the next team would come along and completely undo all of that just to be dicks.
Ultimately though they relied too much on the interpersonal and internal struggles to carry the entire show and thus the rest of the show was lacking the things that made Stargate fun. It was growing on me and I wish they'd made it more than 2 seasons before getting cancelled.
universe was definitely an interesting way to take the idea of stargate, it stood to reason that all of the people on icarus base were tragically inept. Think of it like them setting up an entire research base for bill lee suggesting a wacky possibility of using an entire planet to power a gate to dial an address with more Chevrons than any other prior dialing sequence with absolutely no fuckin clue where it lead to. Basically it was a kinda useless base with little to no hope of it ever producing anything of value with an overtly abrasive but brilliant scientist leading the team trying and totally failing to figure out the problem. It wasn't supposed to be a high value base. Then eli actually solved the equations.
Stargate Universe was the CW Stargate show that they made a joke about in Season 10, only made real.
Depending on which mention of Wormhole Xtreme! you go with, it either lasted 1 episode before cancellation, 3 episodes, or went 10 seasons and got a feature movie.
Stargate Universe was the CW Stargate show that they made a joke about in Season 10, only made real.
Depending on which mention of Wormhole Xtreme! you go with, it either lasted 1 episode before cancellation, 3 episodes, or went 10 seasons and got a feature movie.
SG:U also has considerably less action.
Not Wormhole Extreme, but the "reboot" with a younger cast and more drama that got pitched during the brainstorming meeting in episode 200.
SGU was a show that got remarkably better as it went on. I kind of hate watched it for the first tenish episodes and then it started to turn a corner. It's too bad it got cancelled but they were too dialed in on the wrong aspects at the start I guess.
Stargate Universe was the CW Stargate show that they made a joke about in Season 10, only made real.
Depending on which mention of Wormhole Xtreme! you go with, it either lasted 1 episode before cancellation, 3 episodes, or went 10 seasons and got a feature movie.
SG:U also has considerably less action.
Not Wormhole Extreme, but the "reboot" with a younger cast and more drama that got pitched during the brainstorming meeting in episode 200.
True, but 200 covered pretty much every sci-fi trope in existence in 40 minutes, so that's hardly a surprise. Anything that looked like a prediction of Universe was probably meant as a parody of Galactica.
SGU was a show that got remarkably better as it went on. I kind of hate watched it for the first tenish episodes and then it started to turn a corner. It's too bad it got cancelled but they were too dialed in on the wrong aspects at the start I guess.
They had this weird thing about NOT having a strong intro, but then they undermined that decision by beginning EVERY episode with an identical "previously" segment that played up the drama and feelings.
There was promise in the idea that the problems weren't going to be solved easily in 40 minutes by having the book guy read some stuff and the smart girl build some stuff while the strong guy shot some stuff. And I think they copped-out super hard by having Chloe magically get smart so she could help Rush and do FTL calculations to make her relevant rather than having her struggle to figure out how to meaningfully contribute. And then they undermined themselves by making her irrelevant after that point anyway.
Honestly the writing room must have had a bunch of guys from the Angel writing staff, because they really weren't fans of women.
Stargate Universe was the CW Stargate show that they made a joke about in Season 10, only made real.
Depending on which mention of Wormhole Xtreme! you go with, it either lasted 1 episode before cancellation, 3 episodes, or went 10 seasons and got a feature movie.
SG:U also has considerably less action.
Not Wormhole Extreme, but the "reboot" with a younger cast and more drama that got pitched during the brainstorming meeting in episode 200.
True, but 200 covered pretty much every sci-fi trope in existence in 40 minutes, so that's hardly a surprise. Anything that looked like a prediction of Universe was probably meant as a parody of Galactica.
God, SG:U really was chasing the "New Battlestar" vibe wasn't it? I never made that connection until now. I always just called it "Stargate Lost in Space, but dark and dysfunctional."
I did not like new Battlestar. SG:U got better as it went. Battlestar got worse as it went.
Oh sgu was definitely trying to cash in on the Battlestar vibe, which was its biggest problem. Especially by trying to constantly extend the interpersonal conflicts of the crew. I think the thing that hurt sgu the most is that stargate wasn't really about deep interpersonal conflict between team members. It's about the team coming together and beating the odds to save people. It's a bit trite but that's what it always was. I'm not totally opposed to the idea of some interpersonal conflict there, and being a bit deeper on characterization. Especially in the bouts of the communication stones and what being that far removed and wrapped in secrecy does to all the characters. However the show should have always been moving towards the crew on the ancient ship not being at each other's throats and going crazy and trying to leave the ship all the time. I never caught the end of it so maybe it was finally moving towards that as it ended, but it should have gotten there sooner.
SGU definitely started out infuriatingly paced and written. Too hard of a focus on interpersonal conflicts, even when they would be forced or straight up dumb to continue. "We could not die or I could yell at you more". LAlso very try-hard for that Battlestar or more casual audience with stuff that stuck out badly, like using the stones purely to go to earth and sleep around, or that Janelle Monae concert was also really outta place.
Season 2 really turned things around. Man am I disappointed we didn't get more of that direction.
Catalase on
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Having the drones in Season 2 was such a good thing. A long lasting long running consequence of a few things: Rush's decision to not tell anybody about the bridge and leaving Telford behind on the seed ship and straying from Destiny's flight plan the first time in order to investigate the ship wreckage.
Instead of solving the drone problem all they could do was stopgap solutions.
The Novus stuff was neat too. I was waiting or the drones to have been invented by a Novus descendant.
Universe felt like they wrote a 5 year plot and felt confident enough that they could ramp it up slowly over a year or two.
edit: Wasn't that what happened with the Ori arc in SG1? They were promised at least 3 years to tell it, so for once they didn't write a possible series finale for what turned out to be their last episode?
Happened to Farscape too. They were renewed for Seasons 4 and 5 and the executives pulled the plug on Seson 5 at basically the last moment they contractually could.
Universe felt like they wrote a 5 year plot and felt confident enough that they could ramp it up slowly over a year or two.
edit: Wasn't that what happened with the Ori arc in SG1? They were promised at least 3 years to tell it, so for once they didn't write a possible series finale for what turned out to be their last episode?
And it was part of why Carter went to Atlantis. She still had a year on her contract when SG-1 bit the dust.
Universe felt like they wrote a 5 year plot and felt confident enough that they could ramp it up slowly over a year or two.
edit: Wasn't that what happened with the Ori arc in SG1? They were promised at least 3 years to tell it, so for once they didn't write a possible series finale for what turned out to be their last episode?
One of the creators talked about how they had a 5 year plan to tell their story a lot. Like they could rush things, but the intent was for season 5 to be the big reveal. I remain annoyed that the intended ending has not been revealed so far. Like it's all over. Just tell us what we could have gotten.
That has to be the most frustrating thing for a TV writer.
Being told you have five years to tell your story, so you craft intricate plot arcs, twists, turns, relationships... Always adding potential escape hatches in case one of your stars leaves the show for some reason, building in ways for new characters to show up. But always building the story gradually, so when you get to the twists, they matter to the characters and the audience.
And then the studio shows up, says "fuck you" and hands you your walking papers after the first season.
Probably slightly more annoying than the studio saying "You know what? One more season would be great." for three years in a row. Means you can never write an end, you always have to have somewhere for the story to go, just in case it gets picked up again for another season.
That has to be the most frustrating thing for a TV writer.
Being told you have five years to tell your story, so you craft intricate plot arcs, twists, turns, relationships... Always adding potential escape hatches in case one of your stars leaves the show for some reason, building in ways for new characters to show up. But always building the story gradually, so when you get to the twists, they matter to the characters and the audience.
And then the studio shows up, says "fuck you" and hands you your walking papers after the first season.
Probably slightly more annoying than the studio saying "You know what? One more season would be great." for three years in a row. Means you can never write an end, you always have to have somewhere for the story to go, just in case it gets picked up again for another season.
Nobody that matters for such things learned anything important from Seaquest in the 90s.
That has to be the most frustrating thing for a TV writer.
Being told you have five years to tell your story, so you craft intricate plot arcs, twists, turns, relationships... Always adding potential escape hatches in case one of your stars leaves the show for some reason, building in ways for new characters to show up. But always building the story gradually, so when you get to the twists, they matter to the characters and the audience.
And then the studio shows up, says "fuck you" and hands you your walking papers after the first season.
Probably slightly more annoying than the studio saying "You know what? One more season would be great." for three years in a row. Means you can never write an end, you always have to have somewhere for the story to go, just in case it gets picked up again for another season.
Nobody that matters for such things learned anything important from Seaquest in the 90s.
Dagwood...sad.
"Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination."
Also, pasting from another thread, I've compiled a skip list of SG-1 episodes that have no or little impact on the main arcs (some of those are good, and some bad episodes are still in because they're relevant):
Season 1:
Emancipation
The Broca Divide
The First Commandment
Brief Candle
Fire and Water
Hathor
Cor-ai
Season 2:
The Gamekeeper
Need
Message in a Bottle
Bane
Spirits
One False Step
Season 3:
Seth
Learning Curve
Demons
Urgo
A Hundred Days
New Ground
Crystal Skull
Season 4:
The Other Side
Scorched Earth
Beneath the Surface
The Light
Prodigy
Entity
Season 5:
The Fifth Man
Red Sky
The Tomb
The Warrior
Season 6:
Frozen
Nightwalkers
Sight Unseen
Forsaken
Memento
Skipping Hathor kind of screws up the end of S2/beginning of S3, I think
Out of Mind is literally a clip show that makes a point of telling you everything you need to know about Hathor right before she shows up. Hathor is tied for worst episode of the franchise (with Emancipation*). Skip Hathor.
*I could watch Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa in anything and if someone was willing to just edit his scenes in that episode together I'd watch that.
It's amazing this thread started seeing action again the day I decided to start introducing my newborn to the sounds of SG-1. Just doing a little season 1 in the background for a while today. There's a lot of rough episodes in the first season or two.
Posts
They became super arrogant without a lot to back it up.
Fuck that's what the look he's got for the entire fuckin episode is.
Kind of why I find them so fascinating. The whole events surrounding the Tollan feel like they would go into an officer's training manual on galactic-scale strategic planning for new SGC commanders.
But I do also like imagining the alternative, where we got a view of the clash between Tollan's taking on human military influences, and traditionalists. But I absolutely adored the cultural mashups like Jacob being a Tokra (though they were always somewhat more compatible with the SGC since the Tokra's whole thing was "oh our endgame was always to blow their planet. Why are you looking so shocked?"
The funniest example is the atlantis team
I forgot what a fucking gut-punch Sunday was. I remembered what was going to happen about 10 minutes before it happened, but it didn't make it suck less.
Doc Frasier didn't hurt some, but not like this.
I really, really like the spaceship designs in this.
The only ships that are really even remotely aerodynamic are the ones explicitly designed for atmospheric missions. None of the other ones were. And the Terran fleet specifically is really just very simple and classic when you get right down to it.
The Stargate designs are so iconic there's a fun game you can play. I spend a lot of time looking at book covers, and oh boy, you can just go to Amazon, look up science fiction and play 'spot the Daedelus'. That ship gets around apparently.
Probably in-universe someone sketched out a design with a saucer section and separate engines on spars, and Carter looked over their shoulder and said "That looks cool, but I'm seeing half a dozen points of extreme tactical vulnerability. It'd help with the plausible deniability if they got spotted though, I'll give you that."
I saw them and the Nox as more based on the Superior Peaceful Space Elves, personally. The difference was that the Nox had the means to back up their claims (at least that we saw. I was waiting for the Ori to kick the shit out of them, as they'd surely be capable), coupled with the complete lack of interest in stopping atrocities that didn't concern them.
Also they completely screwed up by having one of the recurring characters outrank one of the main characters. So you have this weird situation where a M.Sgt. is routinely being given command over a lieutenant with seemingly no responsibilities.
And it seemed like there were two competing writing teams. One would do some stuff that took the show in a positive direction by fleshing out some characters to make them complex people and explain why they were the way they were (like Rush) and then the next team would come along and completely undo all of that just to be dicks.
Ultimately though they relied too much on the interpersonal and internal struggles to carry the entire show and thus the rest of the show was lacking the things that made Stargate fun. It was growing on me and I wish they'd made it more than 2 seasons before getting cancelled.
Depending on which mention of Wormhole Xtreme! you go with, it either lasted 1 episode before cancellation, 3 episodes, or went 10 seasons and got a feature movie.
SG:U also has considerably less action.
Not Wormhole Extreme, but the "reboot" with a younger cast and more drama that got pitched during the brainstorming meeting in episode 200.
True, but 200 covered pretty much every sci-fi trope in existence in 40 minutes, so that's hardly a surprise. Anything that looked like a prediction of Universe was probably meant as a parody of Galactica.
They had this weird thing about NOT having a strong intro, but then they undermined that decision by beginning EVERY episode with an identical "previously" segment that played up the drama and feelings.
There was promise in the idea that the problems weren't going to be solved easily in 40 minutes by having the book guy read some stuff and the smart girl build some stuff while the strong guy shot some stuff. And I think they copped-out super hard by having Chloe magically get smart so she could help Rush and do FTL calculations to make her relevant rather than having her struggle to figure out how to meaningfully contribute. And then they undermined themselves by making her irrelevant after that point anyway.
Honestly the writing room must have had a bunch of guys from the Angel writing staff, because they really weren't fans of women.
God, SG:U really was chasing the "New Battlestar" vibe wasn't it? I never made that connection until now. I always just called it "Stargate Lost in Space, but dark and dysfunctional."
I did not like new Battlestar. SG:U got better as it went. Battlestar got worse as it went.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd23slMhWQU
Season 2 really turned things around. Man am I disappointed we didn't get more of that direction.
Instead of solving the drone problem all they could do was stopgap solutions.
The Novus stuff was neat too. I was waiting or the drones to have been invented by a Novus descendant.
edit: Wasn't that what happened with the Ori arc in SG1? They were promised at least 3 years to tell it, so for once they didn't write a possible series finale for what turned out to be their last episode?
And it was part of why Carter went to Atlantis. She still had a year on her contract when SG-1 bit the dust.
One of the creators talked about how they had a 5 year plan to tell their story a lot. Like they could rush things, but the intent was for season 5 to be the big reveal. I remain annoyed that the intended ending has not been revealed so far. Like it's all over. Just tell us what we could have gotten.
Being told you have five years to tell your story, so you craft intricate plot arcs, twists, turns, relationships... Always adding potential escape hatches in case one of your stars leaves the show for some reason, building in ways for new characters to show up. But always building the story gradually, so when you get to the twists, they matter to the characters and the audience.
And then the studio shows up, says "fuck you" and hands you your walking papers after the first season.
Probably slightly more annoying than the studio saying "You know what? One more season would be great." for three years in a row. Means you can never write an end, you always have to have somewhere for the story to go, just in case it gets picked up again for another season.
Nobody that matters for such things learned anything important from Seaquest in the 90s.
Dagwood...sad.
and looking up which episodes happen when, I am reminded that only in season 1 of SG-1, SG-1 is turned into:
Cavepeople
Crystal
Dead
Old
Horny
Robots
Alternate universe selves (not really turned into, but an alternate version of SG-1 does appear)
they really kept going back to that well, huh
Emancipation
The Broca Divide
The First Commandment
Brief Candle
Fire and Water
Hathor
Cor-ai
Season 2:
The Gamekeeper
Need
Message in a Bottle
Bane
Spirits
One False Step
Season 3:
Seth
Learning Curve
Demons
Urgo
A Hundred Days
New Ground
Crystal Skull
Season 4:
The Other Side
Scorched Earth
Beneath the Surface
The Light
Prodigy
Entity
Season 5:
The Fifth Man
Red Sky
The Tomb
The Warrior
Season 6:
Frozen
Nightwalkers
Sight Unseen
Forsaken
Memento
Season 7:
Revisions
Lifeboat
Space Race
Grace
Season 8:
Icon
Avatar
Season 9:
Babylon
Collateral Damage
Season 10:
Uninvited
Bad Guys
You need to burn in order to rise as a phoenix.
Much like Hathor, whose bathtub caught on fire when shot
Out of Mind is literally a clip show that makes a point of telling you everything you need to know about Hathor right before she shows up. Hathor is tied for worst episode of the franchise (with Emancipation*). Skip Hathor.
*I could watch Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa in anything and if someone was willing to just edit his scenes in that episode together I'd watch that.
They were written by the same person.
The Nox is TOS' Errand of Mercy