SGA; recs and question

[permetaform]

First the recs, 'cause these have been piling up and I need some form of sanity and not being afraid of my bookmarks. ::wry grin::

Assume that these are all SGA and all some form of Sheppard and McKay.


#435, The Atlantis Local Stitch'n'Bitch Chapter by rageprufrock - Wherein John is held close to the righteous female bosom of knitted products, Rodney is too curious for his own good, and plans fail in a spectacular way. (random thought: huh. I just realized this has a lot of what cereta mentions in her post on masculine and feminine spaces. huh.)

The Boys Of Summer by seperis - reads like the first breath of fresh air and feels like sun shining.

Advantage by resonant8 - Aliens make John into Rodney's slave and its both exactly what you expect and entirely surprising all at once.

Beauty by blinkiesays - Skip the notes on this one, the story reveals itself well enough on it's own and it reads like a melody.

The Lending Library by iphignia939 - The summary explains it all: "Naturally, when several hundred people moved to another galaxy, they brought porn." XD

[]

Stargate Question: Has anyone out there seen a plentiful amount of SG-1?

I'm very curious as to SG-1's interpretation of the Ancients; ie.
both the text and subtext of the Ancient's place/position in the SG-1 universe.

For instance, in SG-1 how were the Ancient's introduced? How are their technology viewed in SG-1, textually and subtextually? How did the SG-1 characters feel about the Ancients and Ancient technology?

Comments

[permetaform]

SG-1 continued showing them as a smarter, wiser, all around superior race for quite a while (and some characters still seem a bit locked into this mindset). I haven't been keeping up with SGA, 'cause I suck, but from what I've heard they definitely seem to be exploring a lot more of the dumb stuff that the Ancients did, rather than treating them as near-perfect.

::nodnodnod:: that was my general impression too, I've noticed a definate critique of the Ancients both text and subtext in SGA, but was wondering if that carried over into SG-1, 'cause the things that SGA are saying about the Ancients are really neat, but I was wondering if it's just a carry-over from SG-1

[simonesa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Through Daniel's experience as being ascended, there is criticism of Ancients. Like they should have helped when Earth was in trouble. They should have done something about Anubis. Daniel has entire episode where he is yelling at the Ancients for just letting this guy destroy the entire universe. I liked when they start exploring the Ancients because considering the high power. You know, supposedly all knowing stuff. Well, these higher power are just as fucked up as we are with just as many problems. Pretty cool view actually that we all have this impression that ascended means smarter, better. But, not necessarily.

[permetaform]

The thing with SGA's view of the Ancients seem to me that it isn't even that they aren't helping, but that the Ancients are part of the problem. Or rather, that they caused a lot of the problems that the SGA team is dealing with, actively, instead of just the show saying that the Ancient's passivity is bad.

[simonesa.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but nothing premeditated or malicious. Usually unintentional. Supposing that Wraith are by product of Ancients and these nasty bugs, they did not deliberately create the Wraith. Something like Trinity where this ancient weapon that causes supernova was also Ancients exploring new technology to make things better.

At this point though the ascended Ancients are resented by SGA because of this noninterference. Like McKay is telling Chaya. She must know how much they would give to meet an Ancient and be able to ask them questions. If the ascended Ancients are so powerful as Chaya demonstrated when protecting her world, the Wraith would not be a problem. Obviously they have not done anything to prevent centuries of cullings.

[permetaform]

::nods:: that makes sense.

[franzeska]

It's not just the Ancients. I'm not up to date on SG1, but they've been slowly working through all their allies. Those allies either turn evil or turn out to be using Earth humans or turn out to have flaws that must be shown in a heavy-handed manner explored. SGA may be using it more as an ongoing theme while on SG1 it's more of a sweeps attention-grabber, but I haven't seen SGA, so I'm not sure.

[permetaform]

SGA also have been having the allies-going-sour thing, but what's facinating to me is the way that the Ancients are simultaneously being revered and undermined throughout SGA. It's sort of an ongoing theme in the way that it pops up in various episodes or the way that the magical city they're in has the occasional danger and the way that the Wraiths are connected in various ways back to the Ancients. (I and a few others have a few theories in how the Wraiths were actually created by the Ancients themselves, in either an accidental or a purposeful way)

[franzeska]

Well considering the general Stargate theme of "Man was Not Meant To Know... but since some other dumbass already went there, I guess we'll try to fix it"...

[cofax7]

The criticism of the Ancients is a lot more textual in SGA than in SG-1, which makes some sense, since SGA is happening in the Ancients' actual city. SG-1's criticism is, um, philosophical mostly. (Although the Ancients have left a number of dangerous things just laying around the Milky Way galaxy, like the head-sucking data repository, and the broken time-travel device in Window of Opportunity.) The Ancients have given no evidence that they will try to protect the Milky Way residents from their long-lost cousins the Orii.

SGA has gone farther in pointing out how the Ancients were kinda racist, and short-sighted, and medically unethical in many ways. Fr'instance, the whole thing with leaving Stargates in orbit? That's nasty, people. Plus the nano viruses, and playing with Wraith dna, and all that.

[permetaform]

::nods at comment::

SGA has gone farther in pointing out how the Ancients were kinda racist, and short-sighted, and medically unethical in many ways. Fr'instance, the whole thing with leaving Stargates in orbit? That's nasty, people.

I'd always wondered at how the people of the various planets knew what to dial, and how they knew that what was on the other side of the gate was safe...also, is this only for SGA? There were no in-space gates in SG1?

[saeva.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling better and will reply to the big question soon, but this:

We've yet to see an in-space gate in the Milky Way, but that's likely representative of the fact that even if there were there's a force that would probably *move* them. For example, we see in-ship 'gates in SG-1, which we don't in SGA save for Atlantis itself. But SG-1 has the added fact that the Goa'uld will move or alter anything that seems halfway useful and since they gained space travel long before the humans of any planet we've seen, well, those who come first get the best pickings, etc.

- Andrea.

[permetaform]

argh, just found this comment because LJ didn't notify, sorry for the delay.

::hugs:: and I hope you feel better soon!

And yeah, that does make sense that someone would have 'scooped' up the Stargates already in the Milky Way!