Meta: How to work a Stargate (and other things that make no sense and some that do)

[korilian]

Quite possibly I'm over thinking this, because the Stargate seems to work pretty much however the writers need it to work. This goes for most alien tech actually...

Point and case 1: Jumpers must uncloak before entering a wormhole. 
From watching the show it's pretty clear the jumpers can cloak, right up to the point where they go through the gate. Now maybe wormhole travel just messes with the system a little, or hell, I don't know. You can't pull in the drive pods while cloaked or something silly. I'm inclined to belief the whole uncloaking jumper thing was invented so that bad guy's can take exiting potshots at them though.

Point and case 2: All aliens had English lessons in ground school.
Why oh why do the aliens speak English?!? Is there some kind of translation gizmo build into the gate? But then why don't ALL aliens speak English?!? What the hell is the point of Daniel fricking Jackson anyway? Why can Colonel Caldwell and his minions who NEVER travel through any Pegasus gate, understand Teyla and Ronon? Could they understand aliens who haven't traveled to the gate to Atlantis?

Point and case 3: To dial home you need to know the point of origin.
...er No. That's what they said in the movie, but if that was the case then you wouldn't be able to dial out if you don't know what planet you are on (The hive), let alone use the same home dialing sequence every time. Supposedly the stargate works by dialing points between location A and B. So if Location B is completely changes, you'd need a new sequence. They obviously ditched that in favour of a more easy to use phone number system in the series though. So again, what is the point of DANIEL JACKSON?!?

Point and case 4: If you leave Atlantis during the day, it'll still be day when you arive on the next planet.
This I actually find rather clever, because if you were an ancient and you could put the gate anywhere you wanted on the fricking planet, of course you'd make sure there wouldn't be a lot of gate lag. I wonder if they divided the gates amongst hemisphere's too. When half the planets have summer, the other half has winter. It sure would make year round trade convenient.

Okay I'm done.
 

Comments

[ismenetruth.livejournal.com]

I feel like one of those people in dystopian novels, you know, who are like, "Don't question the Authority! Bad things will happen!"

...but, seriously. Sometimes it's better not to overthink the craziness that is canon in Stargate, because if you do, your head will explode.

The Jumper thing - Rodney explained it once. I don't remember what he said, but I'm sure I was so charmed by the way he condescended to whomever he was speaking to that I believed it. I'm easy like that.

As for translation - no, really, don't think about it. It doesn't make sense. It never will. There's no internal canon. You might try trinityofone's fic Athosian for Beginners - http://trinityofone.livejournal.com/122785.html - which frankly makes it all better.

I actually have no useful information to transmit. The Stargate universe makes so much more sense if you watch it for the pretty people and the gayness. Trust me, it's more fun if you're shallow. :D

[korilian.livejournal.com]

I actually have no useful information to transmit. The Stargate universe makes so much more sense if you watch it for the pretty people and the gayness. Trust me, it's more fun if you're shallow. :D

Well of course it doesn't make any sense. It's scifi!That's not why we watch it. I for one watch it because I have a big embarresing fangirl crush on Doctor Mckay.

Now ususaly I'm one of those people who gleefully reads crackfic and then wanders of thinking, "Sure that could totally happen."
The thing is, I've been wondering for a while now what Atlantis would be like if the people were people instead of walking cliches. Hence also the nitpicking. There might be fic in there somewhere...

[(Anonymous)]

Aren't most of those things examples of stuff that are done to save time/money while filming the episodes? If they had to stop and translate every new alien language we'd never get to the plot. If they had to stop and figure out the point of origin every time other important scenes would have to be cut out. I don't get why it's such a big deal for people to just ignore those issues.

[korilian.livejournal.com]

Oh hell, it's no big deal. I watch Atlantis for fun after all. Doesn't mean I can't mock the science. :)