14 KiB
[FF] Parody of Stargate SG-1
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Author: u/eaglejarl *
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11361802/1/What-if-SG-1-weren-t-stupid
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Score: 26
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Created: 2015-07-06T06:17:14
Post:
Comments:
u/eaglejarl [+3] (49 seconds later)
Last week I submitted a one-shot parody of S1E21; several people asked for more and I had had a great time writing the first one, so here are three more.
u/KZLightning [+3] (8 hours later)
There are also stupid opponents. Are you planning to write about rational snakes too?
u/eaglejarl [+5] (8 hours later)
Hadn't really thought about it, honestly. Maybe? It would pretty much mean "game over, SG-1 dies"...which might be interesting. We'll see, I guess. Thanks for the suggestion.
u/JackStargazer [+2] Primordial Apologist (9 hours later)
Make it Baal. A few times he was so close. He was the best villain in the series. And he at least tried to be rational on several occasions.
He was also a monumental troll, for a Go'auld.
u/qbsmd [+2] (16 hours later)
It would pretty much mean "game over, SG-1 dies"...which might be interesting.
Rational Goauld who is not a crazy megalomaniac: Huh, you're clearly less technologically advanced than we are, but your planet makes a lot of neat stuff. We should set up a trade agreement.
SG1 member: What a coincidence, that is exactly what our mission here is.
Management: Dammit, start trying to kill each other or I'm deleting this universe!
u/eaglejarl [+1] (17 hours later)
What would Earth have that the snakes would want, do you think? Aside from "weapons that aren't terrible", of course.
Love your omake. :>
u/qbsmd [+1] (18 hours later)
There was an episode where a minor Goauld was really impressed with the quality and variety of Earth food. I'd expect sane aliens to be interested in Earth literature, movies, music, etc. I think Baal expresses opinions similar to that as well. Humans also likely have lots of technology that Goauld have never bothered to develop and can develop new stuff given new technology much faster than Goauld do.
u/GopherAtl [+1] (14 hours later)
if you make rational jaffa as well as rational go'auld, then you could balance the conflict. I'd expect rational Jaffa to get their shit together on the whole rebellion thing considerably faster than in canon.
u/eaglejarl [+7] (14 hours later)
The problem here is that one OR the other being rational is okay and gives the heroes a fighting chance, but if BOTH are rational, the heroes are screwed. Consider the Jaffa weaknesses:
- Those staff weapons are ridiculous: slow to fire, slow to aim, can't go through tight spaces easily.
- No real sense of unit tactics
- Too much emphasis on honor and hand-to-hand fighting -- I don't think you ever see a Jaffa sniper. Basically, they're barbarians in space.
- They use 'armor' which doesn't protect against staff weapons OR P90's. A P90 isn't that powerful -- it's a personal defense weapon, not a battle rifle. It doesn't even have a grenade launcher. (Honestly, the armor should leave them completely blind, since their actual heads are in the neck of the armor. Presumably there are vision blocks in there, although I'm not sure how that works when the armor's head can be retracted. Also, the armor makes stealth impossible.
- They seem to lack industry, research, or most forms of modern tech. I don't remember ever seeing them use a radio, but it's been a while since I watched anything after the beginning of season 2.
The Goa'uld weaknesses are:
- Overconfident
- Overproud
- Don't take enemies seriously
- I get the sense that they don't do a lot of research or create a lot of new etc. Teal'c called them 'scavengers', and they don't seem to have learned the cool Stargate tricks that SGC have. Examples: Time travel, bouncing the wormhole to a new destination, opening it to a black hole in order to destroy the planet it's on, etc. They are never shown to use the gates for long-distance FTL communication. Only one of them ever figured out how to force the SGC iris open.
You could say that the Jaffa's ridiculous equipment and lack of tech is down to the Goa'uld. In that case, you've got a few choices:
- Make the Jaffa rational but not the Goa'uld; the Jaffa have decent war skills but still lousy equipment.
- Make the Goa'uld rational but not the Jaffa. The Jaffa have better equipment but lousy war skills.
- Make them both rational. Jaffa have good tactics and good war skills, are supported by good research and such. Heroes lose immediately -- the SG teams lose every battle in the field and then the Goa'uld blow the SGC iris open with a particle accelerator or series of heavy-weapon staff blasts, shove a nuke through. Boom, SGC is gone. Alternatively, have your ships in orbit, force the iris open, go through, open the SGC gate to a black hole, collapse the entrances so no one can get in to shut it off, leave on your ship. Planet dies.
u/GopherAtl [+2] (15 hours later)
eeeh... you make good points but assuming you're talking about starting from the same basic setting as canon, you missed the goa'uld's biggest weakness - that they depend so much on the Jaffa they command for their power, and that they are vastly outnumbered and completely surrounded by this potential enemy. Any goa'uld, turned on by the majority of their jaffa, would be dead, period.
The biggest issue with a rational SG universe, to me, is explaining how the goa'uld, as rational agents, would have let themselves get into that position in the first place.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (16 hours later)
My take on it would be 'they still act as gods, but they treat the Jaffa well', with 'providing good gear' as a part of that. The Jaffa get their gods, great tech, and the chance to "travel the stars, meet interesting people, and kill them."
This is pretty much the situation with the modern military, after all -- there are very few civilian commanders (POTUS + Joint Chiefs, equivalent for other countries) but the military take their orders.
u/KZLightning [+4] (21 hours later)
The weakness of the Goa'uld system is that it is feudal. Keep the feudal system, but make the actors within it rational. So the Goa'uld would still fight each other since the potential gain for each individual is quite large. But they would quickly ally against external threats and internal lords that gained too much power. Much of the internal conflict would be political with rare military conflicts. Ritualized combat is another possibility. The Goa'uld should be rational, but there is no need for them to value the same things that we do. Consider that they gained undisputed control of the galaxy for a very long time. So there is plenty of time for them to be relaxed, lose discipline and focus on internal issues. So matters of internal reputation, appearance and martial display may be the highest value to each other. As long as Earth remains beneath notice, it will be left alone. If Earth goes around decapitating Goa'uld system lords, the remainder will join together travel to Earth and flatten it. A rational SG team will know this and not do anything high profile like that.
In these circumstances, a rational SG team would simply focus on intelligence, misdirection and technology acquisition. Any fighting would have the goals of appearing like it was someone else. I would expect the SG team to use Jaffa equipment and since that equipment would be designed rationally, it would actually be useful for wars.
The goal of the Stargate program would be a heavily defended Earth capable of repelling a Goa'uld fleet. The idea is to be strong enough that the Goa'uld would not bother attacking. From there, it would be mainly political cold war between Earth and the Goa'uld with the contested areas being primitive planets.
If the actual events of SG canon really played out with rational actors, Earth would be a dead world. The idea that the Goa'uld were all too irrational to win is stupid and unrealistic. My belief is that the writers wanted space battles and military fighting without thinking about how to realistically get them.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (21 hours later)
a rational SG team would simply focus on intelligence, misdirection and technology acquisition.
Heh. So, they would be the NID?
[how rational SG-1 would work]
That's a good layout and makes sense. It wouldn't really lend itself to parody, though, which is what I'm going for here. It would be a great story though -- why don't you write it? I'd love to read it, and I'll give you your first review if you post it.
u/KZLightning [+1] (a day later)
A version of the NID that was less stupid and avoided irritating the natives.
If I were able to write that story, I would. The problem is that I am not able to do so. I can write outlines and generate worlds but characters are a different story.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
Pity, I would really have enjoyed it.
As a nudge that you are obviously free to ignore: the only way to learn how to write (characters|scenes|plots|whatever) is to write. Why not take a swing at it? You'll undoubtedly get plenty of comments both here and on FFN about how your characters are flat, trite, whatever, but that's how you improve. Tsuyoku naritai!
u/None [+2] (23 hours later)
It is actually impossible to defend a planet, any object big enough with sufficient speed will make the planet uninhabitable.
u/KZLightning [+1] (a day later)
Given our current technology base, that is true. But this is Stargate and their technology might change that equation. Planetary kinetic barriers capable of blocking light-speed projectiles are at least theoretically possible in that universe.
Remember that the planet does not need to be defended against all possible attackers but only against reasonably expected attackers. Military planners constantly try to improve and test this, but their plans are based in the reality of what the other side can actually do and afford.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
They do have energy shields that can cover relatively large areas (e.g., miles). I don't know if that could be scaled up to cover a planet or strong enough to stop an impactor but I suppose in theory it could. If it's strong enough but can't be big enough then you could use it as a Macross-style pin defense -- you put up a small shield in front of whatever you detect. That leaves the question of detecting it fast enough, of course.
u/KZLightning [+1] (2 days later)
I would strongly suspect that they can stop an impactor, but I think that the main limit would be the size of such a shield. My guess is that the energy requirements of covering an entire planet are so great that only the most advanced technologies can afford to do so. (ZPM's should be able to do so in sufficient number.)
As for fast detection, we know that advanced Stargate sensors can detect moving objects within several hundred light years of their position. So fast detection should not be a problem even with inferior sensors.
If impactors were really such a large problem, then railguns should have been much more common in spaceships. That they are not suggests that they are impractical or ineffective. (Either that or the writers simply did not understand the value of railguns or gave an enemy a very large idiot ball.)
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
gave an enemy a very large idiot ball
There are a lot of idiot balls being handed around on this show. This morning I was working out; the way I make that bearable is to put on an episode of TV while I'm doing it. I watched a two parter, "Out of Mind" and "Into the Fire". I was amazed -- the villains were brilliant. They did everything exactly right, and only lost because script. The heroes, on the other hand, were carrying three or four idiot balls each.
Some of them were even called out in character -- Marouf came to SGC to get their help, but wasn't ponying up a lot of info. Jack said "You know how much I hate surprises", meaning he should read them in before leaving. The next scene was them on a transport ship on the mission, with Marouf in the middle of briefing them.
u/OctoberOctopus [+3] (5 hours later)
Thank you! I've seen first season of SG-1 and while liked the show because of different cultures designs I always had a lot of questions to the plot.
u/eaglejarl [+4] (7 hours later)
You're welcome.
SG-1 is actually a lot better than most shows when it comes to being smart. For example, they actually do reverse-engineer some of the tech they capture so that in the later seasons they are flying spaceships of their own. There's still enough stupid to make for good parody, though.
u/GopherAtl [+1] (8 hours later)
There's still enough stupid to make for good parody, though.
especially in the first 2 seasons. I love the show, but honestly, it's a minor miracle they got to a 3rd season...
u/recursiveAI [+1] (19 hours later)
This is wonderfully hilarious. I love the series, but admittedly it does have some irrational plot lines.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (20 hours later)
Thank you.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
Have you considered what might start happening if the Goa'uld wisened up as well?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (3 days later)
Yep. There is as some discussion of it.