scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3f9fp1.md

Brainstorming Rationalist Stargate [BST][MK][FF]

• Author: u/ShIxtan *

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3f9fp1/brainstorming_rationalist_stargate_bstmkff/

• Score: 6

• Created: 2015-07-31T06:48:06

Post:

Hi all, I've been lurking here for a while, and I've wanted to write some Rational Fiction for a while.

The original plan was to do a Buffy fanfic, but over the last month, I've been re-watching Stargate SG1 with my wife, and I think I'm going to write something in the Stargate universe first. There are just sooooooooo many times the idiot ball is passed around, and so many missed opportunities.

So I've been taking some notes

So, from the perspective of someone finding out about the Stargate after Atlantis is over, there are three main questions:

1. How did the universe get here? This is the main puzzle to be figured out for my character, as there are things about the universe that would be very confusing. Examples:

• How is it the Goa'uld and their armies are so incompetent?
• What is up with the Wraith? How does the feeding work?
• Why didn't the Asgard just upload into android bodies?
• Why haven't they developed better security for the SGC?

2. What's the quickest path to post-scarcity? My notes above are mostly about missed opportunities. A few options:

• Ascension - They have found a few DNA resequencers that are built for this, but they aren't particularly safe.
• Nox - Seem to be here, just don't like Earth's warlike nature. Maybe they can be convinced?
• Time Dilation Fields - they have found this tech a few times, but it was handed over to them at the end of the season. Build research bases inside these and have them export tech.
• There is an ancient repository that uploads all their tech into your brain. It kills you eventually, because our brain can't handle that much but they now have the tech to remove (and store) the memories. So they should be able to build ZPMs, pretty much infinite power generation.
• Time travel and Alternate realities. We should be able to build self-replicating harvesters that go back in time and collect people (in the form of full-body scans) from all timelines right before death.

3. Are there any credible threats left?

• Most reasonable is the replicators. If they are intelligent at all, they have sent ships to lots of other galaxies and gateless planets.
• Goa'uld have very different utility function, and are capable of great intelligence (despite holding lots of idiot balls)
• Wraith have few ships left, but above is true for them too.

Comments:

u/ArgentStonecutter [+7] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (4 hours later)

Not a Stargate fan, particularly, but I found this terribly amusing.

And the reason the Goa'uld are incompetent is because competent interstellar war is a galactic existential threat. Oh, you mean an in-story reason? Um, "Anthropic Principle".

u/ShIxtan [+3] (8 hours later)

Those physics are basically canon as far as I'm concerned :)

u/None [+6] (19 minutes later)

I don't really care for reaching for uploaded computronium supertech dyson sphere, etc status that should rationally comes with SG-1 acquiring all those technology and munchkin. Really, there's too much supertech available to Earth for research. It should be harder and much rarer, or else the story transforms Earth into an unrecognizable technological civilization.

Make the story limited and the narrative bigger. Less focus on SG-1, and more focus on SGC as an organization, with some view on world politics.

Plan for public disclosure, even if the disclosure event was unplanned. They should have plans of some kind as to how to inform the public.

Exploration should be slower and more careful. More use of drones and MALPs.

How do the Chinese and Russian go along with the US? What is Earth's policy for defense? Why don't Earthlings screw each other over? What treaties are there? What arrangements are made, and so on.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (11 hours later)

There are lots of politics to work out. Both on earth and off. There are tons of factions who show up once or twice and then aren't mentioned again. I plan to focus a lot on this aspect, since helping spread tech is a major humanitarian need.

u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (a day later)

Less tech, slower exploration, extreme detail on the political side of things... At first glance this sounds harder to make into an exciting science fiction series. But I definitely agree that it's more much rational.

u/KZLightning [+4] (8 hours later)

I think that a rational story would make things more realistic for everyone. Stargate gives out idiot balls to everyone, not just the heroes. They also have several Hollywood tropes that are very unrealistic.

For the SGC, they would have a plan for disclosure and actually use it. If they did not, then it would be disclosed anyway and they would lose control over how it was done. Captain Carter is a great astrophysics person, but she is not a superhuman AI. This means that she does not solve every problem, she has a specialty and her problems are solved in a matter of weeks or months, not minutes. (This is true of Daniel as well.) In addition to this, the greatest advantage of science is numbers and freedom not individual science heroes. This means a secret investigation will lack both and will therefore be very slow. This is another reason to favor disclosure.

For the Goa'uld, they are made incompetent for better TV. The sarcophagus can give them brain damage, but their numbers and the length of time they have been alive will lead to better technology. Their technology should be so advanced that the SGC cannot distinguish it from magic without assistance. (The ease by which technology is learned comes from Hollywood's inability to understand large numbers.) Remember that they are supposed to have been technologically advanced for thousands of years. Even if they advanced slower than Earth did, their technology will still be orders of magnitude better than when they started. Also, their actions will (and canonically did) take account of advanced worlds and enemies. So when Apophis arrived in his ships, he would start bombing right away - perhaps while sending a message. He would not wait in orbit until the heroes defeat him.

For the other races in general, there seems to be a common trend of either ignoring their existence or the aliens simply giving everything to Earth. Exceptions to that are rare. This is simply not realistic. Advanced aliens are their own people with their own agenda. They will also act in the galaxy even when the main characters are not looking.

As for the Earth, the US has no reason to give up the stargate. At the same time, early disclosure will not lead to that. The US is a member of the Security Council and is capable of simply rejecting any claims they do not like. Furthermore, operating from the United Nations gives the US a way to represent their operations as being "from the Earth as a whole", even though they retain control of the stargate and the operations of it. Furthermore, disclosure will not lead to public panic unless it is uncontrolled during a Goa'uld attack. A controlled disclosure will lead to wonder and determination. The worst possibility is the formation of cults that worship Goa'uld, and such cults would not be popular.

For the advanced races, their technology should be so advanced that the SGC has no hope of understanding how it works. Their first order of business should be new theories of physics, not new guns. The SGC attempting to understand to understand Asgard technology should be even worse than a caveman attempting to understand how a modern laptop works. The SGC's first priority should therefore be gaining new science teachers, alien science textbooks and other science information to speed up their progress. Disclosure should happen as soon as possible in order to gain the resources of the world rather than a tiny section of the United States. I cannot emphasize how advanced the science and technology really should appear to us. Captain Carter and all of the scientists in world should be unable to crack Asgard technology no matter how long they investigate it.

u/None [+3] (16 hours later)

The sarcophagus can give them brain damage, but their numbers and the length of time they have been alive will lead to better technology.

Especially because the sarcophagus just makes humans, at least, more of a selfish asshole and not any dumber. It's possible that the effect doesn't apply to Goa'uld, and it's possible that Goa'uld can heal any damage to themselves or their hosts that results from the sarcophagus. There is speculation in one episode that sarcophagus usage is a key differentiating factor between the Goa'uld and the Tok'ra, but as far as I can tell, it's just one bit of throwaway speculation.

If the sarcophagus devices only have ill effects on humans, Goa'uld might not care at all. Turning a host evil when that host already has no ability to exercise their will -- it just doesn't matter.

problems are solved in a matter of weeks or months, not minutes.

Likewise, languages are analyzed in a matter of months. Daniel Jackson doesn't automatically understand a language just because a human is speaking it. I'd understand if everyone at SGC had to learn at least conversational Goa'uld and the Goa'uld demanded that their slaves could all speak and understand the language. (In my personal canon, everyone at SGC knows the primary language in use by system lords, and Daniel Jackson knows the three or four minor languages used by system lords.)

Their first order of business should be new theories of physics, not new guns.

It depends. When the Goa'uld are beating on your door, you want guns. The more safety you have, the further you anticipate the attack to be, the further up the chain you can go. If you've got a year, you might just want enough technical knowledge to start mass producing weapons. If you have a decade, you want the science too.

u/KZLightning [+2] (16 hours later)

I would probably expect that conversational Goa'uld functions as a trade language within their empire and in any nearby systems. So having everyone in the SGC learn conversational Goa'uld would probably be required. (Right now, the US teaches languages for the military in an intensive two year program. So I would expect something like that to be required for everyone.)

As for guns, you are right that they need that right away. The problem is that any guns they need they probably cannot use. The energy requirements are likely too high. If not, then actually setting them would be a huge engineering problem. So while they want guns, they would probably have to settle for hand weapons (staff weapons, zats and the like). Space weapons would probably require a third party to defend Earth's space while Earth learns advanced physics and how to build our own weapons.

u/None [+1] (20 hours later)

The problem is that any guns they need they probably cannot use. The energy requirements are likely too high.

If we can acquire weapons, we can also acquire ammunition.

Space weapons would probably require a third party to defend Earth's space

A third party could provide materiel and training to use it, rather than materiel and personnel. The CIA, by way of analogy, provides firearms and training to guerrilla groups in half the nations of the world, but it doesn't provide soldiers.

while Earth learns advanced physics and how to build our own weapons.

You're conflating science with engineering. While it would be useful for us to learn advanced physics so we can make better defenses and weaponry, that's a long-term thing. In the mid term, we need a secure supply of materiel, preferably one we control -- we need to be able to manufacture and maintain the equipment we use. That just requires someone (possibly our putative benefactor) to understand in detail how to create the items in question and the current manufacturing and resource collection abilities of Earth and how to connect the two.

That last task requires someone to understand the physics, most likely, or at least materials engineering. But that could easily be the benefactor rather than us Earthlings.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (22 hours later)

The sarcophagus seems to have two main effects for Daniel.

• It makes him manic and ecstatic.
• It makes him care about little other than keeping access to it.

Not much different from an addictive stimulant. It's not really brain damage, but it does help explain systemic overconfidence even worse than typical humans.

The language issue is going to be the hardest one to reconcile with canon, I may just need to continue to ignore it...

u/Jiro_T [+1] (2 days later)

The sarcophagus was deliberately retconned away--after, and separately from it being shown to cause insanity--and we shouldn't treat it as existing in the Stargate universe.

(And I suspect that having it cause insanity was a first attempt to retcon it away by giving a reason why everyone doesn't use it. Someone probably then realized that wasn't enough, since they could make a rule that you can only use it 5 times before you have to retire, and then they actually retconned it out completely.)

u/ShIxtan [+1] (8 hours later)

You bring up a lot of good points. Since I'm writing from a point after the events of the series, I'm looking for a way to explain how those events happened.

Explaining how humans have been able to use alien tech is a big part of that. As is understanding what many of the 'minor' factions have been up to.

The Goa'uld are primarily using stolen technology, so the ease of humans using it might be a side effect of the fact that it's been filtered for ease of use? That doesn't seem like enough...

Exposing the SGC seems like a reasonable thing to do, especially since the leaks are increasing. I think military paranoia would explain why they haven't, except that they aren't nearly paranoid enough in any other way.

u/None [+2] (17 hours later)

The Goa'uld are primarily using stolen technology, so the ease of humans using it might be a side effect of the fact that it's been filtered for ease of use? That doesn't seem like enough...

Some of the items are pretty simple. A staff weapon, for instance, only needs two controls: on and shoot. Every Jaffa warrior needs to know how to use one, in case you find a prisoner willing to talk. Failing that, every Jaffa warrior has a staff weapon, so you can use cameras to try to record how a Jaffa activates a staff weapon.

A ha'tak is a complex piece of equipment. Teal'c might be able to pilot one, but he would probably need one on hand in order to train someone else. No doubt he is missing some knowledge about how to use them, and no doubt he would accidentally omit some of his knowledge when teaching another. Still, it would probably be good enough for someone fluent in Goa'uld to work out the details in time -- with some moderately high probability of destroying the ha'tak and everyone inside.

u/ShIxtan [+2] (21 hours later)

Yeah, I guess the fact that Jaffa are building and operating Goa'uld tech is a pretty good explanation actually. We haven't seen a single Jaffa scientist or scholar that I'm aware of, and the Goa'uld prefer it that way. They'd want to design things easy to use and repair.

u/KZLightning [+1] (10 hours later)

The problem with writing from a point of view after the series is that you import all of the problems of the original series itself. In order to fix all of these problems, hacks must be added to make things work. The problem is that the scale of these hacks is quite large.

Stolen technology is not anywhere near enough to explain anything. Plus, the Goa'uld have canonically invented and altered that technology and have no desire to share it or make it easy to share with their slaves or their Jaffa.

In order to explain the silly and idiotic decisions of almost everyone, you essentially need a magical galaxy wide field (perhaps larger) that is more powerful than the combined might of the ascended. Naturally this field is focused only on decisions made by or in relation to space travel and interspecies relationships. There is literally no other way to explain it.

I have suggested the only two options I can think of for the ability to understand tech and they require the intervention of third parties (possibly ascended?).

There is also Daniels' ability to translate absolutely everything, the complete lack of translation (everything is in English), the extremely low populations of people in the galaxy, the social situations in virtually every alien society and yet other problems. None of these have solutions that do not involve unknown third parties or magical intervention.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (11 hours later)

Major hacks will be required if the universe is to look anything like the stargate universe, even at the beginning of the SGC. None of the major factions have acted particularly rationally for the past 10,000 years of canon history. I'm not sure how much of that I want to rewrite.

u/KZLightning [+1] (12 hours later)

That's why I suggested a more rational universe instead. I think that it would be less work to do that than to actually justify the canon universe.

I think that elements of the canon universe can be preserved, but a rational world will end up rejecting a lot of detail - especially in later seasons.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (21 hours later)

Yeah, I think I might try and do a writeup of what a rational universe might look like. Like you say, it's probably easier.

But for some reason I'm not sure I understand, I really want to write something that doesn't change canon. Maybe I'll write both...

u/ShIxtan [+1] (9 hours later)

It seems like the ability to hack alien tech is pretty limited to Carter and McKay, the other scientists normally have a hard time keeping up. I wonder if there is a way to explain this as some unknown thing that's happened to them?

u/KZLightning [+1] (10 hours later)

I see two ways of doing so. The first option is that they received some kind of completely undetectable intelligence adjustment. Furthermore, this adjustment was somehow unnoticed (or present from birth). The degree of adjustment is such that both of them will view all other humans as moronic ants in comparison to themselves. To give a precise comparison, this is enough intelligence to give Carter the intelligence of the super AI replicators.

The second option is unknown third parties (at least as powerful as the ascended) have been giving these people information telepathically for their entire investigation. None of their work was really theirs - this third party simply gave them the information.

u/ShIxtan [+3] (11 hours later)

Carter has a semi-reasonable in-universe explanation. Very early on, she was possessed by a Goa'uld, and she retains memories. Perhaps those include understanding of the physics required. Vala understands Goa'uld tech for similar reasons

McKay does have the viewpoint that everyone else is an idiot, perhaps he was an asgard experiment? It's been established that Loki was tinkering with humans.

I realize that these are hacks, and not completely satisfying. I'll keep thinking on this.

u/KZLightning [+2] (12 hours later)

That would partially work. Carter would gain knowledge of Goa'uld tech but would still be in the dark with more advanced technology. The problem is that Goa'uld "genetic" memory is not fully accessible unless a harcesis is involved. So even then, her knowledge should only be partial.

McKay as an Asgard experiment would work, except then he should be smarter than Carter, especially once research moves into the technology of advanced races - he would have an advantage and Carter would lose hers.

u/ShIxtan [+2] (21 hours later)

The Goa'uld have been studying Ancient tech for 10,000 years, so I'd expect at least some help in figuring out that stuff too. But I agree, McKay should be pulling ahead quite a bit by this point.

u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+8] Utopian Smut Peddler (2 hours later)

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.

In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.

Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.

Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.

Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.

L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

u/ShIxtan [+2] (8 hours later)

The idea of Anubis as the hero is exellent! I think I'm going to steal that.

Ascending doesn't seem to equal being fully actualized. Many Ascended beings have descended in order to fulfill their goals. I'm thinking that the current set of ascended have acted against enough people's interests to qualify as an enemy.

If, as a group, they care about intelligent life, why aren't they ascending everyone on death?

u/thedarkone47 [+1] (8 hours later)

heat death of the universe. Plus the ancients were a very passive people to begin with.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (10 hours later)

So they would probably be actively hostile to attempts at mass ascension? Or other massive uses of energy... Definitely starting to look like enemies of the unascended

u/thedarkone47 [+3] (10 hours later)

I don't think that ancients would be actively hostile. But would rather try to discourage the act of ascension.

I just thought of this but, what if ascension wasn't the key to immortality they thought it was. What if interfering simply used up the energy they had left.

u/ShIxtan [+2] (21 hours later)

My current assumption is that there is some limited resource. Whether it's a certain capacity the 'higher planes' can support, or just usable energy, I'm not sure.

u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (10 hours later)

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.

In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.

Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.

Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.

Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.

L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

u/Transfuturist [+2] Carthago delenda est. (11 hours later)

Galactic fantasy seems pretty cool.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (21 hours later)

It seems that the Ori were unaware of humans in this galaxy until Daniel and Vala showed up. And the disagreement between the Ori and the Alterans was all about whether it's okay to 'interfere.' Alterans were on the 'no' side, weren't they?

u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+1] Utopian Smut Peddler (23 hours later)

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.

In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.

Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.

Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.

Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.

L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

u/whywhisperwhy [+1] (a day later)

So... essentially Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars? Just commenting on this because I don't want to end up with another Inheritance situation.

u/TimeLoopedPowerGamer [+2] Utopian Smut Peddler (a day later)

Reddit has long been a hot spot for conversation on the internet. About 57 million people visit the site every day to chat about topics as varied as makeup, video games and pointers for power washing driveways.

In recent years, Reddit’s array of chats also have been a free teaching aid for companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. Those companies are using Reddit’s conversations in the development of giant artificial intelligence systems that many in Silicon Valley think are on their way to becoming the tech industry’s next big thing.

Now Reddit wants to be paid for it. The company said on Tuesday that it planned to begin charging companies for access to its application programming interface, or A.P.I., the method through which outside entities can download and process the social network’s vast selection of person-to-person conversations.

“The Reddit corpus of data is really valuable,” Steve Huffman, founder and chief executive of Reddit, said in an interview. “But we don’t need to give all of that value to some of the largest companies in the world for free.”

The move is one of the first significant examples of a social network’s charging for access to the conversations it hosts for the purpose of developing A.I. systems like ChatGPT, OpenAI’s popular program. Those new A.I. systems could one day lead to big businesses, but they aren’t likely to help companies like Reddit very much. In fact, they could be used to create competitors — automated duplicates to Reddit’s conversations.

Reddit is also acting as it prepares for a possible initial public offering on Wall Street this year. The company, which was founded in 2005, makes most of its money through advertising and e-commerce transactions on its platform. Reddit said it was still ironing out the details of what it would charge for A.P.I. access and would announce prices in the coming weeks.

Reddit’s conversation forums have become valuable commodities as large language models, or L.L.M.s, have become an essential part of creating new A.I. technology.

L.L.M.s are essentially sophisticated algorithms developed by companies like Google and OpenAI, which is a close partner of Microsoft. To the algorithms, the Reddit conversations are data, and they are among the vast pool of material being fed into the L.L.M.s. to develop them.

u/None [+2] (4 hours later)

I'm going to assume that you're not going to even try reconciling the last-of-his-species-Ra, only-two-gates-halfway-across-the-known-universe of the classic Stargate movie with the later canon.

Regarding 1a:

• The Goa'uld are parasites with generally low creativity and one-dimensional personality. According to the Stargate Wikia, at least, Cronus and Ra acted out pretty much the same routines for 10K years; Apophis and (especially) Ba'al were outliers in that regard.

• Ra "went shopping" for humans around 10,500 BC. The Goa'uld keep them at a Neolithic(?) tech level, brainwash them into thinking Goa'uld are gods over generations with "miracles" of stolen tech, and only fight among each other in a lazy feudal power system where everyone in charge is long-lived family; you have a recipe for exactly what we see: militaries optimized so the slaves can't rebel successfully most of the time, "soldiers" equipped to inflict fear and not be particularly effective, and ships designed to save their own scaly tails.

• The Goa'uld are, literally, brain-damaged. The Sarcophagus has the nasty side effect of inducing megalomania with repeated (especially unnecessary) usage, canonically, which was one of the reasons why the Tok'ra, who used it stingily if at all, had such different results in their utility function. I would think a sane SGC wouldn't use it unless necessary, once they acquired one and if learned of the side effects.

1b: I have no damn clue how it works, given that the Wraith can consciously reverse the process, giving more 'lifeforce' to their target. Supposedly the Ancients tried coming up with a non-Ascension form of immortality, using baseline humans an the Iratus bug. shrug

1c. Perhaps the Asgard were too concerned that the Replicators would hack their new android/gynoid/is-there-even-a-genderless-version-wordoid bodies? They couldn't even secure their own ships. As for before encountering the the pesks...no idea. The ancient races overall seem badly written.

1d. They were pretty quick to create and install the Iris, even as of the second episode. Pretty sure they upgraded it later, when they discovered new materials. I don't see a good reason why they didn't use that "Canadian SG-1" fic's simple solution of turning the gate horizontal after O'Neil was basically trapped offworld by one until he could dig out.

2. Post-scarcity stuff

• Ascension wouldn't do a lot of good anyway, since the majority of the Ascended beings don't permit interfering with the "lower plane" often.

• The Nox rightly see humanity as "too young" to deal with.

• Time Dilation Fields would require a) people to leave their families for subjectively long periods, isolating them or b) basically setting-and-forgetting type assembly lines and timer-operated experiments. Could work, I suppose.

• There were at least four Ancient Repositories. Two would stuff your head with so much data that you would have little-to-no conscious executive function left not-overwritten, a third out of date with an immediately-lethal-to-humans normal access method (Destiny's) and a fourth (Merlin's) that actually had a virtual interface to assist. The Asgard had thousands of years to study a "small portion" of the newer version, and "only scratched the surface". The problem with Merlin's machine would be knowing what to look for, still not an easy task, and we're assuming here that the Ascended beings didn't simply destroy that one after the Sangraal had been used against the Ori.

• Time travel is an unbounded number of security breaches and existence failures not waiting around to have been going to be later simultaneously happening all at once. Smart!RepliCarter would automatically win, once she figured that out.

3. Credible threats left after the destruction of the Ori? Whether the Replicators are still a threat is dependant on if those in the Milky Way were able to transmit the disruptor frequency used on Dekara. There were seven of the Asuran human-form Replicators left inactive from exposure to space in Pegasus, but that's all, and the Wraith aren't stupid enough to reactivate the weapons proven so successful against them in the past. The Goa'uld, frankly, are best simply hunted down and eliminated. Permanently.

The Lucian Alliance would be the most interesting opponent, I think. They're mostly humans who had suffered under Goa'uld rule who snatched up the infrastructure for themselves and turned to (mostly) organized crime -- not nearly as easy to "hide behind calculations" for the Kinsey-types upstairs.

Bonus from your other list: the Tok'ra did mention that the Goa'uld communication devices were not secure; however, SG-1 first encountered the devices in the final episode of the 1st season, and didn't meet the Tok'ra until the 11th episode of the 2nd season. Lot of time for leaking intel if the SGC were to use them.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (8 hours later)

The big question that arises from Goa'uld brain damage: why didn't the Tok'ra win long ago? Sure, they have smaller numbers, but so did the SGC.

I'm not sure how I feel about wiping out the Goa'uld as a species. They are sentient, and capable of morality. Tok'ra hosts seem to be genuinely happy about the situation. But any descended from those who used the sarcophagus are probably a lost cause.

I really like the idea of the asgard worrying about being hacked. As you say, reasonable since their ships aren't secure.

u/None [+1] (15 hours later)

The Tok'ra are all descendants of a single queen (Egeria). Given that the wiki says,

Dozens of Tok'ra symbiotes would be captured and killed by the Goa'uld and almost spelt the end of their kind. Luckily, the eldest brood of Egeria led their kind into hiding where they managed to survive.

After taking stock over their situation, the Tok'ra realized they were unable to acquire military forces sufficient to counter the System Lords and thus they adopted strategies of subterfuge. (RPG: "Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One")

I guess that leaves their numbers somewhere around a hundred? Depends on how many prim'ta (infant Goa'uld) per brood. Compared to however many Goa'uld had long-before left their homeworld using Unas hosts, transferred to humans, and then set up an empire spanning most of the galaxy, they wouldn't have much of a chance.

Chemical brain damage sufficient to induce megalomania in a species that already views humanoids as cattle doesn't preclude military might or some adaptive ability. Even in real-life humans, mild or localized brain damage doesn't stop us from having an impact -- it just makes us More Wrong. :P

As for wiping out the Goa'uld, I should be more specific: all Goa'uld EXCEPT the Tok'ra should be wiped out, especially any remaining System Lord-wannabes -- they consistently caused widespread suffering and death for everyone around them for millenia without regret. As little as the Free Jaffa might like being dependant on the Tau'ri, it seems like it would be better just to use the Asgard tech to synthesize tretonin for them.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (22 hours later)

I wonder about converting more queens to the Tok'ra cause? There are Goa'uld on the homeworld still, maybe these ones would be less used to being gods, and more willing to negotiate?

u/Sailor_Vulcan [+2] Champion of Justice and Reason (16 hours later)

How exactly do goa'ulds control their host anyways? From my understanding they interfere with the motor signals coming from the brain by wrapping around the spinal cord and doing...what? if they cut the spinal cord, the host will probably die, right? do they control the direction of the signal(s) coming from the brain? if so, how do they control what signals are sent in the first place? Do they just stop all motor signals that they don't want, until the human host gives in and gives them the motor signal they want? But if the human decides not to move at all, or to only move a little bit, so they only do small simple movements, how would the goa'uld control them then?

It seems like the goua'ld would have to control the brain itself, by inhibiting some connections and promoting others. But if this happens, the hosts themselves would be changed by that. Also, what happens to the host when they enter a sarcophagus? Shouldn't the host ALSO develop megalomania?

TBH, I suspect that the megalomania caused by the sarcophagus actually was meant as an anti-immortality plot device.

The goauld's brains are too small to be sapient. Maybe what the goa'uld does is alter the host's utility function in some way that is beneficial to it. I think they alter the host's utility function to make them power-hungry. Maybe goauld are kind of like fungi and they're more concerned with what will allow as much of their offspring to germinate as possible, rather than the more human motivation of survival and family. So the goauld make their hosts power hungry in order to gain access to more resources, more food, and more hosts for their offspring. Ultimately they want all humans to be jaffa and to make as many jaffa who live as long as possible, so that they can maximize their germinated offspring.

I think the goauld should be fungal, not reptillian. The only reason they were snakes in the first place was because snakes are considered satanic.

Of course, if the goauld are fungi rather than snakes, that eliminates the ancient egyptian conection.

Why are all the aliens from human mythology anyway? It's like humans aren't even CAPABLE of making things up.

I would say this implies a heavy level of interaction between humans and the other sapient races. If the humans are the ancestors of the ancients and the ancients are time travellers, that might explain why they are taking a special interest. The ancients are reclusive, so if they want to communicate with the ancients, they leave a record with the ancestors of the ancients...

An alt explanation is that ALL of the advanced aliens are descendants of humans or other earth creatures from the future. This would make more sense with how the gouald would be fungus (or even snakes like in canon), and why the azguard are humanoid and look and talk like humans. It would explain why everyone speaks english or at least some language that Daniel is actually capable of translating. It would also explain how the gouauld could be semi-sapient with such small brains; technological advances that improve their brain's efficiency, or maybe their brains are made of nanotech rather than normal brain cells, so they actually have room for a full-sized brain in their tiny bodies.

Also, take out the glowing eyes thing. :P

u/Jiro_T [+2] (2 days later)

I recall a scene at soime point where it was explained that the many people in the galkaxy actually are descended from (past) humans, and Sam points out that humans evolved on Earth and did not comer from elsewhere, to which the reply was that this means the Earth is the ancestral source of the human race.

In other words, it's already canon that at least large portions of the galaxy are descended from Earth beings.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (22 hours later)

Maybe what the goa'uld does is alter the host's utility function in some way that is beneficial to it.

I like this. I'm imagining two projections from the snake. One goes to the frontal lobe and is essentially this new utility function. The other goes to the Hippocampus and gives access to Goa'uld genetic memories.

u/Sailor_Vulcan [+1] Champion of Justice and Reason (a day later)

the only problem with this is that

1. the goauld wouldn't need to change the host's utility function if they were smart enough to remember things themselves, so--
2. the goauld need human neural substrate for their genetic memories to be remembered, since their own brains are too small to do that.
3. if this does not happen instantaneously, then there must be some sort of extended process in which the human host's brain state gradually transforms based on the goauld's genetic instructions. Or something. So something of the host does survive...for a while. After a thousand years, though, it's WAY past too late. Tbh, though, having genetic instructions for transforming an entire brain seems to me kind of energy-costly and possibly even more unlikely to develop naturally than it would to evolve their own sapience. They probably just transform parts of the brain in certain ways. However, that would make their long term genetic memory quite limited, since there's only so many human neurons whose states can be coded for by a small reptilian genome. And it also would be no different than to'kra, since if goauld are not sapient, they can't understand when a human gives consent or not to let them in. Of course, if they have some way of acquiring new genes from their host, that could maybe improve their long term genetic memory by increasing the number of neurons whose brain states they can change.

u/E-o_o-3 [+1] (17 hours later)

1

-mybe the goauld have long memories but are kinda stupid, cruising on stolen tech and the fragments of ingenuity displayed by their followers (which can never be allowed too much freedom, see how they had to leave earth?)

-Something something souls, ascension, magical universe.

-Turns out, consciousness hinges on biological components.

-They don't need to. That thin layer of metal on top of the portal instantly destroys anything that comes through because that's just how wormholes work. If there's no room to materialize on the other end the object just disappears.

2

-Canonically, the main problem is how to break the news to the public. I think we can assume post-scarcity is coming soon without actually going into the nitty gritty of how (it's never just one thing anyway) but right now humanity has only just made contact.

-ascended plane may have its own scarcities and dangers. Plus, the other ascended might harm you once you lose the non-interference protection clause. It's traditional story-logic and I think also a folk-christian belief in some circles that the evil fairies and demons can't touch you until you yourself dabble in magic first anyway, at which point you're fair game.

-The timeline splits into new ones whenever you thusly travel (then again, the timeline is probably splitting constantly anyhow in this physics) and there are infinite alternate realities. Philosophical questions abound. It's likely that an instance in which this is already being done exists.

3

-Canon seems to suggest replicators aren't intelligent enough to plan ahead (like the one time they basically rusted away because they didn't realize they were going to fall into the ocean). I think they're basically meant to be very good at adapting via some simple process. They were accidentally released by a stupid humanlike AGI, not intentionally designed. But they do have human-form versions which are human-level intelligent and irrational.

-Goa'uld are all essentially the same person. Genetic memory, remember? So it's not necessarily useful to talk about the utility function of the species as a whole.

u/ShIxtan [+1] (22 hours later)

They don't need to. That thin layer of metal on top of the portal instantly destroys anything that comes through because that's just how wormholes work. If there's no room to materialize on the other end the object just disappears.

The Iris fails them on many, many occasions, and should have even more. Most of the time it's because someone or something comes back with them, but it would be relatively easy for someone who was prepared to toss a nuke in at the same time the team is coming through.

They should never, ever, dial directly to Earth, and they should be thoroughly screened before being allowed back on Earth, not after.

Canonically, the main problem is how to break the news to the public.

This will be happening for sure.

The timeline splits into new ones whenever you thusly travel.

Suggests an option for fighting entropy? Just take all the people back to the beginning in a different branch. Alternatively, continuously sending probes back in time with useful info and tech basically creates thousands of new post-scarcity societies out of thin air...

Canon seems to suggest replicators aren't intelligent enough to plan ahead

True, but there are human-form ones who are. You'd think at least the Asurans (Human form replicators from Atlantis) would have done it.

Goa'uld are all essentially the same person. Genetic memory, remember? So it's not necessarily useful to talk about the utility function of the species as a whole.

Doesn't this mean it makes even more sense to talk about a single utility function for the species?

u/Jiro_T [+1] (2 days later)

It seemed to me that ascension was generally treated as requiring a certain amount of study and also required that you be accepted by other ascended beings. There were, of course, exceptions (one wonders about how all the livestock on Abydos managed to ascend with the people), but every longrunning TV show has weirdnesses every so often.

If you want something else to explain away, explain away why the Ancients look like humans.

Also, explain why everyone speaks English, although I would really treat that as a deliberate plot hole needed to make stories work. Alternatively, one theory is that there's a common galactic language that most people speak and Stargate personnel are normally taught. It just isn'[t shown in the show (and does explain away the occasional instances where foreign language skills are necessary.)

Re: replicators, I think that counts as another post-scarcity technology. Remember the Weir replicator and Fran?

As for Goauld incompetency, I see the Goauld being defeated by Earth as the equivalent of the Aztecs being defeated by the Spanish. They have lots of advantages, but lots of people hate them and an outside force can make the whole thing collapse. Unlike the Aztecs versus the Spanish they have higher technology than the Earth, but their social structure isn't conducive to either efficient use of the tech they have or of research to improve their tech.

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