What If: Stargate Made Public

[Chirios]

IIRC, Davis' real problem was the idea of giving the Russians weapons-grade Naquadah, figuring they were more likely to make Naquadah bombs than power generators.

Just rewatched the episode. His problem seemed to be:

1) Weapons grade naqadah means that the Russians only need one nuclear bomb to utterly destroy America and
2) That they could sell weapons grade naquadah to other countries i.e. Syria.

But we're forgetting that at this point in time nobody knows what naquadah is.

48 Hours - Teal'c gets trapped in the gate and Russia has to use their gate as a sub during which Chekov pushes for a better deal and waves the DHD card. With the DHD the Russians can use their gate to super-cede the SGC one and Davis outright says the US will go to war if they do.

Actually, what he said was that such an act could be construed as an act of war.

It took a lot of luck for events to unfold the way they did which let Earth survive. Point of View mentions that only a few realties avoided being hit by the Goa'uld which makes sense. Unless someone like Daniel happens to go along... the military team has orders to nuke Abydos at the first sign of a threat which may kill Ra but without the Abydos pyramid, Earth wont have the gate address list.
Without that list and the chance encounters with Thor, Tolans, Knox or Teal'c. Earth would be destroyed many times over within the first year alone.

Granted. So it's all a matter of luck, and competence. Mainly, could an International Stargate Agency put aside regional differences long enough to save the world?

[Ahriman238]

Just rewatched the episode. His problem seemed to be:

1) Weapons grade naqadah means that the Russians only need one nuclear bomb to utterly destroy America and
2) That they could sell weapons grade naquadah to other countries i.e. Syria.

But we're forgetting that at this point in time nobody knows what naquadah is.

Doesn't matter. They know the Gate is made out of an element not previously found on the periodic table (in and of itself a matter of great curiosity) and never previously found on Earth, except this one 30 ton ring of it. And after going through, using the one address available, they'll find more Naquadah and if Ra is there to meet them and they bring a nuke, they'll learn how it enhances nuclear reactions.

Remember, the military experimented on the Gate as early as the Roosevelt/Truman administration, and when the address on the cartouche didn't pan out (because nobody besides Daniel could recognize the more stylized last symbol) they spent literally years trying random sequences, and got a hit exactly once. But they didn't write it down and killed the program because the man they sent through didn't come back. Now I wonder what would have happened if they'd gone public in 1945?

Then Catherine revived the program again, and they again spent years trying to better translate the capstone and trying random addresses. With no success.

A more mathematically inclined friend once told me there are just shy 2 billion possible addresses. Assume, for a moment, there are 20 million habitable worlds with gates. Then you'd have a 1% chance of finding one via random dailing.

[PREDATOR490]

It took a lot of luck for events to unfold the way they did which let Earth survive. Point of View mentions that only a few realties avoided being hit by the Goa'uld which makes sense. Unless someone like Daniel happens to go along... the military team has orders to nuke Abydos at the first sign of a threat which may kill Ra but without the Abydos pyramid, Earth wont have the gate address list.
Without that list and the chance encounters with Thor, Tolans, Knox or Teal'c. Earth would be destroyed many times over within the first year alone.

Granted. So it's all a matter of luck, and competence. Mainly, could an International Stargate Agency put aside regional differences long enough to save the world?

No.
This scenario starts when they figure out how to work the Stargate thus Daniel has just figured out how to dial the gate. That gives them 24 hours before Ra arrives in his ship, if the President locks the program down inorder for debates to occur then it could easily take weeks, months or even years before they ever go to Abydos. Not including the interference from Seth, Hathor and Osiris.
If Ra is already on the planet when they finally step through, they are going to be screwed. The Abydonians wont help them and the military folks will lob a nuke through the gate which at the very least will end the Stargate program all on its own. At this point Earth dosent have an iris so if they miss, Ra will hurl his own enhanced nuke back which will destroy the entire planet. Alternatively, Ra or someone else sends a ship to Earth and destroys the planet which seems to be what happened in the mirror reality we saw.

[Chirios]

It took a lot of luck for events to unfold the way they did which let Earth survive. Point of View mentions that only a few realties avoided being hit by the Goa'uld which makes sense. Unless someone like Daniel happens to go along... the military team has orders to nuke Abydos at the first sign of a threat which may kill Ra but without the Abydos pyramid, Earth wont have the gate address list.
Without that list and the chance encounters with Thor, Tolans, Knox or Teal'c. Earth would be destroyed many times over within the first year alone.

Granted. So it's all a matter of luck, and competence. Mainly, could an International Stargate Agency put aside regional differences long enough to save the world?

No.
This scenario starts when they figure out how to work the Stargate thus Daniel has just figured out how to dial the gate. That gives them 24 hours before Ra arrives in his ship,

No it doesn't. Maybe I wasn't clear, Daniel figures out how to work the stargate, but the program is shut down and made public before anyone steps through.

[PREDATOR490]

No.
This scenario starts when they figure out how to work the Stargate thus Daniel has just figured out how to dial the gate. That gives them 24 hours before Ra arrives in his ship,

No it doesn't. Maybe I wasn't clear, Daniel figures out how to work the stargate , but the program is shut down and made public before anyone steps through.

Learn to read.

Wether someone steps through or not is irrelevant. We know from the film that Ra will arrive with his spaceship within a day and park it right on top of the Stargate.
When the stargate program is finally activated, which could be days, weeks, months or years - Ra will or could be there resulting in the team getting killed before ever meeting an Abydonian then Earth hurls a nuke to destroy him... or Ra hurls an enhanced nuke back to destroy Earth.

In both cases the Earth will still be destroyed because: The Goa'uld will send ships to destroy Earth in retaliation even if they destroy Abydos.
This is how things went in: There But For the Grace Of God

[Simon_Jester]

Let us be generous.

Assume that we change things slightly:

Someone works out the secret of gate travel months ahead of time, faster than in the movies. Say because they hire Daniel sooner, or whatever. Then after months of discussion, the gate is activated.

By happy coincidence, the first international team goes through the gate right at the same time the US team went through in the real Stargate series.


(This is just so we can get past the first hurdle of "lol Ra kills everyone" and actually look at matters more broadly)

[iborg]

Or more likely, they go through the Gate after the US team did in the original movie, and Ra was long gone by that time since he only swung by to collect his precious naquadah and remind the locals that yes, they should continue to worship him.

[Blayne]

I'm inclined that 1994ish world situation as most favourable to a Ender's Game situation with the world scrambling to dust off and empower the United Nations Military Staff Committee which is pretty much designed for this job.

I think while Scifi going into "the future" but then keeping things "realistic" has been overly cynical and trite at this point, I would be up for some more speculative idealism or gritty deconstructions and Ender's Game as originally written seemed to tackle both fairly well. To make things simpler I would adjust the scenario so that Stargate (film) happened, then the United States bringing it up to the Security Council with the UNSC waking up the MSC with stepped up funding and UN integration keyed into the Stargate Project.

As control happened in the series with the USA holding onto the gate and then people giving funding, stationing troops and technical people to help out and getting back/sharing technology seems fairly plausible and I imagine the world wouldn't mind it mid 1990's so long as the others got their cut. We're all in the same boat together after all.

Although I imagine a *lot* more pressure on the SGC to get results and bring back technology to defend Earth. I'm not sure how long Hammond can maintain the same level of independance if SGC ends up attached to a united command structure as part of the United Nations but who knows; if China and the others are indecisive enough about making the wrong decisions they may not mind the US taking responsibility for it.

[PREDATOR490]

Let us be generous.

Assume that we change things slightly:

Someone works out the secret of gate travel months ahead of time, faster than in the movies. Say because they hire Daniel sooner, or whatever. Then after months of discussion, the gate is activated.

By happy coincidence, the first international team goes through the gate right at the same time the US team went through in the real Stargate series.


(This is just so we can get past the first hurdle of "lol Ra kills everyone" and actually look at matters more broadly)

You have to be more generous than that, if someone like Daniel dosent go along then the military folks will stick to their camp. The only reason they left was cause Daniel got dragged by the Abydos camel right to the doorstep of the mine. Without that stroke of luck, the entire team would be stranded with no way home when Ra shows up.
Ra arrives and yet again - They all die, either in the initial firefight or in a public execution by Ra
Ra finds the nuke, enhances it and then hurls it back - Earth gets destroyed

Alternatively, O'Neil or his replacement will set off the nuke which destroys Abydos thus destroying any chance for the Stargate Program to go anywhere else because they dont get the list of addresses and later Earth gets enslaved / destroyed when the Goa'uld show up in ships.

You have to be insanely generous to the point of having all of the events of the movie + Children of the Gods play out exactly right for things to even remotely have a chance of going anywhere else. Something which is extremely unlikely when the first team gets back to report about the big bad aliens on the other side. The Stargate Program will be shut down as it did before and the International Community would bury the gate in panic.

Even when you get to that point, the only reason Earth survived the first year was because Daniel was literally handed the means to stop it via the mirror. Without that act of plot, Kinsey and those like him shut the gate down, bury their heads and then try to defend the Earth with two Enhanced Nukes.

[Skywalker_T-65]

And it gets better...because you have to rely on SG-1 being on those ships to destroy them. Really, ragging on the US keeping it hidden or not, it was the best situation the Stargate could have been in. Maybe after season one, they could have revealed it (two big explosions in the sky after all). But any earlier and you are seriously risking Earth's safety.

[Simon_Jester]

So the question is:

To what extent is all this success happening because Stargate is a US program, and to what extent is it because Daniel Jackson is a heroic genius?

[PREDATOR490]

So the question is:

To what extent is all this success happening because Stargate is a US program, and to what extent is it because Daniel Jackson is a heroic genius?

All of it is due to Daniel, he is the one that Ascended and based on the Mirror realities: It was his participation in the program that gave Earth the only shot.
The realities that didnt have Daniel in them - all got burned by the Goa'uld.

The series dilutes that with contributions from O'Neill, Teal'c and Carter but Daniel is way ahead by the end of the first season. Afterwards, you get Carter with the Tok'ra, O'Neil with the Asgard and Teal'c with the Rebel Jaffa.

The US Keeping it hidden - Personnally, my major gripe is when the US goes from simply keeping it quiet because they dont want to cause a panic to outright lying because it works out better for them.
I.E Entire carrier groups being destroyed from orbit, plagues sweeping the globe or alien ships hovering in orbit.
The key point when the Stargate should / could have been revealed would probably have been Politics when Kinsey is pushing his religious bullshit about Pandora's Box or shortly after they destroyed the motherships. If you want to leave it late in the game. The best point to come clean about the Stargate program would have been Fair Game.

The Asgard have just signed the planet up to be protected and the Goa'uld cant touch them anymore so that would be the perfect break in the storm to reveal the situation. Then the entire world can actually have a say in wether or not they want to risk pissing off the universe further rather than the US making that decision for them then taking all the benefits for themselves. Essentially, Full Disclosure would come right after Fair Game and you go from there.
Although, I imagine Thor might not make a magical plot appearance and Russia will be just as shocked as everyone else so I fully expect the shit to hit the fan with China revealing the program, Russia going batshit crazy, Britain getting jealous and France... probably more pissy than Britain.


Will they manage to pull together to continue the program - possibly but I fully expect the Earth to get destroyed because the politics from the IOA and Kinsey screw everything up. You also have the Aschen encounter coming up which would likely result in the world being destroyed through sterility if the random weekly disaster didnt do it first.

[Ahriman238]

So the question is:

To what extent is all this success happening because Stargate is a US program, and to what extent is it because Daniel Jackson is a heroic genius?

It's all on Daniel. Think for a moment how many things have to go right just in the film (sorry, it's on my mind.)

1. Daniel figures out the Gate coordinate system despite not being told about the Gate, finds the point of origin symbol on the cartouche, enables first dialing.

2. After sending an early MALP, Jack and General West refuse to send a team through, until Daniel says he can work out how to dial home.

3. He wanders from camp a ways, finds tracks which lead him to an alien creature. He spots a harness and realizes the thing is domesticated. It drags Daniel off, leading the team to the mine and the Abydonians.

4. Daniel developed a good rapport with Catherine Langford. It's a small thing, but she gives him her lucky Eye of Ra medallion (from the same dig as the Gate) for the mission. The Eye of Ra symbol is the only reason the Abydonians treat the team as gods instead of... normal oddly-dressed heavily-armed strangers who don't speak any intelligible language? I don't imagine that often goes well.
Also, the medallion saves the team's lives when Ra arrives. The only reason he didn't execute everyone on the spot and then send the Naquadah-enhanced nuke, was that he saw Daniel as a rival claimant to the title of Ra. He wanted Daniel to publicly kill the others in his name then kneel and renounce all claim to divinity before dying.

5. Daniel figured out the Abydonian language inside an hour. Granted, it's the spoken form of ancient Egyptian, and theo nly reason they didn't immediately understand each other is that the commonly-accepted verb sounds are way off. But how many people could have figure that out in a useful time-frame? Especially if they didn't bring nay experts on Ancient Egypt?

6. He reads the history of Abydos from the wall, and never so much as considers holding back anything for an advantage or to avoid offending Sha're. This inspires the rescue of the team from Ra, and in large part the uprising.

After that there's not much, but the original mission never would have gotten off the ground twice over if not for Daniel. In the larger context of the show:

Daniel found the map room. Anyone who spent several months digging in and around the pyramid on Abydos could have done so.

It was Jack, not Daniel who convinced Teal'c to help them. So that's something Daniel didn't do.

Daniel convinced Hammond to evaluate the scientific, not just purely military, benefits of each mission.

Daniel's allergies were key to finding a cure for the Broca plague that engulfed the SGC.

Daniel found the footage of the 1940s Gate study, and Ernest's Planet. Including the molecular language that never really saw a payoff.

Daniel saved the Tollan when Mayborne and the NID were going to lock them up forever.

Daniel carried the warning of the Goa'uld invasion, and convinced his team to defy orders and go through the gate to stop it.

That's just the first year.

Daniel also; made first contact with Thor. Made a good first impression on Oma. Almost single-handedly crafted the Earth-Tok'ra treaty of alliance. Sacrificed his life and ascended, bringing Jonas into the SGC (who saved the world two episodes later.) Told SG-1 about the Lost City, setting them on the path to finding first the Ancient Outpost, then Atlantis. Froze all of the Replicators in the Galaxy, buying time for Sam to destroy them. Gave Oma the spine to deal with Anubis once and for all.

And, thanks to time-travel shenanigans, Daniel was the leader of the original uprising that drove the Goa'uld from Earth and buried the Gate.

There's a reason that, IIRC, every screwed-up and screwed-over alternate reality we've seen has been missing a Daniel.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Which is why an international program might not be a smart move. Would a program with all the countries (or at least most) all jockeying to get their own people out in the galaxy accept the same SG-1? Change up the flagship team even slightly...and you get very bad situations. Which does go to show how lucky 'Prime' SG-verse was.

Which is why Stargate 'what-ifs' don't end well...it was a lot of luck and Daniel being around that led to the 'Prime-verse' surviving and thriving. And not dying horribly like most other Earth's in the series.

[PREDATOR490]

Counter-Point - We know a lot of Earths did infact survive due to that episode with all the SG-1 teams coming through the Stargate in Season 9. How they survived or wether Daniel was involved at all is unknown.

All that can really be said is that based on the factors present in the movie + Season 1 - The way things went were largely due to luck and SG-1. Screwing that ensemble up would probably doom the Earth in the first season. The first year really was crucial to the survival of the planet but that is largely due to the key event of killing Ra.
If Ra didnt show up in an alternate reality for a while - The program should be able to go just fine because they have more time to get the information from Abydos and avoid being noticed by the Goa'uld.

It IS possible revealing the program prior to the first mission would have them arrive late enough for Ra to be gone and give them a larger window to figure out what is going on. However, depending on the timeframe they could end up missing a lot of encounters. I.E Saving the Tollans or Jolinar.
I expect Daniel would be on the team that initially went even with an international team because he has demonstrated an understanding the others have not. The major changes would be to the additional personnel that went with him.

I expect the international community would turn the mission into something like Atlantis with more people going which would probably take months to assemble. Wether Ra, or Goa'uld is on the other side is a flip of a coin. It could end up going well or very badly.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Eh I forgot about that episode. Other than that though, every other encounter with other universes has tended to have the majority of them wiped out.

[Simon_Jester]

Personally I find the "it's all on Daniel" a bit dismaying. He's the main protagonist of his series, but having him be utterly indispensable to the defense and survival of Earth, with no one else remotely able to handle things, seems... over-dramatized?

[Chirios]

No.
This scenario starts when they figure out how to work the Stargate thus Daniel has just figured out how to dial the gate. That gives them 24 hours before Ra arrives in his ship,

No it doesn't. Maybe I wasn't clear, Daniel figures out how to work the stargate , but the program is shut down and made public before anyone steps through.

Learn to read.

Wether someone steps through or not is irrelevant. We know from the film that Ra will arrive with his spaceship within a day and park it right on top of the Stargate.
When the stargate program is finally activated, which could be days, weeks, months or years - Ra will or could be there resulting in the team getting killed before ever meeting an Abydonian then Earth hurls a nuke to destroy him... or Ra hurls an enhanced nuke back to destroy Earth.

In both cases the Earth will still be destroyed because: The Goa'uld will send ships to destroy Earth in retaliation even if they destroy Abydos.
This is how things went in: There But For the Grace Of God

My mistake, I thought you meant 24 hours before Ra reaches Earth.

I've never actually watched the first movie, I thought Ra was going to head out in his spaceship and attack Earth, I didn't realise until reading the wiki that that wasn't his plan.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Personally I find the "it's all on Daniel" a bit dismaying. He's the main protagonist of his series, but having him be utterly indispensable to the defense and survival of Earth, with no one else remotely able to handle things, seems... over-dramatized?

He's indispensable if you want the timeline to come out as it did in the show.. I would say that Daniel stops being absolutely vital past season 2 or so. Yes, he is a valuable member of the team and does a lot of helpful things (the Lost City thing included) but he is no longer absolutely vital.

Ultimately though, you could say that past mid season 2 it's all on Jack. He got the Ancient database in his head, went to the Asgard and impressed them enough to start dealing with Humanity as a forerunner to "the Fifth Race." Had that not happened I suspect the Asgard would have been less willing to include Earth in the protected planets treaty, which is very bad news for Earth.

[Blayne]

Additionally I would argue that how do know there wouldn't have been a team of sufficiently brilliant foreign scientists attached to an international program that in combination could have done a similar job? We saw the Russian scientist (played by Demona/Troi?), we saw Zalenka, and we saw Rodney and then Nicholas Rush as all brilliant capable people.

Admittedly Rodney started as a huge jerk and needed sometime to mellow a bit.

So for all we know there could've been some Japanese/Chinese/Ukrainian/Kazakstan/Brazilian/etc people who could've been able to do similar, AND have more military power like the S-300 system or those tracked flak AFV's the Russians use.

[PREDATOR490]

If your going for a competent Stargate program rather than the US biased drama program. The SG Program could come out miles ahead with disclosure as it removes some of the power of organisations like the NID and Kinsey. However, it comes with the con of adding more politicing bullshit like the IOA kept pulling.

Someone like Dr Weir would be ideal but even being a well liked individual like her ended with the IOA fucking her over repeatedly.
The benefit to keeping the program secret is it removes a lot of the politic red-tape at getting things done but nothing is really perfect.

In theory, IF the nations worked together. They could move the Stargate into a better prepared facility with more funding for UAVs and defences.
The mountain they used isnt bad but... the defences were rather piss poor and a bigger facility would be able to bring in light armored vehicles. Only once during the show was one ever seen and that was Forever in a Day.

Technology would be a major sticking point but with the whole world working on it in the open. They might be a bit quicker on the draw for building defences and new equipment. Its beyond hilarious the Stargate Program was able to build a spaceship but we never seem them build their own Zat guns or modify the smaller technological gadgets.
I would personnally be working on shield generators like the Goa'uld use for themselves. Even the one that can block higher speed weapons would increase survival odds of SG Teams immensley. When you get to the Kruul Armor which was impervious to even more - SG Teams should be using that as standard. Even if it is just the spandex suit thing.

Beyond this digression, more teams does increase the amount of potential exploration and talent that can be brought to bear on the program which could be good. Unfortunatly, the conflicting interests that go with it with US vs Russia or smaller nations wanting in on the program.
I imagine everyone would be shitting bricks if Iran wanted in on the program etc. which would lead to discrimination issues and folks will not be happy if only the privelaged get the benefits while still under the same risk the Program could go massively wrong.

The major reason why Daniel ended up being a vital component is because
A) He just happens to be the expert on everything
B) He just happens to be level headed and open minded enough beyond the cliche portrayl of the military 'Kill,Steal,Destroy' menality

Once the program started getting more experience, Daniel's importance fell to the wayside because he didnt have to be the only one that actually fucking believed in X,Y,Z.

[aussiemuscle308]

it's kind of funny because the humans (Earth) are hypocrites the way they go on about other planets not revealing the existence of the stargate, but won't reveal it on earth (until it's forced on them, then they grudgingly work with the Russians).

[Grumman]

it's kind of funny because the humans (Earth) are hypocrites the way they go on about other planets not revealing the existence of the stargate

They did? They refused to trade weapons technology to the likes of the Kelowan Republic on Langara because they didn't want a repeat of the Eurondan incident, but I don't recall them ever acting as you suggest.

[Blayne]

I think a good question to ask is do we in history have a comparable and existing level of cooperation on security related concerns while still being effective regardless of politics?

I think WWII, the Korean War, NATO in general have been successful to varying degree of intranational cooperation and see the SG program as no different.

[Simon_Jester]

War is different because there's a lot more "expend effort" and a lot less "reap rewards." The Stargate program can provide benefits to the nations involved, and there's a lot of incentive to fight over those benefits. In wartime, all the nations involved are already expending vast resources, and the payoff only comes when the war ends, if it comes at all.

And if you look at how wars end, you'll find a lot more squabbling among allies now that there's a prize for them to wrestle over.