Constructing a universe: The Road Not Taken

[fignewton]

 I have some basic problems with the construction of the backstory for the episode The Road Not Taken. Analyzing the clues we're given leaves us with some pretty interesting contradictions in the storyline.

Spoilers ahead for The Road Not Taken, plus the current storyline of Seasons 9-10!

So, the AU from The Road Not Taken. It’s a fascinating premise, but there seem to be some major flaws in the flow of cause and effect.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who noticed that Jack O’Neill was not only absent as Mrs. Carter, but absent, period. Given the time frame of where this universe splits off from the regular SG-1verse, it’s reasonable to speculate that when Jack saved the world from Anubis in The Lost City, they never managed to defrost him. After all, they lost the Antarctica outpost; all they salvaged was the chair “before the Russians took over.” So Jack was left behind.

What repercussions does this have for the history of the next three years, then?

Lorne mentions that Teal’c left “several years ago” – probably at that time, when it was clear that there would be no rescue of Jack. And with no rescue attempt, that would also mean that Jack’s weapon against the Replicator was never created; that there was no way to save the Asgard from being overwhelmed when the Replicators broke loose; and that RepliCarter never came into being.

So. Weir out of the SGC, and Hammond back in his place. No General Jack. Sam doesn’t get her promotion to colonel. Quite frankly, that bothers me a lot, because the clear implication is that she hadn’t earned it as much as Jack had bestowed it, which is an ugly premise on both shippy and non-shippy levels. Daniel and Sam remain on SG-1, but Teal’c goes to fight the good fight with the Jaffa.

No Citizen Joe. His visions stopped when Jack never made it back to the SGC. Hopefully, he and his wife reconciled, but the SGC never discovers the Ancient stones and their affinity for communication.

ETA: Both abyssinia4077 and aurora_novarum pointed out that without the need to go to Atlantis, Prometheus Unbound couldn't have happened as it did in our universe. I would add that while Vala might have still tried to hijack a Tau'ri ship for her own interests, it couldn't be the Prometheus, since it was doing Earth orbit duty as Air Force One, and that it wouldn't have been Hammond or Daniel on board, since Hammond was CO of the SGC and Daniel would not be required to employ his Ancient skills. So there's no Vala confronting Daniel to set off S9, although they might have met in other ways, and there's no reason to suggest that they couldn't have done so.

No Moebius, because without Jack and his genes, they never would have been able to handle the timeship. (I know there are other Ancient-gene people out there, but I can’t see anyone other than Jack allowing SG-1 to go on such a dangerous mission to the past in the first place.)

It’s probable that the Replicators wiped out the Goa’uld just as they did in our universe, but how were the Replicators destroyed? No Replicarter. No Ancient weapon of Jack’s devising that they can use as a basis to finetune the machine at Dakara to destroy the Replicators. Would Hammond have allowed Felger free rein to play with his computer virus? Even if that part did take place, the rest of it remains unexplained.

We know this AU discovered the Ancient cache, because we see their machine, and they refer to where they found it. Without Citizen Joe, though, they don’t know how to activate it.

Here I run into a problem. They tell Sam that Vala is imprisoned in Area 51 (which, I’m afraid, makes this AU a lot more intelligent than the folks in our SGC). Was she sent there before or after she led them to the Ancient cache? Did they zat her as soon as they met her and ransack her belongings for the tablet that Daniel deciphered? Whether or not Vala was involved, they did find the communication device… but they didn’t communicate.

So. No out-of-body trip to the Alteran galaxy. So how do the Ori discover the existence of humans in the Milky Way?

I think it was a huge mistake to make the Ori the bad guys here, because no communication with the Alteran galaxy means no Ori in the Milky Way, and no Vala means no Adria to take Daniel. (We might handwave it and say that Vala was only arrested in S10, not S9, but that’s rather doubtful, and still doesn’t explain how the Ori got to the Milky Way galaxy in the first place.)

It’s sensible to suggest that the big bad should’ve still been Anubis. With no Replicarter to snatch him, Daniel wouldn’t have died again. No Daniel to inspire Oma to get off her glowly little tentacles and do something about Anubis means that he was still around and still making trouble. Daniel could still have been gone – possibly taken by Anubis himself, who would be every bit as fascinated in Daniel-the-Descended as Adria is. Anubis could be bringing ships to attack Earth – he did it once before, after all. A lot of the contradictions would have been resolved… but then, the writers would have actually had to present the Goa’uld as a real threat, and that is apparently not allowed any longer.

Conclusion: the premise we were given in The Road Not Taken was highly intriguing, but poorly envisioned by the writers. And for some odd reason, I’m not all that surprised by that. ;)

Comments

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

It's canon that the SGC is crawling with the little paperweight thingies that fit into the device, and anybody with an Ancient Gene can activate one.

It is?

I only watched Joe once, but my impression was that it was rather unusual. If it had been so common, why would it have taken them so long to figure out what was happening, and why weren't there others having visons? I know that Asgard stones seems to be as common as marbles, but I really thought the LPTs (hee! great acronym) were rare.

Interesting hypothesis with Sheppard. Is he supposed to be more Ancient-y than Jack, or less? Although I would suggest that the bleakness of this AU would not encourage second chances, and the impression I got from the first 20 minutes of Atlantis Rising (the only SGA I've ever watched; I stopped as soon as the wormhole closed and Daniel and Jack weren't part of it any more) was that Sheppard was half a step away from being kicked out.

I think Jack died in the *first* Ancient Download.

Wow. So, no Asgard as friends, because he never made it to them. No meeting the Replicators at all. Who took the second download, then, that led them to Proklarush... Oh, I see your suggestion in your post: "Handwave." Silly me. :)

If Jack was dead, and the world was turning totalitarian, I vote for Daniel never descending. He would have little to come back to. The Tau'ri are turning into their own version of the Goa'uld, cute little symbiotes not required.

Vala, as you say, can be easily handwaved back into the story. Still, I think it was a huge mistake to change so much backstory and insist on the same current enemy.

Fun to speculate, though, isn't it? :)

[ivorygates]

I live for AUs..... *VBEG*

*I* only watched "Joe" once (okay, except I watched the scene in Jack's kitchen a couple of times, because ... Jack's kitchen....) but the part about there being a lot of LPTs comes from "Avalon," I think. Or somewhere in S9. When they're firing up the Stupid Ori Hookah (hereafter the SOH.) The unusual part about the LPTs was the two-way connection, not their mere existence. I think.

I'm fairly sure that Sheppard is supposed to be Just As Ancient-y As Jack (no more, no less.) I barely watched "Rising" at all, but yeah. He was totally on the verge of being kicked out. In the AU, though, he'd obviously be "conserved" as a "national resource" no matter how much of a PITA he was.

Hm. While it's true that Daniel would have had damned little to come back to in a Jack-less universe, Descension wasn't exactly his call. OTOH, without Jack around, would he have been able to rally the SGC in the defense of Abydos? OTOOH, I'm sure he would *still* have done something to get himself kicked out of the Glowy Squid Club sooner or later.

But... yeah. I like my version, because "no Replicators" is another good reason for Anubis to be able to hit Earth so hard. Of course, it's also a better reason for Anubis to be the main villain in "Road Not Taken."

And the thing I *really* want to know is:

If they never found Atlantis in that universe...

If they've already beaten back Anubis using the Antarctic defenses...

Just *how* were they planning to smack down the Ori using those same defenses, since they USED UP ALL THE DRONES in defeating Anubis?

Just a question.

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

Okay, regarding the LPTs - there seem to have actually been only those two. Lee had to "reset" them so they weren't imprinted on Jack and Joe any more, and the scene pretty much implies that those are the *only* two available.

I was thinking more in terms of his second Ascension - that he would choose to stay glowy - but you're right about the first one. OTOH, he would have probably stayed happily enough on Vis Uban, because who would have seriously looked for him? And I agree that the SGC would not have gone to help Abydos - if, of course, Anubis was after Abydos at all in that AU.

Just *how* were they planning to smack down the Ori using those same defenses, since they USED UP ALL THE DRONES in defeating Anubis?

Maybe there were still some drones yet? Or maybe they were just desperate?

Either way, the backstory wasn't thought through. Still! More fun for us. :)

[ivorygates]

Yes! We'll have fun, fun, fun 'till our daddy takes the T-bird away-y-y-y....

Er.

Never Mind.