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

[theemdash]

You are such the genius. I knew something rubbed me the wrong way about that story, but I couldn't put my finger on it. (I think I was so bowled over by the whole "Sam isn't married to Jack" that I missed a lot of other stuff.)

And I'm not surprised that the writers missed continuity flaws, etc. They really should have hired a staff of fans to do that work for them. ;)

[sg-fignewton.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the "Sam isn't married to Jack" that surprised me as much as "Jack wasn't even mentioned."

Yes! They should hire us for continuity! And we can make sure that all mention of Felger is erased from the writers' consciousness. :)