![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
My love for this episode is largely incoherent, but can probably be summed up as follows:
Oh, Daniel.
I came across a discussion in another LJ not too long ago - it might have been![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merryish - in which she marveled at how panicky and disbelieving and incredulous Daniel et al were about the idea of alternate dimensions. By the time we hit S3, it's par for the course; by S9, alternate realties are met with a shrug and a yawn.
But Daniel in this episode doesn't stop flailing, and it's so much fun to watch. I think he used more gestures in this one episode than he did in the rest of S1 together, particularly in that first scene with Catherine, which is one of my favorite bits. My absolute favorite scene, of course, is when Daniel talks General!Jack into going to Teal'c, appealing through that connection that apparently is cross-dimensional. The friendship between Jack and Daniel was one of the first real draws to SG-1 for me, and I doubt that will ever change.
This episode leads into the four-part arc that takes us into S2, and it's all so good. I really love this ep to pieces.
I adore the way I can watch for the umpteenth time and discover new little bits and pieces. In this case, I noticed two things:
When Catherine and Daniel are first discussing the idea that the odd device he picked up might control the mirror, she asks him, "You got everything from the lab on P3R-233?" Daniel answers, "Yes - well, except the gun and the grenade." And later, when Sam goes to pick up the controller and gets ambushed by the Jaffa - there she is, with a grenade. Heh. That's where she got it from.
When they try to dial the first time, before Sam sets up the accelerated dialling program, "Chevron Two, encoded" is actually the point of origin. Oops.
And a few things I've always wondered:
"Oh, I really hate it when this happens." Huh? What? Are we supposed to believe that SG-1 makes a habit of walking through the Stargate without Daniel? Or is Daniel actually saying, "Oh, I really hate it when something screwy happens"?
How in the world are we supposed to explain the reversal between Jack's rank and Hammond's?
Why couldn't Daniel flee to the Beta Site with the other refugees and make his way to P3R-233 from there? In the end, it was a moot point, but why was it necessary to ask the SGA to make the sacrifice?
My default icon is from this ep. Oh, Daniel, we really do love you. :)
Oh, Daniel.
I came across a discussion in another LJ not too long ago - it might have been
merryish - in which she marveled at how panicky and disbelieving and incredulous Daniel et al were about the idea of alternate dimensions. By the time we hit S3, it's par for the course; by S9, alternate realties are met with a shrug and a yawn.But Daniel in this episode doesn't stop flailing, and it's so much fun to watch. I think he used more gestures in this one episode than he did in the rest of S1 together, particularly in that first scene with Catherine, which is one of my favorite bits. My absolute favorite scene, of course, is when Daniel talks General!Jack into going to Teal'c, appealing through that connection that apparently is cross-dimensional. The friendship between Jack and Daniel was one of the first real draws to SG-1 for me, and I doubt that will ever change.
This episode leads into the four-part arc that takes us into S2, and it's all so good. I really love this ep to pieces.
I adore the way I can watch for the umpteenth time and discover new little bits and pieces. In this case, I noticed two things:
When Catherine and Daniel are first discussing the idea that the odd device he picked up might control the mirror, she asks him, "You got everything from the lab on P3R-233?" Daniel answers, "Yes - well, except the gun and the grenade." And later, when Sam goes to pick up the controller and gets ambushed by the Jaffa - there she is, with a grenade. Heh. That's where she got it from.
When they try to dial the first time, before Sam sets up the accelerated dialling program, "Chevron Two, encoded" is actually the point of origin. Oops.
And a few things I've always wondered:
"Oh, I really hate it when this happens." Huh? What? Are we supposed to believe that SG-1 makes a habit of walking through the Stargate without Daniel? Or is Daniel actually saying, "Oh, I really hate it when something screwy happens"?
How in the world are we supposed to explain the reversal between Jack's rank and Hammond's?
Why couldn't Daniel flee to the Beta Site with the other refugees and make his way to P3R-233 from there? In the end, it was a moot point, but why was it necessary to ask the SGA to make the sacrifice?
My default icon is from this ep. Oh, Daniel, we really do love you. :)
Tags:
no subject
Incredibly happy sigh.
And while we're at it? Even AU Teal'c and General Jack had a strong connection. Sadly, it wasn't enough to overcome the deaths of Ry'ac and Drey'auc, but gaaah - it was like SG-1 was there, but wasn't.
Love this ep, I really do. :)
no subject
happy place
For the "Oh, I really hate it when this happens." To me that read a lot of old history of Daniel's getting left behind--not just on Nem's planet, but just in general not able to catch up with the cool guys.
As to the reversal between ranks--I always figured in this reality, they had the same 1969 connundrum, but here it cost Hammond his rank, set him back. He did something, said something, that tweaked this timeline (make it the point of departure). And that tweak led to Sam not joining the Air Force, and Daniel not joining the SGA (and I've always wonder just how rude he was about that), and so on. But Jack gets the promotion for surviving Abydos...
And that brings up the question of how the hell did they get home from Abydos without Daniel? Or did they not even go--did they nuke the places from this side of the gate, and Jack just inherited the program from West?
Re: happy place
Oh, I like that interpretation for Daniel's statement.
Wait, wait. How can 1969 happen if the SGC doesn't survive long enough for an SG-1 to go back in time?
I think they never actually went through to Abydos - that they nuked it, as you say, from this side, and they were lucky enough to catch Ra's mothership on the ground, so that they managed to kill him, too.
Or maybe not so lucky, since that probably triggered the attack on Earth. And no Abydos cartouche, so how would they have any planets to go to...?
Sometimes it's best not to question too closely. :) Although Redbyrd had them studying the Abydon Gate for six months via MALP before they figured out a safe way to get back home, and only then went through the Gate themselves.
Re: happy place
As for Jack's rank, I don't think there can have been a Charlie (and possibly never a Sara, either) in this universe, because there's no way he'd have got engaged to AU-Carter so quickly after losing his family. So he'd have had no reason to retire as he did in our universe, and also may have been more career-focused all along.
Re: happy place
Oh, I love that. Excellent!
And your icon - is it new? Love it. :)
Re: happy place
Re: happy place
Re: happy place
I've also assumed there was no Sara and no Charlie; we still have a Black Ops-hardened Jack O'Neill, but one who never retired, never got quite so bitter and despairing, and was still rising in rank.
Re: happy place
Except that when Jack ordered the SF to take Daniel away, Daniel managed to finally get his real attention by talking about
the moviethe plans to blow up Abydos, and that Jack was ready to take a suicidal mission because of Charlie's death.Re: happy place
Re: happy place
Daniel: "Did you still go to Abydos with the intention to blow up a nuclear device?"
Jack: "How did you know that?"
Daniel: "You were willing to commit suicide, because your son had recently died! He shot himself... with your gun... right?"
Catherine: "I swear I didn't tell him anything."
So it's confirmed that: A, there was some sort of Abydos mission; B, nuking the planet was proposed; and C, Charlie died as he did in our universe. I imagine some of the details must have been different, though, even accounting for the lack of Daniel. For a start, would Jack even have been in a position to go on the mission, if he was a General at the time? It seems unlikely. Maybe he didn't have the same opportunity for a suicide mission, and so threw himself into hardass workaholic mode instead (as he did post-Meridian). Although that raises all kinds of confusion over the timing of his split from Sara and the engagement to Sam. In our universe, it was his going on the Abydos mission that was the final push for Sara to leave him. If he didn't go, did they stay together longer? Or did Jack throwing himself into work rather than retiring cause them to split up sooner? Maybe they were divorced already in this universe, before Charlie even died.
Hmm. Okay, here's my revised theory. This version of Jack - perhaps because he was never left behind by Cromwell in Iraq? - ascended the ranks faster and ended up General in charge of the SGC a couple of years before they got the gate open. His workaholic nature caused Sara to divorce him when Charlie was young, making this Jack even more of a grumpy hardass. Nonetheless, he gradually warms up to civilian Carter while they're working together, and they are good friends or perhaps even in the early stages of a relationship when Charlie dies. Jack spends the better part of a year or more getting to a point where he can move on from his grief, gradually rebuilds his relationship with Carter, and they then get engaged.
That works better for me than the idea that he lost Charlie, divorced Sara, met Sam and got engaged to Sam all within a similar sort of timeframe to our universe. It just seems way too fast, considering how our Jack was still hung up on Sara through most of the first season.
Re: happy place
...I want that as a fic, now. :)
Re: happy place
1. "Did you still go to Abydos with the intention to blow up a nuclear device?"
Jack can interpret this as, "Did your SGA go to Abydos with your orders to blow up a nuclear device?
2. "You were willing to commit suicide..."
Again, there's nothing to stop Jack from interpreting this as a completely separate bit of information, with no connection to Abydos at all. It's two things: this kid with the floppy hair knows about Abydos, and this kid with the floppy hair knows about my personal life.
Hey, maybe that's why there's no Kawalksy in this AU! And maybe no Ferretti, either - they were on the Abydos mission, and like everyone else, they never came back. Jack, as CO instead of West, ordered the mission - but didn't go himself.
Re: happy place
I did wonder if their Abydos team went through, couldn't get back and were either killed by Ra or set off the nuke, but that does beg the question of where this SGC got their gate addresses. Maybe Jack, unlike West, dialled in at intervals to check on his team, and they sent back some video of the temple inscriptions before they got killed.
Re: happy place
Re: happy place
Re: happy place
Re: happy place
Hammond is more difficult though, because we have to reconcile it with Mobius-Hammond, who is a one-star general in the absence of SG-1. They can't have had a 1969 either. (My explanation for that one is that the Hammond who didn't know the SGC was coming retired early to be with his wife when she was dying. Ours sacrificed that time with his wife because he knew he still had something important to do.) But I don't know why AU!Hammond was a colonel... I could spin it so that maybe Jacob is involved- Hammond and Sam are both affected by something Jacob does. But there's no real suggestion of that in the episode.
Re: happy place
But there's dialog in the ep with Daniel mentioning Charlie, and while Jack doesn't confirm it verbally, he looks shocked, and Catherine remarks she didn't tell Daniel any of this. So I think General Jack did lose his son in that world, too.
Re: happy place
"He knew about my kid!"
Re: happy place
And how sad that Jack couldn't pronounce Charlie's name. :(