Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

This is your final reminder about the Stargate SG-1 Fan Awards 2004. The polls close tomorrow. I shouldn’t talk, since I haven’t had time to read or vote…

Jerie pointed out a rec of one of my SG stories. The person who claims to have sent feedback really did send feedback. As for the rest of you…

The Stargate SG-1 Fan Awards 2004 are open for voting. This fandom public service announcement was brought to you live, in real time, by the long-lost Jemima. Don’t hold your breath for the next live entry.

Nominations are up for the Stargate SG-1 Fan Awards. Please do not stuff the ballot box.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Rocky’s first SG fic. I couldn’t comment on it in her LJ, but I did enjoy it.

You Know You’re Too Fannish When: you throw a Klingon wedding (link thanks to KC)

Seema’s been pestering people for episode-based haiku. The following is probably not what she meant. “Resurrection” is Stargate episode 719 (see the newly updated episode list), but this haiku fits far too many seventh-season eps.

“Where’s Colonel O’Neill?”
Sam makes another excuse -
We’re Jackless again.

I forgot to mention the first time I phoned it in that my phoning in inspiration was Richard Dean Anderson. In TV, as in parenting, there’s just no substitute for being there. What I’ve seen of seaon 7 so far has disturbed me with its lack of RDA. When he is on screen, he seems out of it, like an Ascended Daniel who can’t quite figure out whether he’s still in the cast or not. I strenuously object to the de-Mulderization of the show. I hate being strung along with crumbs of Jack. I want Jack back full-time.

And then there’s “Grace.” I have to agree with KC on this one - the episode dragged like a paralyzed spice worm in Great-great-great-great-granchildren of Dune. I meant to check the credits to see who the writer was because the writing was so bad, especially when Sam was dictating her logs. Dangling modifiers, poor word choice, and a stunningly obvious mistaken use of “nebulae” for “nebula” might be excused by the concussion, but it didn’t feel that way while I was watching.

Speaking of which, nebulae are the kiss of death in science fiction. They make insultingly stupid movie physics look good. Real nebulae are, surprising as it may seem, nebulous. Even if you call them “gas clouds,” there are still certain physical properties they cannot have in the vacuum of space. They won’t hide you from Khan. They won’t form an entire new planet when you set off a genesis device in one. They most certainly will not glow like a neon sign, leak through your shields, stall your engines, or corrode your hull.

And by the way, what’s up with that hull and those shields and the impulse/warp drive (sorry, sublight/hyperdrive) and that ship full of people in blue pajamas? Did I miss the Frankenstein episode in which the fresh brain of Stargate was implanted into the stitched-together corpse of Enterprise? And the only things on this show that should be glowing are those beady Goa’uld eyes. It hurt me to have to listen to Sam, my Mulderless Scully who’d always been so rational and believable back in season 4, stand there and spout technobabble that was tired and old when Spock first said it.

So, as an episode, “Grace” was a wash for me because of the technical flaws. Yes, Sam works through a puzzle and a lot could be read into the clues, but I was too distracted by the problems. Why is Sam counting her rations? How the heck does she find the alien ship? Why does this feel like a bad episode of Voyager? And what about the alleged deep insight into Sam that I was promised? Where’s the Real Sam?

Well, I despaired of her for quite a while there. Sam’s interaction with Teal’c, Daniel, and Grace didn’t reveal anything about hidden Sams. All the shadow characters were completely in character, rather than showing us the Teal’c side to Sam, etc. For me there was only one redeeming element to “Grace,” and that was the shippy element, starting with Jacob’s appearance.

I wasn’t particularly pleased by Jacob’s without love you may as well toss yourself out an airlock attitude. I don’t think Sam really believes that - it’s the near occasion of death speaking. Sam’s beliefs correspond to what Jack says; it’s not Grace who’s Sam, it’s Jack. He openly admits to being a figment of her imagination. They have an obscure conversation that I at first put down to more bad writing, but the truth this episode is a lot like “Divide and Conquer” - a lot of silly tech nonsense surrounding a kernel of intentionally ambiguous ship. Jerie is definitely right about the Sam/Jack scene. They’re not saying what it sounds like they’re saying.

For one thing, Jack asks her what’s stopping you if you really wanna know? Even though for the rest of us this scene is about Sam finally admitting how she feels about Jack, after having her side of the story cut in both “Divide and Conquer” and “Beneath the Surface,” that’s not what it is for Sam. Sam knows how she feels and she only incidentally shows it by admitting that leaving the Air Force is an option and with her fantasy kiss. What Sam is forced to confront here is how Jack feels. She says I’d let you go right now if I knew. But honestly, even stumbling around hallucinating with a concussion, how can she not know? Everyone who’s ever watched the show knows how Jack feels about Sam. He admits he’s not that complex. So Sam’s subconscious is more than enough to get her to face the fact that Jack loves her, to inform her that he’s not going to provide the easy out of letting her give up her career, and to assure her of his undying devotion. Even though she’s just psychobabbled herself into going after someone else, because she wants something more and she doesn’t know what else to do.

And so Our Hussy is born, though she’s not happy about it. That leaves me one last question: who is Grace? Some have associated Grace with the Christian notion of unmerited favor, but this is Stargate, not The Passion of the Christ. For me, Grace represents the Graces of Greek mythology, who personified splendor, mirth, feasting, joy, peace, and most importantly, happiness. They are also the attendants of Aphrodite. Grace brings food, sings songs, blows bubbles, and says we need to talk - but when it comes down to talking, Grace turns into Jacob and talks about love.

So Grace isn’t the cloud - the cloud is just another badly-written sci-fi nebula. Like the other hallucinations, she’s Sam, but while Teal’c, Daniel, and Jacob are Sam giving herself grief, and Jack is Sam trapped in her impossible emotional circumstances, Grace is a happy Sam. Grace is Sam’s inner hussy.

Lego link of the day: The Portland Lego Brickfest at Wired
Filk musical of the day: Once More With Hobbits

I’ve finished off season 4 of Stargate with drabbles for “Double Jeopardy” and “Exodus”: Double Take and A Fateful Trip. On the long side, my new AU fic, A White Dove, clocks in at 7,500 words. It’s set in season 7 (though there are no real spoilers since I haven’t seen any of season 7) and it’s unrelated to the previous two AU fics. This is also my first not entirely sappy or parodic or bitter Stargate fic of over 100 words.

Note that I said not entirely. The cool thing about AU’s is that you can kill the characters over and over and over again, and there will still be spares in some other universe. (You can take that as a summary of the story.)

As you may have noticed from the screenshots in my previous quantum mirror entry, the controller for the quantum mirror changed between the two QM episodes. Since they’re two different controllers (one from our reality, one from Samantha~’s), that’s not much of a problem.

However, in the process of trying to use the little gold doohickey on the quantum mirror, I noticed that the mirror itself changed between episodes. Since it’s supposed to be the same mirror in both eps, that is a problem. Mirror #1 (in “There But…”) is more rocky and irregular in shape. Mirror #2 (in “Point of View”) is smoother and has much more regular border around the reflective surface. Compare the first mirror shot and the beach planet mirror shot in my previous QM entry to see what I mean.

The big problem for me was that the doohickey went away in Mirror #2, but I really wanted a doohickey for technobabble purposes. But then I figured out that the doohickey was just a label, like the other artifacts had. Now I have no doohickey at all.

I can’t believe I read the whole thing - not that I did, but I tried. Voting in the Sam/Jack Fanfiction Awards closes tomorrow. You can find links for the fics on the nominations page - quite a few of them are broken, but you can track those down with Google. I’ll link some of my favorites, though.

Categories never work for me. I came up with ties in a couple of them, where the two best stories have very little in common besides the categorization. So I’ll just forget the categories and talk about the fics according to size or other notable similarities.

When given a choice between long fic, episodic fic (to be explained later), and vignettes, I prefer it long. At least, it impresses me more if it’s long, since it’s much more difficult (for me) to keep a big plot going. So first off, the notable long stories: “Sleepers” by Alli Snow, which I’d read before, “Counterbalance” by Sally Reeve for mini-me action, and “Skipped Stones” by TereC, a three-part story under series which had some interesting AU action before the h/c got out of control. “4+1=5-2″ by Jo R. had a good plot, “Retribution” by Suz Voy was long for her, “Until the End of the World” by Ruth M. King was only partially marred by the pervasive evil bad guy h/c subplot, and “Future Imperfect” by Sally Reeve isn’t bad for angst.

By episodic fic I mean little freestanding vignettes strung together into a story. Like the reams of h/c, the proportion of episodic fic was a surprise for me as an ickle newbie SG fic reader. I prefer something with a bit more cohesion and subplot, but I still enjoyed a few of these. My favorite was “Veils of Reality” by SelDear, an AU series of twelve or so vignettes from different AU’s - though I never really picked up on the thread that was supposed to hold them together. The “Dark and Stormies” series by Michelle V. and Jojo was a hilarious parody. For the more standard romantic episodic series, I liked “Remedied” by Suz and “A Matter of Tact” by Jojo. “Spoken” by Suz Voy also had that strung-together feel for me, despite being all on one page and having a good plot twist.

Of course actual episode additions and revisions abounded. Most notable were “Once in a Lifetime” by Michelle V. (2010), “Surface Tension” by Sally Reeve (Beneath the Surface), and “Opportunity Lost” by Jojo (Window of Opportunity). If that’s not enough, there’s also “Passing the Test” by Alli Snow (Entity), “Shattered” by Claira (100 Days), “Vigil” by Nanda (Metamorphosis), and “Trust Me” by Wendy Parkinson (Message in a Bottle).

And then there were the real short stories, like “Light to Dark, Dark to Light” by CGB, “Together” by splash_the_cat, “Things We Can’t Say” by Suz Voy and “Swinegate” by Sadler and O’Neal. See also “Chronology” by AJ, “Rules of Engagement” by splash_the_cat, “Squee!” by Suz Voy again, and “Noticing” by Claira.

There were a couple of metafics that I loved, as well. They weren’t metafic proper but short stories that played with language: “Euphemism” by splash_the_cat and “Miscommunication” by Michelle V. All that reading was worthwhile to find those two. The list above is not everything I finished, or even everything I liked, just the top of the heap by an unscientific measure. Now I can go forth and vote.

Last entry, I was curious what had become of the quantum mirror. Jerie reminded me that There But For the Grace of God was the first QM episode; Point of View was the second and last to date. So here’s what I discovered by rewatching them:

[Warning: Spoilers for quantum mirror episodes]
In “There But…,” SG-1 find the quantum mirror in an alien lab on P3R-233.
Daniel touches the mirror, transferring himself to an alternate reality. The mirror flashes white for a moment. He describes the sensation: “When I touched the mirror, there was this…this surge, it was like getting an electrical shock, just for a second.” Daniel brings the controller through with him.


[gratuitous controller shot]

The controller gets blown up, either with the conference room or with the SGC on the alternate Earth. The mirror is still on and pointed at the correct universe when Daniel returns to P3R-233, and he makes it home.

In “Point of View,” we see that the quantum mirror from P3R-233 has made its way to Area 51. It appears to be off when we first see it, but it flashes on when Samantha~ points her controller at it from her reality. She brings the controller through. She and Kawalski are caught and brought to the SGC, where it becomes apparent that Samantha~ is suffering from entropic cascade failure at the cellular level because there’s already a Sam in this universe. Entropic cascade failure sets in after 48 hours.


[death by technobabble]

Samantha~ must be returned to her own reality, so we get to see the controller in action. Since the mirror was turned off, it lost its place and Daniel needs to find the correct universe again. This involves a lot of grimacing at the controller and noticing small differences like where your last hand grenade blew up or Carter being a captain instead of a major.


[another gratuitous controller shot]

There are supposed to be a nearly infinite number of realities, for each decision made in each reality. Daniel ought to have an infinite amount of work to do, but the controller senses nearby realities. (Hey, I don’t write ‘em.)
Another important technical point we see during Daniel’s exploration is that the mirrors don’t have to be in the same place. In the correct universe, the mirror has been brought to a small room with nothing in it and a wall outside the door. In Samantha~’s universe, the mirror is in a crowded storage closet with a direct view down the hallway. Daniel even comes across a beach planet in his grimacing:


[uninhabited beach planet]

All’s well that ends well, but what happens to the mirror afterwards? General Hammond gave an order: “…upon your return I want that quantum mirror destroyed.” In “There But For…,” Daniel speculated that the mirror might be made of naqahdah, so it’s not entirely clear how it could be safely disposed of, if it was.

What happens to the controller? There’s no sign of it when Daniel is captured by Jaffa, but the mirror appears to be off. It fails to show up at any point later in the episode. Who dialed the mirror to get SG-1 home? If you ask me, Daniel looks guilty as he leaves the alternate reality. There are all sorts of big pockets in his BDU’s and backpack…


[What has it got in its pocketses?]