The Stargate Dissertation, part I

I promised some time ago that I would give you a Stargate SG-1 dissertation, and the time has come. First, though, a recap of the series. The dissertation will arrive later.

Season One: 1997-1998
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, System Lord Apophis, Hathor
Best Episode: There But For the Grace of God
Synopsis: The Stargate, hidden deep in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado, reawakens and three US soldiers are killed, one is captured by Apophis. Lt. Col. Jack O’Neill is recalled to activity duty and sent to retrieve Daniel Jackson, an archaeologist who was left on Abydos in the film version. Jackson reveals that the Stargate is capable of travel to multiple planets, a shock to the Earth team. Jackson’s wife is eventually captured by Apophis and become his queen. O’Neill’s friend, Skara, is also captured and turned into the Goa’uld Klorel. The Jaffa warrior Teal’c joins SG-1, and his mentor Bra’tac allies himself with Earth. Jackson is transported to an alternate reality where Earth is under Goa’uld attack. He witnesses the brutality of the Goa’uld, and is able to obtain the gate address the Goa’uld attacked from. Jackson returned to our universe and leads SG-1 to Apophis’s vessel, where the Stargate is housed.

Season Two: 1998-1999
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Apophis, Hathor
Best Episode(s): Tok’ra I, Tok’ra II
Synopsis: SG-1 sabotages the Goa’uld attack fleet and escape, barely. Jackson is wounded, but survives. SG-1 finally makes contact with the Tok’ra, a group of Goa’uld who stand against the System Lords. Carter’s dying father agrees to bond with the Tok’ra Selmac, becoming a key figure in the Tok’ra resistance. On a later mission, the wormhole goes through a solar flare, causing the gate to reconnect on Earth; only the year is 1969, not 1999. They meet a younger General Hammond (pre-General days), and learn how they were cast so far back in time. Some calculations are done by Carter, and the team goes forward in time, to the year 2069. A bit later they re-return to 1999. The season finale revealed that the team had been killed, except for Jack. He awakens after being frozen for many years. It’s a trap, though, sprung by Hathor. The team is still alive, and they have been captured by the Goa’uld queen.

Season Three: 1999-2000
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Apophis
Best Episode: Rules of Engagement, Pretense
Synopsis: Hathor falls in the first episode, leaving Apophis as top dog once more. SG-1 deals with the System Lord Seth (Sethesh), and continues to gather intelligence on the Goa’uld. Skara is freed from Klorel in a ceremony called Triad. The Goa’uld Zipacna argues that a Goa’uld has eminent right to the body it possesses. Daniel and Jack stand in Skara’s defense, and eventually win the day. The Asgard Thor reports that the Replicators are gaining strength. Thor’s ship is taken by Replicators intent on conquering Earth. SG-1 stops them by blowing up Thor’s ship as it enters the atmosphere. Some Replicators, however, survive the blast.

Season Four: 2000–2001
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Apophis, Replicators, Sokar
Best Episode: Window of Opportunity
Synopsis: The Replicator threat continues to grow, and the race promises to be a bane to SG-1 for years. Apophis regains his strength as a System Lord. As he rallies the wayward Jaffa, Apophis reveals even more weaponry, including a mother ship that is far larger than any ship the Goa’uld have ever shown. He chases SG-1 throughout the universe, and Carter sadly announces that, even in hyperspace, it would take SG-1 over a thousand years to reach Earth.

Season Five: 2001–2002
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Anubis, Replicators
Best Episode: Meridian
Synopsis: SG-1 attempts to commandeer Apophis’s mother ship, but the Replicators beat them to it. They little robots upgrade the hyperdrive and head for Sokar’s home world. SG-1 sabotages the ship, keeping it from properly slowing down. The ship crashes, killing Apophis. He is quickly replaced, however, by Anubis, an ancient and feared System Lord who is half-ascended. Jackson attends a summit of the System Lords, where it is voted on allowing Anubis to once more hold the rank of System Lord. Jackson reports his findings to the team. Later, SG-1 travels to a world almost as advanced as Earth. They meet Jonas Quinn, and learn that Jonas’s people are developing nuclear weaponry. There is an accident, and Daniel Jackson is hit with a large dose of radiation. He succumbs to the radiation, but ascends rather than dies.

Season Six: 2002–2003
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Anubis, Replicators
Best Episode: Full Circle
Synopsis: Still dealing with the death of Daniel Jackson, SG-1 welcomes new member Jonas Quinn. Anubis continues to wreak havoc throughout the galaxy, crushing System Lords and uniting the Goa’uld under his own banner. Quinn takes over Daniel Jackson’s work, and learns that there is a lost city of the Ancients. The search for the lost city is interrupted by Anubis’s hunt for the Eye of Ra, a powerful weapon capable of decimating planets. The hunt leads SG-1 to Abydos, where the ascended Daniel Jackson appears to the whole team in order to hunt for the weapon. Eventually Anubis gains the weapon and duels with Daniel, but Jackson is torn from battle by Oma Desala. They help the Abydosians ascend rapidly, as Anubis destroys the planet. SG-1 returns and learns of their fate from the ascended Skara.

Season Seven: 2003–2004
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Anubis, Replicators
Best Episode(s): Heroes I, Heroes II
Synopsis: Daniel Jackson, freshly descended, returns, with no memory at all. He quickly relearns everything and rejoins SG-1. The search for the lost city continues, as SG-1 believes that the lost city, Atlantis, will house a stockpile of Ancient weapons. A documentary maker from the Air Force arrives at Cheyenne Mountain to document the SGC in action. During filming, some SG teams fall under attack. Dr. Fraser is killed in the battle. Jackson believes he has located the lost city, but when they arrive, they find an Ancient database. Jack once again takes in the Ancient knowledge, and leads the team on a bit of a chase to the Antarctic outpost, where Jack activates an Ancient weapon and helps stop Anubis, who has launched an attack on the outpost. Jack, his mind ravaged by the Ancient knowledge, freezes himself until a solution can be found.

Season Eight: 2004–2005
Key Enemy: Goa’uld, Anubis, Replicators
Best Episode(s): Reckoning I, Reckoning II, Threads, Moebius I, Moebius II
Synopsis: After the horrific battle with Anubis in Antarctica, SG-1 regroups. Jack is defrosted by Thor in time to build an anti-Replicator weapon and stop the Replicator Fifth, but the new Replicator Carter replaces him. O’Neil takes control of the SGC. Anubis rejoins the fray, having been defeated but not destroyed. The rebellious Jaffa warriors take the homeworld Dakara and cause the remaining System Lords much grief. Anubis plans to take control of the Ancient weapon on Dakara to eliminate all life in the Milky Way. Carter, with the reluctant help of Baal, recalibrates the weapon to destroy the Replicators only, and they dial every Stargate in the galaxy to accomplish their goals. Jackson, a captive of Replicator Carter, challenges the robot and stops her momentarily, before essentially being killed. Jackson awakes in a diner, and is offered the chance to ascend once more by Oma Desala. Only one other person in the diner recognizes or talks to Daniel, and Jackson quickly puts together the fact that said person is actually Anubis. Oma Desala finally takes Anubis and engages him in eternal war, removing him from the galaxy. Jackson returns to the SGC and helps SG-1 track down a ZPM. The only catch is, the ZPM is 5000 years in the past, under the control of Ra, who does not understand its power. The team goes back in time, changes the timeline, resets the timeline, and all is well at the end.

Season Nine: 2005-2006
Key Enemy: The Ori, Goa’uld System Lord Baal
Best Episode: Ripple Effect
Synopsis: The Goa’uld are, for all intents and purposes, defeated. SG-1 has gone their separate ways. Carter is at Area 51, Teal’c is helping to organize the Jaffa nation, Daniel Jackson is planning to move to Atlantis, and Jack O’Neill is now head of the Department of Homeworld Security. Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell is given leadership of SG-1, and the files of all personnel to replenish the team. He refuses and gathers the old team members. A new entity, Vala Mal Doran joins the team temporarily. She and Jackson encounter the Ori, a group of ascended Ancient who, instead of withdrawing their influences from the galaxy, are forcing people to worship them. The Ori learn of the Milky Way and desire to have influence there. Vala is lost when she single-handedly stop the Ori from building a first supergate. SG-1 struggles to stop them, but the Ori eventually build a supergate, a stargate large enough to allow massive troop ships to fly through, and begin systematically taking over the Milky Way.

Season Ten: 2006-2007
Key Enemy: The Ori, Goa’uld System Lord Baal
Best Episode: 200
Synopsis: The Ori invasion becomes complicated after Vala Mal Doran reappears, pregnant. Her child is the fabled Orici, an ascended being in physical form, with all the knowledge and power of the Ori. The child, Adria, is born, and ages rapidly to about thirty years old. The Ori invasion continues, but SG-1 does win a few victories. SG-1, using a weapon devised by Merlin (an Ancient also known as Merdin, who’s mind was blended with Daniel Jackson for a while), sends the weapon to the Ori galaxy and wipes out the entire Ori species, except for Adria. Vala orchestrates a plan to capture Adria, and the plan goes off without a hitch, until Baal intervenes and takes the Orici for himself. Baal, knowing his time is limited, places himself, in Goa’uld form, into Adria, gaining the power and knowledge of the Ori, along with the knowledge of the Goa’uld. The takeover fails, though, and Baal dies. Adria, weakened by the experience chooses to ascend. SG-1 now lives with the knowledge that the Orici is now more powerful than before. The Asgard contact SG-1, saying that their failing genetics mean the race will be lost shortly, and they offer Earth all their technology. SG-1 journeys to the Asgard home world and helps to set everything up. As they leave, the last of the Ori followers attack. The Asgard planet explodes. The Ori trap SG-1 aboard the ship with the Asgard technology. Some trickery comes into play and SG-1 escapes with the new technology in tow.