I saw "Tantalus" the other day, that was some fun, and I was happy to see that Jack didn't in fact leave Daniel behind. (I'm still boggled by the season 1 finale in which he did so, yes yes I know they all expected to die, but! Daniel bleeding in the hallway!)

"Thor's Hammer" got interrupted, I think, by my dad's desire to watch Mystery. (Having parents visiting is playing hell with my Stargate-watching.) It'll come back around, no doubt.

I just want to know where the happy hundred-day-old party people got their food.

And their clothing. And were there only 100 of them? In which case I see genetic problems.

And let's not even go into the whole issue of cultural stagnation, which is on a par with the English-speaking to throw me out of the show altogether. Cultures touched by the Goa'uld don't change? Ever? ::shrugs helplessly::

I should admit that I've been drabbling Stargate. First one was for Vonnie. Second one wasn't, and I have no excuse. This makes five fandoms I've posted in.

Oy.

Even though part of Daniel's raison d'etre is language guy, I'd be really happy if all TV sci-fi could just get a big old handwave and never deal with alien languages again. I've never seen it done well, and find it very distracting.

As for societies -- don't they change? I'm drawing a terrible blank, but I will go and look over eps -- do you mean cultures still under Go'auld control, or all cultures?

Well, cultures do change: like language, there are shifts over time, sometimes in response to environmental changes, technological developments, contact with other peoples. So the weird thing with Stargate is that many of the cultures they meet who were transplanted from Earth by the Goa'uld -- the Abydonians, the Chosen, the Cimmerians -- have not changed at all in terms of cultural beliefs, clothing, symbology, family structure, architecture and design... They're fixed in place.

For instance, if the Cimmerians were moved 1500 years ago, why are they still wearing the same clothes? Didn't anyone figure out that long capes aren't that useful if you're (a) on foot and (b) in a forest? That sort of thing.

It's insane, and the only thing I can come up with to explain it is that the Goa'uld who moved them did something to freeze their cultural development. I mean, why on earth are the Chosen wandering around with laurel leaves on their heads?

I'd always suspected that if I knew a damned thing about ancient Egypt or Cimmeria that what we were seeing would be so inaccurate that change would be the only fanwank. And Daniel's often dealing with altered alphabets, and in the times where he's dealing with translations it's never as easy as stasis would imply.

Basically, I figure that the societies are similar enough to what Daniel knows so that he has a launch point, but different enough that there's a challenge for the ep.

It hadn't occurred to me to see them as frozen. Though I can see the Go'auld having a freezing effect on the cultures, especially since they weren't going for cultural obliteration, because they had to keep being the same gods they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. Too much change would serve them ill. I hadn't really thought on it, though.

Thing is, they're immediately identifiable as specific Earth societies, right?

Whereas almost any group I can think of from 1500 years ago has changed so much since that time (yes, in part due to exposure to other cultures) that it would be unrecognizeable to their ancestors and to us as relating to those ancestors. At least in everything but gross physical description, and even there I wonder: people move, after all.

Thing is, they're immediately identifiable as specific Earth societies, right?

I guess I'm just very unrigourous about it. If they're not identifiable, either Daniel has no job, or it's all about Daniel doing his very difficult job.

Also, now that I think about it, their rulers have a vested interest in hamstringing change. The gods are identical to thousands of years ago, after all.

But I don't have enough archeology or anthropology to make a strong point. It's one of those devices that doesn't bother me, just as universal translators don't bother you.

Also, now that I think about it, their rulers have a vested interest in hamstringing change. The gods are identical to thousands of years ago, after all.

True. But as an anthropologist (well, by degree, anyway), I'd love to have someone at least once, go, "You know, this is very very odd." Instead they act as if it's to be expected, and it's so very not.

::shrugs::

As you say, it's not enough to make me dislike the show, but it's like the gravity issue in Firefly: every once in a while I wish someone would take the time to show me the writers recognize the problem.

I wish someone would take the time to show me the writers recognize the problem.

They did mention the problem, but went back to ignoring it. Wormhole X-Treme must have been very cathartic.

That having been said, I differ from you there too. Unless the mention is a fix (which I can't see happening -- it would probably overcomplicate the structure). If it is very odd, then we (for all values of we that equal I) need to know why. Otherwise, I'll tuck it in the box of devices and move on. I can only handle the Lampshade Hanging in a comedic treatment.

They did mention the problem, but went back to ignoring it.

The problem of the static societies? Ah. I haven't seen that episode, perhaps.

Wormhole X-Treme must have been very cathartic.

Indeed. I'm reminded by a recent post on LJ by tightropegirl, who's a staff writer for a genre show, that the writers really do make an effort to address a lot of the plot holes we notice. It's just that they can't include it all, and choices get made about what to lose along the way. ::shrugs::