Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2. It was last updated on 03/05/2011.
I’ve always been sympathetic to science fiction, but never really ever loved any of its progeny. For example, I’ll always have fond feelings towards Star Trek: The Next Generation for its naive utopianism, but could never take its campy plots seriously. That said, I’ve never watched many other famous shows (Battlestar Galactica comes to mind as one omission). I’m telling you all this in order to explain what and why this is. Stargate Universe (SGU) is the first pop media production I’ve become obsessed with. Not like comic con crazy, but more like having watched it heaps of times, thought a lot about it, and had long discussions about it. Which is why it’s maddening to look out into that untamed realm that is the internet and not find people that “get it”. I can see something incredible here which no one else is talking about. That’s why this is writeup has been categorized as personal; it’s an act of love.
There are a few things I want to get across before we start. It’s how I can justify saying that SGU is the best science fiction I have ever come across full stop. More importantly, these are points I’ll be repeating as I discuss individual events in SGU.
First off, I guess what do I (and I stress “I” here) mean by something being the best science fiction? All story telling begins with some premise. The premise can be absolutely anything, but it has to be the “believe-it-or-not” which you need in order to explain everything else. Once you have your premises then everything else should follow. In this schema, science fiction begins with a schema that explores the possibilities of science, where “science” is understood to be that institution or worldview that gets conjured in our minds by the word (viz. “science”). What if a desperate man created a robotic replacement for his son? What if a couple of smart guys actually built a time travelling device? Etc etc.
SGU begins with a single complex premise. This premise sets up the world. This premise is inherent to the entire SG franchise (although I would hold that watching the earlier programs is only practically necessary; it is not logically necessary for appreciating SGU). I call this the first premise:
Major premise 1. In the beginning was the big bang. About 13 billion years later an incredibly advanced alien race we now call the Ancients emerged. This Ancients built stargates that could connect planets. These Ancients later ascended into energy. Before they ascended they discovered something important in the background radiation and sent out a ship to collect readings.
Most of everything else follows from this. I can now explain how most of the backstory to SGU forms, although first I need to explain my rather pedantic style for explaining connections between premises and plot events. This methodology is sort of how I see stories broken down. I use the following criteria:
- Major premise: These are major assumptions that are needed to justify a series of events. I number these. At the top level, most stories only have a couple of these (even though they might be very complicated). The more there are of these then the more fantastical the story becomes. Major premises form the impetus for all events in the story, and form the context for any minor premises.
- Corollary: These are implications of a premise. E.g. given the premise that there is a soldier who feels betrayed by his leader, it follows that there is a war. It doesn’t follow which particular war there is, but once you’ve accepted the premise then you’ve accepted the corollary that there must be some war. These are numbered.
- Manifestation: These are the particular form that a corollary takes. E.g. given the corollary that a man is wanted dead by some, it manifests itself as a particular person attempting to commit murder. The outcome of the manifestation, of course, depends on the premises that make the story possible. If the outcome of the manifestation does not follow coherently from the premises, then additional premises have been silently added. I number there.
- Minor premise These are small assumptions that drive along the story. In and of themselves they are unlikely, but they can be re-stated as manifestations of what I could call the zeroth major premise: shit happens. What that shit is can be anything. The selection of which shit happens is up to the storyteller, but it must happen. That’s life. I number these. These can have minor corollaries or manifestations.
- I use a numbering system to make it easier to refer back and forth to premises et al. The third manifestation of the first corollary of the second major premise would be manifestation 2.1.3. Of course, the numbering is arbitrary, and many points could be differently ordered. Also, sometimes I might collapse entire minor premises and manifestations into a corollary. I find it useful.
SG-1 was essentially a manifestation of the additional premise:
SG-1 premise. Given that these stargates have been around for millions of years, and given that the universe is full of sentient species, it follows that humans won’t be the first to discover the stargates and make use of them. The most recent race to control the stargates are a warlike conquesting parasite species called the Go’auld. Humans help overthrow the Go’auld powerbase.
SGA continues with the following premise:
SGA premise. The ancients added a capacity to the stargates to connect between universes, and left an address for their Atlantis base. The Ancients spent their last period fighting against an alien species called the Wraith.
SGU then presume the following premise:
Major premise 2. Rush. Rush is the smartest human being conceivable. He realises that the Ancients added a final capacity to stargates, the identity of which is the most important problem mankind has ever come across. From his point of view, discovering the function and nature of this project are akin to the meaning of life. This premise can be alternatively stated as: There exists a man who is great enough to presume that if the meaning of life is hidden inside a code written in reality, then he could understand it. This is Nicholas Rush.
