labgnome

So I had intended to get some fan projects done but that *obviously* didn't happen. There are a few reasons for this. The first was just craziness in work and life in general, including a very incompetent substitute manager for my store. The second was the fickleness of the inspiration demons, and the ones I had more material for and momentum when I set out losing it, and my autistic ass not wanting to completely upend my existing plans. The third was really, for the Stargate one honestly geopolitics. Namely that I very much couldn't update it to modern times and expect an IOC (International Oversight Committee) to ever emerge or last more than five minutes after the first potential disagreement if it did. The 90s really were a much more hopeful time and even the early 2000s too, so my Stargate fan-project concept is dead. Just straight-up not happening. I might put out my ideas so other people can farm them, but my original idea, which was to mostly put out a collection of mission reports set in the completely new continuity will not be happening, as I right now cannot in fact see world leaders setting aside their differences to combat an alien threat in secret, even if they did get starships out of it. My Star Trek fan world-building has also stalled just a bit, but isn't in as dire straits, just on the back burner for now. However, I've made progress on the alternate DC Multiverse concept, and am closing in on a fairly solid structure for the patterns within the arrangement of universes, realities, and timelines in that multiverse. The essential ingredients will be the "mainstream" continuity of course, "Gods and Monsters", Fawcett, Charleston, Quality, Milestone, and Wildstorm comic lines, in addition to such concepts as all versions of Earth 2, various versions of Antimatter Earth/Earth 3, Earth D, Elseworlds' Last Family of Krypton, various versions of Earths X/10 and 11, New 52 Earths 19 (in part), 20 and 40, 23, 30, 34, 35, 36, 41, 47 (maybe in part) and Earth 50. Some of which get their own universes proper, and some of which are set for alternate realities or timelines within existing universes. Exactly *how* these will wind up is still somewhat in flux however a few things have been set. Each "justice group" (mainstream, Earth 2, Earth D, ect...) hosting sort of universe gets a minimum 3-step "sliding timeline" type of alternate timelines, wherein Superman's rocket travels at either half the speed of light, the speed of light, or basically instantaneously from Krypton located around LHS 2520/Gliese 3707, some 27 light-years away thus giving 27 year "steps" to the "sliding" portion of the timeline. This ironically means that timelines with a later arrival date for Superman imply a slower, and thus less advanced or equipped rocket sending him to Earth. The arrival also "slides" Batman as well, as Jor-El's (or his alternate stand-in's) advanced probes to Earth are the source of the Wayne tech empire that Bruce will inherit, and influences Thomas Wayne (Sr, Jr, or III) meeting his spouse, and thus the birth and conception of Bruce Wayne. Wonder Woman is a magical Immortal and thus does not need to have the date of her birth moved. The Earth 19 and 20 (and 40) template is expanded a bit and basically involve alternate "retro-tech" technology paths for their prospective worlds with a couple of "expansions" on the idea into new alternative worlds, with other technology divergences. The Earth 34, 35, 36, 41, and sort-of 47 templates will be ground for some alternate history type scenarios with different geopolitics, and not just the sort of "what if" of Superman arriving in a different location type of scenarios like Earth 10 (Nazi dominance due to Superman/Overman) or Earth 30 (Soviet dominance due to Superman). Those will just be alternate realities "within" the more typical "justice group" universes. These will be bigger, earlier points of geopolitical divergence, with things like a possible America/Australia power swap on the global stage (Earth 34 template), a "divided" America (Earth 41 template), an "Imperial" America with *strong* implications that our IRL "Emperor Norton" was in fact from that universe (split on Earth 35 or Earth 36 template), and still mulling others. The "Gods and Monsters" concept is something I'm very much extrapolating on, with the OG ones basically being "all superpowers", and inventing "all magical" and "all tech" alternate versions for them, as well as a 4th "rotated to main antagonist power source" one. There's also some name changes I'll be doing for I suppose "coherence" reasons, the evil Super Woman (alternate of Wonder Woman) will be Terror Woman (as "terror" is I think a better flip of "wonder" than "Super" which is already used), the Soviet Superman will be Super-Comrade, and the Earth 35 Super Americans will instead be the less explicitly nationalistic Super Citizens. My big current undecided factor is whether or not to make the Earth 35 and Earth 41 templated worlds similar or opposite in geopolitics. If I make them similar Earth 36 will host, or have hosted, the "American Empire" which will be everything from Mexico to Canada and Hawaii as well, whereas if oppose it will be tied to the Earth 35 template. Yes, an even bigger "big space-filling empire" in the Americas.

So while it shows up fine on the regular website, apparently the mobile app cut off the first few paragraphs of my most recent posts about what has been occupying my thoughts. I have absolutely no idea if this one will do any better, but here goes anyway. Basically, my thoughts are that the Stargate franchise had a lot of possibilities, but didn't really handle them the best, and kinda suffered in a few areas because they didn't actually plan some stuff out they probably should have. The most obvious to fans being the Furlings, a species mentioned all the way back in season two, speculated about for years by the fans and supplemental material not officially cannon, and then when we do even get a glimpse of what they might be it's totally underwhelming, in part because it really should have been addressed much earlier. Some other things being how the Goa'uld political structure and even biology works, the deal with the "Ancients", and just how powerful or advanced one or another particular group was supposed to be. So namely my starting point will be the original film. Now some things in the film itself don't actually work super well: Ra being the last of his kind, no "DHD" to actually dial the Stargate on the planet they wind up on, not really establishing if his ship was just a landing craft or his main/only starship, the planet they go the being "at the other end of the known universe". The SG-1 series does a good job of rectifying a lot of this: there's an entire species of similar beings, there is a device to actually dial the Stargate, the planet actually being relatively nearby. However it introduces new problems: the Goa'uld being biological and having a "diet" version of the sarcophagus technology as a power, a design philosophy for the ships that's just all over the place, there being armies of Jaffa who incubate the Goa'uld larvae but only a relativly few Goa'uld, getting really confusing as to when the Goa'uld were actually kicked off Earth as the most egregious examples. So basically with the idea of completely starting from scratch, I've decided to take what works from both, throw out what doesn't and toss in some of my own ideas to either fill the gaps or add missing flavor. Starting with the first mission: no indication that Abydos is in another galaxy, it's around a nearby F-type star, Ra will still be a sort of consciousness inhabiting a human host and this will be the case for the rest of the Goa'uld, the DHD which I will refer to as "the pedestal" will be nearby the gate for dialing purposes, the Abydos gate will use a different constellation system than the Earth gate, reading and writing will be forbidden among the human population and Abydos will have presumably native life forms. Getting to the second mission: the new Goa'uld threat will be Ammon and not Apophis, he will have the same cobra motif for his soldiers, the Jaffa will be genetically engineered humans but not host to alien larvae, the other ruins on Abydos will still include both multiple addresses for even more worlds to explore and formulae for adjusting the Stargate for stellar drift, and the Chulak gate will have the same constellation system as the Earth gate. Afterwards, here's where things begin to depart: Skaara is not taken as a host and will actually continue to explore Abydos and uncover more information on the planet as well as expand influence, Teal'c will inform Stargate Command about the political structure of the Goa'uld and it will be a bit more straightforward, writing will be forbidden on all human worlds under Goa'uld control while the Jaffa are allowed writing but perpetually kept from technology that could allow them industry or electricity, the older and more advanced aliens will be a bit more enigmatic and the original Gatebuilders will not be established as humanoid or ancestral to humans, even with their technological stagnation the Goa'uld will be thousands of years ahead of Earth, there will be humans more advanced than the Goa'uld known as the Magi (inspired by the Tollan and some others), the Tok'ra will just not be a thing, there will be a small handful of other intelligent species in the galaxy with different relationships to the Goa'uld, the Asgard looking like Ra's host from the flashbacks will be addressed, the super-bad Goa'uld they later encounter will actually be Apophis not Sokar, the Harisis plot will just not happen and no actual psychic powers will exist outside of technological slide of hand. Basically in the new sort of continuity I am developing around 10,000 years ago the Goa'uld showed up and began enslaving humans, promoting agricultural and rigid hierarchical political systems, with themselves at the top as gods. This remained in place for thousands of years until the late bronze age collapse around 1150 BCE, at which point they were driven off Earth and the puppet governments they had been propping up collapsed, resulting in a dark age. So in this continuity the Earth gate was buried about 2,000 years later and the main Goa'uld are restricted to deities from bronze age cultures. Other developments both before and after these events will come to light, but this is the main setup. More recent history will begin with the uncovering of the Stargate in the 1920s, the gate and cover stone becoming separated from the pedestal during World War II, the United States Air Force acquiring it afterwards, a successful one time activation during the cold war, development of a control system by Samantha Carter, culminating in the proper activation from the insights of Daniel Jackson resulting in the death of Ra and producing a chaotic power vacuum in the Goa'uld hierarchy.