 
BEATING THE BIG ONE
 Unlocking the Stargate writing team's neatest death-avoiding techniques
Senator Kinsey said it perfectly during his premiere appearance in Season One's "Politics." "I have found many examples where you have averted tragedy ... on a global scale, by the skin of your teeth."
Well, Stargate history has come a long way since those pioneering shows. It's likely you yourself joined in on the adventure between then and now. If you're anything like me, your Friday nights revolve around the premiere of a new episode of Stargate. You curl up in your favorite recliner and prepare to be dazzled by eye candy and the four-dimensional performances of great actors who will sneak up behind you and have you question your own status quo, almost subconsciously, until the end of the show when you experience that "Ah ha!" moment.
But the status quo of death in episodic television is being transformed season by season.
It's a question that has been posed before. Why do the writers do what they do? Why do they take our characters to the cliff of death, or (since it's sci-fi) let them fall off? Because the beauty of science fiction permits that they can come back in some strange way, shape or figment, as long as a mystical or techno-babble-conjoined event is invented and given a little room to breathe and take shape in our minds. It makes sense that this is the perfect medium to tug at our emotions.
It also makes perfect sense why Stargate -- and the entire sci-fi / fantasy genre -- is so popular. Go to the-numbers.com and you will discover that the majority of all successful franchises fit into this category (though this looks solely at feature films). It isn't a coincidence. And playing the games of death and resurrection fuel it like gasoline on a brush fire. It makes for good television, and good discussion.
Just how many times has the SG-1 team died? Or how close did they come to death? What instrument of peril drove them to the darkest doorstep in the streets of humanity? Let's have a look ...
 Jack O'Neill is repeatedly revived in Baal's sarcophagus to continue a seemingly never-ending series of interrogations. | |
THE SARCOPHAGUS
Let's ask ourselves this -- within the confines of the Stargate universe, of course: How do you bring a person -- say, hit with a staff blast -- back from the dead? The first thing that would probably leap to your mind is the sarcopohagus. And, interestingly enough, it is the oldest and most established death-defying storytelling tool that Stargate has to offer. Obviously the origins of the sarcophagus do not lie with Stargate itself, but most commonly within ancient Egyptian culture.
According to factindex.com, the word "sarcophagus" is Greek (from sarkophagos) meaning eater of flesh, bringing a startling resemblance to a story from Season Five's "The Tomb." In reality these were used to house royal Egyptian mummies, often with more than one layer of coffin inside. Utilizing the ancient encapsulation as a healing tool, however, was a Stargate idea. Integrating Egyptian mythology into their film, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich made the sarcophagus the vessel that returned Daniel Jackson and Sha're from the dead, allowing them to continue their battle against Ra and eventually destroy him.
Daniel's dialogue suggested that Ra used naquadah to amplify the sarcophagus to sustain his life. This is perhaps the loophole necessary to explain how an ordinary sarcophagus is simply the resting place for a dead body, whereas one amplified with naquadah and the aid of unknown, foreign energies, is allowed to rejuvenate the flesh and organs of humans.
|  The Nox perform their healing ritual on their youngest, Nefreyu, who has been struck down by Apophis. |
RITUALS OF HEALING
Healing rituals have been a part of hundreds of cultures across the globe almost since the dawn of time. It is no surprise that several Stargate cultures have their own healing rituals with, of course, their own sci-fi twists. The Nox was the first culture to bring us such a presentation, with their unusual positioning of hands over a dead body to rejuvenate them. With this ability they returned Jack, Sam, and Daniel from the dead.
After the Nox came the Spirits in Season Two ("Spirits"), guardians of a Salish Indian tribe. They possessed the power to heal one another, and perhaps other beings. Though their healing processes have not been as integrated into Stargate canon as Ayiana's, they were certainly an important benchmark in the series -- proving that races beyond us are capable of self-healing, or healing with the aid of a group.
In Season Six ("Frozen") the first Ancient was revealed to us: Ayiana. Not only did she have the ability to regenerate others, but she herself had a metabolism that stunned Drs. Fraiser and Michaels. Inevitably she died before she could save O'Neill.
THE SYMBIOTE
This brings us to the Goa'uld symbiote, a series-based species that has perhaps allowed the writers the most freedom in the ability to take any character to the brink of death and save them with the implantation of a snake. Teal'c's symbiote has saved him on countless occasions, and it has been removed to generate the suspense of being absent and unable to save him -- only to have it returned just in the knick of time.
Teal'c is unable to survive for any lengthy period without his Goa'uld larvae, a brilliant pickle utilized by the writing team in episodes such as "Bane" and "Threshold." But the final solution to this problem was something Stargate watchers around the globe had been waiting to see. Eventually Goa'uld separation from the Jaffa was inevitable, but in what form it would come was the real question. In "Cure," we discovered the potential loophole for ridding the Jaffa of the Goa'uld forever. The cure is
tretonin, beautifully utilized by Christopher Judge (Teal'c) in his first writing effort with "The Changeling," giving Teal'c and Bra'tac a means to survive without their symbiotes.
 Jaffa Master Bra'tac removes Teal'c's life-sustaining entity, his Goa'uld symbiote, to commence a dangerous Jaffa rite that will bring Teal'c's true path back to his conscience. | |
It's also interesting to note that the symbiote, a symbol of biological sustainance, also contains a lethal toxin that can easily kill a host. This is certainly a metaphor to the balance of good and evil between the Goa'uld and Tok'ra.
ANTI-AGING
In Season Four we met the Aschen, a malevolent race who entered the picture and administered an anti-aging vaccine in a possible future. Consequently, the writers were able to get away with an only slightly-altered appearance for our favorite characters, who had aged 10 years. The anti-aging vaccine, designed on the surface to sustain life, in fact generated stunted growth. Anyone who took it was unable to become pregnant.
Though the anti-aging vaccine was significant in only one of the two Aschen episodes, if we ever encountered the race again, or a race they have affected, it could easily be addressed in the future.
ARTIFICIAL LIFE FORMS
Thus far in Stargate history we have encountered at least two races that possess the means to create artificial life: the Altairans in Season One's "Tin Man," and the race that created Reese (who in turn created the Replicators). These two are slightly different. The purpose behind the Altairan android was to transfer the consciousness of a sentient biological being into an artificial one for continual preservation of that being. But the reason for Reese's creation is unclear. Perhaps she was conceived as an example of breaking down technological barriers. Perhaps their race was dying out. It's doubtful we will ever know for sure.
An article on "Artificial Life and Synthetic Realities" from labyrinth.net.au suggests that some of the earliest thoughts about artificial life lie in the world of Ancient Egypt -- yet another root in our Stargate lore. Daniel, though, had a slightly different perspective in "Menace." "The Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, they all envisioned synthetic beings that took on the shape and behavior [of humans] long before the words 'robot' or 'android' were ever uttered. ... Even in Earth's early civilizations, it's been our nature to seek immortality through the creation of vessels for our consciousness."
|  Carter and Fraiser discover a "drawer" on the side of Reese's neck that exposes her power source. |
Be it Egypt or Greece, artificial life is a part of our culture today, and is even emphasized in a new Will Smith film. Other examples include SkyNet from "The Terminator," and the Custodian from an early Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ("When the Bough Breaks"). Though it is many a scientist's belief that advanced life forms like Reese or her Replicator humanoid "children" are still a long way away from becoming a reality ... perhaps it is just as well.
TIME TRAVEL
Perhaps the oldest trick in the books of science fiction, time travel is considered by some to be the biggest cheat in the book -- if not one of the most unrealistic -- and thankfully it has not been overused on Stargate.
Borrowing from Carter's theories regarding stellar drift and planetary shifting, if you were able to travel backward or forward in time there would be a huge chance that you would wind up in outer space, as orbital paths are constantly changing and, it's believed, the galaxy is constantly revolving around a larger interstellar body. To do so you would have to crack the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Technicalities aside, time travel used sparingly is a great tool for good story-telling.
Our first inkling of time travel came in the episode "1969", definitely a fan favorite. The same technique was touched on in Season Four's "2010." The writers used this episode to kill off all our beloved characters, and relatively effectively, too. More importantly, though, it did what
Stargate does finest: it allowed us to take a peek into what could have been.
ASCENSION
The concept of ascension was introduced in Season Three's "Maternal Instinct," in which Daniel discovered, with the aid of a Kheb monk, that he had the ability to call upon a higher being to perform various tasks, such as generating fire and levitating objects. This being, Oma Desala, had also left texts on the walls of the sanctuary describing the process of entering this higher plane of existence. This, next to the sarcophagus, has been the writers' haven for many years, and might very well have stolen the fire of what makes Stargate a love in our lives.
 With the aid of Oma Desala, Daniel Jackson bids his friend Jack a fond farewell before beginning a brand new journey. | |
When Michael Shanks made the decision to leave SG-1 (revealed in "Meridian"), the writers realized they had established the perfect escape route. No, it was not a Nox healing ritual, but ascension, something he had taken a passionate part in learning about on Kheb, and something Oma Desala swore he must complete. In this way Michael could return to the show freely, at any time he chose, either to drop in or to return as a full-fledged human being.
The concept is absolutely marvelous. But the more you play the card, the less value a character's life has. We started to notice this in "Full Circle," the Season Six finale that was originally written to be the conclusion to the show. When Oma ascended the entire population of Abydos it was made pretty clear that she was a handy character to have at our side. Characters could be killed to be brought back in a higher-plane capacity later, and all that was needed was the word "ascension" to fill in the expository gaps. Perhaps it has become the ultimate way to escape death, at least in the Stargate universe.
THE DEEPER MEANING
As my buddy Darren has mentioned in a recent GateWatch column, death is a writer's tool for tapping into our hearts and tugging at our fear of a possible end for our beloved friends on the other side of the television set. But have certain instruments been used too often? In the first few seasons the sarcophagus was often front and center, messing with the minds of our heroes. In recent years it was used again to resuscitate Jack, dropping him into the clutches of Baal to die multiple times over. It even brought Teal'c back to Apophis' side ("Enemies").
But why does death-avoidance really matter? It's good drama. It keeps us on our toes. We never know who will cross the ultimate barrier next! And though we all know that you can't eliminate the principal characters, that doesn't mean we want all of our favorite guest stars to be space debris (like the fair share that have "bit the big one")!
It is inevitable that the writers will be coming up with unique and inventive means to keep our Atlantis team on the map in the new series while, at the same time, taking us to the edge. This writer is eagerly awaiting to see what The Powers That Be come up with.
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