Surprise at the other end of the Wormhole

[LDucko]

A standard question for fellow Gatemasters:

Being that in the show it quite often shows or describes the MALP being sent through to at least gather environmental details prior to the SG teams going through (MALP readings are spoken of during briefings etc)... How do you have the team go through the gate with the uncertainty of where they will be "spat out"?

The idea I'm toying with is that the Pheonix team dial a planet and travel through, arriving smack-bang in the middle of a huge cultural event/festival worshiping the gate for whatever reason. As you can see the issue is that if the Malp has already been sent, there is the likelyhood that the strange device has cause the government to cancel the event... My spin on this so far is similar to an episode of Farscape "Revenging Angel" where it turns into a cartoon - this way it could somewhat be explained like "ergo" where the populace of the planet create false signals etc causing all the fuss and confusion.

Would love to talk with you all and explore this theme deeper, I was thinking that if I went through with the "hologram/cartoon" idea it would be tension 4.

 

[Mortavian]

I have been exploring this a bit myself, As I developed my first season. I think a few ways to really have a surprise encounter on the other side of the gate would be if the gate opened inside of something. Example, a city was built around it and the gate is in a locked building hiding it from the towns people. This is less about the party being hidden but more the townsfolk don’t know about the gate besides the founders of the town or city. Or a cave because of a hostile or harmful surface environment, but the exit is blocked hiding the harms lurking outside. The cave might hold a few hidden paths, deeper underground to a hidden city, or a unknown path to a garden paradise. Always one path or another leading to a harmful surface or event around any corner or blocked path. These both would give the players a unknown event once the exit the gate

[SteveR]

On 1/27/2022 at 5:09 AM, LDucko said:

A standard question for fellow Gatemasters:

Being that in the show it quite often shows or describes the MALP being sent through to at least gather environmental details prior to the SG teams going through (MALP readings are spoken of during briefings etc)... How do you have the team go through the gate with the uncertainty of where they will be "spat out"?

The idea I'm toying with is that the Pheonix team dial a planet and travel through, arriving smack-bang in the middle of a huge cultural event/festival worshiping the gate for whatever reason. As you can see the issue is that if the Malp has already been sent, there is the likelyhood that the strange device has cause the government to cancel the event... My spin on this so far is similar to an episode of Farscape "Revenging Angel" where it turns into a cartoon - this way it could somewhat be explained like "ergo" where the populace of the planet create false signals etc causing all the fuss and confusion.

Would love to talk with you all and explore this theme deeper, I was thinking that if I went through with the "hologram/cartoon" idea it would be tension 4.

 

The festival in past years could be to worship the gate...but now this wondrous metallic creature has come through - let's worship it instead!

[LDucko]

I appreciate the replies guys, I think it really boils down to "why would the team be authorized to go through the gate to a NEW world without the standard recon being done?"

So far my only work around to this is for the MALPs to be undergoing maintenance OR the episode is the first of the series where the team is a bunch of recruits and the Phoenix base is not fully equipped yet.

[1001100x02]

The realistic answer is no. The military will not send a team into an area it hasn't performed at least perfunctory recon on because that's a real good way to get killed.

That said, launching a mission to a known goa'uld world would probably not want to tip the enemy off to the taur'i's imminent arrival by sending a malp ahead of them though in those cases an aerial drone is typically launched if at all possible

You could have your team returning from an uneventful survey, dial home, and then find themselves on an unexpected random world because the offworld DHD they used has been miswired, but you'd have to find a way around them receiving GDO go confirmation to make sure they don't go splat.

The only way would be for there to be a sudden powersurge to the gate after they receive the go signal, or a surprise solar flare striking the wormhole, leading to time travel shenanigans...

 

[Grokken]

On 2/2/2022 at 2:01 AM, LDucko said:

I appreciate the replies guys, I think it really boils down to "why would the team be authorized to go through the gate to a NEW world without the standard recon being done?"

So far my only work around to this is for the MALPs to be undergoing maintenance OR the episode is the first of the series where the team is a bunch of recruits and the Phoenix base is not fully equipped yet.

The way I'm looking at this currently is that there are specific recon teams that are first into the gate.  MALP goes through first and if the telemetry suggests livable atmosphere the Recon team goes in and makes sure there are no active threats. Then a team would go in for long range recon and potential first contact.  Theoretically a town would either be fairly close or be really far away.  All would depend on how the locals might view the Goa'uld and whether they support willingly, grudgingly or are openly not really supporting the Goa'uld except to avoid getting wiped out.  How an abandoned group of Tauri might react could vary a lot more.  But just because a recon has occurred does not mean they know everything about the area around the gate.  Think of a group not unlike the Mongols, they can set up an entire camp city of thousands overnight and be gone the next day.  A recon group goes through, sees no sign of life, team gets a day to prep comes through and finds a massive war camp full of very curious and not happy archers.  And without satellite weather observation a sudden drop or change in weather can be possible as well, I've had the temp drop 40 degrees at my house over the course of a single day.  Having the team see video of the area, places marked to check and then come out of the gate and "Nope!"  That's how it could happen.

[LDucko]

17 hours ago, Grokken said:

The way I'm looking at this currently is that there are specific recon teams that are first into the gate.  MALP goes through first and if the telemetry suggests livable atmosphere the Recon team goes in and makes sure there are no active threats. Then a team would go in for long range recon and potential first contact.  Theoretically a town would either be fairly close or be really far away.  All would depend on how the locals might view the Goa'uld and whether they support willingly, grudgingly or are openly not really supporting the Goa'uld except to avoid getting wiped out.  How an abandoned group of Tauri might react could vary a lot more.  But just because a recon has occurred does not mean they know everything about the area around the gate.  Think of a group not unlike the Mongols, they can set up an entire camp city of thousands overnight and be gone the next day.  A recon group goes through, sees no sign of life, team gets a day to prep comes through and finds a massive war camp full of very curious and not happy archers.  And without satellite weather observation a sudden drop or change in weather can be possible as well, I've had the temp drop 40 degrees at my house over the course of a single day.  Having the team see video of the area, places marked to check and then come out of the gate and "Nope!"  That's how it could happen.

I had not thought about it like that at all! Thank you so much!

 

I intend for it to be a festival occurence, so in this case maybe my mental prep for it is that the prelim scouting has happened and the world added to the list of "places to check out"... now the time has come for the team to go and suddenly they're in the middle of it!

[1001100x02]

The gate could also be located in a 'clockwork' dungeon that morphs on a slower timescale than most instances of the trope...

[Eridanus]

   Alternatively, if you want only a little downtime between sending the MALP and sending the team, you could assume that the planet has two gates. Normally the primary gate is inactive for some reason, so when the MALP is sent, it travels through the secondary gate and sends back its data from there. While the SGP readies and briefs a team, back on the planet, preparations for the festival result in removal of whatever was keeping the primary gate inactive, so that when the planet is dialled again, the wormhole connects to there instead - bringing the team out right in the middle of the festival, with no MALP in sight.

   For added confusion, it's possible that conditions could enable the MALP to send and receive transmissions regardless of which gate is active, meaning the SGP continues to see data from the location of the secondary gate.