Our new Michael Shanks interview

It’s All In The Dynamics: Michael Shanks talks about the new direction for Stargate SG-1 Season 9
Marla R. Reed, Stargate SG-1 Solutions, Jul 05

“When asked what effect he thinks adding new characters to the show will have on keeping Stargate SG-1 alive and successful, Michael Shanks has a fairly blunt response. “Bringing in new characters doesn’t do squat for anything. Bringing in dynamics that create drama, chemistry, entertainment, comedy, action and all those things is what we are here for.” The actor says that he thinks Season 9 is going to be entertaining people and that, he feels, is what they are there (on the show) to do. Yet that’s not to say he isn’t excited about what the new characters have brought to Stargate SG-1 in its ninth season.”

Read the rest of this interview at Stargate SG-1 Solutions

Please feel free to forward this announcement to other Stargate sites, forums and lists. Thank you.

Solutions writers & researchers needed

As I’m sure many of you are aware, the fans who volunteer as writers and researchers for the Stargate SG-1 Solutions site are building up a truly amazing database of in-depth articles and analysis of all the Stargate episodes through our fully searchable Wiki encyclopaedia.

With 1600 articles, our Stargate wiki has taken a stupendous amount of time, energy, effort and creativity to build. Overwhelming thanks and gratitude go to DeeKay, Michelle, Marcia, Helen and the others of our tiny band who’ve worked so hard to bring you the very best Stargate research on the web.

As you can appreciate, this is a mammoth undertaking and we are truly desperate for new writers and researchers to join us and contribute to the resource we’re building.

Please take a look at the kind of in-depth articles we’re creating:
Wiki – Ancient Language and Writings article
articles we most urgently need.

I am, quite literally, begging for help. If you feel you can contribute even just one of the articles suggested above to this wonderful, SG-1 team-friendly project, please, please get in touch. We have a support group in place to help and…we need you 🙂

Alison Butler: Stargate SG-1 Solutions webmaster

Behind the Scenes of the Wiki

Find out what we’re doing when it appears nothing is happening on the wiki

Stargate Wiki MenuThe Stargate SG-1 Solutions Wiki (StargateWiki) has been populated with over 1600 articles since it was started just a little over a year ago. The number of articles continues to grow, but perhaps you’ve seen that the pace at which they are being introduced has slowed down some. No worries, it’s just that we’re also updating articles!

Solutions’ main page lists all of the new articles which appear in the wiki with the most recent on top, but you won’t know if an article has been updated. Sometimes, we’ll announce some major changes which we’ll tell you about in the Blog, but, for the most part, the smaller updates will go unnoticed.

But, contrary to what Vala says, size doesn’t matter! It’s the “quality” of the update which might be of interest to you. So, here’s a little hint at how to find out what we’re doing behind the scenes when it appears we aren’t doing anything at all:

Use the “Recent changes” option in the wiki menu. It will show you the most recent change on top of the list and the editor will have made a comment as to what kind of change it is. Sometimes, changes are only for spelling or grammatical errors, but other times, they are for addition of Season Nine SPOILERS! So, if you’re following spoilers, make sure you check the recent changes list to see if we’ve updated an episode guide for one of the episodes which has yet to air. Of course, spoilers aren’t the only reasons why we update articles. Some articles are Works In Progress (WIPs) which might have just been finished.

The “Recent changes” option is the third in the “navigation” menu which appears under the Stargate image on the left-hand side of your screen.

Hopefully, the use of “Recent changes” will help you get more out of your wiki experience and keep you in the loop when we get a scoop.

Prepare for S9 with Solutions Wiki Articles

StargateWiki offers background on many topics of interest

We’ve been working hard on the Stargate SG-1 Solutions Wiki (StargateWiki) over the past year to bring fans and fanfic writers as much information about each and every episode as is humanly possible.

And, if you’re a new viewer who is following the careers of Beau Bridges, Louis Gossett, Jr., Ben Browder, Lexa Doig, and Claudia Black, then let us take this moment to help you get acquainted with this eight-year-old sci-fi phenomenon known as Stargate SG-1.

The main page of our wiki gives you links to start your experience. Here, you’ll find links to episode guides for each and every episode aired thus far. We’ve even included guides with spoilers for upcoming Season Nine episodes.

Producers, directors, and actors alike have been saying that Season Nine is like a new show, but there are some things about the previous eight seasons which you might like to read about. How far back you go is up to you, but you can read our Highlights (up to Season Seven), or click your way through the index page for each Season and get a brief explanation of each episode there.

If you want to go more specific, here are a few popular topics:

  • The Ancients – Builders of the Stargates and a very old race of humans who lived millions of years ago and have spread their legacy across several galaxies.
  • Lost City of the Ancients – The story of the search for Atlantis and why Dr. Daniel Jackson wants to go.
  • Stargate Atlantis – A background on SG-1‘s spin-off and sister show and how it relates to Dr. Daniel Jackson.
  • The Daedalus – The human-built spaceship which uses alien technology to travel between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Pegasus Galaxy (where Atlantis is located).
  • Dakara – The planet on which Teal’c has made a new home as a member of the Free Jaffa Nation’s High Council.
  • Goa’uld – The alien race which stole their identities from Earth’s mythologies and had control of the galaxy for thousands of years. They were recently dealt a serious blow as the result of their Jaffa armies’ rebellion and the battle over Dakara.
  • F-302 – The story behind Earth’s advanced intercept fighter jet built with alien technology. Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell (Ben Browder) was an F-302 squadron leader in the battle with Anubis’ fleet over Antarctica.

To read the biography of the main characters:

  • Dr. Daniel Jackson – The man who opened the Stargate, died saving worlds, ascended to a higher plane of existence, and returned to human form. He is an archaeologist, Egyptologist, linguist, and the heart and soul of SG-1. As a civilian, he doesn’t always adhere to the Stargate Program’s military rules. He’s an out-of-box thinker who also has tremendous compassion and ceaseless hope. He loves exploring and meeting distant cultures and has become a representative of Earth as a galactic negotiator. (Played by Michael Shanks)
  • Teal’c – He is of the Jaffa, a race genetically engineered from humans of Earth to serve the Goa’uld. Teal’c is fiercely loyal to his cause to gain the Jaffa their freedom and to eliminate every single Goa’uld. He, along with his mentor, Master Bra’tac, led the Jaffa to their freedom and he now sits as a member of the Free Jaffa Nation’s High Council on the planet Dakara. (Played by Christopher Judge)
  • Gen. Jack O’Neill – He was the leader of SG-1 for seven years and then became the base commander of the SGC. O’Neill is being promoted this year and his new position takes him far away from the SGC. (Played by Richard Dean Anderson)
  • Vala Mal Doran – She has a history with Dr. Daniel Jackson, starting with their encounter on the Prometheus when she tried to steal the vessel and sell it for a chest full of weapons grade naquadah (a very powerful mineral used to build the Stargates, as well as the foundation of much of the Goa’uld’s technology). Daniel was left on the ship along with her and eventually succeeded at getting the vessel back to Earth. Vala is attracted to Daniel because he is like no man she has ever known. (Played by Claudia Black)
  • Lt. Col. Samantha Carter – She was second-in-command of SG-1 for seven years and then became its leader when O’Neill took command of the SGC. She is the foremost expert on the Stargate and has become a valuable member of the SGC as a technology guru. She experienced several personal issues (break-up with her fiance, death of her father, Daniel’s death as a result of her actions), so she had decided to leave the SGC and work with technology at Area 51 in Nevada. She is also looking after Cassandra Fraiser, the alien girl adopted by her late friend, Dr. Janet Fraiser. Carter will not be returning to the SGC until Season Nine’s sixth episode. (Played by Amanda Tapping)

New characters don’t have much biographical information right now, but they do have entries – don’t go there if you don’t want to be spoiled:

SG-1 premieres this Friday, July 15, at 8PM Eastern on the SciFi Channel.

S9 Spoilers Update

We’ve reformatted our Season 9 information to provide an index with links to pages for each episode with a confirmed airing order. Each article presents everything we know about the episode. We believe this will make your S9 browsing experience easier and more enjoyable! Thanks to DeeKayP for her hard work making this happen.

Visit the Season 9 spoilers page: Season Nine

StargateWiki Is World Wide Web Famous

The first brave steps into a very large universe

They Know Us

The Stargate SG-1 Solutions Wiki (StargateWiki) is becoming famous on the World Wide Web. Less than a year after it first appeared on the Solutions website, it has already been brought to Stargate SG-1 fans’ attention by SciFi.com, the home of Stargate SG-1, itself! A link and brief explanation of our wiki database can be found on their SCIFI.COM Web Guide. Included with the URL for the wiki is the very nice description: “Collaborative Wiki encyclopedia for Stargate SG-1 provides an excellent information resource for fans of the show–more than a thousand articles, and growing.” They even keep track of how many of their visitors have checked the wiki out through their site (at the time of this writing, it was 348).

The SciFi.com referral of our site isn’t the only spot you’ll see a link available to the general Internet public. A very well-placed link to the StargateWiki can be found at the international Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia website. Both wikis use the same wiki engine, MediaWiki, created for public use by the non-profit foundation, The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. The link for our wiki is in the encyclopedia’s Stargate SG-1 article, an appropriate place, and only one of a few which are recognized as a true external resource for all things related to the program.

What We Have To Offer

As the SciFi.com Web Guide states, the StargateWiki is growing. At this moment, it has 1441 articles—all of them searchable. That’s one of the beauties of the wiki, each and every article can be searched with a click of a button. If you’re interested in every episode in which Daniel said, “I have no idea,” then simply input the words in the search box (with the quotation marks to group the words together) and click GO. The list of transcript articles which is returned from the query will give you a starting point in your research. Was he always saying it when they were in the thick of things? It is a great way to get to know the character.

As far as other character lines of distinguishment, try out “magnets” for Jack, “Indeed” for Teal’c, and “with all due respect” for Carter (some other people have said this, but she has said it the most), and “Open the iris” for Hammond. Once you go to a specific article, use your browser’s “find in top window” function to go to the exact line.

Transcripts aren’t the only types of articles that appear in the wiki, although they are by far among the most popular. Another popular type of article is that of Episode Guides. Each and every episode has its own article with a small image gallery (we call it our image mosaics), official summaries, regular cast, guest cast, production credits, links to other wiki articles of interest (based off of keywords), and external links (those outside the wiki itself) which list other Internet resources for the episode (including discussion forums, fanfiction, and multimedia resources).

These features are basic to a good resource site, no doubt, but the StargateWiki offers much more. It links the main Solutions website into its content through filming location photo galleries. Want to see the pictures that Jack O’Neill kept in his office? How about what was in Teal’c’s neighborhood? It’s all there.

No knowledge database would be complete without the encyclopedia portion of the articles. Would you like to know about the Aliens, Characters, Planets, Directors, Writers, Actors, Mythology, Science, Technology, and Organizations of the Stargate SG-1 universe? The StargateWiki offers articles in these categories, and more, including a list of resources for fanfic writers.

What can you look forward to as the StargateWiki approaches its first birthday (the first wiki article was Arrom, entered at 3:54AM PDT on June 15, 2004)? You can expect alien language dictionaries, as well as more articles in the established categories. It is a long process to populate the StargateWiki, but the end result is something you can be confident in as having been researched and cross-referenced in as an accurate manner as is humanly possible.

Recent Articles Of Mass Proportions

  • Ancients – A collection of articles on the Ancients, builders of the Stargates.
  • Alpha Site – A profile on each planet used by the SGC as their secret off-world base.
  • Hadante – A planet visited by SG-1 in one of its episodes, an example of the care taken in writing planet articles.
  • Cloning – A presentation on some of the science behind the TV show.
  • Planets By Episode – A list of each planet visited in each episode.

Hearing From Users

The StargateWiki team would love to hear from the readers of the articles written for their fellow Stargate SG-1 fans. Each article has a signature at the bottom which directs you to the profile of the team member who either wrote the article or placed it in the database. Use the e-mail address given in that member’s profile, or the main e-mail address provided on the front page of the wiki to direct your comments. If you have general questions about the content of the wiki, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

A Final Note About The StargateWiki

The StargateWiki will never be complete! As the TV program continues to air, new articles are written and old ones are updated. Let us hope that we’ll be doing both for many years to come!

Discuss this article and the StargateWiki on our Stargate SG1Solutions Forum