Samantha Carter: Military Career

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Heroes Part 2

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Summary

Samantha Carter is a brilliant scientist with prodigious engineering skills in addition. She is also a decorated Air Force Officer with many missions to her credit, ranging from piloting to exploration to live combat. When she joined Stargate Command she was a Captain. In her years there she has received two promotions, and she's now a Lt. Colonel.

Eduation, Training, and Qualifications

Samantha Carter received her Bachelor's degree from the Air Force Academy. She did exceptionally well, setting records with the grades and awards she received. It's likely she majored in physics since Cadet Hailey was following in her footsteps and was studying physics-related subjects (4.19 "Prodigy").

Sometime later, Carter received a doctorate in theoretical astrophysics (1.01 "Children of the Gods"). She worked on the Stargate for two years before the Abydos mission, helping to develop the dialing computer system. Wormhole theory is one of her favourite subjects of conversation, though few people could engage in such talk with her. She also studied nanotechnology at the Pentagon for a year (1.08 "Brief Candle"), and still lectures on theoretical astrophysics at the Air Force Academy on occasion (4.19 "Prodigy").

She was somewhat miffed that the Pentagon would consider Dr. McKay the world's foremost expert on the Stargate after a few years of studying a non-working gate at Area 51, when she had been in on the program since its inception, had travelled through a working gate numerous times, and solved uncounted technical problems during that period (5.14 "48 Hours"). The antagonism between them lessened when he finally admitted that she was a better scientist than he was (6.02 "Redemption Part 2").

In addition to her physics expertise, Sam Carter has frequently been a participant in or leader of complex engineering projects such as developing a UAV for off-world exploration (2.19 "One False Step"), developing a naquadah bomb (4.15 "Chain Reaction"), and repairing an alien vessel (6.18 "Forsaken"). She also has a in-depth knowledge of software systems such as the one that controls the SGC Stargate (5.14 "48 Hours"). Finally, she has medical knowledge and frequently assisted Dr. Janet Fraiser with medical investigations of various kinds (e.g., 7.11 "Evolution Part 1").

Military Career

While Sam's first love is science, she has made a career of the military, serving in the Air Force for many years, as her father did before her. While she does not wear wings on her uniform that symbolize pilot status in the Air Force, Carter has flown F-16s, clocking over 100 hours in enemy air space during the Gulf War (1.01 "Children of the Gods"). She has also flown experimental hybrid craft such as the X-302 (6.1 "Redemption Part 1"). She flew with O'Neill in its operational successor the F-302 (7.01 "Fallen Part 1") and later flew one as pilot-in-command with a civilian passenger (8.08 "Covenant"). Initially, Carter dreamed of being an astronaut, but following the Challenger disaster, her plans were interrupted. Her father tried to get her reinstated to the program, but she refused since she was already involved with the Stargate program and visiting other worlds on a regular basis (2.09 "Secrets").

Her first command, undertaken while Col. O'Neill was wounded, was to PXY-887 in search of SG-11 after the other team disappeared while mining trinium on Salish grounds (2.13 "Spirits"). Until becoming commander of SG-1 when both she and O'Neill were promoted, Carter's regular function on her team was that of designated medic and technological expert, though she was of course able to function in a military capacity for reconnaissance, defense, etc. When dealing with alien machines, power sources or other gadgets, it is Carter's job to figure out how they work—or sometimes, how to shut them down. She is also the primary expert when it comes to matters of astronomical data, physics, and math.

Saving Earth

Sam Carter has been instrumental in saving Earth from alien invasion or other catastrophe on several occasions:

  • A direct attack, planned by Apophis, was thwarted when Sam, along with SG-1 and Master Bra'tac of the Jaffa, succeeded in blowing up both ships just before their attack on Earth began (2.01 "The Serpent's Lair Part 2"). Carter was presented with the Air Medal for heroism for this mission. The cover story was listed as analysis of deep space radar telemetry (2.09 "Secrets").
  • When the Stargate connected to another Stargate in the grip of a black hole, Sam theorized it was causing a time distortion bubble between the two worlds. She also figured a way to disengage the connection with an explosive charge focused in the gate room, thus preventing Earth from being drawn into the black hole through the Stargate (2.16 "A Matter of Time").
  • Returning home from a mission to find Kheb, the team was sedated by aliens who had duplicated base personnel. Carter and Teal'c were resistant to the sedation, and the two of them managed to get help to fight off the aliens and retake the base before the aliens could take over the planet (3.14 "Foothold").
  • Thor unintentionally brought the Replicators to Earth when they attacked and seized control of his ship, the Biliskner. Summoning Jack aboard for help, the colonel, along with Carter and Teal'c, successfully prevented the Replicators from infecting the planet; however, it took a second try once the alien devices took control of a Russian submarine and killed the crew (3.22 "Nemesis Part 1", 4.01 "Small Victories Part 2").
  • The Goa'uld sent a large meteor with a core of solid naquadah on a collision course for Earth, an attack disguised as a natural disaster to try to circumvent their treaty with the Asgard. SG-1 was sent to blow it up, but upon discovering the core properties and how disastrous exploding it would be, Sam figured a way to use the Tok'ra cargo ship they were using to tow the meteor through the Earth via a hyperspace window (5.17 "Fail Safe").
  • Anubis attacked Earth through the Stargate by using the gate itself as a weapon. Sam figured out how the attack was undertaken, and with Jonas' help, came up with a plan to remove the gate from Earth. Jack successfully towed it into space and sent it through an unstable hyperspace window, so that when it exploded due to an energy overload, it was far distant from the planet (6.01 "Redemption Part 1", 6.02 "Redemption Part 2").
  • With Anubis threatening his final all-out assault on Earth from space, Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c all contributed to helping Jack get back to Antarctica, enabling him to destroy Anubis' forces from space (7.22 "Lost City Part 2").

Saving Others

She has also helped save other races and planets:

  • She helped the Asgard save their homeworld from the Replicators by giving them a "dumb idea"—luring the Replicator ships into hyperspace to follow a new prototype vessel, named in honor of Jack O'Neill, and exploding it once the Replicators were in range of the blast (4.01 "Small Victories").
  • The Asgard once again requested Carter and SG-1's help when their final attempt to contain the Replicators failed. The team was sent in to Othalla, now completely under Replicator control, to repair a time dilation device that would slow the Replicators down and effectively trap them on that planet. Carter repaired the device, but was forced to betray one of the new Replicator androids, Fifth, to comply with Col. O'Neill's orders (6.12 "Unnatural Selection").
  • On the planet K'tau, she attempted to reverse the damaging effect on that world's sun caused by their arrival through the wormhole. The Asgard may have, in fact, restored the sun to its normal state, but that may never be known for certain (5.05 "Red Sky").
  • On P3X-289, Carter discovered that the population's protective dome was losing power, threatening to kill the few remaining inhabitants. She worked with engineer Pallan to understand the functioning of the dome systems and, along with Daniel, convinced him to remove his interface to the Link so that his people would be free to leave for a new life. (7.05 "Revisions").
  • Carter helped Jonas and Kianna to figure out why a large vein of naquadah on Langara was converting itself to deadly naquadria, and it was her idea to set off an explosion to stop the advancement of the naquadria. She helped to pilot the excavator into and out of the deep tunnel required to set the explosives (7.15 "Fallout").

Saving Her Team

Carter has also saved the lives of her teammates on multiple occasions, or cared for them, or helped them return to Earth when all hope seemed lost:

  • When the team arrived on P3X-972 searching for Dr. Ernest Littlefield, they discovered that the DHD on the planet was broken. Charging the Stargate with a direct hit from a makeshift lightning rod, Sam was able to figure a way to manually dial the gate (1.11 "Torment of Tantalus").
  • As one of only a few women on the base, Carter was resistant to the pheromone Hathor used to control the men. Carter, Teal'c and the women regained control of the base by force (1.14 "Hathor").
  • When Jack was severely injured, she cared for him while working to dig the DHD out of the ice when the incoming wormhole signal was diverted to a second unknown Stargate in a cave in Antarctica (1.18 "Solitudes").
  • With the schematics provided by Col. O'Neill (while he was under the influence of a repository machine constructed by the Ancients), Carter repaired the DHD so her team could return home. Had the DHD remained broken, Carter and SG-1 would have been cooked by the two suns on P9Q-281 (2.16 "The Fifth Race").
  • Ma'chello took Daniel's body, switching Daniel into his failing form. When the alien inventor mentioned to Sam that he was the only one who could not switch places with Daniel, she got the idea to play "musical chairs" with all those who had been affected by the switching device, and returned everyone to their proper bodies (2.18 "Holiday").
  • She researched applications of the Stargate as a time-travel device after the Abydos mission, but that project was scrubbed. However, once the team was accidentally transported back in time to 1969, Carter's theory and Hammond's note to himself (passed to Sam before the group left the base) helped the team return home to their proper time (2.21 "1969").
  • Carter used her blood to manufacture a treatment for Dr. Frasier, Jack and Teal'c, who had been infected with several of Ma'chello's Goa'uld-eradicating devices (3.04 "Legacy").
  • Carter developed the particle beam generator that burst through the hardened naquadah that prevented the Stargate from opening, eventually enabling Jack to come home (3.17 "A Hundred Days").
  • Carter realized why she and O'Neill had failed the Zatarc test: an incomplete reporting of their feelings, and insisted they re-take the test, thus enabling them to be cleared as Zatarcs and avoid a prolonged induced coma (4.05 "Divide and Conquer").
  • She provided the critical physics and 'gate knowledge necessary to save Teal'c from his trapped state inside the wormhole, contributing to the team-based solution to retrieving him (5.14 "48 Hours").
  • After weeks of fruitless searching, Carter had the sudden realization that O'Neill and Maybourne were stranded on the moon of the planet they disappeared from, enabling them to be rescued (6.15 "Paradise Lost").
  • She made a heartfelt plea to "Arrom" about what a good person and friend he had been; this may have been the deciding factor in convincing him to return with them to Earth and re-take his identity as Dr. Daniel Jackson (7.01 "Fallen Part 1").
  • After exhausting diplomatic channels, Carter found a way past the radio interference problems and established contact with Daniel in the Rand Protectorate, setting the stage for a joint attack so that they could bring him home (8.05 "Icon").
  • When Teal'c was trapped inside a combat simulator that was killing him, Carter was instrumental in using O'Neill's idea and expanding upon it to provide Daniel enough of an advantage to help Teal'c defeat the game (8.06 "Avatar").

Strange and Life-Changing Events

She was duplicated on P3X-989 (Altair), along with the rest of her team. Initially the doubles were forced to remain there, because the station where they were housed provided them with continuous power. If they left, their power supply would steadily diminish over a period of a few hours (1.18 "Tin Man"). However, the artificial Carter created a portable power supply, which would allow them up to 48 hours away from Altair, and they subsequently began going out on "missions." The Carter android was destroyed on P3X-729, known as Juna (4.21 "Double Jeopardy"), along with the rest of the Altair team. She ran out of energy after penetrating a force field to shut down the doors around the real Jack and Sam, protecting them from Jaffa.

This android encounter did not make her more sympathetic to artificial life-forms, however. When SG-1 found the android Reese, Carter had difficulty seeing her as anything but a machine. She wanted to study the technology and was very excited about understanding it, but Reese had no concept that she was anything but alive (5.19 "Menace").

Carter's brief experience as host to Tok'ra symbiote Jolinar of Malkshur left permanent physical and mental traces. She retains a protein marker and traces of naquadah in her blood from absorption of the symbiote's body. This physiological change has aided her on many occasions. She can sense the presence of symbiotes, or beings with naquadah in their blood (2.05 "Need", 5.08 "The Tomb"), and can operate a Goa'uld ribbon device (2.06 "Thor's Chariot", 3.02 "Seth") and healing device (3.03 "Fair Game"), though she isn't sure how they work and doesn't always use them correctly (5.21 "Meridian"). Through residual memory flashes, Sam has learned some useful things:

  • Repeated use of the sarcophagus can cause addiction (2.05 "Need") and destroy one's kalach, or soul.
  • Awareness of the Atanik armbands and how they were supposed to function (4.03 "Upgrades").

Commendations

Samantha Carter has earned several medals for her heroic actions. Notable among them are:

  • Purple Heart—no doubt she has several of these, due to the number of times she has been wounded in action.
  • Air Medal for Heroism—earned for saving Earth from an attack by Apophis
  • Commendation for regaining control of the base from Hathor, along with Dr. Frasier and a handful of other women, and with the able assistance of Teal'c (1.13 "Hathor").
  • Promoted to Major (3.03 "Fair Game").
  • Promoted to Lt. Colonel (8.02 "New Order")

Biography Articles

--Michelle 13:50, 11 Oct 2004 (PDT)

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