sholio | Timelines

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tv:sga

Timelines

Here's an interesting meta-point to ponder. SGA went off the air in 2008 (woe!) -- well, early 2009, I guess. As the fandom lives on, eventually the show is going to recede farther into the past, especially with regards to pop culture and technology -- two things (especially the later) that tend to play a role in a lot of SGA fic.

Presumably anyone writing fic set in the early seasons of SG-1 already has to deal with this, since 1998 was an eon ago in science, technology and geek subculture -- no iPhones or Blackberries, no Facebook or Twitter, no Buffy or Firefly or New Who, no Google or Wikipedia, no human genome sequencing ...

Even 2004 was long enough ago now that anyone writing "Rising" tags is going to have to stop and ask themselves, "Did they have flash drives? What were cell phones like then?"

But on the other hand, the Stargate world isn't exactly our world, either. Aside from the obvious presence of Stargates and aliens, there are also little things like President Hayes ... it's almost our world, but not quite. So, while most people writing fic (including me) tend to be working off the assumption that they went to the Pegasus Galaxy in 2004 and fit the timeline around that, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way; there are few enough overt references to dates or ages in the show that it could just as easily exist in some kind of nebulous "now", where technology and pop culture references are updated according to whatever's current, in 2010 or ten years in the future.

I'm starting to realize that we're going to have to figure this out! Individual fans will probably resolve it in different ways (for one person, the nebulous "now" might work great; another might strip out any references to pop culture that specifically dates her story; another might meticulously research 2006 computer technology), but it's going to start coming up, and quite soon.

I'm curious if anyone else has thought about this? Thinky thoughts? I'm also curious how fanfic writers handle it when they work in fandoms which are already significantly dated, like "Starsky & Hutch" or "Man From Uncle" *looks at

xparrot* ... do you research the era of the show? Do anachronisms like cell phones bother you, or does it only matter if the show is very specifically rooted in a particular historical time (like a Western)? Does this question come up a lot in older fandoms, or do most people tend to ignore it? I think it's interesting that, as many fandoms as I've wandered through, this is something I've never really thought about before -- I guess that most of my active fandoms have been set in very far-removed times and places, or have been for currently running shows in which my interest didn't really last beyond its cancellation, so it hasn't come up for me very much ...

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While I ponder how to answer this properly, I will say this--I read a story once that had a flashback to either Rodney or John's childhood (can't remember which it was, now), and the one thing I remember *clearly* is that the author used a cell phone in the story. I was so surprised, I actually stopped reading. It was such a glaring (and, honestly, stupid) mistake that I couldn't get over it. So, I guess, what I'm saying is, if the historical inaccuracy is glaring, like which I just described, it will completely ruin a story for me. A cell phone in the 80s is about as obvious a mistake to me as, say, having it in the old west (or, hell, the Avengers - hence Emma Peel as the icon).

Now, ten years, give or take, not a big deal (big difference between 2000 and now, but its still forgiveable), but once you're back a couple of decades, I think it is necessary that you do the research (if you don't already know the era), to get the tech right. I.e. if you choose to use a particular setting and time, it's worth it to make that setting real.

That being said, it's not hard with a show like SGA to stay within the time frame, because you'll just use the tech that's used on the show (the radios, the P90s, etc). As long as you stick to what you see, I think you're pretty safe.

Oh...one other thought, as someone who has written old west (and some other time periods), I will also say that, the farther away you get from the present, the more flexible readers become (unless they're real sticklers). So, in my M7 days, I mostly used "late 19th Century" tech. When you think that it was the time of the industrial revolution, of Edison and Tesla, and the advent of fast world-wide trade, that's pretty damn lazy of me. But the show was fast and loose with dates and times, so I could afford to be, and it doesn't really harm the story-telling to use, say, a Colt 45 instead of a Colt 1860 AP, even if its before 1872, because not many people would notice. (Not that I would--I'm anal, so I researched a lot, but I didn't need to. No one noticed. Hell, if other people made mistakes like that in their fics, I didn't notice either).

But if you're talking living memory, readers are a lot less forgiving.

Does that make sense?

Haha I had this problem with the current Rodney fic I'm writing. It starts out before he joins the Stargate program, and I wanted to have Jeannie give him a Babylon 5 set for Christmas, which required the dance of "Did they have DVDs back then?" Answer: no. The box set was released on VHS (oh the horror LOL)

I've actually been thinking about this a lot, recently. I've started to notice anachronisms even in SGA -- turns of phrase that are current or net-slang that they wouldn't know, use of google/wikipedia/youtube.

I think fandom in general is only starting to notice how incredibly rapid cultural (and language) change has been in the past decade. I don't know how older fandoms have dealt with it -- Starsky & Hutch, dueSouth, etc.

Ha! great discussion :) I had the HARDEST time writing Emergency! fiction about 10 years ago, just because it was 70's medicine, culture and technology. Urk! I was a small child in the 70's. LOL

I think with SGA it is more of the "nebulous now" with updates as updates come. For example, now maybe expedition members do have iPods. But I think adding iPods doesn't change the story or the universe but rather brings it along with us. They still have laptops (though Oui! I was noticing how far laptop technology has come when I watched Rising recently. Old laptops! LOL) and other gear. Lots of it is timeless like the functionality of projectile weapons etc. Maybe Shep carries a newer gun, but he's still Shep and he's still who he is and he still uses that gun to kill Wraith. ;)

I think also Atlantis especially has the benefit of the Ancient tech that is woven into the fandom that I don't think we're in danger of surpassing in our real world any time soon. Having that as an strong established part of canon tends to keep the show current because background devices like wireless, flash drives, iPods and other "Earth tech" may change, but that tech is never surpassed so it keeps us grounded in the fandom we know.

I'm wondering if I'm making any sense... LOL

When I wrote Emergency, I talked to people that practiced medicine in that era, that knew the era and did my research as well. Yes, it did bother me to see things in fic that didn't belong there. ("yeah, that was invented ten years later" kinds of things) but with SGA unless you specifically say "this story takes place right after Rising" (and therefore the last half of 2004) it can be ambiguous. If you do set it, then either steer clear of the tech, be ambiguous about it, or make sure that the expedition members aren't carrying around a 5th generation 16GB Nano. ;)

This topic was discussed extensively in the Emergency fandom, at least with people I associated with and they even had webpages dedicated to the medical technology and culture of the times, etc to help. (bellbottoms, man! Bellbottoms! ;) )

I think SGA will be subject to that some, but has the benefit of Ancient tech, an alien city (and planets) and another galaxy. There's enough "ethereal" elements that its not as rigid as, for example, a show that takes place in Los Angeles County, California in the 1970's. :)

I read a story once that had a flashback to either Rodney or John's childhood (can't remember which it was, now), and the one thing I remember *clearly* is that the author used a cell phone in the story. I was so surprised, I actually stopped reading. It was such a glaring (and, honestly, stupid) mistake that I couldn't get over it.

hahahaha, really? Um, wow. Yeah, that's pretty ridiculous ...

But it's only an error if you assume that John and Rodney were kids in the 80s, right? I mean, obviously they would have been if you count backwards from now (and if you take 2004 to be the date when "Rising" takes place). But twenty years from now, if the show doesn't remain fixed to a pre-determined set of dates, then they would have been kids in an era that had cell phones -- see what I mean? The question isn't really whether cell phones are anachronistic for the '80s, which they obviously are, but whether John and Rodney were and will always be 70s/80s kids.

I think you have a really good point about living memory vs. older settings, though -- as well as subtle vs. obvious anachronisms. Most of us who are in fandom today grew up in the 70s/80s/90s, so we know what it's supposed to look like and are correspondingly less tolerant of errors. I don't think I'd notice an anachronism in an Old West setting unless it was really blatant, though (and I get the impression that most people writing Westerns, at least modern ones, are setting them in a sort of generic late 19th century, too).

It's kind of shocking to realize how recent all of this technology is, that we take for granted now! I remember when my roommate got a DVD player in about '99, along with a bunch of DVD movies, and we were all so very taken with it -- playing with the special features, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the scene selections! And now, video tapes seem so hopelessly outdated and difficult to use that it makes you wonder how we ever dealt with them. (Actually, for that matter, I've noticed lately that I'm finding DVDs clunky and limited compared to watching a movie or TV show on a computer. Ha. Technology marches on ...)

Noticing anachronisms in SGA fic is what you mean, right?

I haven't had any jump out at me lately. But, then, most of what I've been reading has been pretty straightforward action-adventure stuff, and it hasn't come up, I guess. I fully expect to start noticing them creeping in, though.

I think fandom in general is only starting to notice how incredibly rapid cultural (and language) change has been in the past decade. I don't know how older fandoms have dealt with it -- Starsky & Hutch, dueSouth, etc.

Based on the comment under yours, I gather that older fandoms (some, at least) have been aware of it for some time -- pretty much as soon as society and technology marches away from their canon! It's going to be interesting to see how SGA fandom deals with it.

You do run into trouble with John and Rodney's pop-culture references in canon, though--I'm not entirely certain, but I think they do mention enough stuff to ground them in a particular era, if not a hard-and-fast time period.

Also--this is a fascinating discussion! And one I hadn't yet thought about, but I am interested in it now...

Thank you for the information -- that's fascinating, and exactly the kind of thing I was wondering about! I haven't actually seen "Emergency", but I expect that it could take place in any era -- that a hospital show wouldn't be specifically tied to the 1970s in the way that, say, MASH has to take place in the Korean War or it wouldn't be MASH. But the show did air in the '70s, so the fandom has kept it there, and does the research needed to keep it there, right? That's exactly what I'd wanted to know, and that's very fascinating that there was that much research infrastructure in the fandom for keeping it accurate.

I think SGA will be subject to that some, but has the benefit of Ancient tech, an alien city (and planets) and another galaxy. There's enough "ethereal" elements that its not as rigid as, for example, a show that takes place in Los Angeles County, California in the 1970's. :)

Yeah, that's true! And the technology as shown in the show is also cutting-edge enough that it ought to be awhile before it really starts looking dated -- the radios, the tablet computers and such, plus having it mixed in with ultra-fancy Ancient tech.

Also: I guess you don't *have* to assume that SG-1 and SGA share a chronological timeline, but season five of SG-1 (which is when Rodney was first introduced) is fixed in 2001.

i am easily as in to SGA now as i was when it went bad at the end of season 3

and man the fic has still be totally awesome...

i found the same with Andromeda that the fans really made it their own, there was some facts that were used in so many fanfics i wasn't sure if they were canon or some fact the fans made up and ran with.

Yeah, plus there's one episode, I don't remember which one, that specifically references Rodney's birthdate as 1968 -- he used it for a password. That would be the difficult one to work around. *g*

It's fascinating for me too! I had been dwelling on this lately, and wondering if writing SGA fic is going to become increasingly difficult, or at least research-intensive, as the references become increasingly dated ...

In ten+ years of canon, there have got to be at least a few references to specific dates. (On the other hand, trying to get both show's canons to line up, especially at the end, is a struggle! So maybe it's not surprising if they don't quite mesh with the real world, either ...)

Personally I much prefer fics which make no references to years or particular year-specific technology so that I can enjoy them as though it's in the now. Sure, there's a time and place for "historical" fiction, but in general -- and in particular in a fantasy or sci-fi universe -- it's very comfortable for me to "unknow" the dates these episodes aired and think of the canon as 'current'.

Also you can always imagine that the SG-1/SGA themselves are advanced in terms of technology because of scavanging. There's ample precedent in canon of SG-1 for how much alien technology they're holding back from the general population because they wouldn't be able to explain it away.

Ooh, that's very helpful — I've written "48 Hours" as being in 2002, based on the airdate in March 2002 ... but the time lapses in-show don't match to airdates at all, so in a follow-up story I've been treating that episode as happening in January 2002. I hadn't been able to find any canon references to indicate whether that worked or not, so this is cool. Thanks!

Yes, sort of. It probably could've taken place in any time. I've seen fics taking the characters and moving forward 10 or 20 years, having them move on etc, but part of the heart and soul of the show (and why I think the fandom has kept it grounded in the 70's) was that the show itself was an influential force in promoting a very young profession: FFPM (Firefighter Paramedics) a concept in its infancy with the show started. It's been well documented that the show's popularity was influential in broadening the paramedic program out across the country. That, more than anything else, kept the fandom right in that era as sort of a salute to what the show did.

Most people I wrote with were sticklers to keep it grounded in the culture and technology of the time (and were RN's so they were medical sticklers too LOL) But the creators of the show were also sticklers for medical accuracy and realism, so that naturally overflowed into fandom. It was a writing experience that was all about research and learning and I think gave me the strong research "geek" gene I have now for any fandom or story I write. ;) )

In SGA the laptops are the first thing I've noticed as starting to look dated (especially season1) but I work in IT so I notice these things. LOL The benefit of fanfic is that you can bring that aspect of the technology along with you and yet still preserve so much of what Atlantis is that it truly is still fanfic. :)

For example medicine is medicine wherever or whenever you write it and my writing in Emergency helped me write medicine in SGA as well.

Regardless of how time moves, there are aspects of SGA that are timeless and always will be relevant. So, you might have to replace the laptops and give everyone iPod Nanos but that's secondary to the struggle, victories and characters that are the heart and soul of the fandom and will always be.

Though at some point, characters lives changing would have to be considered, unless you slam on the breaks and keep the show right where it is without years passing (Like Emergency) because you can't have a 75 year old John Sheppard still bustin Wraith and commanding Atlantis' military. When frozen, then the tech and time doesn't progress but the challenge becomes staying in that time warp when you write it. :)

Fascinating conversation! :)

This just came up over at

fanficrants, amusingly (I mean, everything does, but this was this week). I was among those voting for keeping stories suited to stated show timelines if they're given, which they are in SG-1 and in SGA ... unless the author states that the timelines are shifted, which I'm perfectly fine with. Instant-AU isn't a problem if the author acknowledges it.

(The context of the discussion was anachronistic canons reacting to modern social or political events, so I used "Original Recipe Carson Beckett and Elizabeth Weir discussing Obama's health plan" and "Harry unable to bear attending fourth-year potions because he's just so distraught over Michael Jackson's death" as examples of subjects that would rudely eject me from a fic if the author didn't note the timeline wonkiness.)

So yeah, I vote on the time-accuracy side, and I like the comments above that point out there generally isn't much need to bring in anachronistic content anyway, given all the superior Ancient-and-other-advanced-society techs they can play with in this fandom.

It's not something I've particularly worried about, myself, since I don't like to get heavy on the technology (because I'm lazy like that). And pop culture references I try to be careful with, not because of time-period issues, but because too much pop-culture, IMO, can be obnoxious (I'm sorry, but I really don't think Sheppard would go around saying frak or frell in casual conversation or to substitute for a swear word, and it makes me grind my teeth in irritation when a writer has him say that).

I do pause when it comes to pop-references though, and whether or not a show might be on DVD (I had an issue with that in a story. I wanted John to give Rodney a special edition Star Trek DVD set, but had no idea if that existed, yet. I was rather paranoid about it since I didn't want to offend Trek fans. Or, more spefically, I didn't want Trek fans giving me grief about it).

Of course, as mentioned above, once we get into decades then we can talk. It drives me crazy when 2000 tech ends up in the 80s (in non-Dr who fic, that is;))

Yeah, things like Sheppard thinking the jumpers are "full of win" -- small points, but they've started to pop out at me.

No problem! The timeline is always a headache, isn't it? Another chronology-anchoring episode is 2010 in season four - it's supposed to be a ten-year flash forward.

I knew you would have all the timeline info for the Gateverse. :)

Yeah, they line up fairly well until the end of SG-1's tenth season but those movies are such a headache *frowns*

I blame ~~you~~ Gaul.

*nods*

I agree. There's enough in the way of pop culture references, not to mention the kinds of clothes people wear when they're on Earth and the kinds of real Earth technology that they use to firmly ground the show at the end of the twentieth, beginning of the twenty first century.

If people are writing SGA fanfic twenty years from now (which I hope so; Yay!) I don't imagine that they'll be too far off in terms of technology because what we're writing now will be the classics of the fandom then--the fanon that informs all other works that come after. And writers tend to (whether they realize it or not) be very conscious of setting and tech and those other details that are used in the body of fanfic that makes up their fandom. They might choose to reject certain aspects of fanon, but I think it's something writers internalize without necessarily being aware of it. So a writer might give Carter an I-Pad or whatever the newest gewgaw is in season 6 SG-1, but ze's not going to give her a hover car. Well, not one that's made by Volkswagen. LOL

I think most people who write fanfic try to keep those sorts of things as true to the time frame of canon as possible. Googling songs that came out in the eighties for Dean to sing along with his dad or whatever. I don't require a slavish devotion to making everything period-correct for a fic, but when those details are there, it always enhances my enjoyment of the story.

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