Alternate Stargate Atlantis Chronicles

[Lord Heru]

Hello folks, so I just want to come in here and share the ideas behind one of my long-term passions, and that is Stargate Atlantis. The whole Stargate universe (not Universe, which I thought was a missed opportunity) is an amazing one, with great characters, cool enemies, and interesting plots and stories. Stargate Atlantis took it to the next level, giving our characters a position in an ancient city that they knew nothing about in a galaxy that faced its own dangers separate from Earth and all the politics and societal issues that plagued it. It was - it is - an amazing example of science fiction in all its parts.


The fascinating element is the whole combined group of scientists and soldiers risking their lives to travel to and explore the ancient city(ship) of Atlantis. A place the size (in a general sense of scale) of Manhattan, the cityship is a potential treasure trove of mysterious objects, unique locations, and amazing plotlines. Then, when one adds in the galaxy of Pegasus the stories that can be told are even more magnified. Still, its the stories on Atlantis itself that draw me most often - what the Expedition does as it explores and adventurers in the city itself.


I have thought it would be really cool to have a story/series/campaign where the city of Atlantis itself is a major source of wonder and adventure, much more than the world of the week. Basically, while exploration and adventure does occur outside the city on the worlds of Pegasus there is more of a focus on the nature of living in the City of the Ancients. In addition to the normal advanced discoveries that Ancient technology and understanding make possible, I could also see some transformative sciences that could grant the Expedition members some, to eventually all, of the biological superpowers that the Ancients were known to exhibit.


Anyway, while I could go on and on with my altered designs, I was wondering what others thought about this. If they had thought about Stargate Atlantis and the whole potentials and possibilities that such a setting could give in a campaign or chronicle. Comments from a perspective of maybe even thinking about creating a variant roleplaying set in such a setting are totally welcome and very much wanted.


In addition, if there is any interest, I could share some of the various ideas that I had though I will give an example here and some of its ramifications.


The first is to change the high command of the Atlantis Expedition from Weir to somebody else, a person I like to call Director Alexander Kane. My personal backstory for him is that he is a retired Air Force General with great knowledge and experience in the combined realms of military, science, and politics. He has decades of experience with the leadership of a number of Commands under his belt, in addition to serving within the Pentagon in various roles. He also was a member of the SGC, given command of one of the various offworld settlements established by the SGC to provide some resource outside of standard US soil. In the year or two between General Hammond's promotion and the position going to General O'neill he was in charge of the SGC and implemented some interesting changes to its supporting and infrastructural policies (which actually would work to increase its resource support and financial independence, refuting the birth of the IOA). He was nominated and given command of the Atlantis Expedition as it was formed, though he 'retired' from active service, which is why he is both Director Kane and Doctor Kane rather than General Kane. The nature of him being an older gentleman means he has no interest in leaving Atlantis, so he can focus on various in-city fields.


One of the side benefits of this is that it lets Doctor Weir take a much more upfront position as part of both first contact teams and the general negotiation and diplomatic units that work to create deals for the Expedition. Increasing her visibility increases her importance and showcases how awesome of a character she actually is.


One of the elements of this that I think changes matters is that I cannot see him bringing along a firebrand like Colonel Sumner along to an unknown galaxy. The discovery of Sheppard leads to a shakeup of the command staff, an investigation on why a man such as he is only a major, and the eventual back promotion to Colonel. Because of this he is given command of the military detachment of Atlantis and so various things do change.


Anyway, this is just a small change and modification to the standard universe of Atlantis. I wanted to share it and see if any others here have any other thoughts, modifications, additions, or changes that they have made to the universe of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (and technically Stargate Universe).


Talk to you all later,


Heru

 

[hellrazoromega]

SGU was so awful, they tried to make Stargate the like the new Battlestar where everyone bickered with each other all the time. some inter party tension is cool but Battlestar and SGU took it way to far, IMO.


Anyway that said, I was a peripheral Stargate fan. I liked the opening of both SG-1 and Atlantis but as both shows wore on they both fell prey to a trope a lot of long running franchises or series fall prey to, and that was 'Villain Creep', as I call it. Each new major villain race got got exponentially more powerful and "unbeatable" than the last, the Replicators, Ori, and Wraith were each far more powerful than the Goa'uld. To the point that my lizard hind brain kept screaming that humanity was hosed save for some convenient 'Script Magic' that the writers would contrive so that humans could win the day. I hate that trope of "Oh we barely beat species A and species B nearly wiped out the Asgard who are way more advanced and species C wiped out the Ancients and so on." When oh when, I think will TV writers learn to make interesting villains that aren't constantly, exponentially more powerful than the last. It's not that I don't mind the occasional cosmically powerful villain but that seemed to be the almost the only trick in their bag. How about changing it up more often. I give the Genii as an example--cunning, ruthless and great villains but not destroy the galaxy powerful (My favorite Stargate villains, btw). I just find it strained how much disbelief I could suspend because the ways humans defeated or forestalled these comic enemies far too often screamed Deus Ex Machina to me. It is what sadly made me stop watching the show once the Ori showed up.


So after that little rant, I would ask to see more villains like the Genii and less like the Ori, still a challenge and, perhaps more character driven, but less of the "the only way we are getting out of this is some contrived pull-something-out-of-our-ass last minute BS."


That I while I understand why they did it for the show I was always disappointed that they changed the Stargate in the movie from going across the know universe to across the galaxy. I thought the across the universe gave the movie a thematic feel that set it apart form most Sci-Fi properties. Star Wars is in a galaxy far, far, away but just within that galaxy. Star Trek, Babylon 5, most any Sci-Fi show you can think of is confined to a single galaxy or less. Atlantis broke that mold some, but I would have been far more jazzed of they had kept it open to the universe from the start. I suppose I just liked how that small fact would have set the show apart a little bit more in scope.

 

[Lord Heru]

hellrazoromega,





Oh yes, yes, yes, yes - I totally agree with you on SGU. They wanted dark and gritty, with internal fights, corrupt or not shining people, and scary factors that made working together harder. They completely ignored ten years of SG1 and five? years of Atlantis when they made the personalities for the show. Honestly none of them should have been in the SGC, all of the individuals were not material that should have passed muster. It ruined things for me - there was no goodness, no bright and shy, no teamwork or capabilities. Nor were the main characters really that likeable or people who I wanted to follow into darkness and see how they found their way out. It really ruined the whole Stargate setting for me, at least it would if I choose to keep it in mind as part of the continuity.


I agree. I think the alien badguy creep did a lot to make the show become stale in how it did. I mean the Goa'uld were a highly interesting villian, and even the Replicators had some interesting potential (especially with the whole they were engineered by another race and not a natural species thing). The Ori were potentially cool in that it gave us more information on the history and birthright of the Ancients, which was nifty, but yeah the superrace capable of anything to anybody at anytime and was still active was a little too much.


You make a good point, that having lower powered enemies that while widespread cannot defeat the whole universe allows for interesting stories and events to occur. The Genii are a people that have interesting characters and cool plot points, and heck, stories that are actually worth remembering and worth retelling. There are so many stories written about the mental, social, and physical ramifications of what the Genii did, a number much more than about the Wraith who aren't individuals they are a collective threat but they are EVIL and so there is no super need to dwell on them.


That actually seems like a really cool idea. Imagine for a moment that the Wraith do exist but are not woken by the Expedition upon their arrival in the Pegasus Galaxy. Maybe the Expedition checks the files first, or maybe when they get to the Wraith hiveship they blow it sky high long before any of the Wraith manage to awaken their fellows. So because of this the Expedition doesn't have a galaxy in flames based on the awakened Wraith hives, they have small splinter hives occasionally awakened and raiding. But they also have worlds huddling in fear of the Wraith, of the horrors that might descend from the skies or the gate at any time. They have groups like the Genii and others and the Expedition has to find a way to deal with them while also expanding their understanding of the city of Atlantis. I think stories like that would probably be a little more entertaining - it combines the potential of planet of the week while also continuing the tradition of related threats and slow progression of events as more and more stuff occur and the Expedition gains great knowledge.


By the way I say keep the Wraith because I like whole nature of the race being a failed experiement by the Ancients. I also like the fact that the Ancients were technically winning the war - in that they were victorious in pretty much every battle they engaged with the Wraith. The reason that the Ancients ran was by the end point they were so focused on Ascension that nothing else mattered. They stopped having families, they stopped exploring for exploration's sense, they stopped discovering or learning new things, they stopped living - it was all focused on the path of becoming something else. With that mindset there is no need to defeat the Wraith or to really fight them, just huddle in their lone citadel in the middle and basically ignore what is going on. Which I think is a tragedy that is worth keeping because it will orient the Expedition and modern Earth humanity to never go down that path - to never loose their will to live, to strive for a better world now. The fact that the race that built the stargates, that made an alliance with four others, that explored galaxies and universe gave it all up, gave up their inquisitiveness of the world around them to become something else, is really interesting.


Your point about them focusing so much on the Pegasus Galaxy, or just a single galaxy, is a really good point. I mean nothing intrinsic in the setting requires that the cost for a stargates to travel to distant spaces to be a huge effort and energy intensive. There is also something really potent in saying that because Atlantis was the home of the Ancients for millions of years - imagine a single city being inhabited for that long, the great potential of change in its internal makeup (picture structures used five million years ago left alone as living museums for future Ancient citizens to walk through on their tour of their history) they have features on it that the Ancients refused to put elsewhere. Example, subnetwork stargate systems - maybe a small network of stargates linked to each other and Atlantis that are based on a bunch of volcanic metal rich worlds where automated mining gateships ply to gather materials for the city. Or, in some microgalaxy the Ancients found on their way to the Milky Way is a dozen agriculturally rich but metal poor worlds where automated systems exist to farm and harvest and prepare; now say when the Expedition gets there the worlds have a human population and a need for metal but who lack the ability to get them on their own, trading and story potential is here. So many features can occur if we remember that the Ancients understood the stargate on an intrinsic level, they made it afterall, and so could probably do things that the SGC scientists would go "that's impossible".


But yeah, letting the stargate of Atlantis open up to far far different and vaster places could have been a really awesome thing to have. There really was no need for it to be in the Pegasus Galaxy, it could have been anywhere.


Thanks for responding, it was really fun and interesting to read your thoughts on the topic. I hope to hear more from you!

 

[hellrazoromega]

So true on SGU it was not in the vein of any other Stargate property and that is what killed it they alienated the built in audience. Back when the Stargate MMO was still in development I though well I hope they don't incorporate any of this...of course the game fell apart shortly thereafter.


Yeah the Wraith were probably the lest odious to me of the cosmic villains because they were powerful due to a few abilities and their tech, they could still be killed on on one with the weapons of the SGC--though it was not always easy. And the Ancient weapons could take them out, especially when combined with human ingenuity. They showed that one of the main reasons the Ancients lost to the Wraith was that they had concerned themselves with other things to the point that they had lost the ability to think outside the box. The Ori and the Replicators were the worst because they are time and again shown to be unbeatable and in the end humans only won because the screenwriters pulled something out of their rears--and I hate that. I much prefer interesting in-depth villains who are not the standard movie/TV types who are so filled with tropes, like killing their own people senselessly in a fit a rage. I prefer villains who have depth of character and are not the standard "I'm a villain--well just because I'm evil" types. Someone once said that very few people think of themselves as evil and those that do are not the ones we really need to be worried about. Two of my favorite villains, who specifically broke tropes, are the Operative from Serenity and Grand Admiral Thrawn from Heir to the Empire. Give any project you work on villains, and heroes for that matter, who break tropes and do something different and I am on board.

 

[Lord Heru]

Oh yeah totally. Its just simply sad how they completely lost touch with the fandom when universe came out. Which in a way makes no sense cause up to this point they seem remarkably in touch with the fandom - even those aspects that mainstream society considers edgy. It was always little things, but enough to show case that at least somebody in the writing circle knew the general mindset of fans.


Yep, totally, I agree with you 100% on the Wraith and the Ancients and couldn't say it any better myself.


Totally. In fact isn't it interesting that in the end both the Ori and the Replicators lost because they took on a human form, somebody that the viewers could focus on and whose defeat was quite a lot more concrete than the esoteric variety that the races originally represented. I agree with you on evil not thinking its evil, and that such concepts are often where the best stories come from.


The Operator from Firefly was a pretty cool character, he did what he did because it was his job and purpose and for no morale reason against those he targeted. It made for cool dialog and discussions and moments of debate.


On Grand Admiral Thrawn, everything about him is awesome and cool and he totally should have more stuff written about him; that and he shouldn't have died the way he did, though it was poetic. hehe


++


One of the things that I always thought about Atlantis that was not really touched upon was the nature of it as a self-sufficient and self-sustaining colony habitat. Whether it was built on Earth or not, and I am not sure if we know, we do know that it was the only piece of infrastructure that they took with them to the Pegasus Galaxy when they moved their from Earth. From this single base of operation they built starships and warships, and even at least two other cityships on the scale and scope of Atlantis. They also built outposts, colonies, and habitats throughout the Pegasus Galaxy which means that Atlantis herself has to have onboard manufacturing and industrial complexes. Such factories have to be able to create everything from small items and equipment to vehicles and vessels, to the stargates and ZPMs that power the city.


The writers could have easily had episodes where they explore some part of the city only to discover that the facilities are ruined and in disrepair and need a lot of resources and maintenance to try and bring them back into operation. With some time and repair the most basic of facilities could have returned, allowing the Expedition to basically produce their own basic equipment (little things, like bullets to tooth brushes to stuff like that). Such basic facilities could then in time have helped to produce the materials for the little more advanced facilities, getting them up and running. As the show progressed, knoweldge gained, and equipment made then more and more advanced facilities could be up and running till at some end point McKay would turn to Sheppard and say something like, "oh, by the way, we can now make ZPMs." and then he walks out to the cold stare of Sheppard yelling at him. hehe


Its just a thought I had.

 

[hellrazoromega]

Good point on the Replicators and the Ori becoming human, it sort of reminds me of the 1st season of the new Battlestar Galactica---which was the only one I watched. The whole time I was thinking, "You know of the Cylons just sit back and do nothing but send in one infiltrator a year and make one light raid every 6 months the human fleet will tear itself apart looking for enemies in every shadow--enemies that aren't really there." The way humans fought among themselves on that show it would have lasted one more season before they killed some many of themselves off that two Cylons and a Wiener dog could have finished the job. Not only would that have been funny and not cliche it would have made for great commentary on the fear generated by terrorist attacks, especially ones where the enemy cannot be demarcated by race or ethnicity.


Yeah sadly that SGU farce killed the whole Stargate franchise too soon. Such a great premise that could have expanded the Stargate property--totally wasted.

 

[Lord Heru]

The whole trying to make a universe that was more pulp-like into one that is dark and gritty and with emo overtones was not something that I approve of. All of SG1 and Atlantis were such that skilled people were put into postiions where their skills and talents could prosper and in the end they became the heroes of reality, standing on the shoulders of giants and reaching farther than their predecessors ever did.


The whole concept of Stargate Universe being based on following the stargate seeding ship and then inhabiting the scholarly examination ship that follows it was brilliant. It was older Alteran technology and culture, before they were effected by plagues and the whole seeking of ascension. They sought knowledge and exploration, to go where nobody else has gone, to seed life in the desolate reaches of nothing, and to bring the light of knowledge to the dark places without. Such a thing - including the whole search for the secrets of the song that underlies existence - is brilliant and was enough to potentially last for years.


As a random thought, imagine the humans on the Destiny finding themselves traveling through the territory of an Alteran-splinter race and Empire. These people seek the Destiny because of the past it represents, while the humans onboard wish to follow the chain to where it ends or where the signal that was detected begins at. Its not so much a story about getting home, but a story of seeing the universe and the worlds along it as the ship travels on a secret but preplanned route. Replace the annoying dark and emo characters with people who want to be there, maybe even allowing 'Earth' (through the stargate on that world that in canon is destroyed but in this version isn't) to send resources and people to the Destiny on an occasional basis - maybe every half a season or something cool like that. There is so much potential for this since most shows are about getting home, and this one would be all about trying to find something out there.


Anyway, while this is fun, I was wondering if you or anybody that is reading this thread had any nifty and cool ideas for how to flesh out Atlantis herself into an interesting location and character that could be adventured on and explored. Ideas of buildings, districts, or segments of the city that could be adventurers and episodes and seasons all on their own. I really would love to basically be able to chart out the city of Atlantis and note where the many important buildings were and the stories that could be told there. I figure with the fun input from others the little ideas could be added together to create a massive vast sprawling city that has a life on its own. A life that is just waiting to be found and explored and opened to many story possibilities.


An interesting idea could be the Plaza Concourse. This is the 'ground layer' of the cityship Atlantis, up to about ten stories above what is considered the ground. At this tenth level a 'shield' of what I like to consider hard light exists creating a barrier between the upper layers and the ground. This isn't a defensive shield, weapons fire goes through it, but its strong enough protection against bad weather and other such natural phenomena. The plaza itself is stone-metal walkway surrounded by stone statues and tree and plant beds with sitting areas, fountains, and even temporary and more permanent structures of commercial and entertainment purposes. There are many areas for citizens to walk about, gather, mingle, and surround themselves with manmade natural beauty. Though mostly empty in the present time back when the Alterans walked the city it was often crowded with people going about their days walking around, hanging with others, listening to spontaneous storytellings, speeches, and music performances. It was a livey and happening community place, and somebody it might return to that state.


That's it for now. I hope you all enjoy it!

 

[hellrazoromega]

The city was so large and they used so little of it that the possibilities are nearly endless. Think of all the samples and specimens that could have been in suspended animation for study. I thought it would have been cool to have them find more beneficial things. One of my complaints about Stargate and in fact many shows is that so many things ended on a downer. You can have bright spots without it ruining everything. I'll use Start Trek Voyager as an example: at the beginning they were something like 70,000 light years from Earth and it was going to take them 70 years to get home at maximum warp. In the early seasons every time they found something that might get them very a few thousand light years closer it failed,end the episode on a downer. Now would it have hurt for them to gain say 5,000 or 10,000 light years every now and then? Now it would have taken them 65 or 60 years--still far longer than any show of that type is likely to last.


I would like to see that sort of thing applied to Stargate a bit more, have them find a member of some older race who can help them. Not make it so they can win but give them a few advantages. Races like the Tollan, Tok'ra and the Asgard always had a laundry list of reasons as to why they could not help. I'd like to see a race that could help--again not to the point of allowing the SGC to always win but to gain a bit more advantage.


I just think there could be so many cool things hidden in that city. Rooms that are small pockets of otherworldly that the Ancients took and stuck in there for study. Maybe even a little pocket dimension with a city that never even realized all the passage of time outside and have been living in their own little world--really could be so much hidden away.

 

[Lord Heru]

Oh man your last two posts have spurred on my creativity to glorious levels. I spent hours yesterday on the stargate wiki and regular wiki looking up facts and setting notes and real world things that could potentially be twisted into cool new settings. I then spent hours randomly rereading a newBSG story i had saved and loved alot. And then, to put more into it I wrote probably a lot of pages in notepad on my SGC, and Atlantis expedition. So, yeah, thanks for the inspiration!


On your point about finding bright spots of interest I agree. Not everything has to be bad or dark. Something interesting like an Alteran created mathematical model to create an effecient, stable, and longlasting human society could have esoteric results. Or something like finding an aerial racetrack used by the Ancients in there form of racing, podcraft style. Hehe


Your mention of how little victories could occur without ruining the story is a good one. Like in Voyagde reducing distance by a few thousand ly doesn't really impact the story, fifty years is just as magic s number as seventy after all.


Making friends and allies is very much a good and useful idea. And i think that Atlantis benefits from that more than even Earth itself does in SG1, due to its population. I personally don't know about having a bunch of high powered Pegasus races existing, it would beg the question of why haven't the Wraith wiped them out.


But I could see maybe having Ronan's people of Satenda surviving, even if in a diminished form. Helping them rebuild and become situated again could provide the Expedition with a great test of there skills on an honest to god good people. Plus, I could always see about having Ronan and Ford existing at the same time, especially if Ford gets to have his own Gate Team. Hehe


Another idea I had was that maybe some of the Ancients found on that ship decide to actually join up with the Expedition. Some choose to go on ship, some choose to travel Pegasus, some ascend, and others join as allied members. They are small enough that they don't overwhelm the Expedition with there ancientness, but knowledgable enough to assist in understanding the Ancients to an even greater level. I have a plan that helps the Expedition deal with and ignore there attempt to take the cityship over, hehe.


Oh man your ideas are really great nd are inspiring me ro develop some of them further. I already imagine the city having scores and scores of diverse biodomes, some in use for residential, commercial, scientific, or military purposes. Pretty much microcosms of the worlds the Ancients explored, visited, and liked they are used for maybe different ways. So many aspects could vary, including size, scale, design, and purpose.


Hmm pocket dimension s with altered sizes, some even bigger on the inside. Though interesting I'm not sure it's standard Ancient tech level. That said, I totally could see rooms experimenting with such things in all sorts of interesting and potentially crazy ways.


Very very interesting. I'm going to go now, work beckons. Hehe

 

[hellrazoromega]

[QUOTE="Lord Heru]

Your mention of how little victories could occur without ruining the story is a good one. Like in Voyagde reducing distance by a few thousand ly doesn't really impact the story, fifty years is just as magic s number as seventy after all.




[/QUOTE]
Exactly but what it does do it boost the morale of the crew, sure 5o years till means they'll all be gone grey by the time they get back but that jump of 20 years would give them hope. It would open up the possiablity that maybe we can find a way to shave or another 20. Hope and morale a huge and something so many shows forget. Great shows like, IMO Babylon 5 or Firefly, are a good balance of light times dark times, drama and humor. And even in the dark time humans tend to crack silly jokes to get by. That was a huge thing I saw missing from Battlestar and SGU that balance it was dark ALL the damn time. I don't mind some dark but if it is all dark I get tired of it. That was something SG had most of the time a decent balance--thought near the end of the first series it did lean a bit more doom and gloom with the Ori stuff.

 

[Lord Heru]

Oh yes, I very much agree with everything you posted. I honestly couldn't say it better myself. Balance is needed, both good times and bad, that way when its good you remember the bad and when its bad you remember how it was once good. Heck, a lot of shows actually have both in the same episode - a moment of laughter in between the dangerous fighting or dark moments.


It reminds me of a comment I said to a friend of mine about the Full Metal Alchemist tv show. There was a couple of episodes near the beginning which were comic relief. I commented how it was kind of annoying how nothing series seems to happen and how childish the characters are. He said it was a good moment, enjoy it while it lasts for when its gone you will miss it and remember how relaxing the moment was. Well, fast forward a couple of epsiodes and the shit hits the fan and I did look back at those episodes and rewatched them, and totally liked what they did because of what would come later.


The later season of SG-1 had dark galaxy but light and humorous characters, so there was balance in at least my estimation. After fighting the good fight for about ten years its no wonder that Daniel Jackson was sarcastic to the things around him, and never really scared of the monster of badguy of the week.


Both Battlestar and Universe were always dark, and I think at least for the later it lost its purpose and the core themes that made people really like Stargate. Basically, Universe called to the Battlestar people but not the SG-1 and Atlantis people, which really who the fans of the general stargate show was.


++


Below is a little bit of information I have devised for my alternate cityship Atlantis. I figure I would share it in the hope of getting feedback and comments on what could be new and interesting sites within the ancient cityship.


Tower Structures


Atlantis is a city of towers. With the exception of just a small specialized squat buildings located in the outer piers, every main building in the city is a tower of some sort. These towers range in size from 1,312 feet (400m, 100 stories) to 3,960 feet (1,200m, 300 stories) above the declared surface level of the city. The only structure that is higher than the above is the Control Tower at city center, which has a height of one mile and 500 stories within it. The towers average between a half and a full acre in shape, though numerous towers break this general fact, and are generally just as wide at their pinnacles as they are at their base. Floor height is normally between 10-12 feet, though this varies based on the purpose that the story was designed for.


The material structure of Atlantis is a stone-like living metal nanite composite construction. When this structure is given the appropriate material quantities it is capable of self-repair, in the same way that a plant can be said to heal itself. It is also capable of transmitting energy and information, negating the need for additional support infrastructure. Imbeded in the structure as a natural component are piping and tubing systems, both of which are used to transport small goods throughout the city of Atlantis.


Atlantis could be called the city of balconies, for every floor of every tower has at least one balcony on it, though most have many more. Not all balconies are external to the tower itself, some face internal plazas and concourses that might actually span multiple stories themselves. In size balconies shift from between small sitting areas to sometimes pretty vast platforms with purposes all their own. The city seems to have been designed in a time period when sky travel was quite prevalent, pretty much every balcony could be used as an arrival or take off point for vehicles.


The hallways that exist within the towers are much more accurately termed streets, for they are similar to the roads that twist and turn in the ground cities of man. Designed in part to facilitate the passage of small vehicles, they are much wider than what would be needed for simply pedestrian walkways. Within the larger towers these streets are formed so as to create smaller interior sections, which would be similar to the buildings that dot a city street. The larger roads do not just operate within a single level of a building, rather they twist and turn down ramps and lifts to connect between the stories of a tower. Furthermore, through the use of bridges - both materially and through hardlight - city residents can move from building to building through the use of wide main streets and the somewhat smaller pedestrian only crossways.


Spanning the spaces between the towers are the many skybridges of the city. These ribbon like constructions are either made out of the stone-like metal of the city or through the use of hardlight technology. Some of the wider bridges spanning between the greater towers have on them squat buildings straddling along both sides. These plazas, and the businesses on them, played home to shops selling beautiful wares and places of joy and entertainment that hasn't seen the light of day in over ten thousand years.


There are numerous methods that the population of Atlantis can use to travel around the city, beyond the use of streets, bridges, and air car balconies. Located in the underground portion of Atlantis are immense tunnels that travel between every sector, district, and tower of the city. Within these tunnels train cars of industrial and passenger type move around and between the areas of the city. On the surface of the cityship there are areas designed to be tree-lined avenues situated around the broad plazas that surround every tower within the city. On these avenues travel is made possible in a mass transit way through the use of monorail systems and trains and in a personal way by driving around by ground car. While all these other systems are nice the real transportation network heavily in use in the city is that of teleporter, which is based on the thousand thousand booths and bays that exist throughout all of Atlantis. While all teleporter stations are connected to the main city network, there does exist a number of subnetworks pertaining to high security and special locations.


Through the use of certain integrated technologies the city is capable of gathering certain resources without active participation by city dwellers. On the roofs and along the sides of every tower, and even around the balconies, are water catching and natural purification systems. The outer surface of the towers are covered in a solar energy absorbing material, the same material that gives the city structures its golden hue. This provides additional power reserves to the city, enabling the ZPM and other such systems to handle the more energy intensive systems.

 

[hellrazoromega]

That looks pretty good.

 

[Lord Heru]

That looks pretty good.

Thanks! I appreciate the comment. Do you have any thoughts on it?


I'm going to take a moment to also share one of my small developments that change some of the nature of how the SGC operates.


+ Modular Vehicle Technology +


A basic sketch of a potential modular vehicle was drawn by then Colonel O'Neill when he was possessed of a lot of Ancient knoweldge. The sketch was taken by then Major Carter and worked on for a little while, though this led to little success as time and resources weren't her ally. The preliminary designs were transferred over to the Area 51 facility and given to one of the research teams there. When the whole concept was brought to General Kane's attention he fell in love with it, he used his pull to sanction a team to directly work on it. Not long after the first very basic prototype tracked modular vehicle was created, in addition to three basic modules to be attached to it. As time passed wheeled, sledded, waterborne, airborne, and eventually spaceborne chassis were created as were hundreds of different module types. All modular vehicle designs, and the modules that exist on them, were designed in accordance with stargate principles - that is, they are cylindrical in appearance and with a diameter slightly less than that of the gate itself.


Though of limited use on the Earth itself, modular vehicles became part and parcel of all offworld bases and SGC construction operations. Instead of creating bases in piecemeal fashion in somewhat hostile worlds and environments the SGC now built them as a gathering of modules placed in particular often standard positions. This is made possible because the modules themselves can function both attached to a modular vehicle and on their own, a fact which was worked into their designs from the get go. By having a command module, various crew modules, and numerous mission purpose modules the SGC can establish a comfortable, efficient, and standard offworld base in just the time it takes to bring all the modules to the world and set them up. Then, when the mission is done and the SGC is ready to pack up and go, modular vehicles can be brought in to pick up the modules for the next mission.


Modular vehicles exist onboard every starship in the SGC once such spacefaring technology becomes commonplace. In addition, they were also heavily utilized by Director Kane when he began working to plan and establish his Atlantis Expedition. Thirty-five modular vehicles of the wheeled variety were chosen to be brought along, of which twenty had passenger modules to make the whole moving through the stargate much easier.


As a final data point that was only made much more relevant upon the Expedition's arrival on Atlantis was that the core idea for the modular vehicle was Ancient in origin. As said, the preliminary design was developed by O'Neill when he was filled with Ancient knowledge and so while the MV is fully Tau'ri tech it exists much more along Ancient-design lines. For this reason when the Expedition discovered a vast horde of Ancient gateships on Atlantis, many of which were actually designed to carry modules, it shouldn't have been as much as a shock as it was. Still, it was a good shock, for if the Ancients hadn't had their own version then they wouldn't have designed Atlantis to automatically handle the arrival and coordination of modular vehicles inside the gateroom.

 

[hellrazoromega]

Yeah I may at that, give a a couple of days to collect my thoughts...crazy week.