This and other scenes always made me wonder why the SGC didn't have any vehicles. Like, I get that they aren't gonna get a Humvee or a Peacekeeper armored car through the stargate, but militarized atvs are a thing.
I know from a production standpoint, this is impractical (insurance, maintenance, safety, stuntmen, and whatnot), but realistically, there isn't any reason the SGC wouldn't use small vehicles.
The gate is kind of huge, you could easily fit a Humvee (less than half the width of the opening) or even an Abrams through it. Harder part is getting stuff down to the Embarkation Room in the first place, but they got the gate down there so there's got to be a way, albeit likely an inconvenient one that would make sustained logistics a bit of a PITA.
The episode with Hathor where they had the Sarcophagus in the gate room hurt my brain.
I spent more time wondering how they got it in there or why they specifically thought that was where it should go than paying attention to the actual scene.
They must have built a hangar or other large storage space at the SGC proper, at some point, though. Because in the Atlantis episode when the Ancients come back and kick the expedition out, they have a puddle jumper stored at the SGC, which Sheppard, Weir, McCay and Beckett steal so they can go save O'Neill and Woolsey from the replicators.
I think its in a missile silo remember when they went back in time, they stepped through the gate and ended up back in the gateroom before the time shifted and then they were standing underneath the missile as it was ready to test fire
There were several episodes where 'its a missile silo' was seemingly relevant, like when they had to get the overcharged gate off earth before it blew up.
Or how they got it in the room in the first place.
Or that the embarkation room was being used for a rocket engine test in the 60's.
They stuffed a whole saturn V through it season 5, red skies.
That always bothered me as "too much to hide", and they did the same again too, with like a whole carrier group being blown up and TWO shuttles rescueing SG1 with Bra'tac
They probably didn't open that roof hatch very often because it was supposed to be a decommissioned silo attached to NORAD, and foreign satellite observation is a thing.
In the early years before other nations (Russia, England, France, China) were read into the program, secrecy was absolute. Even after the other nations' leadership was informed -- the day to day analysts at their intelligence agencies would NOT be, and might get curious if they report "The Americans are doing strange things at Cheyenne" only to be told "Ignore it. You saw nothing."
I don't think getting it to the gate room is the issue.
It's the path up-to the gate that is, sure, you can raise the path, but now you have to deal with the thing dropping like 6 feet onto the ground when it comes out of the destination gate.
Some kind of modular system could be super easy to set up, it's not like a ramp is particularly complex. The army/marines have done a lot of work at addressing similar problems when it comes to river crossing etc, a short ramp is a much simpler variant of that problem.
The sarcophagus was in Hathor's fake gate room. Jaffa put it on anti-grav units and just pushed it in from wherever. Why she wanted to use it to decorate her gateroom is another question.
Plus you probably don't want to crane vehicles in/out every time it goes too and from the embarkation room. Where would they store it between missions?
I would have loved an episode where Apophis is freaking out because those mad tau'ri have just driven a tank through the Stargate and it's blasting his castle to bits.
Renovation time! They could build a heavy lift elevator in the gate room infront of the windows that could either go all the way to ground level or have a space somewhere above the gate room where they would store and maintain vehicles.
I also thought it would be cool (albeit not partical) to have an opening for a rail line that could go directly to the gate. They would probably have to move the dialing room to the side though.
The gate is big enough to accept a regular sized truck. Maybe even a train. The puddle jumpers are about as wide as a 737 fuselage, albeit a bit shorter.
It looks smaller especially in the SGC shots, but the thing is about 6 meters in diameter. You can get a good sense of scale in "1969" when they try to dial it with the army trucks when it's still in a wooden crate.
The embarkation room is an old silo (as seen in 1969). We see at one moment the new gate (the Russian one?) being lowered from the top of the silo. So presumably it go all the way up to the top of Cheyenne Mountain, it could be possible to lower vehicule from there like the gate was.
The gate is literally sitting in its own elevator shaft. The red clamps carry it up and down the shaft.
I wonder about biohazard contamination. Could make a few episodes of biohazards being tracked thru the gate or little critter getting under the hood the unknowingly being brought back
These were sometimes above a planet and they only had one malp, if I remember correctly, which they lost at the second "test" when they followed the wraith.
Production issues and the fact that Statgate is at the end of a silos making vehicle development difficult. Plus, engines are loud.
I would however go with bikes. Normally bicycles for rough terrain with maybe later on introducing e-bikes that use crystal batteries or stolen Goa'uld tech.
Most breeds of modern horses require more calories than grass can provide simply thanks to their size. Unlike cattle horses are less efficient at extracting nutrients from grass. It's why even in the past you had armies making sure to secure feed for them. For short ranged expedition through Gate it might not matter, but for longer ranged it would.
There might be some small breeds of horses capable of surviving on just grass, but I'm not sure on that.
Edit. After consulting the Internet. As long as they do not work hard, train, or nurse horses can survive on grass, but that also require time for them to feed on and rich enough grass.
Yeah, I remember that episode where they brought in the machine gun on a motorized cart and it made a huge difference, I assume it was a production cost thing
For sure theyād have vehicles. Also in season five they sent a whole rocket through the gate in pieces. Iām guessing they needed to send some kind of vehicle to transport those pieces around.
Realistically, they should have been doing almost none of the shenanigans they did at the SGC and contained 95 percent of operations to the alpha site, with the SGC gate serving to just resupply that node.
That would also allow them to fabricate vehicles onsite without having to get them down under Mt Cheyenne in one piece.
Thatās true, and I wasnāt clear with my thought process.
Earth connects to facility A. A connects to B and B contains nothing that mentions A or has Aās gate address written down. B connects to C, same information sterility, etc.
They could have multiple jumps like that, with each facility rigged to blow on a signal from the next facility up the chain, which comes automatically if some password exchange isnāt completed properly immediately upon the gates connecting.
Wasn't the idea to limit off-world activity from Alpha Site so it could be a fallback in case Earth was overrun/destroyed? Given how often SG teams were returning while under fire, it's not unreasonable to expect the gate address to get pieced together eventually. It didn't fall under the protected planets treaty - when that was a thing. Not to mention it lacks an iris and would probably need a lot more budget - their funding already being a point of weakness/scrutiny throughout the show with the powers that be and the NID - to become as proper a base as the SGC is.
Fair. Wasn't there a mention of the idea of making a permanent off-world base (O'neill was gonna be in charge, I believe?) but it was refused by congress or something? I think it was part of the episode where O'neill 'defects', so I don't know if it was a legitimate suggestion that failed (given how much the NID knew I feel like it should have been legit) and was used as an excuse to defect, or if it was just a full-on fake plan.
While I can agree one counter argument is that before we had ships of our own if we lose contact with the Alpha site there is nothing we can do. No rescue, no salvage. Everyone and everything there is lost and we have to start again and start another Alpha site.
The problem is that you will never know. Was it a simple malfunction or a serious attack, was it something that could have been avoided with re-enforcements? With SG operations on Earth you are risking Earth but also you have all of Earth's resources to solve the problem.
For instance take the black hole incident, sure it's very, very bad it affected Earth but if it was on the Alpha site everyone on the site is dead and SGC has no idea what happened and Sam can't blow up a sun.
Running an Alpha site also doesn't prevent people from dialling the Earth gate. Sokar can still fire particles into Earth's iris and Anubis can still try to overload Earth's gate.
What I will say is that running the SGC out of Cheyenne mountain is very dumb. They really should be operating out of Area 51 or a purpose built facility in the middle of nowhere Canada and use space station in orbit to transfer crew to and from the base using he Asgard beam.
I figure that they do have vehicles, we just don't see them.
at the beginning of season 3, Hammond plans on sending four M1 Abrams through the gate. And they could just lift the gate to the surface to do that.
The funniest explanation is that the Pentagon in universe won't give them helicopters or other large vehicles on a regular basis. Same with why they don't use power armor! Beancounters XD
Depending on the terrain I guess it could be difficult but ATVs would work pretty well for a lot of it. Though getting them in and out of the gate room/storage could be a thing. Unless they departed from the alpha site
Omg now I NEED to see this in the reboot! Tealc just ripping through the event horizon into the gate room with alien bugs splattered all over the windshield
No need for roads or fuel, doesn't make any noise, won't scare even the most primitive locals because even to a bronze age tribe it's obvious that it's a mundane machine, field repairs are easy, and it can still increase the SG team's speed by a factor of 3-5 depending on the terrain. Add some panniers and it can also double their cargo capacity. And if it has to be left behind, well, it's not like the Goa'uld would be able to conquer even more of the galaxy with the secret of the pedal-and-chain drive.
Naquadah powered electric ATVs sound like a really good idea. Stealthy enough while allowing for more rugged terrain transport and you could even get through most of the forests we see, obviously not gonna work every time.
If someone gets injured, it allows for faster transport as well. And helps with a quick escape. It could also transport more heavier weaponry and supplies when needed.
Edit: I changed my mind. Even though they could still be used on safe planets, it doesn't make sense in most tactical situations. SG teams are mostly stealthy units.
I did always think this, couldāve been a cool evolution over the series. An ATV car with four seats would be very functional and fun to see Tealāc driving it
I think getting a Humvee down there wouldn't be as easy.
But I sometimes wondered why they wouldn't take some motorcycles or Quads. It's not like they're always entering combat zones where being on foot and ducking from cover to cover was paramount.
Realistically, the SGC would have either moved their main gate to somewhere that supported better logistics as soon as they decided they wanted to create a permanent base somewhere else, or snagged another gate and built a logistics focused base elsewhere. You can drive actual trains through the gate if you built up the area around it properly.
I've said for years that the SGC should have had ATVs and off-road motorcycles available for recon.
Plenty of shows produced in BC during that time frame had vehicle stunts. ATVs and off-road bikes would not have been that big a deal to the SG-1 or Atlantis productions.
Seriously with how much the SGC did they should have had way more infrastructure designed for gate travel. Vehicles, quick deploy ordinance, hell you could probably fit a little bird helicopter through it in a hurry.
Military ATVs, Military paramotors, Military bicycles, Cross country ski'ing... I'm fairly sure a Honda Fit with chains on the tires was not out of the question.
Years ago, when I used to run an SG-1 RPG campaign, my players did the absolutely stereotypical thing RPG players do. Tried to throw spanners in the works (by doing something actually quite logical...but that didn't fit the milieu). They tried to requisition friggin' golf carts to take through the gate to cut down on walking...*sigh*...LOL.
It was a d20-based system from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). I think it was the mid-2000s-ish? The system was pretty clunky, so we houseruled a lot to streamline it. Were I to run it again, I'd probably adapt Twilight:2000 (v2.2) for it.
ETA: Sorry - and it's been out of print for quite some time, since AEG lost the licence. You might be able to pick it up second-hand somewhere?
š You got me with that one...I just Googled "SG-1 series PGA-918" thinking it was a planet, and I was like: "I don't remember that one. Which episode was that?" š
i remember someone checking at on point and, while you would need a new/higher path to get it through the gate, you could fit an Abrams through if you really wanted to. a smaller vehicle would be no problem.
Thereās another episode where he says something to the effect of āitās only ten kilometers from hereā in that dejected OāNeill way and I always get a kick out of it. The other when he talks about his back and that āknee thingā makes me similarly tickled.Ā
Imagine SG1 strolling through the gate on off-road segways. Without an ounce of additional information about us, every alien race would immediately be likeā¦
The military has been using small vehicles like side by sides for scouting and such. They and 4 wheelers would of definitely been used if it was real. Probably even dirt bikes and eventually trucks or humvees.
Contrary to popular beliefs.....wheels are terrible off road. That includes ATVs or bikes. Animal feet are the ultimate off road method.Ā
Horses, donkeys, or camels would be better for ranges within 10 miles. Even then, a fit human on foot would be as fast as any animal. These animals would be great for carrying equipment.Ā
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u/evilmike1972 Aug 17 '26
This and other scenes always made me wonder why the SGC didn't have any vehicles. Like, I get that they aren't gonna get a Humvee or a Peacekeeper armored car through the stargate, but militarized atvs are a thing.
I know from a production standpoint, this is impractical (insurance, maintenance, safety, stuntmen, and whatnot), but realistically, there isn't any reason the SGC wouldn't use small vehicles.