Stargate Reimagined

Stargate '94 has amazing costumes, sets, music, and lore, but weak writing and characterization. Stargate SG-1 has decent characterization and writing, but it feels like a Trek knockoff, complete with generic English-speaking extraterrestrial civilizations and technobabble. My ultimate dream is to craft a Stargate reboot which contains all the best elements of SG '94, SG-1, SGU, and the Bill McCay tie-in novels, with none of their worst.

I completed an SG '94 rewrite in 2016:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10pWz63Qs1xT4CmcH67rm0WHl3pXe73G1/view?usp=sharing

Written at the height of my postmodern phase, it’s a pretty thorough deconstruction of the original film (American imperialism doesn’t save the day; it gets an entire world killed.). It was meant to be the first part of a trilogy, but shortly after starting on the sequel, development stalled; a casualty of the burnout I suffered while working on my Star Wars Prequel Trilogy rewrite at the time.

I never completely abandoned the project. I continued to brainstorm, write notes, etc. to lay the foundation for my personal Stargate universe.

• Ra is Atum. I made this change because Atum is an older god than Ra, was worshipped earlier than Ra, and also because the pharaonic Ra of Stargate more closely resembles Atum than the hawk-headed Ra of myth.
• Atum isn’t a Goa’uld. He's one of the Ancients, who in this universe were amoral gray-skinned reptilian humanoids who reigned in the Andromeda/Triangulum galaxies prior to their extinction. The Goa’uld are a separate, unrelated species native to the Milky Way who were conquered by Atum’s underlords some 5000 years after the Rebellion on Earth.
• Atum has a minimum of fourteen underlords under him: Anpu (Anubis); Apis; Aset (Isis); Ausir (Osiris); Djehuti (Thoth); Hapi; Heru (Horus); Hut-Hor (Hathor); Khnum; Nekhbet; Ptah; Sebek; Sekhmet; and Wadjet. Each underlord serves a different function in maintaining the Imperium. When an underlord dies/abdicates/is ousted, their first prime takes their place, assuming their name and position.
• Atum was originally a benevolent ruler. After 2000 years of rule, ennui drove him to relegate command of the Imperium to his underlords and go into seclusion. His underlords then turned the Imperium to a totalitarian state, inciting the failed Rebellions on Nubt and Abdju and the successful Rebellion on Earth. With the passage of 10,000 years and countless civil wars and regime changes, the Imperium has fragmented and ossilated between authoritarian and liberal governments.
• The Goa’uld were genetically modified by Khnum to curtail their ability to reproduce and take hosts. Only a single fertile queen exists, and its offspring are incapable of growing to maturity. These neutered Goa’uld, known as "primtah", are placed within underlords and first primes, boosting their immune systems, resilency, and lifespans.
• The Imperium consists of several hundred worlds concentrated within the Milky Way. Most are inhabited by humans and genetically engineered human offshoots, all descendants of peoples taken from North Africa in 10,000-8000 BCE.
• A small number of non-human species joined the Imperium. The most notable of these was the Setim. A caninoid race native to Tuat, they agreed to provide Atum the technological infrastructure to build his empire in exchange for help repairing their planet’s damaged ecosystem. This arrangement was mutually beneficial at first, but following the underlords’ rise to power, the Setim were displaced from positions of influence and forcibly relocated to the ice planet Nubt. With the Rebellion on Nubt, the Setim were exterminated by Sekhmet. Disgusted by this and other atrocities committed by the Imperium, one of the first primes, Sutekh, went renegade. Wearing a helm fashioned after the Setim likeness, he established a revolutionary movement across the Imperium, culminating in the Rebellion on Earth.
• The Apep are a species of giant tentacled serpents, former enemy of the Ancients, present enemy of the Imperium. They aren't nice guys.
• Heru Guards wear retractable, full-body power armour; this armour is impervious to any terrestrial ordnance short of .50 caliber machine guns. Heru Guards are armed with over/under pulse rifles; the primary barrel discharges a plasma blast which can kill, the secondary barrel discharges an electrolaser which only stuns.
• The staff weapon is a ceremonial weapon wielded by Nekhbet Guards alone.
• The zat gun is a sidearm primarily carried by Wadjet Guards. One shot from a zat causes debilitating pain; two shots renders one unconscious; three shots are usually fatal.
• The Imperium has developed lingual nanites. Injected within the language areas of the brain, they link the individual to a vast language database, enabling them to understand/speak/read/write any language stored within the database while also uploading any languages they know to the database. Daniel Jackson was injected with these nanites after being captured by Sekhmet’s forces during the Abdju Mission. Following Daniel’s return to Earth, some of these nanites were extracted and replicated, giving the SGC access to this technology.
• FTL propulsion/communicators don’t exist. Conventional interstellar travel/communication is only possible through the stargate/supergate networks. Atum’s intergalactic voyage from his homeworld to Earth took 2.5 million years.
• Stargate addresses consist of nine symbols each. Each address corresponds to an individual gate.
• All stargates are semitranslucent black, with chevrons/engravings which glow white when active.
• Stargate/supergate travel is two-way.
• Apep stargates are simpler in design than Ancient stargates, triangular in shape, with no moving parts. Though utilizing the same wormhole physics, Ancient and Apep stargates aren't compatible without the application of an adapter.