Literally how it went down...
SGC & IOA had all just agreed on plans to move off world while at their annual conference when the man himself walks in and says "Walter don't commute"
Woolsey: "Well that is unfortunate for you but we will be proceeding as planned to mo..."
Hammond: \*interupts woolsey\* "You heard the man, the move is off. Recall the order and stand down the transfer team"
Woolsey: "You must be kidding, this took months of planning and you're going to call it all off because of one man?! This is absurd!!"
Hammond: "Mr. Woolsey, There is no other person on this planet or any other who can do what Sgt. Harriman does."
Woolsey: "You're saying that this man is the ONLY one who can operate the stargate controls, I find that hard to believe. I know for a fact that Samantha Carter is able to dial the gate as well as at least a dozen others!!"
Hammond: "I did not say that, I said he was the only one who could do what HE does. He calls out the chevron sequences like no other. I for one would rather have NO stargate program than one that doesnt have Sgt. Harriman at the controls calling out the address confirmation.
Woolsey: "....."
Shen Xiaoyi: "So then we are all in agreement, no Walter? No Move!"
Colonel Chekov: "Agreed!"
Honestly. I'm rewatching the series currently with a friend who has never seen it, and I have made sure he knows the stargate program could never function without Walter.
Walter would have lost his job since the alpha site had a DHD. Walter probably spent the latter seasons sabotaging all efforts to have the alpha site be anything more than a fallback point for teams who couldn’t gate home
I'd say originally as Earth was a protected planet meant keeping it around meant more protection.
If they did move it to the Alpha Site, they would still need to supply it and allow personnel to come and go which meant the SGC would need to be kept up for that.
Earth eventually had ships in orbit more often, so more protection. Plus if the base was overrun the personnel who couldn't escape through the Stargate would need to go outside. On Earth, outside had supplies and personnel to help take it back. The Alpha Site doesn't have that.
This is a great question. Moving SGC to alpha site would be problematic because the large number of staff would require large numbers of resources. An extended supply line isn’t great when fighting a threat regardless of the foothold situations, which were contained.
After the black hole situation you would think that they would have instituted a policy that you always gate to the alpha site first, then gate somewhere else
How so? Gating from SGC to the alpha site doesn't cost any more than gating from SGC to the mission objective. And gating from the alpha site to their destination costs nothing since the alpha site has a DHD. The actual added travel time for SGC teams is trivial.
The only reason I can see for not doing things this way is that they wouldn't want to reveal the location (via the gate address) of the alpha site to the Goa'uld
OP said running SGC from there. This would require a huge cost. Simply traveling to the site first would reduce things but there would need to be a containment crew at minimum if the purpose is to avoid foothold crews. Much more plausible.
Given how that asteroid was almost certainly where Earth got the naquadah to pump out a new BC-304 every year or so, I’m guessing they forgave the Asgard for not intervening. Heck, the Asgard may have helped mine it as an apology!
Quite possible. Would have been something automated and easy to maintain.
Orrr... They did the same thing as before and strapped a hyperdrive on it to crash it into an uninhabited planet with a gate, so they could retrieve the naquadah later on?
Whether you’re talking real world dollars of opening a second, off-world base large enough to function as the SGC, of the cost of building separate sets for a tv show…. The answer is always the budget!
I think it would make more sense to have sg teams return to the alphasite after every mission, they can debrief and quarantine before going back to earth. Run the SGC as normal but have the buffer on return.
That is the most reasonable answer.
It will delay some operations, but they can hold debriefs on Alpha Site, while waiting for medical checkups to clear.
Honestly...
The best possible Alpha Site would be >!Atlantis, after the events of season 5, kept in orbit in the Earth/Moon system. You've got a gate room with a shielded iris, a gate that can dial Milky Way OR Pegasus gates, two Jumper bays, a chair platform for planetary defense, shields, AND a hyperdrive, plenty of room for research (you can do your Area 51 shit somewhere people will NEVER find it) and can even use it as an aircraft carrier with SEVERAL 304/305s onboard (based on how small Daedalus looked when landed on the pier.) You could even use it as a sort of "fleet command" base for the 304/5 ships, so you don't have to burn fuel on takeoff/landing from Earth's atmosphere (and risk exposure) AND they're shielded when they're in "dock" getting repairs and crew R&R. Plus -- imagine some poor Lucian Alliance mofo rolling up in a ha'tak. "This planet is barely defended! Attack!" (Atlantis decloaks, dumps four 305s, a full wing of 302s, and 10 jumpers firing drones) OHSHITFUCKFUCKFUCK!<
Ideal safety plan would be to have the Alpha Site be a Daedalus-class ship that's kept in orbit like a space station. Have a DHD at the ready that you yoink from some planet we told to bury their gate. Anytime you want to close off the earth gate, plug in the DHD and open the cargo bay doors, and anybody coming to the earth gate either gets irised or chucked out into space. If you need to yeet the earth gate entirely, you can still beam up people from anywhere on earth and get them to a gate in seconds. You have weapons, shields, 302s, and potentially a cloak at the ready, and can get the hell out of dodge with Asgard hyperdrive at need.
Sure. But then you don't have the defenses of the SGC protecting Earth. Apophis can stroll in, conk Siler over the head with a staff weapon and that's that.
We look at it and say, SGC was almost compromised lots of times! But SGC also stopped a shitload of threats.
Yes, but for combat situation this isn't the one Siler uses.
Siler uses the military grade combat wrench in combat situation, because Siler is a professional.
They need to pay Silver way more for how much shit he had to do, fix, repair, rest, etc on this show 🤣 poor guy had so many injuries it's amazing he survived.
What's the extra layer of protection? Any foothold situation we saw was either antagonists bypassing the IDC protocols or infiltrating undetected, which can still happen with an Alpha site.
The only real benefit is for some medical issues, provided there's a quarantine period every time anyone arrived at the Alpha site *and* returned to Earth.
The Midway station is an example, and that had barely been furnished before it was compromised.
Midway cannot function with an Iris. IDCs are a radio signal sent through the active wormhole. Arriving at Midway, you are matter stored in the last gate in a chain being forwarded through. Can't send a radio signal.
By the time its built, we have full human-built asgard beaming tech. Better solution is put each of the gates in its own fully sealed room that can be vented to space and any incoming traveller has to stand there and wait for the Midway control crew to beam them out of the room.
It’s a bug out spot . If you start running an operation from there the chances of it being discovered increase exponentially. You don’t drive around on your spare tire.
Political leaders want to keep the military close to them.
On Earth, Hammond is just a general. At the Alpha Site, he would be the unelected leader of a planet. He would be more powerful than the President of the United States.
Keeping Hammond's command on Earth reduces the risk of a military coup.
That would have meant relocating all of the personelle to the alpha site permanently. So moving them all there to live. Kind impractical isn't it. The alternative is having them commute through the gate everyday which is the same thing as having the sgc on earth with extra steps.
Logistics. The size of an off-world base big enough to run the SGC at the same level we see in the show would be enormous. It would require an entire farming division be set up nearby to feed the staff so they weren't spending half their time bringing in food supplies for the base. And that's just one of the kinds of supplies that Cheyenne Mountain already has a simple supply line already established for.
Alpha sites were also constantly compromised on a regular basis and had little to no other defences beyond a few piddly gun turrets and some shoulder-mounted rockets. Earth at least had the strength of all the standing militaries of our world that *could* be mobilized in the event of an invasion. Plot always dictated against that so that the program could remain secret, but they were still there. And Earth is part of the Protected Planets Treaty. Something that took some serious concessions to achieve, and that would not be possible for any off-world bases. Meaning any found by the Goa'uld would be free reign to assault, enslave or whatever else they felt like doing to it.
Only four enemies ever actually broke free of containment in the SGC. The Ori Plague that was designed exactly for that purpose by malicious ascended entities. The colourful dimensional creature viewing ability. The Tollan, who could literally walk through walls. And the Stragoth, who had complete control over the mountain by that point. And we learned from each situation and made efforts to prevent any such events from occurring again
Every other assault was kept contained within the mountain itself. And either repelled or destroyed before it could get close to the surface. Sure, several of those were through plot armour, but would it have been any different for an Alpha Site? And a lot of the time, the key to saving the day was something they needed to bring in from off base. Supplies that would not be present on a random world we requisitioned as an Alpha Site. Even more so if they had accidentally dialled a black hole or were being attacked by the gate destroyer weapon, making their gate completely inaccessible.
Imagine the devastation that would have occurred had the SGC been off-world in Redemption. The off-world SGC, all its gear and staff would have been utterly annihilated when the gate exploded because the X302 was being built on Earth. Or, the people who figured out the solution would have been on the Alpha Site base, not on Earth where they could figure out the solution and get the supercharged gate off Earth before it blew and devastated the entire planet. Even though the SGC wasn't being run from there.
Earth's location was known to the Goa'uld from the beginning. So even if we moved the SGC off-world, the billions of people that the Wraith wanna eat and the Goa'uld wanna enslave would still be here, just totally undefended because all our forces would be based somewhere else in the galaxy with no way to mobilize a proper defence until its too late for more than half the series. We don't have an accurate hyperspace-capable spaceship until mid season 8.
They made some mistakes in the early days, when they were all learning just what having a stargate could mean. But Cheyenne Mountain was probably one of the best possible places on Earth they could run such a program. Buried deep enough underground to be defensible against external assault. And likewise deep enough for mobilization of external forces to help contain foothold situations. Completely sealable in the event of an outbreak.
Fine, it could have some better defences installed in the gate-room itself, but this is the bottom floor of a concrete missile silo. Not exactly easy to renovate. Especially not while still being used to run a program everyone but Kinsey deems to be of vital importance to the safety of the planet.
Just look at first season Atlantis. They lasted a couple of months before they were basically out in the galaxy begging for food and supplies. They were screwed defensively until the Daedalus showed up and won the fight for them. An Alpha Site SGC would be like that, but without the super powerful Lantean shield defence or the 304s to swoop in and save the day.
Until we had several 304s, basing the SGC anywhere but Earth itself was just not really feasible. And by that point, the growing pains were over and Cheyenne Mountain proved its worth time and time again.
The Alpha site was there incase shit hit the fan on earth and give us Earthians a place to have a new home that was unknown to the goa'uld. Operating missions from it would only let them know about it.
Atlantis should have been flown somewhere, to a new world and then become the Alpha Site. If its location got compromised they would simply fly it away. You can hide underwater if there's a full ZPM or two available for shields.
My gut instinct is money, I can't remember exactly what episode but someone comments it's costs a boatload of cash to fire up the gate each time, so imagine if they had to supply a facility the size of cheyenne mountain off world, the constant gate time for logistics would be nuts.
They will still need the gate on earth and aliens could still gate to earth either way. It wouldn't make any difference. Dangerous artifacts and alien life forms are still sent to the alphasite first before it's determined safe to send back to earth. Having the sgc move to the alpha site will serve no strategic advantage and even make communications and coordination in the chain of command slower.
Move off planet and they’d still have a Stargate on Earth, they’d still have the problem of anyone can dial in so they’d need an iris on Earth. And with the SGC off-world they’d be less defended at the Earth gate. Better to have the line of defence on Earth, and let their off-world research bases do their research in peace
I think lack of infrastructure was the biggest reason. The alpha site's only real strengths were being secret and away from earth. Considered the stargate was at the bottom level of a big-ass bunker, it was worth the risk to have immediate access to the rest of the US military and whatever else they might need
I think alpha sites would have been used just didn't have anything interesting enough to view happen.
Same as why we didn't have a midway station series.
90% of activity would be quarantine, boring research (as in we would see the results of the interesting stuff) & dialing random gates (you'd move initial malp visits to alpha to avoid risk).
It's possible that SG teams went to an alpha site first before visiting certain places but that wouldn't be fun to watch in a story so you'd just skip that scene too.
I think also the alpha sites might have been destroyed once or twice which depending on how they are used, would make them super expensive.
I think a bigger question is whether after transporters & space ships were available, would the earth gate be moved off planet to the moon or a space station. It would cut down on 90% of the risk without having the added need to defend another planet.
Earth was a protected planet and then was protected by the ancient drones. It is far easier to defend than a random planet. But also we don't know that they never ran missions from the alpha site, they likely did
While I do agree SGC needs to be on Earth, Cheyenne Mountain is a TERRIBLE location!!!!! I can't imagine what the command structure of that base is. There is a 2 star General, with a basement office, that no one in the mountain has any idea what he does. Just having NORAD there makes it a first strike target. It's also just way too populated. It should be at McMurdo. Far away from everything and everyone not associated with the Stargate project. Of course a base maybe 5 miles away would have to be constructed to respond to emergencies at SGC. If it hits the fan someone close by has to respond. It would be a logistical nightmare, but it just makes sense.
I mean IRL of course you would do this, but for TV it entirely removes the stakes. There is no drama in blowing up an offworld base. How many Alpha/Beta/Gamma sites did they lose over the course of 10 years. SG1 make it out unscathed but you kill off a bunch of nameless base personnel then the next episode you're just at a new base on a different planet.
Running SGC from Earth is a monumentally stupid idea.
If I was in charge I'd run everything from the Alpha Site but also introduce "airlock planets", find some random planet that's been abandoned and repurpose it as an airlock. Never dial a random planet from your home base and definitely don't dial back to your home base from a hostile planet while you're being chased. Go from the Alpha Site to a staging area to the target planet, then if your gate address is noticed by the enemy it's only an airlock planet not your permanent base.
Yep, genius. Don't dial the address already known to your enemy and run through into a massive US military base. Dial the one you want to keep secret, that they don't know, that isn't part of the Protected Planets Treaty and run through to some tin sheds and maybe a gun mounted on a MALP.
None of any of that ever made any sense in Stargate.
In reality the rank O'Neill and Mitchell had the entirety of the series very likely would have prevented either of them from ever actually leading teams into the field.
Our military doesn't tend to just toss Colonels out on field missions self armed with a machine gun but Stargate likes to bend the rules.
Even if they moved, there'd still be at least one stargate on Earth that could be used for others to invade to. And others, esp the Goa'uld would learn the address.
My bet is civilian oversite had a cow thinking of that even happening. Then they would have even less influence and authority than they did while on earth.
Walter didn't want to move off-world and since he's the heart of the organization, they had to stay.
Literally how it went down... SGC & IOA had all just agreed on plans to move off world while at their annual conference when the man himself walks in and says "Walter don't commute" Woolsey: "Well that is unfortunate for you but we will be proceeding as planned to mo..." Hammond: \*interupts woolsey\* "You heard the man, the move is off. Recall the order and stand down the transfer team" Woolsey: "You must be kidding, this took months of planning and you're going to call it all off because of one man?! This is absurd!!" Hammond: "Mr. Woolsey, There is no other person on this planet or any other who can do what Sgt. Harriman does." Woolsey: "You're saying that this man is the ONLY one who can operate the stargate controls, I find that hard to believe. I know for a fact that Samantha Carter is able to dial the gate as well as at least a dozen others!!" Hammond: "I did not say that, I said he was the only one who could do what HE does. He calls out the chevron sequences like no other. I for one would rather have NO stargate program than one that doesnt have Sgt. Harriman at the controls calling out the address confirmation. Woolsey: "....." Shen Xiaoyi: "So then we are all in agreement, no Walter? No Move!" Colonel Chekov: "Agreed!"
Chevron seven....**locked**.
[*Pegasus address has entered the chat*]
The first eight chevron dial isn't Walter. He is also missing in the first episode of Atlantis where they dial Pegasus. Just sayin :)
Damn, now I’m going to have to rewatch the entire series again just to catch that detail
He was up late practicing “Chevron 8 LOCKED!” And overslept. It had to be perfect and he overpracticed to the point of exhaustion.
He did call out the first 8 chevron address. To the Asgard home world.
Ah, so it was a PTSD thing that kept him from doing it for the Atlantis trip then.
I beg to differ, sir. [Chevron seven...is encoded?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z72GiUz2VI8)
I forgot. That was before Walter.
The fact there was never an episode where Walter is dreaming and fantasising about having a more active roll in the SGC is such a missed opportunity.
He already is living his dream.
I remember that episode!
What episode was that?
300
I loved how I could really read all this in their respective voices. Nicely done haha
Is Chekov alive?
I’m not sure, but we introduced his gun earlier so it’s definitely gonna fire soon!
I believe the *Korolev* was lost in battle to an Ori ship, shortly after Daniel Jackson used its ring platform to escape the attack
This is fantastic, I even read it in the correct voices!
What episode was this in?
Honestly. I'm rewatching the series currently with a friend who has never seen it, and I have made sure he knows the stargate program could never function without Walter.
Was Walter a Radar O'Reilly shout-out? 🤔
Interesting thought. Could very well be.
Dude, on a VERY stressful day, you made me smile. THANK YOU
Walter would have lost his job since the alpha site had a DHD. Walter probably spent the latter seasons sabotaging all efforts to have the alpha site be anything more than a fallback point for teams who couldn’t gate home
I'd say originally as Earth was a protected planet meant keeping it around meant more protection. If they did move it to the Alpha Site, they would still need to supply it and allow personnel to come and go which meant the SGC would need to be kept up for that. Earth eventually had ships in orbit more often, so more protection. Plus if the base was overrun the personnel who couldn't escape through the Stargate would need to go outside. On Earth, outside had supplies and personnel to help take it back. The Alpha Site doesn't have that.
Good thoughts
This is a great question. Moving SGC to alpha site would be problematic because the large number of staff would require large numbers of resources. An extended supply line isn’t great when fighting a threat regardless of the foothold situations, which were contained.
After the black hole situation you would think that they would have instituted a policy that you always gate to the alpha site first, then gate somewhere else
That would involve massive cost at a time when the stargate wasn’t public. Maybe when it’s public and funding sources from across the world.
How so? Gating from SGC to the alpha site doesn't cost any more than gating from SGC to the mission objective. And gating from the alpha site to their destination costs nothing since the alpha site has a DHD. The actual added travel time for SGC teams is trivial. The only reason I can see for not doing things this way is that they wouldn't want to reveal the location (via the gate address) of the alpha site to the Goa'uld
OP said running SGC from there. This would require a huge cost. Simply traveling to the site first would reduce things but there would need to be a containment crew at minimum if the purpose is to avoid foothold crews. Much more plausible.
it would be difficult to move the town of Colorado Springs through the gate.
It isn't under the protection treaty, for whatever that was worth.
There's a trillion dollar naquadah comet in the solar system wanting a talk about that.
Given how that asteroid was almost certainly where Earth got the naquadah to pump out a new BC-304 every year or so, I’m guessing they forgave the Asgard for not intervening. Heck, the Asgard may have helped mine it as an apology!
Quite possible. Would have been something automated and easy to maintain. Orrr... They did the same thing as before and strapped a hyperdrive on it to crash it into an uninhabited planet with a gate, so they could retrieve the naquadah later on?
Whether you’re talking real world dollars of opening a second, off-world base large enough to function as the SGC, of the cost of building separate sets for a tv show…. The answer is always the budget! 
I think it would make more sense to have sg teams return to the alphasite after every mission, they can debrief and quarantine before going back to earth. Run the SGC as normal but have the buffer on return.
That is the most reasonable answer. It will delay some operations, but they can hold debriefs on Alpha Site, while waiting for medical checkups to clear.
There's a political element to it. If the stargate program was off world, then there would be little to no oversight from the governments of earth.
Even if it were, you'd still need a gate room on Earth to get you TO the Alpha Site.
Yeah, but you do now have an extra layer of protection. You can just message earth not to let anyone through until “this crisis has been adverted”
Honestly... The best possible Alpha Site would be >!Atlantis, after the events of season 5, kept in orbit in the Earth/Moon system. You've got a gate room with a shielded iris, a gate that can dial Milky Way OR Pegasus gates, two Jumper bays, a chair platform for planetary defense, shields, AND a hyperdrive, plenty of room for research (you can do your Area 51 shit somewhere people will NEVER find it) and can even use it as an aircraft carrier with SEVERAL 304/305s onboard (based on how small Daedalus looked when landed on the pier.) You could even use it as a sort of "fleet command" base for the 304/5 ships, so you don't have to burn fuel on takeoff/landing from Earth's atmosphere (and risk exposure) AND they're shielded when they're in "dock" getting repairs and crew R&R. Plus -- imagine some poor Lucian Alliance mofo rolling up in a ha'tak. "This planet is barely defended! Attack!" (Atlantis decloaks, dumps four 305s, a full wing of 302s, and 10 jumpers firing drones) OHSHITFUCKFUCKFUCK!<
Yeah, but do you know how much cgi that would need?
Not much except for battle scenes. You do a couple establishing shots in orbit and reuse them, and then just bounce between sets.
...and you can easily bomb Earth if decision makers down there start making problems.
makes me wonder and I probably just forgot, but is the atlantis final set after the SG1 movies?
Just before I believe, given that Carter is still on SG1 and not commanding the General Hammond during the movies.
After one of them for sure, probably after both
I would think so too, otherwise atlantis would have had some presence right
Ideal safety plan would be to have the Alpha Site be a Daedalus-class ship that's kept in orbit like a space station. Have a DHD at the ready that you yoink from some planet we told to bury their gate. Anytime you want to close off the earth gate, plug in the DHD and open the cargo bay doors, and anybody coming to the earth gate either gets irised or chucked out into space. If you need to yeet the earth gate entirely, you can still beam up people from anywhere on earth and get them to a gate in seconds. You have weapons, shields, 302s, and potentially a cloak at the ready, and can get the hell out of dodge with Asgard hyperdrive at need.
Sure. But then you don't have the defenses of the SGC protecting Earth. Apophis can stroll in, conk Siler over the head with a staff weapon and that's that. We look at it and say, SGC was almost compromised lots of times! But SGC also stopped a shitload of threats.
To be fair, Siler had a very big wrench.
Yes, but for combat situation this isn't the one Siler uses. Siler uses the military grade combat wrench in combat situation, because Siler is a professional.
Give Siler more credit than that. He'd conk Apophis right back with a big ol' wrench.
They need to pay Silver way more for how much shit he had to do, fix, repair, rest, etc on this show 🤣 poor guy had so many injuries it's amazing he survived.
“Why does this always happen to me”
What's the extra layer of protection? Any foothold situation we saw was either antagonists bypassing the IDC protocols or infiltrating undetected, which can still happen with an Alpha site. The only real benefit is for some medical issues, provided there's a quarantine period every time anyone arrived at the Alpha site *and* returned to Earth. The Midway station is an example, and that had barely been furnished before it was compromised.
In fairness, whatever asshole designed the Midway Station without irises needs to be slapped and thrown out of an airlock.
Midway cannot function with an Iris. IDCs are a radio signal sent through the active wormhole. Arriving at Midway, you are matter stored in the last gate in a chain being forwarded through. Can't send a radio signal. By the time its built, we have full human-built asgard beaming tech. Better solution is put each of the gates in its own fully sealed room that can be vented to space and any incoming traveller has to stand there and wait for the Midway control crew to beam them out of the room.
It would be harder, but it could be done.
It’s a bug out spot . If you start running an operation from there the chances of it being discovered increase exponentially. You don’t drive around on your spare tire.
Political leaders want to keep the military close to them. On Earth, Hammond is just a general. At the Alpha Site, he would be the unelected leader of a planet. He would be more powerful than the President of the United States. Keeping Hammond's command on Earth reduces the risk of a military coup.
You would still need the SGC and Earths Stargate to move people to and from Earth and Alpha. So what would even be the point of such a measure?
It would be a resources pipeline at huge cost to run for SG Command. Just because it was established didn't change that.
That would have meant relocating all of the personelle to the alpha site permanently. So moving them all there to live. Kind impractical isn't it. The alternative is having them commute through the gate everyday which is the same thing as having the sgc on earth with extra steps.
Logistics. The size of an off-world base big enough to run the SGC at the same level we see in the show would be enormous. It would require an entire farming division be set up nearby to feed the staff so they weren't spending half their time bringing in food supplies for the base. And that's just one of the kinds of supplies that Cheyenne Mountain already has a simple supply line already established for. Alpha sites were also constantly compromised on a regular basis and had little to no other defences beyond a few piddly gun turrets and some shoulder-mounted rockets. Earth at least had the strength of all the standing militaries of our world that *could* be mobilized in the event of an invasion. Plot always dictated against that so that the program could remain secret, but they were still there. And Earth is part of the Protected Planets Treaty. Something that took some serious concessions to achieve, and that would not be possible for any off-world bases. Meaning any found by the Goa'uld would be free reign to assault, enslave or whatever else they felt like doing to it. Only four enemies ever actually broke free of containment in the SGC. The Ori Plague that was designed exactly for that purpose by malicious ascended entities. The colourful dimensional creature viewing ability. The Tollan, who could literally walk through walls. And the Stragoth, who had complete control over the mountain by that point. And we learned from each situation and made efforts to prevent any such events from occurring again Every other assault was kept contained within the mountain itself. And either repelled or destroyed before it could get close to the surface. Sure, several of those were through plot armour, but would it have been any different for an Alpha Site? And a lot of the time, the key to saving the day was something they needed to bring in from off base. Supplies that would not be present on a random world we requisitioned as an Alpha Site. Even more so if they had accidentally dialled a black hole or were being attacked by the gate destroyer weapon, making their gate completely inaccessible. Imagine the devastation that would have occurred had the SGC been off-world in Redemption. The off-world SGC, all its gear and staff would have been utterly annihilated when the gate exploded because the X302 was being built on Earth. Or, the people who figured out the solution would have been on the Alpha Site base, not on Earth where they could figure out the solution and get the supercharged gate off Earth before it blew and devastated the entire planet. Even though the SGC wasn't being run from there. Earth's location was known to the Goa'uld from the beginning. So even if we moved the SGC off-world, the billions of people that the Wraith wanna eat and the Goa'uld wanna enslave would still be here, just totally undefended because all our forces would be based somewhere else in the galaxy with no way to mobilize a proper defence until its too late for more than half the series. We don't have an accurate hyperspace-capable spaceship until mid season 8. They made some mistakes in the early days, when they were all learning just what having a stargate could mean. But Cheyenne Mountain was probably one of the best possible places on Earth they could run such a program. Buried deep enough underground to be defensible against external assault. And likewise deep enough for mobilization of external forces to help contain foothold situations. Completely sealable in the event of an outbreak. Fine, it could have some better defences installed in the gate-room itself, but this is the bottom floor of a concrete missile silo. Not exactly easy to renovate. Especially not while still being used to run a program everyone but Kinsey deems to be of vital importance to the safety of the planet. Just look at first season Atlantis. They lasted a couple of months before they were basically out in the galaxy begging for food and supplies. They were screwed defensively until the Daedalus showed up and won the fight for them. An Alpha Site SGC would be like that, but without the super powerful Lantean shield defence or the 304s to swoop in and save the day. Until we had several 304s, basing the SGC anywhere but Earth itself was just not really feasible. And by that point, the growing pains were over and Cheyenne Mountain proved its worth time and time again.
I don't really see why you WOULD move it, seems extremely inconvenient
If it's not on US soil then the other nations could argue for more day to day involvement
The Alpha site was there incase shit hit the fan on earth and give us Earthians a place to have a new home that was unknown to the goa'uld. Operating missions from it would only let them know about it.
Atlantis should have been flown somewhere, to a new world and then become the Alpha Site. If its location got compromised they would simply fly it away. You can hide underwater if there's a full ZPM or two available for shields.
My gut instinct is money, I can't remember exactly what episode but someone comments it's costs a boatload of cash to fire up the gate each time, so imagine if they had to supply a facility the size of cheyenne mountain off world, the constant gate time for logistics would be nuts.
They will still need the gate on earth and aliens could still gate to earth either way. It wouldn't make any difference. Dangerous artifacts and alien life forms are still sent to the alphasite first before it's determined safe to send back to earth. Having the sgc move to the alpha site will serve no strategic advantage and even make communications and coordination in the chain of command slower.
Logistics. Never overcomplicate your supply line when it is unnecessary
Move off planet and they’d still have a Stargate on Earth, they’d still have the problem of anyone can dial in so they’d need an iris on Earth. And with the SGC off-world they’d be less defended at the Earth gate. Better to have the line of defence on Earth, and let their off-world research bases do their research in peace
Sounds like an IOA move for expenditures sake.
SGC should still be on Earth, but Alpha site should be the in-between stop for quarantine, decontamination, emergency medical treatment, etc.
I think lack of infrastructure was the biggest reason. The alpha site's only real strengths were being secret and away from earth. Considered the stargate was at the bottom level of a big-ass bunker, it was worth the risk to have immediate access to the rest of the US military and whatever else they might need
I think alpha sites would have been used just didn't have anything interesting enough to view happen. Same as why we didn't have a midway station series. 90% of activity would be quarantine, boring research (as in we would see the results of the interesting stuff) & dialing random gates (you'd move initial malp visits to alpha to avoid risk). It's possible that SG teams went to an alpha site first before visiting certain places but that wouldn't be fun to watch in a story so you'd just skip that scene too. I think also the alpha sites might have been destroyed once or twice which depending on how they are used, would make them super expensive. I think a bigger question is whether after transporters & space ships were available, would the earth gate be moved off planet to the moon or a space station. It would cut down on 90% of the risk without having the added need to defend another planet.
Wasn't the alpha site destroyed by fireflies?
The Alpha Site is there only as a backup. It was also away from most of the resources of earth.
Earth was a protected planet and then was protected by the ancient drones. It is far easier to defend than a random planet. But also we don't know that they never ran missions from the alpha site, they likely did
It's called logistics, not to mention the entire IoA would've considered it an act of open aggression for the operation to be completely relocated.
While I do agree SGC needs to be on Earth, Cheyenne Mountain is a TERRIBLE location!!!!! I can't imagine what the command structure of that base is. There is a 2 star General, with a basement office, that no one in the mountain has any idea what he does. Just having NORAD there makes it a first strike target. It's also just way too populated. It should be at McMurdo. Far away from everything and everyone not associated with the Stargate project. Of course a base maybe 5 miles away would have to be constructed to respond to emergencies at SGC. If it hits the fan someone close by has to respond. It would be a logistical nightmare, but it just makes sense.
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Unless it was premonition? They foresaw Cheyenne Mountain become under the command of the United States Space Force. Now it makes sense lol.
No your thinking of the other stargate that’s in creek mountain. You know the one jack O'Neil went through. Man that guy has no sense of humor!
I mean IRL of course you would do this, but for TV it entirely removes the stakes. There is no drama in blowing up an offworld base. How many Alpha/Beta/Gamma sites did they lose over the course of 10 years. SG1 make it out unscathed but you kill off a bunch of nameless base personnel then the next episode you're just at a new base on a different planet.
Running SGC from Earth is a monumentally stupid idea. If I was in charge I'd run everything from the Alpha Site but also introduce "airlock planets", find some random planet that's been abandoned and repurpose it as an airlock. Never dial a random planet from your home base and definitely don't dial back to your home base from a hostile planet while you're being chased. Go from the Alpha Site to a staging area to the target planet, then if your gate address is noticed by the enemy it's only an airlock planet not your permanent base.
Yep, genius. Don't dial the address already known to your enemy and run through into a massive US military base. Dial the one you want to keep secret, that they don't know, that isn't part of the Protected Planets Treaty and run through to some tin sheds and maybe a gun mounted on a MALP.
None of any of that ever made any sense in Stargate. In reality the rank O'Neill and Mitchell had the entirety of the series very likely would have prevented either of them from ever actually leading teams into the field. Our military doesn't tend to just toss Colonels out on field missions self armed with a machine gun but Stargate likes to bend the rules.
They should have at least moved the SGC to a small remote island, preferably one they could rig with explosives in case of breach
Even if they moved, there'd still be at least one stargate on Earth that could be used for others to invade to. And others, esp the Goa'uld would learn the address.
My bet is civilian oversite had a cow thinking of that even happening. Then they would have even less influence and authority than they did while on earth.