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in: SG-1 Season 2 episodes, Episodes featuring time travel
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1969 (episode)

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"1969" is the twenty-first episode of the second season of Stargate SG-1.

Synopsis[]

A freak accident involving a solar flare and the Stargate causes SG-1 to gate to the Earth in 1969. While trying to figure out a way back, the team is mistaken for Soviet spies and are being transferred to another facility. However, young Lt. George S. Hammond comes to render assistance so that SG-1 can return to their own time.

Plot[]

A powerful solar flare crossing the path of the Stargate's matter stream causes the SG-1 team to be propelled around the sun and travel back in time 30 years. They arrive in the Embarkation room, which was then a top-secret missile testing facility, and are arrested by guards that think they are Soviet spies because Dr. Daniel Jackson can speak Russian.

While Colonel Jack O'Neill is being interrogated and using comedic answers (i.e. Star Trek and Star Wars references) to obscure their true identities, a young Lieutenant searches through SG-1's possessions and discovers a note stating that he should help them, a note Major General George S. Hammond had given Captain Samantha Carter before they left. While escaping custody with the help of the lieutenant, they discover that he is in fact General Hammond, 30 years younger, who recognized the note as in his own handwriting. He gives them some money to purchase disguises (which O'Neill promises to pay back, with interest), they swear him to secrecy, and hit him with a Zat'nik'tel blast to make it look like he fought them.

The SG-1 team must find a way home—if nothing else, Teal'c will eventually be taken over by his symbiote unless he can return to the present—but it seems apparent they are doomed to be stuck in the past. However, Carter sees that the note includes two dates and times, and grasps that the dates actually describe two upcoming solar flares on the opposite side of Sol. This information was identified from research on alternative applications for the gate she was ordered to work on by General Hammond. To use these flares as an effective means of getting back to the future, they must find the Stargate.

After a bold hitchhiking maneuver by Teal'c, SG-1 is able to travel across the country with a hippie couple, Michael Clark and Jennifer Clark, who are heading to Woodstock in their bus. Late in their trip, the couple reveals that Michael has been drafted, and they are trying to decide whether or not to flee to Canada. O'Neill begins a response to Michael, but Carter stops him in order to prevent them from influencing the past. Michael is never mentioned again in the series, and his choice is not known. Donning a German accent, Daniel learns the location of the Stargate from Catherine Langford. SG-1 manages to activate the gate (stored in an old Washington D.C. armory) and run through while under fire from guards.

However, they arrive in an empty, dark gate room rather than in Stargate Command that they know. An elderly woman walks in, who, it turns out, is Cassandra Fraiser, and she tells them that they stepped into the Stargate a few seconds early and were sent far into the future. Long ago, Sam told her that she must rendezvous with them. Using an unknown device Casssandra activates the stargate without needing to dial or generating an unstable vortex. The team steps through the gate and arrives back in the normal gate room with General Hammond waiting for them. He explains that as a young lieutenant he was ordered to escort four trespassers out of Cheyenne Mountain. In Carter's vest pocket he found a note requesting for his assistance. Obviously he followed its instructions. All he had to do was wait for the right time to give Carter the note. He remembered the cut on Carter's hand as he removed the handcuffs. General Hammond also reminds O’Neill of the money he owes him ($539.50, including interest).

Appearances[]

Appearances for 1969

Characters

Locations

Events

Weapons, equipment and technology

Science and biology

Vehicles

Sentient Species

Languages

Creatures

Organizations and titles

Miscellanea

Notable quotes[]

Soldier: Вы советские шпионы? (Are you Soviet spies?)
Jackson: Nyet. (No.)
O'Neill: Daniel!?
Jackson: He just asked if we were Soviet spies, I just... (he suddenly realizes his mistake)
Soldier: (to O'Neill) Come with me.
O'Neill: Sure, you bet. (to Daniel on the way past) Nyet!?

Thornbird: I'm Major Robert Thornbird. And you are?
O'Neill: Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.
Thornbird: Your dog tags say otherwise.
O'Neill: They're lying.
Thornbird: Your American accent is very impressive, Mr. Kirk. Before we ship you out and hand you over to wherever it is they take spies such as yourself, I wanted a word. Your little incursion into our training facility is going to leave an embarrassing mark on my record.
O'Neill: Training facility?
Thornbird: You don't think we'd test fire a real missile twenty-eight floors inside a mountain, do you?
O'Neill: Listen, you don't have the exact date—
Thornbird: What was the weapon you used?
O'Neill: Weapon?
Thornbird: Our cameras saw some sort of weapon.
O'Neill: Oh. Well, it's hard to say.
Thornbird: Some sort of state secret?
O'Neill: No, just difficult to pronounce.

O'Neill: Listen, I don't know where we're headed, but they'll probably try to split us up, so we're not gonna have much time to...
Carter: Escape and hopefully live out the rest of our lives without affecting history.
O'Neill: Or...
Carter: I can't think of an "or" at the moment sir.
Jackson: No "or?"
O'Neill: There's an "or."
Jackson: There's an "or?"
Carter: Sir, you can't just will something to happen because you want it to be a certain way.
O'Neill: Captain, where there's a will there's an "or."  Way.

O'Neill: Aunty Em! Aunty Em!

Michael: After the concert, me and Jenny, we're even thinking of crossing the border up to Canada.
Teal'c: For what reason?
Michael: You know, man. The war.
Teal'c': The war with Canada?
Michael: No.

O'Neill: We came to Earth to hide amongst your people, a long, long time ago.
Jackson: From a galaxy far, far away.

Cast[]

Main Characters

Guest Stars

Notes[]

  • When SG-1 originally travels to the year 1969 in the teaser of the episode, they emerge in the past time frame at the same location where they were in the present: the interior of Cheyenne Mountain. However, in all later instances of Stargate time travel, including the conclusion of this episode, those individuals traveling through time emerge through the Stargate of the destination time frame, rather than simply appearing in the new time.
  • Though it is not explicitly stated in this episode, Dr. Daniel Jackson teaches Teal'c how to drive a car, as shown by Teal'c driving the bus. When Teal'c drives a car in the season 6 episode "Smoke and Mirrors", Jonas Quinn questions him, "Who taught you to drive?" Teal'c replies, "Daniel Jackson." Jonas asks when; the reply is "I believe the year was 1969."
  • Jackson reveals that he speaks 23 languages. Since this episode, he has also learned to speak at least three more languages, Ancient, Goa'uld, and Unas.
  • Jackson also reveals that he was four years old in 1969, which would have put his birth in 1965. Michael Shanks, the actor who plays Daniel Jackson, was in fact born on December 15, 1970, making him almost 6 years younger than his character. James Spader, the actor to portray Jackson in the film, is ten years older than Shanks.
  • The actual NORAD facility under Cheyenne Mountain does not, and never did, house a missile training silo. The mission of Cheyenne Mountain Air Station is strictly early-warning. Training silos are only found at missile bases, such as Vandenberg AFB, California; F.E. Warren AFB, Wyoming; or Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota.
  • Carter only half way explains the Grandfather Paradox. It holds that if a man travels in time to before his father was conceived and murders his grandfather then he himself would never be born, but because the murderer was never born then there was no reason for his grandfather to be killed, hence the killer will still be alive. In SG-1's case had they stopped the development of the Stargate Program there would therefore be no reason for SG-1 to have traveled back in time and stop it, hence the program would happen.
  • O'Neill mentions a desire to get to the Interstate; however, during the montage section the party is shown to be traveling on US Route 66 (which ran from Chicago to Los Angeles). US 66 was never a part of the Interstate Highway System, however, since 66 did not run through Colorado they may have traveled on the Interstate to get to 66.
  • During his questioning, O'Neill first claims his name is James T. Kirk, a reference to Star Trek, and later Luke Skywalker from Star Wars. Star Trek first aired in 1966, 3 years before this episode took place. The name James T. Kirk would have been known, though it is possible that the base commander had not heard of it, since the show was obscure and had a cult like audience in the 1960s. However, the first Star Wars film, was not released until 1977.
  • Concept of time travel in this episode is different from others featuring time travel. In it, travelers from the past do not create an alternate timeline, as Major General George S. Hammond had memories of interacting with SG-1 before he sent them into the past and altered his own past as well and sent a note with them because he received a note in the past.
  • The concept of time travel in this episode is similar to that in the Terminator franchise; a self-fulfilling time loop where the event of traveling back in time is both the cause and the effect at the same time with no identifiable beginning.
  • The only difference to this solar flare time traveling event is a program Carter wrote prior to their gate travel "to upgrade the computers drift calculation to include gravitational space-time warping" due to the matter stream's proximity to the Sun. It is possible this could have led to the strange circumstance where "for a second or two [SG-1] we were in both time-frames simultaneously", which caused them to phase out of the SGC in 1999 and into the missile test facility in 1969, similar to how the Tok'ra, Teal'c and Vala Mal Doran phased out in Stargate: Continuum, although this is only conjecture.
  • The New Jersey Star O'Neill buys to check the date (August 10, 1969) shows two headlines, "Nixon to Vacation at the Summer White House" and "Sharon Tate, Four Others Murdered". The latter refers to the infamous Charles Manson murders which had occurred the day before, August 9.
  • In the German version, Jackson uses a French accent instead of a German one while talking to Catherine Langford about the Stargate.
  • The cut on Carter's hand, which told Hammond which mission would cause the jump, occurred in the episode "One False Step" when Carter tried to retrieve Jackson's knife from one of the aliens, but accidentally gets cut. Although when she tried to retrieve the knife she appeared to be cut on the palm of her hand.
  • The planet where SG-1 was headed, when instead due to the solar flare they traveled back in time, was Aemonus, the same designation as in the season 2 RPG.
  • Fifteen episodes earlier in "Thor's Chariot," Jackson says that he has a problem with heights, yet in this episode, he fearlessly scales the side of the 2-story-high crate in which the Stargate was stored in order to open it... he seems to have gotten over his phobia rather quickly in the few months it had been since then.
  • In the novel Stargate SG-1: Moebius Squared, it's revealed that the time travel events of this episode affected Carter's personal history: knowing that he would grow old and eventually send the note to himself in the past, the then Lt. Hammond took a great risk to save Jacob Carter a few months later in Vietnam knowing that he couldn't have sent the note if he was dead. In the timeline created by SG-1 traveling back to ancient Egypt, this changed as without this certainty, Hammond didn't take the risk and Jacob died. All Hammond did was make sure that Jacob's body was recovered. This led to Carter never joining the Air Force in that timeline due to being afraid of her mother's reaction.
  • When SG-1 arrives in the future, O'Neill calls out to "Auntie Em"... another The Wizard of Oz reference.

Goofs[]

  • When the bus approaches Chicago, the Sears Tower (now called Willis Tower) is shown in the skyline, although its construction did not begin until 1970.
  • Although the bus is surrounded by vintage vehicles on the bridge, oncoming traffic is that of more modern cars.
  • When Colonel Jack O'Neill is explaining to Lt. George S. Hammond their connection, he says, "Now for some reason thirty years ago you decided to help us." Technically, Hammond helped them thirty years in the future from 1969, not "thirty years ago." However, since from O'Neill's everyday perspective it is 1999, the reference to "thirty years ago" is a natural statement for him to make when referring to 1969, even though it makes no sense in the 1969 timeline. Furthermore, O'Neill made this statement of thirty years before Hammond told them the year a couple minutes later.
  • Despite having no dampeners installed, there was no seismic occurrence when the gate was activated in 1969.
  • If the episode had used the rules of Stargate time travel according to how it is presented in the rest of the series, on the other side of the time travel there should have been a real Stargate instead of a phased out one. In this sense, theoretically SG-1 should have emerged from the gate inside the locked crate or more probably they should have exited in Antarctica - which would have rendered their mission a failure, never being able to complete it, resulting in an obvious error.
  • While care was taken to mention and attempt to avoid the grandfather paradox, the scene with Cassandra introduces another time-travel paradox common in science-fiction: the ontological paradox. Cassandra's knowledge of what to do in the future comes from Carter who is only aware of it because Cassandra told her. The actual knowledge had no origin independent of the time travel loop.
  • The note Hammond writes is an example of a Bootstrap Paradox; of which an object or piece of information is sent back in time where it is retrieved and to become the very object or piece of information that was brought back in the beginning.
  • When SG-1 is caught in the armory warehouse, the guard's revolvers sound like semi-automatic pistols (ping from the recoiling slide is present in the audio effect).
  • The 1969 version of Hammond played by actor Aaron Pearl has brown eyes, whereas the latter version played by actor Don S. Davis has blue eyes.
  • The Security Forces Airmen in 1969 are wearing blue berets which didn't become part of the Air Force Uniform until 1976.
  • When SG-1 escapes in 1969, the truck carrying their equipment is painted in 4-color "woodland camo". This pattern was not used until 1975, with universal adoption not occurring until 1976. A US military truck in 1969 would be painted a flat OD green.

Other languages[]

  • French: 1969
  • German: 1969
  • Italian: Viaggio nel Tempo (Time Travel)
  • Spanish: 1969
  • Czech: Rok 1969 (Year 1969)
  • Hungarian: 1969

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