BUT FOR THE ONE BY PHOENIXE

NOTES

BUT FOR THE ONE – STORY NOTES

I apologize for the slightly unorthodox way I'm presenting this story but exactly what it is, why it is and why I'm posting it at all is a story in itself, and a bit lengthy for your 'Notes' section on a standard Part 0 Post.  So if you'll grant me a bit of your time to read this through before you proceed to the story proper I hope everything will make some sort of sense.

For starters, what you are about to see would never have made it to the net but for the release of those odious spoilers for 'Threads'.  They pissed me off so much simply writing protest letters to Sci Fi and MGM didn't seem to be nearly enough.  I wanted to do more -  make a more personal and  emphatic anti-ship statement.

That's when I realised I already had been, for a couple of months now, and it was sitting on my hard drive.  But  even though I'd been working very hard through But For the One to  address a lot of the objections and problems I personally have with the whole Sam and Jack thing and the artificial  A/R scenarios that have been thrust on us in canon in order to promote it, because of the plans I had for it, I couldn't use it.  Or could I?

This story was originally inspired by my earlier effort A Man Most Unfortunate. Formerly it was only available in a zine, but now, as you can see, follow the link and there you are.  Basically, I couldn't stand the idea of ANY Jack never meeting Daniel and being consequently stuck with Sam, so I began to think about those realities in TBFTGOG and POV and any others where Daniel didn't accept Catherine's offer, and how I would bring a Jack and Daniel who'd never met the way they had in our reality – together.  Basically how I would bring Daniel into the Stargate program and to Jack's side by another route.

That was where it started.  But the more I thought about those alternate realities and Brad Wright's shippy fantasies where the SGC supposedly evolved and existed along almost identical parallel lines to our own without the benefit of any of the considerable and vital contributions Daniel made – I'm sorry, it just wouldn't have happened.  There is no possible way any Stargate program in any alternate universe that did not have Daniel on board for the first mission could have succeeded.  No way the program would have gone on to be almost exactly like ours, using an identical dialling program with planetary designations derived from the Abydos Cartouche – which Daniel discovered.  No way they would even be calling it a STARGATE, or the SGC or the SGA – or SG anything.

Daniel was the one who correctly translated 'Door to Heaven' as 'Stargate'.  Daniel was the one who made first contact with the Abydonians, who learned how to speak the language, who found the address for Earth enabling the team to return, who learned Ra was planning to blow up the Earth with Jack's bomb and passed that information on so they were able to foil the Go'auld's plan to blow us up – which would have proceeded unimpeded without that vital piece of intel – which Daniel and no one else provided.  Daniel was the one who found the Abydos cartouche room, supplying Sam with the information she needed to get the gate to work and to program the dialling computer with all the destinations the Stargate program is based upon.  And we won't even get into the whole Teal'c thing – I'll save that for the novel.  Heh heh…..

In short, the SGAs of TBFTGOG and POV -  there is no possible way they could exist  – they're a pure fantasy, artificial scenarios engineered not only to persuade us a Sam and Jack not encumbered by the regs would automatically and always be together but to also not so subtly undermine and devalue Daniel's contribution to the Stargate program.  See – there are two versions of reality where he's not around and they've got along just fine without him.  Both Jack and the SGC.  Daniel didn't do anything Sam couldn't do better.  Eventually.

Bullshit.  To both Jack and civilian Sam happily billing and cooing into their shippy happily ever after, and the anti-Daniel SGC scenarios.  Ain't buyin' it, would never happen and wouldn't work.  Either one of them.

So, it's one thing to say this but quite another to back it up.  Ergo I set myself to the task of devising a scenario, the way I believed the first mission to Abydos went – the only way it possibly could have actually gone and have anyone who was slated to embark on the first mission – without Daniel – actually survive and get back to Earth.  (You might not agree with my conclusions, but I thought long and hard about this and this is the only scenario I could come up with that fit the bill.)  

And I took a good, hard look at the characters of both Sam and Jack as they have been revealed to us through eight years of Stargate, including their alternate reality versions.  I thought about what sort of people they really were, and how this would express itself in reality in terms of an actual relationship.  Who would a civilian Sam really be?  How would she be with a Jack who'd never met Daniel? Was there anything in either of their personalities to suggest these A/R versions of Sam and Jack were either emotionally happy or healthy individuals and the relationship would be either successful or healthy?  Or even a good idea?   In any way?

The end result of all these musing is But For The One.  Which…is a story, but also isn't.  That is to say, when I started writing it, where this excerpt ends is as far as I thought the story was originally going to go.  That would be it.  Finished, complete.  Done.

But…as often happens, stories have other plans.  Everyone who read it agreed it was not complete, and that what I'd written was not a short story, as I erroneously believed, but in fact a prologue for a novel.  Although I resisted the notion at first, the ideas started coming – some of them are pretty neat too, and yeah, there is eventually going to be a lot more following this bit.  Although the prologue ends in a place where I could walk away and proclaim it 'finished', it will in fact continue, in a novel, which will be released through Yadda Press. Someday.  So for now, I guess what you will be reading could best be called the world's longest preview for a forth-coming zine.  Woo hoo!

The Sam in this story is not the woman we know, but based on what I've seen in canon I believe this is the person she would be, if she never joined the military for the reasons we've been given, and if she was involved in a romantic relationship with someone with the rank and authority of Jack.  Again, you might not agree with the interpretation of the character, but even our Sam has power and Daddy issues that would have been greatly exacerbated if she hadn't forgiven her father, joined the military and received the self-confidence and affirmation of military training.  These fundamental power issues in her personality pretty much lower the odds of her being able to have any sort of healthy relationship with anyone in any sort of supervisory capacity over her- whether or not she had the added constraint of the regs. And even an A/R Jack would eventually get bored with this kind of   'eager to please'  woman.  We've all seen how much he loves to bicker and banter.  Anyone who wanted to be with him and would work with him in an intimate relationship, or even a friendship, would have to be able to stand up to him and spit right back in his eye.  Something this Sam could never do because of the forces that have shaped her, and our Sam can't do either because he is her commanding officer, and she must submit to his authority.

I submit through this story, that Sam and Jack as lovers would never, ever work.  On this world, or any other, as civilians, or as serving members of the military, because their fundamental personalities, who they are, wherever they are, they are totally, irrevocably, incompatible.  They would never, ever work in a million years, odds are because they are such different people in every way that counts they'd never, ever even get together and if through some misfortune for both of them they did, it would be a personal disaster for all concerned.  The very idea is absurd to the point of the ridiculous, and always has been.  The characters have no chemistry, they are completely incompatible, they certainly don't know each other very well, and as they have been portrayed on the screen far from nursing a secret and abiding passion for each other, at times, it appears as if they barely like each other.

It's been a bad idea from the word go, one that never should have seen the light of day.

I really believe Sam and Jack would never work and I've spent a lot of time writing a story specifically to prove this very point.   And you're getting to see the part of it that does  way before I thought anyone would and on the net, which wasn't the original plan, because TPTB have pissed me off.  I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing but whatever, and for whatever it's worth, what follows is my personal, adamant literary anti-ship statement.

I'm not sure how to classify this puppy.  It's an A/R. A/U, Parallel Universe, story, obviously.  It contains extremely dysfunctional Sam and Jack elements (for which I apologise, I'm really sorry, but it had to be done for this one, because, well, um, that's kind of the whole point,  but I promise I'll never, ever do it again), but if it's anything it's anti-ship. It's not slash yet, you could call it pre-slash if you stretched it, (hah, hah, snort guffaw) but it will be slash eventually.   It's not really gen either. So I guess all I can say is it is what it is, and someday it'll be what it's supposed to be!

The story takes place a year and a half after the original Abydos mission.  Portal Command has been a failure, and is about to be shut down for the second and final time.  That is until Catherine Langford brings news of the activities of the man who once declined to join them, and the amazing discovery he's made that will save the Program.  If  Jack can persuade him to accept the offer he once refused.

Thanks for reading my expositional ramblings, and I hope you enjoy what follows!

PhoenixE

4 Aug 04

Taking you to the story now, honest!