Quick break from news. With Amazon believed to be considering a Stargate revival - which would make a lot of sense - here's our idea for a new Stargate series.

Fair warning. This pitch may contain whooshes.

As you'd expect for Stargate, assume clever banter throughout.

Little Jack

Remember when Jack O'Neill was abducted by the rogue Asgard scientist Loki, who goofed and left a dying teenage Jack clone in his place?

Big Jack with his big kind heart asked the other Asgard to save Little Jack and allow him a full life.

Up to the point of cloning, which was near the end of his frontline service, he has all of Jack's considerable training, experience and knowledge.

Last we saw the Jacks they agreed that it would be weird to keep in touch so each go their own way.

Does Little Jack decide to return to service?

No.

From his perspective he's already saved the world repeatedly.

Due a break.

With a government stipend he boats, fishes etc. etc.

Have the Air Force attempted to recruit him?

No.

Big Jack has ordered that he be left in peace.

Until a situation arises which Little Jack is uniquely qualified to help with.

Picking Up Where We Left Off

The Asgard gifted Earth with all of their knowledge in SG-1's final episode and in the years since they've been able to deploy some tech but it's often a matter of asking one of the digitally stored Asgard to dumb something down. A lot.

As we saw when Thor tried to teach Carter how his ship's systems worked, the most basic principles of Asgardian science are fundamentally different.

The fastest route to making full use of the Asgard database isn't retraining adult scientists.

It's teaching kids Asgardian science from an early age.

Mindful of their experience with the Orbanians - children learning and passing knowledge on to others through nanites, but becoming blank slates after nanite extraction - highly intelligent children are selected for schooling with Asgardian knowledge but who otherwise live mostly normal lives.

Fifteen years (real time) having passed since receiving the Asgard's knowledge, their first cohort might be late teens / early twenties and just beginning to examine the database.

In terms of technological advancement Earth / SGC aren't much changed from when we last saw them.

Even now possessing all the knowledge of the Asgard and also Atlantis.

Speaking of....

Following the Attero device incident in Pegasus - when the Vanir (naughty Asgard) captured the Atlantian technology which caused Wraith hyperdrives and also stargates to explode - the Vanir kept to themselves and hidden.

They recently contacted the SGC in our galaxy to request the opening of negotiations for Heimdall's research on the Asgardian ancestors which could help them solve the cloning degradation problem.

How do they know about that?

How did they find Earth?

Do they have hostile intentions?

Known to conduct unethical research and having parted ways with the Asgard, is it right to help them in any way?

If Earth does, might they honour an agreement to cease unethical research? And otherwise play nice.

Prior to their demise the Asgard employed diplomacy to restrain the System Lords with The Protected Planets Treaty.

In that spirit a meeting with the Pegasus meeting is agreed to.

No-one has more experience with the Asgard - both good and bad - than Jack O'Neill so he would be useful in that meeting to gauge their intent.

But should the meeting be a trap he both knows too much to risk capture and wouldn't be up to any serious combat action.

Little Jack possesses most of his experience with the Asgard but no current military intelligence.

In accordance with agreements, several of Earth's close allies are informed and some choose to attend.

The Jaffa contingent includes Rya'c.

Meeting the Vanir

The meeting is held off world aboard an Earth vessel.

The Vanir vessel arrives. Two are beamed aboard.

There's lots of talking - with one Vanir remaining silent - but no resolution.

As they're about to beam the Vanir back, they confer quickly in Asgardian and the one who had spoken asks to be beamed back ahead of his compatriot.

Request granted.

The Vanir is beamed out and their ship immediately implodes.

It is destroyed and the Earth vessel also critically damaged.

There's a lot of commotion as they try to figure out what happened.

Science people suggest that it appears a micro-singularity formed inside the vessel.

Eventually they turn to the Vanir who remained behind and ask if they're responsible.

A familiar voice replies in the negative.

It's Thor.

He claims not to be responsible for the implosion and also explains who he is and why he stayed behind.

He is Thor but not the same one we knew.

No he's not a clone.

Our Thor was.

In their culture there remained an element of doubt on the issue of cloning and consciousness transference.

Is it true transference or merely making a copy?

Not knowing they proceeded down that path anyway but the idea of making undeniable copies, i.e. multiple simultaneous instances of the same individual, was unthinkable.

The problem of cloning degradation threatened their survival and eventually someone thought to observe the degradation with live subjects, among other experiments.

A handful of Asgard agreed to be copied and their clones to then be copied and destroyed repeatedly.

Most were individuals who seemed to be less affected by degradation so understanding what made them different was of great interest and the harm to their copies would be less.

Copies retained all rights accorded any Asgardian under their laws and consent granted by their originals' wasn't permanently binding.

The two Thors came to disagree on the issue of what some regarded as benign but involuntary experimentation on less advanced species.

For the sake of continuing their civilization and the protection it afforded all of those less advanced species, what later became the Pegasus splinter group formed and original Thor was among them.

Today he understands clone Thor to have had a relationship with Earth, and hopes to enjoy the same.

He believed his decision to have been right at the time but questions that now.

As do others in their group.

Their unethical research hasn't solved the degradation problem but they might have many thousands of years to solve it.

During which they would continue involuntary experimentation.

No, he's not trying to leverage clone Thor's relationship with them, though that is what he told the other Vanir.

Yes he wants Earth to share Heimdall's research but in the event that they don't, he and others like him would splinter again and request asylum.

To avoid being part of any more involuntary experimentation and of course helping Earth in any way that they can.

What Next?

In need of repairs and unable to reach any known stargates, they locate an uninhabited planet which shows some signs of previous occupation and having been mined.

On approach and more detailed scans they find one structure which looks familiar.

Big old ring.

They check their records.

This isn't a known stargate and scans also indicate no signs of naquadah.

The Tollan were able to construct their own stargate. Could this be one of theirs?

Land. Examine gate. Determine it isn't.

Some other civilization must have also built their own.

Can it be used to reach Earth, or at all?

Not immediately though the science boffins continue to explore that possibility.

Thor offers to help and is allowed to join the boffins.

The language shares some similarities with one he recognises and while there's no handy database full of information about destinations, the system log contains one address which has been dialled a lot more than others.

Repairing the ship is possible but might go faster if they can acquire certain materials and parts.

Go through the gate or not?

Go of course (whoosh), with Little Jack, Rya'c and maybe Thor.

Jennifer Hailey and Cassandra are obvious female characters from SG-1 who knew Jack, might be on the ship and happy to join him.

Ava Dixon from Atlantis is another. The human made human form replicator who helps Sheppard and Ronon take down a hostile replicator.

Replicators being a major security risk but her having been helpful, her body is destroyed and she's placed in a simulation.

The SGC could later create a less powerful body for her.

Minus any replication ability she could endure more but not an unlimited amount of physical punishment (eg. being shot) than a human and would need to return to the SGC to be repaired.

Both SG-1 and Atlantis were filmed in Canada with limited special effects budgets and capabilities.

Fans could generously assume that the Ancients saw more value in placing stargates on worlds with Earth-like environments.

A gate network built by another species might lead to fewer worlds with pine forests.

Whodunnit?

The Vanir.

Thor was the target.

His remaining behind to speak with Little Jack and company wasn't part of the original plan and the implosion was triggered by the beam in.

How did the Vanir know about Heimdall's research?

When they invaded Atlantis for the Atterro device there was an additional Vanir wearing a personal cloak.

Technology the Asgard are known to possess.

Their mission was information gathering and they waited for opportunity to access and copy records.

Having obtained passwords simply by watching people enter them.

Leaving through the gate (whoosh) with an outgoing SG team then gating again (whoosh) and signalling to be picked up.

Motive for Killing Thor?

Two possibilities - one simple and one complicated which could work either alone or in combination.

Simple = some Vanir prefer the idea of taking the research and possibly also the full Asgard database from Earth either by force or stealth.

Thor and similar minded Vanir are an obstacle to that.

If they can blame the ship's destruction on Earth then that will also win over more Vanir to their plan.

Complicated = the Tok'ra.

The Asgard would exhaust every possible ethical avenue for a solution to the cloning problem including sharing Heimdall's research with allies like the Tok'ra.

Might the Tok'ra who are also on the verge of extinction have kept either Egeria's (their queen) body or even just some cells, with thoughts of cloning her?

Larval Goa'uld possess both genetic memory and a fully formed personality.

Minus a consciousness transfer, a clone wouldn't have Egeria's memories but would be as she was when she was spawned.

If they could convince her to turn good again they'd be able to continue as a race.

Fail and they might unleash a new Goa'uld terror on the galaxy.

They preserve her body but continue to regard cloning as unwise.

Some among the Vanir correctly guess this possibility and want to strike a deal with the Tok'ra for Heimdall's research.

Along with not making copies, another unthinkable application of Asgard consciousness transfer technology is overwriting an existing consciousness.

Would Egeria at death want the Tok'ra to survive and allow any use of her remains to that end?

Yes.

Would a newly cloned Egeria consent to her consciousness being overwritten by a Tok'ra?

No. She would be a Goa'uld.

Thor and others like him would object to that deal, with a good chance of successfully arguing for a slower alternative like first determining how to clone Egeria without her memories and personality.

A blank slate.

Egeria was able to spawn blank slate larvae and her method might provide clues for how to achieve the same with clones, but that would require time to determine.

The Tok'ra themselves?

While they regard possession by force as an abhorrent signature move of the Goa'uld who they despise, they also demonstrated flexibility on this point when asked to provide a symbiont to replace Ba'al in controlling Adria.

So it's a deal they might consider.

[ Main Image: Stargate SG-1 - Revelations - Jack (Richard Dean Anderson), Heimdall and Thor. Credit: MGM via IMDb.com. ]