Changes, changes, changes...

First off, don’t worry that this isn’t a “Part-Two” to the Evolution of Stargate Destiny. I’ll be making that article soon enough. In the meantime, I thought I’d update you guys on a couple changes…

Now, about three weeks ago, we came to the conclusion that the Caelum Galaxy is not a real galaxy. This presented a problem, obviously, so we embarked on a quest (oh yes, a quest) to find a new galaxy in which our series would be set. So, after a couple of days of thinking, we had narrowed it down to the Andromeda Galaxy or the Phoenix Galaxy. I wasn’t really happy with either of these, mostly because they were too close to the Milky Way. Too close? They’re millions and millions of light years away! Well, I decided that they were too close because one: it currently takes the Daedalus 18 days to travel between our galaxy and Pegasus galaxy, a rough distance of 3.2 million light years. For our show, we want the travel time between our galaxy and the one it takes place in to be about nine weeks, not tow and a half. And two, since our show is set ten years in the future, we would assume that hyper drive technology has advanced a great deal. So, through some calculations, which I’d rather not go into, we decided that our galaxy should be about 15 million light years from our own. Plus, since the hyper drive tech on the Destiny would be more advanced that on the Daedalus, we threw in an extra five million light years, just for good measure, bringing the distance to the Stargate: Destiny galaxy to approximately 20 million light years. The thing is, we really don’t know much of any galaxies that exist 20 million light years away. So we made up our own galaxy.

I have to admit, I rather like the fact that show takes place in galaxy we created ourselves. But we still needed a name. Then it hit me… the Orion Galaxy! It sounded so good! So, the Orion Galaxy was our new set, twenty million light years away from home, and nine weeks away for the Destiny crew.

Another change that I have not updated anyone on is how we use the Stargate on the Destiny. In one of my previous posts called “Stargate on a Ship”, I said that we would make it so that the Ancients gave each Stargate its own address, rather than giving a planet an address. This way, it wouldn’t matter where the gate was, even if it was on a ship, or in the middle of deep space. Well, that all changed a long time ago, actually. Now, I’m afraid I can’t really go into how we can use the Stargate on the Destiny, because it would give away spoilers into the Ancient backstory we’ve developed, but I can say that the process involves using a device in conjunction with a DHD. We find several of these devices in the pilot episode.

Well, I think those are the big two changes that we’ve made in the past weeks, but don’t worry, we change little things all the time. I would also like to post an updated episode list, and with them are the names of the writers working on them:

1.01 Providence, Part 1 - Geoff Hill
1.02 Providence, Part 2 - Geoff Hill
1.03 Friendly Fire - Geoff Hill
1.04 Behemoth - Adrian C. (Esquin)
1.05 Treasure Trove - Aaron P. (Elite Anubis Guard)

Also, I think I can give out the names of the mid season cliffhanger episodes:

1.10 Trouble in Paradise, Part 1
1.11 The Vennix, Part 2

They don’t really give that much insight into the plot, like the first few episodes, but hey. I really like what we’ve worked out for them, and I think it’ll be a great two-parter. Seeing that they are episodes 1.10 and 1.11, and they divide the season into halves, you might just be able to guess that we’re planning for 20 episodes this season, which end with a two-part finale. I won’t give anything away on the finale episodes, but I love them.

In other news, the Stargate: Horizon season two finale is less than a week away, and I can barely keep it together. Can’t wait to see what the premiere holds. Just finished my first week as a sophomore in high school, and I can’t say it’s that bad, but I shouldn’t get my hope up.

Unfortunately, as the school year starts, the time we have for writing is reduced a bit, but hopefully we’ll be able to compensate. Anyway, hope everyone is doing ok, and be sure to check out the official SGD forum at http://stargatedestiny.proboards55.com/index.cgi.

As always,
Geoff

The Evolution of Stargate Destiny, Part 1

Some fans of SGD reccomended that I do a post like this, and start a series explain how Stargate: Destiny came from what it was nearly a year ago, and what it is now. I'm not sure how many parts this will consist of, but there will be at least one more. Hope you enjoy it.

The first recognizable idea for Stargate: Destiny was conceived late in the summer of 2004. At this time, there was no plan to make it into a series, and it didn’t really even have a name. It was basically just a very, very rough idea for a ship-based series. As summer turned into fall, it began to slowly develop, and even got a name, although it was quite cheesy: Stargate: The Caelum Chronicles. Having compared notes from back then, and notes from the current Stargate: Destiny, it can clearly be seen that there are HUGE differences between then and now.

For instance, the original name for the ship in Stargate: The Caelum Chronicles was known as the Dauntless, and was basically an X-303. The series would’ve taken place in 2006 instead of 2015. It would’ve focused around General Barrows, the ship’s commanding officer, Major Fischer, the team leader, Daniel Jackson, who was soon replaced with Jonas, Tenaulos, an alien guide, and some other characters that I don’t even remember. After much criticism on GateWorld Forum, I decided to change a few things. For one, I changed the ship’s name to the Infinity, and changed the series name to fit the ship. With that, I had Stargate: Infinity. But with another post on GateWorld, I learned that there already had been a show known as Stargate: Infinity. This show was apparently not very good, and was animated. After learning this, I decided to once again change the name of the series, for fear that it would be confused with the already-existing Stargate: Infinity. But thing was, I didn’t really have another good name, so I changed it to a series with no name. Also for some reason, I decided to use three ships instead of one, with a total crew of close to 1000. These three ships were the Infinity, the lead battleship, the Prophecy, a science vessel, and the Destiny, a carrier.

In November of 2004, I found out about Stargate: Horizon, which was the first great virtual series that was made by a group of SG-1 fans. I thought it was really cool how SGH used actual scripts that were as long as the ones used for real episodes. As soon as the first episode premiered, I was hooked. It wasn’t long after that I started thinking, “What if I could do the same thing for my series, which doesn’t yet have a name?” It was a dream, but with only myself working on the project, it would’ve been darn near impossible to produce an entire series. Instead of going on and starting to write scripts, I really got to revising all of my ideas. At the time, I knew there were plenty of holes in my series without a name, so I set out on a quest to actually make the series sound believable.

So, looking forward to the Stargate: Horizon season 2 premire this month... and I got two pretty cool presents for my birthday: A 1GB Jump Drive and the DVD of Master and Commander. But I didn't get any checks from my team members, though...

Anyway, hope all goes well, and until next time,

Geoff

Another Update on Our Progress...

Hey there everyone, I realize it’s been a while since either EAG or I made a post here, so I’m here just to give another update on out progress with Stargate: Destiny.
Just lately, I finished the first draft of “Providence, Part 1”, which is the first part of the SGD pilot. I think that this episode turned out quite well, and I believe that it will be a great way to kick off the show. Right now, I’m on my way to finishing “Providence, Part 2”. ( Page 7 is on the way, right?). EAG (Aaron) has just started working on episode 1.05, which has been slated as “Treasure Trove”. I think this will be yet another great episode in the series. I will say that it has to do with what happened to some of the Ancients in the Caelum Galaxy. Adrian C., our third writer is on his way to finishing episode 1.04, called “Behemoth”, which deals with the main enemy of the series, the Malecathi. You’ll be surprised at the ending of this episode. Adrian and I thought it was actually kind of funny when we were first thinking of ways to end it. Terminus (Paul R.), our fourth writer, and beta reader, has been busy for the past week or so, but has promised to write 1.08 for us. I won’t give away the title of this episode, but I will say that it has many of the same elements as the episode “Wanderers”, which was scratched and replaced with this episode. We renamed it, well, because our new story for that episode didn’t really have anything to do with wandering at all. Our official concept artist, kirmit (Mike), is currently working on some sketches of the SGD team, and from his work that I’ve seen in the past, I think they will turn out pretty well. He has also said he will do some concept sketches of the Malecathi themselves, in addition to other things. We also have a part-time CG designer doing designs for us. His first work will be a 3D model of a Caelum Galaxy Stargate. Our CG designer is scorndrake, from the Stargate: The Alliance forum.


As for the forum, things are going very well. We currently have 14 members, which I think is pretty good for a forum about a show that hasn’t even premiered yet. Five of those fourteen are us staff, and the others are soon-to-be fans. EAG, our web admin and head administrator on the forum, has done a wonderful job with the forum, and it looks absolutely marvelous. Much of what you see in the forum design itself is his doing. (Great job, EAG). In addition to a section on Stargate: Destiny, we also have sections on the rest of the Stargate franchise, a Fan-Creations section, where you can find three more Stargate spin-offs, and much more. If you haven’t checked out the forum, do so at http://stargatedestiny.proboards55.com/index.cgi . You’ll find a lot of up to date information on the series there, as well as some art and designs.


As far as the website goes, we’re planning to launch it several weeks before the pilot episode premieres. It, also thanks to EAG, looks great so far, and will contain such pages as a cast and crew biography page, where you can find out about the production crew, and the cast of the virtual show, a BTS (behind the scenes) page, and image gallery, and a great links section, plus many more. As far as we know, the site will be known as stargatedestiny.net. We’ve found what we think is our potential hosting service, which is US based, and pretty cheap, too.

On a personal note, school starts up here on Tuesday, and I will be attending high school as a sophomore. Also, my birthday is this month, so just make your checks out to Geoff Hill. I saw the movie “Space Odyssey 2001” this week, and I have to say, it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

Concerning a premiere date for Stargate: Destiny, we, as of yet, don’t have an exact date, although we do think that SGD will premiere with “Providence, Part 1” sometime late this year, or early next year. When the pilot premieres, it will be released over two weeks, just like a normal two-parter.

Well, that’s pretty much it for now. I’ll get back to writing here. I’ll be back soon with another update.

Until next time,
Geoff