Living ANCIENT: Revisiting Janus with Gildart Jackson (Dial the Gate)

[@vioreldumitrache3880]

Thanks, David, for bringing in a living, breathing, Ancient! By the way, he looks the same as two decades ago...Ok, maybe a little less hair...But he seems to have experimented the time machine on himself.

[@thanksfernuthin]

Good question. When I thought "Who was Janus?" my immediate reply was "He was the most human of the Ancients." He seemed to have more of the compassion and curiosity of humans that seemingly faded from the Ancients as a whole. He understood how important everything was. He understood everything more than humans or Ancients alike. But he would do what he could to help some lowly descendants. [edit: Thanks to Mr. Jackson's excellent work.]

[@johnassal5838]

Janus was a putz. Brilliant, even for an ancient but utterly childish. These Lanteans in general were clearly not their best and this was probably literally true as in most of their very best would've Ascended before becoming leaders or senior researchers. The rest, mostly the dregs are either extremely unimaginative or totally unmanageable and unserious putzes like Janus. Morris was probably an exception sticking around out of a sense of duty and obligation probably precisely because the others were the Ancient equivalent of Idiocracy and they needed all the help they could get. Which explains how things in Pegasus could go so wrong. Just consider that there was zero reason to think that Merris would object to the plan of returning Weir to her time "the long way around." Janus made it a game because he's a child and he needed to feel like he was getting away with something. In all likelihood Merris knew exactly what they were up to, was totally fine with it and pretended he didn't know only so Janus might stay occupied and not get into some other shenanigans.

[@SveinJohnnyFedje]

Loved the character. Should have been a lot more with him!

[@OrganizeCreateDecorate]

Great interview, David. Thanks.

[@StevenHouse1980]

I liked the idea that we came first and after a time travel event at some future point. Some of our version of humans ended up going back and becomeing the first of the Ancients.

[@johnsheppard8684]

Awesome interview. Ty both

[@alan_whoneedstiedye]

Fun interview, thank you.

[@Optimus888Amicus]

Hello, Everyone ! 🌞😉👍 Thank you very much for video, interview and conversation ! Have a Great, Happy, Sunny Day !

[@CodeLeeCarter]

I really loved the Janus character and I believe #GildartJackson was a great choice, Plus, I think it would have been awesome if Janus returned through time to Atlantis with some ZPMs.

[@HDL_CinC_Dragon]

Since it didn't happen in the show, I think now it would be hilarious if someone made a short skit where he just pops into Atlantis with a bunch of ZPMs like "I think you'll be needing these" and just immediately dips out with Rodney and Beckett just staring in disbelief lol

[@WW-wf8tu]

Excellent questions there my man.

[@brentbarr498]

11:27 It's beautiful BECAUSE we continually STRIVE for something BETTER! Those futures that we are entertained with by shows like the Star Gate franchise, Star Trek and ALL of it's progeny, Dr Who, FarScape, Serenity, Blake 7, Red Dwarf, etc.. WE CHOOSE to hope and dream of a BETTER FUTURE than what the media shows us on a daily basis!! The hate, the wars, the bickering and fighting seem endless and pointless! These shows have given technology! These shows have given us HOPE! Let the HOPE survive and thrive!!

[@carolynpinkerton7380]

I never thought about that with Reese. But why not? It's something that Janus could, and would, do. And the replicators. They were toys for Reese. He would have had no idea what they could turn into.

[@LJGrindewald]

You might recognise him from Charmed as well 😃 he played the Elder Gideon at magic school in season 6. He had more episodes on Charmed. I wish he'd had more ok Stargate Atlantis or even appear in a pod in universe as we don't actually know what happened to him. Whether he ascended or not.

[@matthewwood3394]

He stole that episode, and it led to one of my next with Daniel and Rodney looking for his lab.

[@varghessmith2985]

Janus in Ancient worlds is like Loki in Azgard worlds !

[@MarkGast]

Janus, the only known Ancient with a sense of humor.

[@arnaudgerard1971]

Gideon :)

[@surtvalheim]

Did the ZPM found in Egypt was placed there by Janus to help Atlantis expedition ?

[@marvhollingworth663]

I don't think Janus or any other Ancient built Reece. Where's the evidence of it? The Ancients built the Peguasus Replicators, but they're not related. I also thought SG 1 used a different timeship that Janus built in the Milky Way, but I could be wrong about that 1.

[@GateWorldDotNet]

It's a bit of a speculative connection, but when the Asurans are introduced in Season 3 the team talks about them as "Replicators." They operate the same way, they do the whole hand-in-the-head thing, and they proved vulnerable to the same nanite disruptor weapons from the Milky Way. The Pegasus Replicators are also much older. Since we never found out anything about Reese's "father," the notion is that *someone* with knowledge of the Replicators turned up in the Milky Way and build her with a fundamental knowledge of Replicator base code. She in turn made her "toys," but inside each of those blocks was the same programming ... so that, thanks to the time they got after reversing the Asgard time dilation device, the Replicators had the ability to evolve into the same nanite, humanoid form their ancestors back in Pegasus had. It's definitely speculative, but I think it all holds together. And the writers' deliberate connection between the two groups of Replicators suggests something like this, if not this exactly.

[@marvhollingworth663]

@@GateWorldDotNet I disagree. I think it's convergent evolution of a technological nature. It's natural to compare new things to things that we already know that are similar. It was Rodney who 1st called the synthetic people in Pegasus Replicators because he was familiar with the similar "species" in the Milky Way. That doesn't mean they're related, people have misnamed a lot of things. For example, millions of people have said koala bear. That doesn't make it a bear, it's a marsupial. There are differences between the 2 types of Replicators. The Milky Way Replicators, born from Reece & named Replicators by the Asgard, were given the primary command to replicate. The Pegasus variety were given primary commands to fight the Wraith & to not harm the Lanteans. Also, as far as we know, the Pegasus Replicators never had a metallic quadruped form. (Even Milky Way Replicators are not metal spiders, spiders are arachnids & have 8 legs. See what I mean about misnaming, or mis-describing in this case?) It's not impossible for them to be related, but I don't think we should jump to that conclusion without evidence. That's not how good science is done.

[@GateWorldDotNet]

@@marvhollingworth663 I don't disagree at all. You're right that the connection is entirely speculative -- on David's part, and on McKay's part in "Progeny." The show's writers, however, wrote them as "Replicators" because they intended for viewers to draw the connection, even if they never explained how such a connection was possible. It's not right to say that Reese's father is *probably* a Lantean who was part of the evacuation in "Before I Sleep"; but it is possible. It's a workable hypothesis, but (now that Stargate is off the air) one we can't probe further apart from commentary from the show's writers.

[@alifrizuan7480]

I can see Janus right away from this interview. Some characters can be totally different that the actor who played it but not this one.