Hmmmmm

[brainofck]

So, at the beginning, the USAF had the six glyphs for Abydos, but couldn't figure out the point of origin.

Thus, they needed many Egyptologists, and finally had to recruit Daniel Jackson.

Um.

I wonder how long it would have taken just to use trial and error to dial the same six glyphs, plus each of the other 83 glyphs, one at a time, til they got it?

Probably quicker than the two weeks or so it took Daniel to figure it out. Definitely quicker than it took their combined team of Egyptologists to work on it before they called Daniel in.

Jeez. Maybe there was a problem with the ventilation system under the mountain or something that made them all stupid...

Comments

[wyldestarr.livejournal.com]

*giggles* This is one of those things where you just pet script-writers on the head and go, "That's nice, dear." They couldn't figure out how to get Daniel there any other way for some reason. Besides, some of them ARE engineers...a breed not exactly known for common sense. ;) Why don't you write us a 'why it took them so long'?

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

I don't think they actually knew there were supposed to be seven. The cartouche had the six glyphs all nicely contained, and who cares about that little decorative thingie. I don't think they knew it was for "six points in space plus point of origin" until Daniel figured it out -- they were all a little gobsmacked when he presented, like it was the first time they'd seen it. I think they just knew it did something, and maybe was a doorway to something (heaven), but didn't grasp the mechanics.

(Of course if they hadn't buried the video of the first Langford/Littlefield experiments... And let's just handwave how they managed to light upon seven, in a combination that actually went somewhere and hadn't been lost to stellar drift yet.)

[lt-kitty.livejournal.com]

Obviously the first team of researchers happened upon it by accident, but I think it was more likely that they didn't actually know they need 7. I mean, here they've got six symbols that whirr and light up and don't do anything. I'd think they would start with reordering those 6 glyphs, or trying out patterns of one clockwise from the glyph on the coverstone or something like that. And while they figured out that part of the code might be missing where it broke, they couldn't know that it was one single glyph, or two, or a code for figuring out how to get the first six to work.

[lt-kitty.livejournal.com]

"They" being the second group, the ones in the movie.