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Jennifer Fallon's Blog
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31-Jul-2007
Bad authors... evil authors...
Well, we knew it was going to happen, but when it did, it came from a completely unexpected direction. Sonny and I were anticipating flack from some Roswell conspiracy theorists who thought we were missing some vital detail, or hijacking their story, or something like that, when we included the Roswell aliens story in our Stargate novel.
 But no. We are getting hammered because, apparently, when we wrote Stargate SG-1: Roswell, we forgot Daniel Jackson's birthday. Now, as a rule Stargate fans are a prety nice bunch of intelligent, good-natured, scifi-loving souls with a keen eye for the absurd (which is why they occasionally make episodes with puppets in them...hehehe) But not all of them are quite so laid back. Currently, some rabidly enthusiastic Daniel fans have been posting complaints on Gateworld, lamenting our heinous oversight. Our crime... "...why an author would chose a date particularly resonant to one character and then completely ignore it. Just because it hadn't happened yet in that time line doesn't make it any less the date of Daniel's birth which obviously had happened in the timeline he and Jack were still living because he was there. In terms of writing I found it very jarring because I spent the next few pages waiting for a pay off that never happened. It's like that old advice to mystery writers about if you put a gun in the room in chapter one you had darned better use it at some point.." So today, instead of doing anything remotely useful with my life, I spent the morning proving that July 8, 1965 is not Daniel Jackson's birthday, after all.Our defence... Firstly, July 8, 1947, as has been previously stated several times, was the date a newspaper first carried the story of an alien craft found in Roswell. We didn't chose the date for any other reason. Secondly... when the issue of the dates came up during the writing of Roswell, we consiously decided stay away from whether or not it was Daniel's birthday. Just because he said it was, doesn't make it so. In 1969, Daniel claims to be 4 and a half when they are there. But therein lies the problem. They land in 1969 on August 4th (I remember that because that's my birthday). Daniel, if his DOB was July 8, would have just turned 4, just three and a bit weeks earlier. If this was the case, he'd not be 4 and a half at all. He would be only just 4. You could forgive a discrepancy of months, but not of that much. So, take your pick, either he was lying in 1969, or in he was confused and only just conscious in "Forever and a Day" the episode where he nominates Jul 8th as his birthday. I'm going with the latter. In fact, July 8 is probably not his birthday... According to the script from the episode, the conversation goes as follows... DOCTOR - Hey... How do you feel? So... do we really want to slow the entire story of Roswell down while we investigate this entirely irrelevant issue? Of course not, because, bottom line, it is not certain that July 8 1965 is Daniel's birthday, and therefore we decided not to go there. As Sonny said, during our discussions, "Birthdays aren't just about cake and candles, you know." A couple of hours of my life I'll never get back. And it turns out there wasn't a gun in the room, after all... And for the record, I love Daniel Jackson. Even when it's not his birthday:)
Comments
I haven't read the book yet and I don't know all the events that take place in the book, but speaking for myself, in the humdrummery of my life, I have forgotten my OWN birthday for the past four years in a row!! These people need to get on with the important things in life like, did Sam and Jack get together at the end of season eight???
Which is why I am never to even CONSIDER writing a media tie-in.
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