Why do you need better security measures when you can just self destruct the base for literally any reason?
I never really considered it, but the SGC is literally like having the front lines of a galactic (and occasionally intergalactic) war placed in the middle of America and the only thing they have defending it is a mechanical iris that’s open by default, operated by a beige IBM desktop, and regularly let’s people through with only a radio broadcast signal that could easily be recorded and then spoofed by anyone assuming they didn’t just take the device itself off the corpse of a soldier and just use it. They have a couple mounted guns and a small platoon of soldiers with p90s at the ready for any gate activations, but this is the only physical force against an enemy which carries personal force fields that effortlessly stops gunfire.
And at one point there was an entirely unguarded second gate that they found entirely by accident despite apparent seismic evidence noticed only afterwards. And the SGC itself is overrun, infiltrated, or nearly destroyed on like a dozen occasions. How the threat barely ever extended past Cheyanne Mountain is beyond me.
a radio broadcast signal that could easily be recorded and then spoofed by anyone assuming they didn’t just take the device itself off the corpse of a soldier and just use it.
Those issues could be alleviated by having daily codes or a codebook. Similar to how military radios work with loading encryption onto it you could do the same with the GDO.
They have that. The GDO is coded to each team and the codes are only good for a few days. It’s in part how they are able to say which team is trying to open the iris.
It should be a constantly updated code operating on an algorithm. Even 24 hours is too long. So much can go wrong in that time and invasions only take a foothold to get started.
They never cover it but the codes are probably one time use as well. I remember one of the early episodes SG1 is under tight time constrains because the GDO is going to be locked out soon. I think it’s one they recruit Teal’c but I’m not sure.
The first couple episodes they mention that. But I always assumed that meant the codes were on a per mission basis.
Then it doesn’t explain Cold Lazuras where jack comes back after everyone or when the evil team came through in the last season to nick the zpm.
I always assumed it worked like an actual garage door opener and had rolling codes.
I like that at the very least the sheer insanity of it all gets addressed with multiple attempts by individuals and agencies within the government trying to shut the program down specifically because of how risky it is.
Kinsey is written to be as unlikable as possible but his stated initial reasoning (at least at the beginning) of “this is both extremely risky and extremely expensive, shut it down” is a reaction that a lot of reasonable people would have.
Kinsey wasn’t wrong that changes needed to be made. He was wrong that the program needed to be shut down whole cloth. The fact of the matter was that they fucked up by using it in the first place but now that they are known and of interest to the Goa’uld, the option to just bury the gate is just gone. One could argue the value and risks of continued exploration, but at minimum an off world evacuation site was probably necessary and active security on on the Earth side was also necessary. Honestly, someone should have been Court Martialed and imprisoned for the botched job that was the first trip to Abydos. But besides that, what was done was done and the next steps needed to be taken and funded.
I’m sure, Hammond spared no expense.
Just coat the impenetrable Iris with Teflon and use a squeegee.
