INTRODUCTION TO GATERDOM
"As far as I'm concerned - you're ALL nutters" Matt G's Dad
"You are all certifiable" Brian Cooney, head honcho of Wolf Events
In defence of Gaterdom, I have to say that Brian was referring to those that dance to Star Trekking during Stargate conventions, not to all Gaters but that still leaves my Dad's accusation of insanity to deal with.
So, where do I start? Well my personal history with Gaterdom in any form started when Channel 4 were screening SG1 Season 1 for the first time (which was where I'd gotten into Gate full stop). Previously I'd posted on the Babylon 5 'thread' of Channel 4's message board, and so of course was keen to return to semi-familiar territory when I started getting into SG1. It was a decent place to get a toehold in SG1 fandom but I soon found out that C4 were messing the show about and when I found out about Sky One 'rerunning' the first 'three' seasons, at a rate of one ep per weekday...well, it certainly wasn't worth hanging around the Channel 4 board anymore!
So, while I was getting a daily diet of new (to me) SG1, my only real contact with Stargate fandom at all was through what is known as fanfiction. Fanfiction is basically fiction written by fans which pretty much every show with a half-decent online fandom has (though legend has it, fanfiction does actually predate the Internet with Star Trek and old school Doctor Who fans writing fanfiction for newsletters way back when). Anyway, the site I usually swung by to read fanfiction was (and still is) called Heliopolis
Fanfiction comes in many shapes and sizes. At one end of the scale you get 'songfics' aka events of a show that were rewritten so that they could be sung to music. Here's one I did earlier. At the other end of the scale you get epic series of stories which are written by absolutely amazing writers and various other lengths of story. And then you've got the types of story that turn up. Some straightforward character pieces, some 'Missing scene' pieces, some episode style pieces and some crossovers (take the characters of two shows, team them up together and see what the hell happens).
There are however two main subsections of fanfiction (in all shows) which largely operate separately to the rest of the fanfiction scene. These groups are called shippers and slashers. Shippers are fans that either desperately want two characters to 'get together' romantically or like to imagine that they've secretly already done so. The problem with that idea is that if this does actually happen in the real show the writers have a job not to have a dead show on their hands.
Slashers on the other hand, are every fandom's dirty secret, and any fan who is less than halfway warped doesn't touch this sort of stuff with a ten foot bargepole. Let's just say slashers are the real fantasists of fandom in one way or another.
Anyway - after a couple of years of my sole contact with SG1 being through fanfiction (of the saner type) I decided to do a bit of websurfing and found this place called Starguide - a very good source of SG1 information. Not long after the end of season 4 I went on to have a look at their Delphi message board. I can't remember the exact point where I really bonded with the people on there but I did . Starguide eventually turned into Gateworld, Gateworld turned into the premiere Stargate fan site, well known to all including The Powers That Be (TPTB for short).
Gateworlders can be a pretty straightforward and humorous bunch on the whole and rarely take the outside world too seriously (though admittedly, when this Mad World has intruded on to Gateworld things can get a bit fiery amongst some). Generally, though Gateworld is best thought of as a student kitchen where the residents can kick back and grab a virtual drink in most places.
This is not to say that Gateworld doesn't have some cliques though - who tend to get together in the 'Characters and Relationships' section. I generally pop my head round most of the character threads at one point or another be they straightforward discussion threads or 'Thunk' threads. What the hell is Thunk? Thunk is basically what happens when you see a particular hot member of whichever sex you're attracted to. So of course 'Thunk' threads are largely made up of pictures of actors along with appreciative comments.
In terms of actual character threads most of them are generally discussions of various mental and personality attributes. However there is one character thread that stands out from all the rest. What started out as the 'Sam's a Great character thread' has long ago turned into the Kingdom of Samanda, complete with Royal Court, motto of "Hic Comitas Regit" (here kindness reigns) and probably 10000 odd posts by now. The Samandans have since sent off the entire contents of the thread in both bound hardcopy and CD Rom form to actress Amanda Tapping along with a load of image manipulations and everything looking absolutely amazing! If by some complete fluke Amanda herself is reading this then please Amanda, pay these guys a visit and say 'hi'- I think they've earned it!
Gaterdom has still had its conflicts though. Three main ones come to mind. The first happened during a point where I had few dealings with the fandom myself but legend has it, it was immediately after the S4 episode 'Divide and Conquer' when Jack O'Neill's and Sam Carter's declaration of feelings for each other "divided and conquered the fans". Then when Daniel Jackson was written out of the show temporarily at the end of Season 5, the SaveDanielJackson campaign got started up in response and after Daniel was reinstated at the start of S7, a lot of people felt that both Jonas Quinn and actor Corin Nemec got given too rough a deal (as a result of the mess that conflict created, 'Daniel vs Jonas' is still a taboo topic on Gateworld). And finally the recent cast overhauls for both SG1 and Atlantis have caused some disturbances (more info on that elsewhere).
On a lighter note though...what happens when you take 1000-odd Gaters, stick them into a hotel for a weekend along with a few Stargate actors? The ultimate break from reality. Aka a Stargate convention.
My first Stargate 'con' was SG5, which at the last minute got switched from London to Blackpool (in northern England). SG6 was in the Radisson Hotel in Heathrow which, for me, was a busride away from home. From SG7 onwards, the 'Wolf' cons were at the Thistle Hotel, which is not QUITE as convenient (I need a cab rather than a bus to get there) and the food can't be relied upon either...but Brian seems to have done a good deal with them so that's where we'll be returning for SG10 in November.
Wolf SG cons generally work like this: on Friday, you have the opening ceremony during which any rookies get blown away by the buzz around the place. Sometimes the guests might come round to chat for a bit, sometimes they'll stick to the more exclusive cocktail party. Either way, after that you get the first of the con's raves which STILL have an otherworldly air about them (and no I'm not going to repeat the lyrics of our speciality version of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'). On Saturdays and Sundays you'll get the guests doing presentations, answering questions, signing autographs and generally being a lot more chilled than actors of other shows are supposed to be. Sleep is usually in short supply and it's always a bummer having to go back to dull/mad old reality but still...
However, there is a new player on the convention scene in the UK called L3. Having heard good things about what they did in London last year, I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the town of Bognor Regis in late November. Outside the UK, the mecca of Gaterdom has always been Vancouver where the Stargate shows are shot and 'Gatecon' the ultimate Stargate convention anywhere is held. But a new player is now in town in the form of 'Creation' the supposedly 'official tour' of SG conventions. They've recently added London to their hitlist but feedback on this new, more corporate player has been mixed. 'Rip-offs ahoy' has been the biggest complaint.
Overall though...nutters? Maybe. No lives? Some would say 'guilty as charged'. However they're the benign sort of nutters and for pretty much all of us to varying extents, if Gaterdom didn't exist (or if no scifi fandoms existed) then you'd have to invent something like it.
In short - I still wouldn't have Gaterdom any other way
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