Sandra Whitelaw Thesis
The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense: Resolving Cognitive Estrangement in Stargate through the Technologising of Mythology Sandra Whitelaw BA (University of Sydney) A novel and exegesis submitted for the requirements of the Masters of Arts (Research) Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology 2007 i Key Words Technologising mythology, cognitive estrangement, verisimilitude, fallacy, ontology, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, media tie-ins, media novels, mythology, science fiction television, SF, genre television, alien gods, extraterrestrial gods, cults, familiarisation, defamiliarisation, refamiliarisation, Lovecraft, Velikovsky, Hubbard, von Däniken, Sitchin, Campbell, Devlin, Emmerich. ii Abstract The thesis consists of the novel, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis (Whitelaw and Christensen, 2006a) and an accompanying exegesis. The novel is a stand-alone tie-in novel based on the television series Stargate Atlantis (Wright and Glassner), a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1 (Wright and Cooper) derived from the movie Stargate (Devlin and Emmerich, 1994). Set towards the end of the second season, Stargate Atlantis: Exogenesis begins with the discovery of life pods containing the original builders of Atlantis, the Ancients. The mind of one of these Ancients, Ea, escapes the pod and possesses Dr. Carson Beckett. After learning what has transpired in the 10,000 years since her confinement, the traumatised Ea releases an exogenesis machine to destroy Atlantis. Ea dies, leaving Beckett with sufficient of her memories to reveal that a second machine, on the planet Polrusso, could counter the effects of the first device. When the Atlantis team travel to Polrusso, what they discover has staggering implications not only for the future of Atlantis but for all life in the Pegasus Galaxy.
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