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"Sam Carter" redirects here. For the character in Deus Ex, see Major Deus Ex characters § Sam Carter.Colonel Samantha "Sam" Carter is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, played by English-Canadian actress Amanda Tapping.
Concept and creation
Casting
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Characteristics
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Character arc
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Samantha Carter, born December 29, 1968, joined Stargate Command from the Pentagon, having worked for several years trying to get the Stargate operational. She has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and "logged over 100 hours in enemy airspace" during the 1990–91 Gulf War.
Sam's family includes her father, Major General Jacob Carter, her brother, Mark Carter, and his two children. Her mother died in a car accident when she was a teenager, an incident that caused much strife between Sam, Mark, and Jacob.
Carter is a technological polymath, well versed in seemingly dozens of fields from astrophysics to quantum mechanics and from software engineering to biology, all in addition to her military role. She is the series' primary source of deus ex machina solutions, quickly able to grasp alien technologies and realize ingenious solutions to the perils faced by SG-1 no matter where. She designed and administrates the Stargate dialing system, and is one of the foremost experts on the Stargate system, along with Rodney McKay.
Carter is a quintessential "geek": an expert and intuitively talented individual, whose mastery of advanced scientific disciplines is juxtaposed with her difficulties in leading a "normal" life. She spends her free time and leave performing experiments, pouring over data, and studying the alien technologies acquired during missions. She enjoys and is deeply absorbed in her work, much to the bewilderment of O'Neill, though he has stated that her brain may well be a national resource. She occasionally expresses regret at not being able to pursue interests outside her work, but finds herself unable to let go of her intellectual passions.
Events of Stargate: SG-1
Amanda Tapping was part of the Stargate SG-1 main cast in all of its ten seasons. She did however not appear in Season 6's "Disclosure" and Season 7's "Inauguration" except for in clips from previous episodes, Season 8's "Prometheus Unbound", "Avalon (Part 2)", "Origin", "The Ties That Bind" and "The Powers That Be of Season 9 because of Tapping's maternity leave, and "Bad Guys" of Season 10.
Seasons 1-3 - Captain Carter
Carter joined SG-1 in the pilot episode, "Children of the Gods", as a Captain. She was once engaged to Captain Jonas Hansen, seen in the episode "The First Commandment".
In "Children of the Gods," she stated she played with Major Matt Mason dolls when she was a girl, which is clearly visible in the season three episode The Devil You Know, while under the influence of a narcotic called the "Blood of Sokar."
In the episode "In the Line of Duty", Sam came under the control of the Tok'ra Jolinar while aiding in the evacuation of the Nasyan people, as they had come under Goa'uld attack. Jolinar was later killed by an Ashrak sent by Cronus while being held captive by Stargate Command.
Sam retained many of Jolinar's memories and in the episode "The Tok'ra", those memories allowed SG-1 to travel to a Tok'ra base and gain their first true ally in the fight against the Goa'uld. Samantha Carter's father, Jacob Carter, a general dying of cancer, became a host to one of the Tok'ra. Because of this, Jacob and the Tok'ra Selmak were able to serve as the liaison between Earth and the Tok'ra.
Sam's encounter with Jolinar now assists her in detecting a Goa'uld presence. Having naqahdah in her blood, she has also been able to use certain Goa'uld technology that is designed to be used only by the Goa'uld, such as the Healing Device and Hand Device.
Due to the remnants of Jolinar, Sam was left with a specific chemical marker only present in ex-hosts, which made her immune to Machello's Goa'uld-killing invention in the episode "Legacy".
Seasons 3-8 - Major Carter
She was promoted to the rank of Major in the third-season episode "Fair Game".
In the Season 4 premiere "Small Victories," Sam is taken to the Asgard homeworld by Thor, there to help him save his own world from Replicator attack; she succeeds by using a "stupid idea" - something the Asgard were no longer capable of thinking of.
Sam and Jack are mistakenly thought to be Zatarcs because they are found to be concealing something. Ultimately, they admit, in the episode "Divide and Conquer" that what they are concealing is that they care for one another "a lot more than supposed to", with an implication that they have romantic feelings for one another that they suppress in order to continue working together.
In the episode "Prodigy," Sam's intelligence is rivaled by an arrogant cadet who is impatient with those she considers to be not as intelligent as she. Sam and SG-1 bring her off world and show her that being right is not always the most important thing when lives are at stake.
In the episode "Entity," Sam has her entire consciousness transferred into a super computer and back into her body when an alien entity takes over her mind. In the end it leaves her to protect the rest of its kind.
In the last episode of the season, "Exodus Part 1," Sam and her father use a stargate to blow up a sun, which results in the destruction of much of Apophis' fleet.
While studying an alien device on a seemingly abandoned planet, Sam is suddenly knocked unconscious, apparently due to stress. She is given some leave, but when she returns home a man calling himself Orlin shows up in her house. He explains to her that he is a being who long ago ascended to a higher plane of existence; he has fallen in love with her and taken human form. He was exiled on the abandoned planet as punishment from other ascended beings, for giving the device to the inhabitants of the planet, which unintentionally resulted in the destruction of the entire civilization. The Ascended must follow a strict code of conduct that prohibits interference in the lives of the unascended. When Orlin learns that the SGC is planning on activating the device, he builds a mini-Stargate in Sam's basement, returns to an ascended form, and destroys the device.
After Daniel Jackson ascends to a higher plane to escape dying of radiation poisoning (Meridian), Sam is the one most affected by his loss; she hates the fact that they can't even have a memorial service for Daniel as they aren't sure if he's truly gone.
While attempting to reverse the Asgard time device placed on Halla to stop the Replicator invasion, Sam and SG-1 are captured by humanoid replicators. She has a particular bond with the humanoid replicator named Fifth, arguing that he is more human than the others, with ethics, empathy, and feelings. She convinces Fifth to help them escape the others, and for him to follow. She resets the time device to slow time down so that a few seconds to the replicators will actually be about two years to the rest of the universe. Colonel O'Neill secretly tells her to begin the slowdown sooner than planned, so that Fifth is frozen in time with the others, who are angry at his betrayal, as he is in turn angry at Sam's betrayal.
After spending several days trapped on the Prometheus, Carter finds herself trapped in a sentient gas cloud ("Grace"), which communicates with her via hallucinations. Thanks to these hallucinations, she realises that she has been using her feelings for O'Neill as an excuse to not explore other romances; he was a safe object for her affections, because they could never act on them due to military protocol. With this in mind, she begins dating Pete Shanahan (played by David DeLuise) in the second half of Season 7. She finds it hard not to disclose her job to him. What makes it harder is the fact that he is a Police Detective. He eventually finds out by secretly following Sam around and witnessing (SG-1's) confrontation outside Daniel Jackson's house with Osiris.
After the death of Dr. Janet Fraiser, Sam has the honor of giving the eulogy at the memorial service. She spends hours trying to find the right words, but with help from Teal'c, the eulogy ends up being composed of the names of the many people whom Dr. Frasier saved during her time at the SGC, beginning with Sam herself.
Seasons 8-10 - Lieutenant Carter
When seeking Thor's help to save Colonel Jack O'Neill from the Ancient Knowledge in his mind, she is captured by the humanoid replicator Fifth and tortured as revenge for leaving him frozen in time on Othala. She wakes up to find herself on a farm in rural Montana, living with Pete Shanahan. It is, however, a simulation created by Fifth to attempt to convince her to stay with him. After she admits that she would rather die than be trapped in such a way, he releases her and escapes into space as SG-1 and the Asgard find a way to combat the replicators. Shortly thereafter, Fifth welcomes a new humanoid replicator into existence—one seemingly identical to Sam (known commonly as 'RepliCarter').
Upon his promotion to Brigadier General in the eighth season, Jack O'Neill's first official act is to promote Carter to Lieutenant Colonel. She assumes command of SG-1, which only had three official members without O'Neill: Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, and Sam herself.
Later in the season, RepliCarter, now commanding the Replicators after the destruction of Fifth, kidnaps Daniel Jackson in an effort to protect herself from any remaining Ancient technology, the locations of which lie locked in the formerly ascended Daniel Jackson's mind. After a brief mental struggle, Daniel takes control of the Replicators long enough to allow the real Samantha Carter to activate a powerful Ancient weapon that destroys all of the Replicators in the galaxy, including the Carter Replicator.
Selmak dies of old age, taking his host, Samantha's father, Jacob, with him, shortly after the defeat of the System Lords and victory of the Jaffa over their Goa'uld enslavers. Uncertain about her feelings, Sam breaks up with Pete, and subsequently goes fishing with Jack, Daniel and Teal'c to celebrate the end of their struggle with Anubis. Jack had repeatedly asked Carter to go fishing with him, especially during the fourth season, but this is the first time they actually go together.
Although Carter herself strongly objects to the idea, SG1—in an Ancient Timeship—travel back in time to 3000 BC in order to acquire a ZPM from Egypt. Unfortunately, when the cloaked jumper's position is revealed to Ra's Jaffa, SG-1 becomes trapped in the past, the timeline becomes contaminated, and the future is altered. SG-1 records a video detailing these events, hoping it will fall into the hands of the Stargate program in the future. The alternate Samantha is mousy and unaggressive, and is an assistant to an inferior physicist who steals her research. But with the help of herself and the other alternate SG-1 members, she is able to incite the famous rebellion that ousted Ra, bury the Earth Stargate, and restore the timeline. The ZPM is then buried and is uncovered a few weeks before the mission would have begun, and SG-1 then never needs to go on the mission ("Moebius").
After the collapse of the Goa'uld power structure, Carter leaves SG-1 to work at Area 51, much to the chagrin of the new leader of SG-1, Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell. However, (now-Major General) Jack O'Neill orders her to go to the SGC to assist Mitchell, Daniel Jackson, and Teal'c on a mission concerning a potential Ori threat ("Beachhead"), though still not officially a member of SG-1. However, during the search for Ba'al, Mitchell gives Carter (as well as Teal'c and Daniel) an SG-1 badge, officially reinstating her into SG-1 as Mitchell's 2IC ("Ex Deus Machina"). At this time, NID Agent Malcolm Barrett's interest in her becomes clear; however, when he asks her if she is still single, she responds rather evasively with the words "not exactly," leading to speculation that she and O'Neill are carrying on an illicit affair on the down low. In any case, she and Dr. Bill Lee develop a method of using sound waves to negate the powers of the Priors of the Ori. Having been tested on the Prior trying to convert the Sodan, the prototype is deemed a success, with a minor drawback; eventually a prior is able to overcome the device. ("The Fourth Horseman").
When multiple SG-1 teams arrive from parallel universes, Colonel Carter works with Dr. Lee, alternate universe versions of herself, and the Asgard Kvasir on a way to get them all back. She encounters an alternate universe Martouf, a Tok'ra who had been Jolinar's lover, and who Carter was strongly attracted to, but who died in her reality. She finds that in another reality, she is with someone else and is on maternity leave. She is successful in returning the other teams to their own universes, with the aid of one of her alternate counterparts, who had deliberately staged the whole event just to steal a ZPM ("Ripple Effect").
Carter accidentally triggers a device of Merlin's that they found in Avalon, which shifts herself and Colonel Mitchell out of phase with the rest of the universe—they can see and hear everyone, but no one can see them, and they can't touch anything. Ultimately, she and Daniel discover that the device is part of Merlin's secret research: to find a weapon capable of destroying Ascended beings ("Arthur's Mantle"). They discover a gate address that they hope will lead them to the device.
With news that the Ori crusade in the Milky Way is about to begin, SG-1 travels to that gate address, which turns out to be Camelot, to find Merlin's device, which is later revealed to be the legendary Sangraal. It is not a chalice, though; it is a pendant stone. The search has to be cut short after the Odyssey beams them up with the disturbing news that the Ori supergate is complete. They travel to a rallying point for the combined Tau'ri, Tok'ra, Jaffa, Asgard and Lucian Alliance fleets near the Ori's new Supergate. Carter beams out to one of the gate's modules to install a modified Ancient control crystal that would allow Kvasir to dial out with the gate before the Ori can dial in, thus blocking them. However, the supergate activates before she can finish and four Ori ships come through the wormhole. She is forced to watch helplessly as the Ori destroy all but the heavily damaged Odyssey and Lucian Alliance flagship; leaving Carter floating alone in space with only a few hours of air left in her suit.
Carter is retrieved by the Odyssey ("Camelot", "Flesh and Blood"). She continues her work with SG-1 to fight the Ori as well as to fend off schemes hatched by Ba'al, the Trust, and the Lucian Alliance. In "Line in the Sand", Carter is seriously injured by an Ori soldier while in the midst of testing Merlin's phase-shifting device (from "Arthur's Mantle") by hiding a village from the Ori. She is ultimately able to successfully use the device to hide herself and Cameron Mitchell.
When further experimenting with the phase-shifting technology, she is accidentally transported to an alternate universe in which the Goa'uld threat caused the US government to publicly reveal the SGC's existence several years earlier ("The Road Not Taken"). Carter successfully uses Merlin's device on a planetary scale to hide Earth from the Ori and, bolstered by the victory, President Hank Landry refuses to let her go back to her own reality. Chafing under the draconian restrictions on civil liberties as well as on her own research into parallel universes, Carter eventually enlists the help of her ex-husband in this reality, Rodney McKay, to help her get back, and is able to show Landry a bit of the error of his ways.
In the series finale, "Unending", General Landry and SG-1 are summoned in the Odyssey by the Asgard, who reveal that they are dying and intend to commit mass suicide immediately after transferring their entire collected knowledge to the Tau'ri. However, the plan is nearly foiled by the arrival of the Ori, and an Ori ship fires a beam weapon at the Odyssey, which will destroy it. In order to save the Asgard database and themselves, Carter establishes a time dilation field around the Odyssey—time outside the ship flows normally but time inside the Odyssey is radically sped up, effectively making years pass oboard relative to fractions of a second outside. With crew members having already beamed away from the ship, SG-1 and General Landry are trapped on the ship. It turns out that the Ori were able to track the Odyssey through hyperspace because of the new technology installed by the Asgard before they killed themselves. Carter tries to use the extra time she has bought them to find a way to save them, but to no avail. Confined to the ship, Carter eventually spends her time learning to play the cello (synthesized using the new Asgard technology) when not re-thinking their hyperdrive predicament. She finally figures out a way, but 50 years have passed aboard the ship and its ZPM no longer has enough power to implement the solution. Taking a suggestion from Col. Mitchell, Carter devises a plan to reverse the time dilation field by allowing the Odyssey to be destroyed and effectively sending an aged Teal'c back in time to deliver the hyperdrive solution, so none of SG-1, save Teal'c, will have any memory of their 50 years trapped on the Odyssey.
Events of Stargate: Atlantis
Season 1-3 - Recurring
Samantha Carter makes several appearances in Stargate Atlantis while she is a main character in Stargate SG-1. In "Letters from Pegasus", a Season 1 episode of Atlantis, the Atlantis team has an opportunity to send a very brief data transmission to Earth. The "intergalactic e-mail" is successfully sent to Stargate Command and received by Lt. Colonel Carter. When Dr. McKay is trapped underwater in a sinking Puddle Jumper in Season 2's "Grace Under Pressure", his only chance for survival may be a hallucination of Samantha Carter. In Season 3's "McKay and Mrs. Miller", Lt. Colonel Carter approaches Jeannie Miller, Dr Rodney McKay's sister, with an offer to work for the SGC.
Season 4 - Main Cast
Amanda Tapping became a member of the Atlantis main cast for 14 episodes of Season 4. She did not appear in "Travelers", "Missing", "Miller's Crossing", "This Mortal Coil", "Spoils of War" and "Harmony".
Sometime after returning from Orilla, Carter is promoted to a "full bird" Colonel. Initially transferred to the Midway space station to oversee the final stages of completion with Dr. Lee, she joins the search for the missing Atlantis onboard the Apollo. Both return to Atlantis with Sheppard's team, after having rescued them from Asuras, and are present during the city's uneasy landing on M35-117.
Shortly afterwards, the IOA appoints Carter as the new commander of the Atlantis expedition. In contrast to Weir, Carter - as both a scientist and a USAF Colonel - was far more capable of transcending the scientist/military bridge; this helped avoid several of the difficulties that Weir experienced with the military. Her command is generally non-intrusive to the expedition's scientists or Sheppard's position as military commander. She clearly respects Sheppard and assured him that, although she was ultimately chosen over him and McKay, his name was on a "short list". Carter is also far less hostile to Rodney McKay than she was during the mission to block the Ori supergate from the Pegasus Galaxy; likely part of an attempt to "start over" given that they would be working closely.
Her first mission on Atlantis involved a search and rescue operation after Sheppard's team were betrayed by several Satedan survivors-turned-Wraith worshippers. Carter personally commanded the operation, giving her the opportunity to bond with Ronon following a rocky introduction.
After her return to Atlantis an alarming number of disease outbreaks began to occur. During the crisis in which a crystaline entity had taken hold of dreams, Carter recalled a similar incident with Jack O'Neill ten years prior. She was saddened to announce the death of Dr. Kate Heightmeyer to the expedition but understandably relieved after McKay and Sheppard expelled the lifeform. Only a few weeks later, a kearson fever outbreak caused amnesiatic effects for most of the expedition members (except Ronon and Teyla, who were immune) and Carter was one of the civilians confined to the Mess Hall by expedition soldiers under Major Lorne's command. She managed to escape with McKay and Zalenka, free Teyla and help defuse the situation once Ronon and Sheppard arrived with a cure.
Three months after she took her position, Carter was up for review with the IOA. Shortly after Richard Woolsey arrived to conduct it, the Wraith Todd contacted the Atlantis expedition with a dire situation. The Replicators had devised a new tactic in their war against the Wraith to exploit their key weakness; they had begun to systematically exterminate human civilizations throughout the galaxy to wipe out the Wraith's food supplies. This, combined with a vision of Atlantis being destroyed by an Aurora class warship shared with her by the Videnan leader Davos, made Carter extremely skeptical about working with the Wraith. After meeting Todd in person, she worked out a tenuous deal to help him - and the orbiting Wraith hive ship loyal to him - refine the Wraith anti-Replicator virus to shut down the attack code. This eventually descended into chaos when another hive ship arrived, forcing Carter to make a dangerous gambit and delay firing on either ship. She turned out to be lucky; two hive ships started firing on each other rather than on the cloaked Atlantis.
With Todd still on base, she ordered McKay and Todd to continue with their work. Their lucky break came when duplicates of Weir, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon and McKay provided a core drive of a Replicator ships-tracking system, before being hunted down and killed by the Replicators. Their arrival did put Carter's fears about Davos' vision to rest; the Atlantis she saw destroyed was also a copy, created by Niam's sect of non-violent Replicators.
Now that the expedition had the ability to track all of Oberoth's Aurora-class vessels in the Pegasus galaxy within a 30-minute window, Carter ordered missions to evacuate all human colonies in the Replicators' path. A delay occured on least one mission and, as a result, Lieutenant Kemp's team and the 2,000 inhabitants on one planet were lost. While these missions were taking place, the Apollo and Daedalus were outfitted with the new Asgard plasma energy beam weapons and deployed to Atlantis (possibly with ZPMs onboard). Along with Colonels Sheppard, Ellis and Caldwell, Carter agreed that the only currently available solution was to hunt down Replicator ships and destroy them, and was adamant that they proceed immediately. She was present on the Daedalus bridge during at least one of those missions.
The Replicators quickly changed strategy and marshalled their fleet in orbit of their homeworld. When McKay presented his new plan of forcing the Replicators into a super-dense blob, she was slightly skeptical about creating Replicator cells, although not so much as Sheppard. Frustrated by failure, Rodney took the initiative to create a stripped-down human form replicator dubbed Fran (friendly Replicator android). Carter voiced her concerns about knowing sending a sentient being to her death, although she eventually conceded that the ends justified the means.
Once a combined fleet composed of the Daedalus, Apollo, seven Wraith Hive ships and several Traveller ships (including Larrim's Aurora class vessel) had been assembled, Carter again took station on the Daedalus bridge monitoring the ship sensors. She offered her technical expertise when McKay's plan encountered difficulties, noticing that the land around the blob was rich in Neutronium. This gave McKay the inspiration he needed to finish the plan, allow the blob to sink to the core and destroy the planet. The Daedalus and the fleet jumped to safety prior to the explosion.
A few months later Carter found herself trapped in a transporter with Zalenka when the city was placed in automatic lockdown. Although this turned out to be a malfunction in Rodney's new viral outbreak protocols, she later hinted that she did not enjoy spending those three hours with Zalenka. She was also the one who delivered to Sheppard news of his father's death, allowing him time to return to Earth.
Carter joined Doctors McKay and Keller in travelling to a planet for negotiations when they fell into an abandoned Genii mine. She suffered a leg injury after two failed attempts to escape, but quickly recovered in the Atlantis infirmiry in time for a set of IOA interviews initiated by a new US representative. Concerned about Ronon's success in these interviews, she invited Teal'c to come to Atlantis to coach him. This culminated in an hour long "sparring session" between the two wherein most expedition members were placing bets. Carter was not amused and broke it up immediately upon entering.
Season 5 - Recurring
For as yet unknown reasons, Carter will be reassigned and will no longer be Commander of the Atlantis expedition. As this season is also supposed to have the involvement of Daniel Jackson, it is suspected that the two SG-1 teammates will be reunited in Atlantis.
Development
Over the course of the two series, a number of men are in love with, infatuated with, or attracted to, Carter. This includes Jack O'Neill, Martouf, Rodney McKay, Fifth, Orlin, Agent Malcolm Barrett, Narim, Pete Shanahan, Dr. Jay Felger, her former fiancé Jonas Hanson, and her husband of a possible future Joseph Faxon. Many of these individuals have since died (Martouf, Lantash, Fifth, Narim, Hanson, Faxon, two alternate O'Neill's), leading many of the cast and crew of Stargate SG-1 to label Samantha the "Black Widow Carter."
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Reception
For her portrayal of Samantha Carter, Amanda Tapping was nominated for a 2000 Leo Award in the category "Dramatic Series: Best Lead Performance - Female" for the episode "Point of View", and won the Leo for "Ascension" in 2003, for "Grace" in 2004, and for "Threads" in 2005. Tapping was a nominated for a Saturn Award in the category "Best Supporting Actress on Television" in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004, and won in 2005. Tapping was nominated for a 2001 Gemini Award in the category "Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role".
Further reading
- ""Amanda Speaks Out – GateWorld talks with Amanda Tapping"". gateworld.net. February 2004.
- ""Action Mom – GateWorld talks with Amanda Tapping"". gateworld.net. December 2005.
- ""A Decade With Sam – GateWorld talks with Amanda Tapping"". gateworld.net. May 2006.
- ""Looking Backward, Looking Forward – GateWorld talks with Amanda Tapping"". gateworld.net. January 2007.
References
- Screencapture of Samantha Carter's Personal Information from the Season 4 episode "Entity".
- Carter Gates to Atlantis
- Robert Picardo joins Atlantis as expedition leader
- Audio Commentary of ]"
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118480/awards
