- It was never explicity laid out how far "the top of them mountain" was from "the sea," so it could very well have been within walking-distance. If anything, it stands to reason that a signifigant body of water was somewhere nearby, because the plateau where the Ori/Alteran village ("Ortis Mallum?") was located didn't look like it had any lakes, waterfalls, etc, and people with sense often build their cities near a water supply.
A better issue to raise might have been: given that *millions* of years have passed between the Alterans' departure and SG-1's arrival at the ruins, how is it that the caverns (which were apparently at least a little geologically active) were still intact at all? Millions of years is plenty of time for wind & water erosion and other geological activity to utterly wreck the place.
- "Unguarded?" It was on a table just a few feet from the 'Big Ori Wall of Flame,' in the heart of their capital city (full of Priors and the faithful), on their capital world, in a whole galaxy of their devout worshippers. And they know of only one enemy incursion-- three of whome have been captured and locked up, one was presumed dead, and the rest were being tracked by 4 motherships while they ran for their lives. How much more security did they likely think they needed?
- Someone else mentioned the Supergates being unguarded on either side. The Ori were apparently the *sole,* dominating power in their home galaxy-- so had no reason to guard their end-- and had dominated virtually every engagement with Milky Way forces. So if you asked them "why wasn't there a mothership guarding the Milky Way supergate?" they'd likely ask "why would we need one there? Who's going to be stupid enough to attack it?" I mean, the attempt to dial the supergate out before the invasion began (in Camelot): failed. The battle to stop the first wave of the invasion: Ori won. The plan to dial in to the supergate from Pegasus (in the Pegasus Project): while they demonstrated the capability to get a ship on-scene *very* quickly to investigate any suspicious activity, also proved that the plan couldn't have been stopped by a mothership anyway, because as long as the pre-jump gate was cloaked, it would all go off before any intervention could be effective.
All told, unless something really unusual happened (such as one of their motherships going incommunicado, as in The Shroud) signalling that they should anticipate some credible threat, guarding the Milky Way supergate 24/7 likely seemed unnecessary (or pointless) when they could have had that ship out converting heathens instead.
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falacta
16 years ago
You protect your supply lines. Period. More importantly such a bridgehead should be a staging area for their fleets so someone should be around at some point of time.
That none was there on either side of the gate is plain stupid as is building only huge battleships you cannot spare for guard duty instead of adding some smaller vessels to the mix.
Guess what the US had German troops guard their facilities in Germany during the Iraq war. Why? Germany is the USA's ally. There should be no reason for that. Wrong. It is military common sense to have a minimum of security for everything of value. Given the resources necessary to build the supergate having it guarded so nothing can mess with it (several attempts of which the Ori did witness)is a logical thing to do. Otherwise the Terrans can have a lucky shot, destroy the supergate and then all the Milkyway can take years to figure out how to deal with those stranded ships on their side of the gate without those getting help.
You simply don't do that.
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