Samantha Carter

Samantha "Sam" Carter (born December 29, 1968) is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, played by English-Canadian actress Amanda Tapping.

Biography

Samantha Carter 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, poring over data, and studying the alien technologies acquired during missions. Like all geeks, 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

Season 1

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."

Season 2

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.

Season 3

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".

She was promoted to the rank of Major in the third-season episode "Fair Game".

Towards the end of Season 3, 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" (precisely what Thor had wanted from her).

Season 4

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 [they're] 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.

Season 5

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.

Season 6

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.

Season 7

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.

Season 8

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").

Season 9

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.

Season 10

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 flows normally within the ship but the Ori ship and the beam it fired are radically slowed down. 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

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. ("Letters from Pegasus")

Season 2

When Dr. McKay is trapped underwater in a sinking Puddle Jumper, his only chance for survival may be an hallucination of Samantha Carter. ("Grace Under Pressure")

Season 3

Lt. Colonel Carter approaches Jeannie Miller, Dr Rodney McKay's sister, with an offer to work for the SGC. ("McKay and Mrs. Miller")

Season 4

Samantha Carter is promoted to Colonel, and is given command of the Atlantis expedition from Dr Weir.

Lovelife

In a repeating theme, an inordinate number of men who are in love with or strongly attracted to Samantha, die. Below are just some of the men who are established as in love with, infatuated with, or attracted to, Sam; unless marked, she reciprocates the feelings to some degree:

• Jack O'Neill - Throughout the run of the series, much speculation has been devoted to the nature of the relationship between Jack O'Neill and Carter. For example, in the episode "There But For the Grace of God", a Sam from an alternate reality (who has never entered the military) is engaged to Jack, who is the head of Stargate Command. Similarly, in the episode "Point of View" the Sam and Jack of the alternate reality have been married for over a year.

Other mentions of their relationship include: In the episode Window of Opportunity, O'Neill retires from the Air Force so that he can kiss Carter during one of the repeating time-loops he is trapped in. In the fourth season episode "Divide and Conquer", both Sam and Jack are forced to openly admit that their feelings for one another go beyond the professional and are something they must conceal. In the seventh season episode "Grace", Samantha hallucinates an encounter with Jack in which she discusses her feelings for him and kisses him, but ultimately decides to let him go because he is ultimately unavailable due to military protocol. In the episode "Threads", Sam must come to grips with her feelings for Jack and cope with the loss of her father, Jacob Carter. Citing uncertainty among other reasons, she breaks off her engagement to Pete. Throughout the series, there are several other incidents that prove their feelings remain a subtle constant in their lives. They marry in various alternate realities (e.g. "Point of View"); in the main reality, they are forbidden from even expressing mutual attraction by military regulations that ban relationships between a soldier and his or her commanding officer. With O'Neill promoted to a position in which he is no longer Carter's immediate commanding officer, it is unclear if they have entered into a relationship. However, in an episode of Season 9 Samantha mentions that she's "not exactly" single, while avoiding any explanation. In one episode (200), O'Neill and Carter marry during a fantasy sequence. In Line in the Sand, Carter reveals that her secret computer password is "fishing", an oblique reference to O'Neill and his frequent invitations to her to go fishing with him at his cabin, especially in season 4.

• Martouf and Lantash - Samantha hosted Jolinar, a past lover of Martouf, and the romantic feelings seem to carry over, though Martouf eventually grows attracted to Samantha herself. In one alternate reality, they have a long-term relationship, though it has ended by the time Sam encounters the alternate Martouf in ("Ripple Effect"). Martouf's symbiote Lantash shared his feelings for her in ("Last Stand").
• Rodney McKay - Another scientist, Sam first meets him during the events of "48 Hours", when the two are assigned together to try and get Teal'c out of the Stargate when it shuts down before his matter stream is reintegrated into a person. McKay is strongly attracted to Sam, but his arrogance and rude behavior, bordering on sexual harassment, prevent them ever developing anything beyond a civil working relationship, even after he is transferred to Atlantis and matures into a better person. His feelings for her continue, however. When Sam visits an alternate reality in "The Road Not Taken", Sam learns that the two had been briefly married, but divorced prior to our Sam's visit to that reality.
• Fifth - The most human of the human-form Replicators, Fifth develops feelings, of a sort, for Sam during SG-1's mission to stop the Replicators by using a time dilation device. When the Replicators escape ("New Order"), Fifth, hurt by Sam's betrayal, captures her and tries to make her love him. When this fails, he tried to 'win her' anyway by creating a human-form Replicator in her image that would become known as RepliCarter, but he is eventually killed by his own creation.
• Orlin - (Briefly reciprocated) - An Ascended being, Orlin falls in love with Sam when SG-1 visits the world he had been banished to for interfering in the affairs of lower beings. He eventually rejoins the other Ascended ("Ascension"), but later Descends once more to give SG-1 vital help during the Ori crisis. He takes the form of a child, in order to allow him to retain retain some of his Ancient knowledge, and the result is brain-damage, leaving him unable to ascend. Ultimately, he can no longer even recognize Sam.
• Agent Malcolm Barrett - (not reciprocated) - They worked closely together in a few episodes, and his attraction to her is implied by his body language and intonation when he asks in "Ex Deus Machina" if she is seeing anyone, and she replies that she is unavailable.
• Narim of the Tollan - ("Enigma"). She is attracted to him, but tells him she needs to work out the effects of her hosting Jolinar before she can make any decisions. His planet is then, it appears, destroyed by the Goa'uld, and his species is never heard from again.
• Dr. Jay Felger - A well-meaning but inept scientist, Doctor Felger develops a crush on Sam, but she never learns of it. ("The Other Guys")
• Pete Shanahan - A police detective and friend of Sam's brother, the two date for about a year, with Pete learning about Sam's work during the final fight with Osiris; they are briefly engaged ("Affinity"), but Sam breaks it off due to her uncertainty about her feelings after Daniel's apparent death, and her feelings upon discovering that Jack is having a relationship with a CIA agent ("Threads")
• Joseph Faxon - An ambassador sent to negotiate an alliance with the Aschen. In an alternate future in which the alliance with the Aschen proceeded, the two are married. However, in that future, the alliance ultimately causes the downfall of earth's civilizations, ("2010"), with Faxon's complicity. The future SG-1 sacrifice themselves to successfully send a message back to the past to stop them from ever meeting the Aschen. In the present, however, Sam and Faxon still meet, due to a different encounter with the Aschen. They flirt with one another, but he apparently is killed or captured by the Aschen while saving the earth from them, in ("2001")
• Jonas Hanson - A former fiance, Hanson was a member of SG-9 until he tried to set himself up as a god on another planet. After SG-1 exposes him as a false god, they are forced to kill him by closing the iris before he can come back through the Stargate ("The First Commandment")
• Daniel Jackson - After his descension for attempting to stop Anubis destroying Abydos, Daniel loses his memories of being an Ascended being. When he is reunited with his teammates on SG-1, he asks Samantha Carter if there was ever anything between them; she responds that they were just really good friends. Whether this comment of Daniel's means anything more has never been fully explored. Also, when Daniel was poisoned by radiation, Sam came and talked to him and said, " Why don't we ever tell people how we really feel?" Interestingly enough, in an interview with Carmen Argenziano, the actor who plays Jacob Carter, when asked who he could see as a good match for Samantha Carter, Carmen stated that he favored a Daniel Jackson/Samantha Carter pairing in the series; his exact words were "I like Daniel Jackson. I felt that Daniel would have been the right choice because Daniel is well-educated, is intelligent, gentlemanly and he was everything that I envisioned that my daughter would end up with."
• Ba'al - Starting with their first face-to-face encounter, Ba'al often takes the opportunity to flirt with Sam (a fan observation confirmed by Ba'al actor Cliff Simon), a gesture some fans believe to be reciprocated. Although there has been no outright romantic interest expressed on screen, any attraction displayed mainly through suggestive glances and line delivery added by the actors, at the very least a one-way attraction be seen throughout their encounters in the last three seasons of the show. This position is often argued further by fans on account of Ba'al's apparent affinity for blondes. Aside from Fifth, Ba'al is the only major enemy to show a particular attraction to Sam.

Many of these individuals have since died (Martouf, Lantash, Fifth, Narim, Hanson, Faxon, two alternate O'Neill's; Daniel Jackson has also died on multiple occasions), leading many of the cast and crew of Stargate SG-1 to label Samantha the "Black Widow Carter." Early in her relationship with Pete (in an episode once alternatively titled "Black Widow Carter", then named "Chimera" after the mythical creature), she half-jokingly tells him that she cannot be involved in a relationship because most of her past boyfriends have died.

Ribbons and Medals

• Senior Space and Missile Operations Badge

• Airman's Medal
• Meritorious Service Medal
• Air Force Commendation Medal
• Air Force Achievement Medal
• Organizational Excellence Award
• National Defense Service Medal, Bronze star device
• Air Force Longevity Service Award, 2 Oak leaf clusters
• Small Arms Expert Ribbon
• Air Force Training Ribbon