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In Stargate SG-1's pilot episode - Children of the Gods, the scene opens with a group of soldiers playing poker in the gate room. These soldiers have some minor banter about how "nobody ever comes down here except us" when one of them raises concern over getting caught.

However, once Jack O'Neil is bought onto the base, and taken to see General Hammond, who is in the same office he is always in, just above the gate room, and he seems well settled in.

If in fact "nobody ever comes down here", how come General Hammond's office is in use just a short distance away? Is this a plot error?

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Perhaps they meant that no one ever goes down to the gate room. Hammond's office was a floor or two (not levels) above the gate room, off of the control room. – Xantec Jan 17 at 19:52
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I'm pretty sure that all the offices in a bunker complex like that are very similar. If he did have his office moved, likely some airmen would have arranged it exactly as it appeared previously. Would you be able to tell a difference? – John O Jan 17 at 20:05
I doubt all of the other offices would have a window looking out into the room overlooking the gate though, which is clearly visible in the episode (as Kawalsky and Feretti get bought in for questioning and O'Neil states "You're questioning my men?") – kalina Jan 17 at 20:29
I stand corrected. It's been years since I've seen it. – John O Jan 17 at 20:42

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It's been ages since I've seen it as well, but were the blast doors closed? I.e. the view of the gate from the meeting room near Hammond's office may have been obstructed.

Of course there's always the obvious explanation: Hammond WAS in his current office, and he could see what was going on, but chose to ignore it. Why?

  • We've seen on multiple occasions that General Hammond was a big softie, willing to be swayed by whatever crazy hair-brained scheme SG-1 was cooking up. He was willing to let his officers' discipline slide a little.
  • He was on his way to retirement. Who cares about busting some Privates' chops for fooling around on duty when you know you're going to retire in a couple of months?
  • He was effectively holding keep of a backwater, non-priority station. An "alien device/military application" experiment that was shut-down. His personnel were being shipped away to more high-priority tasks, leaving him with a skeleton crew of personnel (who probably weren't the greatest officers to begin with, otherwise they'd also be shipped off) He knew how quickly boredom set in, and just turned a blind eye to whatever they were doing.

So, from the officer's perspective of "No-one ever comes down here" He just assumed that Hammond didn't know, or didn't care.

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