SG-1: Nightwalkers

[Mabus]

Stargate was just as bad as Star Trek for introducing revolutionary concepts and technology one week only to have it vanish by next week for no real reason and, often, to their own detriment - as in ''our lives are now potentially shorter and more dangerous because of it.''

Oh definitely. I think the most poignant example was those Crystal Skull aliens (Omeyocan is apparently their name) that had that the technology to transport people to another star system and were enemies of the Goa'uld, and SG1 through Daniel's grandfather managed to communicate with them, and they appeared to be very open to negotiations. They aren't even mentioned later, not even a passing, you'd think that just as the SGC wanted to acquire Asgard technology, they'd want to acquire some of that sweet sweet Omeyocan tech, especially since those guys have managed to essentially build a interstellar transporter, and the only other similar tech is the Stargate itself (though maybe you need a multi-km sized pyramid for it to work, so it's not very practical).

[CrypticMirror]

SG-1 only works if no one but Earth puts any real effort into guarding their stargates. The SGC puts theirs in an underground bunker with armed guards watching it constantly, a titanium iris that prevents anyone without a passcode from getting through, and a nuclear bomb set to go off and bury the gate if any intruders do get through. Everywhere else, stargates just sit out in the open, often completely unprotected, and with "heavily guarded" meaning there are a few guys with weapons milling about in the general area.

Well the rest of the galaxy relies on them for free trade and travel, and most planets are not densely populated enough to go it alone without others to trade with and travel to; Earth is unique in how it restricts its citizens from having free use of a galactic asset, tyrannically so even. Plus no Goa'uld wants to put their gate inside a military compound in case their other Goa'ulds who attack them manage to overpower the gate guards and then control the ingress/egress as well as now control their formerly impenetrable fortress.

They are all used to travelling the galaxy in a way Earth is not. To restrict access in the way Earth has is a whole different cultural paradigm. Give Earth a few generations of free galactic travel and our cultural response to hermit ourselves would probably change too. Of course it doesn't help earth's case that the Stargate is in possession of the planets ruling superpower, and they would rather keep on being the biggest fish in a planetary pond than become just another normal player in a galactic sized one. It wasn't until the Asgardians gave them the ability to be a galactic superpower that they started looking outwards. Something something manifest destiny, something something 'ceptionalism or nothing...

[clearspira]

SG-1 only works if no one but Earth puts any real effort into guarding their stargates. The SGC puts theirs in an underground bunker with armed guards watching it constantly, a titanium iris that prevents anyone without a passcode from getting through, and a nuclear bomb set to go off and bury the gate if any intruders do get through. Everywhere else, stargates just sit out in the open, often completely unprotected, and with "heavily guarded" meaning there are a few guys with weapons milling about in the general area.

Well the rest of the galaxy relies on them for free trade and travel, and most planets are not densely populated enough to go it alone without others to trade with and travel to; Earth is unique in how it restricts its citizens from having free use of a galactic asset, tyrannically so even. Plus no Goa'uld wants to put their gate inside a military compound in case their other Goa'ulds who attack them manage to overpower the gate guards and then control the ingress/egress as well as now control their formerly impenetrable fortress.

They are all used to travelling the galaxy in a way Earth is not. To restrict access in the way Earth has is a whole different cultural paradigm. Give Earth a few generations of free galactic travel and our cultural response to hermit ourselves would probably change too. Of course it doesn't help earth's case that the Stargate is in possession of the planets ruling superpower, and they would rather keep on being the biggest fish in a planetary pond than become just another normal player in a galactic sized one. It wasn't until the Asgardians gave them the ability to be a galactic superpower that they started looking outwards. Something something manifest destiny, something something 'ceptionalism or nothing...

Nothing you say is untrue, and yet as I have said many times before, a single piece of dialogue from Men in Black 20 years ago made me a believer that humans are not ready to handle the truth. I think the government should actively hide aliens from the general population. And for those of you who wish to argue with me, get back to me when humans have stopped killing other humans because of their faith in 2000 year old stories. That reminds me, I really need to get around to donating money to Chuck to review ''Contact''.

Agent K: Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either. They're happy. They think they have a good bead on things.
James: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Agent K: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

[CrypticMirror]

SG-1 only works if no one but Earth puts any real effort into guarding their stargates. The SGC puts theirs in an underground bunker with armed guards watching it constantly, a titanium iris that prevents anyone without a passcode from getting through, and a nuclear bomb set to go off and bury the gate if any intruders do get through. Everywhere else, stargates just sit out in the open, often completely unprotected, and with "heavily guarded" meaning there are a few guys with weapons milling about in the general area.

Well the rest of the galaxy relies on them for free trade and travel, and most planets are not densely populated enough to go it alone without others to trade with and travel to; Earth is unique in how it restricts its citizens from having free use of a galactic asset, tyrannically so even. Plus no Goa'uld wants to put their gate inside a military compound in case their other Goa'ulds who attack them manage to overpower the gate guards and then control the ingress/egress as well as now control their formerly impenetrable fortress.

They are all used to travelling the galaxy in a way Earth is not. To restrict access in the way Earth has is a whole different cultural paradigm. Give Earth a few generations of free galactic travel and our cultural response to hermit ourselves would probably change too. Of course it doesn't help earth's case that the Stargate is in possession of the planets ruling superpower, and they would rather keep on being the biggest fish in a planetary pond than become just another normal player in a galactic sized one. It wasn't until the Asgardians gave them the ability to be a galactic superpower that they started looking outwards. Something something manifest destiny, something something 'ceptionalism or nothing...

Nothing you say is untrue, and yet as I have said many times before, a single piece of dialogue from Men in Black 20 years ago made me a believer that humans are not ready to handle the truth. I think the government should actively hide aliens from the general population. And for those of you who wish to argue with me, get back to me when humans have stopped killing other humans because of their faith in 2000 year old stories. That reminds me, I really need to get around to donating money to Chuck to review ''Contact''.

Agent K: Humans, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one or need one, either. They're happy. They think they have a good bead on things.
James: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Agent K: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

People are impulsive and emotional, I agree with Spock; but I also agree with Kirk that people are adaptable and capable of overcoming shocks too. There would be panic and maybe unrest in the first few days, but after that? Life goes on, bills need paid, money needs to be earned, the dog needs to be walked around the park, the kids need to buy new shoes, and some daftie will be doing something dumb on Strictly on Saturday. We adapt to crisis quickly, and turn it into the normal. Nothing is so huge that a few days of living with the situation cannot rob it of fear.

The big, big, BIIIIIIG, threat that concerns governments, especially in countries like America (and the UK), is that voters might remember the years of being lied to at the next election and vote them out. Worse, the reporters even at the Murdoch and Rothermere empires might remember it or even worse than that, Murdoch and Rothermere themselves might hold a grudge over it too. Nothing frightens a politician more than the thought of unemployment.

That is why the Stargate was kept secret, partly habit on behalf of the military which hates coughing up secrets no matter the reason once something has been designated one (you can see that in Jack, he defends military secrets just on general principles, without thinking), but mostly because the US Government is afraid of public anger over being lied to. That is the whole point of the Heroes Two Parter, military archive crew invited to film due to butt covering in case of leaks during a change of President.

In the case of aliens existing, even hostile ones, the world even in the nineties was more than capable of handling the news. You can make an argument for the trope being justified as late as the fifties and early sixties, but by the nineties we'd all seen Star Wars and Star Trek, and talked about potential close encounters of some numbered kind, and had people traveling to the near part of space, and had a good dose of secularism too to steal away the religious terror. Heck, the Vatican has had a plan for explaining aliens as part of god's plan since HG Wells War of the World's was first published. It would not be that big a shock. A secret alien war costing billions to fight? The part that any public would object to was the secret part, not the aliens part. So fuss and protests over the secrecy, and some panic at first, but nothing insurmountable.

[G-Man]

SG-1 only works if no one but Earth puts any real effort into guarding their stargates. The SGC puts theirs in an underground bunker with armed guards watching it constantly, a titanium iris that prevents anyone without a passcode from getting through, and a nuclear bomb set to go off and bury the gate if any intruders do get through. Everywhere else, stargates just sit out in the open, often completely unprotected, and with "heavily guarded" meaning there are a few guys with weapons milling about in the general area.

Well the rest of the galaxy relies on them for free trade and travel, and most planets are not densely populated enough to go it alone without others to trade with and travel to; Earth is unique in how it restricts its citizens from having free use of a galactic asset, tyrannically so even. Plus no Goa'uld wants to put their gate inside a military compound in case their other Goa'ulds who attack them manage to overpower the gate guards and then control the ingress/egress as well as now control their formerly impenetrable fortress.

They are all used to travelling the galaxy in a way Earth is not. To restrict access in the way Earth has is a whole different cultural paradigm. Give Earth a few generations of free galactic travel and our cultural response to hermit ourselves would probably change too. Of course it doesn't help earth's case that the Stargate is in possession of the planets ruling superpower, and they would rather keep on being the biggest fish in a planetary pond than become just another normal player in a galactic sized one. It wasn't until the Asgardians gave them the ability to be a galactic superpower that they started looking outwards. Something something manifest destiny, something something 'ceptionalism or nothing...

Most of the planets visited by SG-1 are sort of backwaters. Perhaps there are a lot of people who do guard their stargates, we just don't see them because the probes wind up atomized against an alien iris.

[Nealithi]

I remember this episode and that I didn't know who Jonas even was. But I liked the character. The smart and observant fish out of water is used quite well in other shows and I thought it could be an interesting take in SG-1. But it seemed to sputter out.

As to NID and others coming off as wrong. Note something Chuck pointed out for SG-1 versus Atlantis. The whole there are things we won't do versus did what you had to do mentality. NID has a reasonable goal. And carries the ends justify the means. The issue is Hollywood shorthand for bad guys. They want to use the racial memories of the symbionts and get a starship out of the deal. Allow the aliens to infect a town. . But only have two guys to watch the whole thing. Period. They could almost justify the first if they were not criminally negligent with the second. IE they have an entire control team watching everything through hidden cameras and will properly swoop in if things go too badly. The loss of the doctor? They extracted him when he tried to break quarantine. He is fine and in isolation and observation. They would then be the cold calculating group. A rival, instead of the incompetent fools SGC has to cleanup after.

[clearspira]

I remember this episode and that I didn't know who Jonas even was. But I liked the character. The smart and observant fish out of water is used quite well in other shows and I thought it could be an interesting take in SG-1. But it seemed to sputter out.

As to NID and others coming off as wrong. Note something Chuck pointed out for SG-1 versus Atlantis. The whole there are things we won't do versus did what you had to do mentality. NID has a reasonable goal. And carries the ends justify the means. The issue is Hollywood shorthand for bad guys. They want to use the racial memories of the symbionts and get a starship out of the deal. Allow the aliens to infect a town. . But only have two guys to watch the whole thing. Period. They could almost justify the first if they were not criminally negligent with the second. IE they have an entire control team watching everything through hidden cameras and will properly swoop in if things go too badly. The loss of the doctor? They extracted him when he tried to break quarantine. He is fine and in isolation and observation. They would then be the cold calculating group. A rival, instead of the incompetent fools SGC has to cleanup after.

The evolution of the NID from making reasonable plots to out-and-out villains reminds me of the evolution of Senator Kinsey. Kinsey was not wrong to point out that the Stargate program in its early days was a taxpayer black hole. All it had seemed to do was to put the Earth at risk for incredibly little benefit. And, it also has to be said, he was also not wrong to doubt Daniel's claim that an invasion was coming as it WAS very convenient timing, Daniel had no evidence beyond ''I went to a parallel dimension but lost my camera'', and Earth had little knowledge of the Goa'uld's space capabilities yet beyond death gliders and pyramid ships capable of conquering poorly armed peasant villages.

And then all of the ''God will protect America'' stuff came out and all of the evil plots and suddenly he was Lex Luthor.

[Cheerilee]

My favorite part of the episode was seeing how transparently "Steveston Oregon" was just Steveston BC, a beautiful little historic fishing village just outside of Vancouver that sells great fish and chips.

Plus, I always assumed that this episode was what jumpstarted the Prometheus construction.

[Nealithi]

I remember this episode and that I didn't know who Jonas even was. But I liked the character. The smart and observant fish out of water is used quite well in other shows and I thought it could be an interesting take in SG-1. But it seemed to sputter out.

As to NID and others coming off as wrong. Note something Chuck pointed out for SG-1 versus Atlantis. The whole there are things we won't do versus did what you had to do mentality. NID has a reasonable goal. And carries the ends justify the means. The issue is Hollywood shorthand for bad guys. They want to use the racial memories of the symbionts and get a starship out of the deal. Allow the aliens to infect a town. . But only have two guys to watch the whole thing. Period. They could almost justify the first if they were not criminally negligent with the second. IE they have an entire control team watching everything through hidden cameras and will properly swoop in if things go too badly. The loss of the doctor? They extracted him when he tried to break quarantine. He is fine and in isolation and observation. They would then be the cold calculating group. A rival, instead of the incompetent fools SGC has to cleanup after.

The evolution of the NID from making reasonable plots to out-and-out villains reminds me of the evolution of Senator Kinsey. Kinsey was not wrong to point out that the Stargate program in its early days was a taxpayer black hole. All it had seemed to do was to put the Earth at risk for incredibly little benefit. And, it also has to be said, he was also not wrong to doubt Daniel's claim that an invasion was coming as it WAS very convenient timing, Daniel had no evidence beyond ''I went to a parallel dimension but lost my camera'', and Earth had little knowledge of the Goa'uld's space capabilities yet beyond death gliders and pyramid ships capable of conquering poorly armed peasant villages.

And then all of the ''God will protect America'' stuff came out and all of the evil plots and suddenly he was Lex Luthor.

I think they grew the God point on him. In his first appearance he asked why they would bother coming to Earth if the gate was closed. And Teal'c informs him they think they are gods. His rebuff was "There is only one GOD." As though that alone negates the aliens thinking they are gods.

[Wolf359]

“Unimportant, or if it is important I can’t think of how”

Wow, that’s just so deep!