SG-1: DIsclosure

[Fianna]

If they told the public the truth about the Stargate, there would be panic and irrational behavior, yes. In the short term. But that sort of panic has a way of dissipating pretty quickly. Once it becomes clear that the alien invasion isn't coming this week, this month, or even this year . . . well, bills still have to be paid, the lawn still has to be mown, and you can't just let your new swimsuit sit in a closet all summer.

When Covid-19 broke, you had people rushing to stores to buy up toilet paper, acting like the apocalypse was at hand, but you also got loads of people who took anything less than the apocalypse as a sign that the threat was passed, or was never that big a deal in the first place, and went right back to their regular routines, even as health officials urged them not to. Don't underestimate the power of social inertia.

One thing I never saw brought up regarding the secrecy issue is human resources. Keeping the Stargate program a secret must severely limit how many people can be hired to visit off-world sites, study alien technology, or even just weld those spaceships together. Presumably there are many people in the world who could make invaluable contributions to preparing Earth's defenses against the Goauld, but who are never recruited because they're judged to be too great a risk of revealing the program's existence (and until this episode, they were further limited by only having the populace of a couple countries to draw upon). And if they ever want those spaceships and anti-Goauld weapons to enter mass production, they'd pretty much have to reveal the secret; you can't build a fleet of warships in absolute secrecy.

[CrypticMirror]

Yeah. Though this problem will reach its peak during Atlantis, where everyone who points out Atlantis' fuck ups (The Asurans, Michael, Kavanagh, The NID, Woolsey) are all 100% right. Especially when it comes to Weir in particular.

Now that I can agree with. I don't know if it was intentional, in fact I'd bet it wasn't, but it really came off as a deep critique of the whole post 9/11 paradigm. Whenever they resorted to post 9/11 tactics of abuse, torture, and deception as first resort it always resulted in a fuckup which made things worse. On the rare occasions they tried actual diplomacy or at least gaining informed consent, then it tended to work out better. Which is often how real life works too.

Not even what I mean. Like, my issue with, for example, Michael, isn't "Oh, what they are doing is inhumane", My issue is "They are unwilling to commit to what they are doing". So they end end up sorta treating Michael like a person even though none of them sees him as such, in something that is ultimately doomed to failure and literally causes Michael to escape. Had they left him in a cell like a lab subject, he'd never have broken out, and the countless people he killed would be fine. But the show can't commit to the main characters doing monstrous things for a greater purpose, so they sort of do half measures all the time.

A lot of the Atlantis' Flaws is from this weird double dipping where "We want them to toe the line" but "we can't risk them being the villains". IE: Lets use an Asuran as a double door against his people, Michael, etc....

Well... you picked up there was an issue, so I suppose you get marks for that. I think you drew the wrong lesson from it.

[FlynnTaggart]

Despite being a clip show I quite liked this episode, it touched on a few things I found interesting like secrecy of the Stargate program and how other nations would react to being told that they are without them knowing it involved in a potentially world ending war.

Secrecy was always a weird thing for SG-1. Its a top secret program that no doubt has hundreds of causalities over the years, who knows how many billions of dollars spent, an entire carrier battlegroup lost, potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions of people knowing about it between the program itself and the various related groups, and its still meant to be a secret. The SG universe is our universe but sometimes guys go through a sideways swimming pool to go fight guys with shooty sticks, kinda boogles the mind it would still be a secret. Yeah the SG teams are driving around in SUVs with their logos slapped on it or performing terrestrial operations with a bunch of unit patches (that I can recall) but still between all the people involved military and civilian they were not exactly subtle about keeping it a secret.

And when they finally did tell some people, though not full disclosure, its letting other countries know "jeez sorry guiz, we totally mad a boo boo and now genocidal aliens want to enslave or exterminate us, sorry". Even ignoring the war aspect its telling a bunch of countries that the US and Russia have access to highly advanced alien technology both with military applications and civilian ones. Despite them promising not to use it the F-302 and their space battlecruisers represent a insane tech jump over anyone else. I heard some people complaining about the F-22 being unfair is aerial combat where its so sneaky, the F-302 probably makes the F-22 look like a biplane.

Even just something like the reactors they are building and uninhabited planets would be interesting. Extremely advanced portable power supplies and an entire galaxy to explore full of resources and land would be ridiculously appealing to some countries dealing with power issues, land issues, and resource problems.

And yet the SG program is keeping all the fancy toys for themselves, building interstellar space ships while NASA was left with the space shuttle and no sign that there was any changes. Highly power clean reactors that could potentially solve energy problems but let people still have dirty or potentially unsafe fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Insanely advanced weapons both lethal and non-lethal and body armor some they used (those armor inserts) and some they never did like Kull Warrior armor and Joe Average cop still uses a taser while GI Joe Average soldier uses ceramic and steel. Piles and piles of advanced technology that could revolutionize all facets of technology and improve and save lives but its stuck in some warehouse like how all the tech of the week on Voyager is stuck in some cargo bay and forgotten.

I can see how the other nations would be angry, how civilians would be angry and terrified if the program ever went public.

[CharlesPhipps]

And yet the SG program is keeping all the fancy toys for themselves, building interstellar space ships while NASA was left with the space shuttle and no sign that there was any changes. Highly power clean reactors that could potentially solve energy problems but let people still have dirty or potentially unsafe fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.

Eh, you're just describing the First World to the rest of it now.

[GreyICE]

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless

Literally happens so often there's a TV Tropes page about it.

[FlynnTaggart]

And yet the SG program is keeping all the fancy toys for themselves, building interstellar space ships while NASA was left with the space shuttle and no sign that there was any changes. Highly power clean reactors that could potentially solve energy problems but let people still have dirty or potentially unsafe fossil fuel and nuclear power plants.

Eh, you're just describing the First World to the rest of it now.

Of all the problems of the First World sharing technology beyond some defense tech, which I don't think many save maybe Blizzard and the NBA's best buddy would think that is a bad thing, is not one of them. The First World is so great at sharing its tech most of its produced in the 3rd world. Now hoarding money, yeah definitely.

[SFDebris]

When Covid-19 broke, you had people rushing to stores to buy up toilet paper, acting like the apocalypse was at hand,

I feel I have to speak on this, because this was basically a case of idiots driving a bus we were all on. Most people knew there was no need to stock up on toilet paper, but when idiots flipped out and began buying all of the toilet paper, everyone else in the country was now faced with an idiocy-induced shortage and forced to go buy some toilet paper now if they hadn't already had an extra package or two lying around at home. So you had idiots beginning a run on toilet paper, and then a common sense of "well, I don't have enough to last into next week, so I better buy the rolls I would have bought early while they're still here," leading to more going. Essentially, just some people in the boat said "Ah! We're going to sink!" and then starting firing bullets into the bottom of the boat to try to kill the water before it could get on board and sink the boat, forcing everyone to begin trying to bail out the boat while the small first group said "told you it was going to try to sink the boat!"

[Fianna]

Essentially, just some people in the boat said "Ah! We're going to sink!" and then starting firing bullets into the bottom of the boat to try to kill the water before it could get on board and sink the boat, forcing everyone to begin trying to bail out the boat while the small first group said "told you it was going to try to sink the boat!"

That is the best way of describing it I've seen yet. Thank you for that, Chuck.

[GreyICE]

When Covid-19 broke, you had people rushing to stores to buy up toilet paper, acting like the apocalypse was at hand,

I feel I have to speak on this, because this was basically a case of idiots driving a bus we were all on. Most people knew there was no need to stock up on toilet paper, but when idiots flipped out and began buying all of the toilet paper, everyone else in the country was now faced with an idiocy-induced shortage and forced to go buy some toilet paper now if they hadn't already had an extra package or two lying around at home. So you had idiots beginning a run on toilet paper, and then a common sense of "well, I don't have enough to last into next week, so I better buy the rolls I would have bought early while they're still here," leading to more going. Essentially, just some people in the boat said "Ah! We're going to sink!" and then starting firing bullets into the bottom of the boat to try to kill the water before it could get on board and sink the boat, forcing everyone to begin trying to bail out the boat while the small first group said "told you it was going to try to sink the boat!"

You have just described a run on the bank perfectly.

Or why whenever someone's political theory includes the words "rational consumer" you should start hyena laughing. We are sadly all tied to the idiots.

[AllanO]

And yet the SG program is keeping all the fancy toys for themselves, building interstellar space ships while NASA was left with the space shuttle and no sign that there was any changes. Highly power clean reactors that could potentially solve energy problems but let people still have dirty or potentially unsafe fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. Insanely advanced weapons both lethal and non-lethal and body armor some they used (those armor inserts) and some they never did like Kull Warrior armor and Joe Average cop still uses a taser while GI Joe Average soldier uses ceramic and steel. Piles and piles of advanced technology that could revolutionize all facets of technology and improve and save lives but its stuck in some warehouse like how all the tech of the week on Voyager is stuck in some cargo bay and forgotten.

I realize this is more me just extrapolating from little statements that occur in the shows, but for example Ba'al was apparently able to use private resources to do things like clone an Asgardian and do other stuff. So the SG technology was getting out into the wider world in ways. I feel like develops touched on or hinted at in later seasons of the show, Atlantis and Universe suggest the tech and science was filtering into the wider world. In this episode the Russian colonel is explaining that they do get fancy tech from the program. I would attribute the fact that it is not shown to just that a) a story about how cars are more efficient and nuclear plants are cheaper now would be boring (or at least the writers of Star Gate could not figure out how to make it interesting) and b) it would be a pain to depict a slightly accelerated USA rather than just using the same locations and sets you would normally use for a scene in the USA or whatever.

Of course if as the show seemed to (in my reading of various off hand statements etc.) hint technology and knowledge was filtering out (even slowly) it makes the continued secrecy of the Star Gate program even more unlikely.