Efficiency of "held fist" stop motion for SG team stopping team

[placid]

You know how when the teams are out "exploring" and when they think they've seen something they try to halt the group as quickly and silently as possible with an abrupt raising of the arm with the hand in a fist. In both Atlantis and SG1 episodes I've seen members go bumping into other members because they were talking or not paying attention and walked into people that had stopped. So why not just say "halt!" or something if the situation is not a bad-guys-around-the-corner level of dangerous... sometimes it also seems a silly convention considering how many non-civilians and aliens are in the teams...

[marty2006]

Well the person who does it is part of the military and have been trained to do that, also tptb do it to make the show more realistic by using military actions and jargon etc.

[rlr149]

if you say halt it alerts a potential enemy and stops you from hearing it as well as you could, lets face it SO and recon teams are usually behind enemy lines, thus shouting stop wouldn't be a good idea even primitive hunters would have something similar.

fact is a real SO team wouldn't be whittering on, or shouldn't anyway

[Wraith_Boy]

You know how when the teams are out "exploring" and when they think they've seen something they try to halt the group as quickly and silently as possible with an abrupt raising of the arm with the hand in a fist. In both Atlantis and SG1 episodes I've seen members go bumping into other members because they were talking or not paying attention and walked into people that had stopped. So why not just say "halt!" or something if the situation is not a bad-guys-around-the-corner level of dangerous... sometimes it also seems a silly convention considering how many non-civilians and aliens are in the teams...

The only ones who would go bumping in would be people like Felger or Zelenka etc & if it was to happen, it'd be in a funny ep like 'The Other Guys' or whatever. O'Neill has used it with Teal'c through years. I'm sure Shep & co have taught Teyla & Ronon it as well. The rest of the SG-1 teams are all military personnel, so I'm sure they have no problems with it.

Simply it's what they do in real life militiaries around the world. So it's obviously efficient & effective otherwise they wouldn't be using it.

If you detect danger or a threat then there is no way in hell you'll be risking telling them to halt & potentially give your position away or alert the enemy to your presence. That's the whole reason the hand signals were made up so that orders could be given without the need for verbal communications. If they had civilians tagging along on dangerous missions, then I'm sure there would be a problem, but it doesn't happen often, so I don't see any problem. Especially since it's authentic techniques that are used in real life by regular military soldiers to S.W.A.T to special ops members.

[Mousie]

If you watch 'Seth', in the scene in which SG1 break into the compound they start off using the military hand signals to coordiante their approch. Daniel is perfectly comfortable using it, probably because he has now been in so many potentially hostile situations he sees its value.

[Daniel Jackson]

You know how when the teams are out "exploring" and when they think they've seen something they try to halt the group as quickly and silently as possible with an abrupt raising of the arm with the hand in a fist. In both Atlantis and SG1 episodes I've seen members go bumping into other members because they were talking or not paying attention and walked into people that had stopped. So why not just say "halt!" or something if the situation is not a bad-guys-around-the-corner level of dangerous... sometimes it also seems a silly convention considering how many non-civilians and aliens are in the teams...

Generally, the only one who's not paying attention is Dr. McKay, because he's too busy complaining or bragging about how smart he is.

I like McKay, but I wish Ronan would punch him in the gut for talking too much. lol

[Krisz]

I like the way they did a little tongue in cheek joke of this in 'Moebius'. When they are on Chulak to recruit the alternate timeline Teal'c Jack does the stop sign. All but Daniel and 'geeky' Sam crouch down leaving them standing looking bewildered for a moment before they follow suit.

I guess it takes time to get the civilian parts of the SG teams to accept this sort of signal and react automatically to it.

[the fifth man]

I like the way they did a little tongue in cheek joke of this in 'Moebius'. When they are on Chulak to recruit the alternate timeline Teal'c Jack does the stop sign. All but Daniel and 'geeky' Sam crouch down leaving them standing looking bewildered for a moment before they follow suit.

I guess it takes time to get the civilian parts of the SG teams to accept this sort of signal and react automatically to it.

That was a great little moment in "Moebius".

It would definitely take civilians time to get used to watching for and reacting to such signals.

[SylvreWolfe]

I knew that hand signal before I joined the military. It always seemed pretty universal to me what it meant.

[rlr149]

^^ shouldn't that be "global", or if not, how much of the universe have you visited?

[Mousie]

I guess it takes time to get the civilian parts of the SG teams to accept this sort of signal and react automatically to it.

But it shouldn't though. Perhaps it should be considered a requirement for being allowed offworld! Considering they are going into space and to other planets where literally anything can happen, all scientists who may go on missions should be put through a boot camp - they should be competant with basic weapons and military signals, first aid ect.

The military members of the team are there to protect them but we all know they could be captured or injured or anything else and it might fall to the scientists to help them out.

[Krisz]

But it shouldn't though. Perhaps it should be considered a requirement for being allowed offworld! Considering they are going into space and to other planets where literally anything can happen, all scientists who may go on missions should be put through a boot camp - they should be competant with basic weapons and military signals, first aid ect.

The military members of the team are there to protect them but we all know they could be captured or injured or anything else and it might fall to the scientists to help them out.

It makes sense of course but not every person is suited to the rigours of a boot camp. If you need a specialist for a certain job though, you can guarantee that he/she may not fare very well with physical/military style training but you still need their expertise. Daniel was a case in point, it took him a long time to take on board why all these little things were important despite constant reminders from O'Neill!

Remember James Spader's Daniel Jackson in the Movie, going through the standard pack and wondering why half the stuff was in there and just throwing it over his shoulder. The other members of the team in turn couldn't understand what he was doing with throwing away stuff that could end up saving his life. Throwing his books in turn down the sand dune was their way of trying to show him what was important. This was a good example of how it's not that easy to impress valuable survival techniques on civilians, especially ones whose help you need!

[Mousie]

It makes sense of course but not every person is suited to the rigours of a boot camp. If you need a specialist for a certain job though, you can guarantee that he/she may not fare very well with physical/military style training but you still need their expertise. Daniel was a case in point, it took him a long time to take on board why all these little things were important despite constant reminders from O'Neill!

Remember James Spader's Daniel Jackson in the Movie, going through the standard pack and wondering why half the stuff was in there and just throwing it over his shoulder. The other members of the team in turn couldn't understand what he was doing with throwing away stuff that could end up saving his life. Throwing his books in turn down the sand dune was their way of trying to show him what was important. This was a good example of how it's not that easy to impress valuable survival techniques on civilians, especially ones whose help you need!

Yeah I get that, I just meant as the SGC is a long term base (not just a single mission) they could train the scientists to some degree, even if it's just things like the military sign language (or just the basics of it). I know it wouldn't work all the time though.

[rlr149]

to be honest, if they're smart enough to be on the SGC project as a whole, just show them the gate and say "learn to 'soldier' properly and you can play with that"
I'd do it without a second thought

[Dutch_Razor]

Realistically some things that have to be explained to team members would get them fired IRL I'd say, like Vala going offworld and not knowing what to do when they make human contact?!