Judge Shepard hands down his ruling: Guilty, Death by Execution

[The6thRace]

I will gladly concede the point that Sheppards decision was more right then wrong. There didn't seem to be another option at the time, besides possibly self-sacrifice. He himself could have went to the wraith posing as a villager and lured them to the cave. But since there were half a dozen men available who were frightened enough by the wraith to want to save their families by turning in some strangers they had just taken in, the situation could be resolved a different way.

Those guys weren't entirely true criminals, they were just scared people in a bad situation that the wraith put them in. I'm sure they had families and people they also wanted to protect. Even though they were naive enough to start turning the refugees over to the wraith, we still cannot possibly brand them as 'traitors'. If anything, they were more loyal then anyone, wanting to protect the village and people they've known all their life - families, friends - by any means necessary. What makes them unlike Sheppard, who simply chose to sacrifice a different group of people?

Without discrimination, Sheppard used them and put them in a situation where they would not possibly survive, a mine filled with C4. The action resulted in saving the lives of 600 people. But you also condemned people who didn't entirely deserve to die, despite some people here thinking they are outright traitors.

[Nitegate]

this episode makes me like John Sheppard even more, those guys had it coming, they were working with the wraith, sounds like wraith human worshipors who betrayed their village.

[JackHarkness_Hot]

IMO, I didn't like it but Sheppard convinced the leader of the village to fall through with the plan and there was no other choice, he had to draw attention from the gate.

So I can see why he did it but it doesn't mean I support it in anyway. Hopefully, this will somehow scar Sheppard in later episodes like having flashbacks of this incident and he learns something out of it.

[MCH]

this episode makes me like John Sheppard even more, those guys had it coming, they were working with the wraith, sounds like wraith human worshipors who betrayed their village.

There is much that in hindsight appears wrong on both sides, but in the heat of battle Atlantis where reacting to the gravity of the situation between the Wraith and the Villagers and Atlantis was in the middle of this.

Atlantis had to act as the Outsider would not have been there if Atlantis had not requested the people of that planet to take them in originally. Therefor asfar as Shepherd was concerned he had to act as Atlantis original request for santatury caused the Wraith to come here in the first place.

As I have said before

One man's hero is another man's terrorist.

MCH

[JackHarkness_Hot]

As I have said before

One man's hero is another man's terrorist.

That's deep stuff and imo, how appropriate to the real life situation in the Middle-East.

It's something Weir (if she was still on SGA) would debate with Sheppard I reckon.

[MCH]

That's deep stuff and imo, how appropriate to the real life situation in the Middle-East.

It's something Weir (if she was still on SGA) would debate with Sheppard I reckon.

Sorry it was not meaning to be deep, but as you say "how appropriate to the real life situation in the Middle-East."

Yes a real shame that Weir couldn't look at the situation with Shepherd.

I wonder what Woolsey said when the team returned to Atlantis and gave their mission report.
Would he stick to the IOC line or has he finally woken up to the fact as Weir did that war is very messey and has not easy right or wrong answers.

MCH

[JackHarkness_Hot]

With Woolsey, chances are he'll prag along saying how Sheppard don't have the authority to do what he did but over time just let the incident drop. Woolsey is just that, he's imitates leadership but rarely have the passion in him to do what needs to be done and hides behind his rules and regulations as his safety buffer. IMO that is.

[Wayston]

Clearly this solution was intended to be controversial. They could have tried to write a scenario where the 4 humans remain outside or are put back into lock up or something.

What this episode illustrates well is that sometimes there are situations where there just aren't any decisions that will lead to a totally perfect outcome.

The people that were sacrificed still had a choice: they could have done everything other than return to the wraith. As has been pointed out the wraith would never keep their promise. The entire reason for their promise was to weed out the bad apples in their food supply anyway. Their claim that "we have no reason for being here otherwise" is simply ludicrous and weeding the people out who fell for it is just good common sense. Not to mention these people essentially murdered an entire group of refugees, the penalty of which in many societies is of course death... so why not "make their deaths count?"

Although one could take the high ground and claim bla bla bla it's still bad - there were no better outcomes. Don't blame the person making the least bad decision, blame the people (ie the wraith and the 4 sacrificed individuals themselves) who created it in the first place.

By the way I'm surprised that noone is shocked on how John reacted to Rodney and Becket. He put his two team members into extreme danger without an even remote possibility to rescue them. Showing that John isn't discriminatory in who he sacrifices...

[The6thRace]

I think Sheppard would have tried to go back for Rodney/Beckett in a puddle jumper. The difference between them and the villagers who were sacrificed, is that Rodney/Beckett signed on for the Atlantis expedition, and know the risks of StarGate travel. If they had to be 'sacrificed' to save 600 people, it would have been more acceptable given the fact that they chose to accept the risks associated with their occupations.

[bluealien]

Clearly this solution was intended to be controversial. They could have tried to write a scenario where the 4 humans remain outside or are put back into lock up or something.

What this episode illustrates well is that sometimes there are situations where there just aren't any decisions that will lead to a totally perfect outcome.

The people that were sacrificed still had a choice: they could have done everything other than return to the wraith. As has been pointed out the wraith would never keep their promise. The entire reason for their promise was to weed out the bad apples in their food supply anyway. Their claim that "we have no reason for being here otherwise" is simply ludicrous and weeding the people out who fell for it is just good common sense. Not to mention these people essentially murdered an entire group of refugees, the penalty of which in many societies is of course death... so why not "make their deaths count?"

Although one could take the high ground and claim bla bla bla it's still bad - there were no better outcomes. Don't blame the person making the least bad decision, blame the people (ie the wraith and the 4 sacrificed individuals themselves) who created it in the first place.

By the way I'm surprised that noone is shocked on how John reacted to Rodney and Becket. He put his two team members into extreme danger without an even remote possibility to rescue them. Showing that John isn't discriminatory in who he sacrifices...

Do you mean the part where he asks him to disable the weapons. If the Hive Ship opened fire hundreds of people would have been killed but it was Rodney's decsions to go ahead and try and disable the weapons... both Rodney and Beckett have their own free will and no one forced them to do anything. They are all willing to put their lives in danger to save others and this is what both Beckett and Rodney did, so how can Sheppard be responsible..

[wintering]

One of the things that had always bothered me about SGA in general is the way that they handle moral questions like this.

The decision to "sacrifice" some of the villagers to take out the wraith is questionable at best, if not downright immoral. And the way Sheppard said "nice job" to the village leader in that scene where they were getting everyone through the gate made me feel so uneasy. Why not "I'm sorry," or "it had to be done," or "this is a difficult situation"?

Sheppard's code of ethics seems simply to be let the ends justify the means.

What I really wish we got to see in this episode was just one scene of Sheppard making that decision. I wanted to see him talk to the villager leader to convince him of the plan. Or a scene at the end of the episode, when he is debriefing Woolsey and comment on the difficulty of the situation. He must know of the moral implications, but we never see Sheppard struggle with them. If we got that scene, I think we would be much more sympathetic.

(One of the things I actually liked about the first season was how they handled the Sumner murder--or just the fact that they even handled it at all. We got to see Sheppard struggle with it and show that the decision haunts him every day.)

For me, the thing with Sheppard is that, despite the fact he is the lead of the show, he is one of the most under-developed character of the series. There is no change, no inner turmoil. In almost all the episodes, we get a static character who has no regard for the depth of his decisions.

I really hope Inquisition will make up for this.

[Pegasus_SGA]

For crying out loud, I think Shepard went too far in this episode. Those guys surrendered peacefully to him, and he just used them to trap the wraith after being told by the leader of the village that they should bring the wraith to the cave to capture the others.

Talk about morally ambiguous, and almost downright criminal of him. Sure, the other guys weren't saints, but he knew that sending them to that cave was pretty much a death sentence.

Hang on a second, it was the leader of the village that let the men go into the mine and get the villagers... how is that Sheppard's fault? The leader let Jarvis go, gave them the keys and told them to go find the villagers then hand them over to the Wraith. So Sheppard moved them out of the mines to a place of safety... so how is Shep a murderer, because he killed the wraith. Did he even know that the villagers were there? I don't think so. If you hear Sheppard after he blows the C4 he said that should have sorted the wraith out. He didn't say, great the wraith and the collaborators are dead, did he? So criminal? I think not. If anyone led Jarvis and his men to their death it was the leader of the village, not Sheppard. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore morality issues in Stargate a la Miller's crossing, but the ending to Millers Crossing and this wasn't even close to competing with each other on the morality scale.

[The6thRace]

Hang on a second, it was the leader of the village that let the men go into the mine and get the villagers... how is that Sheppard's fault? The leader let Jarvis go, gave them the keys and told them to go find the villagers then hand them over to the Wraith. So Sheppard moved them out of the mines to a place of safety... so how is Shep a murderer, because he killed the wraith. Did he even know that the villagers were there? I don't think so. If you hear Sheppard after he blows the C4 he said that should have sorted the wraith out. He didn't say, great the wraith and the collaborators are dead, did he? So criminal? I think not. If anyone led Jarvis and his men to their death it was the leader of the village, not Sheppard. Sorry. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore morality issues in Stargate a la Miller's crossing, but the ending to Millers Crossing and this wasn't even close to competing with each other on the morality scale.

There is no way Sheppard wasn't involved with the plan. What, did he just put C4 in the mine and hope to get lucky? And do you think that village leader was the type to come up with that kind of plan of luring them to be detonated? How would he even know Sheppard carried a device to cause an explosion? No, he was definitely involved, and with the tactics used, the plan definitely came from a military mind, not a community leader.

[wintering]

There is no way Sheppard wasn't involved with the plan. What, did he just put C4 in the mine and hope to get lucky? And do you think that village leader was the type to come up with that kind of plan of luring them to be detonated? How would he even know Sheppard carried a device to cause an explosion? No, he was definitely involved, and with the tactics used, the plan definitely came from a military mind, not a community leader.

I agree. It was definitely Sheppard's plan; he knew exactly who was down in the mine. The village leader went along with it because it was the only thing he could do to save his people, but he was obviously troubled by his actions in sacrificing his follow villagers--the look on his face as the mine exploded was gut wrenching.

I still can't get over the "nice job" line from Sheppard. It just makes the whole situation worse.

[Lucylee]

I still can't get over the "nice job" line from Sheppard. It just makes the whole situation worse.

I don't get where people think Shep should be this nice fluffy-bunny, peacenik type character, (although he has a certain dorkiness that is very appealing in non-military settings).
However, when he needs to, and in order to protect his Team, he has been shown to be quite cold and ruthless in the past in order to achieve his objectives. I'm not sure why he would regret killing wraith or those he felt were aiding and abetting them.
Kind of like the name sounds, he is kind of like a German Shepherd, they are all sweet and good with the kiddies in normal situations, but I'd hate to come in between one and the child he felt he needed to protect.

[Pegasus_SGA]

There is no way Sheppard wasn't involved with the plan. What, did he just put C4 in the mine and hope to get lucky? And do you think that village leader was the type to come up with that kind of plan of luring them to be detonated? How would he even know Sheppard carried a device to cause an explosion? No, he was definitely involved, and with the tactics used, the plan definitely came from a military mind, not a community leader.

Show me something that suggests he was. From what we saw on screen he wasn't. Now personally I don't think the elder realised that Sheppard was planning to blow up the mine, otherwise I get the impression he wouldn't have sent his people in. And while Sheppard's interaction with Jarvis may suggest that he planned on killing him and his men, I don't think that's the case. Because if it was, why not kill them then and there when they draw weapons on each other? It doesn't make sense that he would get the elder to lure the men into the mine just to kill them.

The reason he put the c4 in the mine was to catch the wraith, they made it perfectly clear that if the outsiders weren't given to them, then they'd kill them all. We know that there were search parties going on, this was just an extension of that.

As far as the village leader is concerned it wasn't a case of a mastermind plan at all, it was a case of the leader telling Jarvis and his men to find the villagers in the mine and bring them down. Nothing mastermind about it. And while they were there they got caught up in the explosion.

Do you seriously think that Sheppard would get someone else to do his 'dirty work' for him? Honestly?

[garhkal]

This was keeping with the 'darker' trend of shep.. but i wont go so far as to totally condem him for it.

[Pegasus_SGA]

This was keeping with the 'darker' trend of shep.. but i wont go so far as to totally condem him for it.

I agree he was darker by putting the gun to Jarvis's head and putting him in a headlock, but there was nothing in those last scenes that even suggests that Sheppard knew what the elder did. From past experience I think if he did knew he'd have left the leader on the planet. Now that would have been an interesting development.

[The6thRace]

I still can't get over the "nice job" line from Sheppard. It just makes the whole situation worse.

I didn't catch that, but wow. Remorseless as well, thats disturbing. Although maybe not, maybe he simply knew it would weigh heavily on the 'innocent' village leader and wanted to comfort him a bit.

[Lythisrose]

I don't get where people think Shep should be this nice fluffy-bunny, peacenik type character, (although he has a certain dorkiness that is very appealing in non-military settings).
However, when he needs to, and in order to protect his Team, he has been shown to be quite cold and ruthless in the past in order to achieve his objectives. I'm not sure why he would regret killing wraith or those he felt were aiding and abetting them.
Kind of like the name sounds, he is kind of like a German Shepherd, they are all sweet and good with the kiddies in normal situations, but I'd hate to come in between one and the child he felt he needed to protect.

I agree he was darker by putting the gun to Jarvis's head and putting him in a headlock, but there was nothing in those last scenes that even suggests that Sheppard knew what the elder did. From past experience I think if he did knew he'd have left the leader on the planet. Now that would have been an interesting development.

I guess it's open to interpretation as to whether Shep knew about the trap for the Wraith that included the villagers. I just assumed he did, and I didn't have a problem with it. As far as he's concerned these guys have turned into collaborators with the enemy and can be eliminated without too much moral dislocation. I did think he had a look of grimness at the end which suggested he did realize what was happening. But just MHO.