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Morally questionable actions of the Stargate Atlantis Expedition

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    Morally questionable actions of the Stargate Atlantis Expedition

    I have to say, I find the Atlantis team kind boarding on the edge of evil sometimes.

    They have the best of intentions but they do things that if say the wraith did something similar, it would be called an act of pure evil.

    Take Micheal for example, which is probably the worst thing they've ever done. Kidnapped a guy, experiment on him, keep him prisoner, then later betray him, and do the same experiment on him again, even though he said he'd rather die then be their test subject.

    I'm not defending Micheal's actions for what he did later but you got admit, nobody should have to be put through that, wraith or otherwise.

    I was just wondering what other people's thought on this was and if I'm alone on this.

    #2
    It was morally questionable but I have a hard time blaming them for wanting to do the experiments in the first place. They were looking for a way to avoid wiping out the wraith. The experiment was so they could find a less violent solution.

    Michael wasn't just a guy mind his own business. He was a wraith. He would have murdered them without a second thought if he could have.

    Betraying him later on was definitely a bad move but even that is something that I can understand their motivation for. He was a security risk. They didn't want to kill him but they felt it was too risky to let him go.

    I don't really have a problem when the heroes sometimes cross into moral grey areas. It can make for some interesting television, and it's not like the show never acknowledged any complexities of the issues it raised.

    As a side note, I often get the impression that the Atlantis Expedition gets condemned for being evil whenever they do something dubious but the cast of Stargate Universe gets praised for being wonderfully complex characters who aren't just clean cut heroes whenever they do anything like that.
    Last edited by Infinite-Possibilities; 16 January 2014, 05:33 PM.
    "First Weir, then Samantha Carter, and now, you! It's a pity you humans die or get reassigned so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now!"

    *You got the touch! You got the poweeeeer!*

    "Arise, Woolseyus Prime."

    "Elizabeth..."

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      #3
      Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
      As a side note, I often get the impression that the Atlantis Expedition gets condemned for being evil whenever they do something dubious but the cast of Stargate Universe gets praised for being wonderfully complex characters who aren't just clean cut heroes whenever they do anything like that.
      Thats because it was rare that the issue was actually dealt with...

      One of my favourite episodes of SGA (whilst a mere clip show) involved the Atlantis expedition essentially being put on trial by the Pegasus Galaxy... unfortunately the ending was a total cop out, but it raised some great issues...

      There were some wonderfully morally grey issues that could really have been explored, but whenever anything dubious was raised it was by one of the 'bleeding hearts' and quickly dismissed by our square jawed heroes. There's one episode that ACTUALLY got this totally right for me... and it was 'First Strike'. If the Atlantis expedition's concern over Coll Ellis' attack on the Asurans could have been demonstrated over their OWN actions, that would have been brilliant.
      Last edited by Flyboy; 16 January 2014, 07:31 PM.


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        #4
        In the episode where Micheal knocked people out or killed to escape... (It's been awhile since I watched it) The SGA team would've done the same, but they were all acting like Micheal had done something really horrible by trying to survive by escaping... it was a little bit of a double standard and was a little confusing...


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          #5
          I have to say, until I read this boards I never thought that the moral aspect could be a big deal on the SF show that I loved. Now, thinking about, I still don't find their morale dubious and I buy all their reasons, as developed on the course of the show (and, what's more important, their actions don't offend my sense of rightness, especially because of the build-up of the motivations through the serie). After all, I was not expecting them to be some Ghandi apprentices. But IMO their moral compass is at its place. You just can't expect a tight morale from such an expedition.
          I don't have arguments for this POV besides those already presented in the show. If someone find them unsatisfying, that's more his/her's problem (to buy or not to buy the arguments?) than SGA's (IMO, of couse)
          Last edited by zbir; 16 January 2014, 11:53 PM.
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            #6
            I think that maybe those in SG and Atlantis teams saw so much and realized that they must help those out there, while their superiors were probably worried about other things - technology, planetary defense etc.

            So maybe a simple idea that was meant to help would become something that they regret.

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              #7
              If you watch the show looking for things like this you'll find a LOT of it. Some of the things they did were reprehensible, the sort of things you'd expect from the villain characters/badguy alien empire, but because of the light they got presented in it gets missed by a lot of people. Or people just defend it because they like/identify with the characters and refuse to see that the things they're depicted as doing are just wrong when viewed objectively.

              I'm not even talking about the grander issues there but just simple stuff like Sheppard opening a PoW's cell and boldly murdering him with a firearm in front of multiple witnesses.

              Then you've got the basic fact that the purpose of the expedition was essentially to loot the Pegasus galaxy of powerful ancient tech to use against the SGC's enemies in the milky way. When that got complicated by them waking up the Wraith they hid under their invincible city shield, or literally just hid entirely, while the humans native to the Pegasus galaxy got to pay the price for their little boo boo with the Wraith. Then they turn genocidal robots lose on them and just generally hide in their shadowy corner only coming out to kick the various hornet's nests from time to time, but never really making any progress toward ending the conflict, despite their continued dream of a galaxy wide Wraith genocide.

              Then once they've poked them in the eye enough that the Wraith are finally going to hit them where it hurts, namely Earth, they steal the city to defend their own planet, trashing it in the process, and leave the Pegasus natives to deal with the continued wrath of the enemy they've enraged without any hope of defending themselves.

              Their arrival and activities in Pegasus can probably be linked to more death and misery, both human, Wraith and sentient robot, than any other event in the 10,000 years since the original Ancient/Wraith war.

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                #8
                Originally posted by coolcatkim22 View Post
                I have to say, I find the Atlantis team kind boarding on the edge of evil sometimes.

                They have the best of intentions but they do things that if say the wraith did something similar, it would be called an act of pure evil.

                Take Micheal for example, which is probably the worst thing they've ever done. Kidnapped a guy, experiment on him, keep him prisoner, then later betray him, and do the same experiment on him again, even though he said he'd rather die then be their test subject.

                I'm not defending Micheal's actions for what he did later but you got admit, nobody should have to be put through that, wraith or otherwise.

                I was just wondering what other people's thought on this was and if I'm alone on this.
                Kinda Guantanamo-like and of course the all-winning-excuse: "they threaten our way of life".
                Although on the other hand, they were at war.
                Because of equally reckless decisions at the very beginning.
                Weir totally screwed things from get go after the whole expedition was in awe with what they had put their hands on and Shep was just a crazy gun-toting loon who should have been put to rest (which thankfully happened in The Siege, albeit for a brief amount of time).
                They could have never known what they were up against. They had near to none strategic intel on a galaxy-spanning enemy who kicked the Lanteans' collective arse. LOL.
                They could have never known that a "Wraith Queen" finding a Lantean gameboy would be a convenient excuse to wake up an entire group of alien vampiric tribes somehow hellbent on spamming Atlantis with blue nails of doom.
                Above all, by the sheer size of the grounded hiveship, any sane mind should have left the place presto, captured ones (Summer & co) be damned. Instead of that, Sheppard & Friends conformed to their warped sense of reality imbued with cartoonish and naive heroic visions of rescue of one colonel, Rambo style, by imprinting their moral compass with the "values" taken straight out of the silly movie Saving Private Ryan.
                M.I.A. happens to exist for a reason.
                The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
                  Then you've got the basic fact that the purpose of the expedition was essentially to loot the Pegasus galaxy of powerful ancient tech to use against the SGC's enemies in the milky way.
                  SG-1 had an identical motive.


                  Originally posted by Ouroboros View Post
                  When that got complicated by them waking up the Wraith they hid under their invincible city shield, or literally just hid entirely, while the humans native to the Pegasus galaxy got to pay the price for their little boo boo with the Wraith. Then they turn genocidal robots lose on them and just generally hide in their shadowy corner only coming out to kick the various hornet's nests from time to time, but never really making any progress toward ending the conflict, despite their continued dream of a galaxy wide Wraith genocide.

                  Then once they've poked them in the eye enough that the Wraith are finally going to hit them where it hurts, namely Earth, they steal the city to defend their own planet, trashing it in the process, and leave the Pegasus natives to deal with the continued wrath of the enemy they've enraged without any hope of defending themselves.
                  The wraith wanted to hit Earth from the second they learned of it. The amount of times the expedition "poked them in the eye" is completely irrelevant. And yes they did fake the self destruction of the city. So? You expect them to just let the wraith destroy them because hiding is bad? That's what would've happened if they didn't hide from the wraith. You think the inhabitants of the Pegasus Galaxy would have suffered less at the hands of the wraith if the Atlantis Expedition didn't continue operations against them? They were going to cull countless worlds anyway. Some, like Sateda, they had even obliterated before the Expedition ever arrived.

                  They "stole" the city because they needed to to defend Earth. Their other defenses had failed. They didn't bring it back because the show ended before they had the chance.

                  I also love how you seem to simultaneously condemn them for wanting to exterminate all wraith AND for not actually accomplishing it.

                  Originally posted by Mister Oragahn View Post
                  Kinda Guantanamo-like and of course the all-winning-excuse: "they threaten our way of life".
                  Although on the other hand, they were at war.
                  Because of equally reckless decisions at the very beginning.
                  Weir totally screwed things from get go after the whole expedition was in awe with what they had put their hands on and Shep was just a crazy gun-toting loon who should have been put to rest (which thankfully happened in The Siege, albeit for a brief amount of time).
                  They could have never known what they were up against. They had near to none strategic intel on a galaxy-spanning enemy who kicked the Lanteans' collective arse. LOL.
                  They could have never known that a "Wraith Queen" finding a Lantean gameboy would be a convenient excuse to wake up an entire group of alien vampiric tribes somehow hellbent on spamming Atlantis with blue nails of doom.
                  Above all, by the sheer size of the grounded hiveship, any sane mind should have left the place presto, captured ones (Summer & co) be damned. Instead of that, Sheppard & Friends conformed to their warped sense of reality imbued with cartoonish and naive heroic visions of rescue of one colonel, Rambo style, by imprinting their moral compass with the "values" taken straight out of the silly movie Saving Private Ryan.
                  M.I.A. happens to exist for a reason.
                  The war was all but inevitable from the moment Sumner was captured. The team's particular interpretation of heroism has been a stable of the franchise since the beginning. I lost count of how many times a character on SG-1 said they don't leave people behind.
                  Last edited by Infinite-Possibilities; 17 January 2014, 10:23 AM.
                  "First Weir, then Samantha Carter, and now, you! It's a pity you humans die or get reassigned so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now!"

                  *You got the touch! You got the poweeeeer!*

                  "Arise, Woolseyus Prime."

                  "Elizabeth..."

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                    The war was all but inevitable from the moment Sumner was captured. The team's particular interpretation of heroism has been a stable of the franchise since the beginning. I lost count of how many times a character on SG-1 said they don't leave people behind.
                    SG-1 and Earth had a clear enemy and got a lot of intel before engaging in frontal conflict.
                    The Atlantis case is just not the same. Sumner being captured was irrelevant. If he'd give intel, so be it. All the humans at that point needed was to buy time, not to hasten things.
                    Killing the queen did precipitate all affairs.
                    It still took much time for the Wraith to launch an attack on Atlantis after hte big wake up call.

                    Now just imagine how things would have gone without waking them up en masse.

                    This is just absurd. They had lots all common sense. It can be eventually understood, depending on how supple you are, as they were being cut off and had to deal with a totally new context.
                    But things should have ticked right from the beginning the moment they had approached that dark mass that the hiveship was.
                    At the very best, they should have collected intel and returned to Atlantis whilst cloaked, and thought about what to do from there.
                    In fact, by doing so, they'd have realized that they might succeed and have a better chance by sending much more puddle jumpers, more soldiers and weapons.
                    They could have even considered using a nq generators as a nuclear device to use inside the enemy base.
                    We couldn't say their strategy sucked. There was simply none other than smashing the door and improvising from there. Just plain silly.
                    The Al'kesh is not a warship - Info on Naqahdah & Naqahdria - Firepower of Goa'uld staff weapons - Everything about Hiveships and the Wraith - An idea about what powers Destiny...

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Lunaeclipse View Post
                      In the episode where Micheal knocked people out or killed to escape... (It's been awhile since I watched it) The SGA team would've done the same, but they were all acting like Micheal had done something really horrible by trying to survive by escaping... it was a little bit of a double standard and was a little confusing...
                      Well its applied to a lot of things when you look at it. We kept slaves for a long part of our history as a planet (and some countries still in effect do so today), but railed against the Gou'ald keeping US as slaves. We kill for pleasure as well as sport and food, but railed against the wraith killing US for food.

                      WE do it - Good
                      Someone does it to us - Bad.

                      Their arrival and activities in Pegasus can probably be linked to more death and misery, both human, Wraith and sentient robot, than any other event in the 10,000 years since the original Ancient/Wraith war.
                      Which was one of the points touched on by that "Jury" in the episode The Inquisition.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Mister Oragahn View Post
                        SG-1 and Earth had a clear enemy and got a lot of intel before engaging in frontal conflict.
                        The Atlantis case is just not the same. Sumner being captured was irrelevant. If he'd give intel, so be it. All the humans at that point needed was to buy time, not to hasten things.
                        Killing the queen did precipitate all affairs.
                        It still took much time for the Wraith to launch an attack on Atlantis after hte big wake up call.

                        Now just imagine how things would have gone without waking them up en masse.

                        This is just absurd. They had lots all common sense. It can be eventually understood, depending on how supple you are, as they were being cut off and had to deal with a totally new context.
                        But things should have ticked right from the beginning the moment they had approached that dark mass that the hiveship was.
                        At the very best, they should have collected intel and returned to Atlantis whilst cloaked, and thought about what to do from there.
                        In fact, by doing so, they'd have realized that they might succeed and have a better chance by sending much more puddle jumpers, more soldiers and weapons.
                        They could have even considered using a nq generators as a nuclear device to use inside the enemy base.
                        We couldn't say their strategy sucked. There was simply none other than smashing the door and improvising from there. Just plain silly.
                        Their plan was to get the prisoners out and escape quietly. They knew they had only minimal resources to commit to such an operation and your plan involves spending more. The wraith would have woken up anyway. They thought they had a new food supply. Michael even said that was the reason in season 2 I think. They also likely would have learned about Atlantis too from the other prisoners if not from Sumner. Killing that queen accelerated things slightly at most.
                        "First Weir, then Samantha Carter, and now, you! It's a pity you humans die or get reassigned so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now!"

                        *You got the touch! You got the poweeeeer!*

                        "Arise, Woolseyus Prime."

                        "Elizabeth..."

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                          It was morally questionable but I have a hard time blaming them for wanting to do the experiments in the first place. They were looking for a way to avoid wiping out the wraith. The experiment was so they could find a less violent solution.
                          Maybe they could have tried opening communication with them first. I know it's a long shot but I don't think they even bothered.
                          Or try not turning them into a different species. They should have tried reactivating their digestive track first, especially since that seemed much less invasive.

                          Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                          Michael wasn't just a guy mind his own business. He was a wraith. He would have murdered them without a second thought if he could have.
                          Yeah, if he was hungry.

                          Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                          Betraying him later on was definitely a bad move but even that is something that I can understand their motivation for. He was a security risk. They didn't want to kill him but they felt it was too risky to let him go.
                          In the grand scheme of thing, death would have been kinder. All he had to look forward to was experimentation, imprisonment, and if there were any more side effects to the drug possibly agony and pain.

                          Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                          As a side note, I often get the impression that the Atlantis Expedition gets condemned for being evil whenever they do something dubious but the cast of Stargate Universe gets praised for being wonderfully complex characters who aren't just clean cut heroes whenever they do anything like that.
                          I don't. I think the universe characters are worse but I'm only seen a handful of episodes so I'm probably have a bad opinion on that.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by coolcatkim22 View Post
                            Maybe they could have tried opening communication with them first. I know it's a long shot but I don't think they even bothered.
                            Or try not turning them into a different species. They should have tried reactivating their digestive track first, especially since that seemed much less invasive.
                            They didn't bother because they knew it would be pointless.

                            Originally posted by coolcatkim22 View Post
                            Yeah, if he was hungry.
                            Or if he was angry. Or if he just felt like it. Wraith don't kill people just because they are hungry.

                            Originally posted by coolcatkim22 View Post
                            In the grand scheme of thing, death would have been kinder. All he had to look forward to was experimentation, imprisonment, and if there were any more side effects to the drug possibly agony and pain.
                            He may have thought that but they didn't. They figured if the experiment worked he could still be allowed to live a normal life.
                            "First Weir, then Samantha Carter, and now, you! It's a pity you humans die or get reassigned so easily, or I might have a sense of satisfaction now!"

                            *You got the touch! You got the poweeeeer!*

                            "Arise, Woolseyus Prime."

                            "Elizabeth..."

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by Infinite-Possibilities View Post
                              SG-1 had an identical motive.
                              It made a lot more sense back then. They were going to have to fight the Goa'uld with 90s technology.

                              The wraith wanted to hit Earth from the second they learned of it. The amount of times the expedition "poked them in the eye" is completely irrelevant. And yes they did fake the self destruction of the city. So? You expect them to just let the wraith destroy them because hiding is bad? That's what would've happened if they didn't hide from the wraith. You think the inhabitants of the Pegasus Galaxy would have suffered less at the hands of the wraith if the Atlantis Expedition didn't continue operations against them? They were going to cull countless worlds anyway. Some, like Sateda, they had even obliterated before the Expedition ever arrived.
                              The city sat empty aside from the expedition while millions of people died all around them. Their focus wasn't on saving the lives of the people they'd endangered, or sheltering them from harm, it was entirely on killing all the Wraith somehow. That was the only option they ever seriously explored for solving the situation. Just kill all of them then the problem goes away.

                              Like I said, evil empire stuff.

                              They "stole" the city because they needed to to defend Earth. Their other defenses had failed. They didn't bring it back because the show ended before they had the chance.
                              It ended how it ended. The city wasn't getting back to Pegasus in the condition it was in because it had been shot up too badly by the superhive to even get off the ground anymore. The superhive the Wraith built because they stole ZPMs from the genocidal robots the team needed their help to put down after trying to use said robots to genocide the Wraith.

                              See the recurring theme yet.

                              I also love how you seem to simultaneously condemn them for wanting to exterminate all wraith AND for not actually accomplishing it.
                              At least if they'd accomplished it you could say that their methods were horrible but at least effective in the sense of preserving human interests. They'd still be an evil empire but at least they wouldn't be an incompetent evil empire. Another classic sci-fi trope. The fact they wanted to do it so badly but kept failing over and over again just showed that they weren't just evil but also incompetent.

                              The war was all but inevitable from the moment Sumner was captured. The team's particular interpretation of heroism has been a stable of the franchise since the beginning. I lost count of how many times a character on SG-1 said they don't leave people behind.
                              Sumner only got captured because they had to go out and start wandering around random planets without knowing what they were doing, because they'd just taken a blind wormhole into a city that was about to implode because the temptation of the loot that might be there was just too much to resist.

                              It's incompetent evil empire again.

                              We went through the magic loot door without properly checking it out and something unexpected that would have been totally preventable had we done our homework happened so now we need a last minute desperation plan.

                              Oh oops, looks like we got caught snooping around in an alien power's territory and they grabbed us up but they're totally the bad guys because they tortured our dood, (something we'd totally never do), so we killed one of their leaders for basically no reason, and when they got really mad about that we ran away and hid while all those bystanders got the everliving **** culled out of them.

                              Space heroes!

                              Stabbing unarmed women to death then letting someone everyone else pay the consequences.

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