The fate of the Stargate program under real-world recession issues?

[Ankara]

Hi,

What would happen to the program as a whole if the US government seeks to downsize or dismantle most if not all of the Stargate program in order to reduce spending? Most of the program is not currently or not projected to become profitable any time soon (it's mostly soldiers, scientists reverse engineering technology and space ships patrolling space) and the stuff which does have potential use (Naqada and reactors, Replicator technology etc.) lack the niche to become part of the mainstream.

Some of the things I see happening:

- Downsizing Homeworld Command, the Atlantis expedition and possibly closing some off-world military bases.
- Giving the Stargate back to Russia.
- Opening up offworld assets (as well as providing the schematics for technology, weapons and ships) to corporations on Earth. They may possibly sell the entire program to the private sector.
- Limiting space ship operations.
- Focusing future Stargate exploration on the location and identification of useful resources: oil, coal, helium-3, rare Earths etc.

What do you think? What does this mean for a) the other nations who know about the Stargate b) antagonists like the Lucian Alliance c) and the Destiny crew (who would have woken up by now if their jump was successful).

[Xaeden]

The U.S. government has already done that - They cut the SGC's funding down to 30% of its normal operating budget. The solution was to seek and obtain IOA funding and that's probably what would happen if further cuts were to be made. You could make the point that any financial situation that impacts the U.S. would impact the world, so other countries would have to tighten their belts as well. But since various countries are involved in funding the IOA, each country can decide for themselves what portion of their budgets is reasonable for them to spend and when pooled together that should be more than enough to get things done even under bad financial conditions. They also seem like they could spend more money if they wanted to right now, but are being limited in what they can spend their money on - The U.S. blocked their access to technology so outside of funding their own body, they've only really been paying for the operating costs of the bulk of the Atlantis expedition and SGC. Not that those things aren't expensive, but I don't see everyone in the world suddenly joining the U.S. in the idea that it's so expensive that it's okay to risk Earth's safety.

Anyway...

-Homeworld Command would probably be replaced with some sort of international body and the IOA had already been funding a large portion of the Atlantis expedition. So they would likely be expected to take on more of the costs (or would be expected to make do without the same level of contribution from the U.S.).

-No matter how tight the U.S. gets with the money they're willing to spend on the Stargate program, Russia is never getting that Stargate back because that is the one thing they'd never cut. Maintaining sole control of the Stargate is too important to them. Forget whether they lose faith in the value Stargate program in the here and now; they can't afford to give up the potential value that it could provide in the future and they can't afford to let Russia [and likely China] use the Stargate to obtain a huge technological leap over them while they're sitting on their hands. They'd sooner negate their rental agreement than turn it over.

-Weapons and ships... not in a million years. Forget that they would always want to maintain some semblance of military superiority; when have you ever know the U.S. to sell weapon technology to corporations? It's not the other way around; corporations design weapon technology for the government. If you're talking about selling such things to other countries, then we get to back the military superiority thing; the government is generally only willing to sell antiquated technology and this will be no less true when it is facing financial hardship as that is when it will be most vulnerable and thus most desperate to hold on to whatever edge it can. As for harmless technology... sure, but they've already been working with private companies to slowly release such technology, so they would just have to amp up their efforts.

-They don't have that many spaceships and they're pretty much self sufficient once built, (outside of repairs which I get into below and crew salary which they're going to be that nitpicking over) so cutting operations is unlikely to save them much money. However, they may cut funding to the construction and development of future ships and as a result will probably be more careful with how they utilize their existing fleet since they wouldn't want to lose them (and since repairs are the biggest expensive in operating their existing fleet).

-Oil drilling would not be feasible. Without being able to build a pipeline, it would be too time consuming to ship barrels through the Stargate or to ship them on their limited number of spaceships for it to be worth the effort. Similarly, the Stargate is too much of a bottleneck for it to be worth it for them to spend a ton of money constructing off-world mines where regular resources are concerned. If they focus on trinium and naquadah mining and [if they're still trying to do this in secret] they try to pass them off to the general public as things that have recently been discovered at one place on Earth then that's a different story as those things would sell at a level that is reflective of the difficulty involved in obtaining them.

[KEK]

The American military industrial complex having it's funding cut in a real life? Ha ha ha.

[thekillman]

The American military industrial complex having it's funding cut in a real life? Ha ha ha.

AFAIK there have been cuts. A few billion less on a massive budget is still a massive budget .

In reality, america would - in the event of cuts- seek international backing.

[Ankara]

AFAIK there have been cuts. A few billion less on a massive budget is still a massive budget .

In reality, america would - in the event of cuts- seek international backing.

That was what I heard too which inspired my question. Admittedly I'm not American so I am more aware of austerity measures in my country than the USA's.

[Nolamom]

Austerity measures in the US are never at the point of compromising the military. thekillman is in the right of it when he says that a massive budget is still massive. The military is seen almost as a sacred cow among politicians.

[thekillman]

Austerity measures in the US are never at the point of compromising the military. thekillman is in the right of it when he says that a massive budget is still massive. The military is seen almost as a sacred cow among politicians.

To add:

They're saving billions of dollars on fighters and fighter pilots with their UAV program.

[keldran]

Most of the program is not currently or not projected to become profitable any time soon (it's mostly soldiers, scientists reverse engineering technology and space ships patrolling space) and the stuff which does have potential use (Naqada and reactors, Replicator technology etc.) lack the niche to become part of the mainstream.

Naquadah generators niche? Every nation on Earth produces power. It's expensive. Imagine replacing all the power stations in the US, Europe and China with naquadah generators. Imagine how much money that would save. Funnel some of that into the SGC.

[thekillman]

Naquadah generators niche? Every nation on Earth produces power. It's expensive.

It's not expensive at all.


The most important chance will obviously be stuff like nuclear subs and carriers who can replace a few thousand tonne reactors with a ~25kg Mark I.

Every army in the world will drool at the prospect of putting down city-levels of power at any base anywhere in the world with a device smaller than a coffin.

I don't think that naquahdah will be viable as a commercial power source. The main reason is that every half-assed power company in the world will support whatever politician screams "no!" at the prospect of Mark I power.

[obyone]

Easy, make the program public. Then license some of the new technologies to corporations.

[thekillman]

Easy, make the program public. Then license some of the new technologies to corporations.

The reason we survived is because the secrecy allowed us to pull of things a public program never could've allowed. E.g. SG1 going against all orders to stop spaceships. make it public and there will be 7 billion opinions, combined with probably a severe impact on politics, military and would likely serve as a defacto resignation for just about everyone in command.

[Nolamom]

A basic understanding of American politics will tell you that business is closely entwined, and that if business can make a buck off of it, they will be onboard

[Aesop]

I could see Congress trimming the fat on the SGC's budget, but I don't think they would decommission it since knowing what we know now, we can see that it's a vital component of Earth's defense. If we lost touch with the galaxy we would be vulnerable.

I wouldn't be surprised if Homeworld Command brought in corporations like Lockheed and Raytheon for R&D with the tech that's been acquired up to this point so that Earth could bolster her defenses. Perhaps beyond the scope of defense, they could bring in companies like GE and Tesla on a clean energy initiative. I'm sure there could be a lot of revenue to be gained in developing the technology that we've acquired thus far to reverse the effects of global warming and generally work towards preserving the Earth. It's kind of a beacon in the galaxy now, the Tau'ri should make sure she's around for a while.

Beyond those things, giving the UN Security Council a bigger piece of the action in exchange for financial backing wouldn't be a bad idea. Since the consequences of Earth's off-world teams tends to effect them too, it makes sense that she should have a greater role in the program.

[Aesop]

dp

[McAvoy]

Mining offworld is basically a moot point. The Stargate is such a bottleneck that you would basically shut down the whole Stargate Program in favor of mining for resources. The best bet is for a massive ship building program to build cargo ships and a defense fleet to protect those ships. That is how you would be able to effectively mine off world. Definitely not through a Stargate.