Atlantis expedition and Ancients' deeds in Pegasus galaxy

[latvian_stargatefan]

Let's see- because of Atlantis expedition people's trying to save a bunch of Ethosians and their own people, Wraith woke up and killed thousands or even millions. They helped to develop the infamous Hoffen drug that led to Wright killing everybody that took it. They started Replicator- Wraith war in which millions of people died and later participated in genocide vs Replicators (that's questionable because it's hard to say that human rights apply to Replicators), they create Michael who did his fair share of crippling the galaxy.

I know that these issues were already addressed in an episode of the same show but if one thinks about it, Pegasus people would be better off with Replicators who wouldn't do anyone any harm and sleping Wraith. There wouldn't be any Michaels around...

Yes, one can say that they are doing these things to wipe out Wraith but I just wonder if, in the end, when the Wraith will be defeated, there will be any humans left in the galaxy except Earthlings and maybe some 50 Ethosians and 10 Genii... I mean, what's good in victory if there's no one left to celebrate it?

On the other hand, I also didn't like Ancient's policy that somehow reminds me of some ST. They are powerful but they do not have balls. Really, if Ancents would've balls, they'd gather info, get together their fleet powered with ZPM's and blow up Wraith planets and cut through their ships like butter. But their policy was just to sit on their planets, raise the shields, get some **** beaten out of them and then to say "We have no other option than to defend ourselves", send one Aurora class ship against 3 hives, destroy hives but get destroyed the Aurora in the process and then to wait for another 3 hives to face another Aurora and some puddle jumpers, get the same results again and again and then to say local humans "sorry, we can't lose this war but we can't win it too, so... Bye, bye!", jump in the Stargate taking ZPM with themselves and be "anciently" happy that they didn't see all humans taken by Wraith, because then they wouldn't be benevolent, noble ancients but in this way they could say "we can't possibly know what happened with them, maybe Wraith gone to some other planet and never returned... we didn't see what happened in the end... Well, I guess Wraith wouldn't be that interested in pesky humans after our benevolent race left, so... Good job done, then!"

So basically the difference is either you kill millions risking with your own people's asses and trying to save millions or you leave millions of people (basically your own children) to certain death saying that you'll return one day (just to make yourself and them feel better because you never intend to do that- God, who'd be that crazy to return to this galaxy filled with these manacing Wraith) just to save your own benevolent and noble ass...

I haven't seen any instance in this show that would show that Ancients were a really great, noble race... Atlantis people, at least, are trying.

[pkprd869]

I'll agree with your point. Humans tried to clean-up the messes they made in Pegasus. Those blowhards, aka the ancients, just left big CF's everywhere they went and didn't seem to care.

[Phenom]

So its the Atlantis expeditions fault that the wraith went on a killing spree??? Its their fault that the replicators killed a bunch of humans.

Sorry to burst your bubble but it is the wraiths fault that they chose to kill a bunch of people and the replicators chose (yes CHOSE) to tackle the wraith war by killing their food supply.

If you go back far enough into any course of events, you are bound to find some input from hundreds and thousands of different sources that could have altered the ensuing events. Its like saying that the Doctor who delivered Hitler is responsible for the death of millions of Jews just because he didn't kill baby Hitler. Stupid huh? Well thats exactly what is being stated in this thread.

This attitude that someone is always to blame for every wrong that ever happens is a great example of the ridiculous litigious society that governs most western societies.

[tgomerski]

So its the Atlantis expeditions fault that the wraith went on a killing spree??? Its their fault that the replicators killed a bunch of humans.

Sorry to burst your bubble but it is the wraiths fault that they chose to kill a bunch of people and the replicators chose (yes CHOSE) to tackle the wraith war by killing their food supply.

If you go back far enough into any course of events, you are bound to find some input from hundreds and thousands of different sources that could have altered the ensuing events. Its like saying that the Doctor who delivered Hitler is responsible for the death of millions of Jews just because he didn't kill baby Hitler. Stupid huh? Well thats exactly what is being stated in this thread.

This attitude that someone is always to blame for every wrong that ever happens is a great example of the ridiculous litigious society that governs most western societies.

I agree with phenom, The Ancients can't be held responsible or Blamed for another sentient begins behaviour or actions!!! we could pass the blame down the line till we get to when ancients first settled on the planet that had those bugs on them, if anything **** happens all we can do is move on and try and make things better for everyone!!

[Ouroboros]

The atlantis expedition

-Went into Pegasus in search of cool ancient loot to fight local wars with. This in itself is a less than noble aim when you get right down to it. Sure you can talk about the glory and wonder of exploration and all that but lets get real here. They weren't going to send an expedition to another galaxy to look at some nice fruit trees that don't exist in this one, they wanted loot.

-Awakened the Wraith, not by showing up on Athosia or rescuing their captured prisoners even, but because Sheppard couldn't control his emotions and killed their queen for no logically gainful reason. So here's probably the stupidest way to start an intergalactic war ever, something born entirely out of arrogant interferance with aliens no one understood beyond them being incredibly dangerous, and one man's inability to resist drafting himself into the role of what they'll inevitably view as the political assassin of their leader. We're off to a great start here.

-The Wraith woke up as a result, but it was too early for them to do so and human populations had not yet recovered sufficiently from the last culling to sustain a new wave of them. The Wraith culled them anyway though, because the alternative was starvation, in cullings described as especially brutal and costly by Teyla and others. This occured of course entirely because there wasn't enough food to go around, they all knew it, and thus hording and overharvesting was to be expected and would only compound the already dire food shortage situation, leading to a sort of self propegating cycle of further overharvesting. So here's a massive human deathcount that wouldn't have otherwise happened, almost certainly further magnified by Wraith overculling and food hording out of fear of potential starvation.

-The next inevitable step is the Wraith go to war over limited food stocks, costing who knows how many lives, both human and Wraith. Yes I'm going to count the Wraith that needlessly died as a result of their meddaling as well, being that they're actually half-human sentients that these shortsighted clowns only preffered to think of as evil space monsters instead. Those Wraith, as well as the humans they were forced to kill, would still be alive had Sheppard been able to control himself.

-Seeing that the Wraith civil war isn't doing the job fast enough the Atlantis team decides to take more direct action in their new mission, the extermination of the Wraith species from Pegasus, by attempting to reprogram the Asurans, a machine society their ancient creators deemed too unpredictable and dangerous to actually be useful as a weapon against the Wraith. Since they're certain they know better than the ancients though they do it anyway, and it blows up in their faces when the Asurans decide that the best way to kill all the Wraith is to kill all the humans they need to feed on. Flawless machine logic at work, but since the genocide of humans is immoral and terrible, as oppossed to the genocide of Wraith which the team will explore in a wide variety of ways over the course of the show, this latest batch of medalling is universally regarded as a failure. Massive human deathcount results from this, as well as likely massive Wraith deathcount, all for ultimately no gain.

-To attempt to correct their failure, and put a stop to the ongoing human genocides, the atlantis expedition genocides the Asurans instead. When a small survivor group of them later shows up seeking an alliance they are likewise murdered in cold blood in the name of "keeping the galaxy safe from their kind" and "because they're too powerful and dangerous with that power" . Logic that would surely be better applied to the expedition itself. The losses here are of course the entire Asuran culture and "species" in that sense that they were a unique machine race that the team wiped out after their unfathomly arrogant attempts to reprogram them predictably failed.

-As part of one of their failed plans to genocide the Wraith the Atlantis expedition kidnaps a Wraith, who they name michael, and proceed to subject him to medical experiments. Unlike the previous Wraith whom they abducted to torture in this manner however he does not die in their captivity. He is instead transformed into a human/Wraith halfbreed, the failed result of a plot to turn him, and eventually all other Wraith, into harmless humans with no memory of their former selves. You've got to gives them credit for finding some pretty sinister roundabout ways to commit their genocide with this one though.

-Before they can murder him to close out their failed experiment though Michael escapes, being tolerated briefly by the Wraith but later choosing to side with Earth to avert a Wraith attack on the planet when he begins to suspect his queen will eventually execute him. The expedition repays his help by again attempting to transform him into a human against his will, and following a second failure, by again attempting to murder him and several other Wraith similarly transformed. Not much of a deathcount in either of these last two but it really goes to show the sort of moral standards that are in practice with the expedition.

-Michael survies for a second time though and goes on to become a sort of terrorist/mad scientist with dreams of raising a hybrid army to replace both the Wraith and humanity. Despite having virtually no resources to speak of he somehow succeeds at playing space Hitler to the point that time travel is required to undo the damage he caused. The (theoetical) deathcount for this has got to have been absolutely massive in the "bad" scenario, the entire Wraith and human populations of Pegasus, Carter, and one of the cuter Wraith queens. The deatcount in the "time travel fixes all" scenario isn't nearly as bad of course but it just goes to show you, if you start needing things like time travel to fix your **** ups you should probably take a step back and reevaluate your "strategy" so to speak. Crisis averted by preventing Michael from getting his hands on a magic baby.

-The team happens upon a group of renegade Asgard who've activated an ancient super weapon that disrupts Wraith drive technology so their ships explode when entering hyperspace. The set out to stop this, since one of the side effects of the device is that it destroys stargates which destroys surrounding humam communities, but not before drooling over how the device could finally see their dreams of a galaxy wide genocide fullfilled. This doesn't directly result in any blood on the teams hands but the way they behave in this episode makes it plain as day that they actually seem to now prefer genocide of the Wraith over the possability of working toward peace with them, as oppossed to them only choosing genocide because they thought peace or other options would be impossible. It's an accusation I wouldn't even have made before seeing this episode, even though it's alluded to earlier by their initial preference to commit extensive work toward things like bioweapons, while completely ignoring alternate food sources, but it's blatently obvious after. When the events of this go down neither McKay or even Jackson attempts to bring up the currently ongoing peace process with the Wraith to the Asgard, and Mckay even forgets about it entirely as he begins to salivate over the device's potential.

-With the device unusable due to human collateral damage however and all major outside threats now removed to the Wraith, Todd's faction gets the opportunity to do a little R&D and ends up creating an unstoppable juggernaught of a "incomplete" warship that eats through upgraded 304s and atlantis type cityships like gumballs; and out of nothing more than a ZPM modified hive. The ship nearly trashes Earth by itself, after flying through the entire defense force and only being stopped because of an incredible lucky break in finding unarmoured launch bay doors that were likely one of the "incomplete" parts of it's design. While the close call with Earth is a sure butt clencher for all involved the more worrisome long term reality is that the Wraith are evidently being driven by their civil war to research new technologies and upgrades to more efficiently kill one another. With this in mind, as well as their factionalized system of alliances, the end result of the Wraith civil war is likely to be a smaller more centrally ruled and better organised Wraith society with a higher than starting level of technology and overall militarization. Even if the ZPM hive can't be directly duplicated by others the performance potential, and the ridiculous ease with which that potential can be extracted, that it revealed in Wraith technology promises only to make future encounters with a now war harded Wraith society likely even more costly than before. They have shown at every turn the ability to eventually counter Earth tactics and technnolgies in space warfare, first by intercepting missiles, then by jamming beaming attacks, by demonstrating the ability to invade shipboard systems with malicious AIs, and lately by demonstrating the capacity of engineering armour (with sufficient power resources) that is capable of rendering Asgard beam weapons entirely ineffective against their ships. Given the history of foul relations with Earth, political assassination, starvation triggering, torture and genocide attempts, perpetrated by the atlantis expedition, it's also almost certain that any future contact will be inevitably hostile. With the city of Atlantis, and presumably now the majority of Earth pressence also removed from Pegasus, local human populations are left dealing with an even more vicious and militarized oppressor while Earth itself gets to wait and wonder if they'll ever manage to find us, and what new toys they might have to show us when they do.

The short version: The expedition fliew to pegasus, stirred up an epic amount of bull**** for every race that lived there, then stole the ancient city and flew it home to Earth, leaving in their wake a bitter enemy with a score to settle that will potentially grow stronger in the long run.

[Phenom]

The atlantis expedition

-Went into Pegasus in search of cool ancient loot to fight local wars with. This in itself is a less than noble aim when you get right down to it. Sure you can talk about the glory and wonder of exploration and all that but lets get real here. They weren't going to send an expedition to another galaxy to look at some nice fruit trees that don't exist in this one, they wanted loot.

-Awakened the Wraith, not by showing up on Athosia or rescuing their captured prisoners even, but because Sheppard couldn't control his emotions and killed their queen for no logically gainful reason. So here's probably the stupidest way to start an intergalactic war ever, something born entirely out of arrogant interferance with aliens no one understood beyond them being incredibly dangerous, and one man's inability to resist drafting himself into the role of what they'll inevitably view as the political assassin of their leader. We're off to a great start here.

-The Wraith woke up as a result, but it was too early for them to do so and human populations had not yet recovered sufficiently from the last culling to sustain a new wave of them. The Wraith culled them anyway though, because the alternative was starvation, in cullings described as especially brutal and costly by Teyla and others. This occured of course entirely because there wasn't enough food to go around, they all knew it, and thus hording and overharvesting was to be expected and would only compound the already dire food shortage situation, leading to a sort of self propegating cycle of further overharvesting. So here's a massive human deathcount that wouldn't have otherwise happened, almost certainly further magnified by Wraith overculling and food hording out of fear of potential starvation.

-The next inevitable step is the Wraith go to war over limited food stocks, costing who knows how many lives, both human and Wraith. Yes I'm going to count the Wraith that needlessly died as a result of their meddaling as well, being that they're actually half-human sentients that these shortsighted clowns only preffered to think of as evil space monsters instead. Those Wraith, as well as the humans they were forced to kill, would still be alive had Sheppard been able to control himself.

-Seeing that the Wraith civil war isn't doing the job fast enough the Atlantis team decides to take more direct action in their new mission, the extermination of the Wraith species from Pegasus, by attempting to reprogram the Asurans, a machine society their ancient creators deemed too unpredictable and dangerous to actually be useful as a weapon against the Wraith. Since they're certain they know better than the ancients though they do it anyway, and it blows up in their faces when the Asurans decide that the best way to kill all the Wraith is to kill all the humans they need to feed on. Flawless machine logic at work, but since the genocide of humans is immoral and terrible, as oppossed to the genocide of Wraith which the team will explore in a wide variety of ways over the course of the show, this latest batch of medalling is universally regarded as a failure. Massive human deathcount results from this, as well as likely massive Wraith deathcount, all for ultimately no gain.

-To attempt to correct their failure, and put a stop to the ongoing human genocides, the atlantis expedition genocides the Asurans instead. When a small survivor group of them later shows up seeking an alliance they are likewise murdered in cold blood in the name of "keeping the galaxy safe from their kind" and "because they're too powerful and dangerous with that power" . Logic that would surely be better applied to the expedition itself. The losses here are of course the entire Asuran culture and "species" in that sense that they were a unique machine race that the team wiped out after their unfathomly arrogant attempts to reprogram them predictably failed.

-As part of one of their failed plans to genocide the Wraith the Atlantis expedition kidnaps a Wraith, who they name michael, and proceed to subject him to medical experiments. Unlike the previous Wraith whom they abducted to torture in this manner however he does not die in their captivity. He is instead transformed into a human/Wraith halfbreed, the failed result of a plot to turn him, and eventually all other Wraith, into harmless humans with no memory of their former selves. You've got to gives them credit for finding some pretty sinister roundabout ways to commit their genocide with this one though.

-Before they can murder him to close out their failed experiment though Michael escapes, being tolerated briefly by the Wraith but later choosing to side with Earth to avert a Wraith attack on the planet when he begins to suspect his queen will eventually execute him. The expedition repays his help by again attempting to transform him into a human against his will, and following a second failure, by again attempting to murder him and several other Wraith similarly transformed. Not much of a deathcount in either of these last two but it really goes to show the sort of moral standards that are in practice with the expedition.

-Michael survies for a second time though and goes on to become a sort of terrorist/mad scientist with dreams of raising a hybrid army to replace both the Wraith and humanity. Despite having virtually no resources to speak of he somehow succeeds at playing space Hitler to the point that time travel is required to undo the damage he caused. The (theoetical) deathcount for this has got to have been absolutely massive in the "bad" scenario, the entire Wraith and human populations of Pegasus, Carter, and one of the cuter Wraith queens. The deatcount in the "time travel fixes all" scenario isn't nearly as bad of course but it just goes to show you, if you start needing things like time travel to fix your **** ups you should probably take a step back and reevaluate your "strategy" so to speak. Crisis averted by preventing Michael from getting his hands on a magic baby.

-The team happens upon a group of renegade Asgard who've activated an ancient super weapon that disrupts Wraith drive technology so their ships explode when entering hyperspace. The set out to stop this, since one of the side effects of the device is that it destroys stargates which destroys surrounding humam communities, but not before drooling over how the device could finally see their dreams of a galaxy wide genocide fullfilled. This doesn't directly result in any blood on the teams hands but the way they behave in this episode makes it plain as day that they actually seem to now prefer genocide of the Wraith over the possability of working toward peace with them, as oppossed to them only choosing genocide because they thought peace or other options would be impossible. It's an accusation I wouldn't even have made before seeing this episode, even though it's alluded to earlier by their initial preference to commit extensive work toward things like bioweapons, while completely ignoring alternate food sources, but it's blatently obvious after. When the events of this go down neither McKay or even Jackson attempts to bring up the currently ongoing peace process with the Wraith to the Asgard, and Mckay even forgets about it entirely as he begins to salivate over the device's potential.

-With the device unusable due to human collateral damage however and all major outside threats now removed to the Wraith, Todd's faction gets the opportunity to do a little R&D and ends up creating an unstoppable juggernaught of a "incomplete" warship that eats through upgraded 304s and atlantis type cityships like gumballs; and out of nothing more than a ZPM modified hive. The ship nearly trashes Earth by itself, after flying through the entire defense force and only being stopped because of an incredible lucky break in finding unarmoured launch bay doors that were likely one of the "incomplete" parts of it's design. While the close call with Earth is a sure butt clencher for all involved the more worrisome long term reality is that the Wraith are evidently being driven by their civil war to research new technologies and upgrades to more efficiently kill one another. With this in mind, as well as their factionalized system of alliances, the end result of the Wraith civil war is likely to be a smaller more centrally ruled and better organised Wraith society with a higher than starting level of technology and overall militarization. Even if the ZPM hive can't be directly duplicated by others the performance potential, and the ridiculous ease with which that potential can be extracted, that it revealed in Wraith technology promises only to make future encounters with a now war harded Wraith society likely even more costly than before. They have shown at every turn the ability to eventually counter Earth tactics and technnolgies in space warfare, first by intercepting missiles, then by jamming beaming attacks, by demonstrating the ability to invade shipboard systems with malicious AIs, and lately by demonstrating the capacity of engineering armour (with sufficient power resources) that is capable of rendering Asgard beam weapons entirely ineffective against their ships. Given the history of foul relations with Earth, political assassination, starvation triggering, torture and genocide attempts, perpetrated by the atlantis expedition, it's also almost certain that any future contact will be inevitably hostile. With the city of Atlantis, and presumably now the majority of Earth pressence also removed from Pegasus, local human populations are left dealing with an even more vicious and militarized oppressor while Earth itself gets to wait and wonder if they'll ever manage to find us, and what new toys they might have to show us when they do.

The short version: The expedition fliew to pegasus, stirred up an epic amount of bull**** for every race that lived there, then stole the ancient city and flew it home to Earth, leaving in their wake a bitter enemy with a score to settle that will potentially grow stronger in the long run.

I punch you in the head. You get mad and go kill 100 people. Do I have the blood of 100 people on my hands?? Hell no. No matter what the motives or intentions of the original act, there is no legal or moral crime committed by me.

Thats how you make a point in under 3000 words.

[Ouroboros]

I punch you in the head. You get mad and go kill 100 people. Do I have the blood of 100 people on my hands?? Hell no. No matter what the motives or intentions of the original act, there is no legal or moral crime committed by me.

Thats how you make a point in under 3000 words.

You should probably use more words next time, because that comparison doesn't really accurately reflect the situation at all.

The Wraith didn't "get mad and kill people" because they'd been offended. They had their hibernation cycle interrupted by someone killing their leader, woke up automatically against their will, and commenced an exceptionally nasty premature version of their normal feeding cylce that wouldn't have occured otherwise.

Many if not all of the people that died would likely not have been alive by the time of the next normal Wraith culling, hence they were killed as a result of the Wraith being awoken prematurely and forced to feed. It wasn't the Wraith who decided to awake prematurely, they were forced to, to their own and the native humans of Pegaus' detriment, by SGA and Sheppard's actions.

Their actions made things worse for both peoples. The Wraith who were forced into mass starvation and civil war, and the human populations who suffered under Wraith cullings that decimated their populations to a far greater extent than normal. They even managed to drag in the Asurans, spoiling a peaceful 10,000 year extistance by reprograming them to attack the Wraith, then simply wiping them out entirely when they didn't behave as expected.

[Inquisitor]

See Inquisition?

[puddlejumperZ]

You should probably use more words next time, because that comparison doesn't really accurately reflect the situation at all.

Many if not all of the people that died would likely not have been alive by the time of the next normal Wraith culling, hence they were killed as a result of the Wraith being awoken prematurely and forced to feed. It wasn't the Wraith who decided to awake prematurely, they were forced to, to their own and the native humans of Pegaus' detriment, by SGA and Sheppard's actions.

It may be true that many of the people that were culled might not have been alive, but what about their children that would have been alive for the culling? So is it better to preserve life now only to be destroyed in the future or take chance with your lives that the future will be better for all. The Wraith who died so far would have taken countless millions of lives have they been left to the status quo. So yes, many people died, but did so for a noble cause and hopefully made things better for future generations.

[NoobTau'ri]

It may be true that many of the people that were culled might not have been alive, but what about their children that would have been alive for the culling?

This is it, in a nutshell. If Sheppard hadn't awaken the Wraith species by killing the keeper, more Humans would have been killed 100 years in the future than at that time. So from a philosophical utilitarian moral perspective(although speciescentric), Sheppard did the right thing.

Now, the Wraith have shown no ethical faults by killing Humans. Morality is a function of volition, and you don't have complete volition when confronted with a life or death choice. Personally, if I were a Wraith I would starve to death - I couldn't live with myself killing self-aware creatures -, but I can't blame the Wraith for choosing to live. What amuzes me the most is that the Atlantis Expedition went to Pegasus to find new technologies to fight the Goa'uld in the MW, and not only didn't they get any worthwile weapons technology there that could help them fight they Goa'uld, but they actually made Earth more enemies. Conclusion: the expedition was an epic failure.

[mike3]

So its the Atlantis expeditions fault that the wraith went on a killing spree??? Its their fault that the replicators killed a bunch of humans.

Sorry to burst your bubble but it is the wraiths fault that they chose to kill a bunch of people and the replicators chose (yes CHOSE) to tackle the wraith war by killing their food supply.

If you go back far enough into any course of events, you are bound to find some input from hundreds and thousands of different sources that could have altered the ensuing events. Its like saying that the Doctor who delivered Hitler is responsible for the death of millions of Jews just because he didn't kill baby Hitler. Stupid huh? Well thats exactly what is being stated in this thread.

This attitude that someone is always to blame for every wrong that ever happens is a great example of the ridiculous litigious society that governs most western societies.

Yet Hitler would be to blame for the atrocities he did. In the SG universe, the Wraith are to blame for their atrocities. So which one of *these* are "blameless wrongs", anyway? And could you explain a superior method to that used by "western" society, for real world stuff (I'm not saying "western" methods are the best, rather I want to see something better as I think it must exist but you haven't said what it is)?

[latvian_stargatefan]

What amuzes me the most is that the Atlantis Expedition went to Pegasus to find new technologies to fight the Goa'uld in the MW, and not only didn't they get any worthwile weapons technology there that could help them fight they Goa'uld, but they actually made Earth more enemies. Conclusion: the expedition was an epic failure.

That's a good point too. They didn't reach their goal. They found nothing in Atlantis to help to fight either Goua'uld or Ori, SG-1 had to go all the way to Atlantis to only find another whiny Ancient who didn't really gave them much help...

However I do not have warm feelings of Ancients too because they left millions of their created humans (and I am a human so I should feel bad) behind and just ran away. They should have taken some responsibility for them but as always, they are portrayed as a people who screw up everything and don't really appear as being a great race...

[Phenom]

Yet Hitler would be to blame for the atrocities he did. In the SG universe, the Wraith are to blame for their atrocities. So which one of *these* are "blameless wrongs", anyway? And could you explain a superior method to that used by "western" society, for real world stuff (I'm not saying "western" methods are the best, rather I want to see something better as I think it must exist but you haven't said what it is)?

I am referring to every time something bad happens in a person's life, they instantly believe someone is to blame and therefore they should get some form of compensation from it. Sure, there are occasions when an act is reckless enough to warrant compensation, however to quote Forrest Gump "Sh*t Happens'.

An example would be the recent bushfires in Victoria Australia this year where 200 died. The survivors are now looking at raising lawsuits against the country fire service. It was the most horrendous fire conditions ever seen, yet someone must be to blame. There is a culture now to try and milk as much money as possible from every tragic event. Even when there is nothing the fire service could have done to prevent the fires.

Or the insane lawsuits from the US that defy belief. This culture of 'someone must be to blame for bad stuff in my life' has ruined many communities as subsequent public liability insurance policies have increased several thousand percent over the past decade or so.

[Phenom]

You should probably use more words next time, because that comparison doesn't really accurately reflect the situation at all.

The Wraith didn't "get mad and kill people" because they'd been offended. They had their hibernation cycle interrupted by someone killing their leader, woke up automatically against their will, and commenced an exceptionally nasty premature version of their normal feeding cylce that wouldn't have occured otherwise.

Many if not all of the people that died would likely not have been alive by the time of the next normal Wraith culling, hence they were killed as a result of the Wraith being awoken prematurely and forced to feed. It wasn't the Wraith who decided to awake prematurely, they were forced to, to their own and the native humans of Pegaus' detriment, by SGA and Sheppard's actions.

Their actions made things worse for both peoples. The Wraith who were forced into mass starvation and civil war, and the human populations who suffered under Wraith cullings that decimated their populations to a far greater extent than normal. They even managed to drag in the Asurans, spoiling a peaceful 10,000 year extistance by reprograming them to attack the Wraith, then simply wiping them out entirely when they didn't behave as expected.

Legally the Atlantis expedition did nothing wrong. Period. The wraith are legally competant and able to make decisions for themselves. You may not like that those decisions meant people died but tough luck.

Morally how can they be held responsible for the actions of others?? Would I find you morally responsible for the actions of a member of your family, if they committed terrible deeds? Of course not. Although you, as a close member of their family, would have had a large bearing on them becoming the person they became.

A very common example is a paedophile who was also abused by his father. The father committed acts which shaped the paedophile, but is not responsible for the paedophile's crimes too.

[Ltcolshepjumper]

This is it, in a nutshell. If Sheppard hadn't awaken the Wraith species by killing the keeper, more Humans would have been killed 100 years in the future than at that time. So from a philosophical utilitarian moral perspective(although speciescentric), Sheppard did the right thing.

Now, the Wraith have shown no ethical faults by killing Humans. Morality is a function of volition, and you don't have complete volition when confronted with a life or death choice. Personally, if I were a Wraith I would starve to death - I couldn't live with myself killing self-aware creatures -, but I can't blame the Wraith for choosing to live. What amuzes me the most is that the Atlantis Expedition went to Pegasus to find new technologies to fight the Goa'uld in the MW, and not only didn't they get any worthwile weapons technology there that could help them fight they Goa'uld, but they actually made Earth more enemies. Conclusion: the expedition was an epic failure.

Well, there is nothing wrong with doing what is necessary to survive. However, the method in which it is done by the Wraith is malicious. That is what makes them evil. When the Wraith wipe out any advanced races. Mass murder, genocide. That is evil. If the Wraith really wanted to be able to live without killing sentient beings, they could have done it. Michael was no more smarter than them.

For the record, go back and look at everything the Expedition has discovered. They found a lot of tech and knowledge that would have been helpful. However, tptb did what they do with everything- they don't use what they get. Look at SG-1. The only things worthwhile that they have actually implemented are the naquadah generators and Asgard tech. But they found much more than that. The problem is that everything somehow winds up destroyed imperfect, or just dropped.

The atlantis expedition

-Went into Pegasus...

...The short version: The expedition fliew to pegasus, stirred up an epic amount of bull**** for every race that lived there, then stole the ancient city and flew it home to Earth, leaving in their wake a bitter enemy with a score to settle that will potentially grow stronger in the long run.

I completely agree with that assessment. Most of the Expedition's decisions, with the exception of Michael and the GitM situation, were not morally dubious, but ill-sighted and just plain stupid. Many of the problems could have been corrected by the Expedition, and even the Ancients, if they had put in the effort. Now with Michael, the initial problem was not changing him to a human, but betraying his trust. Same with the rogue Asurans. Now, with the Wraith and Asuran mainstream group- neither one desired to make peace with humanity. Both were equally willing to commit genocide (the Wraith had done so for 10,000 years). When given the opportunity to make amends, both turned on Atlantis (the Wraith betrayed Atlantis first in Allies, the Asurans in Progeny and The Return). Also, the Asurans were going to kill humans anyway. If the expedition hadn't reactivated the Wraith attack command, the Asurans would have gone to Earth and massacred them. So, none of them are better than the other. However, where the Expedition tried, albeit erroneously, to eliminate the Wraith threat, their enemies killed out of spite. The Expedition's mistakes were borne out of necessity and, despite the mistakes, were done to save humanity. Sheppard didn't kill the queen out of spite. He killed her because she was a threat. Now, sure, he could have tried to leave without killing her. It might have kept the majority of the wraith in hibernation, but the damage was done. They would have awakened then regardless, because they already had the knowledge of a new feeding ground. Also, they knew that they were in Atlantis. So it was inevitable. They might not have awakened all at once, but they would have begun to awake. The aims of the Expedition were just, despite the horrible tactics and decisions. the Wraith and Asuran aims were spiteful.