The Ancients Discussion Thread (Spoiler for all seasons of both shows).

[!!??]

Where do you see the ancients treating humans real bad. The only episode I can think of is Return when they kicked us out of atlantis, but that was their city. If you leave from your house for 10 years do people have the right to take it. The Ancients didnt make the 2ndgenhumans follow them like the Ori do. The Ancients didnt make any 2ndgenhumans die from the experiments until after they left. The Ancients fought the war for 2ndgenhumans. They could have tooken Atlantis and went to another galaxy leaving 2ndgen to die. They didnt leave the 2ndgenhumans until after they lost the war. They arent responsible for the wraith. The experiments helped the humans of those planets advance faster. They make mistakes like every other race. Just because they didnt kill off every threat that came doesnt mean they are evil. It isnt there fault if leaving their tech behind makes a enemy stronger. We cant act like we are perfect either. The Ancients dont deserve to be praised but the whole point of this thread is to figure out what they are like not to say they are gods or not.

[Heaven]

elbo, exactly which ancient that we encountered do you consider to have lacking morality?

[elbo]

Are we talking about normal Ancients or the Ascended kind here? It's getting kinda confusing.

Especially the Ancients and ther behaviour before they ascended. Is more complicated if we enter in different planes of existence philosophies.

The fact is that we don't know many things about the ascended beings, how percent of them Ancients represent and how percent other races or species.

We could debate more about the Ori from the ascended, becaue they were better writen, with a clear purpose and without many contradictory aspects and plot holes. In my opinion the writers did a very poor job in picturing the MW ascended beings, or explain their rules and their double nature: for example they say they don't interfere like a principle, but interfering even once in Anubis case blow that principle to heavens: leting an former ascended in his immortal form in a killing spree campaign throughout MW, is something that not even the Ori ascended didn't do.

So what good is leting people free will, if they are unable to use it, because of the same people actions? And all this to punish a fellow ascended? Too much indifference for my taste. Only because somone don't make humans worship them as gods, this don't make them nice guys. Maby they didn't need that and have other objectives.

[!!??]

Especially the Ancients and ther behaviour before they ascended. Is more complicated if we enter in different planes of existence philosophies.

The fact is that we don't know many things about the ascended beings, how percent of them Ancients represent and how percent other races or species.

We could debate more about the Ori from the ascended, becaue they were better writen, with a clear purpose and without many contradictory aspects and plot holes. In my opinion the writers did a very poor job in picturing the MW ascended beings, or explain their rules and their double nature: for example they say they don't interfere like a principle, but interfering even once in Anubis case blow that principle to heavens: leting an former ascended in his immortal form in a killing spree campaign throughout MW, is something that not even the Ori ascended didn't do.

So what good is leting people free will, if they are unable to use it, because of the same people actions? And all this to punish a fellow ascended? Too much indifference for my taste. Only because somone don't make humans worship them as gods, this don't make them nice guys. Maby they didn't need that and have other objectives.

Yep they plan on taking over the whole universe. That is their other very evil objective If the ancients are as evil as you say why were they in a alliance with good races. I would think the other races in the alliance wouldnt want to be allies with a evil race seeing as they are pacifists.

[elbo]

elbo, exactly which ancient that we encountered do you consider to have lacking morality?

The Lanteans. Based especially on SGA story, in which we learn more about them with each episode: from the type of species the created Wraith (by negligence) or Asurans (by purpose), the type of experiments they conducted like the one in "Hide and Seek", "Childhood's end" (come on is cruel), "Hot Zone", "The Game", "Sunday" even in "Trinity" (i think their weapon destroy the inhabitants of that planet).

In "Return", we see why they loose the war with the Wraith and how they don't put too much value on humans or less advanced civilasation no matter if they have a fairly good understanding of Ancient tech. They fail to understand that a war can be won not by technological superiority alone, but by making alliances with other races and using their strengths and tactical experience.

What i find annoying, is that what we manage to avoid all this time, 3 years, not giving aggresive species means to get to Earth and MW by loosing Atlantis, they manage to do it in few months to the first attack, which they threat it in their arrogant and sell-confident way, waiting them with the city shield down, not consulting us about our encounter, assuming that the Asurans have the same base code 10.000 years old. To make such mistakes when is your own life at risk is your problem, but to open the door to invasion of a planet and a galaxy, is not ok.

I continue to belive that the Ancients are dangerous to be around them. With great power came great responsability.

[elbo]

Yep they plan on taking over the whole universe. That is their other very evil objective If the ancients are as evil as you say why were they in a alliance with good races. I would think the other races in the alliance wouldnt want to be allies with a evil race seeing as they are pacifists.

I didn't say they were evil, please. Evilness require purpose not indifference.

What i was trying to say that sometimes the indifference and other flaws the Ancients had are even more dangerous and can produce even more damage.

[!!??]

The Lanteans. Based especially on SGA story, in which we learn more about them with each episode: from the type of species the created Wraith (by negligence) or Asurans (by purpose), the type of experiments they conducted like the one in "Hide and Seek", "Childhood's end" (come on is cruel), "Hot Zone", "The Game", "Sunday" even in "Trinity" (i think their weapon destroy the inhabitants of that planet).

In "Return", we see why they loose the war with the Wraith and how they don't put too much value on humans or less advanced civilasation no matter if they have a fairly good understanding of Ancient tech. They fail to understand that a war can be won not by technological superiority alone, but by making alliances with other races and using their strengths and tactical experience.

What i find annoying, is that what we manage to avoid all this time, 3 years, not giving aggresive species means to get to Earth and MW by loosing Atlantis, they manage to do it in few months to the first attack, which they threat it in their arrogant and sell-confident way, waiting them with the city shield down, not consulting us about our encounter, assuming that the Asurans have the same base code 10.000 years old. To make such mistakes when is your own life at risk is your problem, but to open the door to invasion of a planet and a galaxy, is not ok.

I continue to belive that the Ancients are dangerous to be around them. With great power came great responsability.

They didnt create the wraith. What shows you that they dont care about other races. They could have left all other humans and went to a different galaxy with atlantis. Did they do that no they stayed and fought the wraith. They did have allies. Dont you remember the four great races, the people who lived on the planet where trinity took place. There isnt enough information on the ancients for you to make them out to be selfish.

[ciannwn]

The verona people became evil because a Ascended being gave the weapon to them. The goald didnt get any tech from the Acended but got tech from the Human form Ancients. The destruction of the people was a punishment to orlin too.

Did every single inhabitant of Velona become evil including the children? What's the difference between a race becoming evil because an ascended Ancient give them information on how to build a weapon and a race becoming evil because they found an Ancient weapon lying around after the Ancients abandoned it when they ascended? Why don't the ascended Ancients have any responsibility for disasters created by technology which they built and then abandoned on ascension? When somebody ascends he/she remains exactly the same person - he/she doesn't become somebody else. If unascended Ancients had exterminated the population of an entire planet to punish one of their number for rule breaking would we say these unascended Ancients were morally right?

That doesnt make ancients evil just because they prefered the lives of many people from being slaves to some evil people.

They're perfectly happy to let many people become the slaves of some other beings who are evil when it suits them. The Goa'uld enslaved untold millions for centuries and now the Ori are enslaving populations because they've found a way around the ascended Ancients'/Others' rules. Stopping the Goa'uld and the Ori would be interfering with mortals' free will according to the Ancients/Others but what about the Velona inhabitant's free will choice to accept the weapon from Orlin, use it on the Goa'uld and then decide to conquer other worlds with it? Why was their free will choice less valid than the Goa'uld's?

People keep on about the ascended Ancients'/Others' rules but who says that these rules are just and fair in every case and that the ascended Ancients/Others always apply their rules in a morally correct manner? The answer is it's the ascended Ancients/Others who maintain these things but why are we obliged to believe them? We know that wisdom, compassion, goodness and high moral values aren't necessary requirements for ascending and living on these higher planes so why should we automatically assume that ascended Ancients have great wisdom, compassion, goodness and high moral values just because they inhabit these higher planes?

"Sentient" means a complex being, self-aware, open to reason, with a level of inteligence that put that being in a position to comunicate and understand. Not all forms of lifes are "sentient", meaning that they've reached a stage in their evolution in which we cannot treat them like lab experiments anymore, but respect their right to exist free and evolve free.

Who decided what 'sentient' should mean? One group of humans. Who decided that creatures who don't fit the definition of 'sentient' can be used like lab experiments because we needn't respect their right to exist and evolve free? The answer, again, is one group of humans. Not all humans agree with this. The following link is to the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Animals' which has been adopted by the 'International League for Animal Rights' -

http://www.jainworld.com/book/bookofcompassion/ch4.asp

Jainists have a completely different philosophy to humans who think that animals which don't fit the definition of 'sentient can be used as they see fit.

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10040.html

In addition, Jainism places a special emphasis on ahimsa ("non-injury") to all living beings. The concern for life is extended to all creatures, even minute microbes that are not visible. The Jain ideal is a mendicant ascetic who takes extreme measures to avoid injuring all creatures. Monks and nuns are sometimes seen with muslin cloths over their mouths to keep out flying insects, and they are enjoined to use small brooms to gently sweep away living creatures from their path, so as to not accidentally crush them.

As a result of these beliefs, Jainists are vegetarians who do not approve of animals being used as lab experiments. They also have moral dilemmas where eating plants are concerned -

http://www.pluralism.org/resources/t...says/jain7.php

Vegetables, of course, are also living things, but less developed than animals in their full range of sensory awareness. Even so, it is preferable to eat the fruit and produce of plants, such as the apple or the pea-pod, rather than to eat the entire living organism, such as the potato or carrot.

We could debate more about the Ori from the ascended, becaue they were better writen, with a clear purpose and without many contradictory aspects and plot holes. In my opinion the writers did a very poor job in picturing the MW ascended beings, or explain their rules and their double nature: for example they say they don't interfere like a principle, but interfering even once in Anubis case blow that principle to heavens: leting an former ascended in his immortal form in a killing spree campaign throughout MW, is something that not even the Ori ascended didn't do.

Maybe the ascended Ancients/Others were deliberately left ambiguous to make viewers think. The Ori are united in their goal to spread the religion of Origin so they can gain power from humans worshipping them - this makes them easy to evaluate. The ascended Ancients/Others, on the other hand, can't agree between themselves when it comes to their own rules and who is responsible for what. They insist on a strict policy of non-interference on the lower plane and condemned Orlin for giving the Velona people instructions for building a weapon. They then proceeded to exterminate the Velona people without regarding this action as interference on the lower plane. They set out with the aim of protecting the Milky Way inhabitants from the Ori and then allowed the Ori to bend the non-interference rules in order to create havoc in the Milky Way galaxy. They also allowed Orlin to descend with his extra knowledge from ascension intact so he could help the SGA personnel develop a cure for the Ori plague. Isn't allowing one of their number to do this a form of interference? What they actually did here was absolve themselves of blame for rule breaking by coming up with a double think technicality. "If we let Orlin help humans in his energy body form we'll be guilty of rule breaking but if we let him become corporeal again it's OK even though he'll be the same person using the same knowledge."

The Goa'uld pretended to be gods and, according to Ba'al, some of them came to believe they really were gods. Millions of people believed the Goa'uld's claim and worshipped them but human belief that they were gods didn't make the Goa'uld real gods. The ascended Ancients/Others claim that they are right to apply their rules in all the ways that they do (Anubis, Velona, etc. etc.) but are claims made by beings who have energy bodies and who can turn coffee mugs into teapots with a thought any more valid than the Goa'uld's claims that they were gods? Maybe viewers are meant to evaluate the claims and actions of the ascended Ancients/Others and not just assume that they must be right at all times because they describe themselves as ascended and say that the planes they live on are higher than the physical plane.

[elbo]

Who decided what 'sentient' should mean? One group of humans. Who decided that creatures who don't fit the definition of 'sentient' can be used like lab experiments because we needn't respect their right to exist and evolve free? The answer, again, is one group of humans. Not all humans agree with this. The following link is to the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Animals' which has been adopted by the 'International League for Animal Rights' -

So a plant is not a form of life? Who gives you the right to destroy it?

No sorry, we should act in order to preserve the inteligent forms of life, those which WE can determine that are inteligent enough to understand and comunicate with us.

"Sentient" is not a relative term, but a absolute one, at least in SG universe, because in reality we are in the top of the evolution chain, from all we know.

You could not expect to preserve all forms of life, because in this case you deny your own organic being nature, who exist on the expense of other non-sentient life forms.

Again when i say inteligent-sentient life forms, don't think to different levels of science understanding for example, which may differ from species to species, and can be interpreted indeed like a relative term. Think to "inteligent beings" like beings that reach a point in their evolution in which they became self-aware. This is a absolute interpretation of "sentient" and milions of years of evolution of specie A, cannot deny the level of evolution of specie B and their self-awarness, which is absolute like the universe itself, planets, stars, etc. Yes some things are universal constants, like space and time, sentience in another one.

[Heaven]

The Lanteans.

which Lantians? specifically.
Merlin/Morgan/Melia/Janus/Helia/Chaya that's about all the Lantians that we encountered.
do you consider any of them less moral than humans?

if you're going to judge them by the collective then you have to judge humans by the same measure, and then you get genocide, stealing, mass murder, slavery etc

[ciannwn]

So a plant is not a form of life? Who gives you the right to destroy it?

As I said in my previous post, Jainists are concerned about plants being living things and can have moral dilemmas about eating potatoes and carrots.

My mentioning the Jainists and animal rights people was just to illustrate how humans rarely agree about anything. 'Moral values' not only differ between cultures but can change over time within the same culture. Most cultures have/have had a ban on murder but, even here, opinions have differed concerning what murder actually is. Human sacrifice would be considered murder in our 21st Western culture but some cultures throughout history regarded this as acceptable.

Ascended beings in the Stargate universe can't agree about things either even though they are all living on the higher planes. The Ancients/Others have a different philosophy to the Ori. The Ancients are also divided into Oma's followers who have a different philosophy to the ones Daniel refers to as 'Others'. Merlin disagreed with the Ancients/Others about developing a weapon which could be used against the Ori and chose to descend and Morgan Le Fay (still ascended) eventually went over to his side. Merlin was really the Ancient, Moros, who Elizabeth Weir met in 'Before I Sleep'. Moros and the other Ancients disagreed with Janus who invented the time travelling Puddle Jumper and Janus went against their wishes when he helped Weir. It seems, then, that Ancients didn't change much in the agreement department - they had differences of opinion before they ascended and still had them after they ascended.

The worst thing about the ascended Ancients/Others is that they have a self-imposed rule of non-interference on the physical plane and then have fits of interpreting it on the lines of "It's a crime to interfere but it's OK for us to break the rule if it's to punish one of our own who broke the rule so we're justified in killing all the inhabitants of Velona."

The non-interference rule has to be self imposed. If it was a rule created by higher, higher beings so to speak, the Ori would have been stopped a long time ago because they directly interfere with the lower plane in their own galaxy.

[garhkal]

experiments they conducted like the one in "Hide and Seek", "Childhood's end" (come on is cruel), "Hot Zone", "The Game", "Sunday" even in "Trinity" (i think their weapon destroy the inhabitants of that planet).

On Childhoo'ds end, how do you get that it was cruel> If i only have X amt of energy to protect Y amt of space, would you consider it cruel to limit the growth of population so they all stay in the protected area? And if i remember the ep, THEY were the ones who came up with that rule, not the ancients.

As to trinity, the explosion which decimated the planet was an unforseen side effect of the experiment, so that cannot be counted...

[!!??]

Did every single inhabitant of Velona become evil including the children? What's the difference between a race becoming evil because an ascended Ancient give them information on how to build a weapon and a race becoming evil because they found an Ancient weapon lying around after the Ancients abandoned it when they ascended? Why don't the ascended Ancients have any responsibility for disasters created by technology which they built and then abandoned on ascension? When somebody ascends he/she remains exactly the same person - he/she doesn't become somebody else. If unascended Ancients had exterminated the population of an entire planet to punish one of their number for rule breaking would we say these unascended Ancients were morally right?



They're perfectly happy to let many people become the slaves of some other beings who are evil when it suits them. The Goa'uld enslaved untold millions for centuries and now the Ori are enslaving populations because they've found a way around the ascended Ancients'/Others' rules. Stopping the Goa'uld and the Ori would be interfering with mortals' free will according to the Ancients/Others but what about the Velona inhabitant's free will choice to accept the weapon from Orlin, use it on the Goa'uld and then decide to conquer other worlds with it? Why was their free will choice less valid than the Goa'uld's?

People keep on about the ascended Ancients'/Others' rules but who says that these rules are just and fair in every case and that the ascended Ancients/Others always apply their rules in a morally correct manner? The answer is it's the ascended Ancients/Others who maintain these things but why are we obliged to believe them? We know that wisdom, compassion, goodness and high moral values aren't necessary requirements for ascending and living on these higher planes so why should we automatically assume that ascended Ancients have great wisdom, compassion, goodness and high moral values just because they inhabit these higher planes?



Who decided what 'sentient' should mean? One group of humans. Who decided that creatures who don't fit the definition of 'sentient' can be used like lab experiments because we needn't respect their right to exist and evolve free? The answer, again, is one group of humans. Not all humans agree with this. The following link is to the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Animals' which has been adopted by the 'International League for Animal Rights' -

http://www.jainworld.com/book/bookofcompassion/ch4.asp

Jainists have a completely different philosophy to humans who think that animals which don't fit the definition of 'sentient can be used as they see fit.

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10040.html

In addition, Jainism places a special emphasis on ahimsa ("non-injury") to all living beings. The concern for life is extended to all creatures, even minute microbes that are not visible. The Jain ideal is a mendicant ascetic who takes extreme measures to avoid injuring all creatures. Monks and nuns are sometimes seen with muslin cloths over their mouths to keep out flying insects, and they are enjoined to use small brooms to gently sweep away living creatures from their path, so as to not accidentally crush them.

As a result of these beliefs, Jainists are vegetarians who do not approve of animals being used as lab experiments. They also have moral dilemmas where eating plants are concerned -

http://www.pluralism.org/resources/t...says/jain7.php

Vegetables, of course, are also living things, but less developed than animals in their full range of sensory awareness. Even so, it is preferable to eat the fruit and produce of plants, such as the apple or the pea-pod, rather than to eat the entire living organism, such as the potato or carrot.



Maybe the ascended Ancients/Others were deliberately left ambiguous to make viewers think. The Ori are united in their goal to spread the religion of Origin so they can gain power from humans worshipping them - this makes them easy to evaluate. The ascended Ancients/Others, on the other hand, can't agree between themselves when it comes to their own rules and who is responsible for what. They insist on a strict policy of non-interference on the lower plane and condemned Orlin for giving the Velona people instructions for building a weapon. They then proceeded to exterminate the Velona people without regarding this action as interference on the lower plane. They set out with the aim of protecting the Milky Way inhabitants from the Ori and then allowed the Ori to bend the non-interference rules in order to create havoc in the Milky Way galaxy. They also allowed Orlin to descend with his extra knowledge from ascension intact so he could help the SGA personnel develop a cure for the Ori plague. Isn't allowing one of their number to do this a form of interference? What they actually did here was absolve themselves of blame for rule breaking by coming up with a double think technicality. "If we let Orlin help humans in his energy body form we'll be guilty of rule breaking but if we let him become corporeal again it's OK even though he'll be the same person using the same knowledge."

The Goa'uld pretended to be gods and, according to Ba'al, some of them came to believe they really were gods. Millions of people believed the Goa'uld's claim and worshipped them but human belief that they were gods didn't make the Goa'uld real gods. The ascended Ancients/Others claim that they are right to apply their rules in all the ways that they do (Anubis, Velona, etc. etc.) but are claims made by beings who have energy bodies and who can turn coffee mugs into teapots with a thought any more valid than the Goa'uld's claims that they were gods? Maybe viewers are meant to evaluate the claims and actions of the ascended Ancients/Others and not just assume that they must be right at all times because they describe themselves as ascended and say that the planes they live on are higher than the physical plane.

The same tech that the ancients left also saved us countless times. Nobody is saying you should worship asceded beings. We barely know anything on the story of how they wiped out the people of Velona. They could of only destroyed the evil veronans and Transport the good ones and children to different planets without memory. There isnt enough knowledge on what happend. I am going to guess that there are some evil ascended Ancients but overall they are good.

[Ltcolshepjumper]

Who decided what 'sentient' should mean? One group of humans. Who decided that creatures who don't fit the definition of 'sentient' can be used like lab experiments because we needn't respect their right to exist and evolve free? The answer, again, is one group of humans. Not all humans agree with this. The following link is to the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Animals' which has been adopted by the 'International League for Animal Rights' -

http://www.jainworld.com/book/bookofcompassion/ch4.asp

Jainists have a completely different philosophy to humans who think that animals which don't fit the definition of 'sentient can be used as they see fit.

http://www.beliefnet.com/index/index_10040.html

In addition, Jainism places a special emphasis on ahimsa ("non-injury") to all living beings. The concern for life is extended to all creatures, even minute microbes that are not visible. The Jain ideal is a mendicant ascetic who takes extreme measures to avoid injuring all creatures. Monks and nuns are sometimes seen with muslin cloths over their mouths to keep out flying insects, and they are enjoined to use small brooms to gently sweep away living creatures from their path, so as to not accidentally crush them.

As a result of these beliefs, Jainists are vegetarians who do not approve of animals being used as lab experiments. They also have moral dilemmas where eating plants are concerned -

http://www.pluralism.org/resources/t...says/jain7.php

Vegetables, of course, are also living things, but less developed than animals in their full range of sensory awareness. Even so, it is preferable to eat the fruit and produce of plants, such as the apple or the pea-pod, rather than to eat the entire living organism, such as the potato or carrot.

Who decided that plants were sentient or that those "other" animals were sentient? one group of humans. If we go by that logic, then we should just stick to completely artificial foods, so as not to "endanger" any living thing. And if that were the case, we wouldn't live very long, now would we? Because one of the constant laws of nature is that in order for one form of life to survive, another must lose its life. It's inevitable. There is nothing you can do to change that, because if that were the case, we should be arresting animals for committing murder.And what exactly does sentient mean? What if I asked you "Who decided what is moral?" What would your answer be?

[redrama9]

I dont think the Great alliiance of four has anything to do with the Goa'uld