How would have the SG-Atlantis expedition ended if it wasn't cancelled?

[Peterking72]

Final question: Why not the Asgard clone themselves with Wraith tech?
Well this is the most utterly stupidest question of all. First thing is as someone said it before, that the Asgard need bodies close to their species because of their immense knowledge. The measly wraith drone's mind would crush under the vast knowledge of a centuries old Asgard conscience. I doubt even a Wraith queen could handle that much knowledge, and I also doubt that the Wraith would let the Asgard clone queens for that purpose. Second thing is the Asgard want to return to being able to procreate. If I remember well, the wraith drone's are sterile and the entirety of wraith society relies on queens to propagate themselves. Fially if somehow they were able to surmount these clearly unsurmountable problems there would be the issue of a major identity crisis resulting in a depression as deep as the Mariana Trench. I mean how do you think the Asgard's conscience of not harming other sentient, friendly beings can come to terms with the need to feed in order to survive. They wouldn't choose that route, not in a gazillion to one chance.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

Better PSUs, and potential drives capable of intergalactic travel. If they were able to overcome their limited power problems, they might even be able to install shields on their ships, thus negating the need to make hyperspace jumps to repair hull damage taken by exposure to subspace radiation. Also, the Vanir ships were capable of passing through Lantean shields. A useful feat for darts, yes?

Well, wraith have never really needed to pass through Atlantis's shields seeing as they always had the forces necessary to simply batter them down eventually if they knew where the city was, but yeah those are good points. In fact, when you put it like that, I would actually wonder why the Vanir would even consider it as an option. Giving the wraith those advantages would make them potentially unstoppable and then make them an unmanageable threat to them and everyone else in the future. I don't see how they could guarantee the wraith don't turn on them afterward seeing as they've been known to treat any major threat as something that needed to be eliminated at once, regardless of any promises they've made to them. Especially since The wraith had always been the Vanir's primary enemy too. The Expedition was always a secondary obstruction to their objective of wiping them out.

[The Urban Spaceman]

Killing is killing.

Really? Then why do courts set different punishments for murder, manslaughter and accidental death? Why do we have degrees of murder? Why not just hand out a blanket sentence for any loss of life?

Killing for food is also killing, regardless of method and the neither Wraith or anybody can justify killing another sentient being.

Justify by whose standards? Because "we are superior" or "we need to eat" would be valid 'justification' for Wraith feeding, from their point of view. Certainly from the human point of view it isn't brilliant, but to the Goa'uld point of view, for example, the Wraith justification would be irrelevant.

Just for fun or in the Wraith's case food is the worst kind and completely unforgivable either by God or any other sentient being.

The Pegasus team do not answer to God. They answer to the IOA. And I don't think the Wraith are looking for forgiveness

Todd's analogy to us eating animals for sustinance is outright abolishable and utterly ridicolous.

It's not a ridiculous analogy, it's the plain simple truth. The Wraith need to feed on the energy of humans, or other Wraith, to survive. If they don't feed, they die. Though I suppose you could argue that it's a ridiculous analogy -- no human ever died through not eating meat. We're omnivores. The Wraith do not have that luxury.

We are not animals.

Speak for yourself. In a physical world that's reduced to 'animal, vegetable or mineral', perhaps you're a vegetable, but I'm certainly an animal.

We are sentient, have self-consciousness and most importantly a soul.

We have what we perceive to be a soul. It's not yet been scientifically quantified.

Also, dude, it would be appreciated if you could either multi-quote or edit your original post when addressing several facts. It makes it easier for people to respond to you and stops threads getting insanely long.

[Peterking72]

When I said killing is killing I meant it in general not by our jury's point of view. And I meant the kind of killing when you willfully take someone's life. Only stupid, careless people cause accidental deaths. As for manslaughter, it's still killing just by more brutal means, which indicates more determination on the killers side. From that determination the jury can conclude that the suspect will more likely to result to kill in the same situation, therefore need to be punished and locked away for more time. The term which by we call one's action not necessarily change the result. Manslaughter and murder or killing will always result in someone's death. Therefore your point is irrelevant.
Justification should be by only one standard. No one likes double standards. For example how would you like if someone decided you have to pay more rent for the same accomodation because he doesn't like you and he would feel more justified from it? Same applies here. Besides if you eat people then you should expect that sooner or later you end up on someone's list of: "Needs to be taken care of immediately!" That's what happenned to the wraith here. And since our side is the human side we shall see justification from our point of view, not some mutant life-sucking aliens point of view. If you prefer to be on the wraith side that's your agenda, and a kind of disturbing one.
Since I am protestant I believe everyone in the end of their natural life answers to God. In case you don't believe in God you could replace Him by your preferred authority. If your's is the IOA then be it.
If you prefer Darwin's theory of humans originating from some monkey and we are related to chimpanzee to the christian theory of creation and you outright say your an animal then that again is your point of view, not mine. And again it's kind of disturbing someone claiming to be an animal instead of counting himself as a sentient being with a conscience and maybe a soul.
Soul can NOT be scientifically quantified because it not consist of matter of this world and it's outside the reach of our "realm" or dimension or whatever you want to call it. Of course petty science wants to quantify everything. That what they can not measure they fear of and try to deny it's existence. Thinking by denying it they actually will it out of existence. It seems to me that you are on sciences side.
Realizing this our argument never could conclude because we are on opposing side. I on the side of God and the christianity and you by lack of better world on the side of science and paganity.
For your final point: I do whatever I want in my own thread as long as the moderators don't say otherwise. I won't multi-qoute and edit for other's convenience. If those who don't read the threead through I consider to be not really interested in it's progression, therefore why should I be interested in their needs.

[The Urban Spaceman]

As for manslaughter, it's still killing just by more brutal means

I don't think you understand what 'manslaughter' means. Perhaps we can resume this discussion once you have made the distinction between manslaughter and murder.

For your final point: I do whatever I want in my own thread as long as the moderators don't say otherwise. I won't multi-qoute and edit for other's convenience.

Well, that's just plain rude. I invite you to learn about netiquette and perhaps in the future, when you are more civilised, we will speak again.

Well, wraith have never really needed to pass through Atlantis's shields seeing as they always had the forces necessary to simply batter them down eventually if they knew where the city was, but yeah those are good points. In fact, when you put it like that, I would actually wonder why the Vanir would even consider it as an option. Giving the wraith those advantages would make them potentially unstoppable and then make them an unmanageable threat to them and everyone else in the future. I don't see how they could guarantee the wraith don't turn on them afterward seeing as they've been known to treat any major threat as something that needed to be eliminated at once, regardless of any promises they've made to them. Especially since The wraith had always been the Vanir's primary enemy too. The Expedition was always a secondary obstruction to their objective of wiping them out.

Very true. But on the other hand, once the Vanir have theoretically got galactic-drive ships once more, they could in theory just go to any other galaxy to resume their research. Even to their original home galaxy, since they now know that the Asgard are gone. It would be pretty simple for them to make forays into the Milky Way to kidnap humans for their experiments, since the Milky Way is much bigger and more populated than Pegasus, and there would be no Asgard High Council to stop them.

[Ouroboros]

So... you do think the SGC should have avoided all exploration and tried to avoid any new contact with any unknown alien species? Because otherwise anything could be interpreted as them "picking a fight."

There's a difference between exploration and intentionally stranding hundreds of people one the other side of an unknown wormhole millions of lightyears from Earth.

The point I was trying to make was that your earlier posts in the thread talked about how the best ending for the show would have been a disastrous retreat for the SGC and that the messed up situation in the Pegasus was the fault of the Expedition's arrogance, despite the fact that, even if they had been arrogant, it wasn't their fault in these circumstances.

An ending where the SGC actually loses a major war without the destruction of Earth that would follow from losing to something like the Goa'uld or Ori in the MW galaxy would go a long way toward bringing back some of the sense of danger in the universe that's diminished over the years. It would show that despite how far Earth has come they can still lose, and not just be temporarily defeated until they rise up to squash their foes with an ass pulled plot device.

Seeing as the wraith went in their to harm them first, I don't think so.

I doubt the species who'd had it's territory invaded by armed aliens would consider itself the aggressor for apprehending said aliens and that's what I was talking about there. From the perspective of the Wraith, or anyone else, grabbing up those intruding teams before they could do whatever it was they were planning was the logical thing to do.

So the alternative is leaving people in the hands of aliens that were already known to be hostile?

You're not even reading what I'm writing are you.

That could have just as easily backfire given what they knew about the wraith at the time. Also Sheppard starting shooting at an alien that was torturing and/or killing his CO. By then it was pretty clear that there was no hope for a peaceful resolution. Before that he and Ford were trying to infiltrate the base quietly.

Infiltrating their base and setting explosives everywhere with the intention of detonating them to cover their escape. Then our hero runs off by himself to see the scene you described, almost getting himself killed in the process which, since he was the only pilot on the mission, would have left the entire rescue party and the prisoners stranded in Wraith hands.

Just like how the wraith did killed, harmed and abducted some of the Atlantis Expedition's people? If Apophis abducting and executing SGC personnel was grounds for the SGC to retaliate, why wasn't the wraith doing exactly the same thing also grounds for it? Apophis could just as easily have crushed them for doing so.

It's obvious here that you don't understand the difference between attacking someone in their home and attacking someone because THEY are in YOUR home.

It's a pretty big difference. It's the difference between me creeping into someone's house at night with a gun, and me shooting someone who crept into my house at night with a gun.

My point here was not about what they knew, but about what threat the wraith did pose to Earth compared to the goa'uld. SG-1 attracted the attention of a much greater threat to Earth than the Atlantis Expedition did. The SGC certainly didn't have the knowledge that they could effectively fight the goa'uld either. Because they could not, not at first at least. Yet they retaliated against them anyway. SG-1 brought Earth much closer to being "squashed like a bug" than the Atlantis Expedition ever did.

The situation with the Goa'uld was unavoidable. They're a ruthless tyrannical regime that makes slaves of humans and resides in the local galactic neighborhood. The SGC wasn't fully aware of this until Apophis attacked Earth and the events that followed, when the full extent of the threat, likely aided through debriefing of Teal'c, became known.

The SGA expedition was shot across an intergalactic void millions of lightyears wide into an unknown galaxy, knowing they would be stranded there on arrival. All in the name of finding ancient loot to use in their current and future wars. Due to their bad planning and utter lack of reconnaissance they arrived in a city nearly out of power which forced them to adjacent planets where they encountered a hostile alien species. This species abducted some of their team members, and in response the expedition immediately attacked them, without even attempting diplomacy or explanation for their appearance in what was clearly the alien's territory. The expedition instead launched a military raid on the aliens, during which their military second in command severely endangered himself and the rescue mission to accomplish nothing other than the killing of the alien leader, seemingly out of spite, which woke all the rest of the aliens from hibernation and pissed them off like a nest of angry hornets.

During the next 5 years millions of people died at the hands of the aliens who were prematurely awakened, as well as as a direct result of various ill thought out plans the team attempted to put into motion to kill all these aliens. This all culminates in the eventual creation of an alien battleship of such immense power that nothing in the SGC fleet, or the fleets of any of its allies could even damage it. This alien battleship actually reached Earth Lunar orbit, and was only destroyed at the last possible minute because the gods of pure insane luck once again smiled upon the Earth and its 7 billion inhabitants.

Yeah I think that's enough to qualify the whole thing as a screw up that the SGC should probably examine closely and try its best not to repeat in the future.

[Peterking72]

Sorry for coming trough hostile and bit of uncivilized last night. I was in a wrong mood and a bit pissed off because of work related stuff, and reading your comment has not helped on the situation. As for my reasonable argument I hope you came to see my point in those parts which you has't commented back on.
Despite what you think I know the difference between murder and manslaughter. What I tried to point out that essentially both of them boils down to taking life,killing. Manslaughter only states more in this case, that it distinctively used for murdering of "man" as in human, earthling. Clearly it cant be used for example if someone killed an Asgard or Jaffa.

[Peterking72]

Ouroboros I think you hasn't yet read my latest post from last night, or you just plain ignored it. I read that despite many people here tried to convince you that Wraith is in no circumstances interchangeable with Klingon or any other similar space aliens for that matter, you remain resolute that you are right and they are wrong. I get it that you like if the dark side kicks the humans arrogant ass and all that evil stuff in other sci-fi (I bet you rooted for the Empire and Darth Sidious in Star Wars), but Stargate was never that dark in the first place. It tried to be, when they introduced Anubis (which was an analogy to Darth Sidious from SW), but it failed when they beat him by pulling out a plot device from their asses. In that case you were right. They do that all the time, but apart from these annoying episodes the series altogether was still fun to watch if you count out that piece of crap SGU which was an utter disappointment for me.

[Peterking72]

By the way I like dark and mysterious series too. For example X-files. There aliens come and go and do whatever the heck they please and humans most of the time cant to nothing about it. Mulder tries to do what he can and Scully too is convinced in the end but their hands are often tied due to the fact that they FBI agents.
My best parts are: Squeeze, Tooms, The host, Folie a Deux, Dreamland 1-2, Bad blood, Monday, Field trip and those episodes when Scully searches for Mulder then he comes back. I like that theme music, I think it's called Scully's theme by Mark Snow.

[Infinite-Possibilities]

There's a difference between exploration and intentionally stranding hundreds of people one the other side of an unknown wormhole millions of lightyears from Earth.

Daniel had made it clear searching for Atlantis was extremely important. And that was the only effective way they could search for it at the time.

That's also exactly how they first encountered the Goa'uld too. In fact the situation on Abydos was extremely similar to the expedition's arrival in the Pegasus Galaxy.

An ending where the SGC actually loses a major war without the destruction of Earth that would follow from losing to something like the Goa'uld or Ori in the MW galaxy would go a long way toward bringing back some of the sense of danger in the universe that's diminished over the years. It would show that despite how far Earth has come they can still lose, and not just be temporarily defeated until they rise up to squash their foes with an ass pulled plot device.

That in and of itself still has nothing to do with the SGC's supposed arrogance. That's just wanting an ending where the protagonists lose for other reasons.

I doubt the species who'd had it's territory invaded by armed aliens would consider itself the aggressor for apprehending said aliens and that's what I was talking about there. From the perspective of the Wraith, or anyone else, grabbing up those intruding teams before they could do whatever it was they were planning was the logical thing to do.

Kidnapping people without trying to communicate is still a hostile act. They also weren't "invading," they were exploring. Athos wasn't even the wraith's "territory" in the traditional sense. It was just where they sometimes went to pick up food (by kidnapping and killing the natives I might add). They didn't really have any presence there at all. Even if it was their territory it would have been like if Apophis arrived through the Stargate with an armed escort of Jaffa just to look around or say hi.

It's obvious here that you don't understand the difference between attacking someone in their home and attacking someone because THEY are in YOUR home.

It's a pretty big difference. It's the difference between me creeping into someone's house at night with a gun, and me shooting someone who crept into my house at night with a gun.

Breaking into someone's house with a gun is not even remotely the same as finding a few people stumbling across an entire planet (especially if it's one out of countless planets) that somebody claims belongs to them. And especially if it's a planet where there are no wraith. It's closer to an armed stranger walking into a grocery store you frequent while you are not there than breaking into your house at night while you are asleep.

The situation with the Goa'uld was unavoidable. They're a ruthless tyrannical regime that makes slaves of humans and resides in the local galactic neighborhood. The SGC wasn't fully aware of this until Apophis attacked Earth and the events that followed, when the full extent of the threat, likely aided through debriefing of Teal'c, became known.

The SGA expedition was shot across an intergalactic void millions of lightyears wide into an unknown galaxy, knowing they would be stranded there on arrival. All in the name of finding ancient loot to use in their current and future wars. Due to their bad planning and utter lack of reconnaissance they arrived in a city nearly out of power which forced them to adjacent planets where they encountered a hostile alien species. This species abducted some of their team members, and in response the expedition immediately attacked them, without even attempting diplomacy or explanation for their appearance in what was clearly the alien's territory. The expedition instead launched a military raid on the aliens, during which their military second in command severely endangered himself and the rescue mission to accomplish nothing other than the killing of the alien leader, seemingly out of spite, which woke all the rest of the aliens from hibernation and pissed them off like a nest of angry hornets.

During the next 5 years millions of people died at the hands of the aliens who were prematurely awakened, as well as as a direct result of various ill thought out plans the team attempted to put into motion to kill all these aliens. This all culminates in the eventual creation of an alien battleship of such immense power that nothing in the SGC fleet, or the fleets of any of its allies could even damage it. This alien battleship actually reached Earth Lunar orbit, and was only destroyed at the last possible minute because the gods of pure insane luck once again smiled upon the Earth and its 7 billion inhabitants.

Yeah I think that's enough to qualify the whole thing as a screw up that the SGC should probably examine closely and try its best not to repeat in the future.

The situation with the Goa'uld probably was inevitable. But they wouldn't have noticed or cared about Earth for a long time yet unless the Tau'ri had directly drawn their attention by their battles against Ra and Apophis.

But the wraith's awakening was also inevitable, it may have been far in the future but it would have been much worse for the people in the Pegasus Galaxy. With more humans around, the wraith would have been able to complete their galaxy wide genocide again unimpeded and with a higher number of deaths. And again, you're skipping over the part where the Expedition didn't try diplomacy because it wouldn't have worked in this case and Sheppard's actions rescuing his friends made no difference in the end. And that the only way the wraith would not have been drawn to Earth was if the SGC had never gone looking for Atlantis in the first place. Or I guess if Teyla hadn't wanted to show Sheppard the old ruins. Then maybe they wouldn't have been unlucky enough to pick the transmitter than drew the wraith to Athos in the first place and the wraith wouldn't have even known that other humans had arrived. Not right away anyway.

I'm not sure how one could be a fan of any part of the franchise if they are overly bothered by the gods of insane luck's clear bias towards Earth in the end. It's due to the gods of insane luck that Earth wasn't obliterated right away when the show started and every other time in all the years since. SGA is absolutely not unique in that regard.

[Peterking72]

Well, this was a nice thread indeed, but everything good comes to an end. For me this thread has concluded. I heard everybody's idea, heard the good and the bad and maintained the reason throughout ot at least tried to. If you find you had not told everything you wished please start another thread about it and feel free to invite me.

[The Flyattractor]

I wonder if they would have stuck with the standard SG plots and all but crippled the wraith (w/o completely wiping them out) and introducing some new EVEN MORE HORRIBLE enemy.

[Ouroboros]

Ouroboros I think you hasn't yet read my latest post from last night, or you just plain ignored it. I read that despite many people here tried to convince you that Wraith is in no circumstances interchangeable with Klingon or any other similar space aliens for that matter, you remain resolute that you are right and they are wrong. I get it that you like if the dark side kicks the humans arrogant ass and all that evil stuff in other sci-fi (I bet you rooted for the Empire and Darth Sidious in Star Wars), but Stargate was never that dark in the first place. It tried to be, when they introduced Anubis (which was an analogy to Darth Sidious from SW), but it failed when they beat him by pulling out a plot device from their asses. In that case you were right. They do that all the time, but apart from these annoying episodes the series altogether was still fun to watch if you count out that piece of crap SGU which was an utter disappointment for me.

I didn't read all of your posts no. I have no idea why you made so many just minutes apart and I didn't see myself quoted anywhere so I just skipped them.

You jumped in late on this thing so I'll explain my original position more clearly. I offered up an ending that would show that Earth had new challenges to face and would need to adjust better to being a player on the galactic stage instead of just relying on luck and the assumption of technical superiority to carry them through. That's been the status quo since the Asgard upgrades happened and something needed to be done to show that Earth is not infallible or unbeatable and given the absolute mess the made out of the Pegasus galaxy, having SGA end on that kind of note would seem appropriate and less creatively dishonest than some sort of "we went there and saved everyone (except the entire species we wiped out to do it) we're heroes" type ending.

All the rest of it seems to be a difference of opinion on just how stupidly Earth actually acted at the outset of the SGA expedition.

[Ouroboros]

Daniel had made it clear searching for Atlantis was extremely important. And that was the only effective way they could search for it at the time.

That's also exactly how they first encountered the Goa'uld too. In fact the situation on Abydos was extremely similar to the expedition's arrival in the Pegasus Galaxy.

If you're talking about the original Stargate movie that was in a time when the SGC had no idea alien life even existed, let alone that it was potentially hostile.

It's actually good that you bring it up though because somebody at the outset of the Atlantis expedition should have looked at the Abydos thing and said "wait, what would have happened had we intentionally stranded a couple hundred people on Abydos".

That in and of itself still has nothing to do with the SGC's supposed arrogance. That's just wanting an ending where the protagonists lose for other reasons.

Of course it is. Right now Earth is riding high thinking they're the baddest kids on the block and can do whatever they want to whoever they want if they want/need to. This would show them that these assumptions were rooted in a massively unjustified arrogance grown from a huge run of good luck and the grace of now gone alien allies.

Kidnapping people without trying to communicate is still a hostile act. They also weren't "invading," they were exploring.

The aliens aren't going to see it that way. This is the core of our disagreement I think. When you're out there exploring it's not enough that you say that's what you're doing. You have to try to anticipate how your actions might be interpreted by others you encounter. In this case the Wraith would see a small group of armed strangers violating the territory of their most precious resource. To them it would be an immensely hostile act.

Even if it was their territory it would have been like if Apophis arrived through the Stargate with an armed escort of Jaffa just to look around or say hi.

If Apophis came through a secret Stargate to Earth with a group of armed Jaffa and you caught him snooping around your city's water supply, would you assume he was up to no good or was just "exploring".

Breaking into someone's house with a gun is not even remotely the same as finding a few people stumbling across an entire planet (especially if it's one out of countless planets) that somebody claims belongs to them. And especially if it's a planet where there are no wraith. It's closer to an armed stranger walking into a grocery store you frequent while you are not there than breaking into your house at night while you are asleep.

Even if we go with that, if you were the owner of that store and received a notice on your cell phone that te stores silent alarm had gone off I bet you'd either call the cops or head down there to find out what was going on right. I'll also bet that if you got there and found a bunch of armed men "exploring" your store you'd be on the phone to the cops to come and arrest them. So they could be interrogated and it could be found out what they were up to.

To take it further, you'd probably also want them punished in some way. But if they were able to come up with some compelling excuse for being there and apologized profusely for their unintended offense you might want them punished less harshly than you would if some of their friends say, broke into the police station that night and shot a bunch of cops in order to break them out.

The situation with the Goa'uld probably was inevitable. But they wouldn't have noticed or cared about Earth for a long time yet unless the Tau'ri had directly drawn their attention by their battles against Ra and Apophis.

It's possible but I don't advocate the passive approach in this situation myself. Even though it did risk provoking them further I can absolutely see why the SGC would have wanted to try and find tech or allies to protect the planet back then. The Earth was essentially completely at the mercy of the Goa'uld whenever they wanted to destroy it, and that would be an intolerable situation for me to.

But the wraith's awakening was also inevitable, it may have been far in the future but it would have been much worse for the people in the Pegasus Galaxy. With more humans around, the wraith would have been able to complete their galaxy wide genocide again unimpeded and with a higher number of deaths. And again, you're skipping over the part where the Expedition didn't try diplomacy because it wouldn't have worked in this case and Sheppard's actions rescuing his friends made no difference in the end. And that the only way the wraith would not have been drawn to Earth was if the SGC had never gone looking for Atlantis in the first place. Or I guess if Teyla hadn't wanted to show Sheppard the old ruins. Then maybe they wouldn't have been unlucky enough to pick the transmitter than drew the wraith to Athos in the first place and the wraith wouldn't have even known that other humans had arrived. Not right away anyway.

This all started over my suggestion that the SGC needed to look at how it handled first contact with aliens and I still stand behind that. When you try to come up with a policy for things like this you can't just look at what did happen, you must also examine what could have happened. It's not enough to just say "well that didn't happen that way so we don't have to worry about it happening that way in the future" that's counting on getting lucky every time.

I'm not sure how one could be a fan of any part of the franchise if they are overly bothered by the gods of insane luck's clear bias towards Earth in the end. It's due to the gods of insane luck that Earth wasn't obliterated right away when the show started and every other time in all the years since. SGA is absolutely not unique in that regard.

I'm not a fan of the latter series honestly. I loved the early SG-1's where it really did feel like SG-1 was getting the better of these aliens because they were smarter and it actually felt like an uphill battle against a superior foe.

In SGA they held a meeting while a Wraith cruiser shot at them, and the adversaries were so stooged out and underdeveloped that they literally didn't even have names. It's hard to see Earth as the desperate heroic underdog when they're 3 million lightyears away from home, 1 shotting the ships of an alien race that can't even strike back at their territory, and plotting to kill them all out of "self defense".

[Ouroboros]

I wonder if they would have stuck with the standard SG plots and all but crippled the wraith (w/o completely wiping them out) and introducing some new EVEN MORE HORRIBLE enemy.

Asgard form Wraithlicators.