Morally questionable actions of the Stargate Atlantis Expedition

[coolcatkim22]

A rescue mission to a planet with no real tactical advantage or even knowledge of what we're up against, except knowing we're about to anger a vastly more powerful race. That, and we're showing our face to a species that we can reasonably assume to have the intent to destroy us.

Yeah, but in the former situation the Goa'uld were something they did have some knowledge on and had a tactical advantage since they caught them by surprise (not to mention a guy that understood a good chunk of their language).
Plus, in that situation the enemy already knew enough to know they were a threat. They saw their weapons, odds are that wasn't going to be the last time they attacked.

Also, with the Wraith they knew enough to know that whether they leave those guys behind or rescue them they were probably in trouble. The people that got captured knew the location of Earth and they had just learned that the Wraith like to feed on people, so those people in their hands was probably a dangerous thing. Actually, I think if they hadn't come when they did the Wraith would already be at Earth.

[Mister Oragahn]

Yeah, but in the former situation the Goa'uld were something they did have some knowledge on and had a tactical advantage since they caught them by surprise (not to mention a guy that understood a good chunk of their language).
Plus, in that situation the enemy already knew enough to know they were a threat. They saw their weapons, odds are that wasn't going to be the last time they attacked.

Also, with the Wraith they knew enough to know that whether they leave those guys behind or rescue them they were probably in trouble. The people that got captured knew the location of Earth and they had just learned that the Wraith like to feed on people, so those people in their hands was probably a dangerous thing. Actually, I think if they hadn't come when they did the Wraith would already be at Earth.

The problem is, the first thing they should have done was to obtain data, have a recon mission. But they considered they had no time. It's a bit like the real life Black Hawk Down story, minus the minimal level of tactical acumen.
Besides, the rescue mission was sold to Weir on the basis that they know where Earth is and that Atlantis is afloat again, but that "we don't leave people behind".
Weir, having no training for such commanding functions, having zero intel and not even understanding the importance of it, and not having properly digested the necessary knowledge about the ressources she had in her hands, likely due to a lack of time (let's throw her a bone here) just greenlighted a silly mission with the most absurd way it would be handled.
They totally were lucky that the stargate activation wasn't spotted and that no Dart was already scouting around it.
Could they have sent more gateships? That would have needed to *think* and would have required people to be able to control the ships. People who would have been hard to come with.
Real military commander: you have the ancient gene thing, you pilot that ship, you pray you don't meet any resistance, you fly cloaked and gather as much data as possible. If we notice we can't launch any raid on the enemy's base of operations, we have to consider the use of indiscriminate firepower and consider our men dead. We ask our scientists if they had an idea about how to level the field, if they have found anything worthwhile in Atlantis yet that resembles a weapon. Obviously, someone would know about the naqahdah generator overload, already achieved years ago by SG-1, and McKay would already bring the idea of the kiloton nuke.
Mission is validated, the puddle jumper flies unharmed, spots a low energy signature, goes inside the atmosphere, finds and circles the hiveship and sees zero activity. They conclude that the cloak works wonders and would allow a team to get inside the base if they had to.
They return and you know the rest. They might even have found someone else in the meantime to pilot another PJ.
Somehow, the possibility of a deployment and rescue mission can be considered, assuming the place can be entered and that no engagement with hypothetical ground forces will be necessary. But just in case, the nq reactor stands ready to burst at command.
But that kind of thinking requires a ruthless enough leader. Not someone you'll be kidding with everyday, but at least someone up to the task. It's most likely Sumner or Bates would have been the guys who would handle that. The worst decision probably was to have the entire head of the military part of the expedition away from Atlantis. But I guess the dire situation had the military leaders trusting no one as being capable of handling such a situation on any potentially hostile terrain.

[thekillman]

The problem is, the first thing they should have done was to obtain data, have a recon mission. But they considered they had no time.

I just realized that this happens quite often. Trinity being another example of rushed decisions.

The thing is that as above, yes with Children of the Gods SG1 had some idea of what they were doing and up against.

With SGA, they were literally told "you know, those gate-builders, those people you practically revere as gods, those super-awesome people who's weapons you're trying to find, who's tech makes everyone crap, who's superweapon blasted the biggest armada ever seen out of the sky?

They're dead, and the race that killed them might very well be the once you're about to face".

How that translates to "this invisible ship won't be detected" and "a small crew can infiltrate and kill people aboard a ship that potentially houses millions" is stuff beyond me.

What takes me aback even more is that the very concept of a race matching the technology of the ancients doesn't even crap everyone's pants to the max.

And yes, a Mark I packed in the back of that jumper would be the first thing to consider. Given the rough speed of the Jumper, the size of the ship and the running speed of a human, by far the most time trying to get away from the explosion would be spent running. Even with the infiltration scenario, hiding a Mark I on the ship wouldn't have been very difficult.

[Ouroboros]

I just realized that this happens quite often. Trinity being another example of rushed decisions.

The thing is that as above, yes with Children of the Gods SG1 had some idea of what they were doing and up against.

With SGA, they were literally told "you know, those gate-builders, those people you practically revere as gods, those super-awesome people who's weapons you're trying to find, who's tech makes everyone crap, who's superweapon blasted the biggest armada ever seen out of the sky?

They're dead, and the race that killed them might very well be the once you're about to face".

How that translates to "this invisible ship won't be detected" and "a small crew can infiltrate and kill people aboard a ship that potentially houses millions" is stuff beyond me.

What takes me aback even more is that the very concept of a race matching the technology of the ancients doesn't even crap everyone's pants to the max.

This is pretty much what I always come back to to. People always talk about "leave no man behind" and stuff like that and while it's true that that's a really nice ideal it's not always compatible with reality. This would be one of the situations where it wasn't. We're talking about literally picking a fight with an alien race that by any and all reasonable expectations should have been be able to wipe out/enslave humanity as an afterthought.

You don't pick fights with those, you keep your head down and hope they never notice you, no matter what the ideal thing is to do.

[thekillman]

You don't pick fights with those, you keep your head down and hope they never notice you, no matter what the ideal thing is to do.

To their defence, it wouldn't have mattered. As shown in "The gift/The Siege" the wraith awoke because they learned of earth, not because the keeper died.

But yea, the time aspect is a bad one. Too frequently "we have no time" is used as an excuse. E.g. activating the Asurans, investigating a downed wraith ship ("The Defiant one"), investigating a powerful weapon ("trinity") and more

[Ouroboros]

To their defence, it wouldn't have mattered. As shown in "The gift/The Siege" the wraith awoke because they learned of earth, not because the keeper died.

I remember a few years ago here I raised the point that given how they acted following the abduction/arrest/detention of their team they probably would have succeeded in provoking even a normally reasonable alien power into an all out war with them.

The thing that really catches with me is how they didn't even attempt any sort of contact with the Wraith/new aliens before they decided that the only course of action was for them to break into the alien ship with armed men and start killing people and blowing things up to try and break their captives out by force.

They knew nothing about the aliens in question other than some vague hearsay about what they were like 10,000 years ago from the ancients and the accounts of what the ancestors of Telya's people experienced.

Like you noted as well, about the only piece of factual info they did have was that they successfully defeated the ancients in a war, with their tech as it was 10,000 years in the past.

They also knew nothing about the reason why their people were taken, nor did anyone attempt to raise the point that they'd probably unintentionally violated the alien's territory and that were the positions reversed, SGC command likely would have done exactly the same thing with a group of random aliens found wandering around on Earth. That is, taken them to a secure facility to be detained and questioned.

The first contact situation at this point wasn't ideal but it wasn't necessarily past the point of no return either. If the aliens had been reasonable they could have just explained to them that the intrusion was accidental and that they weren't aware of the alien's territorial claims being new to region. Even if was a xenophobic "badguy" type race like the Romulans or something from Star Trek in the situation, it still would have turned out better than it did. Sure Sumner and friends will likely never see the light of day again and there'll be a Warbird or two send to check out Atlantis, and probably bully them out of the galaxy, but they're not going to fly to Earth and invade the entire planet over some territorial faux pas involving half a dozen guys. On the other hand if you infiltrate one of their installations and kill a bunch of their people trying to get your guys back, they're pretty much going to have to then. You've escalated things so far that you've forced the hands of their government into a swift and brutal military response because it's what their citizens are going to demand, given the outrage of a bunch of aliens walking into their territory then having the audacity to start killing their people when stopped and questioned about it.

Sumner actually starts out trying to do something like negotiation with that Wraith queen to, and it's funny to note that if it had turned out that she was actually receptive to the conversation and willing to forgive the whole thing as a misunderstanding so long as they respected Wraith territory in the future, their conversation would have been subsequently interrupted by a squad of heavily armed men who'd covertly breached her ship and set explosives everywhere...

So yeah, SGC first contact procedures definitely need a bit of work.

[thekillman]

They knew nothing about the aliens in question other than some vague hearsay about what they were like 10,000 years ago from the ancients and the accounts of what the ancestors of Telya's people experienced.

Yea well, while it was reasonable to assume that the Wraith == people who killed the ancients, it wasn't fully confirmed.

So yeah, SGC first contact procedures definitely need a bit of work.

Ha ha thanks for that post, i just laughed quite hard at the sillyness.

But yes: first contact procedures need a TON of work. Just think of "poisoning the well" / "Underground", the first of which directly caused the destruction of a race and later on significant loss of life throughout the galaxy and the latter caused a ton of political headache that could have been avoided with ease.

[garhkal]

Me things the SGC never even implemented proper "First contact" Protocols.

[The Flyattractor]

Me things the SGC never even implemented proper "First contact" Protocols.

Sure they did. Its just that those protocols were "Shoot em and then run away".

[garhkal]

Na i think they went something like

Step 1; when encountering any sign of intelligence, first off figure out what is wrong with the picture, using earth morality.
Step 2; use what ever means possible to shift their way of doing things to ours, even if it is not what they want
Step 3; if they are powerful and potentially adversarial, do all you can to peeve them off so they DO become an enemy!

[Ouroboros]

Step: 4: Once you've successfully provoked them, act like you were the victim of their aggression and are just "defending yourself/Earth".

Step 5: Keep in mind that you haven't really won "the war" until every last one of them is dead. Earth just won't be safe otherwise.

Step 6: Dig something magical out of the ground, or failing that pull it directly from your ass, to enable step 5.

[Mister Oragahn]

Me things the SGC never even implemented proper "First contact" Protocols.

Meet, attack and nuke since '94.

[thekillman]

Meet, attack and nuke since '94.

if that fails, go back in time

[garhkal]

Step: 4: Once you've successfully provoked them, act like you were the victim of their aggression and are just "defending yourself/Earth".

Step 5: Keep in mind that you haven't really won "the war" until every last one of them is dead. Earth just won't be safe otherwise.

Step 6: Dig something magical out of the ground, or failing that pull it directly from your ass, to enable step 5.

Good add ons.

[The Flyattractor]

Yes. The Real reason Ba'al didn't like the SG1 teams is because they blew up his lawn gnomes.