Fic help.

[fems]

I have a question about "missing in action" and "killed in action", specifically as how it would relate to the Stargate universe.

MIA is, obviously, used if a soldier is missing in action in the course of performing military service. A continued status of MIA would mean they haven't been identified among the deceased, found or determined to be prisoners of war and a soldier can be considered MIA for years.

From what I could find online a person is usually only classed as KIA if their remains are positively identified or it must be determined that their body cannot be recovered (BNR).

I'm wondering if/when someone in the Stargate universe would go from MIA to KIA, considering some of the advanced technology we've seen. Using a zat three times a body could never be recovered but finding over three liters of blood from one person without a body doesn't necessarily have to mean they are (or will remain) dead if the enemy has a sarcophagus.

Would that mean all missing personnel would always remain MIA unless their dead bodies are found and taken back to base? This would perhaps not be so incredulous if most of the cover stories for the SGC weren't that personnel seem to have died in training accidents etc (and somehow there's no body), as dependents of military personnel considered MIA would still receive benefits, including pay...

Help?

[Skydiver]

I don't know if it's fanon or not, but I was always under the impression that another reason for moving from MIA to KIA is the potential or possibility for rescue/recovery. Situations like 'yeah, we don't have a body but the space ship blew up so.....'

Or the case of SG11 and the black hole. Technically they may never die due to the time distortion, but they're unrecoverable and unrescuable so....KIA.

The biggest canon references I can recall are Solitudes, when it seems to be a day or so before hammy declares Sam and Jack MIA, and in Out of Mind/Into the Fire, then it seemed to be a couple of weeks before Sam, Jack and Daniel were classified at MIA, maybe a similar situation in Beneath the Surface. (Although I don't recall it being a plot point in Nemesis/Small Vics because Sam, Teal'c and Jack were gone for over a week but no mention of a change of status.

[BruTak]

I would imagine the SGC would have an under the table deal with the various armed forces so that any casualties can be discreetly added to the lists of KIA in Iraq/Afghanistan.

[fems]

I don't know if it's fanon or not, but I was always under the impression that another reason for moving from MIA to KIA is the potential or possibility for rescue/recovery. Situations like 'yeah, we don't have a body but the space ship blew up so.....'

Or the case of SG11 and the black hole. Technically they may never die due to the time distortion, but they're unrecoverable and unrescuable so....KIA.

Yeah, those situations would be BNR and thus KIA. Probably one of the few scenarios where they could say with certainty that the bodies cannot be recovered, although there's always a last-minute or escape pod etc possibility for exploding spaceships.

The biggest canon references I can recall are Solitudes, when it seems to be a day or so before hammy declares Sam and Jack MIA, and in Out of Mind/Into the Fire, then it seemed to be a couple of weeks before Sam, Jack and Daniel were classified at MIA, maybe a similar situation in Beneath the Surface. (Although I don't recall it being a plot point in Nemesis/Small Vics because Sam, Teal'c and Jack were gone for over a week but no mention of a change of status.

Thanks, I'll look into those episodes. Not sure how reliable Solitudes would be with the Program still being in its first year but it does give us some more different scenarios as they aren't simply stranded on a planet but apparently lost during transit.

[fems]

I would imagine the SGC would have an under the table deal with the various armed forces so that any casualties can be discreetly added to the lists of KIA in Iraq/Afghanistan.

Perhaps, but it would probably be a bit difficult to explain to family members how a soldier died in Iraq/Afghanistan when they were working in Colorado Springs and doing deep space radar telemetry...

[SF_and_Coffee]

I don't know if it's fanon or not, but I was always under the impression that another reason for moving from MIA to KIA is the potential or possibility for rescue/recovery. Situations like 'yeah, we don't have a body but the space ship blew up so.....'

Or the case of SG11 and the black hole. Technically they may never die due to the time distortion, but they're unrecoverable and unrescuable so....KIA.

I've had to deal with this in All That We Leave Behind, both in terms of how the SGC dealt with Henry Boyd and the other personnel of SG-10, and also in the case of Colonel Frank Cromwell. It makes for some interesting gymnastics regarding classification, that's for sure.

I would imagine the SGC would have an under the table deal with the various armed forces so that any casualties can be discreetly added to the lists of KIA in Iraq/Afghanistan.

Well, not really. For one thing, during the early years of SG-1, that wouldn't have been applicable, and in any case it wouldn't work for personnel who were known to have been stationed in Colorado Springs... which would be virtually all SGC personnel. Remember, it wasn't as if they all lived secretly inside Cheyenne Mountain, or were all without families, friends, homes off-base, etc. Most of these folks would have lived just like any other military personnel: On or off base, with dependents, tied into the wider community or at least the local military community, and with perfectly normal cover stories (remember, the SGC was supposed to have used the cover story that it was a "deep space radar telemetry" facility) and sending letters home to their parents, etc. from Colorado Springs where they were ostensibly assigned to fairly mundane duty at Peterson AFB, NORAD, etc. Kind of hard to suddenly say, "Oh yeah... Joe died in Iraq" when there wasn't anything going on in Iraq and Joe had just been seen in Starbucks in downtown Colorado Springs six hours before the mission...

ETA: Oops, I posted before reading what you posted, Fems.

[Ikorni]

I've got a question about the Aschen Confederation of planets: Are we to assume that there're only 9 of those, according to what Joe Faxon says in 2010?
---------
JOE
Ah, well, I have to visit that new embassy on the southern continent, tour the nine planets…
--------

There aren't very much more about the Confederation and their worlds except for the Volians, unless I'm wrong, so I'm inclined to take a bit more liberty with this.

[BruTak]

Was it ever established what rank Jack O'Neill held during the first Gulf War?

[iiradned]

Was it ever established what rank Jack O'Neill held during the first Gulf War?

Not during the run of the show.

In the episode Gamekeeper, Jack was a captain in 1982 and on the first Abydos mission (in my chronology 1995 - because the second Abydos mission is 1997 and Daniel lived a year there in between missions) a Colonel.

That's 15 years and 3 promotions later. My best guess would be a Lieutenant Colonel during the first Gulf War.

[BruTak]

Sounds good. Thanks.

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

I've got a question about the Aschen Confederation of planets: Are we to assume that there're only 9 of those, according to what Joe Faxon says in 2010?

I'd say so. The only other place they might have mentioned the number of planets is in 2001 (the episode, not the year).

Seaboe

[Ikorni]

I'd say so. The only other place they might have mentioned the number of planets is in 2001 (the episode, not the year).

Seaboe

Thanks, not much mentioned about the number in 2001, so I'm just going to take artistic license with the number where it could be Faxon's 9 planets could be those in a particular part of the Aschen confederation, perhaps.

Just trying to make sure I didn't outrightly contradict anything.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Was it ever established what rank Jack O'Neill held during the first Gulf War?

Based on the average time for advancing through the ranks and the fact that Jack graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1974 (this is established in the series) and was thus a 2nd lieutenant then, he most likely was promoted to lieutenant colonel right around the time the first Gulf War ended. So I make him a major during the course of the war itself.

[Sparky She-Demon]

Based on the average time for advancing through the ranks and the fact that Jack graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1974 (this is established in the series) and was thus a 2nd lieutenant then, he most likely was promoted to lieutenant colonel right around the time the first Gulf War ended. So I make him a major during the course of the war itself.

When is this established in the series?

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

His diploma is on the wall of his office when he's a general. He graduated with a degree in general engineering in 1974 (a degree which doesn't exist, btw).

Seaboe