Endgame (810)

[DJFavorite]

Yet another problem I had with Endgame: Why the heck didn't Sam, Daniel and Teal'c stay on board? There was only one Trust member left. Why didn't they take her out and capture the ship? Then turn it around and head home, with the gate, a living Trust member to interrogate (*not* by Daniel!<<g>>) and with the gas.

I really can't believe they got off and left the ship in the bad guys hands!

Actually, wasn't it two Trust members to interrogate? I thought they only killed the one guy. The other was just knocked out.

I was a little disappointed they didn't take the ship, but it lends itself to another episode.

[Jonisa]

Anything (or everything!) is possible, but it's not what we saw or heard. Only what is on screen, in actions, set-up shots or dialogue, is canon. At this point, what TPTB have given us is that Daniel gave away the store.

Daniel? By himself? I doubt that. Simply because A.) Daniel doesn't have the ability, knowledge, or access to that kind of financial information (the 2 million dollar account) so he must have been working with others who got that info, and he definitely doesn't have the authority to give that kind of money to Weaselly Area51 guy, or make that kind of deal on his own. I don't even know if Jack has that authority. I'm not exactly sure who does, to be honest. I imagine it'd be more than one person.

Anyway, if Daniel gave away the store, he more than likely walked in prepared to make that offer with the blessing of his superiors. Yes, we have to go by canon, but we also have to go by common sense. Does anyone seriously believe that Daniel could just waltz into the interrogation room, offer someone 2 million dollars and the government would smile and hand it over? Highly doubt it. Daniel isn't that naive. It had to be ok'd by someone.

He also said, "Didn't think we'd find out about that, did you?" That strongly implies, to me anyway, that there were a group of people discussing this account and how best to use this information. It definitely states that there were others involved. He wasn't doing this on his own. He was probably given the okay to do this by General Jack O'Neill, who trusted him enough to delegate the questioning to him.

I guess I don't get why this is such a big deal. If I had the time or inclination I could probably go through the episodes and find other instances where Sam or Daniel or someone else did things out of their area of expertise. It has to happen because the writers want to show us SG-1 and not Major Whozit doing these things. We don't care about Major Whozit.

And while I agree that there are other more qualified people out there to do the questioning, I just don't get that this is something that Daniel couldn't do, just because he's a <gasp> civilian, or (just) an archaeologist. He's one of the top echelon of the SGC, even if he isn't military. Jack trusts him. Is he the best choice if you're looking strictly at who has experience at this sort of thing? Nope. Is he a choice? I don't see why not, especially since they've established that civilians can have a leadership role at Stargate Command. And that is canon.

I think we're probably back to agreeing to disagree again.

All MHO, of course.

[epiphany]

Well, it hasn't been said that he's been promoted and another way to look at it could be that Weir was gravitating toward Daniel simply because he was the most influential civilian there. She and Sam had a rather adversarial relationship. Teal'c was an alien that we never saw her interact with. Jack was...indisposed. So that left Daniel as the only person on the base who could advise her.

It is possible that she saw him as a second, it's also just as possible that Daniel was there and a resource to be plumbed. I seem to recall that she pretty much, well not quite bullied, but she did rather push him into assisting her when it seemed, to me, that he was rather reluctant to get involved.

That is one possible interpretation, I don't disagree with it. All I'm saying it, people keep saying he didn't have the authorization to do that, etc, etc, etc and I'm asking where do they get this? Simply because he's a civilian? Daniel wouldn't have been doing it without the authorization. He was interrogating the doctor because he had authority to do so. He was able to tell the military guards to leave the room on his say-because he HAS the authority to do so. The fact that he doesn't have a military rank doesn't mean he doesn't have the authority. And with regards to other questions, he can have authority over military personnel in a non-battle situation if he's been given authorization. Again we have no reason to believe he has not been.

From all appearances he is the highest ranking civilian in the program. We have no reason to believe otherwise, aside from when Weir was put in charge--there has been no civilian shown higher than him within the program. When Janet died, at her memorial, he stood next to Hammond, the highest ranking commissioned officer and Walter, who seems to be the highest ranking non-commissioned officer. It's most likely because he's the most senior civilian.

When he sat down and made the offer of allowing the guy to keep the $2 million, it did not seem off the cuff or grasping at straws to me. It seemed like something that he had at his disposal to put on the table to get this guy to talk. Otherwise he most likely wouldn't have been given the information about the $2 million in the first place. He was obviously working with others(we didn't see them but they were there in spirit). He couldn't have offered the 2 million without authorization and if he didn't have authorization, then he was simply making an empty promise to the guy to get him to talk because he'd have known he didn't have control over the funds. In either case, it was something at his disposal to use to get the guy to talk.

The fact that Daniel wasn't necessarily enthusiastic about helping Weir has absolutely nothing to do with his placement within the organzation. All I saw was that Daniel was really more eager to be trying to help Jack than to be sitting there helping her--certainly an understandable reason to be less than eager and for her to possibly have to do some cajoling, no matter what his actual "rank".

Daniel's been a negotiator for years, not a big leap in this situation. Daniel's training, pre-SG-1, does have plenty of skills which are transferrable--he'd have learned about body language, he'd have learned about finding the subtexts "between" the words that someone is saying, etc, etc. Intepretation of both human speech and human behavior were part and parcel of what was in his training in linguistics and anthrolopology. These are some of the main tools in an interrogator's tool box(unless one is expecting the shadeless lamp and brass knuckles).

As I recall Daniel may have said they could come to an arrangement on the money but did he actually promise Dr. Bricksdale he'd go free? He said they'd be able to protect him, that could mean alot of things in actual practice that don't involve the good doctor getting off scott-free. $2 million isn't necessarily going to do you much good if you don't have any place to spend it.

Questioning Walter and the other guy? We've seen SGC personnel questioned by civilians before(Heroes Part 2 comes to mind--Robert Picardo's character)--why does it suddenly become such a big deal when Daniel is the one who is doing it? They just needed to find out some basic information from Walter and this guy, they have the video tapes of what physically happened in the gateroom. It was probably more a formality than anything else.

[epiphany]

Yet another problem I had with Endgame: Why the heck didn't Sam, Daniel and Teal'c stay on board? There was only one Trust member left. Why didn't they take her out and capture the ship? Then turn it around and head home, with the gate, a living Trust member to interrogate (*not* by Daniel!<<g>>) and with the gas.

I really can't believe they got off and left the ship in the bad guys hands!


J.

This may surprise you but I do agree on that. They could even have used it as a little cliffhanger(though it could have been completed within the single episode too).

I asked that myself as soon as the episode ended. Why didn't they stay on the ship? I'll just put it down to their actual mission was to recover the Stargate, not to capture the Alkesh or the Trust. That was their main focus and anything else was extra that they needn't "go out of their way" to do. They couldn't risk anything happening to the gate(so they could have just put the beacon on the gate so it could be beamed back to the Prometheus). But really I think they should have stayed on the ship.

[Skydiver]

my main question all along has been a civilian interrogating members of the military.

__
Questioning Walter and the other guy? We've seen SGC personnel questioned by civilians before(Heroes Part 2 comes to mind--Robert Picardo's character)--why does it suddenly become such a big deal when Daniel is the one who is doing it? They just needed to find out some basic information from Walter and this guy, they have the video tapes of what physically happened in the gateroom. It was probably more a formality than anything else.

__

in the case of Picardo's character, the prez sent him. That gives him the authority. The prez sent weir, that gave her the authority.

I'm not saying that daniel may not have had authority. He may have. but we've never seen him getting it. we never saw jack say 'daniel, every single ranking officer on this base is busy, go take these guys' statements would ya?'

To me, it seems more the matter of something someone in base security needs to take care of. LIke Major Castleman or even COlonel Reynolds or another officer, just like we saw Sam talking to the lieutenant in lockdown

It's less a statement on daniel than it is a plot hole. I have a feeling that daniel's character was chosen more out of convenience than propriety. I would love to hear the input of some military folks.

I think daniel questioning is just like the plot hole of jack, seemingly, fearing for the gate being blown up, when we have long standing canon evidence that they're sturdy little things. if they can withstand a direct meteor hit, being frozen, being in vacuum for long periods, tossed into a sun(however long it lasted) and being exposed to black hole for several years, i think it's fairly safe to say that it would have survived getting blown up in the alkash.

If priority 1 was to recover the gate, that's what jack should have done. He's literally lucky that sg1 rescued the gate...cause if they hadn't, well jack would be looking for a new job right about now.

[epiphany]

(BTW, I've seen a lot of Daniel fans lately talking about "Action Jackson" themselves.)

I think that name first came up during that episode with the Replicators and Daniel shooting the p-90(I always forget the titles, it was the one where Teal'c was brainwashed by Apophis).

As time has passed Daniel has become more "action" oriented, he's gotten better at the physical and military stuff. Why shouldn't he? He's been on the SGC's premier team for 8 years. People change. In fact I'd think it would be much more unrealistic if he'd stayed the same.

I think the direction of his change is fairly natural, given the situation he's in. Daniel's stubborn but he's also able to adjust to his environment. I'd go as far to say I think it's a testament that Daniel has remained as "Daniel" as he but it's a perfectly believeable progression to me that he'd become more "proactive". The fact that he'd changed more noticeably when he "came back" from the dead actually makes perfect sense.

He learned his life over again. He went from a blank slate to re-discovering his memories. He didn't know himself and he discovered himself again. He remembered who he was partly from the perspective of a stranger. He remembered dying a terribly painful death. He remembered everything he'd loved and hated and gained and lost. That would naturally give one a different point of view than when one simply lived those future memories in real time. I think a natural by-product of that could very well be to become more action oriented. However he still generally tries talking first. In Icon, he was trying in one form or another for nearly 6 weeks, then it went beyond talking. Daniel was never a pacifist. Daniel would always pick up a weapon and use it. He's been doing it since the film.

[Jonisa]

I'm not saying that daniel may not have had authority. He may have. but we've never seen him getting it. we never saw jack say 'daniel, every single ranking officer on this base is busy, go take these guys' statements would ya?'

I guess I don't see why a scene like this is necessary. The writers aren't going to spell everything out for us. They rely on the fans to connect the dots and figure out cause and effect relationships.

The very fact that Daniel was in there questioning the prisoner tells us that he was given the authority to do that, either by Jack or someone else on the base. I highly doubt he was strolling down the hallway, noticed the room that Weasely Area51 guy was in and decided to go in there and question him all on his own. As soon as we see him in the room with the guy we know he was given the authority to do it. Why do we need a scene showing that? It'd be redundant.

I do agree with you about the gate, though. It's hard to believe that Jack was worried about it blowing up. Worried about Sam and Daniel, I can buy. Worried about the gate? Nah. You're right, he's very lucky it didn't go with the alkesh into hyperdrive.

[greytop]

But won't a civilian be more apt to tell another civilian something than the military?

[Chevron_nine]

I haven't had time to read through all the posts, so bare with me if i'm repeating anything.

I liked the episode, I thought it was probably one of the better episodes of the season. It had good action, and a story that combined a lot from past episodes.

People are complaining that the eps don't have the same feel as the early episodes. I have news for you, SG-1 will never be the same as it has been in the past, I believe the title of the season opener explains it best. There's a New Order at the SGC. Things have evolved. SG-1 has the most experience concerning all things gate-related, so they're the ones who get called when something goes wrong. They probably don't even go on first-contact missions anymore. That's also probably the reason Daniel was doing the interrogations. Even though he has no official rank i'm sure he's regarded as one of the higher ranking personnel. Sure, he probably doesn't doesn't have official training, but he sure likes to talk


Daniel can handle a gun. Didn't he make it through that Avatar videogame OK? We've also seen a few episodes like Enemies which shows he knows what he's doing when it comes to shooting a gun. I see no reason why he wouldn't be on the raid.


Any why do people need to complain about jack-liteness every week? We know he won't have a prominent role in most episodes, we all know he has a reduced schedule. Does it really matter all that much? Why did noone complain about hammond-liteness during the first seven seasons? Do we really need to see more of Jack looking tired as hell and looking like he's doing a half assed job? He'll get a few good jack-centric episodes this season and that's good enough for me.


And as for Sam's attire, doesn't SG-1 usually wear those black tank tops now?, especially Teal'c Concerning Sam's Matrix outfit I don't think she was actually planning on being a part of the second raid, she just saw where the bad guy escaped and took the opportunity to take him down alone. Notice how there weren't any other SWAT guys around her.


on a final note, YAY, we finally saw the interior of an Alkesh, now all that's left is the interior of a Goa'uld troop transport.

[gwangung]

A few comments:

A) Daniel as the ops at the end...somewhat justifiable, as the ship responded to Ancient commands...which Daniel is an expert at.

B) Not going after the Trust operative at the end...sorry, justifiable. Number 1 objective is to get the Gate back. Once that's been done, THEN you go after the enemy...oh, wait...she's gone off into hyperspace. Could they have split the team? Well, maybe...but you're charging uphill here. The Trust lackey is in the control room; she's had opportunity to booby trap approaches to the control room...AND YOU DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THE HYPERSPACE TRIP IS. Take an hour to disable booby traps, and you're easily in deep doo doo, between the rock and the hard place, with enemies inside and outside.

C) Carter HAS to assume that there are other Trust operatives on the ship she hasn't seen. The evidence against that was not particularly overwhelming, and when in enemy territory, ASSUME THE WORST. (Ummm what if the Trust lackeys are smart enough to fake fewer people?).

D) Daniel interrogating the Area 51 scientist? Yeah, that's a bad one...that was obviously written for RDA.

E) Daniel taking the statement of Walter? Ah, sorry...not TOO out of the ordinary. He's obviously part of Jack's exec staff, and it's not that much of a stretch.

F) Carter's Emma Peel suit? Eck. I thought it was specialized Jaffa armor hiding anti-stun circuitry.

[Albion]

However, being a foot soldier who shoots back only when he's shot at in the field, is very different from being part of an ops. This requires different training and skills--and we have seen neither Sam nor Daniel receive that training.

Do we have to? I'm with the earlier poster about fans having the intelligence to join the dots and not having to watch redundant scenes pointing out the obvious. Daniel has taken part in covert ops offworld for years now - I think he probably learned how to successfully sneak around on the job.

A) Daniel as the ops at the end...somewhat justifiable, as the ship responded to Ancient commands...which Daniel is an expert at.

Yup - a point Daniel actually made in the scene with Jack about why he should be the one to go.



Albion

[Dani347]

D) Daniel interrogating the Area 51 scientist? Yeah, that's a bad one...that was obviously written for RDA.

Do you mean that it was a scene that should have been written for RDA, given Jack's position and Daniel's, or that it actually had been written for him, but they gave it to MS because of RDA's lack of screentime? Because, by this point, wouldn't they know what RDA's schedule was, and adjust accordingly? They could have written it where they managed to have Jack do the interrogation. Maybe even sacrifice some scene in another episode to make up the time.

[Major Fischer]

I am of the opinion that the scene literally was written for RDA. There was nothing particularly 'Daniel' in the dialogue. The other possibility is that it was written for both Daniel and Jack to be present.

As for complaining about the Jack-Liteness, I think it comes down to one thing for me. I'm not overly attached to Jack. I don't think he's absolutely essential to the show. But what I do think is a disservice to the show, and to the fans, is that RDA doesn't seem to care about his lines when he is there. This epsiode in particular he was sleep walking through it, disconnected, and it showed. I think one reason lots of people are confused by the "touch choice" line is that he didn't really give any feeling to it.

[Skydiver]

I happen to like Action Jackson, because, to me, if after 8 years he's still depending on the others to watch his back and take care of him....i'd be leaving him at home. He'd be dead weight.

It makes sense for him to have learned to defend himself, and to go on the offense if necessary. He's a smart man, he should have picked up some things in 8 years.

for most of s1, he was a liability and, had that continued, it would have gotten unbelievable. He would have been better suited to a second contact team, not allowed into a situation until it was secure so that he wouldn't endanger the rest of the team.

Action Jackson makes sense. Civilian Daniel doing the Security Cheif's job doesn't. Last we knew, Major CAstleman was in charge of base security. the gate vanishing is a security issue, so it should have been someone in the security department taking the statement.

It was probably done as a matter of convenience and budget, but, in my opinion, that was a scene that the security chief should have handled. Again, anyone with military contacts, could you ask them what the procedure is?

In the end, i think it's a plot hole, sort of like in Zero Hour and all of a sudden Dr lee is now a botanist too.

[Feli]

Liked this episode - but I think the whole "Jack" issue needs to be looked at BIG PICTURE, rather than just in this episode. This whole season kind of has an arc going with Jack adjusting to being general. Yes, I think that he struggled with the decision of puting "his" team at risk. Yes, I think he was indecisive at critical times in this episode. But I think the key to his indecision wasn't necessarily "should I risk my friends' lives" - we've seen him make those decisions before with a lot less difficulty. I think that the big difference now is that he is making the decision, but not executing the plan. It's one thing to pull the trigger yourself and another to order someone else to pull the trigger. I think he is actually feeling LESS in control, because when he is in the field making decisions he is making them based on full knowledge of his own capabilities and potential for "making everything right" or dealing with the consequences himself. When he has made life and death decisions regarding his team in the past, he has been right there with them, ready to die himself if need be. Now he is in a bunker somewhere, basically powerless to actually help. I think that realization really hit him in this episode, and I think we will see some development in the second half of the season that addresses this.

Excellent insight, thank you!