"You Can't Ask Someone to Sacrifice Themselves"

[SoulReaver]

you can't tm a word!

yes we can

[Khentkawes]

Realistically (as realistic as SF gets anyway), I'd imagine that they'd have gathered everyone together and given them the lowdown on what was going on. At least I hope that's what they would have done.

Now you're making me rethink my previous statement. I said I didn't have a problem with the "easy way out" because I wasn't sure I wanted my sci-fi that dark. But if they did this and were open with the others, told everyone what was going on... that would have been interesting. I still think they would have had a few volunteers. I agree that it could have made for some great reactions. It would have forced the entire crew to deal with the moral dilemma, instead of just leaving it to the core cast. Although that would have been very difficult to adaquately address in the time they had left (unless they carried the decision over into Air part 3).

Of course, that kind of consensus-driven decision making isn't very military. People like Young, Scott, and Rush are prone to just making decisions, not consulting everyone around them. So I'm not positive that they would have told the entire group, but I agree that would have been the best way to handle it, both from an ethical standpoint and from a writing standpoint.

This is kind of why I'm a little disappointed that TPTB didn't explore the darker aspects of this dilemma. If there hadn't been someone already dying, then the person making the sacrifice would have been someone who could have lived. I'm tempted to say that it would have meant more, but I realise that's unfair. A life given to save others is brave and noble regardless of whether one would have died anyways.

But it would have been an interesting avenue to explore, seeing who (if anyone) volunteers for that job. Exploring the different reactions of people to the news. Although...maybe that would have been too much for the pilot episode.

It probably would have been too much to fit into the pilot episode. And perhaps a little too morally ambiguous for people to handle this early on. As it is, I hope we get to see some more reactions to Armstrong's sacrifice in the up-coming episodes. It would be nice to touch on the issue of self-sacrifice some more, and I think it would reinforce the seriousness of the situation.

[s09119]

Rush was right; the political office routinely asks people to die to protect others, and this was no different. It was simply a face that if no one closed the door, all 80+ people on the ship would die, and why waste talents and knowledge that they were going to need to survive later on? It made sense to take a look at who they had and ask the most-terminally ill or least-useful (strictly knowledge-wise) to do it, since they have limited resources and manpower.

Is it moral? Probably not. Was it the most efficient course of action they had available to them? Of course, and you'd be an idiot to simply let the entire crew die because you were afraid to cross an imaginary line in your head.

[Coronach]

You bring up a good point. I don't know how I'd be reacting right now if the show had gone the darker route of actually having the crew make that decision, but I'm inclined to think it would have been an interesting avenue to explore.

Eh, I'm still of the argument that they didn't take the "easy" way out, as the implied "hard" way would not actually be possible. As I said, you can't make someone sit alone in that room and push the controls to close the door.

1: It wasn't a simple button to push and the Kino is spherical. How exactly was the kino supposed to close that door then?

This! I didn't even think of this before, but you're right. It's not simply a matter of hitting a single button and the door closing. Remember when Rush was fiddling with controls for a while to close the door, and then it took him a little while to open it again?

Not to mention, why would the senator ask "Tell me what to do" if it was a single (obvious) button?

Interesting...I'm hoping Joe expands on this. Still, this is one of those instances where I think more detail is actually better. Write it in such a way so that it's a little less ambiguous.

[Khentkawes]

Eh, I'm still of the argument that they didn't take the "easy" way out, as the implied "hard" way would not actually be possible. As I said, you can't make someone sit alone in that room and push the controls to close the door.

Just to clarify... what I mean by "easy way out" (and I think this is what Pandora was saying, although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) is that Armstrong was dying already. It makes the decision a little more palatable and "easier" for the viewers because it was clear that he was going to die anyway. And since he made the decision on his own, no one else has to take responsibility for it.

I agree that you can't "force" someone to close the door. But if Armstrong hadn't taken matters into his own hands, it still would have come down to a choice. They would have to decide to either "convince" someone to sacrifice themselves, or they would have to choose between those who were willing to sacrifice themselves (as Young clearly was).

[Kathrin]

So one of the oldest person on the ship with no useful skills, who was badly injured and dying and has a daughter on board, he wants to protect, sacrifices himself.

That was sooo lame and predictable! The easiest way out of course and even better, the writers could then let his daughter go ballistic and let her be consoled by the "hot military guy". It can't get worse.

By the way I would find it stupid in such a situation, NOT to ask that someone sacrifice himself. If no one sacrifice his/her life, then all will die either way.

The question is only who to ask first. I think first you should ask those, who are so badly injured, that they can't survive those injuries. And then the soldiers. They at least choose a dangerous job and know that there is always a chance, that they won't survive missions. If after that there is still no volunteer, I would ask the rest.

Of course if you can't find a volunteer, all are screwed or you must find a morally wrong way to force someone to push those buttons in the shuttle. You obviously can't force someone physically to do it because he will be behind a close door, so threating to kill his/her child, partner, friend, lover, ... and so on could perhaps work. That wouldn't have been so lame and predictable. But I guess the writers didn't want to make the series sooo dark.

[garhkal]

And who gives Dr. Rush or someone else to say your life is important and this person isn't. Its sickening to me.

This is one of those few times i have to disagree with you there Jel.

Lets say we have 8 people. A scientist, a welfare dead beat, a hubby and wife who are good with their hands, a former soldier, a recently escaped criminal who is good at scaling walls and breaking into things, a medical guy and a lady who is an expert in first aid.
You have to escape and save yourselves, but only 7 can do so, and those 7 will have to survive on their own for at least a year.
To me, i would choose the dead beat as he does not have any skills that would aid in their survial.

THIS is what imo rush was getting at and i honestly have no problem with that.

That was different. He voluenteered

WE had 2 seperate threads discussing whether shep coerced, forced or got him to volunteer, so we don't know that he did or did not.
All we know is shep said he did.

Personally, I found it refreshing that Stargate would address an issue like this and not have it magically solved by a flash of inspiration and scientific brilliance. It makes it all the more realistic. In my opinion.

Very true. This is one of the biggest things i have loved about stargate. How they raise moral issues..

Option 2: gate off-ship to preserve the air supply

Since they were still at FTL speed, how would they have done that? ALSO they did not know any gate addresses.

Option 3: Call the SGC for ideas on how to fix the door and then the air supply.

Since it would take time to get someone in the SGC to retrieve a person who could help, that is more time the CO2 is building up and impacting everyone. NOT a viable option.

Realistically (as realistic as SF gets anyway), I'd imagine that they'd have gathered everyone together and given them the lowdown on what was going on. At least I hope that's what they would have done.

Which during that time they would have lost MORE air, and been in even more of a bind.

[jelgate]

This is one of those few times i have to disagree with you there Jel.

Lets say we have 8 people. A scientist, a welfare dead beat, a hubby and wife who are good with their hands, a former soldier, a recently escaped criminal who is good at scaling walls and breaking into things, a medical guy and a lady who is an expert in first aid.
You have to escape and save yourselves, but only 7 can do so, and those 7 will have to survive on their own for at least a year.
To me, i would choose the dead beat as he does not have any skills that would aid in their survial.

He has no skills that we know of. Look at Eli. On paper living in his mother's basement he wouldn't look that important. And yet in instance he was smarter then Dr. Rush. We have no idea what someone is capable of. So how can we morally assign a value who more important then the other?

I love playing Devil's Advocate.

[Pandora's_Box]

Eh, I'm still of the argument that they didn't take the "easy" way out, as the implied "hard" way would not actually be possible. As I said, you can't make someone sit alone in that room and push the controls to close the door.

I'm not suggesting that the "hard" way is to physically force someone to do it. I was referring to...well...what Khentkawes said,

Just to clarify... what I mean by "easy way out" (and I think this is what Pandora was saying, although feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) is that Armstrong was dying already. It makes the decision a little more palatable and "easier" for the viewers because it was clear that he was going to die anyway. And since he made the decision on his own, no one else has to take responsibility for it.

I'm essentially posing this scenario;

Imagine the same situation, but with no one dying. Sure there are people with injuries, but they'll all recover. There's no one in this scenario that will die of their injuries in a few days anyway as was the case with the Senator - internal injuries left untreated are ugly and painful and would have killed him in a matter of days if not sooner (probably sooner seeing as he was on blood thinners).

So there's no convenient (for lack of a better word) sacrifice. Whoever dies will do so knowing that if they hadn't volunteered they could have lived much longer.

Which during that time they would have lost MORE air, and been in even more of a bind.

"Listen up, people. I'm sorry to say this, but we have a breach in our hull leaking oxygen. The only way to repair this breach is to close the door to the room housing it. This can only be done from the inside and the person who shuts it won't have enough time to get out. If we don't do this, we'll all die in a matter of hours."

That's all that needed to be said. I know it would have taken up time, but seeing as this was going to decide the fate of everyone on that ship, I really do think they all deserved to know what was going on. And this would have been the only way to get a volunteer to step up.

[aretood2]

But does that make it any less immoral? the fact that allowing everyone to die does not change the fact that asking some one to die is immoral or at least unethical.

[s09119]

But does that make it any less immoral? the fact that allowing everyone to die does not change the fact that asking some one to die is immoral or at least unethical.

...so what, you'd let all 80+ people die just because you were afraid of being a little immoral, if it is at all?

[Eternal Density]

I don't think it's right for one person to sacrifice another person - an individual has to make the choice themself. If they have already sighed up for that, it's a different matter though. Or is it? Is there a distinction between ordering a soldier to a position where they might be killed in an engagement with the enemy, and ordering a solder to a position where they will die of asphyxiation for certain? I do think that it's the responsibility of the military to be protecting the civilians. Young as the ranking officer had the top responsibility and the authority to order any of his subordinates not to sacrifice themselves. I have no issue with Young choosing to sacrifice himself to save everyone else - that concept is quite familiar to me. But for him to order one of his subordinates to a certain death given no volunteers, no, I can't support that. It's his job to protect his people, and if he chose one to die like that, no one would respect his authority after that, I think. If on the other hand one of the soldiers had volunteered to do it the question is whether Young should let that person sacrifice themself. That's a tough question.

But lets take the military out of the equation, and just consider Rush deciding who's least necessary to the expedition. What would he do next? Tell the person, "Someone has to choose to die or we all die. You're the least useful so we'd all be better off if you were the one to do it." ? And what if the person says no? No, you really can't ask someone to sacrifice themselves. Chloe was right.
Suppose the senator had that if he was to die, it would be naturally, or if he'd died before he was able to complete his mission. Then it would have been Young's responsibility, and if he was medically incapable of doing the job, then it would have been left to Scott. It's tough being a leader but that's just how it is.

Then there's the decision Greer made, to allow the senator to sacrifice himself. I think that if someone is willing to sacrifice themself, to make something good come from their death, and to save everyone's life, they should be allowed. To rob someone of that chance and make their death meaningless is in fact a grievous insult. If someone died that I could live, it would be wrong for me to ignore that, and if it was my own actions against that person's instructions that put me in mortal danger in the first place, it would be horrible for me to continue acting in that way after they've died to save my life, and worse still if I did so while claiming that person doesn't exist. But I digress.

"Listen up, people. I'm sorry to say this, but we have a breach in our hull leaking oxygen. The only way to repair this breach is to close the door to the room housing it. This can only be done from the inside and the person who shuts it won't have enough time to get out. If we don't do this, we'll all die in a matter of hours."

That's all that needed to be said. I know it would have taken up time, but seeing as this was going to decide the fate of everyone on that ship, I really do think they all deserved to know what was going on. And this would have been the only way to get a volunteer to step up.

Yes, with no one burdened with the responsibility of keeping everyone safe - or no such person willing to do their duty - it would have to come to that. That announcement is exactly what I was thinking myself.
And after the announcement, if one person decides they are willing to die for all the others to live, they can do so. If no one does, then the lot of them die. It would be wrong of them to choose and force any person deemed less useful or selected by chance to die and save everyone else. While one does have to die to save everyone, that doesn't excuse murder, and an unwilling sacrifice is definitely murder.
Suppose that they only had to put someone into the room and that person would die and everyone would life, and one person was in a coma and unlikely to wake up. I couldn't accept that person being thrown into the room. I'd walk in myself before I let that happen.

[Jonzey]

Would you volunteer?

Say you had a family back home- a wife and two little kids. Would you be able to step up and do it, just because your skills are deemed the least useful?

[rlr149]

"Listen up, people. I'm sorry to say this, but we have a breach in our hull leaking oxygen. The only way to repair this breach is to close the door to the room housing it. This can only be done from the inside and the person who shuts it won't have enough time to get out. If we don't do this, we'll all die in a matter of hours."

That's all that needed to be said. I know it would have taken up time, but seeing as this was going to decide the fate of everyone on that ship, I really do think they all deserved to know what was going on. And this would have been the only way to get a volunteer to step up.

much less time than this thread is dragging it out for.

luckily for me we're not running out of air, and luckily for some others too............ as i would have shot them for wasting time/air.

[Saquist]

1: It wasn't a simple button to push and the Kino is spherical. How exactly was the kino supposed to close that door then?

Actually it was. I just looked at the scene with the Senator at 1:09:13/1:06:39. He presses his finger to an indented pad and the door instant slides shut. Previously, in another scene he's touching the same area on the camera view.

Stick something to the camera front of the Key'no and touch the area. They haven't said anything is gene specific... SO it shouldn't be human touch specific like the newer tech in Atlantis.

2: Gate off ship to where exactly? They were in FTL on a ship they had no clue how to control. And then there's the problem of finding a planet suitable enough to sustain life for an indefinite amount of time. Not to mention the fact the ship jumps to a new point in space every several hours.

The interval of time between jumps doesn't matter. Just gate to a new location when time is up.

Where doesn't matter, anywhere will do. Gates only exist on habitable worlds.
They never tried to control the ship as an option. So we don't know if they couldn't. It's a foregone conclusion that the ship drops from FTL to recieve or send a wormhole otherwise they couldn't have gotten onboard.

3: And thusly SGU would fall into the same traps as SG-1 and SGA. A show killed by it's lack of originality and ingenuity before it ever really got off the ground.

Appeal to Novelty. I am really not intrested in the sematic end this panders too, Pandora. Your opinion isn't a logic point of contention but you're welcome to it and thanx anyway.

In your opinion.

Exceedingly implicit lacking any explicity.