Teyla's Personal Soldier Ethic vs. the Tactical Soldier Ethic (spoilers for season 1)

[Darth Buddha]

O.K., here we go with another try at this topic.

For the purposes of discusison, let's try to analyze when Teyla's decisions differed from those of more military types, since she tends to get lambasted for that.

For starters, we'll use the recon to the Hive ship with the Genii, and the recon with Sheppard alone in a PJ where she wanted to save the families she knew from the culling, and Shep wanted to bail without breaking cover.

In both cases, the risks and likelihood of success are UNKNOWN. Maybe Teyla could have successfully rescued the cocooned Wraith victim, and maybe she couldn't have. Maybe Sheppard was right about rescuing families during the culling, and they just got VERY lucky in pulling it off, and maybe he wasn't right, and it wasn't that risky. You can ASSUME either, but make clear you are being hypothetical.

Now I'm going to posit two kinds of ethical viewpoints here.

The village warrior who lives by a personal ethic of personal honor and courage above all will be the first. This one is very "do unto others" in mentality. This one is very down to earth and not into abstract. You see somebody captured, you rescue them if you can, because you'd want somebody to do the same for you. Risks are assessed in personal terms.. you are risking your own life, or at most the lives of your village. Your whole race is NOT at stake in your experience.

The tactical soldier who has to make decisions based on their utilitarian ramifications. This guy is the extreme hardass like Jack Bauer from 24. He has to think about the greater good. Personal honor doesn't matter. Personal risk doesn't matter. He is accustomed to thinking in abstract terms: how important is the mission, and how much risk is it to rescue somebody? (does the math) Nope!

Now Teyla has lived as the village warrior. She hasn't been to any military colleges. She hasn't been to officer training school. She hasn't even been to basic training! She's had ON THE JOB training at being a warrior.

So my argument is this: Teyla reacted in the example situations according to the ethics of the job she has held in her life, as a warrior. Not as a soldier.

Now Sheppard TRIES to be a tactical soldier, but he slips... he gets emotional... he relents and lets Teyla rescue culling victims with their PJ. He gets mad and wastes a wraith in a fit of rage. So perhaps he isn't the best example. But he's MUCH more tactical than Teyla.

So, what do ya think?

Don't like my two types? Tell me how to improve them!

Don't like my reasoning as to why Teyla does what she does? Give me your theory!

Alternate theories aren't only welcome... THEY ARE DESIRED!

(yeah, I coulda done a better job of setting this up... but if I work out all the kinks it kinda discourages others to step up and disagree and/or improve on the theory)

[aAnubiSs]

I pretty much agree with all of it. Obeying orders isn't brought up, I kinda missed that.
It's funny to see Teyla, who's a village warrior following orders to the letter when Weir gives them and Sheppard who's the trained military disobey them(However Weir can't give military orders)

[Osiris-RA]

So my argument is this: Teyla reacted in the example situations according to the ethics of the job she has held in her life, as a warrior. Not as a soldier.

Very nice point there. I've often thought of 'tactical soldiers' as you say more like drones used to protect as you say 'the greater good'. They have at first glance, no feeling, no emotion because they are trained to do a job no matter what the cost, but really, underneath, there is a whole cache of feeling - feeling which has been restrained by the person who trained the soldier and which having been held back for so long can explode at inopportune times in the battelfield, leading to the soldier doing some possiblely dumb things *hint hint* Shep *hint hint*.

A warrior is a fighter who often has a lot of feeling and works possibley, if this analogy works, more like a lion in a pride. Each warrior, a person with varying personalities is a link in the pride, they need to survive to live to fight another day, and if they do go down, they go with honor for having been there for the cause, and with their minds intact, unlike the soldier, most of the time. They are very simple minded. They do what they would want another (being another person or one of their own) to do for them, such as saving a family member caught in the crossfire, or simply helping a person in the hopes that they might do the same for them one day.

I don't know if all that makes sense to anyone, feel free to debunk it - but that's what I think about the Soldier/Warrior complex. *shrug*

[Darth Buddha]

Lion in a pride! Most excellent metaphor!

On the other hand, "do onto others as you would have them do unto you" isn't really all that primitive, either. Without some of that, you can wind up with some pretty appalling utilitarian ethical problems (killing people in the Colliseum is O.K. because so many people are made happy by it, being the classic example).

I'm not positing that one ethic is BETTER, just that they are DIFFERENT evolved for DIFFERENT situations.

Ironically, SGA is sort of in the situation of being a small "tribe", so in some ways, Teyla's understanding of circumstances might be as on target as a military officer's training would be... depends on the day. Today you are negotiating for potatos (Teyla is better) and forming an alliance with other villagers (again, maybe more Teyla's field), tomorrow you are dealing with the advanced Genii military (more Shep) or the bioweapon that is the anti-wraith vaccine (also well outside Teyla's experience).

[Ouroboros]

I think there's also the issue of identification with the victims and the notion of being a protector to her people and the funadmental differences in how their parent societies view people that motivated Teyla/Shep.

For Shep the Alien villagers were just that, alien villagers for Teyla they were people she not only identified with culturally but who she also knew personally in the culling episode. This is often one of the greatest tests for an indicidual with a objective code of ethics like the one you speak about. What happens when objective fate hits really close to home.

For Teyla the course of action was natural and obvious. She's a villiage warrior who's purpose is to defend her people and thefore by subconcious extention likely people she identifes very closely with and of course her personal acquiantences. For Teyla it would be unthinkable that she not use her skills to protect those less capable of protecting themselves. To make another nature metaphor think of a soldier ant. A soldier ant's primary purpose is to defend the other ants in its colony (those it identifies with) all other concerns are secondary including it's own life and it doesn't have to worry about the longterm consequences of its actions, that's not it's job. To defend it's own to the best of it's ability is its job.

Now that analogy somewhat misaligns for Teyla because she was more than just a warrior for her tribe she was also its leader. Even given that though all it means is that her decisions in her leadership would also likely have been motivated by her impulses as a protector. In other words any decisions she made would have been slanted toward preserving all of her people, but what if to preserve them all a few had to be sacrificed?

This is where the issue of scale comes in. Teyla's world is one of a small intimate scale. The people she governs over and protects are people she knows personally. They have families, children, hopes and dreams they are "real" to her. As such she will be far less willing, if willing at all to sacrifce even one of them for "the greater good" than a leader of a larger civilization would be. Larger groups lead to an inevitable dehuminization of the people involved. Some of them "cease to be real" to one another in a sense as one could never hope to know them all. They then get divided into two groups the outsider group and the intimate group.

So what does this mean in the bigger picture.

Shep comes from one such larger civilization. He is used to and accepts the idea of faceless people dieing all around him for various causes and reasons. He's a soldier himself and realizes that he may one day be called upon himself by someone he's never met to do the same thing one day. His attitudes therefore reflect this. The idea that a few alien villagers might have to die to defeat the Wraith in the longrun is acceptable. He's used to an ambiant world and to operating within a system where not everyone gets to be saved. Though this is unappatizing to him he none the less accepts it as an immutable part of his reality. That's just the way things are.

Teyla on the otherhand has been raised in a much smaller community where everyone worked together all the tme and no one in the villiage was left behind or allowed to suffer needlessly by the others. Her villiage, unlike Sheps Earth was one big "intimate group". It's the inevitable result of a small peer group where each member has the ability, and often necessity, to come to actually know the others. To Teyla the idea that someone must be allowed to die for some nebulous notion such as a greater good is utterly alien. Her perception of what can constitute a person even is fundamentally different from Shep's.

In Sheps "big world" a person can potentially be just some guy he didn't know that got killed by an Earthquake somewhere in "I forgot the name" China, a member of the outsider group. Or maybe it's that guy that he sometimes sees hanging around outside Denny's. This person could live near him but he might never know or wish to know him. In his society there's no need for him to. He's never going to need to depend on Denny's guy for anything essential to his survival. Even if Denny's guy only lives down the street or in the next building Shp will never go over just to get to know him. To do so would actually probably be viewed as socially abnormal by many people in his society. Thus Denny's guy, despite his proximity remains in Shep's outsider group.

In Teyla's "small world" a person is Mr. Jones two houses over with the son named Brad that always plows his fields on Sunday. The idea that a person could live so close to her as Denny's guy might live to Shep yet she would never know them is an utterly alien concept to her. That person might very well be needed by her sometime in the future. Perhaps he has a unique skill or talent that could benefit the community or her in particular. Perhaps she will have to count on him as an extra hand at some point. Perhaps he's even dangerous, in either case she must endevor to know him. If he is dangerous there are no higher authorities for her to pass off responsability to. Unlike with Shep's world "it is her problem".

As such when Teyla sees someone suffering all she sees is someone elses Mr. Jones, her protective behaviors kick in and she wants to defend or rescue them because she identifies with them. Her dominant perception of "a person" is all she really has to go by, there are no commonlly encountered accepted and forgotten "Earthquake victims in China" in Teylas world.

When Shep looks at the same person he makes an unconcious decision whether or not to place them with the "my buddy chuck intimate group" or "the guy in China outsider group" and then decides based on that what to do. In a truly objective mind this decision would not take place, or it would but the results would be irrelevant to the ultimate action taken, Shep's mind however is not truly objective nor are the minds of just about anyone. When Shep classifies this person as a "guy in China" his mind begins to weigh the risk/benefit ratio of aiding this unknown outsider. Sheps perception of a person will allow him to accept the fact that perhaps this individual is fated to die and that he's not in any way obligated to risk his own life or the lives of the non-outsiders around him to prevent it. Sheps sense of community identification does not extend to the individual to the extent that Teyla's does. When one factors in that the individual(s) in question in both incidents are also essentially true aliens to Shep "people from another Galaxy" and at the same time members of a culture similar to Teylas, a means by which she can identify with the victim, the motivations only become more clear and obvious.

Wow I sure did ramble on there didn't I. I hope at least some of that made sense to some of you.

[FoolishPleasure]

Since our SGA crew has obviously taught Teyla how to use our weapons, wouldn't they also have gone over "chain of command" procedures as well? As for the lion pride. . even a lion pride (or wolf pack for that matter) has their "alpha leader", who is definitely in charge, and who dishes out punishment mercilessly.

Teyla seems to be very "mouthy" and disrespectful to our crew, simply because we don't see situations the same way. . . even belting Bates - who was walking away from her . . .yes, they had an argument, but Bates did have a point - he was worried about the Wraith using her abilities in reverse. . .then she followed him down the hallway to continue the argument, which is another item that has bothered me. It is more mature to walk away from an argument than to keep it going and lower yourself by resorting to blows. (I would really like to see Teyla and Bates come to some sort of understanding in the beginning of season 2 and stop being at odds with each other.)

If Teyla doesn't like the way we are dealing with the situation, then why doesn't she go back to the Athosians and be their leader again? She obviously left that position to stay in Atlantis, but she doesn't seem to be getting along with anyone these days.

Hoping TPTB have a good reason for all Teyla's anger issues down the road. Teyla really needs to go to a good party and let loose.

[Darth Buddha]

Since our SGA crew has obviously taught Teyla how to use our weapons, wouldn't they also have gone over "chain of command" procedures as well?

Hmm... is a personal ethical system a "procedure"? Mine sure isn't, and I bet yours isn't either. If somebody gave me a procedure and said "this defines right and wrong from here on out", I'd tell them what they could do with it!

As for the lion pride. . even a lion pride (or wolf pack for that matter) has their "alpha leader", who is definitely in charge, and who dishes out punishment mercilessly.

Ah, more like dominance. "Punishment" is probably a bit over a lion's head. A wolf's too. The metaphor is a good one, but when you push it that far, it seems to tear.

Teyla seems to be very "mouthy" and disrespectful to our crew, simply because we don't see situations the same way. . .

Or is it assertive, because she is willling to stand up for what she believes? Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

even belting Bates - who was walking away from her . . .yes, they had an argument, but Bates did have a point - he was worried about the Wraith using her abilities in reverse. . .then she followed him down the hallway to continue the argument, which is another item that has bothered me. It is more mature to walk away from an argument than to keep it going and lower yourself by resorting to blows. (I would really like to see Teyla and Bates come to some sort of understanding in the beginning of season 2 and stop being at odds with each other.)

Bates made his security point. He also made a personal insult, and he knew it. Teyla comes from a society that is all about personal honor, and he impugned it. Personally, I think he was RIGHT in his concerns, but an ass in the way he went about it. The "walk away" merely added to it by being a gesture of contempt.

The likelihood that they get along better afterwards is significant, though. I've noted between guys that if they beat the snot out of each other, but nobody comes out clearly ahead, sometimes they are 'best friends" after. It happened to me as a youth once or twice... seems to be some instinctive thing. So Teyla and Bates may "male bond" and come to some accomodation as a result.

If Teyla doesn't like the way we are dealing with the situation, then why doesn't she go back to the Athosians and be their leader again? She obviously left that position to stay in Atlantis, but she doesn't seem to be getting along with anyone these days.

Because, if she is the chief protector of the Athosians, then she HAS to be in Atlantis. The Athosians, thanks to the interference of the SGA, are no longer masters of their own fate. Their fate is dependent on the SGA expedition... so if Teyla wants to defend them, then she needs to be on the front lines.

Hoping TPTB have a good reason for all Teyla's anger issues down the road. Teyla really needs to go to a good party and let loose.

Ah... those anger issues could pay off for all we know.

Let's say she and Bates come to a "warrior's understanding" where he sees her Wraith DNA as an asset, and she sees his watchful eyes on Atlantis as an asset as well. Sometimes what works poorly when folks are stomping on each others toes works oh so well when they dance: Teyla could continue to be a badass, just a badass with allies.