The Other Side (402)

[LoneStar1836]

Same here. Thanks for the thoughtful review. I really enjoyed reading it.

Thank you for the compliment. I'm glad you and one other brave unnamed soul were able to wade through that novella. I really like this episode and had seen it that day and thought why not take three or more hours to toss out my interpretation for the record. I haven't put that much thought into writing since the history research papers and English lit. analysis papers I spat out in college. Brought back memories of staying up all night (I am a big procrastinator) writing them until I had to go to class the next day.

I like most episodes of Stargate, but I find those that cause you to evaluate the situation, decisions, and outcome more closely, such as “The Other Side”, to be somewhat more engrossing. Of course, I like those that don’t tend to tax the brain too much, too!

[Selmak]

why do the people that can help us always turn out to be evil.

[Selmak]

They had UAV's that was cool.

[Ramne]

I still can never get the character of Clayton out of my head... I watched way too much Benson when I was a kid...

[Major Fischer]

I couldn't much get into this episode, partly because I couldn't in my mind suspend the feeling that I was watching Rene Auberjonois as Odo. It didn't happen to me with Marina in Watergate, and I couldn't tell you why I couldn't get into the character, but it just was.

I guess I liked the concept of this episode more than I liked it's execution. Jack seemed to be a little out of character, and I thought that the actions didn't carry much.

As for what's been stated earlier in the thred about using Nazi technology despite the means that were used to get it, we did. A lot of truely horrifying things happened at Mittlebau-Dora which had a direct impact on our space program. Men that were idealized in the 1950s and 1960s in the states, who claimed that they didn't know anything about what the SS was doing there.

On the flip side, nearly all of the medical experimentation done in the death camps is useless. Modern medicine does not have to deal with the moral problems because the methodology and basis was so mixed in fantasy.

[Liebestraume]

On the flip side, nearly all of the medical experimentation done in the death camps is useless. Modern medicine does not have to deal with the moral problems because the methodology and basis was so mixed in fantasy.

Not to get too OT (or to debate international politics), but I'd like to observe that "medical experimentation" was not limited in Nazi death camps. A cursory glance of the Imeperial Japanese version, for instance, makes one's skin crawl. Unfortunately, the specifics of these atrocities have not been well-acknowledged in the west. Perhaps that's (part of) why modern medicine has not been dealing with the moral problems.

[Major Fischer]

Not to get too OT (or to debate international politics), but I'd like to observe that "medical experimentation" was not limited in Nazi death camps. A cursory glance of the Imeperial Japanese version, for instance, makes one's skin crawl. Unfortunately, the specifics of these atrocities have not been well-acknowledged in the west. Perhaps that's (part of) why modern medicine has not been dealing with the moral problems.

Very true, and much of that research was used after the war. The thing with that, was that most of the Japanese medical research was into biological warfare and was used in biological warfare research post-war, which has a host of it's own ethical issues.

Here the answer, I think has more to do with the fact that the Japanese medical research community has been set up (at least since the war) in such a way to be deterimental to cutting edge research. Essentially they make it very difficult for medicines developed abroad to gain approval in Japan, and that makes foreign companies reluctant to participate with Japanese firms in joint projects. So essentially while the rest of the world moves forward working togeather on pharmacudicals and the like, the Japanese are slightly behind.

It's one of the costs of protectionism.

((My father worked for a German and a now works for a Japanese drug company, so I've heard him ranting at the diner table about the subject for about two decades now. Which is funny because my father rants about nothing ))

[Osiris-RA]

what did o'neill mean when he was in that cryogenic room and he was scrolling through all the frozen people and he said ' they're all the same. every damn one of them.' i though he meant that they were all frozen, which was too obvious, then i tought he might have meant something on the screen.
anybody know?

[Kanten]

I'm pretty sure he was referring to the fact that they all basically shared almost the exact same genetics, as seen in their similar appearance. Farrell mentioned to Daniel about preserving genetic purity, which would give the Eurondans a very, very small gene pool for distinction between all of the people in stasis, and pretty much everyone underground. Call them all genetic clones of each other if you will.

[Osiris-RA]

I'm pretty sure he was referring to the fact that they all basically shared almost the exact same genetics, as seen in their similar appearance. Farrell mentioned to Daniel about preserving genetic purity, which would give the Eurondans a very, very small gene pool for distinction between all of the people in stasis, and pretty much everyone underground. Call them all genetic clones of each other if you will.

oh, i see. i cant belive i didnt get that.

i think this is one of the important episodes in stargate because they touch on a subject which seems to be the center of some controversy amoung americans. cloning. it's a stupid, stupid thing to do. weakening the gene pool and eventually, causing the very opposite of what it was intended for. death. after all, without fresh strong genes to use once in awhile, how would they continue living? it'd be like ... something i'd rather not touch on.

[LMichelle]

I thought Jack was a little too harsh to Daniel. Poor Daniel.

[jckfan55]

I thought Rene A. did a great creepy job. (It's been long enough, that I'm over the Benson thing.
When he gives Tealc that look at the beginning you know something's fishy. And then when he gets that dreamy look talking about his father: "It was his vision..." you know just how fanatical they are. Not that you didn't know something was up--but you finally see--and SG1 sees--just how bad they are.

[Vapor]

YES! Now THIS is the way to do it!

This was one great episode, imo.

It's not just another story of SG-1 going to some planet and getting into trouble, and then experiancing some sci-fi thing, and then escaping at the last second... I mean, it is all those things, but there's actually MORE than that here, which is what makes me happy.

There's a real human element to the story, with a relateable story about real life issues. The people of this world are racists in the worst sense, and don't even realize how wretched their way of thinking is. Not only this, but we also have conflicts between the characters, especially Jack and Daniel. Those two butting heads is one thing I'm always up for, and this is a perfect example of it done right.

This is the episode "New Ground" should have been.

[SmartFox]

genocide is the right term. the SGC does not have a "prime directive". jack is a military man from a black ops background and is trained almost specifically for that kind of work. the fact that he went against daniels wishes means nothing. daniel is not military and would not understand such a decision even on earth. even carter who is military seemed to have some trouble with part of what he did.
daniel would not have been able to carry out such a difficult decision, and thats why he's not in command of the team and jack is.

the nazi's made some pretty big advances in technology in their day too. would you consider the decision to neutralize the threat they posed (not to mention the atrocities they committed) to be secondary to the advances they made? if you had the choice between salvaging technology, that wasn't earned or developed by you and saving millions of lives, with the potential sacrifice of a fraction of that, which choice would you take. what is more valueable, human lives or a fancy microwave?

personally i think he did the only thing he could do, the only thing he knew how to do in such a situation. i'd probably do the same. part of it may have been instinct.

personally i think you're only upset because he killed the blonde, aren't ya?
if it makes you feel any better, PDL was the director of that episode and he killed of his own girlfriends character in it, and didn't have any problems with that.

and you could have posted this in the recliner of rage thread. it fits. (shameless push)

Well in the case of the Nazi's we stopped them and then took alot of their technology. Thats what Jack should of done.

[Sha're]

This was a great issue for Stargate to deal with. A technologically superior race that actually wants to supply some technology. No wonder the green light was given to start negotiations. Rene A. Is creepy and horrible in this ep - you just know there's something about him. I can understand the way Jack acts for much of this episode - Elar avoids the issue of why the enemy are their enemy. Jack has been given orders that he has to follow - I enjoyed the conflict between him and Daniel - with Daniel again taking the humanitarian side. And of course he was right - Jack was diplomatic enough to admit that. Good character episode IMO.