Wall Banger/Live-Action TV/Stargate SG-1


 * SG-1 save the world from total destruction on a regular basis. What is their government's reaction? To complain about costs and suggest shutting the program down. Just to be clear, not to shut down development of a replacement defense, but to shut down the only defense against alien threats.
 * In the government's defense, every single thing that's threatened Earth in the series have effectively been caused by the heroes and the Stargate program
 * As Senator Kinsey lampshades, every single time they have an imminent invasion it just coincidentally occurs at the same time he's ready to shut down the program. Also it's understandable that he would have been more than a bit suspicious of Daniel's claims in the first season when you consider how unreliable the evidence is.
 * Except all they had to do was dial Daniel's address and see if they got a lock.
 * When the humans get the technology to build starships, America keeps it to itself even after telling other nations about the Stargate program. America represents a minority of global manufacturing capacity. Spreading the knowledge would mean that Earth would have three or five times as many ships. Apparently, the viewers are supposed to agree that the extinction or enslavement of the human race is preferable to handing advanced technology over to dangerous evil and unstable nations like ... Britain and Canada.
 * It got silly when there was a big deal made of finally revealing the Stargate program (well, aside from Russia, who had figured it out on their own). Apparently, all the Canadians who work out of Cheyenne Mountain for NORAD never noticed what was happening in the basement.
 * This has been addressed in three episodes: one has the Russian General telling a Chinese ambassador that they are waiting for the Americans to iron out the kinks, at which point they will get the plans for none of the R&D. A second has a Russian Daedalus-class, which promptly gets blown up in the second part of the episode it is introduced in, but still... The third happened in the Atlantis finale
 * The two stable, democratic, and reliable US allies, the United Kingdom and France, seem to be last in line for a ship of their own. This does make some sense, as a) they probably won't threaten to reveal the Stargate Program, and b) China would likely not be happy at all if they didn't get one but it's still not proper.
 * Couldn't this just be down to the difficulty in stealthily launching a 200+ metre spaceship? The countries that have 304s are three of the four largest countries in the world, meaning they don't have to worry about a Spanish or German radar picking up their new spaceship.
 * SG-1: Their resident anthropologist/linguistic geek guy explains that another planet (the Tollan) are ahead of Earth technology-wise because Earth had the Dark Ages and so they are 100-500 years ahead of us. The Dark Ages only affected Western Europe (leaving the Islamic World in a cultural and scientific renaissance, not to mention the Byzantine Empire, or, you know, small places like CHINA).
 * This is a little complicated because the concept of progress is relatively recent. The Renaissance was looking back to Rome; much of the knowledge of Rome was reacquired through the reconquest of Al-Andalus (modern day Spain and Portugal) and emigration from the collapsing Byzantine empire. It's a complicated issue. But, at best, Daniel was grossly over-simplifying (Western civilization barely deserving the term for a few centuries, if they had avoided this, then conceivably we could be more technologically advanced today), and at worst, he was just plain wrong; given his profession...you'd think he'd be more...accurate.
 * The Ionian civilization derived the existence of atoms, proved the earth was round, built a miniature steam engine and effectively created science during the 6th century BC. Unfortunately, their intellectual heritage was silenced by the Pythagoreans, Dorians and philosophers (including Plato) who believed in keeping science and knowledge to a small cultural elite. If not for these people, the "dark ages" from 500 BC to 150 BC wouldn't have happened. By extention, we would be at least 500 years ahead technologically, even including the contributions from the Arab world (far more dogmatic than the Renaissance and Ionian people - had Aristotle as premise), Byzantium (Roman Empire practically in stasis, not too much development) and China (hooray for unreliable gunpowder grenades). If you want to explain the difference between the 500-150 BC failure to light up-age and the 450-1450 AD dark age, he's probably making it easier to follow. Few people who haven't watched Cosmos know about the Ionian enlightenment.
 * This one from Stargate SG-1 is especially bad. Considering the two SG-1 episodes "Thor's Hammer" and "Thor's Chariot" together, the SG-1 team can be considered guilty of negligent genocide. (Yes, the Goa'uld did the killing, but surely SG-1 should have seen that coming.) Come on, folks---couldn't they have found a better way to get Teal'c out of the labyrinth than destroying the one bit of technology keeping the world safe? The humans could go through both the labyrinth and the Stargate at will; they could easily have sent for more help from home, dug him out, and then rebuilt the wall so that any remaining Goa'uld would still have to go through the hammer. Or Stargate Command should have left behind a few teams of infantry or something once they destroyed the protection. The characters in the show lampshade this but somehow are never held morally responsible for it.
 * Why couldn't Teal'c do a running jump through the thing? Or, if the device paralyzes him, why couldn't the rest of the team just pull him through?
 * It's even worse: O'Neill was able to pull him back through it.
 * The field was indeed only intended to kill symbiotes. If Teal'c's symbiote had died, then he likely would have also, given Jaffa physiology and the inability to reliably secure new ones. And it was right at the stargate. Destroying the device was in character for Jack. But neither Daniel nor Teal'c (who had been willing to die because he understood just how dangerous it was for Cimmeria not to have this device) pushed for the team to FIX IT.
 * Shame Gairwyn didn't remember the Hall of Thor's Might a little earlier, or they could've contacted Thor then and there. Teal'c gets saved without destroying the hammer, Cimmeria doesn't get invaded and they have contact with the Asgard a season early. But, since it wasn't retconned in yet...
 * The Ancients, anyone? SG-1 sets them up so much that Thor pretty much said that the Ancient database was so vast and awesome that the Asgard had only scratched the surface. Their technology easily defeated the Replicators and saved the Milky Way... And then we find out that the Wraith apparently managed to kick their asses, and then they all ran away with their tails between their legs and let an entire galaxy of humans be harvested by the Wraith for 10,000 years - which would have gone on if not for the SGC. The Ancients make the Prime Directive seem SENSIBLE.
 * The Ori upped the ante on the sheer mindcrushing idiocy of the Ancients. The Ancients, for no adequately explained reason, have their non-interference clause... and this clause all but condemns them to destruction when SG-1 go and "reveal" the Milky Way to the Ori, thus giving the Ori another galaxy full of humans to make them sufficiently powerful to wipe out the Ancients and condemn at LEAST two galaxies (and probably more) to a literally soul-sucking theocracy.
 * That just proves how highly the Ancients hold free will, they would rather DIE than interfere in the affairs of mortals, this was proven when they didn't use the Ark of Truth in the first place. They value the free will of others it overrides their own self preservation. They will allow the Ori to destroy them and practically enslave the Milky Way, if the people of the Milky Way freely chose to serve the Ori. It would be the same as asking someone to give up their beliefs if they heard someone was coming to kill them for it.
 * You try to return to a galaxy facing greater numbers from a planet that now had primitive sapients living on it. Remember Atlantis's Stargate would only accept a Wormhole from Earth while at the bottom of the ocean. Also the Ancient's policy of Non-Interference would not have allowed them to use Earth to rebuild their civilization. So they simply interbred with the primitive humans of Earth, left Earth to find a new home and be unable to use it to return to Atlantis or ascend.
 * Let's see how this one hurts your head: Stargate Command has a device (from the episode "There But For The Grace of God") shaped like a mirror allowing TRANS-UNIVERSAL travel BEFORE they gain space travel capabilities and this device is ordered to be destroyed. A device that would have allowed access to any number of parallel universes that have Stargates, potentially more advanced technology and that would have all been on an EARTH...and this device was destroyed. Worse, its absence and usefulness in that situation are Lampshaded in a later episode.
 * Other Earths might be upset at you randomly running missions into their universe. In fact, it's this very issue that convinced Hammond to destroy it. He did not want every unlucky variation of his team running to them for help.
 * Every time that Stargate opens, a platoon of Marines runs in dressed in full armour and stands in the open.`Why not have them there already? Why not put metal for them to stand behind? Why does the Air Force employ Marines? Don't they have soldiers of their own?
 * It's not every time. Just every time there's an unscheduled offworld activation (someone's trying to get in and they don't know who). And they're not Marines, they're SF's. Dunno what that stands for, but that's how they're referred to.
 * SF stands for Security Forces, the Air Force version of MP's. As the name implies, they control security for Air Force installations.
 * Actually, SP's (Security Police) are the Air Force's version of the Army's MP's (Military Police). And after the installation of an iris on the Stargate, this was rendered largely ceremonial.
 * Until the Replicators invaded and they started blasting, which goes to show you why caution is sometimes better than confidence.
 * With the exception of three or so episodes during the first season of Stargate SG-1, NONE of the primary cast (and only the SP's and some Marines in the secondary cast) wear military helmets for protection even in situations where they KNOW that combat is not only possible but imminent. Apparently head wounds and traumatic brain injury are not considered LIFE-THREATENING by Stargate Command. Additionally, w/ the exception of Richard Dean Anderson, after Season Two, none of the primary cast routinely wear any type of head covering, even when weather conditions or regulations require it. Since wearing "cover" (something on your head) is also a military requirement for anybody carrying a weapon, it's surprising that this serious oversight permeates the show.
 * You mean aside from Sam wearing a Patrol / BDU cover fairly regularly? (See this image from season seven)