That episode also belongs in the same category as the ones described in the video do, putting the sheer hubris of SGC on full display - they deem it perfectly fine to have Teal'c tried and executed by local customs based on him being a "war criminal", while O'Neil, a former black ops officer, is standing right there. What I do like about that is that it never tries to paint said hypocricy in a positive light or brush it off, with O'Neil slapping harsh truth directly into our face and basing most of his actions throughout that episode around said truth.
@@UEDCommander dont forget the time Hammond ordered a hit on a reporter who knew about the SGC, then threatened Jack at the end. "Colonel...it *was* and accident"
One minor point : when arriving with the ship, they DID try to talk and go for peace first, but were immediately targeted. It was even pointed out that if they had gone with the 'shoot first' plan, they would have been able to destroy the weapon first. So what they had were two parallel examples of hesitation in the name of peace, with the first one going poorly and the second one going well.
this is true, they DID try to talk with the people on the planet, but then the prometheus was being targetted, so defensive measures were taken --- aka, lock VLS and fire.
Targeting alone is not enough to exempt prometheus from choosing pre-emptive attack. It's a difference between drawing a gun at rest and pointing it at someone (scare tactic, hostage op, etc. Targeting alone is not enough to say that one side completely had no other choice). "Do not fire first" is a staple tradition with valid reasons for its existence and prometheus failed to uphold it.
@@armni4619 "Do not fire first" is a convention by hack writers who wouldn't know an actual dangerous situation from an adrenaline hit. When someone has a gun to your head, you aren't evil for responding with deadly force; you're a fool if you pretend the gun isn't there.
@@boobah5643 Conventionally, correct. Hence I specified in the Prometheus situation only. In Prometheus' case? No. The ship came uninvited and acted with force against what can be considered defensive action; in SGA, Atlantis tracks and readies to target anything nearing the system it's in.
@@Scaash yeap. b5, sg1, st: os/ds9, atlantis, and i would have atlantis higher but the abrupt ending compared to the saga that was sg1 had me angry for a long time. i'm still bitter about it.
I watched everything there was growing up. B5, all Star Gate, All Trek, All SW. The old Larson BSG '79 (even '80 though I'm not proud.) Also Blake's 7, classic Who, Red Dwarf, Buck Rodgers, the animated Flash Gordon, Starblazers, Macros, even Space 1999, UFO and _The Invaders._ Stargate always ranks near the top. It was right at the forefront of serialized long-term arcs in sci-fi only just behind B5. There are moments where the internal logic may suffer but the various SG series never had the support that BSG '04 or TNG got and despite similar constraints as B5 it's actually wayyyy more detailed and fully fleshed with better continuity over hundreds of hours of combined content. Mostly.
Love Stargate and Trek almost equally. People write off Stargate as light and fluffy but damn, when they write a serious and thoughtful story, they do a superb job.
There are people that really thought that? 'internally reviews the series' Okay they were kind of right. We both know how Dark and gloomy this show got in places.
@@dragonsword7370 I’m people . Tbh I enjoy both BUT I just saw stargate as more cheesy that trek but enjoyable. It was mostly Cos I found goa'uld as laughable antagonist
Daniel: 'We'll be back to rebuild' USAF: *Funnels 1/4 of the entire US defence budget into some random 'deep space telemetry' program in a mountain. Congress: ...dafuq?
I can't count how many times I've wished someone would pull Teal'c and Bray'tec aside and point out that SGC is part of ONE branch of the military of a SINGLE country on Earth, a country which requires Congress to formally declare war in order to activate the full power of the military and the economics required to back it, which has not happened, and will not happen, because, officially, you don't exist. I would kill for an episode where Teal'c lands a ship on the whitehouse lawn and is like "Your ride to the war you helped start is here"
They probably helped strengthen their food security, provided medical supplies, and other stuff that could've been labeled under foreign aid were the circumstances not so extraordinary.
Star Trek: "Interference in other cultures goes against our very ethos. Our strictest laws prevent interference of any kind in less developed civilizations." Stargate: "Your gods are false. Here, take these guns."
Well, sometimes Star Trek be like: "Your gods are false, all gods are false. Now that we've shattered a foundational belief of your society, we're going to peace out because nothing's ever gone wrong when you undermine a societal belief."
I mean... they only said that when it was related to the Goa'uld... because it wasn't really philosophy/religion. It was fact. Even when it came to the Asgard (who were also false gods), they only revealed it the one time (Red Sky), and it didn't go over well. A lot of the SG-1 characters were religious. Teal'c even reads the whole Bible. So: still a funny comment, but just wanted to point out that SG-1 was not about spreading atheism. They were about stopping slavery.
Not entirely accurate. SG-1 generally interfered when they encountered humans transplanted from earth who were still worshiping the Go'auld. When they encountered the viking people worshiping Thor, they didn't try to undermine them, they simply asked for directions so they could hopefully contact the Asgard. Thor revealed the truth himself. Jack did try to interfere in the Episode "Learning Curve", but that was on a personal level and was ultimately unsuccessful.
I wish there were more shows like stargate around. It's such a unique blend of just, real world discourse and political/military intrigue combined with the burgeoning reality of becoming an interstellar civilization, a middling one at that. It shows a competent organization with competent leaders and competent policymakers doing believable things in an alien galaxy. It's just... it's so good. It's so grounded, yet sometimes fantastical, it's a perfect blend of science fiction and a sort of realistic interpretation of where we would be headed as an interstellar polity, in a positive light that still feels grounded. My own writing projects take so many inspirations from this sort of mood and tonal aesthetic and I can only hope to match it one day.
Babylon 5 is a weird beast because there's so many different parts to it, and holy crap I hate the Minbari on every level. On one hand, we have a regular sci-fi show about this diplomatic mission full of weird aliens. That's cool. But the real core of the show is the run up to the Vorlon/Shadow war, and eventually the EA civil war. And yet... That takes up less than half the run of the show. And man the Minbari are the worst. The Vorlons are allowed to be inscrutable jerks, but the Minbari sit there being the best at everything and capable of solving all the problems if only their deeply held religious beliefs weren't around. And it's just garbage. "Hi, we're space elves and our fleet is way better than yours" is not interesting. Especially when everyone else is so interesting and vibrant, and willing to argue the toss (with violence) on every issue. IMHO it would have been more interesting to make the Minbari a willing puppet race to the Vorlons, which they worship as gods.
Rewatching SG-1, one of my favorite scenes is the end of 2010 when a mysterious note appears from SG1 through the stargate saying “never go to P4X-whatever” and Hammond immediately locks it out of the dialing computer. Other shows would send the main characters out to investigate or some other foolish move.
Hammond was awesome. His offer to resign to give Carter an hour to solve a problem in a pinch was another great moment. His deep respect for Teal'c when he was going through his brainwashing was a nice subtler moment, too.
In the Star Trek universe, there exist thousands of untouched civilizations which interference could destroy the uniqueness of. In the Stargate universe, this destruction has already happened at the hands of the big bads thousands of years ago across much of the galaxy. Though, some have recovered (such as the civilization we see covered in this video).
@@juliankirby9880 To be fair, one set of fake gods was trying to genocide their planet. The other set of fake gods were mostly cool, except for a few random abductions here or there.
stargate was effectively my introduction to harder, more complex sci-fi. because of it I watched all star trek, blade runner, dune (read and watched in that case) and others. but I will always come back to star gate. its so digestible, never preachy, emotional, and always entertaining.
The show lost me when a hyper-advanced civilization's war party which is superior in pretty much every way, is defeated or set back by a handful of Earth soldiers and a Earth-loyal Jaffa with small arms. It worked in the movie because Ra was caught off guard and under-estimated the Humans. But this happens in SG-1 AGAIN and AGAIN. Sure, it's grittier than Star Trek TNG, but it's no less implausible.
@@kev3d The Goa'uld's problem was their arrogance - they thought humanity so far beneath them that they couldn't conceive of them as a genuine threat; to paraphrase Thor explaining why the Asgard needed SG-1's help against the Replicators - when a society becomes sufficiently more advanced than its contemporaries, their ability to think strategically diminshes because every problem looks like a mere nail. SG-1's defeat of Apophis's invasion began as a one-in-a-million suicide mission that only succeeded because they received inside help from Bra'tac, who along with Teal'c represented the enemies within the Goa'uld had fostered with their tyranny. And as time went on, SG-1's actions against the Goa'uld allowed the SGC to obtain valuable technologies that closed the technological gap, until finally humanity became the biggest player in the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies.
@@kev3d You're talking about an enemy that is so rooted in traditions that large-scale combat almost always includes melee combat. When we actually see a competent Goa'uld, he's shown to be a massive threat. But even he is held back by the uncertainty of what the Asgard response would be at first, and later various high technology we discovered and looted that _might_ allow us to punch well above our weight (like the Antarctic outpost), and the fact that he's still living in a feudal society. Also, the Goa'uld are not the kind to work together, even against a common enemy. This is absolutely crippling - for every reason to crush those insolent humans, there's ten reasons not to do so in order to do harm to their Goa'uld enemies. And of course, that's also why the possibility of one Goa'uld becoming significantly stronger than the others is treated with such dismay. There also seems to be a massive change in the capabilities of the Goa'uld over the run of the show. In early episodes, the strongest Goa'uld around musters a fleet of two capital ships for an attack on Earth (which would be more than enough for widespread destruction); they _do_ respond to the increasing threat, and it's clear enough they are absolutely pathetic compared to Earth in pretty much everything _except_ for their space capabilities. They don't really _want_ to improve their armies, either - they're too unpredictable, and the potential for rebellion is too great. Which becomes even more obvious as the Jaffa rebellion grows in importance. Many of the human enemies are shown to be far more dangerous to the SG teams, as they should be. Even when their technology _isn't_ better than ours - again, very realistic. SG teams are small strike teams for covert operations. They can be, and regularly are, outmanoeuvred when the enemy isn't a stupid feudal pseudo-deistic warlord. When the Ori come, they're pretty much exactly the same as the Goa'uld. The only real difference is the Ori have far more advanced technology. They're still mostly held back by their uncertainty about the interference from the Ancients; but they probe the boundaries of that uncertainty over and over. Even at the end of the show, SGC isn't shown to be on equal footing to even the new little human empires getting created in the ruins of the Goa'uld. We have distinct advantages, but are still pretty much just as fragile. Luck was always a big part. It was clear enough that the vast majority of alternate SGCs _didn't_ end up well. But playing the uncertainty game was just as big. The Goa'uld were appropriately shocked when Apophises early attack was defeated, and they had no idea what happened. And remember, this was back when Apophis' force was considered rather big - especially against a single impudent human world. And their ground forces kept being defeated at what seemed like impossible odds (to anyone who doesn't understand modern combat). For more fun, XSG-COM is a fun exploration of a universe where the humans take a more... hands-on approach. With actually working to defeat their enemies, rather than mostly just exploring and defending themselves.
@@LuaanTi Well explained. Yes, the Goa'uld had some working spaceships, but their infighting and ancient/medieval era society just made them to be really vulnerable to real threats. Which is why they tried to wipe out developing planets all the time and often succeeded. It is shown that Earth has fallen in many dimensions via the Mirror in the early seasons. And which is why the Goa'uld were entirely wiped out by a -short in time- campaign from the Replicators, an actual threat they couldnt do jack about, even when Ba'al solidified most of their empire in his hand.
The awesome part of Stargate is every team, even the ones we never meet were extremely competent. They wouldn't of been recruited for that task if they weren't best of the best. Usually when they meet an end it's because of bad luck.
@@jonson856 -- I just can't seem to get into Lower Decks. I keep trying, but so far the only scene I've enjoyed was the one where the historian said "and now we're going to look at the most important person in the history of Starfleet: Chief Miles Edward O'Brien." That one got a laugh out of me.
I'd say that the bigger lesson here is that despite your most noblest intentions, careful diplomacy, prudent planning, and heroic efforts, everything can still go to hell. Sometimes, you can do everything right, but if Fate decides it hates you, that means you're in for a rough day regardless. I'm not sure what other course of action the SGC could have reasonably taken. Simply showing what the gate did was enough to destabilize the Rand-Caledonia cold war, and it's pretty much incidental that SG-1 was the group to perform that demonstration. It's just blind luck that a random System Lord hadn't already led an expedition there like they did to Earth in the pilot episode, and sent their cold war spiraling out of control years before SG-1 showed up. Besides which, once the Ori began their invasion of the galaxy, SG-1's involvement became irrelevant to that planet. At that time, Earth had nothing in its arsenal that could touch Ori tech, so no amount of Protectorate goodwill toward Earth would have kept that world from accepting Origin and joining their crusade. I mean, suppose Earth had not just provided weapons to the Protectorate like they'd asked, but had gone whole-hog and sent troops and materiel on a D-Day/Lend-Lease scale, fighting to conquer the Caledonians directly, and gifting the Protectorate an entire squadron of Prometheus-class warships as a going-away present, all with no strings attached beyond "be our ally". Even with all that, the Prior's offers/threats would _still_ have forced them over a barrel, and left the SGC in essentially the same situation that got Colonel Pendergast killed and the _Prometheus_ destroyed. Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.
This is true. Again we aren't talking about EARTH helping them, we are talking about the UNITED STATES helping them. The scale of aid they would have needed would have dwarfed the Lend Lease programs of WWII and good luck getting THAT through Congress especially before the Ori showed up. I mean good grief we can't even commit fully to defending Ukraine from naked aggression from Russia right now, how would you get anyone to agree to help a planet light years away that just had a nuclear exchange whether or not we lit the match. Also it's damned lucky that a random System Lord HADN'T found this planet first. That would have been a nightmare because the System Lord would have taken the zealots and turned them into Jaffa, wouldn't have cared at all if there was a nuclear exchange or not and enslaved the surviving population in any case and probably depopulated the planet to a manageable population just around the Stargate itself. Bottom line it doesn't matter WHO stepped through the gate this planet was screwed.
Which is something they could have shown in Star Trek. Even there they could end up in a situation where there never was a winning situation despite everything. Even with all the experiences the Federation has made, the experiences of the crew, even with everything done perfectly, they could have done a lot of damage.
Two key factors that shape SG1’s storytelling here: 1) Stargate doesn’t take place in a utopia; it takes place here and now. 2) Stargate intentionally revisits almost every episode at least once. Because Star Trek, especially TOS and TNG, was almost always one and done, and because TNG was stubbornly utopian, stories like this were almost impossible.
Not really the only part they used Satr gate is a serct happing right now was using the fact SG is an Americain project and Americain hates to get involded in "Things happening over there.". Which in Star trek you can right the same thing as like the US is SG1 the Federation has it's own series of beliefs and strutchers that gover it's every move.
For me TNG was stubbornly preachy. No mistake without no a lecture, no developing society without a “do better” speech while denying sensible support for the steps forward.
@@theq6797 A world with problems, like it's always been. The future can still be hopeful. I don't often find the "utopia" of TNG to be very hopeful, though... it seems preachy and bordering on authoritarian. Actually, it reminds me a lot of modern society. Really great for the most part, but full "of woke" people trying to ruin it in their misguided effort to fix problems that don't actually exist (and often ignoring the ones that do).
I love Star Trek for its ideals and as a hopeful, bright future. I love Star Gate for its realism, it's diplomacy, the faults in the characters that show how, as Picard tells us, "one may make no mistakes and still be wrong." Star Gate is how we get to Star Trek. We may fumble, we may falter, we *will* make mistakes....but thats how we learn to do better - to be better - than the sum of our parts.
Honestly I’ve always felt the underlying theme of both SG1 and Atlantis is about interference, the consequences of interference, and how we fail and succeed at managing interference/meddling .
Agree. They show multiple sides of the coin on interference and how it’s not a cut and dry thing. It shows how some have the luxury of non-interference like the Nox then show others who need help from outsiders because they are subjugated by the Goa'uld who embrace interference to the max for their sole benefit. You have Earth who can help some but really they need help too. They run into various societies who have varying levels and rules about interference. Asgard and Tollan being two examples. The Asgard take a measured approach but sometimes they bend their own rules for their own benefit or for moral reasons but ultimately they are also really looking for someone else to take a caretaker like role that they had taken on previously. The Asgard however are willing to take the help or suggestions of technology inferior societies. The Tollan once shared tech while trying to help others and it ended with disaster so they committed to non-interference to the point of it becoming it’s own undoing when they refused to even entertain concerns that a lesser society technology wise but more experienced with dealing issues like war had pointed out to them while trying to convince the Tollan they needed to be proactive because ignoring everyone else would eventually come to bite them. They were so preoccupied with with making sure absolutely nothing of technological value was shared and believed in the own hype too much. Then you have the whole Ancients vs Ori thing too.
"Consequences of interference" could be considered the central thesis of Atlantis, considering how in a nutshell, all of the expedition's main problems began with the Ancients interfering in the Pegasus Galaxy while trying to attain Ascension/immortality.
Or more generally speaking, consequences, period. Everything you do or don't do has them, and you can't just pretend otherwise. Policies aren't things to hide behind when things go south - they need to be changed to produce the desired results when it becomes clear they aren't working. Funnily enough, the development of the Star Trek shows kind of shows a real process that tends to happen around rules and processes in the real world. There's a thing that needs solving, we design a way to solve it. But the next generation doesn't know the point of the solution, why it was chosen and what it's supposed to do. It just knows the rule, and either ignores it or follows it. In TOS, it was painfully obvious in half the episodes that interfering is bad, and the other half was about how _not_ interfering was bad. By the time of TNG, the prime directive was a holier-than-thou attitude that was pretty much used to justify not dealing with bad consequences and ignored whenever convenient to do so, mostly. And in ENT, we get the absolutely horrid "we can't help cure the plague, because that's just evolution in action!" As if the whole point of civilization in the first place wasn't to _remove_ sentient beings from the shackles of natural selection, and allow us to build something different (and hopefully better)! It's interesting that DS9 went the more real way after that, while VOY went entirely the opposite direction.
@@X525Crossfire And how the team was originally lost simply by stepping into Atlantis and the city powering up. (Explained by the old Elizabeth Wier.) Then them going to a random planet and help these new people against an unknown enemy and getting back their own, causing them to wake up and start butchering the galaxy and each other for the 'human resources'. Then they did the same when they saw these 'Ancient-looking guys', went through like 'What could go wrong', then those folks turned out to be unreasonable replicators.
@@Grivehn True enough, though I keep that on that the Ancients since they created the Asurans and were responsible for the emergence of the Wraith (that's not even counting Legacy where they outright created them).
In Star Trek, up until Deep Space 9, there was a sense that, for the most part, all was well because, for the most part, everyone played by the Federation's rules. Everything is utopia, any troubles are really few and far between. Yeah there's an occasional problem that can't be wrapped up rather quickly, but for the overwhelming majority of Star Trek, the Roddenberry future where everyone gets along (for the most part) was the ethos. But with that said I can think of two Voyager episodes that actually deal with unintended and unforeseen consequences. The first is "False Profits" in which two Ferengi, that initially appeared in an episode of TNG, were bidding on the rights to a wormhole. As it turned out they ended up in the Delta Quadrant, but ended up exploiting a planet of bronze age people due to the technological advantage they had. Of course Voyager had no responsibility in the Ferengi being there, but in a way the Federation was at least partially responsible because it was the Enterprise that hosted the negotiations for the rights to the wormhole, and the crew of Voyager couldn't just let them continue to exploit the people. The second is "Friendship One", in which an early Earth probe was sent out and found its way to a planet in the hopes of fostering peace. But the containment field for the matter-antimatter radiation failed and turned the planet into a nuclear wasteland. The inhabitants of the planet were certain Earth had sent the probe ahead to introduce technology that the planet couldn't handle so that they would destroy themselves and Earth would take over. Of course that wasn't true, but considering what had happened, the people could not be faulted for believing that. Of course both episodes end with a resolution that makes everyone feeling better about themselves, but at least in these two cases the writers of Star Trek tried to have some conflict that ol' Gene probably wouldn't have approved of.
And they played by the Federation's rules because of the implied threat of Starfleet. Even before Wolf 359 Starfleet was THE premier military force, even if they denied they were a military the other powers KNEW that war with the Federation was a losing proposition and the LAST thing any of the other powers wanted was to remind the Federation that they WERE the big boys on the block. In Stargate's case, it's basically the USA doing all of this, not even all of Earth. Our heroes weren't part of a galactic doom power. They were the military of one nation on a world that was and still is capable of being our own worst enemy who could have been wiped out by just a task force of the enemies that they made.
Yessssss! It's so great to see someone acknowledge how Stargate does it better. I love Star Trek but to see so many in the scifi community gloss over Stargate hurts my soul. To me Stargate perfected the balance of the science fiction trifecta. Babylon 5 had the ensemble cast, Star Trek had the moral dilemmas, Star Wars had the action but Stargate brought all of those elements together so beautifully but not once did it feel forced to one degree or the other.
These two episodes aren't the only ones that cover interfering with another race. Orlin, an Ancient, provided an alien race with the technology to protect themselves from the Goa'uld. Once they fought them off, that race planned to conquer other worlds. Orlin had created the very thing he wished to protect them against. And because of his actions, he condemned that race to death as The Ancients wiped them out and exiled him to live alone on that planet.
@@bemasaberwyn55 That wasn't the Tollan, they were wiped out by Tanneth, who was representing Anubis. He was the one who enhanced the shields of Goa'uld Motherships.
The big disconnect between SG1 and TNG is the whole episodic mandate. SG1 was allowed to take long narrative arcs, TNG was not. DS9 (or rather B5) fixed that.
I hole heartedly would love a series on the Tau'ri Goa'uld war in the same vain as Lore reloaded's dominion war super cut. and yes for posterity's sake a prelude on the movie would be in order as from the point of view of the council of the system lords the Tau'ri had invaded their space and assinated their head of state (Ra). and though Apohis' initial actions were unrelated to the war it quickly became the genisis of the war in earnest.
SG1 wasnt afraid to make fun of Star Trek and yet was so "down to earth" and grounded, that they made fun of themselves even more.....It was great. SciFi gold
@@philiprice7875you beat me to it, Theres another episode where he calls himself "James T Kirk" when being interrogated by some militant human race on a different planet 😂 One of the best scifi shows ever
One of the things I really liked about Stargate is that I feel like they explored both sides of the issue. There were several examples where the exploration of the SGC helped the inhabitants of the worlds they visited ... there were also several examples where their interference hurt those worlds. On the other hand, we have the Ancients (Alterans ... the non-Ori ... not sure what the proper name is for them) who had an extreme non-interference policy which I would say was very similar to the TNG-era view of the Prime Directive. We saw examples where them stepping in to help non-ascended beings ended in tragedy. We also saw times where they really should have stepped in (Anubis, anything having to do with fighting the Ori on any level) and it took a bit of them bending and looking the other way while some of their rank stepped right up to the line and then when they crossed it, the others punished them. I think, like many ideologies, there are upsides and downsides. I don't think there's a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all policy regarding the level of interference that's acceptable with respect to alien cultures.
I would love to see a series comparing specific episodes from different shows that cover similar topics handle it. Especially with SG-1 since Star Trek and Star Wars exist in that universe, and O'Neill is a fan. Not only does the writing meta-reference ST plotlines, but the show directly makes references. Sam: "Sir, we can't call it 'The Enterprise'"
As a bonus, they were naming the Prometheus at the time, and that's in something like the first or second episode it appears in (which this video covers the last).
There's a 15 or so year old fan fic that never got finished where an author took TNG: The Chase and replaced the progenitor alien with Sam Carter. She tells the story of the Orii on the verge of victory in the Milky Way, the free Jaffa decided to sacrifice the beings in the Milky Way via Dakara and notified Earth. SGC figured out how to not get wiped out with a star system time dilation device and then went and re-seeded life in the galaxy with the Dakara device. The federation figured out how to dial Atlantis and the story stops. I read it earlier this year and have my own thoughts on how to continue it but not finish it.
Honestly love when the Ori become the big bad. Be hard for a society that’s at war and then a superior being offers you the key to winning said war. Also Jackson is one of the reasons I started studying ancient history. He’s my favorite character and even without the go’uld the ancient societies shown in the show always fascinated me.
@@TheAchilles26 Funnily enough, I think Stargate writers didn't make the Ori advanced enough. Ori ships and technology are somewhere around that of the Borg from Star Trek, despite the fact that their civilization is apparently tens of millions of years old AND they managed to ascend to a state of pure energy. If anything, they should have been at Q levels of power and they should have obliterated all resistance in every galaxy in the Stargate network, as they were apparently even more powerful than the Ancients, or at least more numerous.
@@TheAchilles26 The Ori story could have been epic but they didnt have the budget for it. Imagine if the Asgard had sent 100 ships to defend the supergate.. how epic could that space battle have been?
Funny SG-1 story. There’s a video where Richard Dean Anderson reads some fan questions. One question is something like “What about this civilization where this happened, but this other thing happened this other time…. “ He looks deadpan into the camera, Col. O’neil style, and says “Geez, it’s almost like our fans are smart or something”
I think you also miss the policy change that the SGC develops over the years. As they get more and better ships, and as the various wars start to make Earth vulnerable, they become far more forward in working with outside groups and supporting initiatives which don’t directly threaten earth. By the time of the Ori War, they were starting to act as the police of the galaxy, deploying one of their ships to prevent a world from supporting the invaders. I personally think destroying the satellite immediately was the correct move, especially tactically. The SGC has run into booby-trapped weapons so damn often, it’s not even funny. There is no doubt in my mind that the Priors could turn that gun on the surface in an instant if they didn’t feel it was being used to their satisfaction, and it was more a gun to the head of that world than one to defend it.
They didn't fire immediately, which was the problem, actually. They contacted the surface first to negotiate, which allowed the satellite to power Ori-strength shields that the Prometheus was basically helpless against.
They wanted to power demonstrate and it sort of backfired when them underestimated the motive behind the power demonstration. if the satellite was considered a real threat to Earth the motive would be to dispose the threat and then negotiate a peace. It's how wars been going for the last centuries as example Japan negotiate peace with USA after launching superweapon on Japan. Not the other way around.
@@robertagren9360 That was the thing... they thought the satellite didn't have defensive systems. (I also think they thought it wasn't finished yet). Thus, time was NOT a factor in the decision making. Though it should have been.
@@Swiftbow There was also the concern for Daniel. The never leave anyone behind ethos has bitten them hard several times. This was probably the single most costly example. So many dead over hesitation of what would happen to Daniel if they did exactly what they were there to do. Which was dumb. Daniel never stays dead. Shoot first and just sit back and wait for his dead body to reanimate for the fiftieth time, lol.
@@tyrannicpuppy I guess that makes sense. But wasn't Daniel with the rebel forces at that point? IE, not a prisoner? They weren't going to blow up the surface... just a satellite in orbit.
I owned the box sets, I knew what time it came on, it made me interested in physics...this was my fucking show. It also established my love for the p90.
i had always thought the P90 was a "hollywood" stunt gun as it was to cool looking to be real. now after seeing you tube vids of them in action and me being left handed I WANT ONE but as i am a Brit and the police would have a collective scream i had to make do with an air-soft on my man cave wall
When the Prometheus was destroyed it was like a punch in the gut for me. The Ori seemed unstoppable and all the advanced tech that earth had access to didn’t seem to matter at all. The last two seasons of SG1 aren’t my favorites but I do appreciate what was being rolled out as a new take on the aliens as false gods premise, as well as the morality of a secret space program including alien alliances and it’s implications in a modern setting.
Yeah, the Ori were especially interesting in that, arguably, they ARE gods. That is, they have all the trappings. They even created their followers. But, of course, they are absolutely evil and awful. So the question in that season, I think, was whether you should worship a god that doesn't deserve it. Daniel never phrased it quite that way, though, which was disappointing. Though I think the reason that he didn't was that it would mean that he was ALSO (however briefly) technically a god. And Daniel would never feel comfortable describing himself that way. Also, I wish Ark of Truth hadn't been such a deus ex machina end to the saga.
@@Swiftbow When you fet to that level of power a;; you have is that or God intervining. BAcause Adria had all the pow4er from worshipers she was more powerful than regular acendents. Only way to remove it wa remove her followers makiong her only as powerful as one ascendant.
@@0011peace They didn't actually do that, though... they only affected the Priors. (And suddenly mentioned that the Priors were way more important, faith-wise, than everybody else.) And then, in the end, it was just the same ending as Anubis vs. Oma. I think it would have been way more interesting if they'd brought in some of the other Ascended that were on their side... like Shifu, Skarra and the Abydonians, along with Morgan Le Fay. Would have been a great call-back. Or heck... power up their own Ascended by believing in them, even for just a little while. Point is, I think there were a lot of other ways to conclude that rather than just the same ending we already had like three times... SG-1 finds big artifact just in time. Also, the whole subplot with the replicators was just... also overdone. Imagine instead that the Ori Fleet attacks Earth directly, revealing the Gate to the world, and the world has to deal with THAT, while simultaneously trying to survive, while SG-1 and the Odyssey try desperately to find a way to descend Adria. Maybe the Atlantis team even gets involved. Ultimately... it was probably a budget problem that prevented anything like that from happening.
@@Swiftbow Actually through the staff they got everyone in the the galaxy. That was why they had to turn a prior. They turned the Jaffa who became prior and he spread it.
I think one of the most interesting things about Stargate was Jackson, who was always trying to translate and interpret and contextualize things in (usually) interesting ways. Star Trek didn't really get into language families and etymology and mythology very much... was much more (from memory, almost exclusively) about the here and now.
@@spencervance8484 For me Atlantis and Universe are both easily forgettable... the chemistry between the actors were artificial, the story and the humor felt forced. SG-1 was more joyful and playful, perhaps a bit goofy at moments but not forced. The chemistry between the actors were real too.
One thing I loved about Stargate SG1 & Atlantis was the consistency across the multiple episodes. What happened in previous episodes had consequences for future episodes very consistently. The same could not be said of most of Star Trek.
Absolutely more Stargate breakdowns, please. I also like the idea others proposed, comparing how different series tackled different issues or challenges. Good video. Keep up the great work.
Talk about bucking responsibility.. It was NOT SG1’s fault that there was a civil war among the Caledonians. If you’re arguing with your spouse and there’s a stranger at the door saying they have a flat, it’s 100% your fault if you then lunge at your spouse and accuse them of cheating. It’s also not on the stranger to play couples therapist or make amends for disturbing your home-at all.
Stargate SG-1 is one of my all time favorite shows, and I loved that they went back to places they were before and we got to see what happened to those characters and civilizations that were influenced by the SGC teams. We got to see consequences to the actions or non-actions taken.
I agree that the typical Star Trek "Prime Directive" story only tackles the consequences of interference on a very surface level. I mostly attribute this to the "Alien of the week" format of most Trek series. No matter what happens in most episodes, they always end with them flying off to some other planet and never seeing the consequences of their involvement with other races. Especially Voyager. DS9 was the biggest departure from this story format as they were based on a space station, and were therefor forced to constantly deal with the long term consequences of everything they did involving the Bajorans, Cardasians, Maquis, and eventually the Dominion. But none of DS9's stories ever involved interfering with pre-warp civilizations, at least none that I can recall. But even in Star Trek: Enterprise which takes place before the Federation and Prime Directive exist, they never had to face the consequences of their interference with less developed civilizations. And even though there was no prime directive, they pretty much acted like there was most of the time.
In TOS the prime directive was not a thing most of the time. The first mention of a prime directive is in The Changeling and refers to the space probe's purpose. They tend to not interfere with other cultures, but that is just common sense. They respect the local customs. (Except when they don't; occasionally they overthrow society.) In A Private Little War Kirk mentions that he explicitly suggested to Starfleet to leave the planet alone. Which implies that non-interference was _not_ the usual procedure.
You'll probably see a number of these, but it's "Daniel," not "Daniels." His name is "Daniel Jackson." Also, it's not "the priori." Priors are the emmisaries, preachers, and even prophets of the Ori (pronounced similarly to "or I" in "Stop, or I shoot."), not the movement name or anything.
On the absolute whole, Stargate is a superior almost everything compared to Star Trek. This is best exemplified by the fact that the weakest thing about SG-1 Season 1 was the budget, not the stories. Especially when compared to any Season 1 of the Star Treks from TNG onward (SNW not withstanding). The writers of Stargate seemed to be willing to put a lot more effort into realism and consistency. They were also far more willing to not try to take themselves so serious all the time. If I was stuck watching broadcast TV and didn't have a library of the two franchises to watch, if Stargate and Star Trek were on at the same time, I would watch Stargate 4 out of 5 times. What is really funny too is that I was a late arriver. I only started watching SG-1 half way through its run and then immediately had to get caught up and watch it all. I have definitely watched all of Stargate more than Star Trek.
I'd say S1 also suffered from identity crisis, namely hiring old Star Trek writers to reskin old episodes of TNG. By S2 they had developed their internal mythos and own storylines enough to strike their own tone. But I absolutely agree with everything else you said.
@@X525Crossfire S1 definitely had some quarks, the one I think of most is the whole three shots of a zat disintegrate. That was written in because they were racking up so many bodies but then immediately dropped from all future episodes because it was way overpowered.
Bravo, Relore! Excellent breakdown and I love that you pull no punches. The sixth season SG-1 episode Memento would work for this as well. Prometheus (again) is disabled over a planet and their arrival prompts all sorts of civil problems with this world, who are technologically advanced (somewhat). Their arrival prompts all sorts of uncomfortable questions and Jonas’s search for the buried Stargate here unearths things from the past that the society was happy to keep buried. Rand and Caledonia, of course, were much darker and grittier examples of this, and it isn’t really resolved well by the end of forty minutes for them. And that’s why that two parter is great. More more more!
Watching this without having seen Star Gate, I imagine one might think Jack O'Neill is the obstructive, closeminded militarist character who makes things difficult for the heroes, when he's actually the cynical counterpoint to Daniel the idealist.
I think you've been confusing Daniel Jackson with Lieutenant Daniels from enterprise. Not the same character. I would say that SG-1 walking through the gate on that world was the trigger for the events. They did not trigger it knowingly or willingly it was like stepping into a trap. By the way there are a number of good starting episodes where similar strings things happen. There's an episode where they end up in this bunker complex and they learned that they have these remote control planes to defend against which sounds all great until they realize they're like fascist Nazis and so they decide not to help them
An important part of that story is that while SGC did trigger the conflict, it wasn't due to any peculiarity of the SGC itself. Anyone else activating the gate would cause the same result. Which makes it an even more interesting exploration of interference and non-interference. And then there's the greater context of the SGC's experiences with both interference and non-interference in the past. And that's really one of the most beautiful differences between TNG and SG-1 - there's no preaching, no clear "this is what you should do"... just a complex situation, crippling uncertainty and actual accountability. Because even though interfering might have been a better choice in the long run (certainly not sure!), the truth is, Jack was accountable to the US government, and Daniel wasn't. That doesn't mean Jack wasn't trying to do the right thing either - they both were. Interfering in what was happening would likely also lead to catastrophic results.
I also want to point out that Stargate also has the ark with the Tolans, where Earth is actually on the receiving end of the Non-Interference policy, leaving Stargate Command very frustrated with the lack of hyper advanced guns
@in desperate need of a scotch Small military, not weak. The only reason the Goa'uld beat them was because their new leader was partially ascended and had access to near-god tier technology.
@in desperate need of a scotch "no it was weak. We see the invasion, there were no fighters coming from the surface." That's still confusing quantity for quality. If you don't need fighters, why would you have them? "They had no fleet in orbit, once their ion cannon failed they had no defence beyond a small group who appeared to be less armed than an NC policeman." Still confusing quantity for quality. They had never needed a fleet in orbit and their security officers were sufficiently armed in conjunction with their weapon disabling technology. The reason they lost was because Anubis cheated in Ancient technology, not because of a lack of ships or armed security force. "Yes irl reason for this was because of time and budget but what was shown is the weakest military in stargate since the planet with insane solar radiation and the rogue SGC officer in control" Again, lack of quantity =/= lack of quality/weak.
@in desperate need of a scotch "which is why I say the Tolan military was weak." Which is where you keep conflating quantity with quality. No matter how many times you repeat it. "No combined arms, no defensive fleet and no back up systems should their primary weapon fail." The US could have a million active soldiers with 10 million in back-up, they still would not be able to beat a single Anubis mothership. That's not a matter of numbers, but a matter of technology. "They were complacent, stagnant and because of their isolationist policies had no one they could call on." And because their technology was vastly superior to anyone in the Milky Way galaxy until Anubis cheated in Ancient technology. "There were advanced powers in the milky way, they didnt help." Because they could not. " The asgard had a treaty to defend earth, " Which was based completely on the bluff that the Asgard would wage war against the Goa'uld, which in reality they could not because they had their hands full with the replicators. "anubis wasnt accepted back into the system lords at that point so nothing stopped them having ships there within hours" Except for that pesky bit of being completely beaten by the replicators. They made this clear in the very episode Earth got included in the Protected Planets treaty.
The prime directive is to support the antifragility of younger civilisations (ie. A society should learn from it mistakes and have there own self determination etc ). Ironically we see that the prime directive can cause fragility since your civilisations need some form of interaction between other societies to learn as well (even from primitive ones). If your society cannot cope with the introduction of another advanced civilisation (one that is benevolent), then it is quiet obvious that the society itself could have been taken down by anything. It's why SGC almost always win there battles with the Goauld.
The perspective at the start of a new planet creates different perspectives. A Star Trek crew appears in orbit with information about the whole planet before interacting with the ship displaying their technological level. A Stargate team shows up on the ground from a device that has more or less always been there, with nothing more than their drone (or their guns) that tests the gate as a give away toward how advanced they are.
An important thing to note is this storyline escalated during the Ori arc in Seasons 9 and 10 which was cutshort due to SG-1's cancellation. There were plans for at least a Season 11 so for all we know this storyline was going to be continued. Since SG-1 Season 11 was not meant to be many of the smaller threads were left unresolved.
I was a huge fan of STTNG and even DS9 for a while...and then Babylon 5 opened my eyes to real story telling. The reason I enjoyed Stargate was that you saw progress for Earth. The stories were somewhat episodic but overall Earth progressed to a point they never would have been had history turned out differently. Great video Lore Reloaded!! I enjoyed your comparisons. Thank you. :)
I grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Stargate, Seaquest and Sliders. I love them all, but if I had to choose in-depth stories with great characters it would be DS9, Babylon 5 and Stargate.
@@Is_This_Really_Necessary Ikr. I was really getting into SGU when they cut it. That show had so much potential. Watching Eli grow and mature as a person was enjoyable.
I never really looked at it like that. There are episodes throughout Stargate: Atlantis proving your point. The first 2 episodes and an episode in the 2nd or 3rd season where they find a computer game that the ancients built, pretty much a civ game and that was dealing with people on an actual planet that eventually went to war with each other and had nukes cause people like Shepard and McKay kept trying to out do each other in the computer game. Giving each side the advantage when in actually the ancients built it to teach both sides on how to work together and trade but lead to problems. So learning what had happened between McKay and Shepard playing the game (which was an actual experiment) they decided to shut it down for good.
The entirety of Stargate SG1 and Atlantis is an ongoing analysis of why the prime directive is the worst ideology and foreign policy possible. Evil flourishes when good does nothing. Multiple galaxies are enslaved by hordes of alien parasites. Both galaxies contain isolated examples of technologically advanced civilizations capable of ending the threat posed by the parasites, but each of those societies is dead set against elevating less advanced cultures, handing out their tech to allies, and doing anything beyond keeping the enemies from directly invading their home planets. And half of those advanced societies are wiped out when the enemy parasites get a tech boost that puts them on equal footing. Tech proliferates. If it exists it will eventually end up in the hands of your enemies. The only way to ensure your enemies don't eventually take you out is to join the fight against them when the opportunity arises. This is shown best by how useless the Ancients/Ascended beings are. They lost their home galaxy and the Milky Way to religious fundamentalists who wiped them out with bio weapons. They lost the Pegasus galaxy to a race of oversized ticks that beat them with stolen cloning tech and overwhelming numbers. Then when they finally ascended and thought themselves above everything they were nearly wiped out by the ascended religious fundamentalists. The only thing standing between the ascended Ori conquering the milky way and Pegasus galaxies and wiping out the ascended populations there was a strike team of moderate tech level flesh beings. Over the course of 17 seasons of television we only meet 3 ascended beings who are worth a damn. The rest of the potentially millions of ascended beings are either cowards unwilling to risk their own power and position, or supremacists looking down on all non ascended life forms. The only advanced races worth a damn in the long run are the Tok'ra and the Asgard. Both willing to help due to the fact they are actively engaged in wars for their very survival and fully aware that if they don't at least try to defend low tech peoples there will be no one left to defend them when the hordes of parasites or robots come for them.
Very good thematic observation. Trek and Gate are pretty much equal opposites in theme: 1) moral of the story is don’t get involved 2) moral of the story is you must get involved
But then the Nox just kind of exist. Yeah if Sg1 hadn't interfered with Apophis's plans and he had succeeded in capturing or killing the family we might have seen something bad happen to the Nox, but they really were a race that sported the ideology of if we hide and just never pick a side everyone will forget we even exist (even the writers).
Yes and no. The Ancients, I feel, aren't that comparable to Starfleet, because Starfleet always operated on the rule of "no interference until certain conditions are met" at which point they absolutely WILL interfere for an agreed upon greater good (I would, in fact, sooner compare them to the Asgard in that regard, as they practiced pretty much the same thing). The Ancients, however, were just "no interference PERIOD, no exceptions ever," and Stargate proceeded to show the (many) downfalls of such a stance. It's not about showing that "no interference" is altogether a bad idea, because there are plenty of instances where no interference really WOULD be the better idea in the long run (and Stargate demonstrated instances of this too), it was more about showing how there are times to not interfere...and there are times when you SHOULD interfere. The trick is knowing when and where to do either. And as the video's cited episodes show...it's not necessarily a clear cut thing nor will everybody always be universally in agreement on which is which as that line between the two gets pretty blurred here, and THAT'S where Trek could do better--it likes to pretend that line is a lot clearer than it actually is.
In Star Trek TOS. The PD was just a way to showcase Kirk's "cowboy diplomacy." Nothing he did ever messed things up. TNG seemed to be Picard being anal retentive and not much else. The last episode of The Orville had a scene where Cmdr. Grayson relates a situation where the Union gave advanced technology to a planet which destroyed itself 5 years later. Stargate has consequences. Trek didn't
Kirk didn't actually violate the prime directive, in TOS there was exceptions to the prime directive. It was in ING that it became an absolutist "moral imperative" doctrine.
Never messed up? Have you not seen "A Private Little War?" Or in "The Apple," where the consequences of his actions aren't precisely good or bad, but up for the viewer to decide.
This was unexpected and much appreciated. the Writing of Stargate was a very different and refreshing approach to sci-fi that challenged the idea that the heros are perfect. We also see a universe not enlightened. it has struggle. Even the ancients were flawed and their mistake still cause problems today.
I think Stargate Atlantis is also a good example of Stargate's writing and interferance leading to things down the line and showing concequences. Stuff like the Hoffans and their drug and the consequences with not only the Hoffans but what happened with it with Michael. The waking of the Wraith and Michael in general. Reactivating the Asuran replicator directive and it's concequences. Their relationship with the Genii. It got to the point they got put on trial for against the Pegasus Galaxy by the Coalition of Planets.
4:48 "Someone lit it, and the person who lit it can't get off..." I disagree. Causality does not equal responsibility. People are responsible for the choices they make, but not for independent choices of others. SG1 did nothing inherently harmful. They just came through the gate. The Zealots made a CHOICE to attack the government.
So very much this. Is the claim that the hundreds (or thousands) of other blind gate transits were horrible crimes, too? Of course, one of the questions the episode asks of the audience is "How responsible are our heroes for what happens?"
The episode The Other Side nails this conceit of "yes sometimes you should interfere in the goings on of foreign conflicts" with a great guest role by Rene Auberjonois
Yes and no, on that. In the fact that they almost interfere for the wrong side. In the end they basically just let what was going to happen happen (the other side winning), and also let the space Nazi splat into their Iris.
This video is riddled with mistakes. I caught that concurrent series mistaken claim too, and I noticed he refers to Daniel Jackson as "Daniels" several times and the Ori as "The Priori".
All of Star Trek with the only exception of DS9 was episodic and things that happened rarely had any consequences in the future while DS9 was the only one where decisions had big consequences later on the series.
Also progression and growth. The characters in Stargate got promoted, moved to new postings, had changes in their point of view.... Meanwhile Riker was xo for twenty years
@@m.e.3862 But everyone else except Picard and Data did get promoted. Worf from LT JG to LT in TNG and security chief. Trois and Beverly to Commander. Wesly Crusher from Civilian to acting endign to ensign. Miles O'brien changed shows from transporter chief to Chief of Operations. Gordi from Enisgn to Lt Comander and piolot to Chief Engineer.
@@0011peace Over a decade or so time span. Three of the least unrealistic things in _TNG_ was Riker turning down his own commands twice. One count because someone capable of earning the first officer slot on the flagship would never turn down a command. Second count because he kept the slot on _Enterprise_ rather than being removed so someone actually on the command track could get the experience as Picard's first officer. Third count because because Starfleet actually offered _another_ command to him later after Riker all but screamed at them "I don't think I'm a good choice for an independent command!" when he declined the first time. Yes, there were obvious doylist reasons to keep Frakes on the show. But that doesn't make Riker's aborted (but not really! assure spin-offs and sequels!) career more realistic.
@@boobah5643 They did lateractually addressths and how unfair he was to Data to hog the Job. But it is even less believable Data never made it to Comander when both Troy and Crusher did. Data was alreadua bisge officer but troy comes along and takes the test and becomes commander. Its also ubelivable forthe same reason Data stayed on Enterprize. He should have been given firs officer on a ship specially after the loses at Wolf59
Just started watching Stargate a few months ago. On Season 8 of SG 1 and season 1 of Atlantis and I love them. Such a relief to have something take the place of Trek for me
Everyday I would come home and watch SG1 then I got into Atlantis and Universe is not the best it’s not terrible Stargate had 3 great shows my favourite ship design from Stargate is the Daedalus class Battlecruiser
SG-1 is a hidden gem. They start out at a modern level in every aspect, learn and grow, and clean up an ideological war millions of years in the making.
1st season: "These... shuttles... surely they are formidable craft in battle?" 4nd season: "Dammit Sam, you cant just slap an Air Force sticker on alien craft or things like this happen!" 6th season: "The new earth built hyperdrive doesn't work right, but we dont care where it ends up as long as it's not here, right?" 8th season: "With the hyperdrive technology our alien allies have shown us how to make, the Pegasus galaxy is only a week away"
I always found Stargate superior because it made a lot more sense. The protagonists were the underdogs and there was real cause for conflict. Star Trek as whole never made sense to me. It was too perfect. Every single material need was taken care off and with perfect virtual reality everyone could live their dreams . Add in the ease with which they can acquire resources (and thus could easily turn every one of their home planets into an impenetrable fortress if they wanted to)and just the majority of stories didn't really make sense. The individual episodes could be fascinating yes but the season arcs as whole not uch
I was always frustrated that Star Fleet was composed of little more than pleasure yachts stuffed full of pajama people. Thousands of deaths in the Dominion war could have been prevented if they designed their ships to not suck.
"On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints - just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!" Sisko, on Nechayev's suggestion that he "establish a dialogue" with the Maquis in DS9: "The Maquis, Part II"
I grew up with second syndication of ST:tos. Then ST:TNG later on in my youth, I also saw the Stargate movie in theaters in my teens. Then all the SG shows in my 20’s - 30’s. Honestly, I love them all.
While SG1 was not serialized to the extent of DS9, I really appreciated how many times something in one episode would see a reference in later episodes.
Stargate in general did approach things in a more mature manner, especially more so then Roddenberry Trek. The one exception was matters of religion. While both shows clearly promoted an atheistic worldview, the writers of SG1 could not contain their utter disdain for all people of faith for even a minute and their writing suffered as a result. You knew the minute any character in that show mentioned that they believed in a god or gods or followed an organized religion that they would either convert to atheism by the third act or do something cartoonishly evil. Some of this was justified by the major villains of the show pretending to be gods, but the showrunners extended it to even religions totally uninvolved with or even explicitly opposed to those villains (ex: in the episode "Origin" its suggested that the Ancients may have influenced Christianity to associate fire with evil in order to inoculate Earth against the main Ori bad guys, which used fire as their chief symbol: making Christianity an explicitly anti-Ori religion...but every single Christian character who appears on screen is still an over-the-top villain). Star Trek by contrast, even under Roddenberry, was able to portray people of faith in a much more humanizing light, as neither good nor evil based solely on believing in a religion, though sometimes just a bit naïve to not believe instead in more scientific (atheistic) explanations. Later Trek episodes would be even more nuanced to the point where some episodes could be seen as establishing certain religions (such as that of the Bajorans or Klingons) as canonically true, though an alternate explanation of "they're not gods, just powerful aliens" also remained viable.
And the sheer irony they created the Ori who loved to say, “Either you convert to our religion or you die.” The writers or people don’t believe in a Higher Power? Fine. But at least they could have been less jerk ass about it. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I agree, though i also understand the time periods these were made in mainly SG1. Christianity was mainly viewed in the light of Catholicism and Evagelical Christians. The former was wrapped up in scandal and very likely true conspiracies involving Propaganda Due and Emanuela Orlandi. The latter was the face of US Christianity at the time, and was made up of many people who were easily offended and wanted to censor a lot. Just look at the at the time outrage against Harry Potter for daring to have magic in it. The Westboro Baptist church was also well known at the time. 9/11 didn't help views of religion either. Not justifying any of this anti theism, just providing context
There aren't any "Christian villains" in Stargate aside from maybe the occasional jingoistic military officer. The closest is how the Priors basically sound identical to evangelicals which is quite clearly a criticism of fundamentalist Christianity. Even General Hammond is shown to be religious, and Mitchell suggests that there may be ascended beings higher than the Ancients i.e him meaning God. And the whole plot of Stargate Universe comes from the Ancients trying to discover possible evidence of some god/creator being after finding patterns of intelligent life in the CMB.
@@KitsuneAdorable It's almost like there is a certain religion that had committed terror attacks against the USA that had that exact philosophy when the show was running
All of this is reminding me of the Doctor Who story "The Caves Of Andronazi." Basically the same thing happened there. The Doctor arrived at a planet, which was a powder keg. And his arrival caused everyone to make assumptions that were now true, and everything escalated into total warfare and chaos.
The key reason why Stargate works so well is that they keep the scale of the show low enough that four dudes seems like they could have a tangible impact on whatever is going on. The stargate itself is such a well conceived plot point in that regard; big enough to move people and maybe a vehicle, but you definitely couldn't move millions of people that way. That really matters because we don't get stuck in writers contrivances of why exactly the Enterprise can't just solve the problem with firepower, nor do we ask ourselves whether our heroes can even effect the outcome. I also think that they did a really good job in just going with a team of four, and trying to have them solve problems with whatever they have to hand, even when they could (or should) just ask the SGC to send more dudes. It sets up nice, streamlined plots to have SG1 arrive, find a problem but then not immediately know what is going to solve it, so they poke it and see what happens. There a lot of depth to all this though - The general outlook that they are explorers but not wimps is perfect for this sort of show. One of the less good aspects of Star Trek is the "Oh but captain the plasma being is just trying to feed off your face, you can't shoot it" stuff. Nah bro, shoot it.
Loved this and there's so much more content here you can work with. Good video. One thing I always found good about stargate is the whole advanced civilisation wont share their advanced tech and how we didn't like that but yet there are examples later of us doing the same thing to lesser evolved species.
Often even while under heavy attack by VERY formidable an even lethal enemies SG teams often performed a hell of a lot better then Starfleet Security Forces most of the time. Daniel Jackson an his organization did right by trying to mitigate damage. It's generally how they liked to do things. Either play mitigator or back off entirely. An actually... No .. just walking in outta the blue DOESN'T make it the SGCs fault a ton of zealots couldn't keep their egos in check. It STARTED at first ONeil was right wasn't their problem. When it went BEYOND THAT particular global.. it WAS. remember all SGC IS considered an intergalactic power. An this Earth was too. Even if 99% of Earth WASN'T aware they was already a strong well known intergalactic force. An THEIR enemy those new enemies... Ori, remember are CONQUERING AND EVEN GENOCIDAL.. an it took ALL. of the franchise powers trying to work together to FINALLY defeat them.
Agree while I've been quite enjoying watch ST (started watching TNG last year when I was 18 after my final exams) stargate will always be in the center of my heart
Never in my life have I clicked this fast on a video! I grew up on both shows but Stargate is the one I still rewatch. I think Atlantis did also a superb job at this with the whole genii arc
I love how they handled why they kept the program classified. Everyone would try to take a piece of it. Business: (smoke and mirrors). Using technology to make money or to help themselves. Government: (politics). Politicians trying to interfere with its functions through policy and appropriation. Media: (heroes, prometheus, ‘episode with reporter’). People trying to shove a camera into their faces to get the truth to entertain or force outrage against them. Foreign policy: Like the russians, governments would expect to be involved and to have a share of the technology. Civilian: people can panic, riot, force policy change. Men in Black had a great quote on that. K: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky creatures and you know it.
I think your analysis is overall great, though I do think you’re a little more harsh on SG-1’s initial ‘lighting the match’ than I’d agree with. I don’t think a person of good conscience could ignore the situation once it had begun, and I have a real problem with Jack’s reaction. But unless you think the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if SG-1 hadn’t gone through after the MALP, then I don’t think you can really blame them for something which couldn’t have been avoided
Jack's point, really, is that the SGC can't take responsibility for winning a Civil War or realistically pick sides. And he's right. His point is probably also colored by the time they almost accidentally helped a bunch of space Nazis win a DIFFERENT civil war, and only Daniel's snooping stopped them at the last minute. Jack was even partially tricked into killing some of the "enemy" combatants in that previous outing. I would expect it's a memory that occasionally haunts him. And it was a lesson learned there that they can't automatically trust someone just because the Gate happens to be located in their country.
Regarding the point where "they would probably have killed each other anyway". If some aliens with advanced technology had shown up on Earth during the cold war, Stargate-style, I believe there is a good chance it could have escalated things into a nuclear war. Back then, a lot of people saw nuclear armageddon as inevitable anyway. If such alien interference had resulted in us destroying each other, the aliens would likely also tell each other "well, they would have probably killed themselves anyway". Even though we now know that we did not.
While I agree that stargate handles prime directive adjacent things in a more thoughtful way than star trek, I will absolutely point out that there are a fair number of 'bad security' episodes of stargate, especially early on. While they do *learn* from those mistakes, and eventually stop making them altogether, the ones they make in the beginning really were inexcuseable. Hathor, for instance.
Oh... please don´t remind me of that "mistake" with hathor.... but yes: They did pretty dump shit at the start but they learned... and i think the asgard had a big part in that learning process. I think they had good intentions when they gave them beaming tech, but let them figure out their own way to use it without their sensors first before giving them those too. This is just one example where they defenitely tried to keep humans away from getting new tech too fast.
@@Swiftbow Yes, they learned from their early mistakes insted of ignoring them. What we had in the stargate franchise was just good production management and good wrighting. Yes: SGU had it´s problems, but they made it much better in the second season and i think that i would have become really great in the 3rd one...
Oh damn I am so happy that you actually even said something about Stargate please keep more videos coming about Stargate I think these two franchises are amazing
You just won a new subscriber, your content is top notch. I have always loved both Stargate and Star Trek but Stargate has SO MANY good moments, plethora of interesting scenarios, and excellent consequentive writing
Can you really blame SGC for this though? I mean morally yeah, but on a practical if not feasible level?? They have ONE gate and ONE FTL capable ship at this point and dozens of fish to fry. They're not the Federation that has a large fleet of civilian and military vessels that could help out a civilization like this one.
Yeah, All Good Things aired in 1994; SG-1s premier was in 1997. Though SG-1 did overlap on the TNG movies. I would say that with the other mid-90s Trek going on at the time, SG-1 did forge ahead with more realistic plotlines and (at least after the first season), much better writing.
I rewatched season 1 recently, its incredible well done, they keep the diference of technology and the search for it as focus, they barely get any tech and even other advanced civilization dont thrust them with tech, it feels grounded there is some sense of risk when side characters died
If you ever do happen to do a serious arc on the tollan, please make sure you point out that their inability to not be pricks to everyone not close to them technologically got them wiped out and no one shed a tear for them?
Ouch this a bold statement :) I love both these shows but hard to say which is better, 'Stargate SG-1' or 'Star Trek,' because they're both awesome in different ways. 'Star Trek' gives us this cool, optimistic look at the future, diving deep into moral questions with lots of space exploration. 'Stargate SG-1,' on the other hand, mixes ancient myths with modern-day Earth, focusing on the adventure and challenges of dealing with unknown powers. They both offer something special to the sci-fi world. So, it's really about what vibes with you more. Love them both for what they bring to the table!"
Love to see more Stargate coverage. Definitely keep that up. I'd like to see a video since you handle these sorts of topics sometimes why people absolutely hate a character like Michael Burnham and that these are often the same people who love a character like Samantha Carter, and why one works so terribly while the other is iconic. It's particularly interesting since Carter is pretty much good at everything, but it doesn't ruin her character, which is often the complaint against Burnham.
It's because Carter is a real person with strengths and flaws whereas Burnham is a collection of emotions (mostly crying) and Mary Sue powers. Like... for example, how come Michael was ALREADY being consulted in major meetings as if she was an Admiral or high-ranking politician like 10 minutes after they rejoined the Federation in the future? It made no damn sense. Season 1 Carter was a bit iffy, too... but the writers improved her characterization REALLY quickly. And I agree... I'd love to see a good reviewer (like Lore) compare/contrast the two.
@@Swiftbow >Season 1 Carter was a bit iffy, too... but the writers improved her characterization REALLY quickly. Fun fact, we can thank Amanda Tapping for that. She tried to read the dialogue as written (including the "reproductive organs" speech which got roasted not once, not twice, but three times in the later series run) because she was afraid of being fired in season 1. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore and went to the writing team and producers to point out how painful the writing for a woman was being and they actually gave her veto power over her dialogue. Hence why the character takes a sharp 180 shorty into season 1. Many times you can credit an actor for making a character work, but in this case, she literally saved the character on all fronts.
@@BlazingOwnager That makes a lot of sense. She seems like a really great person, as well as actress. And those early lines seemed really out of character for both Carter and Tapping.
Just think what their intervention did for Jonas' planet, and the way it shook up things for the planet where "Thor's Hammer" was. The list goes on. I've always thought that Stat Trek took it too far. The planet is about to explode! You just sit by and do nothing when you can fix it without the inhabitants ever knowing? Ridiculous! But yeah, introducing yourself too soon and in the wrong way can be disastrous.
I know I’m late, but I would still like to say I would love to hear you talk about more Stargate. Star Trek and Stargate are my 2 beloved sci-fi shows.
Problem with your whole idea is that the world of Star Trek has had hundreds of years of building the rules of the Prime Directive and you don't get to see all the failures that happened in the past to flesh out the Prime Directive rules (unless you watch some of Enterprise). Where Stargate is just starting to flesh out rules of interference with other races. Like the Tolin in Stargate, they followed rules similar to Star Trek's Prime Directive and refused to give their technology to primitive species because of their past failures in doing so.
Except that is not really an issue with the core idea since the primary problems are going to develop out of the locals and not the explorers policies. That isn't something that stops happening because the explores have more experience. Based on past experience the explores may be able to handle the problems that develop better and more often before it spirals completely out of control but there will still be problems that develop, what works for one culture won't necessarily work for an almost identical culture, and mistakes will be made. In fact I'd argue that such things would happen more often in Star Trek just for the sake that they deal with a far wider variance in cultures/species where in Stargate cultures are a lot less varied and essentially are directly earth's ancient cultures.
Also the ideas of not interfering is not even an option for Stargate. They were forced to use the gate with a specific mandate to go out and find technology or allies to help defend them against alien attack. If they didn't interfere with other planets earth would be destroyed, period. I also liked how they depicted the super advanced races who refuse to help or give "inferior races" technology in Stargate. They were usually arrogant or naive and were so reliant on the technology or abilities that they couldn't think strategically, recognize danger, or manually solve problems. Sometimes you need people who can do the most with the least to be able to figure out ways to fix things that you forgot how to do because you were so reliant on technology. The closest I can think of in TNG was when the medical devices weren't working and the doctor told them to splint the arm and they were completely confused because they never learned basic medicine, only how to work a tricorder. But in Stargate this happened all the time. Aliens with superior tech or powers get beat by lesser, more cunning foes they need another "lesser" cunning foe to think of things they would never think of.
Not quite. The problem is more that TNG often shows "this is the right thing to do, and if you don't agree, you're wrong". It's incredibly preachy, and we're almost always meant to side with the characters, their decisions and the blindingly black-and-white solutions (TOS was _much_ better in this regard). It mostly presents the characters as in the right from a god-like perspective. "They're right because I say so". SG-1 characters are much more human, and the writing always tries to keep ambiguity and audience involvement. It almost never preaches what was/is the right thing to do - it just has characters with personalities, and consequences. It's up to _you_ to decide what is morally right, and if the consequences are worth it.
I only really have 2 compliants about Stargate. 1 that they would introduce interesting new aliens and cultures who we would then neeeeeeeeeeever hear from again (although some of this is understandable due to CGI/budget constraints). And 2 that they glorified the US Air force (again some what understandable since that's where they got their equipment from). Both of these are flaws I can accept and still enjoy the show
The funny thing I noticed on a rewatch is that the US military is far more morally questionable in the early seasons, when stargate was still economically independent from the USAF, it is roughly from late season 3/early season 4 that the military unquestionably becomes "the good guys"
This is a wonderful example of Hubris on the SGC side, but another good example that even almost directly compares and contrasts the two different ideologies is Season 5 Episode 5 Red Sky (I looked it up I'm not an encyclopedia) where they travel to a planet and accidentally taint the planet's star then plead to the Asgard who are the planet's protector, but the Asgard quote a similar phrase to one of the tenants of the prime directive That they're not allowed to intervene in a planets natural development. and the episode shows earth trying to make it right and ultimately the Asgard do help in a sneaky way so as to not upset the legal balance that binds them it's still a good episode that deals with these concepts and conflicts.
1:57 "There were specific seasons that ran concurrent to each other." Huh? Star Trek TNG ended in 1994, a full three years before Stargate SG1 would begin.
No but guess what Voyager and Stargate was stealing in each other's story lines I mean it got to the point man where everybody was wondering how come I'm watching Voyager when it's really Stargate as a matter of fact the producers of Stargate had room for Enterprise when it ended a lot of stars from Enterprise wound up on Stargate and Stargate Atlantis like Jolene Blalock Commander Tucker he had a recurring role on Stargate Atlantis
The SGC seemed to have no way to understand other languages - yet have no problem as everyone speaks English …usually. ST: TNG Just have universal translators. Stargate has a logical reason for all the other planets being Human, because they are originally from Earth. In Star Trek all the aliens being humanoid and humans-like is explained in one episode [the Chase] where progenitors spread their genetic templates throughout the Galaxy. But still it's convenient that all the aliens are just like people with bits on them, and some are identical to Humans. Where Stargate does have a advantage - the US military helped in production.
I heard it described as "If we went the reality version the show would have turned into a 'Daniel translates for an hour' show." I can understand that point.
I don't think any TV show really tackles the idea of multi-languages among the stars without everyone understanding everyone else automatically, because then you have problems with the audience being unable to understand, characters needing things translated the old fashioned way which slows things way down, etc. Stargate SG-1 did try to explain why the Egyptian language in the movie was gone (Daniel taught all the Abydosians English between the movie and TV series, for some reason), but afterwards they just ignored it. Even everyone in the Pegasus galaxy in Stargate Atlantis all speak English. Though I think Stargate Universe breaks this trope; aliens we see there are more alien than others we've met and don't speak English.
My headcanon was that all those people from other planets were speaking Goa'uld, and the SG team members learned the language. It makes sense, seeing as it was the Goa'uld who took all those people to the various planets.
Maj. Gen. Hammond: "Colonel, the United States is not in the business of interfering in other people's affairs."
Colonel O'Neill: "Since when, sir?"
Daniel Jackson may have been the protagonist of the movie, but RDA stole the [TV] show.
That episode also belongs in the same category as the ones described in the video do, putting the sheer hubris of SGC on full display - they deem it perfectly fine to have Teal'c tried and executed by local customs based on him being a "war criminal", while O'Neil, a former black ops officer, is standing right there. What I do like about that is that it never tries to paint said hypocricy in a positive light or brush it off, with O'Neil slapping harsh truth directly into our face and basing most of his actions throughout that episode around said truth.
@@UEDCommander dont forget the time Hammond ordered a hit on a reporter who knew about the SGC, then threatened Jack at the end. "Colonel...it *was* and accident"
@@AzguardMike i thought of that one like Hammond actually did not order the attack but someone higher up might have without him knowing.
Since this administration has been elected
I never realized how successful Canada's space colonization program was until I watched Stargate.
One minor point : when arriving with the ship, they DID try to talk and go for peace first, but were immediately targeted. It was even pointed out that if they had gone with the 'shoot first' plan, they would have been able to destroy the weapon first.
So what they had were two parallel examples of hesitation in the name of peace, with the first one going poorly and the second one going well.
this is true, they DID try to talk with the people on the planet, but then the prometheus was being targetted, so defensive measures were taken --- aka, lock VLS and fire.
As they say at Cobra Kai, Strike first, strike hard.
Targeting alone is not enough to exempt prometheus from choosing pre-emptive attack. It's a difference between drawing a gun at rest and pointing it at someone (scare tactic, hostage op, etc. Targeting alone is not enough to say that one side completely had no other choice). "Do not fire first" is a staple tradition with valid reasons for its existence and prometheus failed to uphold it.
@@armni4619 "Do not fire first" is a convention by hack writers who wouldn't know an actual dangerous situation from an adrenaline hit. When someone has a gun to your head, you aren't evil for responding with deadly force; you're a fool if you pretend the gun isn't there.
@@boobah5643 Conventionally, correct. Hence I specified in the Prometheus situation only. In Prometheus' case? No. The ship came uninvited and acted with force against what can be considered defensive action; in SGA, Atlantis tracks and readies to target anything nearing the system it's in.
While others were raised sci-fi wise by Star Trek I was by Stargate, love some in-depth study of the series
Mine was all of them but My order was Babylon 5, Stargate, Star Wars then Star Trek
@@Scaash yeap. b5, sg1, st: os/ds9, atlantis, and i would have atlantis higher but the abrupt ending compared to the saga that was sg1 had me angry for a long time. i'm still bitter about it.
I watched everything there was growing up. B5, all Star Gate, All Trek, All SW. The old Larson BSG '79 (even '80 though I'm not proud.) Also Blake's 7, classic Who, Red Dwarf, Buck Rodgers, the animated Flash Gordon, Starblazers, Macros, even Space 1999, UFO and _The Invaders._
Stargate always ranks near the top. It was right at the forefront of serialized long-term arcs in sci-fi only just behind B5. There are moments where the internal logic may suffer but the various SG series never had the support that BSG '04 or TNG got and despite similar constraints as B5 it's actually wayyyy more detailed and fully fleshed with better continuity over hundreds of hours of combined content. Mostly.
Ya except how he called Daniel "Daniel's" or the ori "priori?". Other than that it was some quality stargate content
I was actually raised by both plus Star Wars
Love Stargate and Trek almost equally. People write off Stargate as light and fluffy but damn, when they write a serious and thoughtful story, they do a superb job.
There are people that really thought that? 'internally reviews the series' Okay they were kind of right. We both know how Dark and gloomy this show got in places.
But I think StarCraft was better written compared to the two
@@dragonsword7370 I’m people . Tbh I enjoy both BUT I just saw stargate as more cheesy that trek but enjoyable. It was mostly Cos I found goa'uld as laughable antagonist
there is something that written better and perfectly rewatchable: BSG 2004
@@angeltensey BSG is one of my favourites.
Daniel: 'We'll be back to rebuild'
USAF: *Funnels 1/4 of the entire US defence budget into some random 'deep space telemetry' program in a mountain.
Congress: ...dafuq?
I can't count how many times I've wished someone would pull Teal'c and Bray'tec aside and point out that SGC is part of ONE branch of the military of a SINGLE country on Earth, a country which requires Congress to formally declare war in order to activate the full power of the military and the economics required to back it, which has not happened, and will not happen, because, officially, you don't exist.
I would kill for an episode where Teal'c lands a ship on the whitehouse lawn and is like "Your ride to the war you helped start is here"
@@aliciaaltair That annoyed me aswell. Iam glad iam not the only one.
They probably helped strengthen their food security, provided medical supplies, and other stuff that could've been labeled under foreign aid were the circumstances not so extraordinary.
@@aliciaaltairthat probably would make SG-1 banned in US...
Star Trek: "Interference in other cultures goes against our very ethos. Our strictest laws prevent interference of any kind in less developed civilizations."
Stargate: "Your gods are false. Here, take these guns."
10000000000000%
*tips fedora*
Well, sometimes Star Trek be like: "Your gods are false, all gods are false. Now that we've shattered a foundational belief of your society, we're going to peace out because nothing's ever gone wrong when you undermine a societal belief."
I mean... they only said that when it was related to the Goa'uld... because it wasn't really philosophy/religion. It was fact. Even when it came to the Asgard (who were also false gods), they only revealed it the one time (Red Sky), and it didn't go over well.
A lot of the SG-1 characters were religious. Teal'c even reads the whole Bible.
So: still a funny comment, but just wanted to point out that SG-1 was not about spreading atheism. They were about stopping slavery.
Not entirely accurate. SG-1 generally interfered when they encountered humans transplanted from earth who were still worshiping the Go'auld. When they encountered the viking people worshiping Thor, they didn't try to undermine them, they simply asked for directions so they could hopefully contact the Asgard. Thor revealed the truth himself.
Jack did try to interfere in the Episode "Learning Curve", but that was on a personal level and was ultimately unsuccessful.
I wish there were more shows like stargate around. It's such a unique blend of just, real world discourse and political/military intrigue combined with the burgeoning reality of becoming an interstellar civilization, a middling one at that. It shows a competent organization with competent leaders and competent policymakers doing believable things in an alien galaxy. It's just... it's so good. It's so grounded, yet sometimes fantastical, it's a perfect blend of science fiction and a sort of realistic interpretation of where we would be headed as an interstellar polity, in a positive light that still feels grounded. My own writing projects take so many inspirations from this sort of mood and tonal aesthetic and I can only hope to match it one day.
As a SG fan, I can definitely say that to me The Expanse came the closest of every show that came after.
Babylon 5.
Stargate was probably the best sci-fi ever on television.
Babylon 5 is a weird beast because there's so many different parts to it, and holy crap I hate the Minbari on every level.
On one hand, we have a regular sci-fi show about this diplomatic mission full of weird aliens. That's cool. But the real core of the show is the run up to the Vorlon/Shadow war, and eventually the EA civil war. And yet... That takes up less than half the run of the show.
And man the Minbari are the worst. The Vorlons are allowed to be inscrutable jerks, but the Minbari sit there being the best at everything and capable of solving all the problems if only their deeply held religious beliefs weren't around. And it's just garbage. "Hi, we're space elves and our fleet is way better than yours" is not interesting.
Especially when everyone else is so interesting and vibrant, and willing to argue the toss (with violence) on every issue.
IMHO it would have been more interesting to make the Minbari a willing puppet race to the Vorlons, which they worship as gods.
SG (or SF) at its best, has both humor (SG1/A) and darkness eg SG1 O’Neill tortured by Ball. Not only the better SG, but B5, and better ST have both.
Rewatching SG-1, one of my favorite scenes is the end of 2010 when a mysterious note appears from SG1 through the stargate saying “never go to P4X-whatever” and Hammond immediately locks it out of the dialing computer.
Other shows would send the main characters out to investigate or some other foolish move.
Now I had the funny thought of the note actually saying "P4X-whatever" so Hammond just choses a random planet to lock out.
@@delrunplays2903 "Sir that's the Tollan planet"
"...even better."
Hammond was awesome. His offer to resign to give Carter an hour to solve a problem in a pinch was another great moment. His deep respect for Teal'c when he was going through his brainwashing was a nice subtler moment, too.
Starfleet "General order 1. No interference"
Sg1 "your gods are fake, here's some guns"
Also SG1 - “the fake gods that are Norse are cool though, they dislike your fake gods as much as we do!”
In the Star Trek universe, there exist thousands of untouched civilizations which interference could destroy the uniqueness of.
In the Stargate universe, this destruction has already happened at the hands of the big bads thousands of years ago across much of the galaxy. Though, some have recovered (such as the civilization we see covered in this video).
@@juliankirby9880 To be fair, one set of fake gods was trying to genocide their planet. The other set of fake gods were mostly cool, except for a few random abductions here or there.
@@Teampegleg Damnit Loki!
Ouch. Lol.
stargate was effectively my introduction to harder, more complex sci-fi. because of it I watched all star trek, blade runner, dune (read and watched in that case) and others. but I will always come back to star gate. its so digestible, never preachy, emotional, and always entertaining.
The show lost me when a hyper-advanced civilization's war party which is superior in pretty much every way, is defeated or set back by a handful of Earth soldiers and a Earth-loyal Jaffa with small arms. It worked in the movie because Ra was caught off guard and under-estimated the Humans. But this happens in SG-1 AGAIN and AGAIN. Sure, it's grittier than Star Trek TNG, but it's no less implausible.
@@kev3d The Goa'uld's problem was their arrogance - they thought humanity so far beneath them that they couldn't conceive of them as a genuine threat; to paraphrase Thor explaining why the Asgard needed SG-1's help against the Replicators - when a society becomes sufficiently more advanced than its contemporaries, their ability to think strategically diminshes because every problem looks like a mere nail. SG-1's defeat of Apophis's invasion began as a one-in-a-million suicide mission that only succeeded because they received inside help from Bra'tac, who along with Teal'c represented the enemies within the Goa'uld had fostered with their tyranny. And as time went on, SG-1's actions against the Goa'uld allowed the SGC to obtain valuable technologies that closed the technological gap, until finally humanity became the biggest player in the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies.
@@kev3d You're talking about an enemy that is so rooted in traditions that large-scale combat almost always includes melee combat. When we actually see a competent Goa'uld, he's shown to be a massive threat. But even he is held back by the uncertainty of what the Asgard response would be at first, and later various high technology we discovered and looted that _might_ allow us to punch well above our weight (like the Antarctic outpost), and the fact that he's still living in a feudal society.
Also, the Goa'uld are not the kind to work together, even against a common enemy. This is absolutely crippling - for every reason to crush those insolent humans, there's ten reasons not to do so in order to do harm to their Goa'uld enemies. And of course, that's also why the possibility of one Goa'uld becoming significantly stronger than the others is treated with such dismay.
There also seems to be a massive change in the capabilities of the Goa'uld over the run of the show. In early episodes, the strongest Goa'uld around musters a fleet of two capital ships for an attack on Earth (which would be more than enough for widespread destruction); they _do_ respond to the increasing threat, and it's clear enough they are absolutely pathetic compared to Earth in pretty much everything _except_ for their space capabilities. They don't really _want_ to improve their armies, either - they're too unpredictable, and the potential for rebellion is too great. Which becomes even more obvious as the Jaffa rebellion grows in importance.
Many of the human enemies are shown to be far more dangerous to the SG teams, as they should be. Even when their technology _isn't_ better than ours - again, very realistic. SG teams are small strike teams for covert operations. They can be, and regularly are, outmanoeuvred when the enemy isn't a stupid feudal pseudo-deistic warlord.
When the Ori come, they're pretty much exactly the same as the Goa'uld. The only real difference is the Ori have far more advanced technology. They're still mostly held back by their uncertainty about the interference from the Ancients; but they probe the boundaries of that uncertainty over and over.
Even at the end of the show, SGC isn't shown to be on equal footing to even the new little human empires getting created in the ruins of the Goa'uld. We have distinct advantages, but are still pretty much just as fragile.
Luck was always a big part. It was clear enough that the vast majority of alternate SGCs _didn't_ end up well. But playing the uncertainty game was just as big. The Goa'uld were appropriately shocked when Apophises early attack was defeated, and they had no idea what happened. And remember, this was back when Apophis' force was considered rather big - especially against a single impudent human world. And their ground forces kept being defeated at what seemed like impossible odds (to anyone who doesn't understand modern combat).
For more fun, XSG-COM is a fun exploration of a universe where the humans take a more... hands-on approach. With actually working to defeat their enemies, rather than mostly just exploring and defending themselves.
@@X525Crossfire And it was quite a fight to go through. It wasn't a one thing and done.
@@LuaanTi Well explained. Yes, the Goa'uld had some working spaceships, but their infighting and ancient/medieval era society just made them to be really vulnerable to real threats. Which is why they tried to wipe out developing planets all the time and often succeeded. It is shown that Earth has fallen in many dimensions via the Mirror in the early seasons. And which is why the Goa'uld were entirely wiped out by a -short in time- campaign from the Replicators, an actual threat they couldnt do jack about, even when Ba'al solidified most of their empire in his hand.
The awesome part of Stargate is every team, even the ones we never meet were extremely competent. They wouldn't of been recruited for that task if they weren't best of the best. Usually when they meet an end it's because of bad luck.
@in desperate need of a scotch Yeah, that poor, poor planet. And all those fish.......
@in desperate need of a scotch -- Don't forget the original SG-9.
Meanwhile ST has produced a cartoon show showing the lower decks and how idiotic they are 🤷🏻♂️
@@jonson856 -- I just can't seem to get into Lower Decks. I keep trying, but so far the only scene I've enjoyed was the one where the historian said "and now we're going to look at the most important person in the history of Starfleet: Chief Miles Edward O'Brien." That one got a laugh out of me.
Daniel Jackson becomes comically overly competent in every way though.
I'd say that the bigger lesson here is that despite your most noblest intentions, careful diplomacy, prudent planning, and heroic efforts, everything can still go to hell. Sometimes, you can do everything right, but if Fate decides it hates you, that means you're in for a rough day regardless.
I'm not sure what other course of action the SGC could have reasonably taken. Simply showing what the gate did was enough to destabilize the Rand-Caledonia cold war, and it's pretty much incidental that SG-1 was the group to perform that demonstration. It's just blind luck that a random System Lord hadn't already led an expedition there like they did to Earth in the pilot episode, and sent their cold war spiraling out of control years before SG-1 showed up.
Besides which, once the Ori began their invasion of the galaxy, SG-1's involvement became irrelevant to that planet. At that time, Earth had nothing in its arsenal that could touch Ori tech, so no amount of Protectorate goodwill toward Earth would have kept that world from accepting Origin and joining their crusade.
I mean, suppose Earth had not just provided weapons to the Protectorate like they'd asked, but had gone whole-hog and sent troops and materiel on a D-Day/Lend-Lease scale, fighting to conquer the Caledonians directly, and gifting the Protectorate an entire squadron of Prometheus-class warships as a going-away present, all with no strings attached beyond "be our ally". Even with all that, the Prior's offers/threats would _still_ have forced them over a barrel, and left the SGC in essentially the same situation that got Colonel Pendergast killed and the _Prometheus_ destroyed.
Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.
This is true. Again we aren't talking about EARTH helping them, we are talking about the UNITED STATES helping them. The scale of aid they would have needed would have dwarfed the Lend Lease programs of WWII and good luck getting THAT through Congress especially before the Ori showed up. I mean good grief we can't even commit fully to defending Ukraine from naked aggression from Russia right now, how would you get anyone to agree to help a planet light years away that just had a nuclear exchange whether or not we lit the match. Also it's damned lucky that a random System Lord HADN'T found this planet first. That would have been a nightmare because the System Lord would have taken the zealots and turned them into Jaffa, wouldn't have cared at all if there was a nuclear exchange or not and enslaved the surviving population in any case and probably depopulated the planet to a manageable population just around the Stargate itself. Bottom line it doesn't matter WHO stepped through the gate this planet was screwed.
is strange this laser destry they ships but ori ships need 2 shots and 5 whne asgard emmm die :(, one laser be stronger that ori ship
@@Darlf_Sevil
Nah, the Prometheus was destroyed with 3 shots IIRC.
Talk about a 24 carat run of bad luck...
Which is something they could have shown in Star Trek. Even there they could end up in a situation where there never was a winning situation despite everything.
Even with all the experiences the Federation has made, the experiences of the crew, even with everything done perfectly, they could have done a lot of damage.
Two key factors that shape SG1’s storytelling here: 1) Stargate doesn’t take place in a utopia; it takes place here and now. 2) Stargate intentionally revisits almost every episode at least once.
Because Star Trek, especially TOS and TNG, was almost always one and done, and because TNG was stubbornly utopian, stories like this were almost impossible.
Not really the only part they used Satr gate is a serct happing right now was using the fact SG is an Americain project and Americain hates to get involded in "Things happening over there.". Which in Star trek you can right the same thing as like the US is SG1 the Federation has it's own series of beliefs and strutchers that gover it's every move.
For me TNG was stubbornly preachy.
No mistake without no a lecture, no developing society without a “do better” speech while denying sensible support for the steps forward.
@@IRMentat That was one of the things i disliked about it too.
@@IRMentat But it was also made in the time of hope for the better future. Instead we were going streight to hell what is our world now.
@@theq6797 A world with problems, like it's always been. The future can still be hopeful. I don't often find the "utopia" of TNG to be very hopeful, though... it seems preachy and bordering on authoritarian. Actually, it reminds me a lot of modern society. Really great for the most part, but full "of woke" people trying to ruin it in their misguided effort to fix problems that don't actually exist (and often ignoring the ones that do).
I love Star Trek for its ideals and as a hopeful, bright future.
I love Star Gate for its realism, it's diplomacy, the faults in the characters that show how, as Picard tells us, "one may make no mistakes and still be wrong."
Star Gate is how we get to Star Trek. We may fumble, we may falter, we *will* make mistakes....but thats how we learn to do better - to be better - than the sum of our parts.
"and still lose"
Honestly I’ve always felt the underlying theme of both SG1 and Atlantis is about interference, the consequences of interference, and how we fail and succeed at managing interference/meddling .
Agree. They show multiple sides of the coin on interference and how it’s not a cut and dry thing. It shows how some have the luxury of non-interference like the Nox then show others who need help from outsiders because they are subjugated by the Goa'uld who embrace interference to the max for their sole benefit. You have Earth who can help some but really they need help too. They run into various societies who have varying levels and rules about interference. Asgard and Tollan being two examples. The Asgard take a measured approach but sometimes they bend their own rules for their own benefit or for moral reasons but ultimately they are also really looking for someone else to take a caretaker like role that they had taken on previously. The Asgard however are willing to take the help or suggestions of technology inferior societies. The Tollan once shared tech while trying to help others and it ended with disaster so they committed to non-interference to the point of it becoming it’s own undoing when they refused to even entertain concerns that a lesser society technology wise but more experienced with dealing issues like war had pointed out to them while trying to convince the Tollan they needed to be proactive because ignoring everyone else would eventually come to bite them. They were so preoccupied with with making sure absolutely nothing of technological value was shared and believed in the own hype too much. Then you have the whole Ancients vs Ori thing too.
"Consequences of interference" could be considered the central thesis of Atlantis, considering how in a nutshell, all of the expedition's main problems began with the Ancients interfering in the Pegasus Galaxy while trying to attain Ascension/immortality.
Or more generally speaking, consequences, period. Everything you do or don't do has them, and you can't just pretend otherwise. Policies aren't things to hide behind when things go south - they need to be changed to produce the desired results when it becomes clear they aren't working.
Funnily enough, the development of the Star Trek shows kind of shows a real process that tends to happen around rules and processes in the real world. There's a thing that needs solving, we design a way to solve it. But the next generation doesn't know the point of the solution, why it was chosen and what it's supposed to do. It just knows the rule, and either ignores it or follows it. In TOS, it was painfully obvious in half the episodes that interfering is bad, and the other half was about how _not_ interfering was bad. By the time of TNG, the prime directive was a holier-than-thou attitude that was pretty much used to justify not dealing with bad consequences and ignored whenever convenient to do so, mostly. And in ENT, we get the absolutely horrid "we can't help cure the plague, because that's just evolution in action!" As if the whole point of civilization in the first place wasn't to _remove_ sentient beings from the shackles of natural selection, and allow us to build something different (and hopefully better)!
It's interesting that DS9 went the more real way after that, while VOY went entirely the opposite direction.
@@X525Crossfire And how the team was originally lost simply by stepping into Atlantis and the city powering up. (Explained by the old Elizabeth Wier.) Then them going to a random planet and help these new people against an unknown enemy and getting back their own, causing them to wake up and start butchering the galaxy and each other for the 'human resources'. Then they did the same when they saw these 'Ancient-looking guys', went through like 'What could go wrong', then those folks turned out to be unreasonable replicators.
@@Grivehn True enough, though I keep that on that the Ancients since they created the Asurans and were responsible for the emergence of the Wraith (that's not even counting Legacy where they outright created them).
In Star Trek, up until Deep Space 9, there was a sense that, for the most part, all was well because, for the most part, everyone played by the Federation's rules. Everything is utopia, any troubles are really few and far between. Yeah there's an occasional problem that can't be wrapped up rather quickly, but for the overwhelming majority of Star Trek, the Roddenberry future where everyone gets along (for the most part) was the ethos.
But with that said I can think of two Voyager episodes that actually deal with unintended and unforeseen consequences. The first is "False Profits" in which two Ferengi, that initially appeared in an episode of TNG, were bidding on the rights to a wormhole. As it turned out they ended up in the Delta Quadrant, but ended up exploiting a planet of bronze age people due to the technological advantage they had. Of course Voyager had no responsibility in the Ferengi being there, but in a way the Federation was at least partially responsible because it was the Enterprise that hosted the negotiations for the rights to the wormhole, and the crew of Voyager couldn't just let them continue to exploit the people.
The second is "Friendship One", in which an early Earth probe was sent out and found its way to a planet in the hopes of fostering peace. But the containment field for the matter-antimatter radiation failed and turned the planet into a nuclear wasteland. The inhabitants of the planet were certain Earth had sent the probe ahead to introduce technology that the planet couldn't handle so that they would destroy themselves and Earth would take over. Of course that wasn't true, but considering what had happened, the people could not be faulted for believing that.
Of course both episodes end with a resolution that makes everyone feeling better about themselves, but at least in these two cases the writers of Star Trek tried to have some conflict that ol' Gene probably wouldn't have approved of.
And they played by the Federation's rules because of the implied threat of Starfleet. Even before Wolf 359 Starfleet was THE premier military force, even if they denied they were a military the other powers KNEW that war with the Federation was a losing proposition and the LAST thing any of the other powers wanted was to remind the Federation that they WERE the big boys on the block. In Stargate's case, it's basically the USA doing all of this, not even all of Earth. Our heroes weren't part of a galactic doom power. They were the military of one nation on a world that was and still is capable of being our own worst enemy who could have been wiped out by just a task force of the enemies that they made.
I'm also reminded of TOS's "A Piece of the Action"
@@videogenics86 Wasn't Asgard doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes? and providing tech at crucial moments?
@@atoll2453 with the protected planets treaty, yes.
You forgot one episode of Voyager, Blink of an eye.
Yessssss! It's so great to see someone acknowledge how Stargate does it better. I love Star Trek but to see so many in the scifi community gloss over Stargate hurts my soul. To me Stargate perfected the balance of the science fiction trifecta. Babylon 5 had the ensemble cast, Star Trek had the moral dilemmas, Star Wars had the action but Stargate brought all of those elements together so beautifully but not once did it feel forced to one degree or the other.
These two episodes aren't the only ones that cover interfering with another race. Orlin, an Ancient, provided an alien race with the technology to protect themselves from the Goa'uld. Once they fought them off, that race planned to conquer other worlds. Orlin had created the very thing he wished to protect them against. And because of his actions, he condemned that race to death as The Ancients wiped them out and exiled him to live alone on that planet.
He would later come back as a child to help fight the Ori and be self-punished by losing his memory.
Which also happened with the Tollan
@@bemasaberwyn55 Well, the Ancients didn't interfere directly, but Oma helping Anubis ascend really tipped the balance.
@@TheOmegaRiddler I was more referring to a planet being destroyed because aid was given in the form of advanced weapons
@@bemasaberwyn55 That wasn't the Tollan, they were wiped out by Tanneth, who was representing Anubis. He was the one who enhanced the shields of Goa'uld Motherships.
The big disconnect between SG1 and TNG is the whole episodic mandate. SG1 was allowed to take long narrative arcs, TNG was not. DS9 (or rather B5) fixed that.
That advantage was given to SG-1 by it being on showtime instead of a traditional network.
B5 is the worst show in television history.
@@bigben8502 Taste is irrelevant, B5 was the turning point in television Sci-Fi from purely episodic format to long form storytelling.
great point Mr Gato.
@@bigben8502 Oh my, there are sooo many people who would disagree.
Please do more Stargate stuff. Not a lot of people out there do much discussion about it retrospectively.
I hole heartedly would love a series on the Tau'ri Goa'uld war in the same vain as Lore reloaded's dominion war super cut. and yes for posterity's sake a prelude on the movie would be in order as from the point of view of the council of the system lords the Tau'ri had invaded their space and assinated their head of state (Ra). and though Apohis' initial actions were unrelated to the war it quickly became the genisis of the war in earnest.
The 2 episodes about the Aachen were remarkably poignant to watch in 2021
@@cosmictreason2242 Aschen I believe, but yeah. It suddenly became extremely relevant.
@@Grivehn fuckin iPhone keypad low quality shit. The one thing I regret and miss about having an android
@@cosmictreason2242 Hahaha, sorry to hear that. And sorry for uselessly being a grammar n.zi then, but the Aschen would be proud, Im sure :D
SG1 wasnt afraid to make fun of Star Trek and yet was so "down to earth" and grounded, that they made fun of themselves even more.....It was great. SciFi gold
o'neil "they didnt go for it"
carter "sir we cant call it the enterprise"
o'neil "why not? NASA did"
@@philiprice7875you beat me to it,
Theres another episode where he calls himself "James T Kirk" when being interrogated by some militant human race on a different planet 😂
One of the best scifi shows ever
@@HFFCANADAActually in that episode SG-1 was sent back in time due to a solar flare interfering with the Stargate.
One of the things I really liked about Stargate is that I feel like they explored both sides of the issue. There were several examples where the exploration of the SGC helped the inhabitants of the worlds they visited ... there were also several examples where their interference hurt those worlds. On the other hand, we have the Ancients (Alterans ... the non-Ori ... not sure what the proper name is for them) who had an extreme non-interference policy which I would say was very similar to the TNG-era view of the Prime Directive. We saw examples where them stepping in to help non-ascended beings ended in tragedy. We also saw times where they really should have stepped in (Anubis, anything having to do with fighting the Ori on any level) and it took a bit of them bending and looking the other way while some of their rank stepped right up to the line and then when they crossed it, the others punished them.
I think, like many ideologies, there are upsides and downsides. I don't think there's a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all policy regarding the level of interference that's acceptable with respect to alien cultures.
I would love to see a series comparing specific episodes from different shows that cover similar topics handle it.
Especially with SG-1 since Star Trek and Star Wars exist in that universe, and O'Neill is a fan. Not only does the writing meta-reference ST plotlines, but the show directly makes references.
Sam: "Sir, we can't call it 'The Enterprise'"
As a bonus, they were naming the Prometheus at the time, and that's in something like the first or second episode it appears in (which this video covers the last).
Teal'c is a HUGE Wars fan
Sam: "Intertial Dampeners?"
O'Neill: "Cool! And, check"
O'Neill: "Phasers?"
Sam: "Sorry, sir"
There's a 15 or so year old fan fic that never got finished where an author took TNG: The Chase and replaced the progenitor alien with Sam Carter. She tells the story of the Orii on the verge of victory in the Milky Way, the free Jaffa decided to sacrifice the beings in the Milky Way via Dakara and notified Earth. SGC figured out how to not get wiped out with a star system time dilation device and then went and re-seeded life in the galaxy with the Dakara device. The federation figured out how to dial Atlantis and the story stops. I read it earlier this year and have my own thoughts on how to continue it but not finish it.
That would be cool.
Honestly love when the Ori become the big bad. Be hard for a society that’s at war and then a superior being offers you the key to winning said war. Also Jackson is one of the reasons I started studying ancient history. He’s my favorite character and even without the go’uld the ancient societies shown in the show always fascinated me.
Prehistory is more fun.
I absolutely could not stand the Ori plot. To me, it was the Stargate equivalent of going "full DBZ" in your power scaling
@@TheAchilles26 Funnily enough, I think Stargate writers didn't make the Ori advanced enough. Ori ships and technology are somewhere around that of the Borg from Star Trek, despite the fact that their civilization is apparently tens of millions of years old AND they managed to ascend to a state of pure energy. If anything, they should have been at Q levels of power and they should have obliterated all resistance in every galaxy in the Stargate network, as they were apparently even more powerful than the Ancients, or at least more numerous.
@@Dotanalyst, which is even more a case of DBZ power scaling, and therefore REALLY BAD for storytelling purposes
@@TheAchilles26
The Ori story could have been epic but they didnt have the budget for it. Imagine if the Asgard had sent 100 ships to defend the supergate.. how epic could that space battle have been?
Funny SG-1 story.
There’s a video where Richard Dean Anderson reads some fan questions.
One question is something like “What about this civilization where this happened, but this other thing happened this other time…. “
He looks deadpan into the camera, Col. O’neil style, and says “Geez, it’s almost like our fans are smart or something”
I think you also miss the policy change that the SGC develops over the years.
As they get more and better ships, and as the various wars start to make Earth vulnerable, they become far more forward in working with outside groups and supporting initiatives which don’t directly threaten earth. By the time of the Ori War, they were starting to act as the police of the galaxy, deploying one of their ships to prevent a world from supporting the invaders.
I personally think destroying the satellite immediately was the correct move, especially tactically. The SGC has run into booby-trapped weapons so damn often, it’s not even funny. There is no doubt in my mind that the Priors could turn that gun on the surface in an instant if they didn’t feel it was being used to their satisfaction, and it was more a gun to the head of that world than one to defend it.
They didn't fire immediately, which was the problem, actually. They contacted the surface first to negotiate, which allowed the satellite to power Ori-strength shields that the Prometheus was basically helpless against.
They wanted to power demonstrate and it sort of backfired when them underestimated the motive behind the power demonstration. if the satellite was considered a real threat to Earth the motive would be to dispose the threat and then negotiate a peace. It's how wars been going for the last centuries as example Japan negotiate peace with USA after launching superweapon on Japan. Not the other way around.
@@robertagren9360 That was the thing... they thought the satellite didn't have defensive systems. (I also think they thought it wasn't finished yet). Thus, time was NOT a factor in the decision making. Though it should have been.
@@Swiftbow There was also the concern for Daniel. The never leave anyone behind ethos has bitten them hard several times. This was probably the single most costly example. So many dead over hesitation of what would happen to Daniel if they did exactly what they were there to do. Which was dumb. Daniel never stays dead. Shoot first and just sit back and wait for his dead body to reanimate for the fiftieth time, lol.
@@tyrannicpuppy I guess that makes sense. But wasn't Daniel with the rebel forces at that point? IE, not a prisoner?
They weren't going to blow up the surface... just a satellite in orbit.
I owned the box sets, I knew what time it came on, it made me interested in physics...this was my fucking show.
It also established my love for the p90.
Haha yeah the P90 is my favourite rifle thanks to this show, it may not be popular in general but to me it's iconic.
@@Voltaic_Fire I honestly cannot think of a single piece of media that had a bigger impact on me than SG1.
@in desperate need of a scotch I can imagine, trying to load a magazine that twists and realigns the cartridges sounds tedious.
i had always thought the P90 was a "hollywood" stunt gun as it was to cool looking to be real. now after seeing you tube vids of them in action and me being left handed I WANT ONE but as i am a Brit and the police would have a collective scream i had to make do with an air-soft on my man cave wall
When the Prometheus was destroyed it was like a punch in the gut for me. The Ori seemed unstoppable and all the advanced tech that earth had access to didn’t seem to matter at all. The last two seasons of SG1 aren’t my favorites but I do appreciate what was being rolled out as a new take on the aliens as false gods premise, as well as the morality of a secret space program including alien alliances and it’s implications in a modern setting.
Yeah, the Ori were especially interesting in that, arguably, they ARE gods. That is, they have all the trappings. They even created their followers. But, of course, they are absolutely evil and awful. So the question in that season, I think, was whether you should worship a god that doesn't deserve it.
Daniel never phrased it quite that way, though, which was disappointing. Though I think the reason that he didn't was that it would mean that he was ALSO (however briefly) technically a god. And Daniel would never feel comfortable describing himself that way.
Also, I wish Ark of Truth hadn't been such a deus ex machina end to the saga.
@@Swiftbow
When you fet to that level of power a;; you have is that or God intervining. BAcause Adria had all the pow4er from worshipers she was more powerful than regular acendents. Only way to remove it wa remove her followers makiong her only as powerful as one ascendant.
@@0011peace They didn't actually do that, though... they only affected the Priors. (And suddenly mentioned that the Priors were way more important, faith-wise, than everybody else.)
And then, in the end, it was just the same ending as Anubis vs. Oma.
I think it would have been way more interesting if they'd brought in some of the other Ascended that were on their side... like Shifu, Skarra and the Abydonians, along with Morgan Le Fay. Would have been a great call-back.
Or heck... power up their own Ascended by believing in them, even for just a little while. Point is, I think there were a lot of other ways to conclude that rather than just the same ending we already had like three times... SG-1 finds big artifact just in time.
Also, the whole subplot with the replicators was just... also overdone. Imagine instead that the Ori Fleet attacks Earth directly, revealing the Gate to the world, and the world has to deal with THAT, while simultaneously trying to survive, while SG-1 and the Odyssey try desperately to find a way to descend Adria. Maybe the Atlantis team even gets involved.
Ultimately... it was probably a budget problem that prevented anything like that from happening.
@@Swiftbow
Actually through the staff they got everyone in the the galaxy. That was why they had to turn a prior. They turned the Jaffa who became prior and he spread it.
The worst false gods are the ones that gain godhood.
I think one of the most interesting things about Stargate was Jackson, who was always trying to translate and interpret and contextualize things in (usually) interesting ways. Star Trek didn't really get into language families and etymology and mythology very much... was much more (from memory, almost exclusively) about the here and now.
As a devote Trekkie still SG1 is a beloved series for me. Love to rewatch especially SG Atlantis.
I loved sg1 and sga. The movies were good as well... Sgu was awful
@@spencervance8484 For me Atlantis and Universe are both easily forgettable... the chemistry between the actors were artificial, the story and the humor felt forced. SG-1 was more joyful and playful, perhaps a bit goofy at moments but not forced. The chemistry between the actors were real too.
One thing I loved about Stargate SG1 & Atlantis was the consistency across the multiple episodes. What happened in previous episodes had consequences for future episodes very consistently. The same could not be said of most of Star Trek.
Absolutely more Stargate breakdowns, please. I also like the idea others proposed, comparing how different series tackled different issues or challenges.
Good video. Keep up the great work.
Talk about bucking responsibility.. It was NOT SG1’s fault that there was a civil war among the Caledonians. If you’re arguing with your spouse and there’s a stranger at the door saying they have a flat, it’s 100% your fault if you then lunge at your spouse and accuse them of cheating. It’s also not on the stranger to play couples therapist or make amends for disturbing your home-at all.
Stargate SG-1 is one of my all time favorite shows, and I loved that they went back to places they were before and we got to see what happened to those characters and civilizations that were influenced by the SGC teams. We got to see consequences to the actions or non-actions taken.
I agree that the typical Star Trek "Prime Directive" story only tackles the consequences of interference on a very surface level. I mostly attribute this to the "Alien of the week" format of most Trek series. No matter what happens in most episodes, they always end with them flying off to some other planet and never seeing the consequences of their involvement with other races. Especially Voyager.
DS9 was the biggest departure from this story format as they were based on a space station, and were therefor forced to constantly deal with the long term consequences of everything they did involving the Bajorans, Cardasians, Maquis, and eventually the Dominion. But none of DS9's stories ever involved interfering with pre-warp civilizations, at least none that I can recall.
But even in Star Trek: Enterprise which takes place before the Federation and Prime Directive exist, they never had to face the consequences of their interference with less developed civilizations. And even though there was no prime directive, they pretty much acted like there was most of the time.
In TOS the prime directive was not a thing most of the time.
The first mention of a prime directive is in The Changeling and refers to the space probe's purpose.
They tend to not interfere with other cultures, but that is just common sense. They respect the local customs. (Except when they don't; occasionally they overthrow society.)
In A Private Little War Kirk mentions that he explicitly suggested to Starfleet to leave the planet alone. Which implies that non-interference was _not_ the usual procedure.
You'll probably see a number of these, but it's "Daniel," not "Daniels." His name is "Daniel Jackson."
Also, it's not "the priori." Priors are the emmisaries, preachers, and even prophets of the Ori (pronounced similarly to "or I" in "Stop, or I shoot."), not the movement name or anything.
Tehe. Fair points
Daniels is from Star Trek Enterprise lol
On the absolute whole, Stargate is a superior almost everything compared to Star Trek. This is best exemplified by the fact that the weakest thing about SG-1 Season 1 was the budget, not the stories. Especially when compared to any Season 1 of the Star Treks from TNG onward (SNW not withstanding).
The writers of Stargate seemed to be willing to put a lot more effort into realism and consistency. They were also far more willing to not try to take themselves so serious all the time. If I was stuck watching broadcast TV and didn't have a library of the two franchises to watch, if Stargate and Star Trek were on at the same time, I would watch Stargate 4 out of 5 times. What is really funny too is that I was a late arriver. I only started watching SG-1 half way through its run and then immediately had to get caught up and watch it all. I have definitely watched all of Stargate more than Star Trek.
Well there's no accounting for taste
I'd say S1 also suffered from identity crisis, namely hiring old Star Trek writers to reskin old episodes of TNG. By S2 they had developed their internal mythos and own storylines enough to strike their own tone. But I absolutely agree with everything else you said.
@@X525Crossfire S1 definitely had some quarks, the one I think of most is the whole three shots of a zat disintegrate. That was written in because they were racking up so many bodies but then immediately dropped from all future episodes because it was way overpowered.
@@davidreddick3016 and then, they joked about it themselves in a later parodic episode.
Bravo, Relore! Excellent breakdown and I love that you pull no punches. The sixth season SG-1 episode Memento would work for this as well. Prometheus (again) is disabled over a planet and their arrival prompts all sorts of civil problems with this world, who are technologically advanced (somewhat). Their arrival prompts all sorts of uncomfortable questions and Jonas’s search for the buried Stargate here unearths things from the past that the society was happy to keep buried.
Rand and Caledonia, of course, were much darker and grittier examples of this, and it isn’t really resolved well by the end of forty minutes for them. And that’s why that two parter is great. More more more!
Watching this without having seen Star Gate, I imagine one might think Jack O'Neill is the obstructive, closeminded militarist character who makes things difficult for the heroes, when he's actually the cynical counterpoint to Daniel the idealist.
I think you've been confusing Daniel Jackson with Lieutenant Daniels from enterprise. Not the same character. I would say that SG-1 walking through the gate on that world was the trigger for the events. They did not trigger it knowingly or willingly it was like stepping into a trap. By the way there are a number of good starting episodes where similar strings things happen. There's an episode where they end up in this bunker complex and they learned that they have these remote control planes to defend against which sounds all great until they realize they're like fascist Nazis and so they decide not to help them
An important part of that story is that while SGC did trigger the conflict, it wasn't due to any peculiarity of the SGC itself. Anyone else activating the gate would cause the same result. Which makes it an even more interesting exploration of interference and non-interference. And then there's the greater context of the SGC's experiences with both interference and non-interference in the past. And that's really one of the most beautiful differences between TNG and SG-1 - there's no preaching, no clear "this is what you should do"... just a complex situation, crippling uncertainty and actual accountability. Because even though interfering might have been a better choice in the long run (certainly not sure!), the truth is, Jack was accountable to the US government, and Daniel wasn't. That doesn't mean Jack wasn't trying to do the right thing either - they both were. Interfering in what was happening would likely also lead to catastrophic results.
I also want to point out that Stargate also has the ark with the Tolans, where Earth is actually on the receiving end of the Non-Interference policy, leaving Stargate Command very frustrated with the lack of hyper advanced guns
@in desperate need of a scotch Small military, not weak. The only reason the Goa'uld beat them was because their new leader was partially ascended and had access to near-god tier technology.
@in desperate need of a scotch "no it was weak.
We see the invasion, there were no fighters coming from the surface."
That's still confusing quantity for quality.
If you don't need fighters, why would you have them?
"They had no fleet in orbit, once their ion cannon failed they had no defence beyond a small group who appeared to be less armed than an NC policeman."
Still confusing quantity for quality.
They had never needed a fleet in orbit and their security officers were sufficiently armed in conjunction with their weapon disabling technology.
The reason they lost was because Anubis cheated in Ancient technology, not because of a lack of ships or armed security force.
"Yes irl reason for this was because of time and budget but what was shown is the weakest military in stargate since the planet with insane solar radiation and the rogue SGC officer in control"
Again, lack of quantity =/= lack of quality/weak.
@in desperate need of a scotch Correct.
@in desperate need of a scotch "which is why I say the Tolan military was weak."
Which is where you keep conflating quantity with quality. No matter how many times you repeat it.
"No combined arms, no defensive fleet and no back up systems should their primary weapon fail."
The US could have a million active soldiers with 10 million in back-up, they still would not be able to beat a single Anubis mothership. That's not a matter of numbers, but a matter of technology.
"They were complacent, stagnant and because of their isolationist policies had no one they could call on."
And because their technology was vastly superior to anyone in the Milky Way galaxy until Anubis cheated in Ancient technology.
"There were advanced powers in the milky way, they didnt help."
Because they could not.
" The asgard had a treaty to defend earth, "
Which was based completely on the bluff that the Asgard would wage war against the Goa'uld, which in reality they could not because they had their hands full with the replicators.
"anubis wasnt accepted back into the system lords at that point so nothing stopped them having ships there within hours"
Except for that pesky bit of being completely beaten by the replicators. They made this clear in the very episode Earth got included in the Protected Planets treaty.
The prime directive is to support the antifragility of younger civilisations (ie. A society should learn from it mistakes and have there own self determination etc ). Ironically we see that the prime directive can cause fragility since your civilisations need some form of interaction between other societies to learn as well (even from primitive ones). If your society cannot cope with the introduction of another advanced civilisation (one that is benevolent), then it is quiet obvious that the society itself could have been taken down by anything. It's why SGC almost always win there battles with the Goauld.
The perspective at the start of a new planet creates different perspectives. A Star Trek crew appears in orbit with information about the whole planet before interacting with the ship displaying their technological level. A Stargate team shows up on the ground from a device that has more or less always been there, with nothing more than their drone (or their guns) that tests the gate as a give away toward how advanced they are.
An important thing to note is this storyline escalated during the Ori arc in Seasons 9 and 10 which was cutshort due to SG-1's cancellation. There were plans for at least a Season 11 so for all we know this storyline was going to be continued. Since SG-1 Season 11 was not meant to be many of the smaller threads were left unresolved.
So, unless you meant TNG spin-off, there was no ST-TNG episodes running concurrent with SG-1. ST-TNG finished in 1994, while SG-1 started in 1997.
I was a huge fan of STTNG and even DS9 for a while...and then Babylon 5 opened my eyes to real story telling. The reason I enjoyed Stargate was that you saw progress for Earth. The stories were somewhat episodic but overall Earth progressed to a point they never would have been had history turned out differently. Great video Lore Reloaded!! I enjoyed your comparisons. Thank you. :)
I grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Stargate, Seaquest and Sliders. I love them all, but if I had to choose in-depth stories with great characters it would be DS9, Babylon 5 and Stargate.
Ditto. All the classic sci-fi 😎
@@chell807 It's a shame Fox pulled the plug on Stargate. Though I like SG1 more, Atlantis and Universe had their own perks, especially Universe.
@@Is_This_Really_Necessary Ikr. I was really getting into SGU when they cut it. That show had so much potential. Watching Eli grow and mature as a person was enjoyable.
I never really looked at it like that. There are episodes throughout Stargate: Atlantis proving your point. The first 2 episodes and an episode in the 2nd or 3rd season where they find a computer game that the ancients built, pretty much a civ game and that was dealing with people on an actual planet that eventually went to war with each other and had nukes cause people like Shepard and McKay kept trying to out do each other in the computer game. Giving each side the advantage when in actually the ancients built it to teach both sides on how to work together and trade but lead to problems. So learning what had happened between McKay and Shepard playing the game (which was an actual experiment) they decided to shut it down for good.
The entirety of Stargate SG1 and Atlantis is an ongoing analysis of why the prime directive is the worst ideology and foreign policy possible.
Evil flourishes when good does nothing.
Multiple galaxies are enslaved by hordes of alien parasites. Both galaxies contain isolated examples of technologically advanced civilizations capable of ending the threat posed by the parasites, but each of those societies is dead set against elevating less advanced cultures, handing out their tech to allies, and doing anything beyond keeping the enemies from directly invading their home planets.
And half of those advanced societies are wiped out when the enemy parasites get a tech boost that puts them on equal footing. Tech proliferates. If it exists it will eventually end up in the hands of your enemies. The only way to ensure your enemies don't eventually take you out is to join the fight against them when the opportunity arises.
This is shown best by how useless the Ancients/Ascended beings are. They lost their home galaxy and the Milky Way to religious fundamentalists who wiped them out with bio weapons. They lost the Pegasus galaxy to a race of oversized ticks that beat them with stolen cloning tech and overwhelming numbers. Then when they finally ascended and thought themselves above everything they were nearly wiped out by the ascended religious fundamentalists. The only thing standing between the ascended Ori conquering the milky way and Pegasus galaxies and wiping out the ascended populations there was a strike team of moderate tech level flesh beings. Over the course of 17 seasons of television we only meet 3 ascended beings who are worth a damn. The rest of the potentially millions of ascended beings are either cowards unwilling to risk their own power and position, or supremacists looking down on all non ascended life forms.
The only advanced races worth a damn in the long run are the Tok'ra and the Asgard. Both willing to help due to the fact they are actively engaged in wars for their very survival and fully aware that if they don't at least try to defend low tech peoples there will be no one left to defend them when the hordes of parasites or robots come for them.
Very good thematic observation. Trek and Gate are pretty much equal opposites in theme: 1) moral of the story is don’t get involved 2) moral of the story is you must get involved
Exactly, plus the Wraith exist because the Ancients fucked up and then sat back and did nothing until it was too late.
But then the Nox just kind of exist. Yeah if Sg1 hadn't interfered with Apophis's plans and he had succeeded in capturing or killing the family we might have seen something bad happen to the Nox, but they really were a race that sported the ideology of if we hide and just never pick a side everyone will forget we even exist (even the writers).
@@joshuabonesteel2303 the Furlings are better than Nox at hiding)
Yes and no. The Ancients, I feel, aren't that comparable to Starfleet, because Starfleet always operated on the rule of "no interference until certain conditions are met" at which point they absolutely WILL interfere for an agreed upon greater good (I would, in fact, sooner compare them to the Asgard in that regard, as they practiced pretty much the same thing).
The Ancients, however, were just "no interference PERIOD, no exceptions ever," and Stargate proceeded to show the (many) downfalls of such a stance.
It's not about showing that "no interference" is altogether a bad idea, because there are plenty of instances where no interference really WOULD be the better idea in the long run (and Stargate demonstrated instances of this too), it was more about showing how there are times to not interfere...and there are times when you SHOULD interfere.
The trick is knowing when and where to do either. And as the video's cited episodes show...it's not necessarily a clear cut thing nor will everybody always be universally in agreement on which is which as that line between the two gets pretty blurred here, and THAT'S where Trek could do better--it likes to pretend that line is a lot clearer than it actually is.
I never thought that Star Trek was convincing and haven´t watched it for decades. However, I love Stargate.
Could you please do more Stargate vids ? Its an amazing show full of potential for more breakdowns and discussions.
In Star Trek TOS. The PD was just a way to showcase Kirk's "cowboy diplomacy." Nothing he did ever messed things up. TNG seemed to be Picard being anal retentive and not much else. The last episode of The Orville had a scene where Cmdr. Grayson relates a situation where the Union gave advanced technology to a planet which destroyed itself 5 years later. Stargate has consequences. Trek didn't
"Nothing he did ever messed things up."
Seriously?
Kirk didn't actually violate the prime directive, in TOS there was exceptions to the prime directive. It was in ING that it became an absolutist "moral imperative" doctrine.
@@Belzediel Not with these kinds of consequences
LOL
Never messed up? Have you not seen "A Private Little War?"
Or in "The Apple," where the consequences of his actions aren't precisely good or bad, but up for the viewer to decide.
This was unexpected and much appreciated. the Writing of Stargate was a very different and refreshing approach to sci-fi that challenged the idea that the heros are perfect. We also see a universe not enlightened. it has struggle. Even the ancients were flawed and their mistake still cause problems today.
I think Stargate Atlantis is also a good example of Stargate's writing and interferance leading to things down the line and showing concequences. Stuff like the Hoffans and their drug and the consequences with not only the Hoffans but what happened with it with Michael. The waking of the Wraith and Michael in general. Reactivating the Asuran replicator directive and it's concequences. Their relationship with the Genii. It got to the point they got put on trial for against the Pegasus Galaxy by the Coalition of Planets.
4:48 "Someone lit it, and the person who lit it can't get off..."
I disagree. Causality does not equal responsibility. People are responsible for the choices they make, but not for independent choices of others.
SG1 did nothing inherently harmful. They just came through the gate.
The Zealots made a CHOICE to attack the government.
So very much this. Is the claim that the hundreds (or thousands) of other blind gate transits were horrible crimes, too?
Of course, one of the questions the episode asks of the audience is "How responsible are our heroes for what happens?"
I also think it cannot be overstated how good the character work and dialogue writing is in Stargate.
The episode The Other Side nails this conceit of "yes sometimes you should interfere in the goings on of foreign conflicts" with a great guest role by Rene Auberjonois
Yes and no, on that. In the fact that they almost interfere for the wrong side.
In the end they basically just let what was going to happen happen (the other side winning), and also let the space Nazi splat into their Iris.
2:00 Next Gen ended in 1994 and SG1 started in 1997… which seasons were concurrent?
My first thought exactly. Maybe he meant DS9/VOY/TNG movies as extensions of the franchise/TNG era, but it was probably just an error on his part
For sure, but just that I don’t normally see such a big mistake from this channel. Doesn’t matter at the end of the day. 🤷♂️
This video is riddled with mistakes. I caught that concurrent series mistaken claim too, and I noticed he refers to Daniel Jackson as "Daniels" several times and the Ori as "The Priori".
I think the differences are in mentality between the shows creators. Stargate was committed to continuity where Star Trek really wasn't.
All of Star Trek with the only exception of DS9 was episodic and things that happened rarely had any consequences in the future while DS9 was the only one where decisions had big consequences later on the series.
Also progression and growth. The characters in Stargate got promoted, moved to new postings, had changes in their point of view.... Meanwhile Riker was xo for twenty years
@@m.e.3862 But everyone else except Picard and Data did get promoted. Worf from LT JG to LT in TNG and security chief. Trois and Beverly to Commander. Wesly Crusher from Civilian to acting endign to ensign. Miles O'brien changed shows from transporter chief to Chief of Operations. Gordi from Enisgn to Lt Comander and piolot to Chief Engineer.
@@0011peace Over a decade or so time span.
Three of the least unrealistic things in _TNG_ was Riker turning down his own commands twice. One count because someone capable of earning the first officer slot on the flagship would never turn down a command. Second count because he kept the slot on _Enterprise_ rather than being removed so someone actually on the command track could get the experience as Picard's first officer. Third count because because Starfleet actually offered _another_ command to him later after Riker all but screamed at them "I don't think I'm a good choice for an independent command!" when he declined the first time.
Yes, there were obvious doylist reasons to keep Frakes on the show. But that doesn't make Riker's aborted (but not really! assure spin-offs and sequels!) career more realistic.
@@boobah5643
They did lateractually addressths and how unfair he was to Data to hog the Job. But it is even less believable Data never made it to Comander when both Troy and Crusher did.
Data was alreadua bisge officer but troy comes along and takes the test and becomes commander. Its also ubelivable forthe same reason Data stayed on Enterprize. He should have been given firs officer on a ship specially after the loses at Wolf59
Just started watching Stargate a few months ago. On Season 8 of SG 1 and season 1 of Atlantis and I love them. Such a relief to have something take the place of Trek for me
Everyday I would come home and watch SG1 then I got into Atlantis and Universe is not the best it’s not terrible Stargate had 3 great shows my favourite ship design from Stargate is the Daedalus class Battlecruiser
Question. Are you saying atlantis is not good? Its certainly better than stargate universe
@@spencervance8484 sorry I meant Universe is not as good as SG1 and Atlantis but I still enjoy it
SG-1 is a hidden gem. They start out at a modern level in every aspect, learn and grow, and clean up an ideological war millions of years in the making.
1st season: "These... shuttles... surely they are formidable craft in battle?"
4nd season: "Dammit Sam, you cant just slap an Air Force sticker on alien craft or things like this happen!"
6th season: "The new earth built hyperdrive doesn't work right, but we dont care where it ends up as long as it's not here, right?"
8th season: "With the hyperdrive technology our alien allies have shown us how to make, the Pegasus galaxy is only a week away"
I always found Stargate superior because it made a lot more sense. The protagonists were the underdogs and there was real cause for conflict. Star Trek as whole never made sense to me. It was too perfect. Every single material need was taken care off and with perfect virtual reality everyone could live their dreams . Add in the ease with which they can acquire resources (and thus could easily turn every one of their home planets into an impenetrable fortress if they wanted to)and just the majority of stories didn't really make sense. The individual episodes could be fascinating yes but the season arcs as whole not uch
I was always frustrated that Star Fleet was composed of little more than pleasure yachts stuffed full of pajama people. Thousands of deaths in the Dominion war could have been prevented if they designed their ships to not suck.
"On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the Demilitarized Zone, all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints - just people. Angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not!"
Sisko, on Nechayev's suggestion that he "establish a dialogue" with the Maquis in DS9: "The Maquis, Part II"
I grew up with second syndication of ST:tos. Then ST:TNG later on in my youth, I also saw the Stargate movie in theaters in my teens. Then all the SG shows in my 20’s - 30’s. Honestly, I love them all.
While SG1 was not serialized to the extent of DS9, I really appreciated how many times something in one episode would see a reference in later episodes.
Stargate in general did approach things in a more mature manner, especially more so then Roddenberry Trek. The one exception was matters of religion.
While both shows clearly promoted an atheistic worldview, the writers of SG1 could not contain their utter disdain for all people of faith for even a minute and their writing suffered as a result. You knew the minute any character in that show mentioned that they believed in a god or gods or followed an organized religion that they would either convert to atheism by the third act or do something cartoonishly evil. Some of this was justified by the major villains of the show pretending to be gods, but the showrunners extended it to even religions totally uninvolved with or even explicitly opposed to those villains (ex: in the episode "Origin" its suggested that the Ancients may have influenced Christianity to associate fire with evil in order to inoculate Earth against the main Ori bad guys, which used fire as their chief symbol: making Christianity an explicitly anti-Ori religion...but every single Christian character who appears on screen is still an over-the-top villain).
Star Trek by contrast, even under Roddenberry, was able to portray people of faith in a much more humanizing light, as neither good nor evil based solely on believing in a religion, though sometimes just a bit naïve to not believe instead in more scientific (atheistic) explanations. Later Trek episodes would be even more nuanced to the point where some episodes could be seen as establishing certain religions (such as that of the Bajorans or Klingons) as canonically true, though an alternate explanation of "they're not gods, just powerful aliens" also remained viable.
Even the positive treatments are patronizing and communicate that their beliefs are false though. At least you see the disdain generally
And the sheer irony they created the Ori who loved to say, “Either you convert to our religion or you die.” The writers or people don’t believe in a Higher Power? Fine. But at least they could have been less jerk ass about it. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
I agree, though i also understand the time periods these were made in mainly SG1. Christianity was mainly viewed in the light of Catholicism and Evagelical Christians. The former was wrapped up in scandal and very likely true conspiracies involving Propaganda Due and Emanuela Orlandi. The latter was the face of US Christianity at the time, and was made up of many people who were easily offended and wanted to censor a lot. Just look at the at the time outrage against Harry Potter for daring to have magic in it. The Westboro Baptist church was also well known at the time. 9/11 didn't help views of religion either. Not justifying any of this anti theism, just providing context
There aren't any "Christian villains" in Stargate aside from maybe the occasional jingoistic military officer. The closest is how the Priors basically sound identical to evangelicals which is quite clearly a criticism of fundamentalist Christianity.
Even General Hammond is shown to be religious, and Mitchell suggests that there may be ascended beings higher than the Ancients i.e him meaning God.
And the whole plot of Stargate Universe comes from the Ancients trying to discover possible evidence of some god/creator being after finding patterns of intelligent life in the CMB.
@@KitsuneAdorable It's almost like there is a certain religion that had committed terror attacks against the USA that had that exact philosophy when the show was running
All of this is reminding me of the Doctor Who story "The Caves Of Andronazi." Basically the same thing happened there. The Doctor arrived at a planet, which was a powder keg. And his arrival caused everyone to make assumptions that were now true, and everything escalated into total warfare and chaos.
The key reason why Stargate works so well is that they keep the scale of the show low enough that four dudes seems like they could have a tangible impact on whatever is going on. The stargate itself is such a well conceived plot point in that regard; big enough to move people and maybe a vehicle, but you definitely couldn't move millions of people that way.
That really matters because we don't get stuck in writers contrivances of why exactly the Enterprise can't just solve the problem with firepower, nor do we ask ourselves whether our heroes can even effect the outcome.
I also think that they did a really good job in just going with a team of four, and trying to have them solve problems with whatever they have to hand, even when they could (or should) just ask the SGC to send more dudes. It sets up nice, streamlined plots to have SG1 arrive, find a problem but then not immediately know what is going to solve it, so they poke it and see what happens.
There a lot of depth to all this though - The general outlook that they are explorers but not wimps is perfect for this sort of show. One of the less good aspects of Star Trek is the "Oh but captain the plasma being is just trying to feed off your face, you can't shoot it" stuff. Nah bro, shoot it.
Wow it’s been a while since you done a stargate episode I hope to see more soon man
Loved this and there's so much more content here you can work with. Good video. One thing I always found good about stargate is the whole advanced civilisation wont share their advanced tech and how we didn't like that but yet there are examples later of us doing the same thing to lesser evolved species.
Often even while under heavy attack by VERY formidable an even lethal enemies SG teams often performed a hell of a lot better then Starfleet Security Forces most of the time.
Daniel Jackson an his organization did right by trying to mitigate damage. It's generally how they liked to do things. Either play mitigator or back off entirely. An actually... No .. just walking in outta the blue DOESN'T make it the SGCs fault a ton of zealots couldn't keep their egos in check. It STARTED at first ONeil was right wasn't their problem. When it went BEYOND THAT particular global.. it WAS. remember all SGC IS considered an intergalactic power. An this Earth was too. Even if 99% of Earth WASN'T aware they was already a strong well known intergalactic force. An THEIR enemy those new enemies... Ori, remember are CONQUERING AND EVEN GENOCIDAL.. an it took ALL. of the franchise powers trying to work together to FINALLY defeat them.
Agree while I've been quite enjoying watch ST (started watching TNG last year when I was 18 after my final exams) stargate will always be in the center of my heart
It feels good to see Stargate getting so recognition.
Never in my life have I clicked this fast on a video! I grew up on both shows but Stargate is the one I still rewatch. I think Atlantis did also a superb job at this with the whole genii arc
Do that episode where the locals have brain implants but the database they’re plugged into is slowly killing them off one by one
Lol i just watched that episode
I love how they handled why they kept the program classified. Everyone would try to take a piece of it.
Business: (smoke and mirrors). Using technology to make money or to help themselves.
Government: (politics). Politicians trying to interfere with its functions through policy and appropriation.
Media: (heroes, prometheus, ‘episode with reporter’). People trying to shove a camera into their faces to get the truth to entertain or force outrage against them.
Foreign policy: Like the russians, governments would expect to be involved and to have a share of the technology.
Civilian: people can panic, riot, force policy change.
Men in Black had a great quote on that.
K: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky creatures and you know it.
I think your analysis is overall great, though I do think you’re a little more harsh on SG-1’s initial ‘lighting the match’ than I’d agree with. I don’t think a person of good conscience could ignore the situation once it had begun, and I have a real problem with Jack’s reaction. But unless you think the whole thing wouldn’t have happened if SG-1 hadn’t gone through after the MALP, then I don’t think you can really blame them for something which couldn’t have been avoided
Jack's point, really, is that the SGC can't take responsibility for winning a Civil War or realistically pick sides. And he's right. His point is probably also colored by the time they almost accidentally helped a bunch of space Nazis win a DIFFERENT civil war, and only Daniel's snooping stopped them at the last minute.
Jack was even partially tricked into killing some of the "enemy" combatants in that previous outing. I would expect it's a memory that occasionally haunts him. And it was a lesson learned there that they can't automatically trust someone just because the Gate happens to be located in their country.
Regarding the point where "they would probably have killed each other anyway".
If some aliens with advanced technology had shown up on Earth during the cold war, Stargate-style, I believe there is a good chance it could have escalated things into a nuclear war. Back then, a lot of people saw nuclear armageddon as inevitable anyway.
If such alien interference had resulted in us destroying each other, the aliens would likely also tell each other "well, they would have probably killed themselves anyway". Even though we now know that we did not.
While I agree that stargate handles prime directive adjacent things in a more thoughtful way than star trek, I will absolutely point out that there are a fair number of 'bad security' episodes of stargate, especially early on. While they do *learn* from those mistakes, and eventually stop making them altogether, the ones they make in the beginning really were inexcuseable. Hathor, for instance.
Oh... please don´t remind me of that "mistake" with hathor.... but yes: They did pretty dump shit at the start but they learned... and i think the asgard had a big part in that learning process. I think they had good intentions when they gave them beaming tech, but let them figure out their own way to use it without their sensors first before giving them those too. This is just one example where they defenitely tried to keep humans away from getting new tech too fast.
I love the way they make fun of their bad episodes in later seasons. Hathor, for example, in "Citizen Joe."
@@Swiftbow Yes, they learned from their early mistakes insted of ignoring them. What we had in the stargate franchise was just good production management and good wrighting. Yes: SGU had it´s problems, but they made it much better in the second season and i think that i would have become really great in the 3rd one...
@@joesheridan95 I never made it to the second season of SGU. I was gonna give it another shot, but it's not available on any of the streaming I have.
Oh damn I am so happy that you actually even said something about Stargate please keep more videos coming about Stargate I think these two franchises are amazing
I would just like to point out that in stargate its not earth doing anything but the US airforce pretending to represent earth.
For a little while. Eventually it’s the superpowers representing earth.
You just won a new subscriber, your content is top notch. I have always loved both Stargate and Star Trek but Stargate has SO MANY good moments, plethora of interesting scenarios, and excellent consequentive writing
Can you really blame SGC for this though? I mean morally yeah, but on a practical if not feasible level?? They have ONE gate and ONE FTL capable ship at this point and dozens of fish to fry. They're not the Federation that has a large fleet of civilian and military vessels that could help out a civilization like this one.
This is one of Lore’s best takes.
TNG didnt run the same time as SG1
Ok
Yeah, All Good Things aired in 1994; SG-1s premier was in 1997. Though SG-1 did overlap on the TNG movies. I would say that with the other mid-90s Trek going on at the time, SG-1 did forge ahead with more realistic plotlines and (at least after the first season), much better writing.
I rewatched season 1 recently, its incredible well done, they keep the diference of technology and the search for it as focus, they barely get any tech and even other advanced civilization dont thrust them with tech, it feels grounded there is some sense of risk when side characters died
If you ever do happen to do a serious arc on the tollan, please make sure you point out that their inability to not be pricks to everyone not close to them technologically got them wiped out and no one shed a tear for them?
Ah but the Asgard were the best. They gave SG humanity a big lift up. Their interferance practically made humanity a viable galactic force.
Ouch this a bold statement :) I love both these shows but hard to say which is better, 'Stargate SG-1' or 'Star Trek,' because they're both awesome in different ways. 'Star Trek' gives us this cool, optimistic look at the future, diving deep into moral questions with lots of space exploration. 'Stargate SG-1,' on the other hand, mixes ancient myths with modern-day Earth, focusing on the adventure and challenges of dealing with unknown powers. They both offer something special to the sci-fi world. So, it's really about what vibes with you more. Love them both for what they bring to the table!"
The movie The Gods Must Be Crazy shows how divisive something as simple as a Coke bottle can be.
Love to see more Stargate coverage. Definitely keep that up. I'd like to see a video since you handle these sorts of topics sometimes why people absolutely hate a character like Michael Burnham and that these are often the same people who love a character like Samantha Carter, and why one works so terribly while the other is iconic. It's particularly interesting since Carter is pretty much good at everything, but it doesn't ruin her character, which is often the complaint against Burnham.
It's because Carter is a real person with strengths and flaws whereas Burnham is a collection of emotions (mostly crying) and Mary Sue powers.
Like... for example, how come Michael was ALREADY being consulted in major meetings as if she was an Admiral or high-ranking politician like 10 minutes after they rejoined the Federation in the future? It made no damn sense.
Season 1 Carter was a bit iffy, too... but the writers improved her characterization REALLY quickly.
And I agree... I'd love to see a good reviewer (like Lore) compare/contrast the two.
@@Swiftbow >Season 1 Carter was a bit iffy, too... but the writers improved her characterization REALLY quickly.
Fun fact, we can thank Amanda Tapping for that. She tried to read the dialogue as written (including the "reproductive organs" speech which got roasted not once, not twice, but three times in the later series run) because she was afraid of being fired in season 1.
Eventually she couldn't take it anymore and went to the writing team and producers to point out how painful the writing for a woman was being and they actually gave her veto power over her dialogue.
Hence why the character takes a sharp 180 shorty into season 1. Many times you can credit an actor for making a character work, but in this case, she literally saved the character on all fronts.
@@BlazingOwnager That makes a lot of sense. She seems like a really great person, as well as actress. And those early lines seemed really out of character for both Carter and Tapping.
Just think what their intervention did for Jonas' planet, and the way it shook up things for the planet where "Thor's Hammer" was. The list goes on.
I've always thought that Stat Trek took it too far. The planet is about to explode! You just sit by and do nothing when you can fix it without the inhabitants ever knowing? Ridiculous! But yeah, introducing yourself too soon and in the wrong way can be disastrous.
I know I’m late, but I would still like to say I would love to hear you talk about more Stargate. Star Trek and Stargate are my 2 beloved sci-fi shows.
Problem with your whole idea is that the world of Star Trek has had hundreds of years of building the rules of the Prime Directive and you don't get to see all the failures that happened in the past to flesh out the Prime Directive rules (unless you watch some of Enterprise). Where Stargate is just starting to flesh out rules of interference with other races. Like the Tolin in Stargate, they followed rules similar to Star Trek's Prime Directive and refused to give their technology to primitive species because of their past failures in doing so.
Except that is not really an issue with the core idea since the primary problems are going to develop out of the locals and not the explorers policies. That isn't something that stops happening because the explores have more experience. Based on past experience the explores may be able to handle the problems that develop better and more often before it spirals completely out of control but there will still be problems that develop, what works for one culture won't necessarily work for an almost identical culture, and mistakes will be made. In fact I'd argue that such things would happen more often in Star Trek just for the sake that they deal with a far wider variance in cultures/species where in Stargate cultures are a lot less varied and essentially are directly earth's ancient cultures.
Also the ideas of not interfering is not even an option for Stargate. They were forced to use the gate with a specific mandate to go out and find technology or allies to help defend them against alien attack. If they didn't interfere with other planets earth would be destroyed, period. I also liked how they depicted the super advanced races who refuse to help or give "inferior races" technology in Stargate. They were usually arrogant or naive and were so reliant on the technology or abilities that they couldn't think strategically, recognize danger, or manually solve problems. Sometimes you need people who can do the most with the least to be able to figure out ways to fix things that you forgot how to do because you were so reliant on technology. The closest I can think of in TNG was when the medical devices weren't working and the doctor told them to splint the arm and they were completely confused because they never learned basic medicine, only how to work a tricorder. But in Stargate this happened all the time. Aliens with superior tech or powers get beat by lesser, more cunning foes they need another "lesser" cunning foe to think of things they would never think of.
@@dash4800 This is why the Asgard decided to giver thier advanced tech becaus eetghey knew that wpould marry it with backwoods ingenuity.
Not quite. The problem is more that TNG often shows "this is the right thing to do, and if you don't agree, you're wrong". It's incredibly preachy, and we're almost always meant to side with the characters, their decisions and the blindingly black-and-white solutions (TOS was _much_ better in this regard). It mostly presents the characters as in the right from a god-like perspective. "They're right because I say so".
SG-1 characters are much more human, and the writing always tries to keep ambiguity and audience involvement. It almost never preaches what was/is the right thing to do - it just has characters with personalities, and consequences. It's up to _you_ to decide what is morally right, and if the consequences are worth it.
Okay, this is perfect timing, since I’m in the middle of a rewatching Stargate SG-1
I only really have 2 compliants about Stargate. 1 that they would introduce interesting new aliens and cultures who we would then neeeeeeeeeeever hear from again (although some of this is understandable due to CGI/budget constraints). And 2 that they glorified the US Air force (again some what understandable since that's where they got their equipment from). Both of these are flaws I can accept and still enjoy the show
The funny thing I noticed on a rewatch is that the US military is far more morally questionable in the early seasons, when stargate was still economically independent from the USAF, it is roughly from late season 3/early season 4 that the military unquestionably becomes "the good guys"
This is a wonderful example of Hubris on the SGC side, but another good example that even almost directly compares and contrasts the two different ideologies is Season 5 Episode 5 Red Sky (I looked it up I'm not an encyclopedia) where they travel to a planet and accidentally taint the planet's star then plead to the Asgard who are the planet's protector, but the Asgard quote a similar phrase to one of the tenants of the prime directive That they're not allowed to intervene in a planets natural development. and the episode shows earth trying to make it right and ultimately the Asgard do help in a sneaky way so as to not upset the legal balance that binds them it's still a good episode that deals with these concepts and conflicts.
1:57 "There were specific seasons that ran concurrent to each other." Huh? Star Trek TNG ended in 1994, a full three years before Stargate SG1 would begin.
No but guess what Voyager and Stargate was stealing in each other's story lines I mean it got to the point man where everybody was wondering how come I'm watching Voyager when it's really Stargate as a matter of fact the producers of Stargate had room for Enterprise when it ended a lot of stars from Enterprise wound up on Stargate and Stargate Atlantis like Jolene Blalock Commander Tucker he had a recurring role on Stargate Atlantis
SG-1 will always be my favorite scifi show.
The SGC seemed to have no way to understand other languages - yet have no problem as everyone speaks English …usually.
ST: TNG Just have universal translators.
Stargate has a logical reason for all the other planets being Human, because they are originally from Earth. In Star Trek all the aliens being humanoid and humans-like is explained in one episode [the Chase] where progenitors spread their genetic templates throughout the Galaxy. But still it's convenient that all the aliens are just like people with bits on them, and some are identical to Humans.
Where Stargate does have a advantage - the US military helped in production.
I heard it described as "If we went the reality version the show would have turned into a 'Daniel translates for an hour' show." I can understand that point.
I don't think any TV show really tackles the idea of multi-languages among the stars without everyone understanding everyone else automatically, because then you have problems with the audience being unable to understand, characters needing things translated the old fashioned way which slows things way down, etc.
Stargate SG-1 did try to explain why the Egyptian language in the movie was gone (Daniel taught all the Abydosians English between the movie and TV series, for some reason), but afterwards they just ignored it. Even everyone in the Pegasus galaxy in Stargate Atlantis all speak English. Though I think Stargate Universe breaks this trope; aliens we see there are more alien than others we've met and don't speak English.
I think the Gate automatically translates whatever the natives of each world says in English to SG-1
My headcanon was that all those people from other planets were speaking Goa'uld, and the SG team members learned the language. It makes sense, seeing as it was the Goa'uld who took all those people to the various planets.
@@limiv5272 And now I'm imagining a conversation that's just "Jaffa, kree!" with varying tones and emphases. :P
the stargate shows are my absolute favorite show of all time, will always love them