Description:
Meme format image. The top half has a picture of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s bridge crew with the text “the prime directive forbids us from interfering. We cannot share our technology”. The bottom half has a picture of Stargate’s SG-1 team and the text “all your gods are false. Here, take these guns.”
Stargate really did the whole “lasers for show, guns for a pro” thing.
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But they also had the little snake gun things which were far more practical, and also could stun.
This is a thumbnail of terror, it’s meant to intimidate your enemy
This is a thumbnail of war, it’s meant to kill your enemy
Both are right. But, the ‘gods’ already broke the non-interference pattern, and the lesser-developed species has already been impacted. So, at that point, it becomes a judgment call - will further involvement be beneficial or detrimental?
Don’t forget the “culture” being interfered with is the descendants of humans, forcibly removed from Earth to be slaves in a culture of violence, oppression, and fear. Not exactly the Quimbo of Shoogle VII, who just want to keep hitting people with sticks thinking it’ll cure the plague, or whatever.
Isn’t the “advanced” races doing prime directive to SGC one of the running themes in the show?
The very young do not always do what they are told
The Tolan and the Asgard. Both of them ended up handing over all their stuff when they got fucked.
Nobody:
Oma: Do you want Anubis? Because that’s how you get Anubis!
In a way I guess? Although weren’t eg. the Asgard mainly just pretty stingy with their tech? It’s not like they didn’t interfere in a lot of shit over the millennia, what with being revered as gods and all that – and not interfering in a species’ “natural development” was the main point with the Prime Directive
The Nox and Tollan were way more Prime Directive than the Asgard.
Bottom dudes are all in the same boat. You think some P90’s are gonna dramatically shift the balance of power against wormy dudes in armor with crazy laser sticks?
Nevermind that it does actually work in the show.
You think some P90’s are gonna dramatically shift the balance of power against wormy dudes in armor with crazy laser sticks?
We’ll just ignore the fact that the other guy in that clip was one of the wormy dudes undercover
Jack’s whole “This is a weapon of terror: it’s made to intimidate the enemy. This is a weapon of war: it’s made to kill your enemy” speech made sense though. The goa’uld were so damn full of themselves after they’d spent way too long subjugating some poor backwards fucks whose most advanced military tech was pointy sticks, that their main weapons weren’t actually all that great for murderizing their opponents but worked wonders to keep the poor backward fucks in line. On top of that the armor that jaffa used often seemed more showboat-y than functional, and the personal shield kajiggers the system lords tended to have were honestly a bit shit in many ways, sort of like Dune’s shields but worse.
So hurling a piece of piece of lead at supersonic speeds at a hapless wormy dude is definitely going to be pretty effective in many cases, and their return fire – if any – is going to be more spray’n’pray than anything else because lol good luck aiming with a fucking hip-fired stick, lasers or not.
Yup. The movie basically set the tone that the galaxy was ruled by decadents that were kind of unaware and feckless when it came to novel challenges.
On top of that, SGC figured out that sending scouting parties of 3-4 people was insanely effective at shifting the balance of power across the whole flippin’ galaxy. And that was just with conventional ballistic weapons. It makes complete sense to arm counter-insurgents with what was already working, on a much bigger scale. It gives Earth and your exploratory efforts a lot of breathing room on the cheap.
The show extrapolates from there, but does the odd thing of having to make the Goa’uld super effective at interstellar warfare, to explain the conflict with the Asgard. But by that point, the SGC has looted enough tech to build a single ship, along with a huge chunk of Robotech’s storyline, to save everybody.
Wouldn’t one race enslaving another already violate the Federation’s Prime Directive?
Tell that to the Bajorans.
Picard at 1:55 here suggests it doesn’t necessarily:
To me, it seemed like he was talking about localized slavery. One people originating entirely from a certain planet who come to own and abuse another people from the same planet. The ghoulies are closer to the borg or a hivemind than traditional slavers, in many ways, so examining starfleet’s response to the borg would probably yield a better understanding of their response.
How are the Goa’uld distinct from the Cardassians?
Well for one I don’t remember the goa’uld having a tailor with an ambiguous sexual orientation and a murky past who’s besties with a human doctor, so there’s that at least?
I mean, not quite the same… but there was Nerus.
Ha, I don’t remember that character at all. I’m actually just rewatching SG-1 but I’m only up to season 8 so far
He’s a fun one. Just don’t get too close when he has a cupcake in his sights.
Only watched a season of TNG so no clue.
The Cardassians were more of a DS9 thing, I think they only featured in a few random TNG episodes
Just a few random eps…and two of the most quoted and referenced episodes of the whole franchise! Between Capt. Jellico and “There are Four Lights” c/risa is about 20% content from those two episodes. (I’m not telling you off here, just adding my amazement at what an impact that two-parter has had).
Oh shit I totally forgot about those episodes, been a while since I last rewatched TNG. Great point though, they definitely are memes in themselves
Pulaski ❤ People generally seem to really dislike her, but I think she was way more interesting as a character than Bev
More interesting than Bev, but she had a very judgemental, sometimes callous attitude.
No disagreement there. I think that “roughness” to her was what made the character interesting in the first place, Bev’s a bit milquetoast in comparison
God I miss this kind of Trek writing.
Isn’t this modern world politics in a nutshell?
That and “we come in peace, shoot to kill” and a few other similar statements.
Strategic vs tactical.
SG-1 was arming folks to fight against the goa’uld though, so I’d claim it was also strategic?
Let’s not forget that these directives originate from vastly different points in “our” moral evolutionary “history,” not to mention technological capability (especially versus the rest of the galaxy) and sense of safety/security. If the SGC were founded in the same century as The Federation, would they have a similar stance?
It’s been ages since I saw SG, but weren’t the “aliens” they met mostly other humans that were forcibly relocated to other planets? So then the prime directive shouldn’t really count because they’re all us
Captains have applied the PD to “lost” groups of humans on more than one occasion.
I mean it’s really not a moral thing, in stargate humanity would have been pretty fucked if they didn’t take every opportunity to bash on gods and arm people to revolt
brings to mind a quote from Zero Punctuation: “conservative policies I admit can be a bit callous…when we’re not about to be devoured!”
This got me thinking about who actually came up with the Prime Directive; was it humans or the Vulcans?
As they claim about many things, the Vulcans did it first.
The prime directive is why the federation/ vulcans haven’t reached out to us. For Stargate, we just buried the gate and for whatever reason rah didn’t use a spaceship to re-enslave us.
The Asgard where why the Goa’ul didn’t show up with a spaceship.
Besides the prime directive wouldn’t apply to a planet that was under the rule of a starfaring civilization, so the federation would definitely step in too.
The Prime Directive still applies to space-saving civilizations, its why they didn’t directly interfere in the Klingon Civil war.
space-saving civilizations
Ah, the Lempel–Ziv Empire
Blast you auto carrot!
I think they mean in the BC years. Earth was not an Asgard protected planet at that time.
The humans revolted and buried the gate, and the Goa’uld never returned.
Never mind the fact that the buried gate was one that the Goa’uld brought to Earth in the first place (they either didn’t know about the one in Antarctica or couldn’t bother to retrieve it).
Tell em Carter.
Just go knock out Apollo and call it a day.
