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Stargate: Atlantis (thoughts on ethics and stupidity)
This is a thing that I've noticed, something of a dividing line in how SGA is viewed -- there are people who see the show as darker than SG-1 and people who see the show as lighter (there are also people who don't watch SG-1, but they're in a different, non-comparison section).
I see SGA not as lighter or darker but as... more confused and less ethical/moral than SG-1.
I mentioned, in my post about the episodes, that both Morpheus and Misbegotten made me think about how much I love Daniel. And that, to me, is the place where I'm not quite in the same place with Atlantis as I am with SG-1. They don't have a Daniel. Not even that they don't have Daniel, but they don't have a Daniel-figure, a non-military, strongly ethical advisor who refuses to back down in the face of military certainty. Daniel Jackson can be pig-headed and self-righteous, but after watching Atlantis for two seasons and change, I am so happy that he is. His stubborness and his conviction in himself are the tools that he's used to stand up against his military commander (who was his friend).
On Atlantis, we appear have a civilian leader. We're told that Elizabeth Weir is a diplomat and a negotiator, that she's used to getting warring factions to agree with each other. On the basis of this, I thought that there was a chance that Atlantis would be more ethically run than the military SGC.
For me, it comes down to this -- both Michael and Misbegotten are the results of unethical stupidity on the parts of the Atlantis crew. Daniel Jackson would have protested (not just looked uncomfortable and stopped complaining when his military commander was unhappy with him).
I agree that the only choice in the end of Misbegotten was to fire on the colony. In fact, it was the first smart thing that the Atlantis people had done the entire episode! They never should have come to that choice.
The retrovirus is a failure. At this moment in time, it is a failure. It doesn't work. You can't rely on prisoners to give themselves daily injections and you can't devote all your resources to making sure that it gets done. As long as the retrovirus is temporary, it is a failure.
In addition to that, it is unethical to perform medical experiments on prisoners. Massively shortening a prisoner's lifespan, making them vulnerable to all kinds of sickness that they weren't prey to before, making them total amnesics and pretty much dependent upon you for survival is all hideously unethical.
More than that, it was the height of stupidity to change Michael on Atlantis itself. How much of their current strife could have been avoided if they'd been intelligent enough to use the Alpha site from the start? Also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, they should not have had Ronon there. No. You do not put 'hunted for years' guy in with someone who is of the type that hunted him. And if you do, then you should remove him the second that he shows himself incapable of rational thought when it comes to your prisoner.
Finally, if they really had to stab Michael in the back, it was criminally stupid of them to do so using a method that Michael had already once overcome. And that's not even touching the ethical issues involved with fucking over someone who has been playing straight with you.
All in all, very badly played by the Atlantis crew.
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Yes! Thank you for stating that. This has been bugging me about Atlantis ever since they introduced the whole "changing wraith's DNA" storyline. I could never seem to put into words what it was exactly that bothered me so much--because, yes, the wraith are evil & want to eat them, so eliminating them should be good, right? But that's what bugged me. There's a huge difference between killing someone because they want to kill you/invade your planet (self-defense), and changing someone's DNA so that they're a species you like better. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I can understand the wanting to avoid killing them all, but I think it's worse to play god with their DNA until it suits your own purposes. Yet I get the feeling that as viewers, we're supposed to think this is a good thing. I hate to bring this up in a Stargate post, but it reminds me of the attitude of "we should be allowed to torture prisoners and be above any law because we're the Good Guys and are being threatened." The whole storyline & the fact that there's no real Daniel-like voice pointing out the unethical issues really has rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, it's war, but that's the time when it's most important to be aware of moral issues, so you don't end up just as bad as other side.
And that's not even touching the ethical issues involved with fucking over someone who has been playing straight with you.
No kidding. Now they've made an enemy out of Michael. He would have been a really interesting ally. *sigh*
But, despite all this, I do still love the show & will continue to watch.
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Oh. Er. Wait...
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It's always self defense for humans in Atlantis, since it's been established that a Wraith can't not feed, he / she might not want to, but if the going gets rough enough, that's what's gonna happen, and at present we're it, we're their food source.
These are SGA's options :
a) Die fighting an hopeless war.
b) Run away like the Ancients did, and allow millions of humans to die.
c) Kill the Wraith down to the last one, since we can't coexist.
d) Change them or all humans so we can coexist.
Exactly were are SGA's ethical choices?
Oh, and of course, from a S1 episode, there's always another option, one that someone has already thought of before.
e) Remove the food source. Kill (since transporting them isn't viable) all humans in the Pegasus Galaxy.
Or, taking SG1 into account...
f) Show the Ori that there's another Galaxy filled with humans.
Without some changes to canon, to the Wraith as we know them, there are no ethical choices.
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Anyway. Yes, I agree there's no chance of coexistence with the Wraith. That's why I said I thought the better choice was to fight & kill them, rather than genetic experimentation, which answers your multiple choice list of options. But I agree that the Atlantis crew is definitely stuck with few options. Even though my post above was pretty much to one side of the debate, I have to say after talking with some people, I'm much more ambivalent about whether I think the DNA therapy is right or wrong. Azarsuerte made an interesting comment:
"I don't think we're supposed to not notice the moral ambiguity[...]I think what we're supposed to see is that the *characters* haven't really realized the ethical implications yet because, as Woolsey pointed out to Sheppard, they don't see the Wraith as people, most of them even after the treatment. They've convinced themselves it's more humane than fighting a war of attrition"
So, I'm not hundred percent sure what I think about it one way or another. It's an interesting dilemma though.
Show the Ori that there's another Galaxy filled with humans.
I know you're joking, but on both shows, letting the Ori & Wraith know there was another galaxy of humans was accidental. Which now that I think about it, is an interesting parallel. Or did you mean, show the Ori that the Pegasus galaxy exists? Because that would just be bad for everyone involved! (I know you were joking. Nevermind.)
Without some changes to canon, to the Wraith as we know them, there are no ethical choices.
Well, there is. That's what this whole post is about. Whether medical experimentation (or in this case, genetic) on your enemy is ethical & justified. Obviously, you agree that it is. Like I said, despite my last post, I'm now on the fence. And you make some good points.
But I love moral ambiguity in my shows. :)
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So their choices really are:
1)Use the retrovirus to make the Wraith vulnerable and then kill them.
2)Use the retrovirus to make the Wraith vulnerable and treat them as prisoners of war.
3)Use the retrovirus to make the Wraith vulnerable and attempt to treat them as prisoners of war but only if it doesn't take too many resources (what they ended up doing).
4)Die.
As I pointed out in a post in my lj, what is most bothersome to me about this is not the way the Atlanteans acted but that they continue to insist that they are doing what's best for the Wraith by "curing" them, even when a Wraith they have "cured" tells them in no uncertain terms that that is not what he wanted.
Before "Michael" Beckett had enough wiggle room to believe that administering the retrovirus was really curing the Wraith of their disease; after "Michael," Beckett's continued insistence that that's what he's doing is pure denial.
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God, yes. It really does. And someone actually said, 'permanent solution' last episode in regards to the Wraith, which is too close to 'final solution' not to give me the creeps.