Actually, rereading this pseudo-essay, I totally retract my statement.
I think it's not as good as I originally thought (which was already a mixed opinion).
Here we go.
First, an example of absolutely pointless repetition.
In this essay, we examine the Stargate franchise, among the most successful science fiction series ever aired on television. With storylines that address war, religious fanaticism, intercultural relations, gender issues, and more, the Stargate franchise offers a rich text for analysis. We contend that while the shows present a somewhat utopian vision of the world coming together to face insurmountable odds, they also weave in dominant ideologies of colonialism and a belief that technology will ultimately save humanity. The focus on technology, is manifested through three major perspectives: utilitarianism, utopianism, and determinism. Through a neocolonial critique, we trace the intersections of ideology and technology in the Stargate universe. Although there are many aspects of the Stargate shows that would be appropriate to this particular critique, we focus on three: depictions of religion, race, and gender. We examine these themes, their mythic undertones, and their relationships with each of the technological perspectives listed earlier. Finally, we offer a consideration of how technology serves as the determinative factor by which neocolonialism functions in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
In this essay, we examine the Stargate franchise, among the most successful science fiction series ever aired on television.
With storylines that address war, religious fanaticism, intercultural relations, gender issues, and more, the Stargate franchise offers a rich text for analysis. Through a neocolonial critique, we trace the intersections of race, gender, militarism, religion, and technology in the Stargate universe.
Etc.
Remove this, you cut two pages.
In the film, upon arriving on their first alien world, the team liberates the local population from an evil overlord, an alien posing as Ra, the Egyptian sun god.
What is quoted reflects TPTB's backpedalling as religion is concerned.
In my opinion, in the film, it was heavily implied that Ra brought the mythology with him. Everything.
When we move to the show, we realize that the Goa'uld were so much advanced that there was absolutely no logical reason for the conquerors they were to bother bending to the local rural myths instead of imposing their own epic scale scam.
It also completely misses the fact that the ship which Ra used to come to Earth for the first time already sported Goa'uld/Egyptian hieroglyphs and
humanoid shapes and statues.
Neocolonialism
This whole "essay" is a collection of lose citations, but little meat in between to elaborate on the reasons behind those very citations.
Therefore, after lines and lines citing Shome and co, we finally get to what we'd call their first point.
One of the main themes of the neocolonial narrative in the Stargate universe is its reliance on myth.
[Blah blah blah] ... as we will discuss later in this essay.
Ah. Sorry. I thought we were finally getting started. That's already page 7 of 29.
Wait, here it is:
The neocolonial narrative in the Stargate Universe is intimately tied to ideas about technology and its role in human affairs. Technology is not only the underlying driving force behind the Stargate storylines, but is the lynchpin that highlights representations of material colonization and imperialism. We find, for example, that the Goa’uld did not build the Stargate system, but rather use it for their own colonial practices. The Stargates were built by a race known as the Ancients—who, we learn, are the ancestors of the human race. Such a story is reminiscent of early archeological explanations of ancient monuments like the Pyramids in Egypt and the Americas, the statues on Easter Island, and myths of a lost white race in Africa who built a city of gold: in the eyes of Europeans and Americans, indigenous peoples could not have built the monuments that they live near. Elements such as this underscore the importance of technology as part of the neocolonial mythos of the Stargate universe.
That's basically nothing more than a valid critique of Von Daniken's claims, which are at the base of the whole concept of aliens came there a long time ago to teach us how to do better stuff.
Citing him would have been a good point.
Now, you have to put this premise in its own new context now. Civilizations have evolved worldwide, and most people don't see African, South Americans, Mesopotamians and else as inferior humans too stupid to have invented pyramids, ziggurats or else.
The new context now applies to the
entire human race. In Stargate, there's not such a racial bias. White humans compose the slave populations, and white Jaffa the ranks of the Goa'uld's armies, and the idea is rather clear that no one on Earth came with the ability or vision to build pyramids. Not even WASP ancestors.
Technological Mythos in SG-1 and Atlantis
Encounters with new technologies are primary storytelling devices in the Stargate shows, and they complicate the mythos of the Stargate universe. The Stargate shows often feature problems of and with technology, which then require yet more technology by way of solution—what might be called in a Heideggerian sense the “technological understanding of being†(Dreyfus, 1995). In fact, the characters often face a choice between a technological and a nontechnological solution to a crisis.
In this section, we offer three perspectives for understanding the technological mythos of the Stargate universe: technological utopianism, technological utilitarianism, and technological determinism. All three perspectives intertwine to support the neocolonial narrative presented by the show’s authors—indeed, such colonization would not be possible without technology. We discuss this relationship further in this essay’s conclusion.
Technological Utopianism
The Stargate universe makes sense of attendant anxieties over technology, by subsuming them beneath the social interaction between characters and cultures. This social interaction is expressed as a neocolonial narrative simultaneously relieving anxieties over technology and contemporary colonial practices. Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis function to support the status quo—that is, nothing needs to be changed because everything is working as it should.
Full of hot air. At no point it is explained what's the meaning of prioritizing social and cultural interactions over anxieties about technology.
And as if this ever demonstrated anything, all these big fancy words prove to be a smoke screen as the authors immediately hammer the idea that it proves, God knows how, the neocolonialist silver lining in Stargate.
Maybe it would have been better to say that the show has basically turned out to be America doing what the Goa'uld did, but for different motives (although there's no doubt, as repeatedly displayed by Kinsey, that many think the technology had to be looted at any price to protect the Christian North American culture).
This is not to say, of course, that the show consistently paints the technological future as utopian. In fact, many individual episodes deal with deep-seated unease about the use of technology, particularly in cases when the humans are uninformed about the consequences of that use. For example, in a Stargate Atlantis episode called “Trinity†(a reference to the United States’ nuclear program), astrophysicist Rodney McKay is responsible for the death of a colleague and the destruction of five-sixths of a solar system when he attempts to repair an ancient power system. Episodes like “Trinity†and SG-1’s “Absolute Power,†in which Daniel Jackson is shown a vision of the terrible destruction he will wreak on a helpless Earth if he is given the technological knowledge he thinks he needs to defeat the Goa’uld, display a dystopian vision of technology. These episodes are necessary in order to reinforce the overarching utopian paradigm: at the end, the characters have learned their lessons about the negative use of technology, and progress toward the perfect technological future may proceed.
And this is supposed to be bad because...?
What should have been said is that the writers actually maintain a status-quo in that technology is just too good for the overall Terran population and the sanity of its myths.
A concept only reinforced by an alternate reality episode involving Carter stuck on a different Earth, where the SGC program has been revealed and the world is in turmoil because of this, while the Ori are approaching.
This is simply totally far fetched and forced. It's supporting the ideology that only an elite is smart and wise enough to control the superior technology, nevermind said technology comprising advanced medicines and cures, advanced and clear energy production, advanced robotics and advanced matter synthesizing from energy.
If you really want a truly
sick episode --and SGA has a bag full of them--, go watch Ghost in the Machine (oh oh, could you pick the so obscure reference left there by the knowledgeable writers?)...
Technological Utilitarianism
Another technological perspective we present is technological utilitarianism. In the first season SG-1 episode “The Nox,†the SG-1 team encounters a seemingly primitive race who are much more advanced then they appear. Before the team leaves, though, we are given a glimpse into the politics of the Stargate program. The team is reminded by the Secretary of Defense that their mission is more than exploration—it is meant to produce technological advances for Earth. While Daniel Jackson argues for exploration for its own sake, the Secretary of Defense notes that “even Marco Polo brought back more than exotic spices from his travels.†In this exchange, we see the emphasis on returning technology to Earth for use by the United States government. No mention is made of evaluating such technology, or of different contexts in which the technology might be used. The assumption is simply that advanced technology will be of benefit to the human race, and that exploration for its own sake is not a desirable goal. In the scene, Daniel Jackson resists this imperative, but it is at the heart of all exploration by SG-1.
Actually, this is both easily explainable, and incorrect.
Earth has used the stargate twice for exploration. First in 1945, which is the story of Ernest Littlefield. This year is most important because in the context of WWII, Germany was out of the picture. Were left minors antagonists. Secondly, we were not in the Cold War yet.
The second event is basically decades later, in 94, when humans travel to Abydos on their own for the first time.
However, this is also when they meet the Goa'uld, and understand the danger they represent (if you use the film within the show's canon).
Now, at O'neill's returns, the Giza Program is shut for one year. You could say, hell, now that Ra was gone, why not explore for the sake of exploration.
Err... what about the fact that the last time they did so, they faced an alien with a technology superior to ours?
Maybe it's very manichean, but the day they reboot the SGC, it's precisely because Apophis comes to Earth, and from there, there is no dispute as to the status of Earth: screwed.
So humans of the Tau'ri went to other worlds to find allies and better tech to defend themselves. This is bad?
Bollocks.
It is most appalling that the examples are picked from SG-1, while it is clearly SGA which has, at numerous times, shown the complete careless and totally selfish stripping of alien technologies from other worlds, counting numerous ZPMs, even from places which clearly relied on them for the protection of other humans, thanks to short sighted technocentric McKay (Childhood's End, Epiphany), to the entire defense arsenal of a planet (The Tower), etc.
Through science and technology, then, the survival of humanity as a species is guaranteed, even if it requires the sacrifice of a few. Yet it is not human innovation alone which will save the day. Rather, the characters on the show rely on technology from more advanced races to augment their own limited resources. The mission of both the SG-1 and Atlantis teams is to bring back advanced technology from more evolved races (such as the “Ancients,†the builders of the Stargates and ancestors of humanity). Such artifacts then become the domain of the shows’ scientists, who study the devices and adapt them to human use. This technological mythos of the show is one of utility: technological artifacts are considered from the perspective of how they are made and how they can be used, not whether or in what circumstances that use should occur (Winner, 1986).
Hey, look, I brought back a ZPM. I wonder if we should use to power up our shields and protect everyone down there, or use it for some amazing flashlight spectacle to entertain the incoming Wraith fleet.
Or what those drones? Maybe we should have drone races. I'll paint mine blue. Yours red.
What's that? A satellite with a giant gun? Maybe I could carve "I love you" on the face of a moon with that, because I clearly don't see what other use you can make out of it.
Oh look! A Ha'tak! Maybe we could turn it into an hotel?
The circumstances are rather straightforward: there are nasty people outside. Yes, I know, it's very 2Dish, sorry.
Most of their loots are about weapons, defenses, or critical elements necessary to the former ones.
This ends-based perspective values advanced technology above and beyond humanity’s capacity to invent it for ourselves, creating a worldview in which the answer to almost any problem is to find sufficiently advanced technology and put it to use.
That is correct. All stories are crafted from the perspective that the mightier foe can hardly be beaten with the mere used of brains. That's the problem of Stargate, notably increased during the actual post-Showtime era, it went on a deus ex machina diet presto, due to impossible settings which didn't allow complex solutions, thoughts and victories through workforce and intelligence.
But this is totally due to the fact that the writers have constantly created unbalanced contexts. There has never been a true opposition of equivalent forces. One is always the underdog of another, and the balance is only brought by the use of a magic wand of impossible power.
In some episodes, technology allows the humans of Earth to quite literally rewrite history. For example, in the SG-1 two-part episode “Moebius,†the SG-1 team travels back in time to find a Zero Point Module, or ZPM, a source of nearly limitless power. When their actions change the timeline so that the future is fundamentally changed, they must again travel into the past to undo their actions and set things right. In “Before I Sleep, an Atlantis episode, time travel allows the leader of the expedition to save the lives of the entire expedition when, as a result of the disaster that will kill them, she is thrown backwards in time and has the opportunity to forestall the disaster before it happens. Technology, then, becomes more than just a promise of the future, but a means by which the past can be rearticulated.
Yeah, among time travel episodes, Stargate's are probably the dumbest and simplest ones, yet features absolutely no imagery of victors rewriting history to fit their agenda.
There is no malice whatsoever.
Now look at Star Trek, Doctor Who or else, and
then you'll find eviiil people moving back in time to do nasty things.
Technological Determinism
A third articulation of technology in the Stargate universe is that of technological determinism. Viewed through this perspective, technology is an omnipresent, undeniable force which shapes the course of human history (McLuhan, 1962; McLuhan, 1964).
Okay, I'm literally sick of their pointless and abundant citations, without articulating how they are relevant in the slightest.
I think I'm going to perversely cite Monty Python regularly.
The show often explicitly shows us such ambivalence on the part of “older†races toward advancing humanity beyond their current technological capability. This is, in many ways, a storytelling device: if the humans of Earth come to rely too much on outside help, the show would quickly become dull.
Actually, that's pretty much contradictory to former allegations, and patently false.
The reliance on other advanced species, like the Nox and Asgards, would have helped to maintain the underdog status of Earth, and prevented Earth from being the saviours of multiple galaxies and tomorrow the whole universe.
The plots would have focused on lower scale dilemmas and topics, while leaving the greater and linear menaces to the greater races. To put it simply, Earth could have remained a credible underdog, meddling with aliens races of similar status.
By acting as a cultural forum, “television fictions that present a technological future may address immediate concerns about the impacts of individual technologies, but they do not question the technological society itself†(Banks & Tankel, 1990, p. 25). Although some contemporary science fiction shows (such as Battlestar Galactica) do take as their subject matter the problems and perils of technology, the Stargate shows typically limit such inquiry to small, episode-delimited storylines. The result is that, while human courage and innovation are often the central theme of episodes, they are subsumed under a pervasive technological determinism which “subordinates the natural world†(Ellul, 1967).
And as you guess, a whole bunch of irrelevant nonsense.
The Technological Mythos of Stargate
Nothing worth it. Moving on.
The Stargate as Neocolonial Practice
Goes a mundane description of how and why the Goa'uld and the humans of the Tau'ri use the stargates.
The SGC also looks to set up trade relations with other planets, either for technology or natural resources. Capitalism, then, becomes the basic economic system that all cultures in the universe understand: even in the Pegasus galaxy, the members of the Atlantis expedition set out almost immediately upon their arrival to find allies for the purposes of trading.
Nevermind that the parties exchanging goods are not private parties for 99.9% of the trades in SG.
Tau'ri parties are representing the state, as branches of the state or international alliance of states.
Alien groups are either tribes (mini-state), cities, nations, planets or alliances of planets or space faring species.
Now one could argue that the goods which are traded are produced via resources privately owned. This is true, like weapons, medicines, it's the way it goes for Earth. But Private groups never do it directly, as there's control and oversight from states.
For example, the SG-1 team is often looking for naquada—a resource in the Stargate universe from which the Stargates are made and which is used to produce an great deal of energy—and is willing to trade medicine or other supplies for it to alien planets. Naquada, however, must be mined, and no mention of the mining practices or what alien species actually get in return for their efforts is ever mentioned.
This narrative closely parallels the age of colonization on Earth, from the late fifteenth century exploration of the New World through the age of empire in the nineteenth century. Colonizers initially sailed off to new lands for the purposes of trade, but quickly turned their attention to the mining of gold and other resources. In some cases there may have been an initial trade treaty which quickly devolved into the outright subjugation, displacement, and killing of the indigenous population. Because no depth is given to trade negotiations, the audience is invited to believe that a win-win situation is created between the SGC and other planets. Furthermore, the SGC can be seen as benign because they are not subjugating a planet like the Goa’uld. This is the central contrast shown between the harsh colonial practices of the Goa’uld and the benevolent neocolonialism of the SGC. Yet, as we argue below, the colonial practices of the SGC are, in their own way, ideologically charged.
Ah, finally, the arguments.
We have one clear case of aliens mining naqahdah for the Tau'ri: the Unas, and I'm very sorry to disappoint the author, but unless there's evidence of the contrary, the Tau'ri and Unas have established a fair trade. The Unas keep total control of the local naqahdah resources, exploit it the way they wish, and get goods in return.
That is, it took Daniel Jackson to avoid a massacre of both sides, since the military guys were quite pushing a confrontational solution to end this issue.
This is, of course, Stargate. In the reality, the US would have probably kept pouring soldiers, rockets, fast vehicles and what else on and on until the US owned starship would have came into orbit of the planet and leveled Unas tribes with railguns, with the great advantage of not needing to come with a fine neocon propaganda on CNN, Fox News and else, because it would have been a total secret.
The Stargate is not just a piece of technology for moving people from point A to point B in the universe: it also collapses time in a figurative sense, as many of the worlds populated by humans in the universe have not advanced technologically. This allows the writers of the show to redeploy the myths of the past in the show’s storylines. For example, SG-1 visits a planet that is protected by the Asgard, a benevolent alien species who take on the personae of ancient Norse gods. However, this world is in the same state of technological stagnation as the worlds of the Goa’uld. This seems strange, since SG-1 discovers that the Asgard would reveal their true form to these people once they have reached an appropriate stage of development. Presumably, since the Scandinavian peoples of Earth were able to advance, this planet should be at a similar stage; the disparity is perplexing.
Why? Because they're white and are not limited enough to stagnate technologically like various aboriginal or specifically African tribes have?
Why, on a different planet and in different conditions, what applies to many tribes on Earth couldn't apply to the not so numerous refugees of Cimmeria praytell?
The explanation for this seeming discrepancy can be found in an examination of religion in the Stargate universe. The Asgard’s technology renders them godlike to primitive humans, and the aliens use holographic technology to impersonate human gods and instruct their followers. Although the Asgard are benevolent guardians, their religious practices nonetheless serve to stifle technological innovation on the planets under their protection, albeit in a less socially destructive way than is evident on Goa’uld worlds.
Much better.
Through depiction of alien religions as based on “false gods,†the show is able to re-center White Christian masculinity, despite the fact that the Christian God is almost never mentioned in the shows. Gods that are mentioned are framed as “false†or explained away as alien races. In framing gods this way, the show is able to depict their followers as backwards and in need of enlightenment as brought by SG-1, who often unmask the “magic†of the false gods as technology.
Damn, it took seventeen fucking pages to finally get not only a point, but a decent one.
That is, there's no clear attempt to convert alien species to Christianism, for all believers still have access to one identified myth, belief, which is actually verified multiple times in the show: ascension. A zen-like and endogenous belief totally free on any central divine figure, as it's up to the individual to get there.
Neither Christ nor Anti-Christ. No leader. No demiurge. Just a personal and intimate voyage. No rule, no ritual. Perhaps one of the best fictional religions possible, if only the easy cop out that it's real since we see people ascend, but I don't think the show could have kept going on while keeping the reality of this movement shrouded in total mystery.
This unmasking of “false†gods implies an alternative (monotheism, presumably Christianity) and serves as a subtle form of religious imperialism. SG-1 explains that worship of the false gods makes people slaves, not righteous followers. Enlightenment is not just through debunking “magic,†but also through bringing an ideology of individualism to other worlds. This individualism is framed in terms of both an American and a Christian sense of identity: the desire to set others on the “correct†path. In the representation of contemporary U.S. society in the Stargate shows, ancient mythologies and pantheism are understood through the lens of Christianity where the intertwining of Christendom, economics, and democracy pervade U.S. nationalistic and patriotic discourse.
Teal'c, leader of the Free Jaffa, has read the Bible, found it interesting, but never rejected his intimate faith in ascension and Kheb.
The religions represented on the shows also reflect colonialist practices on Earth. For example, many of the Goa’uld are given the names of ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Celtic gods: Amaterasu is the sun goddess from Japanese mythology, Camulus is from Celtic mythology, and Zipacna is from Mayan mythology, to name a few. Throughout the series at least fifty-five Goa’uld are seen or referred to by other characters. Most were the gods of people who were subjugated and colonized at some point in their history by European colonial powers, in which religious missionary work and conversion to Christianity played a large role. Polytheistic religion thus stands in for barbarism in the narrative of the show; while Christianity is not explicitly offered as an alternative, the implication is that peoples visited by SG-1, unchained from their “false†faiths, are now free to follow the “true†path. Furthermore, when the Ori are introduced and Dr. Jackson links them to myths of the devil on earth, by implication SG-1 is fighting on the side of the “true†faith.
Camulus is actually more Gaulic than broad Celtic. The Gauls, although owned by Romans, could certainly not be more European.
Cronus, either Greek or Roman, stands in place for a Titan of conquerors.
The authors miss the point that the show picked from a movie which had mainly based the false Egyptian god plot from the fact that Middle East is exotic and pyramids kick ass, as simple as that.
Although not explicitly articulated in the show as Christianity, the highest form of spirituality is expressed in a utopian vision of technology. For example, the act of walking through the Stargate can be seen as a sublime technological baptism.
There are billions of way to read this.
And it continues...
First time travelers are often depicted as awestruck and hesitant before entering the gate. These travelers’ trepidation exemplifies a lack of faith that is overcome by taking the first step towards a new birth on a different planet. Thus, the same technology that allows SG-1 to “liberate†alien worlds from “false gods†also provides its own connection to the divine.
Yeah, because one obviously has to make unconscious ties to Christianity or Christianism when entering the event horizon of the stargate. I suppose Ford was just a sinful nigger with no soul then, because he surely found it rather fun for his first time.
Or maybe it's not a question of faith, but just a question of... how to say it... precaution, survival instincts and fear of the unknown?
Damn the argument is so stupid I can't waste more words on this.
Even more illustrative is the “Ascension†storyline, in which we learn that the Ancients advanced so far, both technologically and socially, that many of them shed their physical bodies and became beings of pure energy with extensive powers. In the shows, these beings are composed of white light which, while not strictly humanoid in appearance, nonetheless evoke Christian angels. Furthermore, since the city of Atlantis represents the pinnacle of Ancient civilization, its resemblance to a cathedral visually reinforces the connection between technological advancement and a higher state of spiritual being
Better argument, but I don't think many people would have represented ascension in a different way than pure light. However, a version from the '70s would have been interesting. :D
Despite being represented as a divine process, ascension also thus serves as a rhetorical examination of the perils of absolute power.
And a good one, for the simple fact that to remain leaderless, the faith in ascension must not result in ascended beings influencing the fates of mortals. Otherwise, you get gods.
Race
The concept of race would, at first, seem to be effaced in the Stargate universe. Various SGC teams are racially mixed, as is the Atlantis expedition, and the characters generally do not explicitly discuss Earth’s racial issues. Contemporary depictions of race are transposed instead onto off-world humans and nonhuman aliens. The main depiction of race in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis is an amalgamation of racial stereotypes based in a U.S. and Eurocentric view, often mixed with religious overtones.
Teal’c, the physically imposing alien member of SG-1, is the noble savage/warrior and is an amalgamation of African, African American, and Native American stereotypes. He is played by an African American actor. Teal’c is a member of the Jaffa race who serves the Goa’uld both as warriors and as incubators for larval Goa’uld symbiotes. Stereotypically, the Jaffa are a tribal race whose culture and practices seem wholly different from Anglo society. They—and Teal’c—are strong, taciturn, and aggressive. If something is not working, Teal’c is most likely to hit it or shoot it when all else fails.
Actually, he's no Worf, and you'd better check out a certain comic book character called Ronon Dex. He
is a brute, yet his civilization was quite on par with ours.
Teal'c is more like Spock with muscles and a cool tattoo. He favours reflection and meditation.
Before becoming a member of SG-1, Teal’c served as the commander of Apophis’ armies. However, in the pilot episode, “Children of the Gods,†Teal’c betrays Apophis to help SG-1 free prisoners (including themselves) who had been sentenced to death. Despite this action, as someone who recently served the Goa’uld, Teal’c is not immediately trusted at the SGC. Upon arriving through the Stargate, though, Teal’c relinquishes his weapon in a symbolic gesture of surrender. In this case, Teal’c immediately agrees to help the Earth in its fight with the Goa’uld, giving up his family and status immediately and apparently without second thoughts. The only reason that he gives is that he believes the SGC can actually defeat the Goa’uld. Later, we find that there are rumblings of rebellion within the Jaffa people, but they need the help of the Earth to achieve their freedom. This is part of the neocolonial narrative: native people cannot liberate themselves without the help of dominant white society.
Added to what I already said, Anubis' First Prime was blond and white. Thank you.
In the Stargate Atlantis pilot episode, “Rising,†the Atlantis team encounters off-worlders—the Athosians—in friendship, rather than as enemies. As we explained earlier, Atlantis expedition members accidentally reawaken the Wraith, unleashing them on the Pegasus galaxy in general and the Athosians in particular. Despite the fact that the Wraith killed or captured some of her people, after the Atlantis expedition rescues the remaining Athosians, Teyla joins the Atlantis team. Teyla, then, is stereotypically represented as the “good†native. She is willing to learn about other people and is open to their ways. In fact, Teyla can be seen as an amalgamation of the Pocahontas and Sacagawea myths of earth—a female native who helps the intrepid white explorers out of friendship.
I cannot dispute this. Although I'm afraid the logic behind that claim is not the same as mine, I have found SGA to be terribly disturbing in the ethics and dumbed down plots to prevent people from having access to an honest and fair presentation of all points from all sides.
Most of the time, the solution and ending is totally biased on forced in favour of the Tau'ri saviours who have a right to loot any tech as long as it's needed, notably because they have the superior gene and only them can use it properly.
Mind you, the idea of a gene therapy to indirectly "enhance"
any human is pretty much flying against core Christian beliefs.
I can't say I'm too hot on the gene alteration thing myself, and Science Fiction offers numerous sources to ponder this eventuality.
Language is one mechanism for setting apart aliens as other. Strangely, all humans in both the Milky Way and the Pegasus galaxy speak American English. Other science fiction shows have at least made plausible excuses for English being used on a show (Star Trek, for instance, had a universal translator), whereas the Stargate shows offer no canon explanation as to why the characters can instantly communicate with all the humans they encounter.
No, just chalk it up to TPTB being just too lazy and unimaginative to come with a plausible explanation. And it's not like there were thousands of opportunities!
When “good†aliens like Teal’c and Teyla speak English, they are still marked as different. Both characters almost never use contractions; there is no reason for this other than to set them apart as different from the other characters and mark them as “alien.†Teal’c and Teyla, although from off-world, have clearly interacted with other people and aliens who do use contractions, but because they are close friends with the humans from earth their use of the English language has to be more than perfect. In their perfection, they become exoticized and marked as different.
This applies to all aliens, and it has more to do with a TV trope, a cliché due to lack of creativity, than a true neocolonialist agenda.
Of course, one could always argue that this TV trope dates back to times segregation and the Apartheid were still vivid.
A utilitarian view of technology would seem to offer ways to close the gap between dominant culture and other. From this perspective, technology could be used in ways which minimize difference—yet it is all too often is used to bolster dominant ideology. In fact, a radical use of technology in the shows indicates a blatant colonial practice: that of transforming and subsuming the “other†completely. After the success of their ATA retrovirus which writes the ATA gene into human DNA, the humans of Stargate Atlantis attempt to defeat the Wraith by creating a retrovirus that eliminates the insect portion of their DNA, rendering the terrifying Wraith into harmless, amnesiac humans. The memory component is symbolically important: not only does the virus refigure physical appearance, but it removes any recollection of life as a Wraith, allowing the humans to rewrite memory as they see fit. Unlike tretonin, which can be viewed as a tool of liberation (freeing the Jaffa from the need to incubate Goa’uld symbiotes in order to survive), the Wraith-human retrovirus is a biological weapon whose result would arguably be genocide. Yet the decision not to use it comes not as a product of ethical discussion, but from the retrovirus’s failure. When their test subject, “Michael,†begins to remember his former life, the humans realize the retrovirus will not be an effective neutralizer. Michael reverts back to a Wraith and escapes back to his “hive,†but subsequent episodes reveal that as a result of his transformation, he is not fully accepted back into Wraith society. The leader of his “hive†demands the retrovirus from the Atlantis expedition so that they may attack other Wraith with it and, having turned them temporarily into humans, feed on them. The humans are then finally forced to confront the ethical ramifications of their invention: is it right to allow the Wraith to use the retrovirus, given that their victims will—at least temporarily—be human, and therefore worthy of concern? Faced with their own destruction, the humans agree to hand over the retrovirus. However, we will never know the outcome of that decision, for the Wraith betray the uneasy truce, and at the end of the storyline, the expedition members are forced to (presumably) kill Michael and dozens of other transformed-but-reverting Wraith in order to prevent their escape. This action guarantees both the safety of Atlantis and the resolution of their ethical dilemma. The retrovirus may have been a mistake, but all traces of its use have been obliterated. Once again, the humans have rewritten memory to their own ends, assuring their survival.
Agreed, but again, that's SGA.
The Wraith were an idea the producers and writers had no clue how to develop. The whole show was a last minute decision, a spin off instead of a major movie.
The treatment of the Wraith has been extremely superficial, and it was saddening to witness Andie Fritzell (playing most Wraith Queens) seeming to speculate and know more about the Wraith than the whole band of hackwriters at the helm of the scripting department.
Hell, Flanigan literally had to remind the writers that it could be good if the characters mourned the loss of Elizabeth Weir. When it comes down to
that, you realize it simply has more to do with sheer
stupidity than any super devil white supremacist agenda.
The last part deals with a curious stacking of awkward and bilateral feminism.
Just for the note, tretonin has been lately known as produced by the Tok'ra, not Earth; there is no issue finding a way to help the Hak'tyl survive without killing more Jaffa when all Jaffa, women as well from other planets, would already be taking the tretonin treatment.
EDIT: typos and other semantics corrected.
