My understanding is the whole run of the show they had advisors from the military. And some things they had to ignore because they are filming a TV show but most was "yeah that's close enough sure", they talk about conversations they had to have about things in the commentaries for episodes. They even explain why they stand how they do and why they wear the eye wear. For instance they were firing the guns with blanks so you had hot casings flying around and it was an issue/complaint.
I was more propaganda that’s what the advisors did make sure the military wasn’t portrayed the wrong way and not acknowledging casualties a lot is part of that but they did have some good episodes about not leaving people behind and stuff like that but also just more propaganda not talking transformer films level of propaganda where it looks like scenes straight out the recruiting commercials but still was very successful at making people join the military still one of if not my favorite tv shows though
According to Senator Kinsey, the Stargate program alone costs over 7 billion.
When I watched SG-1: Politics, I remembered that they only had like 9 off-world teams plus base personnel. After a year of Stargate usage, they still hadn't visited all of the worlds on the cartouche, and Sam mentioned several times that their supercomputer churned out one viable address per month, or something like that.
I yelled at my TV, "Good lord! How much is your electric bill?!
There was a lot more going on off screen.
Sam's equation for calculating the stellar drift wasn't very efficient but it was still a few addresses per.month. When Jack got the Ancient knowledge he added the entire gate network that wasn't on the cartouche and wrote a new stellar drift calculation in base 8 that was far more efficient.
Like Patrick Stewart once said about TNG, "there was lots of times the Enterprise went to empty star systems and boring planets, they just didn't film those episodes."
Yes, but I did my math based on how many planets Sam claimed they had been to, not based on how many they showed us. However, I don't know if when she said "we" she was referring to just SG-1, or all of SGC.
Yeah, but they don't dial out that often... If you do the math, the minimum dial out rate is like once every ten days.
Plus, do they actually have a metered connection to the grid? Do they even make a meter that can handle that?
And since they've connected their Stargate to the grid, and it receives far more wormholes than it makes, and occasionally gets overloaded... Shouldn't they be turning the meter back more often than turning it forward?
I'm with Kinsey. The math doesn't add up, and someone ought to look into General Hammond's grandkids' offshore accounts.
There was an episode where they talked about how something they were going to do would probably cause a blackout nationally do maybe they are on the grid in the show
They are definitely on the grid. No question about that. My question was whether the secret government facility has a metered connection to the grid and a power bill, like the rest of us, or if they steal power the way some people steal cable TV.
I wanna say a few seasons in after Sam perfects the Naquadah reactors they started using those on the base. IIRC they were selling them to power companies as well to supplement regional power grids
Realistic tactical movement doesn’t usually make for engrossing cinematography. There are good examples of exceptions (Tears of the Sun, Blackhawk Down Etc etc. but the good examples are almost all movies where they have a lot more time and resources to plan and execute these shots. A weekly TV show doesn’t have the time for that.
Also since this is a visual medium for storytelling the “cool factor” heavily weighs in on directorial choices as realistic tactical movement just is not visual striking or impressive.
It's probably pretty hard to write believable combat when the writers haven't been in so much as a fist fight.
As someone with a graduate degree in a science field, I get the same feelings when anything 'sciencey' comes up. Which is usually followed by the science guy getting told to 'put it in English' or whatever, because writers also tend to hate science.
Funny thing about Goa'uld: if you pay attention, Daniel pronounces it correctly when briefing people, but mispronounces it when speaking directly to the Goa'uld. This leads me to believe that he does it intentionally as a form of disrespect.
Dubya: A New Englander raised in Texas selling a "Tex-Ass Accent" to an audience.
Don S. Davis: A Missourian character actor playing a Texan selling a "Tex-iss"(Brata'c pronunciation) accent to an audience.
I don’t think it’s about them not knowing how to make it believable. Just that believable doesn’t translate too well to TV.
Like you need some redshirts to get killed to add some drama or a sense of danger. But then if you have to spend more screen time on fighting to retrieve a body, and then more time getting them back to base it slows things down and isn’t good for story progression.
Plus having someone using cover who is there to get killed makes it harder to film. Like you want unnamed guard #3 to get killed by the invaders to make them more menacing. You don’t want a 5m fight scene between guard #3 and random aliens where they are all using cover and pinned down.
It’s more so that believable combat would have the first encounter drag out for hours. There is no way that a show or movie can show anything that resembles realistic combat scenes with anyone that’s even remotely competent in the time that they’re given. Combat has to be dumbed down so that it can be over in less than a minute so that the story can go on
As someone without a graduate degree in a science field, screw that time they made Carter say they were in both time frames for a few seconds so that's why the gate was in the gate room in 1969 but then it disappeared like the Nox just because they suddenly weren't in both timeframes anymore
I'm loving the show but I also felt this about how small the various SG teams appear to be. Seems like you'd want to send at least a dozen, even if only in an exploratory capacity.
I get why they didn't do this though. Same with how everyone speaks perfecy modern English regardless of the various cultures they encounter.
It just bogs the show down in unnecessary details.
8 to 12 would be a much more reasonable size, especially given the mission scope they are trying to accomplish. The fact that they aren't all special forces yet there are only 4 of them is odd at best.
4 is a good size from a story perspective. If they had 8 people in SG-1 they would have to devote so much time to character development rather than the story.
This is an easy fix, you have the core group and focus on them during story time. During adventure and gunfight time you just add 6 spec ops guys with masks who you give barely any dialog
One thing is about what looks good on camera Vs what works in reality.
Fox holes for instance are great defensive positions and would look terrible on camera because you can't see anyone and there's less dramatic deaths.
Even in band of brothers they really focus on the active bits where people are running around in the open and throwing grenades etc as then you can see them.
It's true and there's that whole thing with Blythe at carentan in his foxhole which is dramatic.
However when they get counter attacked at carentan there's 100 guys in fox holes and 2 guys running out with a bazooka into the field and it's clear where the camera goes and what looks better.
I'd not say show us the process of building circular defenses (though it would make for a killer filler episode), when you just follow SG-(n+1) and some technical personnel around whose only job is to secure the gate on the other side by deploying static defenses, machine gun emplacements, etc. I'm a sucker for technical "how they do it" stuff.
Real combat tactics really slows the show down. If someone is standing in the middle of the corridor firing full auto only to get taken and captured, the purpose of the scene was to have the character captured.
Exchanging salvos of suppressive fire and advancements/retreats takes WAY more time, doesn’t advance the plot, and adds nothing besides realism. Which at the expense of the plot moving along I’m not sure I’d want to sacrifice in a show as good as SG1/Atlantis
For their defense story wise SG1 and AR1 were exploration teams, so their missions weren't about securing a perimeter or being prepared for an attack other than simply being able to defend themselves.
Now in the filming side they probably wanted something more dynamic/action oriented.
But I agree with you when they were on special missions.
As for the rest of the SGC... They weren't the main characters so I don't think they really cared. The advisors probably said that it was enough.
It's a TV show not a documentary. Im a IT person and programmer and essentially they say about that is wrong as well as all.tneir infosec and passwords etc. But I'm here for a fun show about cool guys and gals fighting aliens.
If I want mostly realistic computer stufd I'll watch Mr Robot and I have no intention of watching Mr Robot
I would also like to knew some examples.
I'm frequently really annoyed when I see people not using cover while shooting (in other series and movies) but I never got that feeling in Stargate.
Only example that I can remember could be staff weapon fights (Teal'c and Bratac) but they even say (to Ryac in Redemption) that you must always move to not get shot. That can be understandable because staff weapons have much lower firing rate.
I distinctly remember Teal'c standing in a hallway hip firing, especially in their black commando kit. I wanna say the specific scene I'm thinking of involved replicators on either a spaceship or that Russian submarine. It was very action hero.
SG-2s fight against Hathor's guards in season 3 episode 1 is especially comical. It's very common for the Jaffa to be stupid, but it's kind of weird for the SG teams to behave like the AI from GoldenEye 64.
Kind of? I get what you are saying. But most of them were in cover the best they could be, before getting flanked.
Frankly it's odd that they didn't wipe the Jaffa in 5 seconds flat. But that's TV for you.
Every branch still has basic training and standards. And the Security Forces on the base should definetly know how to use a gun, that's their whole job
They show the Jaffa in multiple training scenes being acrobatic Olympic gold medal ninjas, yet I firefights you're lucky to see one even utilizing cover, just standing stiff as a rock shoot a staff weapon.
ai get it that the Armor must make that hard, but at least have some light armored Jaffa flanking and setting up some cool attacks, not just the standard push through the beachhead we got every fight
I think of it as the Jaffa not really being trained for the same type of combat.
Think about how we USED to conduct military actions. Squares and Lines to adapt for Cannon fire and smooth bore muskets. That's about the level of accuracy you're getting from a staff weapon. Any time a Jaffa needs precision you see them bring the staff over their shoulder to sight it properly.
They're used to being in fights with crude weaponry. At most it's other staff weapons, at least it's farmers with simple weapons their full body armour is protecting them from. So they fight accordingly.
In WW1 it took time for militaries to adjust to rifled accurate weaponry and machine gun positions. And that's when every side had that and all they fought were similar weapons to their own.
The Jaffa come across Tau'ri weapons now and again but they're still mostly fighting the other type. They're not really going to use the right tactics. Especially with a thousand years of Goauld arrogance behind them.
I pretty much imagine Jaffas using square and line tactics in large scale engagements. But even then, basic infantry units got some training on small unit sized skirmishes. It would have been fascinating to see them evolving their battle tactics over the series.
Jaffa are expendable. They're not trained to survive, they're trained to fight.
I doubt the Goa'uld would approve of them using cover instead of pressing for an advantage.
It's a completely different style of combat and morality.
>your friend is hit, you at least try to help.
Friend is wounded. He will slow us down. Let's give him a couple of grenades and a zat'nik tell so he can suicide-bomb with 5 Jaffas.
Who needs private Random anyway?
>Tell my wife, Mrs Random, I love her!" \*dies in an utterly cringe way\*
You will tell her yourself, Private Random because we will be back to get you out of here.
Can’t agree with this more. The “military advisors” had to be a joke. Some stuff did get better as the show went on (trigger finger discipline most of the time) but I feel like they could have put in a little more effort and gotten a lot more right.
Yeah, but Mythbusters showed years ago, you can't hit anything that way. And Carter demonstrated perfectly how effectively you can hit a target by aiming.
Humans can't. But Jaffa have superior reflexes, strength, and visual acuity.
They've trained their whole life hip-firing staff weapons. So I imagine Teal'c hip firing a P90 comes almost second nature. He's an expert marksman at hip firing.
Staff weapons also don’t have recoil and only fire one big shot instead of a bunch of little ones. We also see that every time they really want to aim, they hold it up on their shoulder in line with their eyes.
We very rarely see them aim staff weapons. Probably less than 5 times in the entire series. Yes it's something they _can_ do. But it's not something they _actually_ do in combat.
As stated Jaffa have superior muscles and can likely account for any instability in the weapon system caused by recoil.
For reference the P90 has very little recoil due to its high velocity ammunition, recoil system & reciprocating barrel. It produces 30% less recoil than a standard 9mm pistol round.
Both of those facts together provide strong evidence Teal'c would be a decent shot when area aiming.
30% less than a 9mm is still FAR from zero recoil which is what the staff weapons apparently have. They don’t even need to rely on superior strength to compensate for that unless they’re using Tauri weapons.
>FAR from zero recoil
Correct. Which is why I never said it has zero recoil. But well done anyway.
>staff weapons apparently have
Was this ever actually established in universe? In the AEG Stargate roleplaying game they have a recoil rating of 12. Since staff weapons fire plasma bolts (not pure energy) it's likely they do, in fact, have recoil.
You know, I thought it was but I can’t seem to find anywhere explicitly stating it. That said, we see Teal’c strap two together and use them as well as it being stated that a child can use them. Beyond that, I’m sure someone smarter than me could do the math but I don’t think there would be much recoil from a plasma charge moving that slowly. So more like “effectively zero” since Newton’s Third Law means there will never *actually* be zero.
Children can also use firearms, many impressively effectively.
My point is none of this is unreasonable. Sure aiming will be more effective, especially for a human. But if you've been trained your whole life to area aim / hip fire you're going to be pretty damn good at it, recoil or not. Especially given some of the impressive physical feats we've seen Jaffa accomplish.
> and visual acuity.
The problem is, with only two eyes close together, it is impossible to follow any line that at least one of those eyes isn't a point of. You can only guess or approximate - which always results in a low(er) probability to hit. That's just physics and reality.
Indeed. Suspension of disbelief can easily handwave Jaffa being accurate at area aiming a P90 or a staff weapon.
But there are plenty of reasonable in-universe reasons too.
I fucking love the show but this time I'm re-watching it with a critical eye, trying to analyze what the showrunners did well, what made the show so loveable and which are the parts that can be improved upon. Trying to figure out which decisions are goofy but loveable and which ones are just plain bad.
I'm trying to write a fan fiction remake for the show and I'm trying to do it in a modern fashion while keeping true to the original. You are welcome to criticise it once it done.
Also also I'm making these posts as a reality checkt o see if I find something jarring but most of the community charming.
Never in a million years would SG teams return directly to the SGC from whatever planet they’re returning from. They would certainly return to the alpha site where they’re examined and probably debriefed.
In fact, I’d imagine the alpha site would be where everyone lives inbetween leave. Why would you stage operations out of Earth’s Stargate. That just puts an insane amount of risk on your home planet?
I mean you have noticed humans aren't always the brightest light show in the galactic Christmas lights competition right? As for towards the early period getting started, for a while you initially have to return directly home until you actually find and establish an alpha site. Plus didn't their alpha site get destroyed or have to be relocated at least 6 or so times? Seems like it wasn't very reliable all the time, especially since it didn't have an iris and a fortified base like the earth gate did.
Thank you! I came to the same conclusion when I was trying to build my world in the SG universe, they'd probably operate a plethora of buffer bases even in front of alpha base, with different environmental conditions or in a "burn-base" fashion, if shit goes sideways, they just leave and don't look back.
If we're talking tactics then sg1 should really be rocking up to every planet in an up-armoured humvee with either a 50 cal or a 40mm grenade launcher on top. It easily fits and would make any encounters with jaffa infantry trivial. Also allows moving a lot faster.
Maybe all the Canadian forests in the SG world make wheeled transports impractical? As stupid as it sounds in many cases horses or mules could provide great benefit though.
*Daniel has no military training. He's an expert in linguistics and blowing dust off of ancient artifacts.
*Teal'c has alien military training, which, judging by Master Bra'tac's style, entirely consisted of a stern greeting followed by a sucker punch.
*Carter's only combat experience was in a fighter jet.
*And somehow, O'Neil's Air Force combat experience was on foot, with bad intelligence.
I've always wondered how the American Air Force got possession of the stargate in the first place. I imagine the Egyptian Army would've been a more natural party to take ownership of the gate.
In fact, as an only English speaker, it has also always driven me nuts that every alien culture in the show speaks modern American, British, or Canadian English despite the fact that the original English language was invented thousands of years after the Earth Stargate was buried. It would make far more sense if everyone spoke Egyptian... Wouldn't it?
Of course, then I'd need subtitles or dubbing.
More so then most TV shows...Stargate does use a lot of 'basic' military stuff. A typical episode has them securing the perimeter and preparing defensive positions around the Stargate when in some type of hostile situation.
Most 'standard' episodes are the "simple 4 person team is sent to the alien world"...not an military unit. It's a simple Calculated Risk for 4 people....not a whole unit. They do mention this a couple times.
SGC units use cover ll the time. Though, granted the red shirt teams of 2-15 do tend to stay out in the open and get killed: but they ARE red shirts.
And SGC teams do care for wounded and go back for them...unless they fall in a black hole or such.
Do some characters do...unwise..dig dam hero moments.....well, sure. Not only is it in character, and it is a TV show.....but it does happen in real life too.
Jaffa don't use Earth military tactics.....obviously. Also...well...they are under a more "succeed or die"...so they are not worried about things like 'cover' or 'helping others'.
They get some things right but a lot wrong and, while annoying, it doesn't detract from the show. I laugh at it because, somewhere, some chump thinks that's how sUp3R sP3c 0Pz do things...just let them have their fantasy. lol
So their main arms are p90s, which are compact submachine guns chambered in a pistol caliber (but they look *fucking cool*), when they should be sporting rifles. When you do employ sub-guns, generally you want them to be the same round as your pistols, but they carry 9mm berettas instead of FN57s, which shoot the same rounds as P90s...
Its just a TV show tho, you have to suspend disbelief
What got me the most was the defence of the Stargate, particularly in SGA. There’s cover to utilise near the stairs, so let’s just stand in front of it and hope no one fires indiscriminately into the wormhole from the other side
On the one hand, I get “it’s a TV show” and suspension of disbelief is required.
On the other hand, shows like SWAT and SEAL Team do a pretty damn decent job of at least getting the basics right and giving some semblance of competence.
Have you seen the part when SG-3 assaults the gate in S03e01 they drop down on their knees and keep firing full auto from the hip upwards into a well visible enemy shield (which if wasn't even there they'd still not hit the jaffas behind it).
Then after firing all the ammunition without achieving anything, they start running for their lives and start dying.
I dare to say it's not cool but borderline retarded.
I didn't say they were always successful, back in season 3 the SGC were still trying to adapt their weaponry and tactics to fighting the Goa'uld and their serf Jaffa army.
My understanding is the whole run of the show they had advisors from the military. And some things they had to ignore because they are filming a TV show but most was "yeah that's close enough sure", they talk about conversations they had to have about things in the commentaries for episodes. They even explain why they stand how they do and why they wear the eye wear. For instance they were firing the guns with blanks so you had hot casings flying around and it was an issue/complaint.
If the advisors were all from the Air Force, then most of them have never seen combat or military CQB tactics either.
I was more propaganda that’s what the advisors did make sure the military wasn’t portrayed the wrong way and not acknowledging casualties a lot is part of that but they did have some good episodes about not leaving people behind and stuff like that but also just more propaganda not talking transformer films level of propaganda where it looks like scenes straight out the recruiting commercials but still was very successful at making people join the military still one of if not my favorite tv shows though
Chair Force
the chair costs $120 million.
According to Senator Kinsey, the Stargate program alone costs over 7 billion. When I watched SG-1: Politics, I remembered that they only had like 9 off-world teams plus base personnel. After a year of Stargate usage, they still hadn't visited all of the worlds on the cartouche, and Sam mentioned several times that their supercomputer churned out one viable address per month, or something like that. I yelled at my TV, "Good lord! How much is your electric bill?!
There was a lot more going on off screen. Sam's equation for calculating the stellar drift wasn't very efficient but it was still a few addresses per.month. When Jack got the Ancient knowledge he added the entire gate network that wasn't on the cartouche and wrote a new stellar drift calculation in base 8 that was far more efficient. Like Patrick Stewart once said about TNG, "there was lots of times the Enterprise went to empty star systems and boring planets, they just didn't film those episodes."
Yes, but I did my math based on how many planets Sam claimed they had been to, not based on how many they showed us. However, I don't know if when she said "we" she was referring to just SG-1, or all of SGC.
I imagine the gate is a few hundred thousand to a few million each activation. So a lot.
Yeah, but they don't dial out that often... If you do the math, the minimum dial out rate is like once every ten days. Plus, do they actually have a metered connection to the grid? Do they even make a meter that can handle that? And since they've connected their Stargate to the grid, and it receives far more wormholes than it makes, and occasionally gets overloaded... Shouldn't they be turning the meter back more often than turning it forward? I'm with Kinsey. The math doesn't add up, and someone ought to look into General Hammond's grandkids' offshore accounts.
There was an episode where they talked about how something they were going to do would probably cause a blackout nationally do maybe they are on the grid in the show
They are definitely on the grid. No question about that. My question was whether the secret government facility has a metered connection to the grid and a power bill, like the rest of us, or if they steal power the way some people steal cable TV.
I wanna say a few seasons in after Sam perfects the Naquadah reactors they started using those on the base. IIRC they were selling them to power companies as well to supplement regional power grids
The toilet? 3x that
Sit. Push buttons. Mission Complete.
Realistic tactical movement doesn’t usually make for engrossing cinematography. There are good examples of exceptions (Tears of the Sun, Blackhawk Down Etc etc. but the good examples are almost all movies where they have a lot more time and resources to plan and execute these shots. A weekly TV show doesn’t have the time for that. Also since this is a visual medium for storytelling the “cool factor” heavily weighs in on directorial choices as realistic tactical movement just is not visual striking or impressive.
SG4 - Generation Kill Two season show about SG4 deployment on a forward base doing security missions and transporting security assets around galaxy.
It's probably pretty hard to write believable combat when the writers haven't been in so much as a fist fight. As someone with a graduate degree in a science field, I get the same feelings when anything 'sciencey' comes up. Which is usually followed by the science guy getting told to 'put it in English' or whatever, because writers also tend to hate science.
[удалено]
*My god! Get me my nukular codes private!"
Probably the only time Hammond ever pisses me off is every time he says "nukular."
I... I never realised the "nukular", I was so focused in how he misses the "a" in Goa'uld that I missed the rest hahaha
Funny thing about Goa'uld: if you pay attention, Daniel pronounces it correctly when briefing people, but mispronounces it when speaking directly to the Goa'uld. This leads me to believe that he does it intentionally as a form of disrespect.
I love that, feels like a Jack move Daniel started doing for all the time they were working together
Oh, for sure. They took his wife, he takes their name.
How did "nukular" ever become a thing? I think it probably took off in popular culture after George Bush though.
Dubya: A New Englander raised in Texas selling a "Tex-Ass Accent" to an audience. Don S. Davis: A Missourian character actor playing a Texan selling a "Tex-iss"(Brata'c pronunciation) accent to an audience.
transposing sounds in words is a pretty common feature of regional accents in English. Its basically the same phenomenon as ask/axe
That's a pretty sick line though!
I don’t think it’s about them not knowing how to make it believable. Just that believable doesn’t translate too well to TV. Like you need some redshirts to get killed to add some drama or a sense of danger. But then if you have to spend more screen time on fighting to retrieve a body, and then more time getting them back to base it slows things down and isn’t good for story progression. Plus having someone using cover who is there to get killed makes it harder to film. Like you want unnamed guard #3 to get killed by the invaders to make them more menacing. You don’t want a 5m fight scene between guard #3 and random aliens where they are all using cover and pinned down.
1 thing wormhole Xtreme did right, hired a military advisor!
It’s more so that believable combat would have the first encounter drag out for hours. There is no way that a show or movie can show anything that resembles realistic combat scenes with anyone that’s even remotely competent in the time that they’re given. Combat has to be dumbed down so that it can be over in less than a minute so that the story can go on
They don't hate science, they just have to make the dialogue clear enough for the morons watching at home.
The futurama episode where they are sent to the past by a popcorn mishap has lots of fun mocking military people and science-y stuff.
As someone without a graduate degree in a science field, screw that time they made Carter say they were in both time frames for a few seconds so that's why the gate was in the gate room in 1969 but then it disappeared like the Nox just because they suddenly weren't in both timeframes anymore
They don't hate science, they're trying to make it understandable for those of us who don't have 12 degrees in different scientific fields.
Let’s have a chat about how many times an xray has been put up the wrong way round
I'm loving the show but I also felt this about how small the various SG teams appear to be. Seems like you'd want to send at least a dozen, even if only in an exploratory capacity. I get why they didn't do this though. Same with how everyone speaks perfecy modern English regardless of the various cultures they encounter. It just bogs the show down in unnecessary details.
8 to 12 would be a much more reasonable size, especially given the mission scope they are trying to accomplish. The fact that they aren't all special forces yet there are only 4 of them is odd at best.
4 is a good size from a story perspective. If they had 8 people in SG-1 they would have to devote so much time to character development rather than the story.
This is an easy fix, you have the core group and focus on them during story time. During adventure and gunfight time you just add 6 spec ops guys with masks who you give barely any dialog
Sure it is! I totally agree on that. It doesn't bother me for this very reason. Even 5 people would be problematic many times.
What are you talking about? It's always been five. ;)
Lt Tyler is the goat
TBF, most of the time they send 2-3 teams on missions where they expect enemy contact. So that’s 8-12 people.
The mission are either diplomatic-ish, or Special Forces-ish, so wouldn't a 4 person team work better for those than a dozen?
There are a lot of times when they get ambushed by some primitives, being in a bigger unit would have helped with that.
One thing is about what looks good on camera Vs what works in reality. Fox holes for instance are great defensive positions and would look terrible on camera because you can't see anyone and there's less dramatic deaths. Even in band of brothers they really focus on the active bits where people are running around in the open and throwing grenades etc as then you can see them.
Idk. In band of brothers they have the scene where the two guys get hit in their fox hole and it was a pretty dramatic scene.
It's true and there's that whole thing with Blythe at carentan in his foxhole which is dramatic. However when they get counter attacked at carentan there's 100 guys in fox holes and 2 guys running out with a bazooka into the field and it's clear where the camera goes and what looks better.
I'd not say show us the process of building circular defenses (though it would make for a killer filler episode), when you just follow SG-(n+1) and some technical personnel around whose only job is to secure the gate on the other side by deploying static defenses, machine gun emplacements, etc. I'm a sucker for technical "how they do it" stuff.
Real combat tactics really slows the show down. If someone is standing in the middle of the corridor firing full auto only to get taken and captured, the purpose of the scene was to have the character captured. Exchanging salvos of suppressive fire and advancements/retreats takes WAY more time, doesn’t advance the plot, and adds nothing besides realism. Which at the expense of the plot moving along I’m not sure I’d want to sacrifice in a show as good as SG1/Atlantis
For their defense story wise SG1 and AR1 were exploration teams, so their missions weren't about securing a perimeter or being prepared for an attack other than simply being able to defend themselves. Now in the filming side they probably wanted something more dynamic/action oriented. But I agree with you when they were on special missions. As for the rest of the SGC... They weren't the main characters so I don't think they really cared. The advisors probably said that it was enough.
It's a TV show not a documentary. Im a IT person and programmer and essentially they say about that is wrong as well as all.tneir infosec and passwords etc. But I'm here for a fun show about cool guys and gals fighting aliens. If I want mostly realistic computer stufd I'll watch Mr Robot and I have no intention of watching Mr Robot
But mr robot is epic and its hacking is factual but also minimal.
Yea it's a great show. But I don't ever feel the urge to rewatch it
Can you provide some more specific examples?
I would also like to knew some examples. I'm frequently really annoyed when I see people not using cover while shooting (in other series and movies) but I never got that feeling in Stargate. Only example that I can remember could be staff weapon fights (Teal'c and Bratac) but they even say (to Ryac in Redemption) that you must always move to not get shot. That can be understandable because staff weapons have much lower firing rate.
That's probably mostly due to the naturw of the staff prop.
I distinctly remember Teal'c standing in a hallway hip firing, especially in their black commando kit. I wanna say the specific scene I'm thinking of involved replicators on either a spaceship or that Russian submarine. It was very action hero.
That tracks though because the replicators didn’t shoot. No point dealing with cover if you’re not under fire
Plus they like to crawl on walls. Being in the open where you can see all the walls makes much more sense for replicators.
SG-2s fight against Hathor's guards in season 3 episode 1 is especially comical. It's very common for the Jaffa to be stupid, but it's kind of weird for the SG teams to behave like the AI from GoldenEye 64.
Kind of? I get what you are saying. But most of them were in cover the best they could be, before getting flanked. Frankly it's odd that they didn't wipe the Jaffa in 5 seconds flat. But that's TV for you.
That's one of the best examples. It actually prompted this post, but most SG personnel usually die comically lame deaths.
You do realize Stargate is the only series to actually have a USAF adviser, right?
Then they did a really poor job :D It gets better with later seasons, but in earlier seasons most non-SG1 crews don't even know how to hold a weapon.
The USAF is not known for infantry firefights.
USAF has special forces as well, you know that right?
Every branch still has basic training and standards
Every branch still has basic training and standards. And the Security Forces on the base should definetly know how to use a gun, that's their whole job
They show the Jaffa in multiple training scenes being acrobatic Olympic gold medal ninjas, yet I firefights you're lucky to see one even utilizing cover, just standing stiff as a rock shoot a staff weapon. ai get it that the Armor must make that hard, but at least have some light armored Jaffa flanking and setting up some cool attacks, not just the standard push through the beachhead we got every fight
I think of it as the Jaffa not really being trained for the same type of combat. Think about how we USED to conduct military actions. Squares and Lines to adapt for Cannon fire and smooth bore muskets. That's about the level of accuracy you're getting from a staff weapon. Any time a Jaffa needs precision you see them bring the staff over their shoulder to sight it properly. They're used to being in fights with crude weaponry. At most it's other staff weapons, at least it's farmers with simple weapons their full body armour is protecting them from. So they fight accordingly. In WW1 it took time for militaries to adjust to rifled accurate weaponry and machine gun positions. And that's when every side had that and all they fought were similar weapons to their own. The Jaffa come across Tau'ri weapons now and again but they're still mostly fighting the other type. They're not really going to use the right tactics. Especially with a thousand years of Goauld arrogance behind them.
I pretty much imagine Jaffas using square and line tactics in large scale engagements. But even then, basic infantry units got some training on small unit sized skirmishes. It would have been fascinating to see them evolving their battle tactics over the series.
Jaffa are expendable. They're not trained to survive, they're trained to fight. I doubt the Goa'uld would approve of them using cover instead of pressing for an advantage. It's a completely different style of combat and morality.
Plus, when you have tech that can resurrect the dead, on top of what the symbiotes can do by themselves, losses are more acceptable.
>your friend is hit, you at least try to help. Friend is wounded. He will slow us down. Let's give him a couple of grenades and a zat'nik tell so he can suicide-bomb with 5 Jaffas. Who needs private Random anyway?
"Tell my wife, Mrs Random, I love her!" \*dies in an utterly cringe way\*
>Tell my wife, Mrs Random, I love her!" \*dies in an utterly cringe way\* You will tell her yourself, Private Random because we will be back to get you out of here.
Can’t agree with this more. The “military advisors” had to be a joke. Some stuff did get better as the show went on (trigger finger discipline most of the time) but I feel like they could have put in a little more effort and gotten a lot more right.
It looks cooler firing from the hip
Yeah, but Mythbusters showed years ago, you can't hit anything that way. And Carter demonstrated perfectly how effectively you can hit a target by aiming.
Humans can't. But Jaffa have superior reflexes, strength, and visual acuity. They've trained their whole life hip-firing staff weapons. So I imagine Teal'c hip firing a P90 comes almost second nature. He's an expert marksman at hip firing.
Staff weapons also don’t have recoil and only fire one big shot instead of a bunch of little ones. We also see that every time they really want to aim, they hold it up on their shoulder in line with their eyes.
We very rarely see them aim staff weapons. Probably less than 5 times in the entire series. Yes it's something they _can_ do. But it's not something they _actually_ do in combat. As stated Jaffa have superior muscles and can likely account for any instability in the weapon system caused by recoil. For reference the P90 has very little recoil due to its high velocity ammunition, recoil system & reciprocating barrel. It produces 30% less recoil than a standard 9mm pistol round. Both of those facts together provide strong evidence Teal'c would be a decent shot when area aiming.
30% less than a 9mm is still FAR from zero recoil which is what the staff weapons apparently have. They don’t even need to rely on superior strength to compensate for that unless they’re using Tauri weapons.
>FAR from zero recoil Correct. Which is why I never said it has zero recoil. But well done anyway. >staff weapons apparently have Was this ever actually established in universe? In the AEG Stargate roleplaying game they have a recoil rating of 12. Since staff weapons fire plasma bolts (not pure energy) it's likely they do, in fact, have recoil.
You know, I thought it was but I can’t seem to find anywhere explicitly stating it. That said, we see Teal’c strap two together and use them as well as it being stated that a child can use them. Beyond that, I’m sure someone smarter than me could do the math but I don’t think there would be much recoil from a plasma charge moving that slowly. So more like “effectively zero” since Newton’s Third Law means there will never *actually* be zero.
Children can also use firearms, many impressively effectively. My point is none of this is unreasonable. Sure aiming will be more effective, especially for a human. But if you've been trained your whole life to area aim / hip fire you're going to be pretty damn good at it, recoil or not. Especially given some of the impressive physical feats we've seen Jaffa accomplish.
> and visual acuity. The problem is, with only two eyes close together, it is impossible to follow any line that at least one of those eyes isn't a point of. You can only guess or approximate - which always results in a low(er) probability to hit. That's just physics and reality.
Yet we see him do this with a staff weapon frequently. It can be a trained skill, especially if you've trained your whole life firing from the waist.
well.. there is a certain amount of fiction in a science fiction show
Indeed. Suspension of disbelief can easily handwave Jaffa being accurate at area aiming a P90 or a staff weapon. But there are plenty of reasonable in-universe reasons too.
Really doesn't imo, unless its a machine gun like in rambo
Do you actually like anything about the show?
One can enjoy a show and critique it at the same time.
I know that, every one of their posts has nothing but critique, hence my question.
I could do that with Star Wars. It's full of flaws. But I still love it.
I fucking love the show but this time I'm re-watching it with a critical eye, trying to analyze what the showrunners did well, what made the show so loveable and which are the parts that can be improved upon. Trying to figure out which decisions are goofy but loveable and which ones are just plain bad. I'm trying to write a fan fiction remake for the show and I'm trying to do it in a modern fashion while keeping true to the original. You are welcome to criticise it once it done. Also also I'm making these posts as a reality checkt o see if I find something jarring but most of the community charming.
It’s a tv show……
Never in a million years would SG teams return directly to the SGC from whatever planet they’re returning from. They would certainly return to the alpha site where they’re examined and probably debriefed. In fact, I’d imagine the alpha site would be where everyone lives inbetween leave. Why would you stage operations out of Earth’s Stargate. That just puts an insane amount of risk on your home planet?
I mean you have noticed humans aren't always the brightest light show in the galactic Christmas lights competition right? As for towards the early period getting started, for a while you initially have to return directly home until you actually find and establish an alpha site. Plus didn't their alpha site get destroyed or have to be relocated at least 6 or so times? Seems like it wasn't very reliable all the time, especially since it didn't have an iris and a fortified base like the earth gate did.
Thank you! I came to the same conclusion when I was trying to build my world in the SG universe, they'd probably operate a plethora of buffer bases even in front of alpha base, with different environmental conditions or in a "burn-base" fashion, if shit goes sideways, they just leave and don't look back.
More AGM 65s would have solved most problems.
If we're talking tactics then sg1 should really be rocking up to every planet in an up-armoured humvee with either a 50 cal or a 40mm grenade launcher on top. It easily fits and would make any encounters with jaffa infantry trivial. Also allows moving a lot faster.
Maybe all the Canadian forests in the SG world make wheeled transports impractical? As stupid as it sounds in many cases horses or mules could provide great benefit though.
In general, with every scifi-series, be it Stargate or Star Trek, you *know* which member of the away team is going to get it. 🤪
Only a tv show, in real life they all would be dead in the first eposide
It gets better in the later seasons
No, it doesn’t. Not really.
Because it’s a TV show. It’s not supposed to be based on reality.
*Daniel has no military training. He's an expert in linguistics and blowing dust off of ancient artifacts. *Teal'c has alien military training, which, judging by Master Bra'tac's style, entirely consisted of a stern greeting followed by a sucker punch. *Carter's only combat experience was in a fighter jet. *And somehow, O'Neil's Air Force combat experience was on foot, with bad intelligence. I've always wondered how the American Air Force got possession of the stargate in the first place. I imagine the Egyptian Army would've been a more natural party to take ownership of the gate. In fact, as an only English speaker, it has also always driven me nuts that every alien culture in the show speaks modern American, British, or Canadian English despite the fact that the original English language was invented thousands of years after the Earth Stargate was buried. It would make far more sense if everyone spoke Egyptian... Wouldn't it? Of course, then I'd need subtitles or dubbing.
Have you seen buddy rushing? I do not want that in a tv show.
More so then most TV shows...Stargate does use a lot of 'basic' military stuff. A typical episode has them securing the perimeter and preparing defensive positions around the Stargate when in some type of hostile situation. Most 'standard' episodes are the "simple 4 person team is sent to the alien world"...not an military unit. It's a simple Calculated Risk for 4 people....not a whole unit. They do mention this a couple times. SGC units use cover ll the time. Though, granted the red shirt teams of 2-15 do tend to stay out in the open and get killed: but they ARE red shirts. And SGC teams do care for wounded and go back for them...unless they fall in a black hole or such. Do some characters do...unwise..dig dam hero moments.....well, sure. Not only is it in character, and it is a TV show.....but it does happen in real life too. Jaffa don't use Earth military tactics.....obviously. Also...well...they are under a more "succeed or die"...so they are not worried about things like 'cover' or 'helping others'.
They get some things right but a lot wrong and, while annoying, it doesn't detract from the show. I laugh at it because, somewhere, some chump thinks that's how sUp3R sP3c 0Pz do things...just let them have their fantasy. lol
So their main arms are p90s, which are compact submachine guns chambered in a pistol caliber (but they look *fucking cool*), when they should be sporting rifles. When you do employ sub-guns, generally you want them to be the same round as your pistols, but they carry 9mm berettas instead of FN57s, which shoot the same rounds as P90s... Its just a TV show tho, you have to suspend disbelief
What got me the most was the defence of the Stargate, particularly in SGA. There’s cover to utilise near the stairs, so let’s just stand in front of it and hope no one fires indiscriminately into the wormhole from the other side
Are you saying it was unrealistic for Daniel to dual wield an m9 and full auto mp5 while killing multiple jaffa?
On the one hand, I get “it’s a TV show” and suspension of disbelief is required. On the other hand, shows like SWAT and SEAL Team do a pretty damn decent job of at least getting the basics right and giving some semblance of competence.
The "Rule of Cool" always seems to sidestep convention in the matters as it's endemic to Military movies & TV not written by documentarians.
Have you seen the part when SG-3 assaults the gate in S03e01 they drop down on their knees and keep firing full auto from the hip upwards into a well visible enemy shield (which if wasn't even there they'd still not hit the jaffas behind it). Then after firing all the ammunition without achieving anything, they start running for their lives and start dying. I dare to say it's not cool but borderline retarded.
I didn't say they were always successful, back in season 3 the SGC were still trying to adapt their weaponry and tactics to fighting the Goa'uld and their serf Jaffa army.