GateWorld Podcast: Demolecularizing Your Soul

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• Should the Stargate Program be made public?

  Yes. When I was young, I knew that the United States had were missles with nuclear warheads aimed at the Soviet Union. I also knew that the Soviet Union had missles aimed at the United States. I may not have had a precise idea as to where those missles were aimed, but I knew they were there.

  Likewise, the public, in the Stargate universe, should know that the Stargate Program exists and that enemies are being fought by the military forces of the United States and other countries. The public does not need to know the details of which enemies are being fought at any given time, but it does need to know that fighting is taking place.

  During wars between the United States and other countries, the friends and family of fallen soldiers know that their loved one died in a war. During the war between Earth and the Goa'uld and the war between Atlantis and the Wraith, Earth military personnel would die all the time without any explanation being given to friends and loved ones.

• No, While I am completely for the idea of having "no official secrets act" and opening up as mush formerly classified information as possible, I believe that this is a different situation.

  Putting aside the fact that this is fiction and it is more interesting when you have to keep the secret, adding yet another factor in the web that is the universe of Stargate, having the "outside" perspective that a viewer has we have a complete idea of what has happened in the storyline of Stargate. The political aspects of the world would crush the program. Unlike wars in our actual world, this is a conflict that the entire world is involved in, but must sit second seat to the U.S. who currently controls the Stargate(s) on Earth. Recent history has taught us that much of the world does not feel comfortable taking that second seat. I sit hear and want to scream (as Sam Carter said in Heroes) at the world for some of its ignorant destruction of life, but many people still refuse to listen and destroy others consistently. Thus the existence of terrorists. Essentially, all this would do is provide radicals, of all types, with one sided evidence toward the destruction of others.

  Certainly I wish to believe that people are trustworthy enough to handle this information, but until we can get beyond everything from basic religious differences to fighting epically about relationships disputes among our Hollywood celebs, we cannot trust ourselves to manage that information.

  In the real world I wouldn’t trust my average neighbor or my government to manage that information, but in the fictional world of Stargate I am willing to trust this knowledge, and my life with the characters of Jack, Sam, Daniel, Teal’c, Mitchell, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronan, and probably even Rodney.

• There is a difference with the Stargate Programme, over and above the knowledge that Aliens actually exist.

  With the G'oauld pretending to be Gods there is a high risk of offending religous groups who may actually believe in them as Gods

  That would mean that any release of information would have to be very carefully worded. I think now is the time to do it

• Leaving aside the in-universe arguments and looking at the thing from the point of view of a story analyst (no, I'm not one, I'm just a fan): I do not think that it does in fact matter much at the in-universe present (end of Atlantis). The story would change little, as I'm sure the possible rammifications of the entire planet discovering most of the truth would be left out of the story or treated passingly, as there are more engaging stories to be told.

  There have been changes of similar magnitude being accepted without much of a fuss by the characters ("Oh, there's some demigods as wants to bring us down - so what, let's just blast them like the rest!"). This may sound cynical, but I in fact am a fan of the whole Stargate universe (meaning the franchise, not the new series, I just hate to talk about it as if it were just business). I have seen with exceptions easily counted on the fingers of one hand all things Stargate, from the 1994 movie to the Universe trailers, and I do enjoy the show. However, being realistic, none of the shows ever put much stock in consistency and depth. Therefore, having seen what in the real world would be conundrums of confounding proportions solved over the course of forty-two minutes, I believe asking this is quite a moot question, as it probably wouldn't make a difference in the story anyway.

  Still from another point of view, yes, the secrecy mattered at first, in the first seasons. But now it has been phased out of importance, and so there is no point discussing it anymore. Just try asking yourselves: If at the beginning of an episode the cover blew big-time (like the news was on TV, the internet, being written about in books and treatises, etc.) - how much would it change the world if Stargate? I intend to mean, would the characters act very differently, would plans and goals change significantly, ... ? My take on the answer is no.

  And, finally, a philosophical viewpoint: Should mankind be told? Purely theoretically, of the Stargate program were really happening, the state matters are in at the end of SGA, should mankind as a whole know? My answer is no. This may be baffling, as most people offer a definite yes, but I personally think mankind is even now much more advanced technologically than philosophically and culturally. We delude ourselves into thinking how great a civilization ours is, but, what has really changed about humans except our technology from several hundred years ago? We are no wiser, no kinder, no less agressive and base. We are still driven by primitive motives of power, material wealth and, in no small part, the desire to mate. Where is that higher principle? Where is the touch of the Ancients' legacy (put the in-universe style)? We are not even able to control and govern ourselves as we are in the real world. We hold the power to destroy our entire race in our hands, poised to strike, as we have for over sixty years now, and we are nowhere nearer being able to safely carry the responsibility than we were then. Therefore I think we are not prepared, perhaps even not worthy, to enter such a large new world as the universe of Stargate is.

• I can't believe you think our civilization hasn't changed in the pest 700 years. There is so much that has been accomplished in that time. We have come a long way, and still have a long way to go. Think of poverty for example, 700 years ago you were seriously out of luck if you were poor, now there are options and opportunities to get your life back together, even in the tough economic times the world is facing now. Science, and religion are able to be more accepted and differ so much. Everyone is aloud to choose what they want to believe and practice that way, which was not the case that long ago. In the last 50 -75 years, I thinks has been the most growth as a culture, but clearly over 700 years, so much has been improved.