Comments on: Stargate Atlantis: Spoils of War http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/ "Did I.Q.s just drop sharply while I was away?" - Ripley Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:51:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jen http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5482 Jen Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:39:48 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5482 To add: it's like in SG1 fandom when people would get mad at how Jack wouldn't listen to Daniel when Daniel wanted to stay on the planets to keep exploring everything. Jack was following his MILITARY orders every time and if the mission was military focused then they couldn't just drop everything to go off and explore just because Daniel wanted to! Not to mention they were the front line team - NOT one of the science teams. I have to admit sometimes I used to get unfairly annoyed with Daniel when he'd start complaining about wanting to stay and explore the planets - I'd keep thinking: "Daniel you practically bullied your way onto joining SG1 so that you could find your wife and now you want to wast time by exploring some stupid planet that has no signs of the Goa'uld?" - which was part of the reason why Daniel of the early seasons used to drive me nuts... Rodney may be arrogant and petty and everything but everything he's done since coming to Atlantis has been about fixing whatever went wrong. To add: it’s like in SG1 fandom when people would get mad at how Jack wouldn’t listen to Daniel when Daniel wanted to stay on the planets to keep exploring everything. Jack was following his MILITARY orders every time and if the mission was military focused then they couldn’t just drop everything to go off and explore just because Daniel wanted to! Not to mention they were the front line team – NOT one of the science teams.

I have to admit sometimes I used to get unfairly annoyed with Daniel when he’d start complaining about wanting to stay and explore the planets – I’d keep thinking: “Daniel you practically bullied your way onto joining SG1 so that you could find your wife and now you want to wast time by exploring some stupid planet that has no signs of the Goa’uld?” – which was part of the reason why Daniel of the early seasons used to drive me nuts…

Rodney may be arrogant and petty and everything but everything he’s done since coming to Atlantis has been about fixing whatever went wrong.

]]> By: Jen http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5481 Jen Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:18:22 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5481 Totally agree with your comments about John! I was reading a post on LJ that was defending John and someone in the comments pointed out that people keep looking at the show from a civilian perspective when they really shouldn't. John does what he does what he has to do because he's military, and people forget that. <i>(PS ~ Do you mean Alex Levine? I've only been to Joe's blog; where is Alex's?)</i> It's the blog on the SciFi Channel site for Atlantis: http://blog.scifi.com/stargate/ Totally agree with your comments about John! I was reading a post on LJ that was defending John and someone in the comments pointed out that people keep looking at the show from a civilian perspective when they really shouldn’t. John does what he does what he has to do because he’s military, and people forget that.

(PS ~ Do you mean Alex Levine? I’ve only been to Joe’s blog; where is Alex’s?)

It’s the blog on the SciFi Channel site for Atlantis: http://blog.scifi.com/stargate/

]]> By: Wolfen Moondaughter http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5480 Wolfen Moondaughter Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5480 @Robin ~ yes, I *love* the back-history bits -- and I could listen to Todd's voice all day ... (Oh sweet gauia -- I'm smitten with a Wraith! How scary is that??) I don't recall ever *hearing* it, but I believe "Evan" was written on Lorne's flight suit or something -- I vaguely remember some fans pointing that out to Joe M back when he was telling us they'd been trying to think of a name for Lorne. (PS ~ Do you mean Alex Levine? I've only been to Joe's blog; where is Alex's?) @Robin ~ yes, I *love* the back-history bits — and I could listen to Todd’s voice all day … (Oh sweet gauia — I’m smitten with a Wraith! How scary is that??)

I don’t recall ever *hearing* it, but I believe “Evan” was written on Lorne’s flight suit or something — I vaguely remember some fans pointing that out to Joe M back when he was telling us they’d been trying to think of a name for Lorne.

(PS ~ Do you mean Alex Levine? I’ve only been to Joe’s blog; where is Alex’s?)

]]> By: Wolfen Moondaughter http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5479 Wolfen Moondaughter Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:50:35 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5479 @Jen ~ Thanks! Glad I could spruce it up for you! ;) And now I've found myself feeling the need to defend <I>John's</i> position; people are upset that he made the turnaround and brough Teyla on this mission, endangering the baby. Me, while I;m happy that Teyla is finally beingmore motherly, I cannot really falut John for bringing her -- I think this was an entirely different set of circumstances from BAMSR. This is what I posted in response: <I>Okay, I'm not gonna say that it was a decision without shades of grey, cause I think part of the point was for him to make a hard decision and feel bad about it later, but I'm going to play devil's advocate for a moment. 1) John did not want her to risk the baby needlessly in situations that could have been handled by others. Even before he knew she was pregnant, he didn't want her risking her life trying to convince those people on that planet that was about to be attacked by the Replicators that they ought to leave -- instead, he intended to send her to a different planet, where she stood a better chance of succeeeding and where the danger was less. He still put her to use, but he knows how to weigh risks against gain. 2) The initial mission in this situation was for her to take the Wraith ship straight back to Atlantis, one hyperspace jump away. John had no reason to expect any danger, nor any reason to expect that Rodney would find a map to the place that could hold the key to how the Wraith defeated the Ancients. At that point, therefore, he had no reason not to take her in the first place, especially when she was the only one who could fly the ship. Unlike 99% of the other situations she could find herself in on a misson, no one else could do this job in her stead, and the ship would be invaluable. Very little risk -- at the time -- for *very* great potential gain. 3) As Teyla herself pointed out, they couldn't spare the time taking the ship back and fetching jumpers, when the enemy already had such a big head-start. (For that matter, don't forget that SHE talked HIM into it, not the other way around.) The jumper they had could not make the jump to hyperspace, like the hive ships could. No matter how much he might want to protect her baby, in this case, the possible gain still outweighed the risk -- more than ever, in fact. No matter what he might feel on a perosnal level, her child is not more important than billions of lives. For all they knew, whatever the Wraith were doing at the outpost could eventually lead to another loss as massive as the one the Ancients suffered -- meaning Teyla's baby could die later *anyway*, along with everyone else in the galaxy AND, eventually, the people of the Milky Way. And he did everything he could to minimise the risk to her. So yeah, while it wasn't an easy choice, they completed their objective -- the Wraith have been struck an astronomical blow -- with *no* casualaties -- all the boys would have died without her along -- AND Teyla's baby survived (plus she now understands just how much she loves and wants her baby -- she didn't seem to before). Sounds like a successful mission to me, especially when the alternative would have been an explosion in the Wraith population! But don't think for one minute that those decisions came easy to John -- it was clear throughout that he was *very* uncomfortable with it, just look at his face! I'd say it killed him as much before the mission to even ask her as it did to see her fear for her child. That didn't make her any less vital to the mission.</i> @Jen ~ Thanks! Glad I could spruce it up for you! ;)

And now I’ve found myself feeling the need to defend John’s position; people are upset that he made the turnaround and brough Teyla on this mission, endangering the baby. Me, while I;m happy that Teyla is finally beingmore motherly, I cannot really falut John for bringing her — I think this was an entirely different set of circumstances from BAMSR. This is what I posted in response:

Okay, I’m not gonna say that it was a decision without shades of grey, cause I think part of the point was for him to make a hard decision and feel bad about it later, but I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a moment.

1) John did not want her to risk the baby needlessly in situations that could have been handled by others. Even before he knew she was pregnant, he didn’t want her risking her life trying to convince those people on that planet that was about to be attacked by the Replicators that they ought to leave — instead, he intended to send her to a different planet, where she stood a better chance of succeeeding and where the danger was less. He still put her to use, but he knows how to weigh risks against gain.

2) The initial mission in this situation was for her to take the Wraith ship straight back to Atlantis, one hyperspace jump away. John had no reason to expect any danger, nor any reason to expect that Rodney would find a map to the place that could hold the key to how the Wraith defeated the Ancients. At that point, therefore, he had no reason not to take her in the first place, especially when she was the only one who could fly the ship. Unlike 99% of the other situations she could find herself in on a misson, no one else could do this job in her stead, and the ship would be invaluable. Very little risk — at the time — for *very* great potential gain.

3) As Teyla herself pointed out, they couldn’t spare the time taking the ship back and fetching jumpers, when the enemy already had such a big head-start. (For that matter, don’t forget that SHE talked HIM into it, not the other way around.) The jumper they had could not make the jump to hyperspace, like the hive ships could. No matter how much he might want to protect her baby, in this case, the possible gain still outweighed the risk — more than ever, in fact. No matter what he might feel on a perosnal level, her child is not more important than billions of lives. For all they knew, whatever the Wraith were doing at the outpost could eventually lead to another loss as massive as the one the Ancients suffered — meaning Teyla’s baby could die later *anyway*, along with everyone else in the galaxy AND, eventually, the people of the Milky Way. And he did everything he could to minimise the risk to her.

So yeah, while it wasn’t an easy choice, they completed their objective — the Wraith have been struck an astronomical blow — with *no* casualaties — all the boys would have died without her along — AND Teyla’s baby survived (plus she now understands just how much she loves and wants her baby — she didn’t seem to before). Sounds like a successful mission to me, especially when the alternative would have been an explosion in the Wraith population! But don’t think for one minute that those decisions came easy to John — it was clear throughout that he was *very* uncomfortable with it, just look at his face! I’d say it killed him as much before the mission to even ask her as it did to see her fear for her child. That didn’t make her any less vital to the mission.

]]> By: Jen http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5469 Jen Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:16:02 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5469 Yay! It's funny - your review was almost more exciting than the episode ended up being... I don't know why but the episode was kind of flat for me or something. I guess a lot of it was just so obvious that it didn't end up being anything THAT interesting. I did love all the character moments though. I did like your take on the Teyla and John thing - I also think that people are taking the whole issue a lot more seriously than it needs to have been taken. *shrug* Yay! It’s funny – your review was almost more exciting than the episode ended up being… I don’t know why but the episode was kind of flat for me or something. I guess a lot of it was just so obvious that it didn’t end up being anything THAT interesting. I did love all the character moments though. I did like your take on the Teyla and John thing – I also think that people are taking the whole issue a lot more seriously than it needs to have been taken. *shrug*

]]> By: Robin http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/comment-page-1/#comment-5475 Robin Mon, 14 Jan 2008 12:53:59 +0000 http://www.pinkraygun.com/2008/01/14/stargate-atlantis-spoils-of-war/#comment-5475 I was very impressed by 'Spoils of War'. There was a solid plot, which wasn't very complex, but resulted in a lot of character/relationship developments and universe-expanding exposition. Being a continuity nerd, I love anything that reveals details of the fictional world and makes it more real -- in this case, the origins of the Wraith drones during their war with the Ancients. I let out a mighty fangirlish squee for that bit of cleverness. I also enjoyed the juicy interactions between all the characters... Sheppard's frustration, Ronon's protectiveness, Teyla's overcompensation, Rodney's excitability, Todd's determination, even Zalenka's quiet befuddlement... all lovely. And... "Lorne (yay!)" ... I am right there with you. He's been one of my favorite secondary characters ever since he first showed up on SG-1 in 'Enemy Mine'. (Have they actually revealed his first name on-screen yet or just in Alex's blog?) I was very impressed by 'Spoils of War'. There was a solid plot, which wasn't very complex, but resulted in a lot of character/relationship developments and universe-expanding exposition. Being a continuity nerd, I love anything that reveals details of the fictional world and makes it more real — in this case, the origins of the Wraith drones during their war with the Ancients. I let out a mighty fangirlish squee for that bit of cleverness.

I also enjoyed the juicy interactions between all the characters… Sheppard's frustration, Ronon's protectiveness, Teyla's overcompensation, Rodney's excitability, Todd's determination, even Zalenka's quiet befuddlement… all lovely. And… "Lorne (yay!)" … I am right there with you. He's been one of my favorite secondary characters ever since he first showed up on SG-1 in 'Enemy Mine'. (Have they actually revealed his first name on-screen yet or just in Alex's blog?)

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