I’m halfway through the third season of Stargate SG-1 and I’m just astounded at how incompetent these guys are at capturing a rag-tag group of people. I swear to God, they are the science fiction equivalent of the Apple Dumpling Gang. They are always getting shot, knocked over, or just plain tricked by Jack O’Neil and his buddies. I keep thinking this ancient race, the galactic conquerers who have enslaved mankind on hundreds of planets, will eventually get their break and NOT screw up a mission. However, I have yet to see that happen.
Ugh…stupid television.
After millennia of being pretty much unopposed, and wallowing in self indulgent power fantasies, that’s pretty much what I’d expect. They are corrupt, decadent. They don’t know how to fight a real battle anymore.
And they still aren’t as dumb as the Signs aliens; invading what amounts to the Planet Of The Acid People. Naked.
It’s the problem with lots of shows and comics with repeating villains. They have a paradox. The villains (a) have to be very scary, but (b) can’t ever win or even kill a main character. It’s like the Star Wars stormtroopers, a dozen of whom can’t hit a man at 20 feet, or the Nazgul, who can’t outfight a few hobbits.
Okay, I was teasing you in the MPSIMS thread of yours, but this was a really good line.
Any good examples of incompetence from the OP? No not the OP himself, but the aliens he’s referencing. I’ve never seen the show.
Awesome.
Heh. I just finished the second season and have been thinking same thing. And their Jaffa soldiers wear those elaborate armor getups that don’t protect against anything. And they aren’t very stealthy; you can hear them coming from a mile away because they march everywhere.
And yet I’m always awaiting my next netflix envelope, “I need my Stargate SG1 fix!”
The Goa’uld relied on technology and people believing they were Gods. The Jaffa fighting for them have symbiotes that make them stronger and more intimidating to the people they’re controlling for their Goa’uld, but beyond that they weren’t exactly trained like Marines in combat. They really didn’t need to go into combat that often (besides with other Jaffa who were equally as incompetent).
It reminds me of Warcraft 2 - my friend and I were so good at beating one another that I always knew what he was doing, and he I. We were really good. But one day we joined Kali.net that let you play online against others, and we got the crap kicked out of us. There were strategies we’d never seen, and it was ugly until we learned them. Unfortunately for the Goa’uld, by the time they learn anything they’ve usually been defeated.
Someone once said here on SDMB something interesting, which makes SG1 unique among SciFi. Most shows have an extremely tough and evil enemy that becomes less tough and less evil as time goes on so the main characters can defeat him. In SG1, the Goa’uld never get less tough or less evil, but the humans become stronger through their knowledge and technology, eventually using this to overcome their enemies.
How about the fact that 5 people, which were captured and in the Goa’uld’s possession at the time…, blew up not just one but TWO mother ships above Earth.
Or how about the fact that when the Goa’uld want to keep SG1 on the planet they never can. No matter how many guards they post (even giant sentinel guns!!!), SG1 still escapes.
As a couple people already noted, they’re lazy and set in their ways after being top dog for so long. The best single example is O’Neill’s summation of the two sides’ weaponry:
"This [Goa’uld staff weapon] is a weapon of terror. It’s made to intimidate the enemy. This [P90 SMG] is a weapon of war. It’s made to kill the enemy.
Nobody can beat Colonel Jack McGuyver-er-O’Neill!
Did O’Niel ever get out of a tough spot with a paper clip, gum wrapper and a rubber band? Or did they ever play off the MacGuyver thing?
First episode. Explaining to Jack how they got the Stargate working again, Carter says something along the lines of, “We MacGyver’d it.” Cut to bemused reaction shot from Jack.
That’s one of my favorite episodes, simply because it hammers home exactly why the humans were able to kick the crap out of the Goa’uld.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. To the best of my recollection, the Goa’uld have had their asses handed to them by every race they’ve encountered with advanced technology. The Goa’uld are bullies who like dominating primitive cultures.
I can think of one example of an advanced race which fell to the Goa’uld, but the OP isn’t on that season yet.
This is also true of the Federation and the Borg on Star Trek.
Actually, a complaint I always hear from the fans is how much weaker the Borg became.
Amen to that! When they were first encountered they were truly terrifying, by the end of Voyager they were barely intimidating.
I definitely agree that they ceased to be a Force of Nature but this did not happen because the Borg lost ships, or territory, or any other of the mechanisms or methods at their disposal. The Borg got “weaker” because the Federation’s technology allowed them to better understand and combat the Borg. Case in point: When the USS Voyager discovered the notes and research of Annika Hansen’s parents, including such devices as a biosignature masker to remain undetected on a Borg vessel for hours.