SG-A lack of healing devices

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2008-09-09 04:42am

Just finally picked up season 4 and was wondering why there are no acient healing devices. After all they were supposed to be more advanced than the Go'uld and they have several different types.

And even if they don't why the hell don't they borrow a Sarcopheous for extreme emergencies. Yes I know it has side effects, but only with prolonged use. One or two times won't hurt.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2008-09-09 05:02am

A. Because they haven't found any yet.

B. Writers Fiat.

Healing devices take away jeapordy.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2008-09-09 05:30am

Probably for the same reason why the SGC has none: ethical concerns.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2008-09-09 05:57am

Ford Prefect wrote:Probably for the same reason why the SGC has none: ethical concerns.

The SGC does allow the use of the hand held healing devices. As far as ethical how is saving someones life not ethical, sure mutiple uses might not be but one or two uses is not wrong.

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2008-09-09 07:11am

The device is intrinsically dangerous from the first usage. The effects are cumulative, but it does not just suddenly become dangerous after a couple of stints under the lid. Obviously the reason is simply because it would be too hard to make medical emergencies seem dangerous, but in-universe I can see people being just a little wary of the Sarcophagus. I honestly can't remember the healing hand-devices, so I can't comment.

dragon · Post by **dragon** » 2008-09-09 07:57am

Ford Prefect wrote:The device is intrinsically dangerous from the first usage. The effects are cumulative, but it does not just suddenly become dangerous after a couple of stints under the lid. Obviously the reason is simply because it would be too hard to make medical emergencies seem dangerous, but in-universe I can see people being just a little wary of the Sarcophagus. I honestly can't remember the healing hand-devices, so I can't comment.

The hand devices that could be used to inflict pain or help heal. It took a source of naqaduha in the blood and several times they had to call the Tokra for help.

As to dangerous from the first use, I guess I was under the impression that the first few were mostly harmless. After all Daniel used one in the movie with no effects noticed. And O'Neil was put in one several times when he was being tortured. Matter of fact wasn't he tortured to death and revived several times in that same issue.

Granted he was already a bit wierd in the head so maybe that's why their seemed to be no lasting effects.

CaptJodan · Post by **CaptJodan** » 2008-09-09 11:00am

I'll admit to having a curiosity as to why a lot of new technology hasn't been found and deeply studied yet on Atlantis, including medical. Useful devices we've seen spread across the galaxy in SG-1 seem absent in the city of Atlantis, where one might expect to see a greater concentration of the higher forms of technology (akin to going to small town America vs. a large city; you might find similar technology in the small town, but not as wide an array and it might be slightly behind what you might see in a big city).

It seems the only actual medical technology they've seemed to inherit is advanced scanning technology. Some effective new drugs have been produced, but this almost seems a result of humans working off a template or trying to find a solution to a particular problem rather than medical drugs ready-made. Atlantis has a shocking lack of advanced healing devices, especially when you consider the Goa'uld, a race with natural healing capability, have at least two devices already mentioned that are shown to be better than anything found in Atlantis.

If I were to guess, I'd call it on writer's fiat as well, at least out of universe. It seems that while the writers are okay with humans possessing advanced shields and kick ass weapons, they want individual humans to remain fairly vulnerable to injury and death. I don't object much to the lack of the Sarcophagus, as it does cheapen the danger factor for our characters (even though there is really no in-universe reason why a 1, 2, or even 3 time use shouldn't be considered for especially terrible injury...like say death). But something on Atlantis akin to the Goa'uld healing device shouldn't be too much to ask for. Certain restrictions such as high difficulty of use for humans, excessively power hungry, or some other limitation could be put on the device to make it not viable in every situation, while also limiting its effectiveness to perhaps only minor injuries or injuries that would otherwise be recoverable through standard medical practices (let's face it, some of the things SG-1 has healed completely from strain today's medical science). Either way, it seems that military technology and even funky deux ex technology has come a lot farther than medical science from the SG program, which is sad given the number of races they've encountered with superior medical tech. (Asgard "everything" Core included)

While far from ideal, if the writers wanted to limit the amount of medical technology the teams get, I prefer they simply don't introduce new toys as they have done rather than introduce it and then drop it later on as they did with personal shields (so the ancients built a shield that you couldn't recharge ever? Really? And there was only one in the whole city?)

dragon wrote: As to dangerous from the first use, I guess I was under the impression that the first few were mostly harmless. After all Daniel used one in the movie with no effects noticed. And O'Neil was put in one several times when he was being tortured. Matter of fact wasn't he tortured to death and revived several times in that same issue.

O'Neill certainly was starting to get crazy after the number of deaths he was put through, though he, like Daniel before when he went crazy after his constant use of the Sarcophagus, eventually recovered to what looks to normal. I'm willing to chalk the lack of SGC Sarcophagus to simply being unable to find one now that the Goa'uld are toast. They seemed to get rarer as time went on, suggesting maybe there were never that many in the first place.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-09-09 12:05pm

dragon wrote: As to dangerous from the first use, I guess I was under the impression that the first few were mostly harmless. After all Daniel used one in the movie with no effects noticed. And O'Neil was put in one several times when he was being tortured. Matter of fact wasn't he tortured to death and revived several times in that same issue.

Granted he was already a bit wierd in the head so maybe that's why their seemed to be no lasting effects.

As rare as the sarcophagi are, I can't help but imagine having them would be a moral problem in and of itself. How do you decide who gets to use it or not? Especially if you have a lot of seriously wounded to deal with? It doesn't seem like a very fast process, and I can see it causing a lot more problems than it would fix.

There's also always the risk that once they started using the sarcophagus, the SG teams would start to feel invincible since they could always just "respawn", leading to even more fun issues.