What If: Stargate Made Public

[Blayne]

Right, and I'm certain absolutely none of the nations involved in WWII managed to reward themselves in any way whatsoever; not in rocketry technology... Influence... Outright annexation of territory, or self appointment as the world's policemen and moderators and the other stuff like laying down the regulations for how the whole world economy would work then on with Bretton-Woods...

Sarcasm aside Wars are full of profiteers and the nations in question acquiring some tangible advantage (or entering presuming such) leading to a relative efficiency. Heck the Soviet Army during the Cold War arguably stayed the most efficient part of the whole Soviet system, it had a direct competitor. So I don't doubt that once our cards are out on the table Team Human can get its act together to get the goal.

Also the other point that nations would be expending vast resources... Yes I think realistically that is what would have happened. We would've had the Security Council + Volunteers mobilizing for total war the second things got fully revealed or so which realistically would've been soon after Children of the Gods with the United Nations more closely resembling its anime/fiction counterparts or like the International Fleet/Hegemony from Ender's Game.

[Simon_Jester]

Blayne, I don't want to directly say anything against what you actually said, but I think you stopped reading my post a little too fast, because...

Right, and I'm certain absolutely none of the nations involved in WWII managed to reward themselves in any way whatsoever; not in rocketry technology... Influence... Outright annexation of territory, or self appointment as the world's policemen and moderators and the other stuff like laying down the regulations for how the whole world economy would work then on with Bretton-Woods...

In wartime, all the nations involved are already expending vast resources, and the payoff only comes when the war ends, if it comes at all.

And if you look at how wars end, you'll find a lot more squabbling among allies now that there's a prize for them to wrestle over.

The WWII nations squabbled over the rewards available to them after they won the war, at the end? Gasp! I didn't see that coming!

For crying out loud...

[weemadando]

War. No fucking doubt about it.

Revealing something that powerful and with that many implications will result in one of two things: humanity finally uniting behind a single banner to defend ourselves against everything out there. Or we devolve into arguments over risk taking, who gets control etc.

To give you an idea, this is like someone just discovered the worlds largest mineral deposits buried under a mountain that turns out to be filled with the lost knowledge of the ages and is made of piles of nuclear weapons. It is such a massively destabilising force that no one nation could hold on to it, but nor would they willingly relinquish it.

And even should we get the larger powers backing the program, then the public knowledge of it is going to drive apocalypse cults over the edge and radicalise society like never before. How long until the first government is elected on a platform of "We can't allow this device to exist anymore"?

It's not going to be a good time to be on earth.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Another interesting question is, what if Daniel Jackson was able to design and build the AG-3 system that was seen in "Absolute power", since it could strike anywhere on the planet it could be used to force enemy nations to fall into line or be obliterated from orbit. In the episode, the system was launched immediately prior to knowledge of the gate going public.

Something else that I was wondering was, given the objections to ST transporters being kill-clone machines, would either the transport rings or Asgard beaming tech also be included, or because they work on different principles, would they be regarded differently?

[sirocco]

From my understanding, the Asgard beaming tech is similar to ST transporter. While to me the transport rings accelerate matters, which would explain how you could intercept the transfer between 2 set of rings.

On a side note, I think one of the biggest problems from revealing so abruptly stargate program is that whole industrial sectors would be devastated. For example, Virgin Galactic and to a lesser extent SpaceX...

[Grumman]

Something else that I was wondering was, given the objections to ST transporters being kill-clone machines, would either the transport rings or Asgard beaming tech also be included, or because they work on different principles, would they be regarded differently?

No, all of those and the Stargate itself should have been identified as probable kill-clone machines based on how they operate. They might not actually be kill-clone machines, given that they were invented by the race with the best understanding of the "soul" in a setting where the "soul" actually exists, but nobody on Earth knew that until four years after they started using the things.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I kind of like how this thread reflects the nature of Stargate as the most fun show about a massive military-industrial conspiracy out there. A government conspiracy which later turns into a global NWO-like conspiracy, where both the wonders and the medical and technological fruits of Man's secret dealings with Grey aliens and other, more sinister forces are only available to an elite, select few in the upper echelons of the military, and hundreds of people are murdered in the course of their black ops with their families never being given anything close to the truth about their loved ones' deaths, and Mankind's own true origins and real history are completely suppressed from a public at large which continues to be fed what the government knows to be complete, obscene lies through the media and the education apparatus. Come to think of it, I wonder how badly SGC has to doctor the media portrayal of the Afghan war and the Taliban's strength to make the deaths of so many Air Force personnel and pilots, of all service branches, seem plausible to the sheeple.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

The use of cloaked puddle jumpers would be very effective in spotting insurgents in such places, especially coupled with using Asgard beaming tech to transport them into space