Nice social commentary on Stargate Atlantis

[mithriltabby]

Friday’s Stargate: Atlantis had a nice reflection on the torture debate that’s current in America. The episode featured the classic unrealistic movie-plot scenario used to justify keeping torture legal: a known ticking bomb that can only be disarmed by having the right MacGuffin of information, and a prisoner who is the obvious person to possess said MacGuffin.

They did a nice job presenting things:

• The guy who repeatedly said “give me ten minutes alone in a room with him and I’ll get the code” grew up in the Pegasus Galaxy and had spent years being hunted by evil aliens, so the primary torture advocate wasn’t a representative of any group on Earth.
• The civilian head of the Atlantis Project was opposed to torture, only breaking down when they were only minutes from destruction, and even then was polling her subordinates to make sure they were sure they had the right person.
• The guy who was thought to have the information turned out to only be guilty of being an asshole in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he fainted as soon as the would-be torturer walked in and made his intentions clear.
• The guy who actually had the disarm codes wouldn’t have given them up under torture; they had to disable the means of mind control used to get him to plant the bomb in the first place, whereupon he was able to report what he’d seen while being a prisoner behind his own eyeballs.
• The episode closed with questioning the morality of having chosen to use torture, even though no one actually got hurt.

A nicely written debunking of the standard justification for the use of torture, and much less heavy-handed than some of the classic Star Trek episodes like The Omega Glory.

Comments

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

Actually I thought "Lost" did a good job of showing how effective/ineffective torture can be.

[mithriltabby]

Where can I find a spoiler? (Never watched Lost— the initial description looked too much like a reality show and I haven’t gotten into it since.)

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

http://dahtv.com/information.php?id=21

[abditus.livejournal.com]

I liked the episode, but it felt like a watered down version of 24. Specifically parts of season 4, which I don't want to spoil for those who want to see it. 24's message seems to be: there is no right answer.

[mithriltabby]

I’ve never watched 24; people commenting on the media presentation of torture regularly suggest it works on that show.

[(Anonymous)]

Lacking Stargate style mind control, yeah, when it has come up in the series, torture has been largely successful. Though, thus far, they've avoided the scenario where the victim doesn't actually know the diesired information and fabricates something just to stop being tortured -- all the interrogators seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to determining genuine ignorance.

Despite its shortcomings I still like the series. If you are interested in watching it, it's one of those best caught from the beginning.

[abditus.livejournal.com]

Oops, forgot to logon.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The guy who was thought to have the information turned out to only be guilty of being an asshole in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Have you seen the Mercury article series on prosecutorial error? The most amazing story is the one of the guy who heard an auto accident near his home, went over to see what was going on, and due to his vague resemblance to the guilty driver, who had fled, was arrested and convicted of the crime. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.