Rules of Engagement

This is Stargate SG1 For the First Time! From the creators of Babylon 5 For the First Time, Jeff Akin is watching this iconic show for the first time while Brent Allen, who has seen it at least 47 times, is watching for the first time for those sci-fi messages that hold a mirror up to society or show us how to be better human beings.

Rules of Engagement - Season 3, Episode 9

Visit https://www.babylon5first.com/ for more!

This show is produced in association with the Akin Collective, Mulberry Entertainment, and Framed Games. Find out how you can support the show and get great bonus content like access to notes, a Discord server, unedited reaction videos, and more: https://www.patreon.com/babylon5first

Special Thanks to all who support our show through Patreon, including:
Executive Producers:
Andrew
Andrew Black
Anthony Powell
Becky Sparks
Calinicus
Chris Langston
ClubPro70
Colin 3of5
Commodore Trev
DAG
Demi-DW
Duane Brown
Fabio Kasecker
FellKnight
Frankie
Gregory Christ
Ian Maurer
Jack Kitchen
James O'Keefe
Jeffrey Hayes
Joel Townsend
Joey Pomeroy
kat
Katerina Kalinevich
Kenny A Karyadi
Martin Svendsen
Matt Ion
Mattie Garcia
Mike Hagon
Mr Krosis
Neil Moore
Nia is framed
NJRetiredLEO
Peter Schuller
Rob Bent
Ron H
Snatcher42
Starfury 5470
Stuart Hepworth
Suzanne Egg
Terrafan
The_Space_Pope
Thomas Monk
Timo Hakala
TrekkieTreyTheTrekker
Todd "Canuck" Schmuck

Producers:
David Blau
Guy Kovel
John Koniges

Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/BabylonFirst
Visit https://www.patreon.com/byenerds to join the Patreon for full, unedited videos and an incredible community.

Transcript

SG1_309 Rules of Engagement

[0:00]

Music.

[0:14]

Welcome to Stargate SG-1 for the first time, still not a Star Trek podcast.

My name is Jeff Akin and I'm watching Stargate SG-1 for the first time.

And I'm Brent Allen and I'm watching Stargate SG-1 for the 47th time.

But for the first time, I am looking for what Stargate is trying to teach us.

You know, those lessons that hold up a mirror to society, give us hope that

things can be better in the future,

or just tell us how to be better human beings to one another. other.

Let's find out how the human beings are in the ninth episode of the third season

of SG1 rules of engagement.

Now, last week, when I predicted what this was going to be about,

I figured the episode's going to open with SG1 coming through the gate back

into the SGC. It'll be the return of the SGC.

They will have gotten into some stuff and they're going to get in trouble.

And we're going to kind of get the, uh, almost courtroomy type of episode of,

uh, uh, what are the rules of engagement, which is a good question.

Another good question is like, when did this episode come out?

What cool facts are there about it? Why don't you lay it on us?

Yeah, there's really not any cool facts about this episode, John. Oh, great.

It's so weird. Um, here's a fact about this episode. It, it came out on, um, August 20th, 1999.

[1:31]

So that's it.

There's no notable uh guest stars

no notable writer and director nothing i

need to tell you about going into the episode and and frankly

there's really nothing much coming out on the other side of the episode other than what

happens so all right uh with that jeff why don't we jump into

it buddy let's do it all right hey listen if you guys

if this is your first time here first of all welcome thank you so

much for joining us you guys are amazing what's about to happen

is jeff and i are gonna go watch this episode right now but you're

like wait you've already started the episode what do you mean haven't you already watched it

yet no we haven't we're gonna go watch it right

now if you're hanging out with us on youtube you're actually gonna stick around

and you're gonna get to see our reactions we'll cut it up and you'll show you'll

see the reactions to uh this episode as jeff watches it for the first time me

looking for those messages for the first time uh if you would like to get the

full unedited version of this entire video.

[2:24]

Including all that stuff that we did before we actually jumped on here

head over to patreon.com slash

bye nerds and uh you

guys can check that out and see all

those levels plus you get cool things like joining us on discord monthly hangout

with jeff and i uh you can get who

knows what else we're gonna have by the time all this goes on lots

of stuff to go uh but you guys definitely make sure you check that out patreon.com

slash bye nerds for listening on a podcasting app

you can also join us on our patreon it's pretty awesome come for the sg1 stay

for the awesome community but in the meantime we're gonna gate you into the

future you're gonna join us on the other side I'm gonna share my first-time

reactions to this episode Brent will share any of those sci-fi messages that

he found so Brett let's kick this off rules of engagement.

[3:14]

Music.

[3:31]

All right jeff before we go any further uh first of

all i want to say welcome back to all of our audio listeners who just gated into

the future hello hello hello jeff and i have just

watched this episode rules of engagement for the very first time jeff

this is typically where i'd say hey what about it talk to us but i

have a question for you first okay who did it better

who did this episode better stargate sg1

let me stop you let me stop you right before

we came back into the the future i said i said hold

on a second i need to write my tagline can i get

you my tagline and see if i'm we're in the same place sure episode

nine season three of sg1 rules of engagement

is lord of the flies meets valiant

from deep space nine not what i was

gonna say oh okay so i'll go here's here's

mine all right you ready who did this episode better stargate

sg1 or star trek Voyager for

in the flesh for those of you who don't know let me just in

Star Trek Voyager there's an episode called in the flesh spoiler alert if

you've never seen it three two one fast forward

20 seconds species 8472 completely mocks up and imitates the Starfleet Academy

back on earth all the way down to their groundskeeper Boothby and the crew finds

uh this thing out there so again I ask you Jeff who did it better SG-1 or Star

Trek Voyager I I think the SG-1 did did it better really?

[4:53]

And I think SG one did it better because they were, they weren't fake, right?

They were real people doing a real assignment with a real thing.

Whereas eight, four, seven, two was a whole thing that was created to try as a very targeted.

[5:09]

False thing built up the profits was trying to train infiltrators

for this this was a legit operation but they.

[5:15]

That's also legitimately what 8472 was trying to

do but they weren't they were trying to train them to go.

[5:20]

Invade and and take over and no no thy

enemy yeah that's true yeah that's true oh that's

actually a really good episode it was a

great episode of voyager it really was so i want

to say this this is my cop-out way of answering the question question

very different because i think this one

it's very lord of the flies you know this

is a bunch of kids left on an island yep yep

piggy's got the conch you know and they argue over

section seven article three or article seven section three

as to who gets to talk when there's the conch so you've

got this whole juvenile thing going on you have

this whole blind adherence to faith thing

thing going on whereas an in the flesh singular purpose

created a false thing with the soul like

it was everyone knew it was up you know in in that

thing so I think they're too different to

compare to each other but definitely inspired so I

think this one is in the flesh Valiant from

ds9 that's where nog ends up on the

Valiant which is another um another Defiant

class ship uh with kids Red red squad on board and they are basically out there

following the last orders they got even though all the Jaffa Masters oh excuse

me actual commissioned officers were gone it's very similar and then so it's

just an amalgamation of those those three frankly pretty.

[6:45]

Thanks Lord of the Flies excellent piece of literature Valiant

great episode that's what I named my crew of my Patreon for

Starfleet Leadership Academy they're my red squad and then

and then in the flesh so it's kind of good I you know

I'm struck by a lot this was a fun episode it

was a cool idea I love how it brought us into

the whole thing it was like as soon as I saw them come

over that Ridge I was like oh it's a war games thing and then

it just kind of gave you the little pieces spoon you know baby bird

fed you all the little pieces as to what was really going

on yeah of course apophis set

something like this up right it's like this makes

total sense i like how they worked in the

sg11 stuff on how they did it what i

am struck with though a couple things well i think this was

a great jack episode specifically jack is

our are fly by night good times

guy good at his job but also does takes

it very seriously by not taking it very seriously you

know he's the keeps everybody cool and on on

task doing things but this time there was a lot on the line and he got intense

we saw colonel o'neill in this episode and i thought that was a really great

uh look at him it was a great tilk episode the episode started off with with

him just in his element, telling people what to do, saying the language.

[8:08]

Smiling, smirking, because he knew it was up.

And that kind of fizzled, and it handed over to Jack from there.

And I was disappointed that Tilt didn't follow, continue in that, but also it made sense.

[8:22]

Progressed the story well. We got a little view at the morality of SG-1.

I noted in the final challenge that all the kids have real live weapons and

they've got missiles and mortars and all this stuff.

SG-1, they're carrying intars.

They're not killing anybody. They're just knocking them out.

[8:43]

Any other show, even SG-1 could have had them with real weapons,

weapons real firearms blasting those kids and killing

them no one would bat an eye that's just what we

do but they took a very I have to think intentional decision to

say no we're gonna have them use the intars because it's not

the kids fault well you as I say you you

also can't have your heroes of the show going out and killing kids you can't

no oh yes this is

JMS did not write this that's good I'd make

the differ he did not write this uh no

but even but even when jms killed kids he didn't have the

heroes of his show kill the kids dr franklin's not one of the heroes

dr franklin did not kill a kid they totally enabled

it wow i just inflamed a whole community right there again the parents killed

that kid yeah they made the choice franklin let them you're right they couldn't

but if they did no one would have batted an eye yeah you know and so i think

it was cool they made that choice the big thing in this episode that hit me

though was two weeks weeks in a row,

we have been shown blind belief in adherence to a faith until they see otherwise.

[9:53]

So last week we had the cannon who's like, we have to do the thing until he

saw that the UNAS was just, you know, this, what it was monster or whatever.

And it wasn't, it was like, oh my gosh, I've seen.

And now I believe we talked about the whole doubting Thomas thing last week.

Week, fast forward to this week,

those kids were fanatical about following Apophis willing to kill well,

willing to be killed right in the, in the worship of their God Apophis until

they saw that he was mortal,

you know, and, and when weak and he died, once they see that blind adherence,

oh, when they see the blind adherence goes away because now they, they have seen,

and I think there's a lot to be said for that like on one hand you can i feel

like you can honor the faith.

[10:45]

Of these kids strong faith is an amazing gift for people to have it's unfortunate

when that faith is used for violence like like here and and for alienation like

that was used here but you know faith that's that's kind of cool also it's interesting

that that faith gets shaken not Not on words,

not even on trusted people saying things.

Tilk told them all this. They didn't believe him. They had to see it.

I just think there's a lot to think about think about in that yeah it

was a fun episode i enjoyed this episode um a really

cool idea i'm curious though if you

pulled any sci-fi messages out of this one that that i may have missed um the

answer is no because it's not that there were no sci-fi messages in this it's

that you didn't miss them you literally just said what i have written down Yeah, that's the thing.

That's the thing is blind adherence can be your death. Yeah.

That's literally what I just had written down. These kids were here because

this is what they were brought up to believe.

[11:50]

Their parents taught them this, the system that they were raised in.

This is just how it is that there's no, there's just no questioning about it. This is fact.

This is how things are being taught to them. This is a God.

This is the way it is. You're going to go do this. We're going to do this. this is all

about worshiping our god apophis you know their parents

taught them to do this i don't know that you could say that they were like brainwashed

as much as this is just how they're raised you know i have said on on uh maybe

not sg1 for the first time definitely babylon 5 for the first time you know

my own story i was raised here in the south i there There are certain ideas.

[12:29]

There are certain presumptions that people in my area where I grew up in,

we just sort of like it's how things are.

And it blows your mind to think that there are actually people around the world

or around the country that don't understand that these things are true.

Just don't accept it as what it is. I think it's

very easily easy to take this and apply this to

uh political beliefs and I

don't want to go down that road but listen in this

country where we are there are people

that I know that are raised Republican and this is

how you're raised your mom and dad were Republican your parent grandparents were

Republican everybody's Republican everybody around you so you're a

Republican and this is what it is those damn dirty Democrats I

also know people that were raised democrat their parents were democrats their

grandparents were democrats their aunts and uncles were democrats they don't

understand how republicans work whatsoever and those guys are ruining our country

and holding everything back either side may be true at any given time i don't

want to get into that there's a venn diagram there with a lot of overlap,

right right yes yes but what i mean is is both sides you can blindly raise people

to their their political beliefs. Okay.

[13:47]

Wigs versus stories over in England. I know we have a lot of listeners over

in, in, uh, in England and in the United Kingdom, I should say.

I don't know what the two party systems are around all the world.

Uh, sorry. That's my own ignorance. Yes. There's a very American centric idea

that I just said, hello, I'm an American. I'm so sorry.

Yeah. Just change, just change the names for your names. And it's the same thing.

But my point being people are brought up to okay so that's

political okay let's set that aside religious beliefs you're

brought up to believe that this is fact this is true

no questions asked this is how we behave this is what we go do until you question

it until you go see and i'm not saying to debunk the entire religion but you

know to at least know why you believe it and why you don't believe the other

side of it how you're okay with the own holes in your own faith,

I think this is also just as easily to apply to persons of authority.

I have been and lived in a culture where you never, ever questioned a coach,

a teacher, a parent, ever.

[14:52]

Whatever they said, that's it. There was zero question of authority.

I'm not saying be disrespectful.

Just this blunt. This is just the way it is. No matter what they say,

this is how we're raised, right?

I love what you said a second ago. none of

them would believe until they saw him die it

wasn't until they saw that their blind adherence

could go away they could see in order to not be

blind anymore right yeah i mean

that's that's what you said it was that the intention of this episode

to say hey we're gonna write this morality show and hold

up a mirror and and do all of this and

and discuss it do they really even discuss it a

whole lot no not really this was just hey

this there's this group of people out there that have that

this is where they're raised and sg1's gonna

go free them because they came across them that's that's

really i don't think there was a huge intention i know

intentionality tends to be a deal so i'm gonna bring that

back i do think it is an interesting discussion a jumping off point i should

say this episode can give you a jumping off point to go and and i think we should

all consider that what are the things in my life that i believe what are the

tenants that i hold And is that because I truly believe that that's true from my own experience and,

and the way things, uh,

have been presented to me, or is it just because it was downloaded into my brain

with how I was growing up, you should know.

[16:19]

You should know one way or the other, and at least be able to recognize it and acknowledge it.

So, uh, Jeff, for me, I, I'm going to give this one to Chevron's to Chevron's. I think it's there.

It's a good jumping off point episode. Didn't do much to discuss it.

That's okay. you know i don't think it was an intention but it's

there i think it's very clearly there i agree i think if

people weren't watching it the way we watch shows that would

have not even been a blip no i i

and frankly i had to stretch for that one a little bit yeah it's

there like it's clearly there but i had to stretch for it so it's such a great

point my god we i i spent a lot of time thinking about this is this belief my

belief or is it a result of my culturalization yeah am i speaking is my grandparents

speaking through me right now you know or whatever.

[17:07]

Can i tell you can i tell you can i i want to bounce off that just for a second,

um you and i have been doing stuff together now for are we

at years yeah we're years now i think two three years now a couple years two

maybe three years now at this god i don't know a while i don't know we've we've

done this quite a few times we are well over a hundred episodes together oh

yeah yeah by the time we take everything in we might even be knocking on door

of 150 maybe two i I think close to two.

[17:34]

We might, yeah, we might be close to two. There are oftentimes when I hear you

say stuff, Jeff, that I, even today where I think, and I go,

that sounds like a very Northwestern Seattle, Oregonian thing.

That's not how it is down here. It just, that's very, that's,

that's you up there in that part of the country.

Uh, that doesn't apply to me down here. There are oftentimes you say stuff like that.

I don't come back at it because it doesn't really matter one way or the other,

but But to, to your point, like, it makes, it makes such a difference.

Like what I'm about to share is one of those things, right?

So a couple of months ago, I, I did, um, I, I went to a breathing exercise retreat,

uh, with the intention of shedding some of my, and Colton's really got to get

high, to get high on my own air supply.

So what I did there, it's called holotropic breathing. Look it up.

It's amazing. It was an amazing, it was a transformative experience for me.

And the, the point was really to shed that in culturalization for a moment and

see what was real and then try and build on that at the time of this recording

in, in four days, three, four days,

uh, I'm gonna go into the woods and I'm gonna eat a bunch of mushrooms.

[18:53]

And I'm gonna do the same thing and going out in nature and trying to shed my

culturalization organization to further see what my real beliefs are like,

who am I and what do I truly believe as me and not what is the Northwest saying

through me, my grandparents,

my job, my religion, my whatever mm-hmm I'm gonna be here next week watching

whatever we watch next week. Cause I'm be fine.

I might be a little cooler, right? Uh, .

[19:24]

But all this to say yeah question man

and you said a thing i thought was great that doesn't mean be disrespectful that

doesn't mean attack as a manager i i call it inviting dissent when i can have

dissenting thoughts and opinions on my team that's the value of diversity is

different thoughts it's not dissenting and that you're wrong and i'm right it's

dissenting and that it's it's different.

Yeah. Yeah. And let's do that, man. Like let's ask those questions.

Let's look at different perspectives. And the only way you can get different

perspectives is inviting dissenting opinions, asking questions,

Brent, two Chevrons, excellent rating.

We talked about this more than the episode even thought about it.

Yeah. Right. And that's good on us.

Well, Hey, you know what I want to know, Jeff? Um, here's the thing.

A lot of times we kind of put stuff out there and like, yeah,

sometimes our listeners though,

catch stuff that you and I never even even talked about very true

we're not saving or holding anything back for

stargate sg1 for the second time or anything like that so hey

listen out there let us know what your rating is what messages did you catch

is there anything that jeff and i missed uh let us know drop it down in the

comments hit us up on twitter shoot us an email um you can go to our website

and you could do like some little form which shoots an email all that sort of

stuff so you guys let us know we would I would really love to know.

Hey, Jeff got an updated tracking sheet real quick though. Yes. Yes.

[20:47]

So to add to our counts, we got one for crying out loud.

We got one Daniel death, which is going to bring our Jack crying out louds up

to 18 so far, which feels low to me.

I feel like we should be up in the thirties by now. I really do.

We've had a real dry spell though. Yeah. Yeah.

We had a Daniel death and that brings us up. Do you know, do you have any idea

how close we are on Daniel deaths? Uh, that's going to be number seven.

[21:12]

Six this is number six wow daniel has

died six times on screen that's a

lot of dying are we tracking indeeds because we

got we got an indeed as well in this did

we have an indeed i might have missed it i was wondering was there an

indeed there was an indeed yes this would be our second indeed

like that's it you know they just trust

me very soon they start coming pretty fast

and furious like when so people listening to

the audio version of this there was an ad at

some point about our patreon and it ends with

tilk saying indeed and i had to go capture that

there's a youtube video i didn't listen to

it i didn't use it for that uh but it's every

time tilk says indeed and it's

six minutes and 19 seconds long i understand that

so that's that's a lot of indeed so there there is a there is an official just

so you know i'm gonna see how close we get to this number at the end i have

three numbers of the total counts of indeeds over the course of sg1 okay and it's 154 167 and 177.

So it's all right there within like a 20 20 shot window but they're they're

pretty like i said and we're here in you know middle of season three and And we're at two so far.

So they, like I said, they do start coming pretty good here, you know? Indeed.

Um, and there's a reason why they're that video is six minutes long, Jeff.

[22:39]

So with that, uh, I rated the episode.

You get to rank it, my friend, you get to take this episode and place it in

our 100% completely accurate and definitive ranking of Stargate SG one season three.

[22:55]

Uh let's go with our current top five today uh

the current top five i'll go i'll go from five down

to one number five is dead man switch number four

is legacy three is into the fire two is learning curve

and one is fair game jeff i really

have no idea where you're gonna place this one i could see this going in multiple

directions and uh once you lay it on us where

do you place completely accurately this in

the ranking so far it's not going to be in the top five so we

can we can know that but my question really comes down to

it's either going to be above demons

or above point of view so it's either going to be the new

number six or seven and the question

i'm asking myself right now is how did

this episode end compared to the other ones we joked

in the watch that like oh it's just

over like look at that they showed the apocalypse video and

now the episode's just done wow okay okay

look at that so does that hold up compared

to so the unas like hit a

guy and just died like what what

what was that right possibly the

coolest thing that could happen and i as i say that it is the story in this

one was done there was no reason for them to show more there was stuff in demons

that should have happened and didn't and it's it hurt it last week it's hurting

it again brent this is going to be our rules of engagement is our new number six.

[24:22]

For six all right all right well

jeff uh with that that is gonna wrap up rules of

engagement put a bow on that one uh next

time jeff you wanna talk about what we're listening to or what we're watching

next time yeah what are we watching we're watching it i've i've actually been

very excited for you to get to this episode okay i cannot tell you why until

after you watch it i'm nervous jeff take your phones off because jeff here you

can't look at my work don't look at my mouth because Because Jeff has been talking

about this since the pilot episode.

[24:54]

This is the one where Daniel and Charay come back together.

So yeah, that's it. Just in case you guys didn't know, he's been,

this was what he thought the end of season one was going to be, was this episode here.

I just, just trying to remind the folks at home in case they didn't remember

what this particular episode was about, why Brent is, is so excited.

But like I said, I just, I can't tell you until after.

Yeah, that's fair. After I, I am saying nothing of the quality of the episode.

You will have to decide that for yourself.

There is a specific reason, uh, that has nothing to do with.

That has everything to do with the content of the episode, not the quality of the episode.

So I'll let you make that decision unabated by me.

I just, you know, I'm excited for it. Uh, would you like to venture a guess though?

Let's see how close you can not get to this episode forever in a day is the

name of the the title of the episode forever in a day, not and a day forever

in I N forever in a day. Is this a sequel to brief candle?

Maybe that's gonna be my guess. Like this is gonna build on that.

Like, well, they tried to fix that.

So maybe this is a go back and look at trying to fix the brief candle stuff.

That's that's very specific and also super general.

[26:07]

It is super general safe shot it's it's

the gist is it's gonna be one of those like compressed time frame

things you know like we're gonna see old jack again maybe

so i'd be good with that they did good they did a

good job with the old makeup all right well we'll find

out next time right here

on stargate sg1 for the first time

still not a star trek podcast hey

thank you guys out there so much for joining us please be sure to check us out

wherever you get your podcast or your youtube videos leave us ratings reviews

subscribe like all that sort of stuff it it helps us out a ton you wouldn't

even believe how much it does also please share this video with someone that you know,

who needs some sg1 in their life a little more sg1 in

their life uh to go through somebody who likes this show

somebody who's trying to relive it or somebody who like my friend jeff

over there is watching it for the very first time thank you guys so

much we'll just see you next week for forever in a day until then

hey brent what's up warriors of

bi nerds listen to the one that holds the vocuum brent standing before you speaks

in my name heed his words he is

much loved by a puff aiken brent go ahead brent go go for crying out loud.

[27:26]

Music.