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Steel Aces 16: Burn Order
The Doc may look calm and collected, but what's on her mind? 
https://housedok.com/comic/playing-jacks-page-16/

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I love this episode for the struggle with morality that it presents, and the way it affects the members of SG-1. Here are these people offering SG-1 everything they’ve been seeking during their travels, and all they want in return is some heavy water. Sounds too good to be true, and thus makes for a great episode.

The Jack/Daniel conflict in this episode is probably one of the best ever portrayed in the series. Jack is so deadly serious about going through with the exchange without regard for the motives of the Eurondans that he would go so far as to alienate Daniel to get it. Daniel is always having to battle that military aspect of Jack, but in this episode, it reached an apex that hadn’t been seen before, IMO.

As far as Jack’s decision to turn on the Eurondans, I think he was disgusted with the fact that he let opportunity override his better judgment to inquire about the war. He came to the ultimate realization of whom he was actually dealing with which led to the final outcome. These people were the Nazis incarnate and Alar was the personification of Hitler (or a hypothetical son of Hitler since it was actually his father that masterminded the planned extermination of the “Breeders”). Jack knew exactly what he was offering the Eurondans in the fact that he cut Sam off without the usual sarcasm. He knew the military applications of Deuterium and heavy water, yet he consciously looked past that in order to advance Earth’s agenda. This introduction of heavy water also parallels WWII in the fact that German control of a plant in Norway that produced heavy water had to ultimately be part of their plan to produce a nuclear weapon. Luckily, Allied forces disrupted this operation. The writers must have researched this aspect of the story or otherwise why would they have chosen heavy water as the item of trade. They could have just used the good old standby, uranium or plutonium, which people automatically equate with a nuclear bomb, but can also be used as an energy source.

I don’t have a problem with what Jack did to Alar. He warned him not to follow, though probably knowing he would still do so to save himself. Alar had no regard for all those other people he was leaving behind that had followed his leadership to their death (another Hitler parallel). If he had allowed him to come through the gate and live, what use would we have with him? I doubt Alar himself knew how to engineer the technology we wanted, and I would rather not have my tax dollars going to detain “Hitler” indefinitely. It was a little more disturbing what happened to the other Eurondans. They may not have all been as adamant as Alar and his close associates in the destruction of the “Breeders” based solely on the fact that they didn’t like the way they reproduced. They may have been induced to fight more because they had to because of the decisions and propaganda of others, and then again they may have all been as bloodthirsty as Alar.

I mean how did they ever expect to win except with a number of nuclear weapons. You would have already thought that they would have been using this tactic along with the gassing of the planet long before their means of producing nuclear material was cut off when the area around the ocean was captured. You would think since they had the foresight to build that expansive underground complex, they would have also been developing and stocking nuclear weapons based on their level of technological advance which was something like 100 years more advanced than Earth’s based on Carter’s estimates. I know the bomb was not operational until the end of WWII, but these people should have already possessed the technology, and if they were so hell bent on exterminating those they felt were inferior, then why did they not go all out to win when they started the war? Unless it was interrupted by the preemptive strike, and thus all their preparations were not complete so they retreated underground hoping that poisoning the atmosphere alone would wipeout the Breeders. I’m not defending them, but it makes you wonder.

This war obviously had been going on for over thirty years. With or without SG-1’s interference, the Eurondans were doomed anyway. Their shields would have eventually failed, and I’m assuming the heavy water was also linked with being able to maintain the people in stasis so they would have had to awaken them, and they would have all starved to death anyway or died in the bombing, refusing to surrender. They were going to win or die trying in futility based on the fact they did not want to leave that world when given the opportunity to do so by SG-1. They so wanted the Breeders exterminated that even separation by being on different planets was still not good enough or at least for Alar it was not. Who knows what the others might have chosen given the option.

I hate to call Jack callous because of his life experiences because he is passionate about the defense of Earth and his friends, but here he let his apathy of the situation cause him even more grief. He had to have felt guilty about his treatment of Daniel after realizing his error in judgment. His decision at the time to kill Alar and allow for the destruction of the Eurondans was fueled by anger, but the action is bound to affect him later. So in saying that I agree with this observation of Jack’s character:
 

 
Originally posted by Liebestraume
On the other hand, perhaps, his willingness to carry the burden (of making difficult choices) is precisely what affords everyone else the luxury in intellectual moralizing.
 

This same conflict arises in "Unnatural Selection" in season 6 which I also like for the story it presents.

I like those episodes that tend to make you think more, and this one was interesting because it wasn’t resolved in a nice “happy” way.

Yeah my rambling is probably more than you cared to read (if you even made it this far), but it’s just my two cents on what I thought about the episode since it was shown on tv today.

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Adventure Seed: Mock Madness 
Mock Madness follows the events of Burning the Midnight Oil pitting the leaders of the Brood and the Black Dragon Fitness Club in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Can the heroes piece together what's going on before it's too late?
https://housedok.com/mock-madness/

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Print: https://studio2publishing.com/products/metahumans-rising?_pos=2&_sid=145b3fa95&_ss=r

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