Was Stargate SG-1 a PSYOP?
Or extreme tales of soft disclosure and plausible deniability
By MARTIN REZNY
Usually, I only study conspiracy theories, but today, today I feel like maybe inventing one. Be warned, ye who read — it’s just a theory! Also, sorry.
You know, I love this show. I have seen it several times the whole way through, in both Czech and English. For some reason, it’s very big in my home country, the Czech Republic. In the Atlantis spinoff, there’s even a Czech character, Zelenka, played by a Czech actor, David Nykl, who’s speaking Czech on occasion. It’s mostly swearing. Anyway, where was I?
My conspiracy theory, right. Well, there’s just no way to discuss it without all of the spoilers, so you should really make sure you have watched at least a good portion of the show before reading any further. Otherwise, you might get some crucial plot developments spoiled, but more importantly, you’ll have very little idea of what I’m talking about.
I don’t think it’s necessary to go all the way to the beginning for me to be able to make a case for my theory, but here’s the briefest of histories behind the show. As most people who haven’t even seen the show know, it’s based on a Roland Emerich movie from 1994 called Stargate, which was almost certainly based in turn on the ancient astronaut or ancient aliens-type theories proposed by the likes of Erich Von Däniken.
In short, mean aliens came to Earth back in the day, played gods, enslaved us to do hard work for them, got kicked out or left after a while, and eventually faded into myth. Something something spaceships pyramids.
I like the movie as well, although I think the show was eventually better in every way, but that’s neither here nor there. This isn’t a review. The only way in which it matters how good the movie was versus the show is that the movie was notably just your normal Hollywood movie. What I mean by that is that you wouldn’t really learn anything about anything by watching it.
The show, on the other hand… How to put it, do you know who REALLY likes the show? The U.S. Air Force. They find it to be a very good representation of what they’re all about. I’m serious, they’re serious.
They didn’t just offer props, stock footage, and guidance to the showrunners, which is it, normally. There were multiple cameos of real-life high-ranking air force officers on the show. There’s a door to the SGC (broom closet) at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex where they take tours. Richard Dean Anderson, the actor who played the team lead character of Jack O’Neill (two Ls!), was made an honorary Brigadier General.
That’s a lot of fan gushing for a Canadian sci-fi show from some pretty serious people. That’s almost a Czechoslovakian communist military propaganda television programming levels of coziness between the armed forces and a film production. Well, it’s definitely much cooler than our masterpieces like “Chlapci a chlapi” (“Boys and Men”), I’ll give ’em that.
But back to what one could learn from a film or a show about reality. From the old communist military propaganda shows like the one referenced above, you’d mostly just learn that good TV writers were apparently all locked up in a gulag somewhere, being bullied while mining uranium.
At least I assume as much, because the writers who were allowed to work on official military propaganda content tended to produce scripts that were combining total cringefests with unintentional gayness olympics. They called it “Boys and Men”. Seriously, was nobody allowed to offer any notes?
Although, since the communist armies back then were a joke in reality, I guess such portrayals were only fitting. A bit like in the old joke about the person who was locked up in prison for saying that the leader of the party is an idiot, because that constituted a disclosure of state secrets.
From the Stargate movie, much like from most Hollywood/Roland Emerich movies, you’d learn that the army wears uniforms, shoots weapons, says cool things, when in doubt blows stuff up, and other formulaic generalities that look good on film. Or in other words, you’d learn nothing.
From the Stargate SG-1 show, on the other hand, you might learn something. I’m technically not a military guy or a spy (as far as you can prove), but I have picked up a thing or two about such subjects during the course of my studies, and I have watched some behind the scenes and actor interviews for the show, and there’s a lot of attention to detail in the show.
As far as I and other informed commenters on the internet are able to determine, the chain of command, military procedures, and interpersonal relationship dynamics were depicted fairly accurately to what they look like in the real USAF. Given the (apparently) fantastical nature of the threats that the team faced on a weekly basis, it’s harder to judge the accuracy of their tactics, but they were certainly thought out and grounded.
Just off the top of my head, I remember a couple of specific repeating (totally propagandistic) plotpoints that were supposed to teach you something about the military life, if you don’t think about them too much. Like how Jack and Sam couldn’t date as long as they were both active duty officers. Or how, if at all possible, “we don’t leave our people behind”.
But that much isn’t necessarily unique to this show. The American Department of Defense has helped produce a number of different films and shows that are therefore veiled army, navy, or air force propaganda. Some of them were even in the science fiction category, like Iron Man I and II or Deep Impact. My conspiracy theory isn’t about basic propaganda.
In basic military propaganda, the message is simple — we happy few in the army/navy/whatever are great, courageous, honorable, smart, capable, sexy, and definitely not gay. Come join us! By the way, I have nothing against gay people, I just have something against organizations that have something against gay people, and so they make themselves look very gay by trying very hard not to appear that way in their propaganda. Top Gun volleyball!
Stargate SG-1 does this better than almost any other work of cinematic military propaganda, in my opinion, since it actually depicts believable military honor and camaraderie, for the most part. There were a few cringy moments, like that one time when Sam was talking about her female reproductive organs, but somebody did eventually manage to explain to the showrunners what sexism is, so female representation got better.
What I want to talk about is how accurate the depiction was of things that presumably aren’t real things, that the real militaries therefore allegedly don’t have to deal with. You may not be surprised to find out that I have watched and read and listened to and played a LOT of other works of science fiction. I can usually tell where an idea is being derived from.
For example, in more spacey sci-fi shows like Star Trek or Babylon 5, most of the stories are either allegories for normal real-world politics, or (wholly made up) high-concept what-if stories. On the allegory side, you get your space-Soviets, and space-Balkans, and space-terrorists, and so on. On the high-concept what-if side, you get your spacetime machines, and “To Serve Man” twists, and direct riffs on other sci-fi works. Stargate SG-1 is neither.
Let’s start with the allegory theory. If SG-1 is an allegory for something mundane in geopolitics, what might that be? Is it about American military interventionism? Well, the USAF and DoD wouldn’t like a critical take, and in all of their wars, the Americans have always faced a technologically inferior enemy. Literally all of the baddies on the show are much more powerful than us, or the U.S., despite SGC getting a lot more powerful.
Are the aliens who impersonate gods of various human cultures in any way actually representative of those cultures? Well, the OG baddies, the Goa’uld, are literally parasites who have never had an idea or piece of tech they didn’t steal. So, if anything, they’re appropriating cultures, not representing them. Even the goodest guys, the Asgard grays, are clearly appropriating the Norse mythology, although probably just to not spook us too much.
I have seen a number of reviewers struggle with this, with trying to figure out what the story is saying about real-world politics. It really doesn’t work out. The show gets more neatly allegorical later, toward the end with the Ori, or evil space-Christians — see, them you can call space-something — but that doesn’t address the original concept. The Goa’uld represent ancient despots, not even dictators. Ba’al is the only one who figures out modernity.
It’s almost as if the story is saying exactly what it is saying on the surface — what if a modern military was dealing with despotic ancient gods who were actually aliens. Technically, that can be classified as a high concept, and that’s probably why Roland Emerich made it into a movie. SG-1 did take that concept, sure, but where did it run with it? Was it just more what-ifs?
That’s the other problem for reviewers. There are some encounter-of-the-week episodes, especially early on. You get your crystal lifeforms, and what if team, but robot clones, and so on. But anything to do with the main story arc is not that, doesn’t read like that. The main arc reads more like X-Files, but if all the files actually made sense together and amounted to a reality.
In the narrative The X-Files model, which is actively based in part on real cases, the overall concept is that you get your weekly high-concept stories, but with the assumption that even if they feel disconnected, they’re actually connected. There’s a conspiracy afoot, and everyone’s in on it somehow. The problem of X-Files is that the grand conspiracy doesn’t make sense, as we find out by the end. It probably wasn’t thought out ahead.
In SG-1, the main basis for inspiration doesn’t appear to be other science fiction, or at least not more than peripherally. Like in The X-Files, the main source of ideas is ufology. Just watch a couple dozen episodes of Ancient Aliens and you’ll be able to confirm that — you get your crystal skulls, aliens walking through walls, pyramid spaceships, ascended alien beings versus parasitic alien beings, nordic-themed aliens, alien grays, invisible aliens in a forest, alien abductions and genetic experiments, seeding humans across the galaxy, SG-1 adapts ALL of it. It’s just somehow hard to notice it.
Furthermore, in SG-1, the interesting twist on this model is that the story is being told from the point of view of the conspirators. The military intelligence is the heroes. There are other, bad intelligence agencies, like the rogue cell in the N.I.D., or whatever Russians are doing, but what we’re absolutely clear on and on board with is that keeping all of the cool things secret from the public is the right thing to do. Oh and let’s not forget that politicians are the worst. We definitely shouldn’t tell them, even in secret.
In the context of the recent David Grusch hearings, the whole premise of the show looks like propaganda alright, but in defense of whoever the opponents of David Grusch are. The story points aren’t allegories of something other than our military dealing with aliens. They’re about exactly that. They also aren’t what-if scenarios, they’re that’s-how-we-should-do-it scenarios. Direct messaging, a staple of all propaganda.
Already, this is kind of bizarre. Why would you (meaning the DoD) need to put messages into your propaganda that don’t actually refer to a reality? Why should we, as the viewers, not only get a strong sense that if we joined the USAF, we would get all sexy and cool all of a sudden, but also that in case that there happen to be aliens and the USAF is covering it up, they would be totally morally justified in doing so? Why that message?
The writers on the show also seem to have a suspiciously uncanny grasp of intelligence mentality and PSYOPS tactics. Two stories stand out in this regard — “Heroes” and “Wormhole X-Treme!”. In “Heroes”, a film crew visits the base to document what they’re doing, in case official disclosure happens at some point in the future. The team instinctively distrusts all journalists, just like they distrust all politicians, of course (hint hint), but in the end, they come to feel that it sure is a pity that no one will ever know.
In Wormhole X-Treme, the show asks itself a question — what if there was a show that was based on real-life secret programs, so that whenever the real secrets leak, everybody believes that it’s just stuff from the show? I believe the answer to that question is that if such a show existed, it would make an episode exactly like Wormhole X-Treme. The meta levels are off the charts on this one. Imagine the balls on the spy who would do something like this.
And it’s not just these highlights. The whole world of the show has absolutely realistic geopolitics and covert conflicts. There’s even a hidden layer to how those politics are implied instead of explained in places that’s outright genius, and I only know about it because the superhuman reviewer SF Debris noticed it. These are some mindblowing spoilers, so you get your final warning — the Ancients actually are helping the heroes.
If you have watched the show, even many times like me, you might be thinking, wait, I distinctly remember how everybody complained constantly about how ascended beings can’t, don’t, and won’t do anything. Well, you should rewatch all episodes where Daniel was ascended. He kept saying how he can’t do anything to help, and then his friends suddenly got all kinds of inspired. How beings handle power is what the show is about.
In the world of the show, there are two main types or factions of aliens — the alliance of 4 most advanced races, the Ancients, the Asgard, the Nox, and the Furlings, who all believe in self-determination of lesser beings; and the various groups of aliens obsessed with gaining more power and appearing as gods to lesser beings. At first glance, the bad aliens seem to be barely opposed by the good aliens. And yet, there’s the “luck” of our heroes.
Relatively early on, we get a pretty good basis for comparison of the relative “luck” of our heroes, as they start meeting their alternate versions from parallel universes. The general rule is this — heroes who act morally against the odds succeed, while heroes who compromise their morals to win at all costs fail. The simple explanation is of course a moralistic plot contrivance, but Daniel’s actions while ascended show that divine inspiration is a thing.
Benevolent ascended beings in this universe repeatedly try to sneakily influence events in subtle ways that have a high likelihood of remaining undetected. Ways that still require the lesser mortal good guys to do all of the real work, but with the guarantee that they will get the right idea at the right time, or that they will end up at the right place at the right time. That’s a really unusual and enlightened worldview for military propaganda.
The typical idea of ufologists about military propaganda regarding aliens in shows and movies is to portray them as a threat that we need to defend ourselves from. And sure, there’s no shortage of alien threats on the show. There are despotic god impostor aliens, runaway AI replicator aliens, misguided humans from other worlds, and so on. But the ultimate aliens are not only benevolent, but spiritual. That’s very not Star Trek, and yet, it doesn’t feel like a space fantasy of the Star Wars type. It feels realistic.
The Ancients have literally naturally ascended to a higher energy frequency, how new age Ancient Aliens is that; the Nox became so advanced they returned to nature as some kind of alien fae; the only thing we know about Furlings is that they started hippie moon communes; and the only materialists among the four, the Asgard, who still embraced mythology, died out because their material immortality technology failed.
Unfortunately, this noble retreat created a power vacuum in the galaxy, which was filled by opportunistic scavengers like the Goa’uld, who do need to be opposed. By whom, you ask? Well, the USAF, of course! In secret, don’t worry about it, we’re handling it. Allegedly. I mean, no, nothing like that is happening, ignore the messages we didn’t put in the show! Jokes aside, the sum of these parts isn’t derivative. This is a coherent argument.
The X-Files and Ancient Aliens wish they could be making this much sense with so many moving alien parts. In this narrative, it somehow makes sense how there could be both good aliens and bad aliens and what exactly that would mean in philosophical terms; how there could be both superadvanced and primitive races all over the galaxy; and how being too good causes problems, as the strong still need to be protecting the weak from those who would prey on them, and the protecting may have to mean violence. Hence enter us, or USAF (us as f***, I assume), the Fifth Race.
The more I watch the show while learning more about our world, the more I can’t help but feel that I’m being sold something here. This really does feel like a propagandistic pre-disclosure, we-can’t-tell-you-the-details, but trust us, wink-wink case. It doesn’t feel like great creative writing, it feels like something real told in a very direct, thinly-veiled way. It features elements that come from other sources, but those that claim they’re not fiction, and the way they’re put together here is far superior to how the sources do it.
So, was Stargate SG-1 a PSYOP? Could this conspiracy theory possibly be true? I have no idea. But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not getting increasingly suspicious. I’m pretty sure there are no literal Goa’uld or Tolan out there, or a planet called Chulak, or any tetrahedron-shaped ships that can land on Egyptian pyramids. But if I strip the picture the show paints of all the hokey names and visuals, it’s getting a little bit too real, and only more over time. Well, you tell me if I’m three fries short of a Happy Meal.
