Jack was supposed to nuke the Abydos gate. He did not. Then he lied about it to his superiors.

Jack was supposed to use the nuke, only if he felt there was a threat from the otherside of the gate. And he did use the nuke to eliminate the threat, so he didn't really blatantly disobey any orders.

The only issue was that he somewhat lied about what actually happened.

Jack also retired right after, and they never found out until they needed him back.
Which would obviously be the worst time to fire him.

OK, you are rationalizing what Jack did, because he saved the day, and they needed him.

Well, that's the same rationale that they used for Sheppard.

I'm just pointing out that they never had a chance to reprimand Jack even if they wanted to.

The US government has no problems pressing charges against officers that are retired. The fact of the matter is, that they needed Jack, and we wouldn't be watching the show is Jack was around to be the main character. If Sheppard got demoted or fired, or transferred, then he would be able to remain LT. Col Sheppard, chief military officer of Atlantis.

In " The Return" he disobeyed direct orders, stole Air Force property and assualted Air Force personel.

While O'Neill has been somewhat insubordinate in his career, he hasn't been nearly as insubordinate as Sheppard


Sheppard was chief military officer of Atlantis for a year as a Major. They could demote him back to major. Or they could leave him as Lt.Col and in command of his team and give command of Atlantis to Caldwell, as they originally planned.

yeah they could demote him, give it to caldwell, and then a few episodes later, shepard does something amazing gets promted again, and becomes #1 once again...

Why would they do that?

Everybod ywould think it was pointless and irrelevent if they just promoted him again. It isn't something done arbitrarily or lightly.

True, I figure they will end up just putting it in a nice thick folder for Weir to pull out and throw at him in later sodes

I don't understand why you want him to be punished. It's the conviction of the character to do what he believes is right despite what others (including his/her superiors) think that makes us love characters like that. That's one reason why I love Jack Bauer. Besides the fact that he is so gangster that no one can stop him.


EDIT: I just had to bring up 24, it's so good...

This post has been edited by JTMAG1: Jan 16th 2007, 12:05 AM

Don't get me wrong, I am a Sheppard fan, and a big Jack Bauer/24 fan, but Jack Bauer has had to face the consequences for a lot of the decisions he's made and there's been some pretty harsh consequences for Jack.

For Sheppard to continually break the rules and everybody pretend like it never happened just isn't as realistic, and I think would develop Sheppards character a bit more, if he did have to face some consequences.

There's also Sheppard's background to consider too. He was supposed to have been involved in a black market at some point in his career. If his record was clean up to the point where he joined the Atlantis expedition, I could understand how his actions could be disregarded to a certain extent but given his past isn't clean, I don't see how his superiors could just ignore his actions. The only person that has ever reprimanded him was Weir after the events of 'Hot Zone', where he once again disobeyed orders of his commander.
Caldwell seems to be the only Air Force officer who sees what Sheppard is really like.

When did we learn that?

It was in 'Rising' part 1:
O'Neill: You know I checked into his record.
Weir: I know about the whole supposed Black Market in Afghanistan he was trying to save the lives of three servicemen.
O'Neill: Disobeying a direct order in the process.

Weir actually said "I know about the whole supposed Black Mark in Afghanistan he was trying to save the lives of three servicemen."

Meaning, I suppose, a black mark on his record.

This post has been edited by JC1: Jan 16th 2007, 5:46 PM

Thats what I heard... he had a black mark on his record... because he disobeyed a direct order or something...

I heard black market and both Neoseeker and Gatenoise have transcripts with Wier saying "black market".

The Gateworld transcript says "black mark."

Looking at it logically though, surely if Sheppard, an Air Force Major, was caught buying or selling things on the black market, he'd not only be kicked out of the Air Force, he'd be looking at jail time.

Also, I thought Sheppards flashback in "Phantoms" was the supposed "black mark" in Afghanistan.

Either way, Sheppard has had a rocky career in the Air Force. It's kind of surprising he has reached the rank of Lt.Col. when compared to Mitchell, who has an impeccable record.

This post has been edited by JC1: Jan 16th 2007, 6:45 PM

I watched the episode a few weeks ago, and I remember hearing "supposed black mark in afghanistan"...

He disobeyed orders to go back and save the lives of three servicemen.

What made this espisode good, Jack, Jack and a little bit a Woolsey. it was entertaining, and good way to round off the ZPM story, so they are not totally screwed.

RDA was so good in here (missed him so much ) and not the liitle guest scenes we had been watching in all the other apperances. Some real action and dialogues. I laughed in so many bits!

I was just wondering if the Asurans were able to rebuild Stargate Operations in a matter of hours and all that, how is it that they were not able to notice that the little blue anti-replicator crystals in the shield emitters?

They weren't looking for them. They read Woosley's mind, and so they thought they knew exactly what they were looking for.

I understand that, but you would think they they would notice that something is there, that really shouldn't be.

This post has been edited by kordone: Jan 29th 2007, 12:31 AM