7.03: Fragile Balance

[beckmen]

Jack strikes me as a weekend gamer though, he prolly has a PS2 and plays racing/sports game to break up what little free time he has. He has that childish sense to him, he's really a kid at heart.

[Rowan]

I can see Jack with a GameBoy or a PlayStation in his downtime.

It may also be that that was all they let the kid have to keep him occupied and out of everyone's hair until they could figure out what to do with him.

ROwan

[Dave]

Originally posted by Rowan
I can see Jack with a GameBoy or a PlayStation in his downtime.

He probably does, but we haven't seen him playing before. They deliberately put that scene in to make the boy appear 'young', but as you have all already pointed out, it's only the container that is young, the contents are as old as the real Jack.

Then again, the same could be said for the scene outside the shop, as we haven't seen adult Jack as a big drinker before, because it was never necessary to the story, I'm sure that he does drink, and they did also show the boy Jack fishing later.

Thinking on this episode further, I don't like the way they have propagated the stereotypical 'clone with the memories of the original' idea. Yes... I know there was an explanation of why in the Asgard technology and the purpose, but real clones are ONLY genetically identical to the original. Pulp Science Fiction ALWAYS has clones as duplicates in every way, and this is what the general public believe them to be. I'm including films like 'Boys from Brazil' and every time 'Star Trek' has met clones in that. At least this episode explained how and why.

In 'Star Trek TNG' Riker picked up a duplicate due to a transporter accident. The duplicate then had a chance to second guess some life choices that the original Riker had had to make. Do you think they could do a similar thing with Jack?

There is a lot about Jack's marriage and son that we don't know. It couldn't be done exactly the same way as 'Star Trek' because of the age difference, and because the two Jacks already share every memory, the duplicate Riker was marooned for some years.

From the conversation at the end in the car it sounded like Jack dropped out of High School, so there is already one difference between them. It would be good to re-visit and see what else occurs and how it relates to Jack first time around.

[ray gower]

This was one of those episodes that really irked.

There was the briefing of rocket jockeys. They won't believe Carter about how easy it is to fly, not unusual (testosterone laden and limited intelligence typical jockeys). But will believe her that the 14 year old in front of them is Jack O'Neal and the mud plugging GI knows how to fly?

Jack is more advanced (intelectually?) than anybody else in the world, let alone Daniel or Sam Carter (who at least have brain cells to rub together)?
Come on, I like the Jack character tremondously, I can relate to it. It has a simple philosophy of life- If it don't work, shoot it. But he is far from being an advanced being that can hold high intellect!

Then because they couldn't find a sensible way out, up springs a spare Asgard, like Zebberdee from the Magic Roundabout, spring on rump, puts everything right and says good night children.

The child did do a fair job of impersonating Jack, but I do not think I am impatient for his return if it leads to a poor showing like this.

[Maria8475]

Originally posted by Dave

I laughed too at all the women in this thread. "He's a 40 year old in a 15 year old body. Those girls aren't safe." Speaking as a 40+ year old, I have the same morals as I did as a 15 year old. If I could had a 15 year old body again, then I think I would like to meet other 15 year old bodies too.

See that is just too weird!! And it's not really fair on the girls since he couldn't exactly tell them who he is. But i don't think that sending him back to high school is such a bad idea, like he said it gives him a chance to be different to original Jack and if he begins to get too frustrated he can always go fishing or contact the air force.

Plus the episode was really funny. Especially when Sam called him "cute", he stormed into the air-force meeting, the "mini-me" part and the scene on the Asguard ship where they both kept saying the same thing .

[Dave]

Originally posted by ray gower
Jack is more advanced (intellectually?) than anybody else in the world, let alone Daniel or Sam Carter (who at least have brain cells to rub together)?
Come on, I like the Jack character tremondously, I can relate to it. It has a simple philosophy of life- If it don't work, shoot it. But he is far from being an advanced being that can hold high intellect!

I didn't see it that way, (as him having a higher intellect) We already knew that Jack did download those Ancient's files, so he must have something that the others don't, but I see now that it could be interpreted that way. Maybe he just has more RAM but a very poor processing speed!

[beckmen]

Originally posted by Maria8475

...and the scene on the Asguard ship where they both kept saying the same thing .

Have you been watching the R1 DVDs with Closed Captioning on. It's spelled Asgard....

Also, I interperted Jack being the "missing link" as just a step forward in Evolution. He's prolly not even the only one with these DNA attributes either. It doesn't really have anything to do with intelligence, but rather let's say IQ.

[Dave]

It's also spelt Asgard in Germanic and Norse Mythology too.

IQ is just a measurement (crude) of Intelligence. So it must be something else that he has. He isn't the brightess member of the human race.

Evolution actually works on populations, not individuals, so Jack probably isn't the only person in the world to have this new evolutionary step. Loki only kidnapped Jack because Loki knew about Jack's history, he doesn't know if anyone else has the same ability.

Unfortunately, kidnapping a member of the SGC, and not knowing about the marker placed in Jack's DNA to prevent the cloning working correctly, these all point to Loki being less intelligent even than Jack!

[ray gower]

But aren't the Asgard an incredibly intelligent race that won't share because humans are backwards?

Or is it that they are just plain conceited?


Evolution is also a progressive thing, so the probability is that being somewhat younger, most of the people in SGC have more of whatever it is that Jack has, assuming that whatever it is is useful.

[beckmen]

IQ is supposed to be the measure of how much you CAN learn, not how much you know. Granted, IQ tests are biased becuase they go larglely on what you know. So Jack could have a higher IQ than Dan or Sam, he just isn't using all of his potential brain-power like they do.

[Dave]

So, he just likes to pretend that he doesn't understand what Sam is saying? Really, if he wanted to, he could run rings around her.

I think I can almost believe that.

[Rowan]

I have to agree. You dont' get to be an Air Force Col by being a dummy [minimum of a BS and/or BA is required to promote above O-4/Major]. Also, with the history they allude to [Special Operations], you *can't* be a dummy. Most of those folks speak at least one to two other languages on top of English.

My husband was in the SpecOps community in the Army. A facinating fact is, by percentage, there are more Masters and PhD's in the entire SpecOps Community than there are in any other military community. By entire, I am lumping all branches of the US servce so that's all the Air Force folks [PJ, Combat Controllers, etc], Navy [UDT/Seals], Army [SF/Delta/HRT], Marines [Force Recon and there own little sneaky groups], etc.

I would have no problem seeing Jack as having a PhD in something like 'Historic Military Tactics', etc.

Sometimes it's just good command sense to 'play dumb' and let your subordinates do their jobs.

Rowan

[ray gower]

Think I would disagree.

Jack always struck as being one of the older school, where cunning, competence and character means more than being a smart arse. He is certainly old enough to come through that route, he had retired when all the Stargate lark started. Overall it means he is clever (as in fox), not intelligent (as in rocket scientist).

Sometimes it's just good command sense to 'play dumb' and let your subordinates do their jobs.

Agree whole heartedly with this, especially of officers.
C/T Gower

[Rowan]

Well, the requirement for a minimum of a Masters has been in place in the time frame Jack would had had to make Lt. Col. And the Air Force is very serious about education.

And the stats for Masters and PhD levels in SpecOps starts around the Viet Nam era, so I'm gonna have to polietly agree to disagree with you on this one, Ray.

BTW: You don't have to be a 'rocket scientist' to get a PhD in something like Military History or any one of a slew of PoliSci, Mil or Historical programs. West Point is a degree producing program for all of the vbranches of the US military and several of their resident/non-resident programs carry a doctorate equivilent with them. You earn enough college points just completeing completing 'Command and General Staff College' to just about make it right there. Toss in a dissertation and you've got it whipped.

Rowan <In the US military system in some form or other since 1975 ...

[Highlander II]

again - 2 threads - merged...