Everyday Heroes

There is a point in the lives of men and women when their life must be private. There must be a line over which the public may not cross. There needs to be space between them and the world. Space to preserve their sanity, to keep them from being stripped bare.

In endless publicity lies only madness.

The concept we know as 'celebrity' damages the psyche of those who are labelled with it. For those who live daily in the spotlight of fame, the absence of privacy in the personal and intimate is a terrible price to pay for beauty and talent.

For those who live in the dark of the mountain, how much higher is the price these people pay for mere honour and duty?

The little weasel of a man doesn't understand this. He stalks around this base, demanding answers, demanding 'the real thing' instead of the simulacrum he receives. He has no comprehension of the burdens these people - my people - live with; and he would add to their troubles the pain of 'celebrity' just so he can have his truth.

His truth - at what cost? What price will be exacted from my people in his search for the truth?

They live with the knowledge that their work may mean the difference between their own lives and deaths. They live with the burden that their duty may mean the difference between the lives and deaths of the ones they love. They live with the knowledge that their contribution may mean the difference between freedom and slavery for whole planets and civilisations of people who will never know them, will never see their faces, will never appreciate how much they have sacrificed willingly on the altar of the Stargate program.

And they die in that knowledge.

What right do I have to add to their burden? What right do the politicians have to add to it?

The act of watching changes the situation. Major Carter would say it was the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

It may not make sense to me at the level at which the Major understands it, but I see it clearly enough as the camera crew goes through my base. The act of watching makes people self-conscious, makes them prone to nervousness, to forgetfulness under pressure, or to exhibitionism. It is human nature to do so - with no slight implied on the men and women who make up my command.

And I cannot - I will not require them to undertake such scrutiny. I will not risk their future hesitation, a hesitation based on the knowledge that their previous actions have been monitored and analysed by those who sit comfortably from behind oak desks, who look only at bottom lines and economies of scale, who reduce sapient lives and the freedom of races to mere numbers on a ledger.

I will not let this man have his truth - not at the cost it will take of my people.

Senator Kinsey would quote from the Bible: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Exactly who will this truth set free?

The truth of the Stargate program is, indeed, that the people who serve in my command are heroes.

But the truth of the Stargate program, displayed to the world for criticism and contempt, would strip them of what makes them heroes; the will and strength to do what is right for right's sake alone - not so they look good, or so they come out smelling of roses, or because it is economically viable. And that is what Brigman, Kinsey, and Woolsey fail to understand.

Telling the world the whole truth would chain my people, hand and foot. They would be shackled to the great beast of PR and the work they do would be lost in the red tape. They would be lost in the maelstrom of celebrity and fame, pared thin by the attention, made haggard by the scrutiny.

They are my command and they deserve better.

I am a man who has been given the greatest gift on God's green Earth; to be granted the care of men and women who give their all and then keep on giving. I have been given an amazing trust: the lives and hearts and minds of ordinary, everyday heroes.

I will not break faith with them.

* fin *

AUTHOR'S NOTES 2: I'm not entirely sure that I have it right with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - the act of viewing changes both viewer and viewed - but my reasoning is this: it's Hammond talking, not Sam, so if he gets it wrong, don't fuss - he's a general, not an astrophysicist.

The timing of this piece is in the middle of the episode - it's after the camera crew have come in and while Woolsey is doing his 'review' of the SGC, but before Hammond is required to hand over the tape.