A little meta regarding the Nox (SG-1)

[smg01]

sg_fignewton suggested I take part of a discussion started in her journal over to mine to allow for a little more depth on the topic. So here goes. For reference here are a couple of my original posts.

The Nox and the Tollan could have saved countless lives if they'd taken the battle to the Goa'uld. The Tollan only did so when they themselves were threatened; the Nox stood by their staunch pacifism. The latter is slightly more understandable than the former, perhaps; but the Nox have their superior technology that allows them to be pacifists, even as they ignore whatever deaths and wars take place outside their jurisdictions

See, I fully support the Nox stance and am like to think that their pacifism is a reflection of them and not of their comfortable existence. [Full disclosure: I come from a religious and cultural tradition that holds pacifism as one of it's central tenets. So this is an issue that's sort of close to my heart.] I think there's a tendency in the culture at large to view pacifism and passivism as equal. And they're not. (I'm not saying that your post is doing that. I've been thinking of this issue with regard to something else, so it's been on my mind.) Pacifism and pacifists can be quite active and can make a positive difference in outcomes without ever carrying a weapon.

This is partly why I don't regard Lya's action as particularly antithetic to the Nox way. In our very first meeting with the Nox, we saw them actively protecting the weak by making them invisible. We also saw them healing enemy and friend alike. We saw them actively decline SG-1's "protection" even when it meant exposing risk to their own lives during the healing ritual for the young Nox. They are willing and able to risk themselves in support of their beliefs, even in moments when the easiest course to say "never mind the non-violence this time." I guess under those terms, and my own biases, I see Lya's actions in Pretense as not so much shifting any balances of power so much as keeping them even(er). Had the Goa'uld not made a move against the Tollan, her hiding the one ion canon wouldn't have made a difference--ultimately it was the Goa'uld action that brought the reprisal. And I suspect that Lya was also comfortable with her action knowing that the Tollan weaponry is purely for defensive and not offensive purposes. She's not actively opposing the Goa'uld or preventing them from being, well, Goa'uld-ish. Her one act allows the Tollan to use their own technology.

Which is not to deny that Lya was walking a very fine line. Nor is it to deny that I've talked myself around so much in this post that I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying anymore.

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Fig: They do draw a line - they don't care about weapons outside their purview, so how active can their pacifism be?

It may depend upon what kind of active we mean. It's certainly not a proselytizing pacifism on the part of the Nox. They're not out in the galaxy trying to broker peace agreements or bring others to a new viewpoint. They're obviously isolationist in nature. There is certainly, at the least, a bit of a passive element to that. (There are other more personal elements of the Nox's pacifism that I would argue are active, though neither flashy nor overtly involve, uh, activity.)

But then, it has also occurred to me over time that we really don't know that much about the Nox. We don't know if the are 15 of them, or 15,000, or 150,000, or more. Perhaps their population is very small. Perhaps their population isn't big enough to absorb the risks involved in putting themselves out there in a big way. Lya also mentions that they rely more on disguise and illusion. They obviously have very special skills, but in my mind, it's an open question as to whether it's of the same nature as the Tollan or the Asgard. Maybe they were the more granola element of the original Great Alliance: more interested the gentler side of personal development than in technological achievement. (Maybe they were the conscience of the alliance.) They may have splintered off because they moved in a different direction philosophically. And they may be isolated now for practical reasons beyond their own cultural philosophy.

Or maybe I'm doing a little more theorizing than the text allows.

Fig: Don't you wonder just what caused the Four Races to splinter? What brought them together in the first place? (They were long before the Goa'uld rose to power.)

I think the theorizing is marvelous. I also think that we're not doing the subject justice. :)

How about posting this on your LJ for some proper discussion, instead of leaving it buried in the comments here?

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And now for a little new stuff:

So, while I had my guitar lesson and then walked the dog, I did a little more thinking. I sort of see the Nox as having separated themselves out in much the same way that, say, the Amish have. But without the fundamentalist undertones. But did happen before or after the alliance frayed? Was it one of the causes for the dissolution? What did break the alliance apart? Did the four quarrel? Were they overcome by a greater enemy?

My current working theory is that it may have been weakened by forces both outside and within. We know that the Alterans were struck by a plague for which they had no defense. Those that didn't die off, ascended. Now we're down to three. Were the Furling also afflicted by the plague? Did they become vulnerable to the Goa'uld and die out? I had a pet theory for awhile that they became the Ori, but I doesn't seem to really fit. We know that the Asgard continued to embrace their role as guardians. And the Nox retreated altogether. They seem to have embraced a life of peace and simplicity. Did they just grow in a different direction from the other alliance members? Did the four just finally reach a point where it was time for them to go their own ways?

The show text doesn't really tell us. What do you think?

Comments

[sg-betty.livejournal.com]

I don't dare hazard a guess about the Furlings. I think it's interesting that both the Alterans (as the Ascended) and the Nox chose isolation over involvement/guardianship, whereas the Asgard kept themselves out there, even when their numbers were diminished and their survival was uncertain.
I would argue that this suggests a specific event which fractured the alliance and pushed two of the races to isolation and perhaps propelled the Asgard to their role as Guardians of the Milky Way.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

Argh. I had a reply that I wound up not posting because while all of the words were English, they didn't really make any sense. I'll give it another try tomorrow to see if I can put my many thoughts into a more coherent form.

(The upshot: there was a lot of fun with speculation about things which have no answers.)

[aurora-novarum.livejournal.com]

The Asgard and Nox seemed to still be in contact. The Asgard seemed a bit put out that the Ancients just kind of disappeared before the writers came up with the whole "plague" thing.

The only thing we know about the Furlings is that they created this nirvana for people, and the Goa'uld came in with the evil arugula and destroyed it. But what happened to the rest of the people? Had the population already become that small? Were those really Furlings left, or was it just others who found their little moon markers? They certainly knew enough not to let weapons pass through a la the Tollans (although they overlooked the Tau'ri weapons as too primitive.) I don't think the Furlings were the Ori. But I don't think they were ewoks either. Hmmm...that's a good quesiton.

Did the Nox retreat or were they just not explorers to begin with? The Ancients must have put the Stargate there, maybe they were happy to converse if someone came to them, like the Ancients, or the Tollan, or Earth if they hadn't been fighting Poffy at the time, but unless invited to a place like Heliopolis, they don't go out of their own sphere. They don't mind helping in their way--perhaps they tried but couldn't help the Asgard.

[suzannemarie.livejournal.com]

That's kind of what I was starting to work around to with the Nox too. That they may just not have been explorers or in the forefront in they way that the Alterans and (evidently) the Asgard were. And the Alterans appear to have been way ahead of everyone else--even the Asgard had much to learn and study from the the Ancient database.

Were the Nox (and maybe the Furling) the dreamers and the Alterans and Asgard the doers? I think every group needs both. Maybe while the Alterans were out making discoveries and inventing things and being all superior, the Nox were just trying to live a simple, harmonious, and thoughtful existence.

Or, ooo. Maybe once upon a time, the Nox were at the forefront, fighting and defending and generally leading the charge. And maybe they got smacked down and decimated and had to reevaluate their position. Or something major happened, some sort of Very Bad Event that led to an ethical self-examination that made them turn to a new path. Hmm. There could be an interesting story there. May need to ponder further.