(no subject)

[bluflamingo]

So, here's the thing. With the US being (we hope) about to repeal don't ask, don't tell, this keeps popping up in SGA fic, and it's all happy cheerful, now I can be openly together with whoever I've been (secretly) pining for/with for x number of years, yay!

Which, if it's John and Cam, or Lorne and... actually, pretty much anyone except John, or, I don't know, Cadman and Carter post-Atlantis, is fine, because the only rule they were at risk from was don't ask don't tell.

However: if it's John/Rodney, John/Ronon, John/Lorne, Lorne/Parrish-on-his-team, aren't they still breaking the fraternisation rules? As in, no close relationships with someone in your chain of command or on your team? And hence, shouldn't that at least merit some kind of comment, even if it's just a handwavey 'the SGC doesn't care'?

Or am I totally misinterpreting that rule?

Comments

[scrollgirl]

About.com is a great resource. Here are articles on fraternization policies for Marines and for Air Force. (Click to download AIR FORCE INSTRUCTION 36-2909.)

Fraternization is actually about officers and enlisted--with John and members of his team, it'd be about "unprofessional relationships" (3rd para of AF article) since none of them are enlisted. Jack/Sam wouldn't have fallen under fraternization, I think, since technically that applies to officers and enlisted and they're both officers.

To answer your question, yeah, I think there would still be a problem with John sleeping with a teammate.

[bluflamingo]

Cool, thanks for all the links!

To answer your question, yeah, I think there would still be a problem with John sleeping with a teammate.

Thanks! Though I have seen the occassional 'well, yeah, but we love each other, what difference does it make if we're sleeping together?' excuse. Actually, that would make a great prompt for the next round of lgbtfest.

[scrollgirl]

Though I have seen the occasional 'well, yeah, but we love each other, what difference does it make if we're sleeping together?' excuse.

I understand wanting to hand-wave the "sleeping together" issue when the SG teams are so close-knit already. I mean, Jack never canonically slept with any of his team, and yet he was very obviously, very massively compromised because of how he felt about them. (ETA: Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit. I'm trying to find the S8 ep where he risks a ship/the SGC for SG-1--it's the most obvious example.) I like fanwanking that he took the D.C. post because he knew he couldn't handle being commander of the SGC when his objectivity was so screwed up.

But it's naive, I think, to argue that sex doesn't make a difference. Maybe you could just move on and not have it affect your judgment, but you wouldn't know for sure until you were faced with a life-or-death situation. Why would you risk it? I personally think John has too much personal integrity, and takes his job too seriously, to put himself in that situation.

[bluflamingo]

Yeah, starting to sleep together makes it all more complicated, I think. for one thing, what happens when/if you break up? How does it affect the dynamic with everyone else in the team or whatever? Starting a relationship is going to change things, even if you were close before, and I think you're definitely right, John probably knows better than to risk it, and risk everyone else.

[rubygirl29]

It would definitely be a problem with John/Lorne, which is one reason I have a very hard time with the pairing, even with the pretty!

[bluflamingo]

Same here. I usually set it either after they're not working together any more, or before they started and it's just carried over. But between Lorne seeming like the kind of guy who follows the rules and John being a bit of a worrier about his people, it's hard to make it work on Atlantis without some kind of pretty serious crisis to kickstart it, I think.

[slybrarian]

Yep, it's definitely a still a problem in these situations, although it wouldn't necessarily be fraternization as opposed to a similar regulations. The Navy's had a rather long string of COs getting the boot for inappropriate relationships. In fact, I think the CO and XO of a minesweeper were discharged just last week. But they just seem to be a bit more public about it because of the relatively high ranks involves - from what I've heard, the Air Force is actually a lot more uptight about relationships than the other services. It doesn't help that the Air Force is also thoroughly fundie-infested, to the point that the Air Force Academy is practically a fundamentalist college.

Of course, the SGC and Atlantis are already a morass of inappropriately close platonic relationships. They're shielded a bit by the people in charge and the fact that it's still secret and they're all difficult to replace. Even once disclosure comes around, for the main characters there'd be a strong incentive to look the other way to avoid the words 'scandal' and 'saved the planet' appearing in the same sentence in the press.

[bluflamingo]

I'd love to see a scnadal/disclosure fic where it's not all happy cheerful and everything's fine (not that I don't love those). Being gay is still such a controversial thing for public figures, and then you add in John liking his privacy and... talk about heading for disaster :(