In this review, I explore how Enigma uses first contact, environmental collapse, and displaced people to ask an uncomfortable but enduring question: what do we owe those who have lost everything?

The Tollans arrive not as conquerors, but as survivors. Their planet has become uninhabitable, even though their technology is far beyond ours. Almost immediately, their presence exposes fault lines within Stargate Command and our broader systems of authority — especially with the introduction of the NID and Colonel Maybourne, whose priorities stand in stark contrast to SG-1’s.

This episode keeps circling one idea: progress without ethics isn’t progress at all.

Though Enigma first aired in 1998, its themes feel uncomfortably current — from climate-driven displacement to governments exploiting crisis for leverage. Watching it now, it’s hard not to notice how little the questions have changed… and how much they still demand answers.

👉 When doing the right thing means standing up to authority, would you take the risk — or follow orders?

🎵 credit goes to “Emotional Mess” by Amy Lynn & the Honey Men