First Aired On: August 25, 2000
Written By: Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
Directed By: Martin Wood
Guest Stars: Brian Markinson (Lotan), Marilyn Norry (Hedrezar), Alessandro Juliano (Eliam), Rob Court (Caleb), Nikki Smook (Nikka)
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Daniel factor:
Carter factor:
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My Thoughts:
Related Episodes:
Daniel Jackson's History/Linguistic/Mythology Lesson:
Sam Carter's Physics Lesson:
Important Stargate Information:
Alien Species/Background:
Important everyday life stuff we learn from Stargate:
Quotes:
Hedrezar: Hundreds of villages like this one have paused, to celebrate the transportation of our people to this great new land. We are especially honored today by the presence of those responsible for finding this planet for us, and saving us from certain doom. How can we ever repay them?
Eliam: By not boring them with long speeches, Hedrezar.Daniel: If there's any good news, it would appear that whoever's in control doesn't have the specific intention of attacking the Enkarans.
Hammond: Why do you say that?
Daniel: It just seems there'd be a more direct approach.
O'Neill: What difference does it make?
Carter: Sir, the colonel is right. Based on the ship's current speed, I estimate it'll take approximately 26 hours to reach Hedrezar's village.
O'Neill: But it'll take out the Stargate first.
Hammond: Can we evacuate the Enkarans in time?
O'Neill: Teal'c's prepping them right now.
Carter: The concern is where to send them. Even low levels of radiation can cause the Enkarans to go blind. Without the density of ozone on this particular planet, they'll all die.Hammond: How long can we keep the Enkarans here on Earth in the mean time?
Carter: A matter of days. Their condition would degrade the longer they were here.
Daniel: There are thousands of them outside Hedrezar's village, spread a fair distance from the gate. It took us two weeks to transplant them to P5S-381 in the first place.
O'Neill: The point is, General, we could never save them all.O'Neill: Hey, what do you got?
Carter: The analysis of the atmosphere in the wake of the ship shows a high incidence of sulfur dioxide.
O'Neill: Chemical warfare?
Carter: I don't think so, sir. Take a look at this.
O'Neill (looking into the microscope): Oh, yeah. Little fuzzy orange things.
Carter: They're microbes, sir.O'Neill: Teal'c says you don't want to go?
Eliam: If we go with you to Earth, and you cannot find another world on which we could live, we will die there.
O'Neill: Give us a chance.
Hedrezar: Would there be time to take every Enkaran?
O'Neill: No.Daniel: Any intelligence capable of engineering something like that has to be capable of reason.
Carter: The question is, will they listen?
O'Neill: No, the real question is, will they have ears?O'Neill: I'm going to assume we're on board that ship.
Carter: Well, you know what's strange? The aliens went to so much trouble to change the atmosphere of the planet, yet the air in here is perfectly breathable.
Daniel: They were expecting us.
O'Neill (seeing Carter & Daniel looking at storage devices): Carter?
Carter: Sir?
O'Neill: Should we really be opening drawers and things? (Daniel opens a drawer) What did I just say?O'Neill: We're friends of the people your ship seems bent on wiping out.
Lotan: Yes, that is unfortunate. I was created to deliver a message to you. However, by the time I was completed, the Enkarans in the immediate vicinity seemed to have disappeared.
O'Neill: Yeah, see, that's called running away. What one does to avoid being slaughtered.
Daniel: There are still quite a few Enkarans living on the planet.
Lotan: Since you are friends to the Enkarans, would you deliver the message to them?
O'Neill: That would depend.
Lotan: When the transformation process was first begun, there were no sentient life forms present.
O'Neill: Yeah, well there are now.
Lotan: Yes. Unfortunately for your friends, once the process has begun it must be completed.Hammond: Can this information be used to stop the alien ship?
Carter: I'm not sure how, sir.
Daniel: That's assuming we have a right to stop them at all.
O'Neill: Excuse me?
Daniel: I don't mean to sound insensitive to the Enkarans, but we'd be interfering with the rebirth of an entire civilization. If you believe Lotan, an incredibly advanced, civilized, and peaceful one.
O'Neill: So the best society wins here?
Daniel: No, I wasn't saying that.
O'Neill: We're talking about a bunch of freeze-dried aliens whose civilization was lost a long time ago. The Enkarans are there now.Hammond: What do you propose, Colonel?
O'Neill: I say we throw everything we've got at that ship.
Hammond: I'm sorry, I can't authorize a military strike in this situation, Colonel.
O'Neill: Look, General, I apologize if all this seems to have taken on a personal edge for me, but we spent months getting to know these people. They trusted us, and we screwed up.
Hammond: I understand your feeling. We've all invested a lot in this operation. No one wants to see it end up badly for the Enkarans.
O'Neill: But you're not going to give me any effective weapons or personnel.
Hammond: Find another way out of this.Eliam: You gave us technology to build our cities, to provide heat. Have you not any way to stop the ship?
O'Neill: How much naquadah is in that reactor we gave them?
Carter: Sir?
Daniel: What are you doing?
O'Neill: Thinking, Daniel, don't worry about it too much.
Daniel: Thinking of a way to blow up the ship? I'm not really sure that's what General Hammond had in mind.
O'Neill: They're going to stand there and die. It's a no-win situation, but we're not going to sit around and watch these people get slaughtered!
Daniel: And you're willing to blow up that ship to--
O'Neill: Give me another choice!
Daniel: Well, I don't have one at the moment.
O'Neill: Apparently, time is a factor here. How do you make a naquadah bomb?
Carter: Well, sir, the reactor was designed specifically to prevent exactly that kind of--
O'Neill: Carter...
Carter: Theoretically, if I created a feedback loop, the energy would build up instead of being released. It would be a big explosion, sir.
O'Neill: Big enough?
Carter: I think so.
O'Neill: Carter, I'm making a choice to help these people, but if you don't make that bomb, I'm out of options.
Carter: I know.
O'Neill: So I have to order you to do it.
Carter: Yes, sir.Teal'c: Daniel Jackson, do you not plan on staying?
Daniel: Uh, no, actually I'm going to go try talk to Lotan.
Teal'c: If you warn Lotan of our plan it will prove ineffectual.
Daniel: I'm not going to give anything away, I just want to prevent it from being necessary.
Teal'c: Should you not remain until the return of Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter?
Daniel: Well, actually Jack asked me to give him another choice, so technically I'm following an order.Carter: Sir, no disrespect intended, but I'm having doubts as to whether or not we're doing the right thing.
O'Neill: What is that, Carter? The right thing? We brought these people here. They depend on us. What else are we going to do?
Carter: I don't know.
O'Neill: You want to talk me out of this?
Carter: Yes, sir. (Neither can think of anything to say, and Carter hands the detonator to O'Neill)Lotan: The air is not as pure as that created for me on the ship.
Daniel: It's definitely different.
Lotan: This is better.
Daniel: I agree.
Lotan: These are trees.
Daniel: Yes, anywhere's there's oxygen you're sure to find trees. They're kind of like nature's air filters.
Lotan: Their design is most interesting.
Daniel: So is their function.Teal'c: Daniel Jackson has gone to speak with Lotan.
O'Neill: Did you try to stop him?
Teal'c: I do not disagree with his intentions.
O'Neill: You do know we're going to try and blow up that ship?
Teal'c: I am aware of that, as is Daniel Jackson.
O'Neill (activates his radio): Daniel? Daniel, come in.
Daniel (over the radio): I read you, Jack.
O'Neill (furious): Tell me, TELL ME you're not on that ship!
Daniel (walking along a lovely forest lane with Lotan): Okay, I'm not on the ship.
O'Neill: What are you doing, Daniel?
Daniel (innocently): I'm talking to Lotan.Lotan: You have disobeyed your superior.
Daniel: No, not exactly.
Lotan: You are not fulfilling your function, Daniel Jackson.
Daniel: See, that's not true, I'm just... I'm choosing the best way to fulfill my true function. Sometimes hierarchical command structures don't allow you to see all the possible options.Lotan: You have brought me here to elicit sympathy for these people.
Daniel: Well, actually they're your people in a way, Lotan. You were created in their image.
Lotan: I was not created to prevent their demise, Daniel Jackson.
Daniel: But don't you wish you could?Daniel: Think about this. Think about the people down there, and all the life you will be destroying.
Lotan: I am programmed to serve the life on this ship.
Daniel: You say that they were an advanced civilization, ten thousand years of history.
Lotan: Yes.
Daniel: They had laws? Justice?
Lotan: Yes.
Daniel: A respect for life?
Lotan: Yes.
Daniel: Then how can their world be recreated through an act of mass murder? Wouldn't that be a betrayal of everything they stood for? You said you were made to communicate. You're not here simply to serve life on this ship, you're here to protect the integrity of life on this ship. There's a big difference. Are you really fulfilling your true function by allowing this to happen?Daniel: Lotan would like to offer you a compromise.
Lotan: The ship has expended too many of the resources needed for the transformation process to begin again on another planet. I require that you give up this world.
Eliam: How is that a compromise?
Daniel: We found the original Enkaran home world.
Hedrezar: What?
Carter: How?
Daniel: It was one of several million planets scanned by the ship before it settled on this one. It was rejected partly because of the presence of intelligent life forms.
O'Neill: He's telling us this now?
Daniel: Well, he didn't know, and technically he's just a day and a half old, so give him a break.
Hedrezar: We will gladly accept this offer to return to the home of our ancestors.
Carter: How do we get them there?
Teal'c: The Enkaran home world has no Stargate.
Daniel: Well, actually, I have this friend with a big spaceship who's willing to take them.
The First Ones Beneath the Surface
