Author: DeeKayP

9.17 THE SCOURGE

Summary

During what was thought to be a routine mission to escort international diplomats to the Gamma Site, SG-1 and their party come up against something totally unexpected and deadly.

Details

International representatives of the I.O.A. (International Oversight) are going on a little field trip with SG-1 to the Gamma Site. They include representatives from Britain (Russel Chapman), France (Jean LaPierre), and China (Shen Xiaoyi). The group is excited at seeing the Stargate for the first time and at the prospect of going through it.

Richard Woolsey begins his introductions of the members of SG-1 and the Chinese ambassador interrupts him, knowing fully well the person of Dr. Daniel Jackson. She recites his background: “PhD in Archaeology, Anthropology, and Philology. The man who solved the riddle of the Stargate.” Daniel, in turn, recognizes her and recites her background: “Graduate of Beijing Foreign Studies University, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Former attache to the Chinese Mission in the United States.” They then exchange words in her native tongue, but Mitchell feels like he’s the topic of their conversation and laughs uncomfortably.

The party goes through the Stargate, with Woolsey quite uncomfortable about the prospect of being molecularly deconstructed.

Once at the Gamma Site, the members of the party are introduced to the various personnel and their projects. There are forty scientists working on more than thirty ongoing projects at any given time. The Site has a complement of F-302s as well.

They have an R&D Department which is coordinated with Area 51 and keep in touch on a daily basis. Dr. Myers, entomologist, is studying an asexual, fast-producing insect responsible for the devastation of numerous off-world crops. Dr. Myers has made the study of these bugs top priority because they have only appeared on planets visited by the Priors of the Ori. But, they have a very short life cycle of only three days and they are sensitive to light.

Mitchell and Daniel have a difference in opinion concerning the promises made three years to the Chinese government. Mitchell doesn’t think that the Chinese government should be given access to military intelligence, while Daniel reminds him that the original agreement (Gate Alliance Treaty) didn’t stipulate any form of restrictions.

While everyone stops to have lunch, some in the cafeteria, others in their labs, Dr. Myers discovers that the bugs have an appetite for meatloaf and all of a sudden, they grow and multiply so rapidly that they burst out of their containment box. Myers and Pullman close them off, but one of the bugs actually bites Myers. The bugs are now carnivorous!

They attempt to take Myers through the Stargate to the SGC because they don’t have the proper medical facilities, but he dies in the transport pod. Unfortunately, his death throws cause the medics to lose their grip on the pod and it falls and opens. Myers has a host of bugs inside his body and they get loose! The Gamma Site is under lockdown — no one is permitted to leave!

The Gamma Site goes into chaos. Power failures ensue as Colonel Mason tries to defend his base against these deadly bugs — most assuredly sent by the Priors as a follow-up to the virus. They lose the gateroom and Mitchell volunteers his team to help them retake it, but Woolsey wants SG-1 to stay with the delegation because they were assigned to ensure the safety of the group. They evacuate to the planet’s surface, headed toward the research station. But, to their shock, the bugs have escaped the Site and are on their way. As they flee, they find safety in a cave.

Mitchell and Teal’c decide that they must go after the F-302s in order to make their escape after they lose contact with the base.

Shen and Daniel discuss the Stargate Program and the U.S. military. Shen wants to know where he stands in his loyalties concerning the U.S. military. She asks if it had been her country instead of the U.S. military that offered him the chance to travel to the stars, and he answers, “As long as the priority was off-world exploration that could help this planet, I’d have gladly accepted the offer.”

But, in the meantime, one-by-one, the people in SG-1’s party start to go missing…

Guest Characters

Richard Woolsey, Russel Chapman, Jean LaPierre, Shen Xiaoyi, Colonel Mason (base commander, Gamma Site), Dr. Myers (entomologist), Dr. Pullman (Dr. Myers’ assistant), Dr. Sharma (lead botanist), Airman Walkers

Solutions Season Nine Episode Guides
Index to Discussion Threads on our Solutions Forum

9.16 OFF THE GRID

Summary

SG-1 investigates a planet whose main crop is the highly addictive kassa, but their biggest problem is that they’re held prisoner on the planet with no way to escape because the Stargate appears to have been stolen.

Details

The team gates to P6G-452 and Mitchell goes “undercover” to get information about the lucrative distribution of the addictive crop kassa, led by Lucian Alliance mercenary, Orrel. Mitchell claims to represent a coalition of seven planets with 30 million kassa addicts. Orrel doesn’t “buy” his story and captures Daniel, Teal’c, and Carter who had been watching Mitchell with their binoculars for any sign of trouble. Eventually, their true identities are discovered.

While they’re captured, someone steals the Stargate. Orrel thinks that SG-1 was sent as a distraction. Mitchell gets struck across the face for his sassiness and Orrel thinks that Daniel needs to be taught that not everything always goes according to plan in his world.

However, SG-1 is not stranded. In comes the Odyssey to the rescue, the newest Daedalus-class ship commanded by Col. Casey Emerson. It takes approximately two days for the ship to reach SG-1 in order to extract them.

But, during those two days, poor SG-1 is beaten, exhausted, and starving. Daniel’s attempt to reason with Orrel and his men that they weren’t the ones who stole the Stargate only gets him smacked across the face. Just when Orrel has two of his men ready to kill them, they are beamed away!

They are sent to the ship’s infirmary. After getting cleaned up, they attend a meeting with Col. Emerson and Lt. Kendrick, where they find out that it is Ba’al who has been stealing the Stargates from this sector of space for the last several weeks. They find out that Nerus (from “Beachhead”) gave Gen. Landry the information about Ba’al from a holding cell at Area 51. After their “negotiations”, Nerus leaves through the Stargate with a case or two full of cupcakes.

Orrel is brought before the leader of the Lucian Alliance, Netan, who is not happy with Orrel that he let SG-1 escape, but Orrel effectively defends himself when he tells Netan that SG-1 was beamed out just like the Stargate had been. Netan is enraged because they used the Stargate to distribute the crop to their customers and now two-thirds of the crop will go bad. Still believing that SG-1 stole the Stargate, Netan declares war on Earth!

SPOILER WARNING – THE ENDING (Highlight if you want to know):
The Lucian Alliance finds the Odyssey right after the Odyssey finds Ba’al’s mothership. The Odyssey is now trapped between the two motherships. The problem is, SG-1 is on Ba’al’s mothership after having found the storage area where Ba’al is keeping all of his stolen Stargates. They are tagging the Stargates to be retrieved. However, the Lucian Alliance ship targets Ba’al’s ship which has no shields. Just as soon as SG-1 tags the last Stargate (with locator beacons), Ba’al gets his shields operational and they are trapped by Ba’al’s forces who have discovered them there. The Odyssey joins in and attacks the Lucian Alliance ship with rail guns. Finally, Ba’al’s ship loses its shields from the Lucian Alliance attack and the Odyssey beams the tagged Stargates onboard, but SG-1 isn’t among them. They appeared to have escaped through one of the Stargates. Then, Ba’al’s ship explodes!

When the Lucian Alliance ship targets the Odyssey, Emerson orders their retreat into hyperspace.

SG-1 comes home through the Stargate and tells Landry that he should contact the Odyssey to let them know that they are okay. END OF SPOILERS.

Guests: Orrel, Col. Casey Emerson, Lt. Kendrick (female officer), Nerus, Netan, Col. Webb (SG team leader), Ba’al, Vi’tak (in Ba’al’s service on his mothership)

Credits

Written by: Alan McCullough
Directed by: Martin Wood
Goes before cameras: August 23-30

Solutions Season Nine Episode Guides

It’s not just Daniel Jackson’s doing…

Excerpts from Steve Eramo’s interviews with Stargate SG-1‘s creative team in TV Zone Special #64

“In re-tooling the show we wanted to stay true to many of the ideas that we’d already established,” notes [Executive Producer Robert C.] Cooper. “This included the theme of false gods and what it is to be a god and whether or not you believe in that. We wanted to continue to explore that concept and I think our new villains, the Ori, actually provide greater opportunity for us to do that. With the Goa’uld there really was no question. They were bad guys with snakes in their heads and who used technology to enslave people. With the Ori, it’s not quite so clear to everyone as to whether or not they’re worthy of our devotion.

“So these episodes introduce that idea along with the Ori. Up to now, the Ancients have been protecting Earth; basically keeping it from the Ori’s view, so they didn’t know about us. However, when Daniel and Vala visit the Ori galaxy and start to poke around, all of a sudden the Ori know we’re here. They send their representatives or missionaries, called the Priors, to try to convert our galaxy to their religion. These missionaries have tremendous power at their disposal and a fervent belief in their mission. They’re offering people what is essentially a real religion with this wonderful pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There’s a catch, though,” smiles Cooper. “So this is pretty much what we’re up against this season on SG-1.”

As with the Goa’uld and other aliens on SG-1, the show’s art department played a big role in designing the look for the Ori and Priors. “The Priors are the Ori’s front line 'troops' if you will and we had to develop them from scratch,” says art director James Robbins. “We were given a description of who they were, what that they’d carry a staff of power. We first looked at Japanese and Samurai from a costuming point of view more than anything, but at the end of the day that look got watered down. Then we got into more mystical aspects and I came up with the idea of using scarification. Looking at some of the remote jungle tribes there’s face painting, scarification and burns, and I’ve always found that stuff kind of mystical.

“So I began experimenting with treatments for scarification and carried that through to the final look of the Priors and also the Doci, who are the overseers of all the lower level Ori, who are the Priors. The Priors have the chin and cheek scarification, whereas the Doci also have them on their foreheads. That’s all relegated, though. The higher up you are in their 'establishment' the more scarifications you receive, including on the backs of your hands. We even started out with the Priors having finger extensions, but that became too much of a physical anomaly to deal with. For example, when they tried closing their hands around their staffs it just didn’t look right, so after one episode we jettisoned the whole idea of doing that.

“Each of the Priors has his own symbol that’s part of his wardrobe and is also set into the handle of each staff. With the staffs, we thought it would be fun to have these little glowing orbs encased in natural wood. So the model shop built a number of staffs, each with its own Prior symbol as well as other markings etched into their sides. The staffs are actuated to glow by pressing a little button, either on the side or on the end, which is pretty cool.”

Stargate SG-1 Solutions Season Nine Episode Guides
Visimag.com: TV Zone Special #64