Continuing Stargate

[AVFan]

Yeah, it seems like a lot more than 1 billion people would be dead.. Although the Der'kal would've had no reason to bomb Africa and other rural areas with a lot of people.. I would've estimated at least 2 billion dead because of the major cities bombed. Not that 1 billion isn't significant enough obviously.

[thekillman]

cities would be the major focal point. besides, as S09 said, what use is their in extensive bombardment?

[Garth Claw]

Didn't Ba'al state that the Jaffa only numbered in the millions (10 to the power of 6) spread out over the whole of the Gou'ald empire (season 9). Given there life spans (and combat losses), its not unreasonable to assume that this still hold true. Whilst Earth has 6 billion (10 to the power of 9 (Short scale)) people, even with combat losses that still a lot more people.

[s09119]

Didn't Ba'al state that the Jaffa only numbered in the millions (10 to the power of 6) spread out over the whole of the Gou'ald empire (season 9). Given there life spans (and combat losses), its not unreasonable to assume that this still hold true. Whilst Earth has 6 billion (10 to the power of 9 (Short scale)) people, even with combat losses that still a lot more people.

I don't remember him saying that, but if he did, I'm retconning it or going with "he lied." A galactic population that tiny is ridiculous.

[s09119]

Carter plays "Mind Games" with the Der'kal.

In an effort to best a rogue Der'kal commander, Carter decides to use Tok'ra memory recall technology on a captured alien to try and "think" like one of them. Needless to say, things quickly go wrong, and only continue to go from bad to worse. Can Sam pull herself out in time to save her life, or will the SG-1 team be saying farewell to yet another hero before the day is done?

"Mind Games" will guest star Lexa Doig as Dr. Caroline Lam.

[Rudy Pena]

Shol'va was good, I cant wiat for Mind Games.

[Garth Claw]

I don't remember him saying that, but if he did, I'm retconning it or going with "he lied." A galactic population that tiny is ridiculous.

Season 9, eps. 14 'Stronghold'

Actually its not that ridiculous, as far as we know the gou'ald centred their population around the gates and didn't maximise the planet. That combiened with the Jaffa long life spans, the fact that only a 'chosen few' got access to symbiots, and the constant wars the popualtion growth would probably have been fairly static.
After all in the gou'ald empire most of the work was done by Human slaves/trustees with Jaffa serving a strict miltary purpose (Summit part 1), therefore the ability to support a large Jaffa population base would be disporportional to the tech level.

[s09119]

Season 9, eps. 14 'Stronghold'

Actually its not that ridiculous, as far as we know the gou'ald centred their population around the gates and didn't maximise the planet. That combiened with the Jaffa long life spans, the fact that only a 'chosen few' got access to symbiots, and the constant wars the popualtion growth would probably have been fairly static.
After all in the gou'ald empire most of the work was done by Human slaves/trustees with Jaffa serving a strict miltary purpose (Summit part 1), therefore the ability to support a large Jaffa population base would be disporportional to the tech level.

I'm still calling foul, if only for story purposes. Working with a population that small makes it very difficult to do anything but have the Tau'ri dominate everything by default. As for Ba'al's statement, I'm comparing it to Rush's line about Destiny being "hundreds of thousands" of years old when we know it's millions of years old. Ba'al misspoke or meant "thousands of millions" which simplifies to "billions."

[thekillman]

millions is nothing. nothing.

The Jaffa number in the millions spread across the vastness of the galaxy

perhaps the jaffa he knew of. do we know wheter the Goauld kept a headcount? with no surnames, i really doubt that. he could easily be wrong.

and i support the billion figure. which is still nothing compared to the amount of planets.

[SG-18]

Hey, great last two eps! Good to see you're back in the swing of things. I also read over the previous discussions since those eps, so I got nothing to say but praise. Looking forward to the next episode.

[s09119]

16x05 "Mind Games"
Synopsis: Carter attempts to get inside the head of the rogue Der'kal admiral besting her efforts by using a Tok'ra memory device to try and "think" like the aliens, with disastrous results.

Spoiler:

Somewhere in deep space, the MBP-305 Jupiter is trading blows with a Der'kal cruiser and a pair of corvette escorts. Its Asgard plasma weapons firing at full power, the experimental warship blows through the rear section of one of the escort ships, sparking a chain reaction that ultimately destroys the entire vessel. On the bridge of the 305, Col. Samantha Carter grins triumphantly, savoring the chance to finally catch the failing battle group's commander, an individual who has been the bane of her existence for the last month or so. Ever since the end of the war, the various rogue alien factions have been a nagging problem for outlying planets, both Allied and independent, and the Alliance has been trying to weed them out as quickly as possible to prevent them growing entrenched and fortified elsewhere. This particular admiral managed to survive Lor'al's purge of ship captains shortly before her death ("Interludes"), and it seems to have only made him even more difficult to kill; he's been in Sam's sights five times now and has always managed to slip away.

As the cruiser and its surviving escort begin to break off and move to jump into hyperspace, Sam taps her radio and gives the order to execute a pre-arranged plan. Not intending on letting her quarry escape a sixth time, she had a little surprised set up in case she wasn't able to disable the enemy's hyperdrive in time; a hyperspace window forms just in front of the Der'kal flagship, ejecting the MBP-305 Aurora into perfect firing range. On the bridge of the Jupiter's sister ship, Col. Via Sanders radios Sam to say she hopes she didn't miss all the fun. Laughing, Carter points out that she saved a corvette just for her, which the Aurora's main guns remove in a few short seconds.

Outgunned and outfoxed, the cruiser pulls a hairpin turn to avoid slamming into the Aurora's forward shields, trying to angle between the two Tau'ri ships and get out while it still can. Carter tells her cry to take out its engines without hitting anything else, completely focused on finally getting a win. So focused, in fact, that she pays only cursory attention to Sanders when she worriedly asks if the Jupiter is picking up the same readings she is, namely the distortion of local space in a way consistent with hyperspace activity. A moment later, just as Sam's gunners open fire, a dozen more Der'kal ships leap out of a subspace window into the battle, their shields coming online just in time to absorb the incoming plasma blasts. Apparently, Carter wasn't the only one with an ace up her sleeve, and it just so happened that the rogue commander's ace was of a bit more value than hers.

The Der'kal ships blast their way past the two 305s into open space and form up to make the jump to safety. Just before they disappear into hypersapce, however, the enemy flagship transmits a single line of text to the Jupiter, which Sam has linked to her private console. Watching in disbelief as her foe manages to make his tally six for six, she glances down to see what he has to say; the message reads simply, in English, "Nice try." Needless to say, Carter is not amused, and angrily gives the order to prepare to head back to Earth.

Several hours later, Carter is pacing in the briefing room at the ISGC, going on and on about how she was so certain she had this commander cornered before more of his ships just came out of nowhere. Sitting at the table listening is Dr. Talbot and the members of the SG-1, all of whom show varying looks of amusement at Sam's frustration. For a woman who is so used to solving the problems of the entire universe, it seems hard to believe that one alien working with virtually no resources can still pull off six miraculous wins in a row. Annoyed, Sam mutters that she hardly sees how this is funny, and Vala just tells her to relax. After all, she's taken out over half of this particular Der'kal's ships in the last two engagements, an incredible feat considering she generally limits her attacks to the Jupiter alone. It's only a matter of time until she gets him, and she has yet to lose a single life in the attempts. All things considered, isn't this already a victory?

Sighing, Carter admits that she may be getting slightly obsessive about capturing the alien commander, but his tactical prowess worries her. Right now the Alliance is able to get away with diverting only a fraction of its depleted fleet to deal with the rogue Der'kal left on the fringes of the Milky Way, largely because the factions are divided under different warlords with different goals. Without the governance of the armada, the remaining alien fleets are duking it out against one another and carving out their own miniature empires in the name of the Exarch. This one commander is far more cunning than the others, though, and the last thing they need is for one Der'kal to unite the groups into a coherent force actually capable of causing some major damage in Allied space. Fighting the Aschen is taxing enough, and taking on a renewed Der'kal threat, however less than the original one, may be all it takes to doom any chance of a lasting galactic peace for good.

Talbot suggests that perhaps Sam just isn't going about this the right way. She's coming at an alien tactician using human strategies, and maybe that's the real problem. Frowning, Daniel asks if she means that Sam's just not "thinking" like a Der'kal, and Talbot nods, saying that they're another species from another galaxy. They may have some human-like thought processes, but it's unlikely that they view every possible scenario exactly the same. Getting up and patting Carter on the back, Mitchell jokes that it's too bad she can't spend a day in their shoes before heading toward the exit. Sam, though, suddenly looks as though she has an idea, and wonders aloud if maybe she can...

A few hours later, Dr. Caroline Lam is in the ISGC medical bay asking Carter if she's actually serious about the proposal she just laid out to her. When the Colonel says that she is indeed serious, Lam holds up her hands and asks if she understands this right; Sam wants to hook up one of the Der'kal they have locked up to a Tok'ra memory recall device to download everything it knows about Der'kal tactics directly into her brain. Nodding enthusiastically, Carter replies that that's the just of it, yes, and as someone with a blank check mandate to protect the planet by whatever means necessary, she's not asking for Lam's permission, just her help. She's going to do this one way or another, but she'd prefer to do it with a medical professional standing by to monitor vitals during the transfer.

Standing a few feet away, Talbot asks if this is really the best idea, but Sam's adamant that it will work. She's gone over the science behind the memory devices a thousand times, and she even knows it's possible from firsthand experience, having seen memories forced on Cameron Mitchell during their mission to Galar ("Collateral Damage"). It's the same basic idea, and she's certain that she can get the edge she needs if this works the way she thinks it will. Talbots, sighs, admitting that she doesn't have the authority to tell her not to do this, but reminds Sam that Dr. Lam is still under her in the chain of command. If she thinks, even for a second, that this whole process is dangerous to Carter's health, she'll have it terminated immediately. Her case made, she glances at Sam and says that she hopes the Colonel knows what she's doing, then leaves for her other duties.

Over the course of the next day, SG-1 watches from the observation room as Carter has all the necessary pieces for her brain drain brought in. When it's all finished and in place, an entire wing of the infirmary has been turned into a makeshift laboratory, and half of the bay's staff have been turned over to Sam's jurisdiction to facilitate the data transfer. Now a team of scientists are hooking up their Der'kal subject, a heavily sedated commander who had overseen the North American region during the alien occupation period, to his set of memory nodes.

In the observation room, Eaton asks Sam if she really wants to go through with this, especially since something like this has never been attempted with a species originating outside the Milky Way. Carter is insistent that nothing will go wrong, though, and smiles at Rebbecca to reassure her that she's worrying too much. But even Mitchell, the token risk-taker of the group, has reservations about the whole thing, and he pleads with Sam to let someone else be the one to try it. But she refuses, arguing that even if she thought it was dangerous, she would never ask one of her men to do something she herself would not. As a matter of principle, she has to do this herself. Then, telling her friends that she'll see them soon, she ducks down into the medical bay and lays down on a table opposite the unconscious Der'kal, nodding at Caroline to attach the recall device. Grimacing and glancing at SG-1, she obliges, latching them onto Sam's forehead and holding her breath in anticipation.

An instant after, Sam opens her eyes, confused as to why she's lying on the floor in some place distinctly not the ISGC. Feeling a bit unsteady on her feet, she pulls herself up and looks around, recognizing with a sinking feeling that what she sees is the interior of a Der'kal ship, the bridge to be exact. Given the layout, it would appear to be that of a cruiser, and as she walks over to the forward window, she can see the Jupiter floating in the distance, its weapons oddly inactive. Going to grab her earpiece and ask her crew why they're not attacking or beaming her out, she finds that the radio is mysteriously missing. More disturbingly, though, is the realization that so is her sidearm.

There's a sudden sound behind her, and Sam spins around to see the Der'kal she's connected to standing in the doorway, a look of complete fury on his face. His voice barely less than a roar, he demands to know why she, a human, an infidel, dares to trespass in his body. Yanking out his plasma pistol, he fires off a round past Sam's shoulder, then another at her feet, promising that one way or another, he will regain the sanctity of his own mind. Carter, now not so sure this was a good idea, scrambles backwards, looking for anything she can use as a weapon but quickly finding herself pressed up against the window with nowhere to go. The alien commander snarls happily, sidestepping a console and raising his gun for the killing shot.

He misunderstands Sam's retreat as fear, though, and the Colonel ducks just as the green burst fires past her and slams into the window, denting but not shattering it. Swinging her leg up, Carter kicks up hard, knocking the pistol out of the Der'kal's grasp. He counters with a swipe at her face, but she's already bending back to avoid the hit, instead raising her other leg and kicking forward, sending the alien reeling back into the nearby console. With not a second to lose, Sam runs over and grabs the fallen plasma gun, but can't get a shot off before another blast comes her way, this time from the second pistol the Der'kal had on his belt. This isn't a fight she can win when he's the one with the cover, so Carter sprints toward the exit and slides through on her knees, letting a flurry of plasma bursts sail overhead. Then she jumps to her feet and runs off down the hall, knowing that she needs to find a way out of this nightmare.

(Beginning of "Mind Games," see next two posts for more.)

[s09119]

(More of "Mind Games," see previous post for beginning and next post for end.)

Spoiler:

Back in reality, SG-1 looks on in concern as Dr. Lam watches Sam's body twitch noticeably on the table, her brain activity dropping close to zero as the opposite takes place on the Der'kal's monitor. Caroline looks over Carter's vitals for only a moment before grabbing the nearby phone and demanding to be connected to Dr. Talbot immediately. They have a serious problem here.

Meanwhile, Carter is firing over her shoulder at the Der'kal as she runs down a long hallway in the alien cruiser. Crouching down behind a computer terminal jutting out from the wall, she takes careful aim and fires, but her adversary is fast enough to twist out of the way in time. Cursing under her breath, takes off at a sprint again, listening to the Der'kal laugh after her that there is no escape. His kind are stronger, faster, and more resilient than humans, and in the end, she stands no chance of getting out of here alive. Taking cover on the other side of a twist in the corridor, Sam mutters that she's very good at beating the odds, and scans the area for anything she can use to give her an edge, but doesn't see much of anything useful.

Then she spots a pipe, probably carrying steam or something similar, running the length of the hall. She frowns, thinking that it's oddly convenient this particular corridor happens to have an exposed tube she can utilize, but then again, the Der'kal likely don't have the spare resources to patch up minor dents and scratches and such without the armada to resupply them. And, as she is quick to remind herself, this is all in her head. Maybe she has a little more influence on what the environment here is like than she thought.

Whatever the case, she fires a few rounds into the pipe near the oncoming Der'kal, allowing herself a small moment of relief when superheated steam bursts out from the breach, badly scalding the alien's face. He shouts that she'll have to do better than that, but Sam isn't really sticking around to hear more, already making her way around the bend in the hall. Up ahead, the corridor branches off in two directions, and she thinks long and hard about which path to take. But as the footsteps of her enemy grow closer, she arbitrarily decides on the lefthand route. Before rushing off, though, she shoots the control panel for the righthand side's blast door, watching it slam shut and seal. She quickly does the same with her own hallway's controls, ducking inside just before the metal barrier clangs down. Now the Der'kal will have to choose the right direction and pry open the appropriate door, and if he finds he was wrong, it means going back and repeating the process all over again.

Not wanting to waste even a second of her newly bought time, Carter makes for the other end of the corridor, not bothering to look back. But on the other side of the blast doors, the Der'kal takes one look at the barriers blocking his way and just laughs, turning around and going back the way he came. He doesn't seem all that interested in playing a game of cat and mouse, and apparently has other plans in mind for catching up to his unwelcome guest.

Back in the real world, Talbot is asking Dr. Lam and the medical/science team what, exactly, is going on in Sam's head. Lam, though, is largely at a loss; her brain activity is practically zero, but the Der'kal's is spiking way past normal levels, almost double the usual value. Coming down from the observation room with the rest of SG-1, Daniel asks if this is a natural side-effect of memory recall technology when one person is trying to access the memories of another. Caroline shakes her head, explaining that since the Der'kal is practically in a medically-induced coma, his brain shouldn't be doing much of anything. And seeing as Sam's the one doing the probing, her thought patterns should be elevated, if anything.

Thinking over the situation for a long moment, Talbot asks if they can just pull the plug and get her back, but Lam doesn't think that's possible at this point. If she had to hazard a guess at what's happening, she'd say that, somehow, Sam's consciousness is inside the mind of the Der'kal. If they disconnected the memory device now, her essence, the collection of thoughts and feelings and memories that make Carter who she is, would remain where they are, inside the alien's brain. She compares it to how Merlin piggybacked on Daniel's brain for a short while ("The Shroud"), but in this case, Sam would have no ability to communicate her existence at all. She would just wither away, and that would be that.

Unable to believe what he's hearing, Mitchell asks if Lam's saying they have to just sit and wait, and the doctor replies that yes, that's exactly what she's saying. Short of hooking someone else up to the recall network and sending them in after her, which she is simply not going to allow, they're out of feasible options. Talbot agrees with her assessment, but says that they can't do this forever. As hard as it is for her to say, she has to put a limit on this, and tells Lam that if Carter isn't conscious again in six hours, she's to disconnect her manually. Sam's brain contains too much sensitive information to let a Der'kal go rummaging through it unchecked, and this is just how it has to be. Daniel tries to plead with her for more time, but Talbot's holding firm; there's no other way. It's all on Samantha now, and they all hope she's up to the task.

On the phantom cruiser, Carter has managed to locate a security terminal, and she's hacked her way to a map of the vessel. She's in the process of memorizing the in-ship coordinates of the nearest ring platform, hoping to head to the Jupiter where she should have the home field advantage. She's just about to log off when she jumps, hearing the raspy voice of the Der'kal commander over the intercom. Speaking to her from the bridge, he says that it only took a few minutes of scanning to reveal Sam's location, and he finds it quite fortuitous that her position is so close to an airlock, one which he has the power to open and close as he pleases.

Eyes widening, Carter turns back to the terminal and begins typing furiously, desperate to get to some subroutine before she's flushed into space. Laughing, the Der'kal taunts her, saying that while it was a pleasure to toy with the great Col. Samantha Carter, it is time for this little game to end. He activates the airlock door mechanism and, several dozen meters from where Sam stands, it edges open, sucking the air from the area with frightening speed. Watching her stolen pistol fly off the top of the console, Carter grabs onto the security terminal with so much force that her fingers feel as though they're digging into broken glass. Punching down on the equivalent of the Enter key, she remotely triggers the advanced cruiser's beaming technology, transporting herself just outside of the ring room, three decks up from the now-lifeless hallway in which she had been working.

Stunned, the Der'kal admits over the intercom that he was not expecting her to pull off something like that, but it's of no concern. As Sam opens the door to the ring room and runs inside, the alien materializes between her and the rings, pointing out that she's not the only one familiar with this particular piece of Asgard technology. He pulls his own pistol out of its holster and prepares to fire, but Sam ducks her head and plows headlong into him, knocking him down and causing his shot to discharge harmlessly into the ceiling. Seizing on her advantage, she gets in a good few punches at the his face before he recovers and hurls her off, sending her straight into an wall. While the Der'kal struggles to his feet, Sam pulls herself up and crawls to the ring control panel, tapping in the symbols to link to the Jupiter and practically leaping onto the platform without a second thought.

Unfortunately, seeing as the rings take a moment to activate, her alien adversary has just enough time to step within the platform' radius before they begin to come online. Carter has no intention of letting him come along for the ride armed, though, and manages to shove his pistol hand back into the rising rings as they pass, snapping the gun out of his grasp and ensuring that it doesn't get teleported along with them. He growls angrily, but Sam just grins. A moment later, a transmission beam appears between the cruiser and the nearby MBP-305, and the pair are sent on their way.

In the ISGC medical bay, 4 hours have elapsed without anything of note changing. SG-1 and Dr. Lam sit in a circle around Carter's unmoving body, all watching for some sign of life. Finally getting up, Eaton says that she'll go get everyone some coffee when the monitors suddenly beep urgently. Lam checks the closest readout to see what's going on, and Vala jumps back as Sam's head lurches violently. All the computers report that Carter's brain activity has suddenly shot to twice the usual levels, and the Der'kal seems to be brain dead, a complete reversal of the condition of the two mere moments before. Confused, Daniel asks if this means that both their consciousnesses are in Sam's mind now, and Lam answers that it seems like the most-likely state of affairs. The ball's in her court now, and hopefully that will give her the advantage she needs to win this before the final buzzer sounds in just under two hours.

In the ring room of the ethereal X-305, Sam knocks back the Der'kal the instant the rings retract, kicking him around the groin and turning toward the door. The alien pries a water-carrying pipe off the wall and hurls it at her, though, tangling it up in her legs and causing her to come crashing down just short of the entryway. He moves in to finish her off, but Sam kicks out behind her as he approaches, catching his knees and toppling him over. Before he can get up again, she's through the door and sprinting down the hall, mentally trying to orient herself toward the closest armory. The Der'kal, however, has other plans. He clambers down the hall to one of the ship's security consoles and does some hacking of his own, demonstrating that humans aren't the only ones capable of cracking enemy codes. He expertly navigates the system to the automatic locking system and activates it, sealing off all of the vessel's armories and ready rooms.

One deck up, Carter yells out in frustration when the armory she's so close to suddenly bolts itself closed, leaving her just out of arm's reach of a trusty P90. She realizes at once what's going on, and rushes back down the hall to a security panel, hurriedly slicing into the major subroutines and isolating the beaming controls to prevent the Der'kal from transporting himself to the bridge. Then, thinking that getting control of the ship as a whole is the only way to end this for good, she goes over to the closest ladder tube and crawls inside, counting out loud how many decks up she remembers the command center is from here. Her adversary, though, seems to have the same idea, and he's also figured out what the ladders are used for, swinging inside one and pulling himself up much faster than a human could manage. He obviously doesn't know which level the bridge is on, but since the tubes have signs posted to remind occupants of the notable areas on each deck as they reach them, that won't pose much of a problem. In the end, it's just going to be a race to the finish line.

[s09119]

(End of "Mind Games," see previous two posts for beginning.)

Spoiler:

A few short minutes later, both Sam and the Der'kal are out of the ladders on the command deck and galloping down the halls in the direction of the bridge. As Carter turns into the hallway leading to the chamber's single entryway, she glances back to see her alien opponent only a few meters behind, and closing fast. But the door is just up ahead, and she pumps her legs as hard as her body allowed, knowing that her life is literally hanging in the balance...

...and just a second or two ahead, she swings into the bridge and slams down on the locking mechanism, breathing a sigh of relief when the blast door slams shut inches ahead of the Der'kal. Knowing that each second she waits just gives him an opportunity to find a way around the roadblock, Sam makes her way to the command chair and palms open a hidden compartment in the armrest, revealing a hidden zat gun. After having the ship wrested from her by traitors over the Beta Site ("Loyalties"), she had the weapon nook installed to ensure she always had something to fall back on should a shootout erupt on the bridge, and she's very grateful she has it now.

Walking back to the entrance, she takes a few steps back and hits the door mechanism with her foot, watching the Der'kal look up from his attempting slicing job in surprise to see her standing there. With a victorious smirk on her face, Sam raises the zat and mutters, "Nice try." Then a string of blue energy blasts ensure that this is one alien that won't be bothering her any longer.

At the ISGC, the clock is ticking down the final 30 seconds of the six hours Talbot gave for Sam to show signs of life again. The base commander herself stands alongside Dr. Lam and SG-1, all of them silently pleading for their friend to wake up and give them a reason to celebrate. And then, suddenly, the monitors show a distinct shift in brain patterns; that of the Der'kal have dropped off completely, and Carter's have returned to normal human levels. Rebbecca lets out a happy sigh, patting the unmoving Sam on the shoulder, and Talbot happily tells Caroline that it looks like this will be a happy ending after all. But Lam isn't so sure, and points out that Sam has yet to wake up, indicating that she's not entirely right yet. Something else is wrong.

On the bridge of the make-believe Jupiter, Carter herself is also struggling to figure out why she isn't opening her eyes and coming out of this fantasy world yet. The Der'kal is dead, she's alone in her mind, so why isn't it ending? Weary and exhausted, she collapses into the command chair and tries to understand, then decides to do the only thing she can think that might make a difference. Punching in the hyperspace coordinates for Earth, she sits back and lets the hyperdrive engage, shielding her eyes against the bright flash as the ship rockets into the subspace window.

But then the window changes. It doesn't look the same as it always does, and, in fact, the surrounding area doesn't look like outer space. Blinking to clear her vision, Sam realizes that the flash was just the light of Dr. Lam's flashlight in her eyes, and she laughs in relief. Leaning over, Mitchell welcomes her back to the land of the living, a sentiment echoed by the others in quick succession. Talbot asks if she was able to learn anything about Der'kal tactics while she was in the now-deceased alien's mind, and Sam admits that the scenario she was trapped in didn't give her much of an opportunity to learn anything useful. But then, maybe she doesn't need that. Fighting back as a human worked just as well, and in the end, it may be for the best that she sticks to thinking like herself. At the very least, it's a lot less dangerous.

Talbot says that she's just happy everything worked out for the best. She contacted the Tok'ra earlier to ask why the situation was so radically different from what they'd come to expect, but with all the other work they had on their hands during the war, had only run very basic scans on the Der'kal in regards to memory recall technology. In any event, their best guess is that their unique extragalactic physiology created an unforeseen quirk with the device, causing both connected persons to remain trapped within their subconsciousnesses for the duration of the link. They wisely recommend not repeating such an attempt, something Sam thinks she'll keep in mind the next time she decides to ignore her own scientist instincts.

Nodding in agreement, Lam pulls the memory nodes off of Sam's forehead and tells her to go freshen up. They really should run a few tests to make sure her psyche escaped unscathed, but it can wait until after she's had a chance to pull herself together. As Carter slides off the examining table, Daniel helps her steady herself and hands her a bowl of blue jello he grabbed from the commissary when it looked like she was going to be okay. Rolling her eyes, she takes the dessert and eats a spoonful, glad that the mind games are over.

[thekillman]

awesome. nice twist with the der'kal ship being the der'kal mind and the Jupiter being Carter's mind.

[bradly08]

Very good, these episodes are coming out thick and fast, just hope it does not affect the quality