Fragile Balance (703)

[greytop]

Me, too.

[Beatrice Otter]

I think little jacks skills at being good at O’Neill are over rated, I didn’t think they suited the role and were perfect, i know you carnt get it perfect-perfect but still. Though I think that, Spoilers





The episode were little jack and Mayborn meet up will be good and I am looking forward to seeing it.

That's not going to happen, at least not this season. They wanted to, but they couldn't get the shooting schedules to work out right with Michael Welch's availability.

[Cpn. Chris(tine) Bowman]

Try combining Sam and Jack's DNA to make the "advanced human" thing that Jack supossedly is. After all, each generation after him can only get better and better rite?

Wouldn't surprise me if they found out Sam also has the gene and was never really in a position to show it

Spoiler:

Like in It's Good to be King, she never sat on the pilot chair and tried to fly the thing. Maybe she has the gene?

And in any case her superior intellect would make the experiment worth it. The Shippers get the shipBaby they want, Sam gets the family she wants and humankind is a little higher up the evolution ladder than having only Jack's DNA involved in the process *shudders at the tought of Jack being the next step*

[gatewatcher]

Here's how I would have ended "Fragile Balance."

Alternate Ending

"Fragile Balance" occurs just as it does until we reach the scene where Thor states that he is not sure he can cure Young Jack. Here is where the fic diverges from canon...Instead of being able to cure Young Jack directly, Thor needs to create another clone to monitor it's growth so he can determine exactly what he need to do to cure Young Jack.

Thor: In order to stablize the adolescent O'Neill's genetic structure, I will need to use Loki's equipment to create another clone so that I can monitor it's development and isolate what gene sequences need to be repaired, and how to repair them.

O'Neill: Whoa! Hold on! You mean there's going to be two little me's running around!

Thor: If the procedure is successful, then yes, both of your clones will survive and live the average human life-span.

O'Neill: C'mon Thor, isn't there something else you could do, anything else...magnets?

Thor: Without a frame of reference it would be statistically impossible for me to know how to repair the flaw.

Young Jack: We're talking about my life here...

Sam: [interrupting] Thor, does the clone have to be of Colonel O'Neill?

Thor: What are you suggesting?

Sam: Clone me.

Both Jacks look up in surprise.

Sam: If you implant me with the same safeguard that you placed in Colonel O'Neill's genetic structure, and then cloned me, you should be able to use that information to save Colonel O'Neill's clone.

Thor: It is possible, though the individual is different, human genetic structure similar enough on a basic level that I should be able derive the necessary information from your clone, Major Carter.

Carter looks up at Jack with a soft, knowing smile, waiting for him to respond. Jack suppresses a similar but almost envious look on his face. Young Jack make little effort to hide the fact that he is pleased. Jack nods in approval.

Sam: Okay, let's get started.
________________________

Cut to van scene outside of the high school...this takes place much as it does in canon, but with Jack and Sam in the front seat, and Young Jack and Young Sam in the back.

Use your imagination for the farewell dialogue.

As Sam and Jack drive away, Young Sam and Young Jack look at each other and smile. To the same soft fade-out music they played at the end of "Lost City," we see Young Jack and Sam walk away.

Jack's hand slowly moves toward Sam's. Their fingertips find each other and then we fade to the credits.


Awwww...

I like i t!!

[Kelso]

Yup, great ep. Welch was fab... no complaints here.

I hopethey bring Loki back for a later episode, it would be interesting to see if he and Heimdall (sp) could team up and make some progress with that frozen Asgard that was discovered. Perhaps by slicing in human DNA?

Anyways, I also loved that this ep. laid the groundwork for the F-302 squadron from "Lost City"... and the discovery of the ancient gene.

[Jeril]

Here's how I would have ended "Fragile Balance."

Alternate Ending...

Oh my god. My head is now being filled with possibilities. Damn you! It's hard enough to keep up with the fanfiction I'm writing without getting new ideas and itchy fingers to write them up!! *dies*

Anyway, about the actual episode now...
Major Tyler's ending would've be much better. The one they had was okay, but I kinda don't see why Jack would want to redo high school. I'm there right now and my gods! I would -never- want to do this over! Even if someone paid me to. So much stupid teenage drama and all the homework and unsympathetic teachers and jeeze. It's just not fun.
I loved how Michael Welch played Jack. It was so funny and cute! Especially when he had to hold up his pants 'cause they kept falling down, lol, and when he tried to drink the beer but someone (Sam? Daniel?) took it away from him. The pimply stuff on his face was kinda gross though. Bad acne like that is ucky...
And it was spiffy that they brought in Loki. I read mythology when I was younger and Loki was my favorite out of all the Norse gods. I hope TPTB include him in a future episode.

I understand that one would want to go back and learn the things one didn’t learn, but when little Jack was leaving the truck, he glanced over at the girls and I couldn’t help but think “you freking pedophile!” Jack’s supposed to be old, like 50, but he’s looking at those high school girls like they were produce. Just because he was in the body of a kid doesn’t justify him trolling for some young, high school action.

Errr....
Well, considering that he was now those girls' age... there wasn't anything wrong with him checking them out, really. It's not like he could go out and ask a 30-something year old woman on a date. That would land her in jail and him in a shrink's chair. And how would that sound? "Yeah, I'm an Air Force colonel who got cloned and now I'm stuck in this teenage body so it's really no big deal that I was dating a woman who is physically twenty years older than me."
A person's mental age/maturity has nothing to do with how you should date people. If it did, I know high school juniors and seniors who should be dating 6th grade girls.

[Willow]

Errr....
Well, considering that he was now those girls' age... there wasn't anything wrong with him checking them out, really.
************

Exactly.

[zats]

I adored this episode. My fundamental problem with "Brief Candle" (S1) was that in my opinion, they went the wrong way--don't age him, you numbskulls! Quick, reverse it! Bring zats (almost) eternal happiness! And in this ep, my (almost) greatest wish was fulfilled...and there was much rejoicing...

*Ahem* Anyway...good ep. Welch is an excellent actor, both in this ep and on 'Joan of Arcadia', and he played young Jack ( ) quite well.

And while I'm thinking about it...I really don't see what all the fuss was about with the Duplicate checking out the girls at the Hi!Skool. He may be an awful lot like Jack O'Neill...but he's not Jack. I prefer to think of him as boy who's just mature for his age. My point being that he's...what, fifteen? Sixteen? He's not Colonel O'Neill.

[walter_MacChevron]

I just read on this site that they were planning on bringing Mini-Jack back if there was another season.........i hate how TPTB make promises just to get another season and not fufill them!!!

[Madeleine]

It's not just about TPTB though. They can plan it all they want, and they probably have; but it goes without saying that the plans depend on Michael Welch being available and amenable. I believe he's a regular in a show that's filmed at the same time of year as Stargate is.

[Stricken]

to quote O'Neill (Again)

"Nice"

[Beatrice Otter]

Wouldn't surprise me if they found out Sam also has the gene and was never really in a position to show it

Spoiler:

Like in It's Good to be King, she never sat on the pilot chair and tried to fly the thing. Maybe she has the gene?

And in any case her superior intellect would make the experiment worth it. The Shippers get the shipBaby they want, Sam gets the family she wants and humankind is a little higher up the evolution ladder than having only Jack's DNA involved in the process *shudders at the tought of Jack being the next step*

Um, by this point they've gotta have a test for it. Betcha it's expensive and time consuming (most stuff involving DNA is), so they wouldn't be testing people in job lots, but people connected to the SGC would be among the first to be tested. So they wouldn't have known in S7 whether or not she had the gene (iirc they didn't know about the gene until the first ep of Atlantis), but I betcha by this point they know.

Also, I don't think that the gene is what makes Jack 'advanced.' The Asgard didn't run tests on him and go "wow, this human's advanced." They saw how he was able to handle the Ancient download the first time and went "wow, this human's advanced." Besides, they were best pals with the Ancients way back when. If it were just a matter of Ancient DNA, they'd probably have another source of it, y'know? And if the Ancient Gene has been a part of the human genome for the past few thousand years, you can't call it "advanced" any more; it's just a part of the genome, now.

[QuiGonJohn]

Fun episode. Almost wish it had been Jack and not a clone, so he'd have had the opposite of Brief Candle.

[briguy213]

I like this nice twist from the normal eps.

[Lida]

I like this nice twist from the normal eps.

Profound observation, care to expound further?