FROZEN

06.04 Episode 114 (#P659)
Airdate: June 28, 2002

A team of scientists has been working at a research station in Antarctica since the discovery of the second stargate there. After four years of study, they make an even more incredible discovery. A young woman, frozen in the Antarctic ice, appears to be perfectly preserved, and SG-1 joins the scientists to investigate. As the body is slowly defrosted, the scientists are stunned to find signs of life, and the woman miraculously revives. They name her Ayiana, and believe that she may be as much as three million years old, perhaps predating the stargate itself. In fact, she may be a living Ancient.

Ayiana cannot offer any answers to the mystery of her origins, but when the scientists on the base begin to fall ill to a mysterious disease, indications are that Ayiana may be unwittingly carrying a virus. When Dr. Woods becomes lost in a blizzard and is rescued, barely alive from severe hypothermia, Ayiana demonstrates an even more incredible ability to cure him completely through touch alone. As SG-1 also contracts the strange illness, Ayiana touches and cures each one, but her body grows weaker with each attempt until she too falls victim to the virus before she is able to heal O'Neill.

The team returns to the SGC where Ayiana grows steadily weaker and finally succumbs to the virus. She dies before she can help O'Neill, who is now critically ill, and his only hope for survival seems to be implantation by a symbiote. The Tok'ra offer the symbiote of a recently fallen comrade who carries vital information which must be passed on. They vow that the blending will be temporary since a symbiote would not remain in an unwilling host. O'Neill is presented with the only alternative that will save his life and preserve the vital information, and reluctantly he agrees to the blending.

Written by: Robert C. Cooper
Directed by: Martin Wood

Guest Starring: Venus Terzo as Dr. Francine Michaels, Bruce Harwood as Dr. Osbourne, Paul Perri as Dr. Woods, Dorian Harewood as Thoran, Ona Grauer as Ayiana, Gary Jones as Technician, Teryl Rothery as Dr. Fraiser

Reference: Ancients, Antarctica, Ayiana, Beta Stargate, Hazmat, Kanan, Francine Michaels, Dr. Osbourne, Thoran, Tok'ra, White Rock Research Station, Norman Woods

DESTINATIONS & INHABITANTS

NOTES OF INTEREST

• The White Rock Research Station has been set up near the Antarctic gate ever since its discovery, with the continuation of the program to be reevaluted every year by the Pentagon. Researchers initially found two Jaffa in the ice the first year, after which there were no further findings until Ayiana was discovered.
• The Antarctic gate was buried in a vein of ice dated to be at least 3 million years old. Daniel had theorized that when the Giza gate was buried roughly 2000 years ago, the Goa'uld managed to open up the Antarctic gate through a crevasse that allowed the wormhole to establish.
• The DHD found with the Antarctic gate died shortly after it was brought back to Area 51. It was used a few times and then ran out of energy, giving the first indication that the power sources fueling the gate technology have a limited life span. Tests comparing the DHD power source to other off-world DHDs indicate that the Antarctic gate is one of the oldest in the entire system, perhaps as much as 50 million years old, dating to before the Antarctic plate was at the South Pole or covered by a glacier. The gate didn't necessarily originate there, and could have been moved from another planet at any time.
• Humans are believed to have evolved on Earth between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago. Ayiana was buried in the same vein of ice as the stargate, making her at least 3 million years old. If she comes from the race of the Ancients, she could predate human evolution on Earth by 50 million years. She is an advanced stage of the potential human evolutionary process, suggesting that human beings may have evolved long before we thought they did, and perhaps not even originally on Earth.
• Ayiana means "eternal bloom" in the Native American Cherokee language.
• The virus Ayiana carried acts like cerebrospinal meningitis by attacking the brain.
• Physical trauma is much more difficult than disease for a symbiote to heal. A Tok'ra is capable of entering a host, curing him, and leaving again to enter a new host.

MEMORABLE REMARKS

• I forgot to tape the Simpsons. It's important to me. [O'Neill]

FOR THE RECORD

• D'oh: 1
• Teal'c saved by his symbiote: resistant to the virus Ayiana carries
• Injuries:
  • O'Neill: contracted the virus from Ayiana, and agreed to implantation by a symbiote
  • Carter, Jonas, Fraiser: contracted the virus from Ayiana, and were cured by her
• Popular Culture References:
  • The Simpsons
    • I forgot to tape the Simpsons. It's important to me.