EVOLUTION

07.11/12 Episode 143/144 (#P276/P255)
Airdate: August 22, 2003 & January 9, 2004

Teal'c and Bra'tac come upon the slaughtered armies of System Lords Ramius and Tilgath, and a single warrior, cloaked in black armor that resists all energy weapons, fires at them before collapsing. At the SGC, Carter and Jacob study the fallen warrior, which appears to be a featureless synthetically engineered host to a Goa'uld symbiote, the perfect soulless foot soldier. Selmak theorizes that the creature may have been created by Anubis and given life using technology similar to an Ancient healing device once discovered by the Goa'uld Telchak, and research suggests that the device may be hidden in the jungles of Honduras.

Telchak's device could be used to defend against Anubis's new warriors, and Daniel and Dr. Lee travel to Honduras to search for it. Meanwhile, O'Neill leads SG teams to Ramius's planet with a plan to capture a living warrior. Soon a warrior does appear, bent on assassinating Ramius, but he is unaffected by force fields, tranquilizers, or weapons, and in the battle, the SG teams are captured by Ramius's forces, and imprisoned. The warrior completes his mission, and as Ramius and his Jaffa are slaughtered in battle, the SG teams make their escape by cargo ship, and capture the indestructible warrior by ringing him aboard.

In the jungles of Honduras, Daniel and Dr. Lee stumble upon an ancient buried temple, and discover Telchak's device. Almost immediately, however, they are captured by a band of revolutionaries led by Rafael, who marches them through the jungle to his camp in Nicaragua. There he threatens to kill them unless ransom is paid. Meanwhile, at the SGC, interrogation of the captured warrior reveals his loyalty to Anubis, and the location of his homeworld. SG-1 prepares to plan a mission there when word arrives from the State Department that Daniel and Dr. Lee have been kidnapped, and their fate is unknown.

Rafael is confident that the torture of Daniel and Dr. Lee will provide the information he seeks about Telchak's device, the artifact Daniel had recovered in Honduras. When Rafael discovers how to activate the device, its life-giving energy fills him with a sense of invincibility that frightens even his own men. Chalo begs him to turn it off, and Rafael kills him. Meanwhile, in a delicate rescue operation, O'Neill travels to Honduras and joins CIA operative Burke, with whom he shares a dark history, and they form an uneasy alliance in their search for Daniel.

Hoping to find a way to defend against Anubis's new warrior drones, Carter, Teal'c, Jacob, and Bra'tac journey to Tartarus where they infiltrate Anubis's base. There they discover that Anubis has used Jonas's memories of Egeria to spawn thousands of symbiote drones. In Rafael's encampment, the life-giving power of Telchak's device revives the dead body of Chalo. He arises and attacks the other men, and continues to revive despite repeated weapons fire. Daniel and Dr. Lee use the opportunity to break out of their prison, and they escape into the jungle with Rafael and his men in close pursuit.

On Tartarus, Carter, Teal'c, and Jacob are horrified to witness the gathering of an army of thousands of warrior drones who pledge their allegiance to Anubis. The team destroys the base with C4 and barely makes their escape by cargo ship, closely pursued by one of the warriors. Deep in Central America, Daniel is wounded and surrounded, just as O'Neill and Burke emerge from the jungle and kill Rafael and his men. Despite injuries, SG-1 is safely reunited at the SGC. Telchak's device has been recovered, and may provide the key to defeating Anubis's new army, which has grown to a formidable threat. This episode aired in two parts.

Part One Story by: Damian Kindler and Michael Shanks
Part One Teleplay by: Damian Kindler
Part Two Story by: Peter DeLuise and Damian Kindler
Part Two Teleplay by: Peter DeLuise
Directed by: Peter DeLuise

Guest Starring: Carmen Argenziano as Jacob Carter/Selmak, Tony Amendola as Bra'tac, Frank Roman as Rafael, Bill Dow as Dr. Bill Lee, David Palffy as Anubis, Zak Santiago as Rogelio Duran, Eric Breker as Colonel Reynolds, Enrico Colantoni as Burke, Victor Favrin as Chalo, Craig Erickson as Adal, Sean Whale as Ramius, Ian Marsh as Thoth, Miguel Castillo as Pedro, Dan Shea as Sergeant Siler, Michael Jonsson as Jaffa Guard, Dan Payne as Kull Warrior, Alex Zahara as Motion Capture Warrior, Todd Thomson as Ramius's First Prime

Reference: Adal, Anubis, Bra'tac, Burke, Jacob Carter, Chalo, Rogelio Duran, Force Field, Fountain of Youth, Holographic Projection, Kull Warrior, Bill Lee, Memory Recall Device, Jack O'Neill, Pedro, Radioactive Isotope, Rafael, Ramius, Reanimation Device, Rebel Jaffa, Colonel Reynolds, Ring Transporter, Sarcophagus, Sergeant Siler, System Lords, Tartarus, Telchak, Teltac, Thoth, Tilgath, Tok'ra, Tok'ra Communicator, Tranquilizer, Weapons, Zatarc Detector, Zat'nik'tel

DESTINATIONS & INHABITANTS

NOTES OF INTEREST

• Ramius and Tilgath had attempted an alliance to battle against Anubis. Anubis's strategy is to assassinate any minor Goa'ulds vulnerable to attack, absorbing their troops and resources in preparation for battle with Ba'al and the System Lords.
• The Ancient device was designed to heal, but it is so powerful that its effects on human hosts is devastating. It was discovered thousands of years ago by Telchak, who used the technology to create the first sarcophagus.
• After Telchak created the sarcophagus, but before Anubis attempted to ascend, Anubis went to war with Telchak for possession of the original Ancient device. Anubis defeated Telchak, but never acquired the device.
• The Ancient device was probably the basis of the "Fountain of Youth" mythology. Nicholas Ballard believed the source of the Fountain of Youth was alien technology used by early Mayan tribes around 900 BC, and attributed to Chac, the Mayan god of rain.
• Cantina LaLupita is 20 miles outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The Ancient device was buried to the south of there.
• The warrior is genetically engineered for strength, not longevity, and may have a lifespan of only a few weeks. It is given life after it is grown, using technology similar to the Ancient device.
• The warrior's armor is made of a fiber similar to Kevlar which can be penetrated by a small sharp dart, but which uses advanced energy absorption technology that makes it impervious to armor-piercing weapons, machine guns, staff weapons, zat guns, tranquillizers, force fields, claymores, and C4.
• Tartarus is a seemingly unoccupied planet on the edge of Goa'uld controlled space, used as a base of operations for Anubis.
• SG-1 was accompanied to Ramius's planet by SG-3, under the command of Colonel Reynolds, and SG-12.
• O'Neill, Burke, and Woods had been close friends and teammates years before. Woods betrayed them and planned to set himself up as a mercenary. He turned his weapon on Burke, and Burke killed him, but out of respect for Wood's wife, he testified that it had been a friendly fire incident.
• A symbiote is spawned with the genetic memory of the maternal bloodline, however it is possible for a queen to deliberately minimize her brain wave pattern when she enters a spawn cycle in order to prevent passing on her genetic memory. The offspring would be blank slates with no free will.
• Anubis refers to his soldier drones as "Kull Warriors".
• O'Neill has at least a passing ability in conversational Spanish.
• Coordinates for Tartarus: 33-28-23-26-16-31

MEMORABLE REMARKS

• Not much faith in Plan A? [Reynolds]
  Since when has Plan A ever worked? [O'Neill]
• We did not come to kill you. Honest. The fact is, and this is the fun part, we actually came to save your ass...es. All your asses. Do you see the irony? [O'Neill]

FOR THE RECORD

• For crying out loud: 1
• Injuries:
  • Carter: hit and knocked out by a Kull Warrior, right arm injured
  • Daniel: electric shock torture, bullet wound to the right leg
• Popular Culture References:
  • Star Trek
    • O'Neill's Vulcan hand salute