“You did tell them to take me prisoner and not shoot me, right?”
- Release Date: 21st November 2001
- Season 5
- Episode 13
- Director: Andy Mikita
- Writers: Ron Wilkerson
Jack and Teal’c are outside a warehouse with four trainees: Elliot (the leader), Satterfield (Boomer from Battlestar Galactica), Grogan (who always gets shot), and Hailey (from the episode Prodigy). The scenario is as follows: A Gou’ald has escaped Stargate Command and Daniel and Carter are in pursuit, but haven’t been in contact for a few hours. This was their last location so Jack and Teal’c go in while the rest secure the perimeter, however they get attacked and call for backup.
The trainee squad head in. Jack and Teal’c are out cold while Carter is standing up with Daniel on the floor. Carter is speaking in a Gou’ald voice saying that Daniel is Gou’ald while she is Tok’ra, with Daniel claiming that Carter is a Gou’ald, saying that he’s already been hit with a zat once and another will kill him. One of the squad shoots Carter (before ordered to) when Daniel announces that he is the Gou’ald and shoots them all. They all seem to be using the stun weapons they found at a Gou’ald training camp, called Intars. Daniel thinks Jack is being a bit too hard on the cadets.
Jack asks Elliot what his mistake was, and he says he got into an argument with Grogan. Jack says he made the big mistake before that. They ask Shatterfield, who said she didn’t believe Daniel was Gou’ald and Halyey points out that Shatterfield thinks that Daniel is cute – to which Carter says they let their personal feelings get in the way. They ask Hailey and she says she was waiting for the order to just stun them both and sort it out later – which is the answer that Jack was looking for. Elliot points out that the situation seemed wrong – there’s no way that Jack and Teal’c would be able to call for backup and then get taken out so easily.
The squad discuss, saying that Jack likes nobody and when Hailey points out that he’d risk his life for his team, the rest are fed up about constantly hearing about her adventure offworld. Jack discusses them with Carter, coming up with a reason to dismiss all of them. Carter asks him to think back to his training, but he makes up an excuse instead.
The next day they conduct another training exercise, this time they have to retrieve an alien artifact and make it back to the “stargate” half a mile away before it closes in 12 minutes time. They head in, with Grogan getting shot. They make it to the artifact but a timer is set off. Elliot hesitates and they end up fleeing. Jack questions not trying to disarm it and Eliot says he put his team first – except that Grogan was still in the building. They’re interrupted by Jack getting a phone call, seemingly mentioning the word “foothold”. He tells them to go home when some trucks pull up.
Jack approaches the car but a firefight breaks out. Jack takes them out, but gets shot in the leg. He tells the others to head home, but they refuse to – he’s injured and there’s a foothold situation. He begrudgingly accepts their help. They head to one of the access points of the Cheyenne base (still completely unguarded). They head in and Jack hands them real guns as backup, although they are to use Intars as much as possible. They hide and overhear Teal’c talking about Carter evading capture, and Daniel seems to be in charge.
They head to Carter’s office and discover that the Stargate is active, so they’ll need to shut that down. The camera footage shows Daniel looking at a strange alien artifact. Elliot orders Satterfield and Grogan to look at Daniel’s notes while he and Hailey try to shut down the gate. They get into a firefight, with Hailey’s intar messing up, forcing her to shoot someone with a real weapon. She’s never shot someone for real before. Satterfield contacts them to let her know it’s a Gou’ald trojan horse and uses similar technology to the planet that made Jack old. They’re about to reach the gate room when Jack receives a phone call and then orders the squad back.
Hailey analyses the data and finds that it’s full of nanobots, which should be disabled if they take out the receiver. They head out again and bump into Carter, taking her to Jack who they find untying a guard. They question him, saying that he’s compromised, especially as he called them back earlier, with Elliot stunning him. They trust Carter due to the protein markers she has. She has them go back out, taking out the device and shutting down the gate at the same time.
We go back to the lab with Jack and Carter talking, saying they think they fooled the trainees. Hammond and someone from the Pentagon are watching from a higher level – this is all an extremely elaborate training exercise. We see Hammond discussing the situation, even mentioning an offworld training facility in the future and that his people are happy to cooperate with a training exercise like this every few months. Jack asks up and it’s mentioned that SG-3 were under fire and had to return, which is why Jack had to stop them from reaching the gate room.
Daniel phones to say he likes this scenario, and checks if they were told to take him prisoner instead of shooting him (but gets no answer). The squad attacks, managing to take everyone out (although Grogan gets hit again). They set up a charge and head out, although Satterfield goes back to save Daniel. The timer runs out and… nothing happens.
Jack turns up and it’s explained that this was all a very elaborate test, and they’re quite pleased with how they performed. Elliot mentions that Hailey shot someone, but it’s revealed that the guns were all blanks (rigging up everyone for the possibility of a gunshot wound effect must take ages). They realise that Hailey isn’t there, and must be in the game room, at which point an incoming wormhole is received, and they can’t close the iris.
Hailey messes with a junction box trying to close the iris or shut off the junction box, but she collapses. Carter announces that radiation is coming through the Stargate and announces an evacuation. Elliot asks about Hailey, but Jack says she’s already dead. They head off and Carter realises her keycard is missing- Elliot has taken it. He enters the gateroom (ignoring orders from Hammond) then checks on Hailey, calling for medical assistance as she’s still breathing.
The blast door opens and everyone is clapping. Elliot realises that this is another test, and Hailey says he can put her down. It turns out she was in on the entire thing, giving them technobabble about the nanobots and playing dead at the end, although she had her own tests before this one. Elliot is to be assigned to SG-17 for his performance, with the rest getting positions as they become available (although Hailey and Satterfield are never seen again). Jack asks if Elliot is sure the training is really over when an alarm goes off.
This is a fun episode, even though using the base for these training exercises every few months makes no sense, especially the possibility of missing live ammunition or a major event happening during one.
