“Just a huge, honkin’ Apophis, Major. Nothing to worry about.”
- Release Date: 20th August 1999
- Season 3
- Episode 9
- Director: William Gereghty
- Writers: Terry Curtis Fox
Arriving on a new planet to investigate a campsite spotted by a UAV, SG-1 spot a group of Jaffa closing in on an SG squad. They’re not sure who they are – SG-11 are Missing In Action, so SG-1 sneak down to help, they tell them to back off as they’re in danger. The squad in danger is miffed by their arrival and orders SG-1 to be shot, and hidden soldiers pop out and shoot them all – but the earth guns fire out energy weapons.
SG-1 wake up in a tent and get told that they’re “dead”, which confuses them all. The Captain wants to see them and Sam figures out that they’re playing some kind of game, the rules are similar to paintball. Captain Rogers tells them that they should not speak unless they’re answering a direct question, quoting a specific rule. Teal’c recognises this as rules from Jaffa training. Captain Rogers thinks Apophis sent Teal’c to rest them, but grants him authority – he is First Prime, after all.
The first priority is to get their real weapons back, but they’re been put in the supply with the stun weapons (called Intars – no long confusing name), which Sam and Daniel search through. Rogers brings Teal’c an Vo’cum – a projector which casts a holographic image of Apophis, who says the warrior is permitted to speak on his behalf. First they inspect the warriors (but don’t see real weapons), then try to say that the invasion of Earth is cancelled, before finally saying that Apophis is dead (which they know is a lie, but he is being tortured by Sokar). The soldiers don’t buy it and think that this is Apophis testing their loyalty.
They carry on with their training exercise, but SG-1 are concerned that some of these people (they’re all quite young) have real weapons and not the stun guns. They get some stun guns themselves, they can interfere with the battle and knock out everyone at will. They find Rogers under fire from Teal’c’s staff weapon, and he gets shot. Another soldier calls out “first blood” and the games stop. Teal’c explains that this means the final battle is happening soon – and will use real weapons until only one side is left alive.
Carter patches up Rogers, but doesn’t think he’ll make it. His second in command, who is leading the pretend Jaffa troops, says that Rogers will need to stay and fight, regardless of his rules. They do manage to convince him to leave with them, saying they’re taking him to Apophis to inform him that the final battle is commencing. Back at SGC, he gets angry at being deceived as he gets taken to the infirmary.
Jack manages to convince Rogers to eat, using his infamous “tuna torture”. Rogers is very loyal to his god, which gives Jack an idea. He plays a video of Apophis dying at SGC, with him saying that he’s scared. This convinces Rogers that Apophis is not a god and actually is dead. He lets them know that they got their knowledge from Apophis capturing and torturing SG-11 (who eventually died). They tell him he can go home, but he wants to stop his men from throwing their lives away first (there is a cave with real weapons). Jack unknowingly comes up with a plan: showing the footage of Apophis to the soldiers. Sam is confident she can interface with the Vo’cum to cast it for all to see.
With the Intars, they can at least shoot everyone without worry. They take out the soldiers at the compound then defend it from attack while Carter interfaces with the Vo’cum – the first of many times we see laptops plugged into alien technology. She eventually matches the frequencies and activates the Vo’cum, with Apophis’ death played out for all to see. They all stand down and return to their homes.
This is a really good episode, as it shows how much control a Gou’ald can have even after death because they make people truly believe that they are gods, and believers will try to bend what they can to stick to their beliefs, especially when it’s due to fear like with Apophis. It’s also interesting to see that Apophis had to turn to training human soldiers in an attempt to infiltrate Earth rather than an all out attack, showing his forces were diminished massively after his failed attack on Earth.
