The Fifth Race

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“The Fifth Race”
Stargate SG-1 episode
Episode no. Season 2
Episode 15
Guest stars Teryl Rothery as Dr. Janet Fraiser
Tobias Mehler as Lt. Graham Simmons
Dan Shea as Sgt. Siler
Written by Robert C. Cooper
Directed by David Warry-Smith
Production no. 215
Original airdate December 16, 1998
Episode chronology
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"Touchstone" "A Matter of Time"
Episode chronology

"The Fifth Race" is an episode from Season 2 of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1. It is regarded as one of the most popular episodes of the series[1].

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

SG-1 visits the planet P3R-272 and find themselves in a room with a circular inscription in the middle. Col. Jack O'Neill steps over the circle and immediately a device comes out of the wall. Teal'c looks in it but only sees blackness with colored lights. When O'Neill steps up and takes a look, the device grabs his head for a few seconds, lets go and O'Neill's collapses into unconsciousness.

SG-1 travels back to Stargate Command. O'Neill is checked for injury but none is found. While SG-1 is being debriefed by General Hammond, O'Neill replaces a common word with an unknown one. General Hammond then orders him to stay on base for a while so they can keep tabs on him. O'Neill's language condition starts getting worse and soon he is replacing common words with unknown words frequently.

Jack, along with Teal'c, goes to Daniel's office to see if they can find out what is happening to him. Daniel quickly realizes that the language is similar to Latin. A picture of the circular inscription from the planet is on Daniel's computer, which Jack can now read aloud: "Noo ani Anqueetas. Hiq qua Videum." They discover that O'Neill is also able to read other writings that Daniel has been working on deciphering. O'Neill then writes a series of complex equations on a chalk board in half a minute.

O'Neill is taken back to Dr. Frasier for tests and it is discovered that he is using over 90% of his brain capacity compared to 5 to 10% for a normal human. Daniel speculates that the device downloaded an alien language into O'Neill's brain.

General Hammond is then called to the control room. They find O'Neill entering a software program into the mainframe computer. Gen. Hammond then orders him to stop but O'Neill replies that he can't. Teal'c is then ordered to physically restrain him. When O'Neill's program runs, Captain Carter informs everyone that it added new gate destinations, previously not from Abydos cartouche.

Back in Daniel's office, O'Neill (who has lost the ability to speak anything but the alien language) and Daniel are translating the inscription. It reads "We are the Ancients. The place of our legacy". Daniel, identifying them with Roman deities, speculates that:

  • the Ancients might have been the original creators of the Stargate
  • the device which grabbed Jack's head was a repository of the Ancients' knowledge
  • Jack's brain was downloaded (visually injected) with that information

Dr. Frasier, after examining O'Neill further, concludes that the information is slowly taking over his brain. Jack can no longer speak English and is in danger of eventually dying.

Carter, perplexed by the equations, states that not even the basic equations make sense; Jack responds by handing Daniel a paper that says 10=8, this is to state that the equations are using base 8 math as opposed to the base 10 commonly used. It turns out to be a revolutionary way of calculating the distance between planets. The SG-1 team, minus O'Neill and Daniel, are sent off on a mission to one of the new gate addresses (P9Q-281) in the hope that there they might find new information about help Jack.

Meanwhile, Jack starts building a device which he himself doesn't know the purpose of. After he completes it, Daniel tells O'Neill that SG-1 is trapped on P9Q-281 because the Dial Home Device (DHD) is stuck mid-dial. SG-1 is in trouble because a second sun has risen up on the planet, which will roast the team alive. Jack writes instructions on how to fix the DHD, which are then sent through the gate to the team. SG-1 returns home safely but were not able to find anything which could help Jack's problem.

Soon after, the computer dials a gate address and cannot be overridden. Carter informs Hammond that the gate needs more power to activate. Meanwhile Teal'c and Jackson follow O'Neill to the power room, where he hooks up the device that he made. Carter then tells Hammond at the control room that the Gate has suddenly gotten the amount of power it needed.

The Gate dials on its own, and a wormhole is established at its eighth chevron (instead of the normal seventh). Jack, Daniel and Teal'c then enter the control room they figure out that the gate has dialed outside of the galaxy and the eighth chevron is for a distance calculation to that galaxy. Gen. Hammond allows O'Neill to go through the gate.

O'Neill, upon arriving on the other side, makes contact with the Asgard. The Asgard remove the memory of the Ancients from his brain. They explain to him that the information was not meant for him as his brain was not developed enough for it. Though his subconscious mind brought him to Othalla, in the galaxy of Ida where he could get help. They have been monitoring Earth some time and discovered that the humans of Earth have great potential.

The Asgard inform him about the Ancients and how they were an alliance of Four Great Races (the Ancients, Asgard, Nox, and Furlings), and that O'Neill's race was advancing to become the Fifth Great Race and he had taken the first step. O'Neill is then sent home through the Stargate with none of the Ancient knowledge and has faith in humanity.

[edit] Quotes

  • O'Neill: Apparently I've lost the filatis to speak properly! (a pause) That wasn't a joke. I didn't do that on purpose.
  • Daniel: Uh, w-well, my translation's a little bit vague, um, I think the circle means 'the place of our legacy'…or it could be 'a piece of our leg', but the first seems to make more sense.


  • Lt. Simmons: Chevron seven... encoded?
  • Carter: And it's not the point of origin.
  • later... Lt. Simmons: "Chevron eight is locked."

[edit] Notes

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Spoiler warning: In addition to plot and/or ending details about The Fifth Race, such spoilers for Season 10 follow.
  • This marks the first episode that the Ancients are mentioned.
  • Also this is the first episode in which a Repository of the Ancients is shown. The second is found in the Season 7 episode Lost City (Part 1), where it helps to find the lost city of the Ancients. A variant is shown in the Season 10 episodes "The Quest, Part 2", and "The Shroud".
  • In this episode it is revealed that the Stargate can be used to travel to another galaxy by dialing eight symbols. However it needs massive amounts of energy (normally a Zero Point Module).
  • It is revealed that the Ancients used the octal number system. (At least in some applications)
  • In the Season 10 episode Unending, Thor confirms that the Tau'ri have become the Fifth Race.

[edit] External links

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