Evolution: Part 1 (S07E11)

On the rendezvous planet where the Goa'uld system lords Tilgath and Ramius were to forge an alliance, Teal'c and his mentor Bra'tac find the two armies slaughtered and Ramius gone. Ramius' First Prime is still barely alive and warns them to leave immediately. But it's too late — out of the distance, a tall, lone warrior in black body-armor comes forth shooting power blasts of tremendous magnitude from his wrist weapons. After a desperate firefight, the warrior finally falls. The body is brought back to Stargate Command, where Maj. Carter and her father Jacob/Selmak remove its armor and discover a huge but poorly detailed synthetic Goa'uld host with no evidence of trauma from energy blasts. The armor appears to be made of an energy-absorbing material. Teal'c and Bra'tac did not kill the warrior: It died of a heart attack, having been engineered for strength and not longevity. Selmak — the Tok'ra half of Jacob Carter's symbiotic being — surmises that this was intended to be a synthetic Goa'uld foot soldier.

Also, the being was only about three weeks old and was given life after it was fully grown. Its energy signature is similar to that of Goa'uld sarcophagi, which can heal and even restore life but are not able to bring life to things that were never alive in the first place. Selmak explains that thousands of years ago, a Goa'uld system lord named Telchak found a device created by the Ancients from which he was able to create the first sarcophagus. Telchak and fellow system lord Anubis went to war over the device, but Anubis never found it. The Tok'ra have long sought this original device in the hope of using it to perfect the sarcophagus technology. Now it might be the key to fighting this kind of warrior, by discovering how to reverse the device's life-giving energy. Its healing power is also of great value. But where to find it? Dr. Daniel Jackson recalls that his grandfather, Nicholas Ballard, in his search for the fountain of youth, claimed he had found evidence indicating that the source of the fountain's power was a piece of alien technology used by early Mayan tribes around 900 BC. Ballard traced its origin to Chac, the Mayan God of rain, who might have been Telchak. Much of Ballard's notes are indecipherable because, as Selmak sees instantly, they are written in an obscure Goa'uld dialect. Jacob/Selmak deciphers the notes and surmises that the device might be in one of Telchak's temples in Honduras. It is also surmised that Anubis, after he Ascended, had the knowledge to build one of these devices on his own. Bra'tac suggests that if Anubis is behind this, he is using these soldiers to wipe out the minor Goa'uld system lords and absorb their resources in preparation for battle with Ba'al and the other, stronger Goa'uld lords. Daniel and his assistant, Dr. Lee, go to Honduras. There they locate Telchak's underground temple and find the device. But when they remove it from its resting place, a booby trap is sprung and they are almost drowned by tons of water. Miraculously, they escape.

Meanwhile, Maj. Carter develops a plan to capture one of these new Goa'uld "superwarriors" alive in the hope that it can be interrogated and provide vital intelligence about how they can defeated. The armor absorbs energy blasts, but can be penetrated by a fine-tipped titanium dart filled with tranquilizer. Because Ramius escaped, it is likely that Anubis will send another soldier to his planet. SG-1 and SG-3 stake out the stargate on Ramius' planet until the superwarrior appears. When he does, they trap him in a Tok'ra force field and shoot him with the darts — to no effect. He then easily penetrates the field and walks through a barrage of gunfire and explosives towards his target: Ramius' pyramid. Meanwhile, Ramius' numerous Jaffa troops block off the stargate and converge on SGC's forces. Bra'tac suggests that they surrender. The warrior destroys Ramius and his Jaffa, and Col. O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, Bra'tac and the SGC soldiers are snared in a Goa'uld cell. The last remaining free Jaffa liberates SG-1. O'Neill's team finds the synthetic Goa'uld warrior and teleports him via Goa'uld rings into the hold of a cargo ship. Then they cut off all life support in that area until the soldier is knocked unconscious. Back at Stargate Command, the heavily chained warrior is hooked up to a Tok'ra imaging device that projects his thoughts. This enables the SGC team to learn where the superwarriors are being created. But they also learn something else — Gen. Hammond has received word from the State Department that Daniel and Dr. Lee have been kidnapped, and there are no clues as to where they are. (Metrodome Distribution)