A Matter of Time

"A Matter of Time" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of Stargate SG-1, and is the 37th episode overall.

Synopsis
An SG team is trapped on a planet that falls victim to a newly formed black hole. While gating to retrieve them, the gate cannot shut down, and the time is being sucked into the black hole, meaning the distortion could put Earth at jeopardy.

Plot
From space, above the planet designated P3W-451, which orbits a binary-star, one of the stars starts to collapse, while drawing energy from the other star. It then collapses into a black hole, pulling space debris in it's path. The black hole makes its way onto the planet. On 451 in slow motion, which is caused by the black hole's gravitation, SG-10, commanded by Major Henry Boyd runs through the desert surface to the Stargate. Boyd orders his Lieutenant to dial Earth. The team seem panicked, and fear that they won't make it. Boyd tells them they will make it, and they dial the Stargate.

In Stargate Command, Colonel O'Neill asks Captain Carter to explain to him how wormhole physics work. Even Carter's metaphor of a worm burrowing through an apple rather than go around the surface confuses him, but he claims that he knows how it works. They are interrupted by an unscheduled offworld activation. They wonder who it could be, as there are only three teams on mission currently. They include SG-4, SG-6 (Daniel Jackson is with them on a dig on P3X-808), and SG-10. They receive a transmission, but they are unable to read it. Carter notices a low frequency, repeated signal, and orders Simmons to play it faster. After running it at 600% speed, they read SG-10's GDO and opens the iris. They await SG-10's arrival, but a few seconds later, the Stargate shuts down. O'Neill requests a rescue mission, but General Hammond holds them off, at least until they launch a MALP.

Hammond tells SG-1 that Boyd's team went on a mission to 451 to determine the cause of the planet's recent extinction of indigenous life. After they activate the Stargate, they launch the MALP through to see what is happening on the other side. However, all they see is a distorted infrared images. Carter believes the image from the MALP has red shifted, and asks Simmons to implement a longer wave length. They see a clear image of the team, but according to Simmons, for the team 11 frames (less then half a second) went by in the last six minutes. O'Neill thinks SG-10 is in trouble and asks to go in, but Carter believes the team is beyond help, and wants the MALP's camera to tilt upwards to see what Boyd is so afraid of. They are stunned to see a black hole, and a newly formed one at that.

They believe that due to time dilation, when they tried to Gate to Earth, from their perspective, it could not have been opened for as long as a second. They eventually agree there is nothing they can do to help, and Hammond orders Simmons to disengage the wormhole. However, they cannot shut it down, even after two attempts.

Outside Cheyenne Mountain, Colonel Frank Cromwell and a team of Air Force Special Forces, dispatched by the Pentagon arrive and asks a Sergeant for a situation. Apparently, they lost contact with Stargate Command for four hours, and before losing contact, things went "funky"; personnel in the SGC talked to them fairly slowly. Believing an alien incursion of some kind, Cromwell and his team start going down the emergency shaft to Level 28.

In his office, Hammond tries to make contact with the President on the red phone, but he can't get through to anyone. When he returns to operations, he hears news that they lost contact to anyone below level 24. Carter has Siler run several possible solutions to shut down the Gate, but nothing is working. They have passed the 38 minute window, and due to the stresses of the black hole, the event horizon starts to swirl. Hammond plans on getting online to the President above the surface, leaving O'Neill is charge for the meantime.

After he leaves, O'Neill proposes that they should just "pull the plug." He and Siler go to the power vault. Heavily gloved for safety, they shut down circuit breakers, but nothing happens. The technicians and Teal'c are asked to leave the Gate room while O'Neill and Siler plan to shut down the main breaker. However, this causes an overload, and a power surge injures Siler. In the Gate room, the surge sends currents coursing round the Stargate, causing a series of small explosions, burning Teal'c as he evacuates. However, the gate still does not shut down. Carter believes the wormhole is powered by the black hole itself. While a med team assist O'Neill and Siler, Carter checks on Teal'c, who has some major burns on him. She then sees smoke from the fires being pulled to the wormhole. Carter walks up to the event horizon and holds up her dog tags. They are being pulled as well. Carter believes the black hole's gravity is responsible, and orders Simmons to close the iris.

Hammond goes to the main level, NORAD to get to the next secure phone to contact the President. However, he arrives and exits the elevator to see several heavily armed soldiers aiming their guns at him. A man orders them to stand down, and introduces himself as Major Paul Davis. He tells Hammond that he will escort him to an aircraft to debrief the President himself. On the way to the air field, Davis tells Hammond that they believe they lost contact with the SGC because of time dilation; time is passing slower in the base than the rest of the World, which is caused by the black hole. They arrive at the field so Hammond can talk to the President via tele-conference about the situation.

Meanwhile, Colonel Cromwell and his team have arrived to storm the SGC and encounter a very startled Dr. Fraiser, who is on her way to treat Siler. However, Cromwell believes that the SGC is in the middle of an alien incursion, and thinks Fraiser is one of them. Time is starting to warp further within the level. O'Neill encounters Cromwell and scoffs at the prospect of Cromwell "rescuing" them. When hearing five hours has passed (relative to the outside world), rather than just a handful of minutes, O'Neill is confused. Carter confirms this, and when they arrive at operations, Simmons reports that the distortion field is expanding, having read 7 Gs from the iris. Carter believes that the black hole's gravity, causing the time dilation field, may cause the SGC to slowly suck through the wormhole, and eventually the Earth.

Carter wants to talk to the Pentagon, though Hammond later arrives and tells her he already has been, and to his perspective, 18 hours has passed. He has set up a command post above the mountain, so they could monitor the expansion rate, and destroy the base to stop the threat, though Carter believes that the wormhole would still be intact. Hammond overrules her, and orders an evacuation of the base. O'Neill and Cromwell stay behind and wait five minutes to activate the self destruct. As they arrive outside the base, they realize that 22 hours has passed, as opposed to 20 minutes. It would take around six hours for them until O'Neill activates the self destruct. Carter, not believing the Pentagon's decision (the military's ideology is blow up something they don't understand) tries to work on a solution herself, but can't think of anything, even with Teal'c "assistance".

By morning, Hammond checks up on Carter, who tells him that the best the explosion would do is dampen it; the Gate would still be active and suck the mountain through within six months, and Colorado six months after that. Hammond proposes using the second Stargate to restart the program. This gives Carter an idea; they will use an explosion, but only one to give the Stargate enough of a power surge to jump the wormhole to another world, so they could shut down the Stargate with ease. They rush in to stop O'Neill.

Meanwhile, only five minutes are gone from O'Neill and Cromwell's perspective. Cromwell tells him that they used to be good friends, and he made a judgment call to save the rest of his team when O'Neill was injured, and he was forced to spend the next four months in an Iraqi prison. Cromwell asks for his forgiveness, but O'Neill doesn't give it to him. Cromwell compares it to Major Boyd's terrified face, still frozen a few seconds later on the screen. The glass shatters from the control room, and they are about to activate bomb, but are stopped by Carter, who tells them it won't work.

They gear up in G-suits in preparation to repel "down" to near the Stargate, and activate a shaped charge. Teal'c, having been gone for several days in his perspective, arrives with the shaped charge from Travis with Carter's collaborations. Since a remote detonator won't be practical, O'Neill and Cromwell repel to the Stargate and set their own time limit (20 seconds).

However, as they struggle to hold on to place the bomb, the rest of the glass from the control room fail, and are rushing towards the Colonels, and smashes straight to the iris. One glass shard has lodged onto Cromwell's rope. O'Neill then starts arming the bomb, but before activating it, the iris completely fails, and is sucked through the wormhole, which now looks like a backwards vortex. This forces the two and the bomb even closer. Furthermore, the glass breaks the rope, and Cromwell holds on to O'Neill, but knowing that one rope will not hold both of them, he lets go, and is pulled straight to P3W-451. O'Neill struggles up to get to the bomb, and sets the timer. As he gets up, Teal'c, Carter and Siler use their strength to pull the rope from the black hole's strong gravity. After a while, the shaped charge detonates.

Sometime later, O'Neill awakens in the infirmary, where he sees Carter, Hammond, Teal'c and Jackson, who returned from his mission to P3X-808. They inform him the plan worked; the shaped charge sent the wormhole to P2A-870, and they easily shut off the Stargate from there. Hammond informs them that a new trinium-strengthened iris will be placed over the Gate from now on. When O'Neill asks what day it is, Jackson tells him "Well, this might be a little difficult to accept, but since you reported for duty yesterday, two weeks have actually gone by." O'Neill decides to sleep in.

Notable quotes
O'Neill: Look, I know I should know this by now. I swear it'll be the last time I ask. These wormholes we go through, they're not always there, right?

Carter: No, sir. It can only form between two open gates.

O'Neill: What's with the worm part? The worm thing. I-I don't get that.

Carter: That's just a metaphor.

O'Neill: Right. I knew that.

Carter: Imagine the galaxy is an apple. We burrow our way through the apple like a worm, crossing from one side to the other instead of going around the outside.

O'Neill: (after pause) Okay.

Carter: Now, of course, the diameter of the apple is just a two-dimensional representation of space-time and well, the hole isn't a hole per se, but an interdimensional conduit. (stops while noticing O'Neill's confusion) Colonel?

O'Neill: (closes his eyes and thinks) Okay. I'll be all right.

Carter: (amused) Okay.

Carter: Sir. By some fluke of Stargate technology, we are witnessing something that the laws of physics say we can't possibly witness.

O'Neill: We are witnessing good men die in slow motion, Captain.

Cromwell: Sergeant, how long have you been out of contact with this facility?

Sergeant: Coming on four hours ago, sir. But it was funky for a while before that.

Cromwell: Is that proper military terminology? What exactly does "funky" mean!?

Hammond: Captain, relativity gives me a headache.

Simmons: Do you think they'll be able to shut it down, sir?

Hammond: We'll know sometime tomorrow.

O'Neill: What day is it?

Jackson: Well, this might be a little difficult to accept, but since you reported for duty yesterday, two weeks have actually gone by.

O'Neill: Two weeks? I think I'll sleep in.

Cromwell: The Pentagon suspects alien hostiles.

O'Neill: And they sent you?

Background notes

 * O'Neill saw the first black hole in the Stargate universe in "Singularity", though at a safe distance. His astronomy hobby is demonstrated in both episodes, as he instantly recognizes a black hole and its implications.
 * This is the first time the 38 minute window is mentioned in this reality.
 * This episode marks the first appearance of Major Paul Davis.
 * In this episode, Colonel Cromwell is dispatched by the Pentagon and Major Davis by the . In future collaborations, Major Davis liaises with the Pentagon.
 * The P3W-451 black hole is used by SG-1 for a variety of tasks, notably to siphon away enough stellar material to cause a star to go supernova in Exodus and to indirectly attack the Aschen in 2001.
 * In other occasions, the memory of the incident with the P3W-451 helped SG-1 solve or understand their actual problem, for example in episode Ripple Effect.

Production

 * Sally Malcolm has written two books, A Matter of Honor and The Cost of Honor, that detail SG-1's successful attempt to save SG-10 from the planet.