Time

"Time" is the eighth episode of the first season of Stargate Universe.

Synopsis
An away team finds a kino beside a Stargate on a jungle world, which contains video footage of team that was shot prior on the planet before their arrival. Then, an illness cripples the team, forcing them to quarantine themselves on the planet.

Prologue
A group of around 80 unprepared soldiers, scientists and civilians evacuate Icarus Base to the Ancient spaceship Destiny, located several billion light years from Earth, and are trapped there; the ship doesn't have enough power to dial such distances. They visited ice planet and managed to bring some ice back.

Plot
An away team, filmed from the perspective of a Kino, exits the Stargate on a jungle world to replenish their food supplies. As they test the local plants for any potentially harmful toxins, several members of the team fall victim to a mysterious illness. During their routine check-in, Lt. Tamara Johansen expresses her concern that the illness might be contagious and requests a quarantine, which Young approves. Later that night, as the group takes shelter from the heavy rain, they are attacked by snake-like creatures which kill several people, including Chloe Armstrong.

The scene then cuts away to the Kino room, where the team, still very much alive, is watching the recording of their apparent deaths. They did not stay on the planet as those depicted in the recording did. Instead, Eli Wallace found the damaged Kino on the ground near the gate, and Dr. Nicholas Rush located human skeletal remains (later revealed to be his own). They have taken the Kino back to Destiny to examine its logs. As the footage pauses on Chloe's gruesome death, the "real" Chloe promptly runs out to vomit. To find out more, the team continues watching.

In the recording, a disturbed Eli reactivates the Kino, rendered flightless by a stray bullet, and tapes it to a helmet so that he can carry it comfortably. He dismisses the ridiculousness of the setup, claiming that documenting their plight is important (a point reiterated by the "real" Eli). Attempts to dial the gate back to Destiny result in an unstable wormhole; Rush forbids using it until they figure out what's going on. Fortunately, the creatures appear to be nocturnal and leave the team alone during the day. Lt. Matthew Scott was bitten by one of the (apparently venomous) creatures and fell into a coma; including him, there are only six survivors. (At this point of the recording, the "real" Ronald Greer leaves the rest of the team, unwilling to accept that he was powerless to prevent their deaths, regardless of whether or not the events actually happened.)

Knowing that they probably won't survive another night, the team relocates to a cave where Eli talks with T.J. about her being affected by her inability to help the ill. He also reveals that his mother is a nurse who once was working with a violent junkie when she got stabbed by the junkie's needle and contracted HIV (earning the "real" Eli some comforting looks). Then he talks with Rush about death and the possibility of an afterlife; Rush explains how the Ancients learned to ascend, allowing the soul to live on as pure energy. He realizes that no ordinary human could ever hope to achieve this, but seems to take comfort in the fact that it can be done. Finally, Greer teaches Eli how to handle a gun and takes him along to blow up the creatures' lairs with C4.

In the real world, members of the crew start to fall ill, even those outside the quarantine. T.J. deduces that the planet could not be responsible for the illness, but regardless they have no means by which to cure it. She can merely administer anti-biotics to those that are ill.

The scene switches back to the recording, where night eventually falls as the survivors guard their cave. The creatures appear en masse and the survivors open fire, quickly exhausting their limited supply of ammo. In a desperate maneuver, Rush takes one of the dialing remotes and runs to the gate, followed shortly by Eli. With nothing left to lose, Rush runs through the gate after quoting Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The "real" Col. Everett Young remarks that it's his favorite film, earning a remark from the "real" Rush that they do have something in common. Eli gets back to the cave just in time to witness Greer falling victim to the creatures, followed shortly by himself.

T.J. interrupts the viewing; she has discovered that the cause of the illness is a pathogen originating from Hoth. One of the ice caches wasn't disinfected properly and it contaminated the rest of their water supply. Though the period of infection varies from person to person, the infection is fatal once it gets strong enough to affect the nervous system.

In the recording, Scott awakes from his coma and finds the entire team dead. Curiously, the disease that was affecting him now appears to be in remission. Similar to Rush, he decides to take a chance with the unstable wormhole. He records a message on the Kino before sending it through; should Destiny receive it, they can send a message back, otherwise he'll just try to use the gate anyway. As the Kino crosses the event horizon, it comes out of the same gate, rolling down the ramp and stopping next to Rush's corpse.

The latest footage from the Kino recording allows Rush to figure out what happened: the wormhole disruption was due to a solar flare, which redirected the wormhole back in time to the same location. Based on the Kino timestamp and current readings from the planet, it will be about 45 minutes before the flare hits in the present. This will allow the team to travel back to the planet safely. Rush and Johansen both agree that given that Scott in the recording recovered following the bite, the venom of the creature is their best hope for a cure.

While the team on the planet searches for the creatures at night, Lt. Vanessa James dies. Eli breaks down and confesses to an unconscious Chloe that she was the closest thing he had to a best friend. While he's confessing, she too passes. She's already the fourth fatality and Rush forwards this to the away team. A few moments later the team is ambushed by the creatures; Scott is again the only survivor. Thinking quickly, he grabs the Kino and dials the gate, waiting for the solar flare to disrupt the wormhole. He records a message on the Kino detailing the cause of the illness and the possible antidote the creatures hold. He also relays how to capture them safely in the daytime. The episode ends when he switches off the recording.

International airdates

 * Canada: November 13, 2009 (Space)
 * United Kingdom: November 17, 2009 (Sky1)
 * Australia: November 20, 2009 (Sci Fi Australia)

Production

 * Joseph Mallozzi revealed that Robert C. Cooper would be writing the seventh episode in his blog on February 12, 2009 and revealed the title of the episode on February 17, 2009. However it seems the episodes have since been reordered (as Fire was broken into Darkness and Light).
 * The episode started filming at around May 22, 2009, where the episode would take place on a Jungle planet.
 * Much of this episode is shot from the perspective of the Kino.
 * In an interview with InnerSPACE (on the Space channel), Elyse Levesque mentioned that this episode was "a massive experiment" and that the crew invented camera contraptions to achieve some of the different filming techniques.