The Road Not Taken

"The Road Not Taken" is the thirteenth episode of the tenth season of Stargate SG-1.

Plot
Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter is experimenting with Merlin's phase-shifting device in one of the SGC's isolation rooms in hopes of creating a larger phase-shifted field. Mitchell enters and informs her that a recent sighting of the MIA Daniel Jackson was a false alarm. Mitchell asks her to go to lunch with Teal'c and himself so they can discuss the mission report. Carter wants to run one more test, and tells Mitchell that he can watch from the observation room.

Carter activates the device and phases. While phase-shifted, she hears a strange sound. The device emits a strange glow which quickly encompasses the phase-shifted isolation room. As the glow subsides Carter reappears to the sound of blaring sirens. Mitchell is not in the observation room, which now looks a bit different, and there are signs of an explosion on the floor. Carter lowers the force field as Dr. Lee enters. He asks "Major Carter" if she is all right. Carter is further puzzled when Major Lorne enters the room. Upon asking him why he is here and not on Atlantis, he says he has no idea what she's talking about, and mentions that he is the "leader of SG-1."

Carter suspects she has somehow entered a parallel universe. She asks to see the footage of the incident in the lab. General Hammond, watching through video link, tells Dr. Lee to show her the footage. The video depicts Major Carter's power capacitor experiment. A sudden power spike in the experiment leads to an explosion and results in loss of the video feed. It is at that point that Dr. Lee entered the room and found the Lieutenant Colonel. Lee explains that Major Carter was drawing energy from parallel universes and storing them in power capacitors in order to power the Ancient Chair. The explosion resulted in the death of Major Carter and, combined with Lt. Col. Carter's phase-shifting experiment, resulted in her transfer to this parallel universe.

In the universe Sam is now in, when Anubis attacked Earth three years earlier, the President of the United States revealed the existence of the Stargate program to the world. A month ago the Ori attacked. The lone Ori ship was destroyed by the Ancient outpost in Antarctica, but the ZPM was depleted. Reports indicate five Ori battle cruisers are on course to reach Earth in five days. They need Lieutenant Colonel Carter's help to finish Major Carter’s work in order to power the Ancient outpost. Carter also discovers that the Carter of the other universe used to be married to Rodney McKay, who is a dot com millionaire. Vala is imprisoned at Area 51. Atlantis has never been discovered. Daniel is missing still, and Lorne doesn't know where "former 302 pilot" Mitchell is. Also in this reality, the Tau'ri have cut ties with the Jaffa and other allies, and become isolationist.

Realizing Major Carter's work is incomplete and she is unable to catch up in time, Carter decides to work on extending the range of her phase device. Carter tells them she was working on the device in her world to hide Earth from the Ori. Without the ZPM, she needs an alternate source of power. Hank Landry, the President of the United States, whose office is now part of the Cheyenne Mountain facilities, promises Carter that she will get all the power she needs. Carter estimates her needs are about 80% of the entire United States' power grid. Landry already worked up a system to draw power from the entire U.S. power grid.

After a few days of feverishly working on Earth’s defense, the Ori ships appear. Energy is redirected to the device and the United States plunges into darkness. The power level increases to 93% before time runs out, and Carter activates the phase-cloak. Earth vanishes in a flash of light. The Ori ships, assuming Earth is just cloaked, open fire but hit nothing, while the SGC folks watch the Ori weapons' rays cascading through them harmlessly. Landry congratulates Carter on a job well done, and then, with no warning, ushers her into a press room, where her victory is publicized and celebrated.

Shortly thereafter, Carter attends a celebratory party given by the President. But it is interrupted by a protester chanting “No security without freedom.” Security guards armed with Goa'uld torture devices neutralize him. Landry and Carter are beamed onto Prometheus, which the president has commandeered as "Air Force One". Carter learns the President instituted martial law and is disliked by many people. Later, at the SGC, Carter watches the news and sees an F-302 bombing an Irish village. Hammond asserts that they were bombing terrorists. Angry, Carter accuses him of using the 302’s against political enemies. Hammond replies that the “threat is still out there” to which Carter replies “that’s the problem; it always will be”.

Wanting to return home, Carter seeks out Rodney McKay for help with Major Carter’s inter-universe bridge, since he and his sister worked on it in her universe. They have a humorous conversation, in which Rodney thinks she's there to tell him that she is a lesbian. Meanwhile, Hammond and Landry have a brief discussion, agree they cannot afford to lose Carter, nor can they let her knowledge of advanced technology disappear. During the discussion, Landry indicates he has always hated politicians, but Hammond adds that he had to do it (possibly means that US was pushed into a military rule under threat of anarchy). Dr Lee finds the device she described, in the same cave in Glastonbury that it was in Carter's universe, and tells Landry. Lee informs him they don’t know anything about it, but Carter would. Carter returns to the SGC to find her equipment has not returned. Landry tells her the timing is not good for her to go back, and she learns that Landry has suspended all democratic elections and replaced them with a plebiscite. Carter realizes that Landry may never let her go.

Cater visits Mitchell, now in a wheelchair and living in a dilapidated building; he is a depressed, bitter alcoholic and his apartment is strewn with garbage. After the dogfight over Antarctica, the wounded Mitchell was used as a tool to boost national morale. When he became troubled by the policies of the government and would no longer play along with their propaganda, they punished him by dropping him, and, no longer with access to good medical care, his condition worsened. He warns Carter about the price of non-compliance with the government. Carter spots a black car with tinted windows on the street outside Mitchell's building. She calls Landry’s chief of staff, Charlie, and tells him she’ll play ball. Landry arranges for Carter to deliver a live televised interview. During her speech, Carter states that as Presidential advisor she will push for the restoration of civil liberties. Charlie orders the broadcaster to cut the transmission, and mention of her appearance is censored in print.

Afterwards, Carter is attacked and rendered unconscious by secret service agents. She awakens on Air Force One with Landry. In a talk with her he says that public relations and the phase technology are important, that her world still has freedom and the Stargate program is one of the greatest secrets that the government has ever known. She then talks about General Hank Landry and how he would not allow the rest of the galaxy to fall to the Ori.

Carter returns to the SGC to discover that McKay is now working on the device discovered at Glastonbury, with an implication that he was forced to do so, and that Landry has realized he'll have more control over McKay, but that Carter will be too much trouble to control. McKay has also replaced Carter as special adviser to the President. McKay informs her that they are going to be allowed to build the inter-universe bridge to send her home. Carter tells McKay to nudge the president about galactic threat.

Back in Lieutenant Colonel Carter’s world, Dr Lee uses a sound device to scan the isolation room. Carter suddenly reappears behind him in a flash of light and goes unnoticed until she says his name. Back in her lab, Carter talks with Vala, Teal’c and Mitchell. She has been gone for two weeks and no information about Daniel has surfaced. The others embarrassedly say that, thinking she was stuck while phased, they had been taking turns keeping her company, talking with what turned out to be an empty room, for hours at a time. Vala gives her a hug.

Goofs

 * They refer to the Irish Prime Minster but there is no Irish Prime Minster. They have a different form of government involving "An Taoiseach" (the Irish word for leader) as the head of the government. This was an alternate reality however and so in this universe, Ireland could indeed have a Prime Minister.

Title reference

 * The title of this episode is the same as a poem by Robert Frost [1]
 * This is one of two episodes in the Stargate canon with a title referring to a poem by Robert Frost, the other one being the Atlantis episode Before I Sleep.
 * The title of this episode is the same as Season 2 Episode 7 of McGyver

Series continuity

 * This episode marks the final appearance of General Hammond on the series; he had previously last appeared in "The Fourth Horseman, Part 2".
 * This episode features the Prometheus functioning as Air Force One in the alternate reality; in the normal reality it was destroyed in Season 9's "Ethon".
 * This is the fifth and final episode not to feature any characters from the original Stargate film. The others are "Nightwalkers", "Insiders", "Uninvited" and "Line in the Sand".
 * The project "Major" Carter was working on to power the Ancient Control Chair before being killed and being replaced by the "Prime" Colonel Carter is similar to "Project Arcturus" the Ancients were working on in Pegasus ("Trinity") and the zero-point energy project being worked on by Rodney McKay, Jeannie Miller and the Atlantis team in "McKay and Mrs. Miller".
 * Based on the comments of the alternate General Hammond, this reality apparently diverged from the one we know during the events of "Lost City, Part 2", with SG-1 being unable to discover the ZPM in time to fight off Anubis's forces without alerting the rest of the world. Given the position he was in at the time "Lost City" took place, it would suggest that this world's Jack O'Neill died from the Ancient knowledge, but this is uncertain.

Guest stars

 * This is the second appearance of Major Lorne in Stargate SG-1, his first appearance being in the season 7 episode "Enemy Mine".
 * This is the fifth Stargate episode to feature a Rodney McKay from an alternate reality, the others being "Before I Sleep", "Moebius, Part 1", "Moebius, Part 2", and "McKay and Mrs. Miller".