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"2001" is the tenth episode of the fifth season of Stargate SG-1.

Synopsis[]

SG-1 makes contact with a technologically advanced race known as the Aschen (a race of people SG-1 from an alternate future tried to warn current SG-1 not to make contact with). While they form an alliance, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Teal'c find clues about the Aschen past and when the truth about the Aschen is finally revealed, SG-1 must intervene or risk history repeating itself all over again.

Previously on Stargate SG-1[]

Stargate Command receives a note from an alternate Colonel Jack O'Neill instructing them to not travel to P4C-970 under any circumstances.

Plot[]

Earth seems to have found the perfect ally in their fight against the Goa'uld: the Aschen, whom SG-1 met while visiting the simple, low-tech, pastoral planet Volia at P3A-194. To negotiate with the Aschen, SG-1 is accompanied by Ambassador Joseph Faxon, whom Major Samantha Carter quickly starts to like. They meet with the Aschen representatives on one of their big harvester ships (which harvests Volian fields and sends the crop through the Stargate). The Aschen not only offer them their advanced technology but also membership in the Aschen Confederation. In exchange, Earth will share with the Aschen their knowledge of the Stargate network, as the Aschen claim to be ignorant of the network and know only how to access a few gates. Their biotechnology is particularly interesting because they can create a biogenic weapon that could target specific DNA combinations, and show an example with a hologram.

After Colonel Jack O'Neill's positive introduction to the Aschen, in which they proclaim their willingness to trade, negotiations endorsed by the President of the United States begin. However O'Neill starts to feel uneasy, a feeling strengthened by the fact that the Stargate would have to be revealed to the public (because the Aschen insist that a treaty must be with all the nations of Earth) and also because the Aschen representative mentions that Earth's current population growth is unsustainable (suggesting military action to curb it).

In the meantime, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Teal'c start to investigate Volia in response to O'Neill's order to find out more about the Volians' relationship with the Aschen. After questioning a Volian farmer named Keel (who has only positive things to say about the Aschen), they offer to help him remove some "iron root" from one of the agricultural fields: he shows them some rusty scaffolding that looks akin to a radio mast on Earth. Assuring Keel they'll take care of it and waiting until he walks away, Jackson starts digging and instead finds that buried beneath is a city of technology and complexity equivalent to Earth around the 1910s, far more advanced than that evinced by the Volians, yet that is only a few hundred years old. Teal'c determines that there is no evidence of destruction through battle, nor is there any human remains from victims of a disaster. In an underground library, the two find stored newspaper editions that reveal disturbing information about the Aschen.

Back at Stargate Command, Major General George S. Hammond and Master Sergeant Walter Harriman discover that the Aschen homeworld may be the location of a Stargate address that was locked out of the dialing computer seven months earlier when they received a mysterious note that they thought might be from the future SG-1. This note was not only in O'Neill's handwriting but also had his blood on it; it warned them away from going to P4C-970. Early in the Stargate Program, Carter had calculated that the farthest a Stargate could reach without accounting for stellar drift was 300 lightyears. The Aschen Confederation is thus only within this reach of Volia, and P4C-970 is one of these worlds. As Stargate Command has narrowed down the Aschen homeworld to one of four possibilities, Hammond decides to send teams SG-3, SG-12, and SG-15 to the other three possible locations to determine if the Aschen world is the forbidden address. However, the search is stopped by presidential order, because if one of the teams were to find the Aschen at one of the other three locations, they might feel their privacy invaded and trust betrayed, thus stopping negotiations.

Meanwhile, after learning of the likelihood that the Aschen are not all that they appear to be, O'Neill cashes in on an open invitation to the White House and journeys to Washington D.C. to tell the President about his concerns. But Senator Robert Kinsey, one of O'Neill's Earth-based arch rivals, beats him to it and convinced the President not to listen to O'Neill. He then intercepts O'Neill's limo ride and informing him that he knows about the note, does believe that it's from the future, as the ink used is a biodegradable formula they don't yet know of. In his arrogance, he believes that O'Neill's objection to the treaty is all about Kinsey himself, and as the senator's participation would likely assure him a presidency at a later time O'Neill is only trying to prevent that, and not out of concern for Earth. He has him returned immediately to the SGC, to O'Neill's considerable frustration.

Daniel and Teal'c find the final issue of a newspaper, which they assume must have the last information available before the unknown catastrophe destroyed the civilization. Recognizing the words to be similar to an ancient Celtic text that he once found in Wales, back at the SGC Daniel can translate the newspaper to the extent that he knows that a drug the Aschen gave members of the society caused something, but he doesn't know the translation of that one word. He writes it down on a piece of paper for Carter. In a later good-will meeting aboard a harvesting ship in which Earth will prove their good faith by sharing a few of the Stargate addresses they know, Carter informs Faxon of their suspicions while they're alone. During the meeting, she tricks the distracted Aschen Borren into translating the word: "sterility". When Carter and Faxon reveal that they have figured out the Aschen's intentions, they lock Carter and Faxon in the room and dial Earth in order to send through a powerful bio-weapon, like the one they introduced earlier.

Sam sets up a rope to climb down straight into the (horizontally oriented) Stargate, but as Faxon prepares to join her, Borren walks in and Faxon attacks him. With no time left for him to get away, he tells Carter to go on without him before grappling with Borren once again. She falls through the Stargate and quickly orders the Iris shut behind her; moments later a loud 'whump' sounds when the biogenic weapon is stopped from coming through. Earth is saved, and Sam never learns that the man who gave up his life to save her and Earth could have been destined to be her husband. It is then revealed that what had been given to the Aschen is a list of useless gate addresses, the first one being a black hole, and the rest O'Neill describes as getting "progressively darker after that".

Appearances[]

Appearances for 2001

Locations

Events

Items

Vehicles

Sentient Species

Languages

Organizations

Mentioned

Notable quotes[]

O'Neill: Break out the fishing gear, General. Our job here is done.
Hammond: I take it your mission was successful.
Carter: In a word, sir: Yes.
O'Neill: In two words... Yes, sir.
Hammond: Your initial report said the Volians were a simple agrarian society.
O'Neill: That they are.
Jackson: The Volians introduced us to another race. Friends of theirs.
O'Neill: Who, while lacking a sense of humor, make up for it in advanced technology.

Carter: So out of security concerns, the Aschen wish not to reveal the location of their homeworld until we have an agreement.
O'Neill: They're a little paranoid.
Jackson: It seems appropriate seeing as how they don't have an iris like ours.
Carter: We do know that they've actually created a secondary star in the Volian system by igniting a gas giant, thereby doubling the Volians' growing season.
Faxon: They made a star? How?
Carter: Well, theoretically by increasing the density of a sufficiently massive gas giant until a thermonuclear reaction could take place. In fact Arthur C. Clarke posited that—
O'Neill: Ambassador, you gotta be careful about the use of the word "how" unless you really wanna know.
Faxon: My mistake, Colonel.

(Just after arriving on Volia, surrounded by rural country)
Faxon: It looks just like, uh...
O'Neill: Oh yeah... just when you think you're not in Kansas anymore, turns out ya are.

Mollem: You look pensive.
O'Neill: No, I was just thinking.

Kinsey: I swear, O'Neill. There's going to be an investigation into this. (he storms out)
O'Neill: Well that'd be fine. O'Neill. Two L's! (while holding up three fingers)
Teal'c: Senator Kinsey seems most displeased.
O'Neill: Yeah, that's a cryin' shame isn't it.

Jackson: I just hope we won't regret giving them those gate addresses.
O'Neill: I don't think we will, first one being a black hole and all. They get progressively darker after that.

Cast[]

Main Characters

Guest Stars

Notes[]

  • This episode takes place seven months after "2010".
  • The title is an homage to Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it continues a story arc started in the episode "2010" - the title of which is an homage to Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two. The concept of turning a gas giant into a star (one of the main plot elements of 2010: Odyssey Two) is mentioned in both episodes, and Major Samantha Carter quotes Clarke's name in reference to it during this episode. Coincidentally, Clarke's Space Odyssey series used the term "StarGate" to refer to one of its major plot devices, the monolith.
  • When Senator Robert Kinsey boards the limousine on which Colonel Jack O'Neill is traveling, he mockingly greets Jack as Colonel Starsky then wondering if it was Colonel Hutch instead. This is a callback to the earlier episode ¨Chain Reaction¨ when O'Neill and Maybourne crashed into a party at Kinsey´s home using those aliases.
  • When Colonel Jack O'Neill is telling Senator Robert Kinsey how to spell his name, he says it has two Ls but he holds up three fingers. This can be interpreted as O'Neill giving Kinsey the middle finger.
  • The words on the newspaper found by Dr. Daniel Jackson are almost exactly the same as what he tells the others in the briefing room. The text can be transliterated into English by taking each letter in the paper and substituting it with the letter that comes immediately before it. (This cipher is a reference to HAL 9000's acronym letter-shifting to reveal IBM, albeit accidentally[1]) The newspaper name is The Volian Voice and the headline reads "Vaccine from Newcomes [sic] Causes Sterility".
  • The fate of the Volians was exactly what the Aschen planned to do on Earth in the episode "2010" down to sterilizing the population and igniting their systems gas giant into a second sun.
  • This episode is followed up by the novel Stargate SG-1: Relativity which reveals that the black hole destroyed Aschen Prime (P4C-970) and killed Mollem, but that at least some of the Aschen survived the disaster. These Aschen, led by Mollem's wife Mirris try to launch another bio weapon on Earth that in an alternate future along with the presence of Anubis devastates Earth and humanity. SG-1, with the help of a future O'Neill and his daughter Jade O'Neil, defeats the Aschen and foil their plot once more.

Goofs[]

  • When Carter cuts the rope and falls into the Stargate, on arrival you see her exit flying backward. However, in the next shot, she tumbles into a front roll, i.e. facing away from the gate.

Other languages[]

  • French: Les Faux Amis (The False Friends)
  • Italian: 2001 (dubbed in English)
  • Spanish: 2001 (dubbed in English)
  • German: 2001 (dubbed in English)
  • Czech: Rok 2001 (Year 2001)
  • Hungarian: 2001 (dubbed in English)
  • Catalan: 2001 (dubbed in English)

Links and navigation[]

Smallwikipedialogo This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 2001 (Stargate SG-1). The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with SGCommand, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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