Five-Minute Stargate SG-1: "Scorched Earth" by Akire [Campsite on the tundra with the Locals of the Week (LotW)] Hedrazar (bigshot village leader): Long, pompous speech Heckler: Don't bore 'em! Hedrazar: Hey, O'Neill, I'm going to name my grandkid after you - is that one 'l' or two? O'Neill: Umm... love what you did with the place, who'd ya get in? Hedrazar: Oh, it was easy once Major Carter gave us the naquadah equivalent of Chernobyl. [Local lad (Kalif) comes racing over hill, puffing like Thomas the Tank Engine] Kalif: Boom! Big bada boom! Heading this way! [Standing by the Gate, watching funky alien ship raze the landscape from cruising altitude] O'Neill: Ooookay. Kids, I think we've found our plot this week. Carter: Technobabble, technobabble (turns on Universal Translator) It's doing bad stuff to the planet, sirs. Daniel: (pouting adorably) But it doesn't have an 'Open This Way' sign. So I can't do my thang! Jack: Undoubtedly that comes later. Remind me, who's the star here again? General: Discuss pay later. Can we ship the LotW offworld? Daniel: Nope. They go blind when you put 'em in the light. Couldn't even get a sponsorship from Rayban. Jack: We can't save them all. I smell a plot complication. [Carter's lab] Carter: Well lookee at what I found. Jack: [peering through microscope] Little orange fuzzy things? Carter: Urrr. Jack: Who writes your performance review again, Major? Carter: Me, since you don't change your password. No, those things are microscopic sulfur switching mechanisms which are completely redesigning the local biosphere... Daniel: Ooh! I'm a linguist, let me translate! That mean's they're terraforming. Carter: That's what I said! Anyway, if they keep going, the atmosphere won't be able to support life as we know it. Chorus: It's life, Jack, but not as we know it, not as we know it, not as we know it. It's life, Jack, but not as we know it, Colonel! Editor: Can't you go ONE fiver without a gratuitous Star Trek reference? Stargate: Whoosh! [LotW shovel squad digging the trenches] Jack: Long speech made short - you're what?!? Hedrazar: Staying. Help or get out of the way. Daniel: Let us try talking to the sulfur squad. Hedrazar: Why don't you just try blowing them up while they're still far away and impersonal? Daniel: 'Cos we've still got forty minutes of airtime to fill. [Teal'c, Jack and Daniel (Carter's Angels) walk back to the Gate] Carter: Well, the transponder is making beeping noises. Let's try calling that ship. Jack: Do they have a phone number? Daniel: Do they have phones? [Beams up...] [Inside a funky white minimalist room] Carter: Got one! Well, technically, they got us... Jack: We're on the ship, aren't we? Carter: And yet you still outrank me. [Wanders round] Wonder why we're not breathing sulfur? Daniel: 'Cos the network would have to hire more actors, then? [They're still cruising around the white room] Jack: Carter, don't touch. [Daniel opens a drawer] Jack: What did I just say? [see! Pre-fivered!] Daniel: Oops! Really! But look what I've found? Carter: Tissue samples. Jack: Or the next generation in DVD. Daniel: Stuff to put in after the terraforming's done is my guess. Carter: Or you've been reading ahead in the script again. Daniel: Let's just call it guessing. Lotan: Good guess, then. I'm Lotan, and I've been assembled to talk to you. Jack: Ambassadors by Mattel. Daniel: Umm, hi! Let me introduce us. Jack: Hi. Why are you killing the LotW? I have a deep emotional investment in their well-being, plus they're naming a kid after me. Lotan: Kill? I'm not going to kill anyone. I just wanted to have a little chat with them, you know, perhaps over tea and scones. But they've all disappeared. I've looked everywhere, even behind the cushions. But they've just vanished. Jack: Its called running away in blind terror. Why don't you try it, and leave them alone? Lotan: Where's the plot in that? Jack: You've taken Ambassador lessons from the Tollans, haven't you? Let me talk to your boss. [Another funky white room with a holofield projector (hey, they look the same no matter where in the Universe you are. I think some factory in Tokyo is pushing them out as bulk lots)] Lotan: Here are my bosses. They are so far above you on the evolutionary scale it's scary. Jack: Been here, heard that, still don't have the inferiority complex. Now. Stop it. Lotan: Umm. No. Jack: Why? What's so hard about stopping. Lotan: The little detail of there being no stop button. Jack: Okay. Let's try this another way. Stop it. Lotan: [sigh] [SG-1 gets beamed off] Hedrazar: Didja fix it? Jack: Umm. No. [Cheyenne Mountain] Carter: [flipping through the BSFH handbook] [sigh] Okay, no technobabble today. Basically the microbes need the same conditions as the LotW. Hammond: Can we stop them? Daniel: Do we want to? Jack: Excuse me? What is this, best civilization wins? Daniel: No. Really. Maybe we can just flip the robot's circuits? Jack: You watch waaaaay too much Original Series. Daniel: It's worth a shot. Jack: No. Here's an idea. Let's kill it. Hammond: Umm, no. Find another way. Jack: Leave? Hedrazar: Umm. No. Jack: Time for Plan Z. Jack: How much naquadah do we have? Carter: Enough to make a nice bomb, but that won't help us here... Daniel: Blow it up? Not good. Jack: Dying LotW? Very not good. Sam: Can I have a complex moral dilemma yet? Jack: No. I'm just going to pull rank. Sam: One big bomb coming up, sir! Sam: [tinker] Okay, I'm making it so once it starts, it can't stop. Nice parallel to the ship above, huh? [Teal'c catches Daniel leaving camp to beam back up to the ship] Teal'c: You going to blab the plan to the robot? Daniel: Well, Jack wants another option, so I'm going to go find one. The new crop of grey hair this will undoubtedly generate is just a bonus. [Daniel beams up... how?] Lotan: How's life? Daniel: Sucking. You? Lotan: Not good. I wasn't made for intense personal dilemmas such as discovering I am more like the LotW than I am like my long-dead creators. Daniel: Great, time for a discussion on the philosophy of self. Come play tourist with me and we'll see what damage we can do to your obedience circuitry. [Back at the bomb site] Sam: This plan sucks. Jack: Noted. Now give me the Gameboy. [Walking in the woods... get your minds out of the gutter!] Lotan: Perfection isn't as good as the real thing. Daniel: Oh yeah. [Village] Teal'c: DanielJackson has gone to Lotan. Jack: You let him go? You suck too. [into radio] Oh, Dannyboy? Daniel: Oh Ja-ack. How's the hair? I'm off to play chicken with your naquadah bomb. Bye bye. Lotan: You're being naughty? Daniel: I'm gleefully screwing the command structure. Cool, huh? You can too. Lotan: [fizzing slightly] Umm... Daniel: Come on, let me introduce you to the LotW and the concept of empathy. [They beam to the village] Lotan: Not working. I'm off! Daniel: Me too! Jack: Bugger! [Outside in the village square] Jack: Daniel's gone back to the ship Carter: But we're gonna blow it up! Jack: Duh! I got that memo! [On the ship] Lotan: Are you going to blow this ship up? Daniel: Maybe. Are you going to destroy this planet? Lotan: Yep. Daniel: There's your answer then. [On the ground] Sam: If we're going to blow up our best friend, we've got to do it now. Teal'c: Hey, he chose! [Jack hits the switch] [On board] Daniel: Can you stop the ship. Not do you want to, but can you? [shouldn't he have asked this before?] Lotan: Yeah, so? Daniel: Okay, last ditch attempt to scramble your circuits. Would your 10,000 year old creators want you to be a mass murderer? Sam: 60 seconds until my bomb kills my best friend. Teal'c: Hey look, the ship's stopped. Sam: Way to go Danny! Umm, ship's stopped but bomb's still ticking. Daniel: I can't stop it... can you? Lotan: Minor detail. I'm superior, remember? LotW: Ooooh, fireworks! Lotan: Was that boom meant for me? Daniel: Hey, we got desperate. Lotan: This ain't over yet, punk. Daniel: I know... hey look, a starmap. Can you find another world we can ship the LotW too? They're refugees, they'll be used to packing. Lotan: Ouch, man. Oh, hey look, a suitable world. Even has a few LotW in residence already. Daniel: Well, whaddya know? Hedrazar: Well, O'Neill, what now? [Daniel and Lotan beam in] Daniel: Hi! We're got a deal for you Lotan: Give up this rock to me. LotW: And this is a good deal how? Daniel: We've found your home rock. Good enough deal for ya? Jack: And you're only deigning to tell us this now because...? Daniel: Hey, he's only thirty hours old. Its not bad for a newborn. Hedrazar: You've got a deal! Teal'c: Umm, small detail? No Gate - how we getting them over there? Daniel: Well, I know this ship... going cheap... big enough for all the family... near new, one careful lady driver... only used to raze half a planet... and I've even got this nice bridge to sell you... Lotan: Yep. I'll even drive you over before I die. Daniel: Umm, are you totally wedded to that last bit? Lotan: Umm. No. Sam: I love happy endings. THE END A note from Akire: Can you tell this was a bloody hard ep to fiver?? Legal notices. You are number ### to be refused sponsorship from Rayban.