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A Tok'ra scientist called Anise (her host is Freya) arrives at the SGC with alien technology that she wants to test on SG-1. The technology is in the form of armbands, and the alien race that created them predate the Goa'uld and Tok'ra, so the Tok'ra are anxious to gain the new technology. However, the armbands don't work on Tok'ra, possibly because of their symbiotes. Anise therefore wants to test the devices on O'Neill, Carter, and Daniel.
What do the devices do? They are supposed to enhance every natural ability, such as strength, speed, and endurance. General Hammond and SG-1 are skeptical, but agree to the test in the spirit of the human-Tok'ra alliance (which Anise reminds them about many times during the episode). Anise assures everyone that she will monitor the test carefully and has Tok'ra bio-monitors placed on the test subjects; although she promises to share the readings with Dr. Fraiser, she ultimately manages to avoid doing so for much of the time.
O'Neill is the first one to put on an armband. There seem to be no ill effects, and he begins to show signs of increased strength in a few hours. Carter and Daniel are then fitted with armbands as well.
Sure enough, the three begin to manifest enhanced abilities. At first, most of this is played for laughs: O'Neill knocks out Teal'c in a sparring match and punches his hand through a punching bag; O'Neill reads one of Daniel's long-hair books in seconds; Carter can see well in near-dark conditions and writes a huge tome on wormhole physics in a few hours; Daniel also gains speed-reading abilities and does some heavy linguistic work in just a few hours.
But then the side effects begin to appear. O'Neill becomes nearly manic with the idea of SG-1 going on a mission to use their new powers against the Goa'uld. He pats Siler on the shoulder and accidentally knocks him over a railing. Dr. Fraiser has discovered that the armbands have released a virus into their systems; while Fraiser is concerned, Anise hypothesizes that this is how the armbands enhance the user's abilities and shrugs it off. The three test subjects also have much-increased metabolisms in order to fuel their increased abilities, so they are eating constantly. Fraiser also notes that other hormones are out-of-balance in the three test subjects, which is causing the armbands to have a somewhat addictive effect. She recommends halting the tests. Hammond agrees, over Anise's objections. However, the three can't remove the armbands.
Hammond places O'Neill, Carter, and Daniel in a comfortable lock-down facility, confining them to base until they can figure out how to remove the armbands. But the three of them get antsy and very hungry: they use their faster-than-the-eye-can-see speed to sneak off base to a bar where they all amusingly order 3 or 4 steaks apiece. Carter hustles some bar patrons over billiards, and inevitably a fight breaks out. Although our heroes are careful not to seriously injure anyone, Hammond is definitely not amused to hear about it the next day. Fraiser examines the three of them again and finds that they are showing signs of multiple organ failure - the high demands the armband is putting on their bodies cannot be sustained.
The plot sickens when Anise tells them that the Tok'ra High Council has learned about a new, more-powerful type of battleship that Apophis is constructing. The Tok'ra have a spy in place at the construction facility, but sabotage of the new ship has failed. The Tok'ra High Council want to send the three enhanced members of SG-1 to destroy the ship before it is completed. Notably, Anise announces this information not only to Hammond but in the presence of all of SG-1.
Hammond is furious, suspecting that the Tok'ra engineered the whole situation with the "test" of the armbands so that they could use SG-1. Anise denies this, but it's very hard to believe her. Hammond turns her down flat and orders O'Neill, Carter, and Daniel back into lockdown.
Of course, the three of them can hardly sit still from the effects of the armband, so they use the information Anise has given the SGC about the proposed mission to plan how they will get to the unfinished ship and destroy it. With their enhanced abilities, they should have no problem defeating the large contingent of Jaffa and the protective forcefields.
The three of them knock out some SGC personnel in order to dial the Stargate for the target planet. Teal'c sees them leave, but can't keep up. On the planet, they quickly knock out the many Jaffa guards and get into the construction facility. Carter notices some Jaffa with a chunk of weapons-grade naquadah, which would be hugely valuable to the SGC. Daniel goes to grab the naquadah while O'Neill and Carter place the explosives. I do like the clever and reasonably plausible way that they get through the forcefields: the forcefields oscillate - that is, they blink on and off too rapidly for the eye to see - and so they just speed through when the forcefield is off.
And then things start to go wrong. Daniel returns with the naquadah and passes out. His armband falls off. Just as O'Neill and Carter are waking him up, Teal'c arrives to save them from a few Jaffa guards. Teal'c takes a now-ordinary Daniel back to the Stargate while O'Neill and Carter finish setting the explosives.
As they leave, Carter passes out and loses her own armband, before she can go through the last forcefield. O'Neill has gone through, but when he turns back to get Carter, he also loses his armband. Now all of SG-1 is normal again, and Carter is trapped behind the forcefield. The explosives go off, causing a chain reaction that will blow up the ship in a few minutes. Fortunately, the disruption from the initial explosion causes the forcefield to drop and Carter can escape.
All of SG-1 makes it back to the Stargate, under Teal'c's guidance, and somewhat sheepishly returns to the SGC. Apparently the bodies of the test subject developed antibodies to the armband's virus, which is what caused them to fall off. Anise speculates that this is what doomed the race making the armbands - eventually none of the population could use them and they had no other defenses.
This was a fun episode, but not necessarily one with far-reaching consequences. The fun was in seeing our protagonists with super-human abilities. They mostly used these abilities in character (see my narrative above), which was also amusing. Carter writes a physics book! Daniel does linguistics! These people are certainly goal-driven.
The armband technology certainly seems to have some shortcomings. Even if the armband wearers didn't develop antibodies to the armband's virus, it seems like they would have shortly died from organ failure. And there is no way to take off an armband? One has to wonder how the inventors of the armbands really intended them to be used. It seems like they wouldn't be for everyday use, but as a last resort for essentially a suicide attack, since the wearer is doomed to die by organ failure. It seems like they would be of limited use.
Anise mentioned several times throughout the episode about how the SGC and SG-1 should cooperate with her for the good of the Earth-Tok'ra alliance. However, she was far from forthcoming about the experiment and behaved in a very superior manner toward everyone in the SGC. It doesn't seem like her attitude or how this incident turned out will be helpful in the relations in the alliance. It's not clear if it was true or not that Anise and the Tok'ra didn't know about Apophis's new battleship before the experiment started, but the fact that Hammond doubted this immediately is worrisome for the future of the alliance.
Lastly, the idea of alien technology that can enhance a person's natural abilities as much as shown in this episode belongs in the realm of comic books and should stay there. O'Neill and the others became very strong, yet had no additional muscle mass. It defies the laws of physics, biology, and chemistry to have the same muscle somehow lifting so much more weight. And the ability to run faster than a person can see is pretty laughable. I appreciate the attempt at plausibility by stating that they were burning so much more energy and their metabolisms were much increased, but that doesn't make all of their abilities just work.
avondale@astr ;o.umd.edu