Mitchell wakes up in a strange home, with blood on his hands and flashes of violent imagery in his mind. Police enter the home and arrest him for murder.
24 hours earlier, SG-1 visited Galar, an advanced world long protected by the Asgard, to possibly initiate an alliance. The planet’s emissary was eager to demonstrate a technology that its scientist developed from leftover Goa’uld tech – a device that allows memories to be transferred from one person to another, with the recipient experiencing them as if they were his or her own. Mitchell is the recipient of a demonstration, receiving the emissary’s memory of a conversation with Dr. Reya Varrick, the project’s top scientist. The technology holds great promise for military and other types of training, so the military is eager to develop the relationship. SG-1 agrees to go back to the planet to attend a reception. Mitchell and Reya flirt with one another; when she learns that the project is being taken from her control, she angrily leaves the party and invites Mitchell to walk her home. They share a drink, and soon after, Mitchell wakes up with blood on his hands and flashes of violent imagery in his mind.
The rest of SG-1 is shocked the next morning when the emissary informs them of Mitchell’s arrest and confession. They quickly suspect that someone has used the memory device on Mitchell. In the interest of diplomatic relations, the planet’s leaders are willing to release Mitchell and send him back to Earth, but he wants to prove his innocence. That requires the help of the remaining scientists, one of whom – Dr. Marrell – is her ex-husband. They are eager to help – they believe that the military killed Reya to take control of the project, and framed Mitchell because he could be whisked off planet easily. To detect a graft, the scientists need to hook Mitchell back up to the device and have him relive particular vivid memories.
Mitchell remembers seeing his father in the hospital, after an accident claimed both the test pilot’s legs. He remembers watching the launch of the space shuttle with him, a point at which his father professed his intention to walk again. The resultant baseline should be enough to confirm the graft – but it doesn’t. Daniel and Teal’c try to go over the other evidence of the investigation, including the blood sample that indicated Mitchell had been drinking around the time of the murder. Blood tests at the SGC confirm that Mitchell was somehow stunned into unconsciousness, suggesting that he was attacked before the murder. But the emissary seems to be stalling the investigation, withholding some evidence in the name of planetary security.
The scientists have one more tool at their disposal – if Mitchell has a memory of similar content to the murder, a more exact comparison can be made. Mitchell obliges, recalling a mission in which he destroyed a convoy of refugees based on faulty intelligence. The new information establishes Mitchell’s innocence, but he is determined to go one step further and find the true killer, even if no one else – including the murderer – wants to know.
written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
directed by Wil Waring
music by Joel Goldsmith
Guest Cast: Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Warren Kimmel (Dr. Marell), Benson Simmonds (Dr. Amauro), William Atherton (Emissary), Anna Galvin (Dr. Reya Varrick), Maximillian Uhrin (Young Mitchell), Ian Robison (Mitchell’s Father), Brian Drummond (Security Officer), John Treleaven (Colonel)
LogBook entry by Dave Thomer
Rodney’s sensors detect the Aurora, an Ancient defense ship launched to protect the planet and the city. Though nobody expects the presumably lost ship to be manned, it contains nearly a full crew – kept alive in a state of near-total stasis. The aging of the Ancients’ bodies is slowed, but they’re still quite active mentally, and plugged into a network that allows them to control their ship. Rodney finds a way to plug Sheppard into the network without putting him in the same stasis, allowing him to communicate with the Ancients. But Sheppard finds that the Ancient crew doesn’t trust him – not even as a virtual reality construct. While Colonel Caldwell and his crew brace for a Wraith attack on the newly discovered ship, Sheppard discovers that the Wraith are already aboard the Aurora, both virtually and literally.teleplay by Carl Binder