The Nox

"The Nox" is an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.

Plot

The United States Secretary of Defense is not pleased with the thus-far progress of the Stargate Program. So far no team has brought back any technology or alliance of any use in battle against the Goa'uld. Teal'c therefore asks him directly what he wishes for, and then lets them know of a creature on a planet (P3C-117) known to Jaffa which has the ability to become invisible. Such stealth would present the tactical advantage the Defense Secretary is looking for, and thus SG-1 are sent to the planet to retrieve one of these creatures.

The creatures are famed among the Jaffa and Goa'uld because they have never been caught, but are very often hunted, especially by Apophis.

Once there, SG-1 does indeed find Apophis (Apparently on an identical mission) with only a few guards. They suddenly see this as their best chance of capturing him and removing him as a threat to humanity. They lay an ambush and suddenly take out the guards, leaving Apophis standing defenceless; however, before they can do anything more, he activates a personal shield which repels all of their attacks (Both physical and energy). He then shoots each of them with a Staff weapon, killing them.

However, very strangely, they all suddenly disappear.

SG-1 wakes up in a primitive settlement with no wounds. They meet the inhabitants, little meek people with fuzzy hair who call themselves the Nox. They are silent at first, and just listen to SG-1's speech, and then they begin speaking in English, having learned it in a short space of time. The leader among them, Opher, later tells them he is very old, many hundreds of years.

Col. O'Neill continues to try to find the invisible creatures before it dawns on him that it's these little people, the Nox, which control the invisibility around here, just like they control the healing. The creatures that the Goa'uld are hunting only disappear because the Nox do it to them to keep them safe. The Nox are extreme pacifists. They refused to return the SG-1 team's weapons and are dismayed when the SG-1 team make primitive bows and arrows to replace their missing modern armaments.

However, the Nox are defenseless in their little village and the Goa'uld will eventually attack. One of Teal'c's former brothers-in-arms was also healed by the Nox, Sha'kl, and after failing to kill Teal'c he escapes to tell Apophis that the Nox are the source of invisibility. Before he left, Teal'c swore that he would kill Sha'kl when Sha'kl tried to kill him.

Ultimately, the Nox stop SG-1 from killing Apophis and fend off the few guards that were there. But more Goa'uld will come and Jack is worried for them (whereas the Nox are blissfully unworried). Before SG-1 goes back through the Stargate, Anteaus shows them something by bringing it out of invisibility: a vast, technologically superior city floating in the sky - the Nox City. It appears that, after all, the Nox are by no means defenseless, but are in fact even more able to defend themselves than Earth can.

Anteaus leaves Jack with a resounding message, that sometimes the very young do not always do what they are told.

Production notes

Title Reference

The title of the episode refers to the race discovered within the episode. Nox is also the Roman Goddess of the night.

Series continuity

The initial worries of the Defense Secretary begin a long-running theme of malcontent towards the SGC, which ultimately leads to rogue elements of the NID beginning their own operations to obtain alien technology.
This is the first episode to feature one of the races from the Alliance of four great races.

Guest stars

Armin Shimerman (Anteaus) is the first Star Trek regular to guest star on SG-1. He played Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

External links

"Official Stargate SG-1 site". MGM. Retrieved 2006-06-08. Most of site requires Flash.
"Screenplay" (PDF). Distributed by MGM. Prepared by Casablanca Continuity. Retrieved 2006-10-18. Also see Google's cache.
"Summary". SciFi. Retrieved 2006-06-05.