Brief Candle

"Brief Candle" is an episode of the science fiction television series Stargate SG-1.

Plot

SG-1 arrive at a beautiful planet, Argos, and immediately Daniel Jackson has to deliver a baby for one of its inhabitants. Successful, they thank him immensely and name the child Dan'el.

Daniel observes that the culture worships an ancient Greek hero, Pelops, as a God. This suggests that the myths surrounding the man originated from him being a Goa'uld (and therefore able to inspire and possibly force worship from the aforementioned culture). Pelops must have transferred these people to Argos a long time ago for his own purposes, but he is no longer here except in statue form.

The Argosians treat SG-1 very well and one woman, Kynthia, takes a strong liking to Jack; they have lots of close contact. That night, however, all of the Argosians, as well as Jack, suddenly fall asleep at exactly the same time. Sam supposes that there is something in the Argosian diet that has caused this (considering Jack ate some Argosian food that was "only for him" and was the only team member to pass out with the rest of the Argosians). The next day, all of them wake up at exactly the same moment, and this is apparently a normal thing.

Soon, they meet the young newborn Dan'el again, except he somehow is already a toddler. A little investigation reveals that Argosians live for only 100 days, and the normal human life-span is squashed into that time-limit: they grow old extremely quickly, but savor "all that Pelops has given to them".

Returning to the SGC, Sam and Dr. Fraiser identify a nanomachine in Jack and the Argosian's blood which is responsible for making them grow old at this fast rate. Pelops was experimenting on the Argosians: he wanted to see what the Goa'uld host (i.e. the human) would eventually become, hence he sped up the evolutionary process. For unknown reasons he left before his work could be completed.

Ultimately, SG-1 cannot work out how to cure Jack, who now looks about 80 years old, and he's not allowed to return home in case he infects others.

Stuck on Argos, Jack walks and talks with Kynthia, and they walk beyond Pelops' boundary of the village. Then at night, they don't fall asleep. Jack realises that there must be a transmitter of some kind in the village that is responsible for the functioning of the nanomachines.

The transmitter is discovered in the statue of Pelops, and with the return of SG-1 the nanomachines are stopped. The Argosians will now live full human lifespans and can go to sleep when they please. Sam also realizes that the nanomachines only imitated the effects of age, and so now that they are deactivated in Jack, his own immune system will return him to his original age.

Title reference

The title refers to the brief, ephemeral lives of the Argosians before SG-1 released them from the work of Pelops. It is also a quotation from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

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 2006-10-28. Also see Google's cache.
"Summary". SciFi. Retrieved 2006-06-05.