Gallery Episode Transcript

"The Game" is the fifteenth episode of the third season of Stargate: Atlantis.

Contents show]

Synopsis Edit

Major Evan Lorne reports back from M4D-058 and tells them they encountered a race of humans who has Dr. Rodney McKay's face on their flag. They learn that a game McKay and Lt. Colonel John Sheppard were playing is actually happening in reality. However, this also causes friction between McKay and Sheppard's countries, which are on the brink of war.

Plot Edit

For two years, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay have been playing a computer game left by the Ancients, in which they each develop countries on opposite sides of a river in competition with one another. While McKay has been pushing his country ("Geldar", named after a former romantic interest of McKay's) to develop technologically, Sheppard has been encouraging his ("Hallona", named by the Ancients who created it) to develop its military.

On a routine survey mission, however, Major Evan Lorne's team discovers that it is not, in fact, a game. Their countries, and all the people in them, are real; living on a planet somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy. With a satellite network in orbit to track their development and Ancient technology to receive the "players'" instructions, their civilization has, in fact, been a Lantean social experiment. The team has stumbled upon McKay's country (easily identifiable by the multitude of paintings of his face throughout the village), they go to the planet to investigate.

The team visits Geldar first, where they are met by Nola ; she immediately recognizes McKay as their "Oracle", and explains that their people were given life thousands of years ago and guided by the Oracle through a console, but then all communications suddenly ceased — interrupted by the war with the Wraith. Unknowingly, McKay and Sheppard have picked up where they left off.

While McKay stays with Nola, Sheppard takes Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex to visit "his" civilization, located across the river. There they meet Baden, the aggressive leader of Hallona. He reveals that at the command of Geldar's Oracle, the Geldarans have begun mining for valuable coal under his country. He believes that the proper response is to launch an attack.

The two leaders are brought back to Atlantis to learn about the Ancient technology and to have their dispute mediated by Dr. Elizabeth Weir , but they refuse to cooperate. Tensions are high, and as a result of Sheppard and McKay's "game", the two peoples now stand on the brink of war. Despite their best attempts, neither Weir, McKay, nor Sheppard can convince them to make peace, and Baden takes advantage of the game room to order an attack on the mine.

The team returns to the planet to attempt to forge a peace with McKay accompanied by Ronon in Geldar and Sheppard by Teyla in Hallona. Nola reveals that Geldar has bombs which McKay was unaware of and sends one in a dirigible to bomb a Hallonan village. Sheppard and Teyla are able to harmlessly shoot down the dirigible with the Puddle Jumper, but Nola is not deterred and orders more bombs sent while Baden orders his army to destroy the Geldar villages.

With the situation deteriorating, the team is suddenly beamed to the Daedalus, diverted by Weir on its way back to Earth to check on them. While Colonel Caldwell feels there's nothing more they can do, Sheppard has come up with a plan and convinced Caldwell to send them back after McKay enacts part of it. Once McKay's work is done, the team discreetly beams back to their respective countries.

In Geldar, the Hallonan army destroys their villages and bombards the capitol with their own bombs. The oracle console loses power and Nola realizes that they have lost. At the same time, in Hallona, the capitol is shaken by bombs from Geldar and the oracle console also loses power. With hundreds dead, Sheppard announces that it's "game over" to Baden.

After the apparent destruction of both countries, McKay and Sheppard reveal what really happened with help from Ronon and Teyla: while on the Daedalus, McKay hacked into the consoles and uploaded a doomsday scenario for each country to give them a taste of what war is really like. In reality, both of their armies are standing down and waiting for further instructions. No one has been hurt and the explosions were pinpoint shots from the Daedalus to add realism to the situation. Nola and Baden are left confronted with the true horror of what a war can do to their peoples if they don't stop.

Later, Weir visits Sheppard and McKay who are playing chess with each other in the mess hall and tells them that while both sides have returned to the negotiating table, there's still a lot of animosity for them to work out. However, Weir thinks Nola and Baden are at least willing to try now. In the meantime, Sheppard and McKay's war continues through their chess game.

Appearances Edit

Notable Quotes Edit

McKay: Let me ask you a question. Say there is a runaway train. It's hurtling out of control towards ten people standing in the middle of the tracks. The only way to save those people is to flip a switch and send the train down another set of tracks. The only problem is... there is a baby in the middle of those tracks.

Teyla: Why would anyone leave a baby in harm's way like that?

McKay: Well, I don't know. It's not the point. It's an ethical dilemma. Look, Katie Brown brought it up over dinner the other night. The question is: Is it appropriate to divert the train and kill the one baby to save the ten people?

Ronon: Wouldn't the people just see the train coming and move?

McKay: No, no, they wouldn't see it.

Ronon: Why not?

McKay: Well... Look... I don't know. Say they're blind.

Teyla: All of them?

McKay: Yes, all of them.

Ronon: Then why don't you just call out and tell them to move out of the way?

McKay: It's because they can't hear you.

Sheppard: What, they're deaf too? How fast is the train going?

McKay: But the speed doesn't matter!

Sheppard: Well, sure it does, if it's going slow enough you could out run it and shove everyone to the side.

Ronon: Or better yet, go get the baby.

McKay: For God's sake, I was just--

Sheppard: The first thing Rodney did after naming his country was stick his face on the flag.

Nola: You sent crates of citrus fruit! Citrus! Do you have any idea what an insult that is to my people?

Baden: Didn't used to be.

Weir: Okay, see, I think I know where that comes from. Did the Oracle tell you that citrus fruit was bad?

Nola: He made us aware of its toxic properties, yes.

Lorne: What are you talking about! It's a perfectly reasonable request!

Zelenka: Yeah, perfectly reasonable. I give you all of my food and my people starve.

Lorne: I'm not asking you to give me all your food! Plus I did say we would make a deal.

Zelenka: Oh yeah, baskets!

Lorne: Big baskets! Two dozen of them, hand woven and very nice.

Zelenka: Very nice? What am I going to put in them? Huh? Certainly not food!

Lorne: You know what? I think you're holding out on me. I think you have plenty of food!

Zelenka: Are you calling me a liar!?

Lorne: No, I think you're trying to squeeze me for a better deal, that's what I think.

Zelenka: Oh! I've got nothing to hide!

Lorne: OK! OK! We'll send some of our army troops down and we'll have a look!

Weir: What the hell are you two doing!?... I thought I gave specific orders to stay away from this device?

Zelenka: Yes, yes you did.

Lorne: We just saw that there were some people in trouble and we thought that maybe we could, ah, help.

Weir: No! No more help, clearly we are not qualified. Now turn this thing off, disconnect the power and seal the room.

Zelenka: Yeah, but, OK...

Weir: Now!

Zelenka: Mmm... yes ma'am.

McKay: Yeah, don't worry we're gonna stick to chess from now on.

Sheppard: As long as Rodney doesn't cheat.

McKay: Oh please, like I need to cheat playing you.

Weir: OK, I'll leave you to it then.

McKay: Ha!

Sheppard: Ha! Check Mate.

McKay: What? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. What happened there?

Sheppard: What happened there is I just kicked your ass.

McKay: No, no, I was distracted. She was, uh...OK were going again. Best of ten.

Notes Edit

There is a side plot where Dr. Radek Zelenka and Major Evan Lorne play the "game" with a different planet that ends in the two arguing and being told to stop by Dr. Elizabeth Weir. This was added after the completion of the episode as it was short.

McKay mentions Dr. Katie Brown in the opening scene. This is the first time that the character has been mentioned since "Duet".

"The Game" is probably inspired by the real video game Sid Meier's Civilization and others like it.

While talking about when Sheppard and McKay started playing "The Game", it is stated that Sheppard's civilization sent McKay's civilization many crates full of citrus as a gift. McKay believes he is deathly allergic to citrus. McKay had taught his civilization that citrus was toxic even though they had eaten it for thousands of years before the Oracle returned. This is apparently what started hostilities between the two nations.

Sheppard's suggestion to lock Nola and Baden in a room until they negotiate is reminiscent of a similar tactic that Brigadier General Jack O'Neill employed to get two diplomats to settle down enough to negotiate in "Zero Hour".

McKay tries to start a discussion about the Trolley Problem in the opening sequence but the other members of his team refuse to play by the rules of the hypothetical.

In the flashback sequence, while McKay is explaining the customizable "characters" in a voice-over, he is shown fabricating a character that very closely resembles Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter. Nola, the leader of Geldar, also has short blonde hair and blue eyes.

The Geldar flag appears to be based on the national flag of Canada - McKay's home country - with McKay's head replacing the red maple leaf.

Nola refers to the words once told to them by the oracle (McKay): "Ask not what Geldar can do for you, but what you can do for Geldar". These are a reference to a famous John F. Kennedy speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

This is the final appearance of the Daedalus until "Be All My Sins Remember'd", halfway through season four. It is mentioned briefly in "Vengeance" but does not appear. This is due to the availability of Mitch Pileggi.

This is the only episode of Stargate: Atlantis written by Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson.

One of the villagers in this episode is played by Don Loughman, the father of David Hewlett's girlfriend and later wife, Jane Loughman and also Hewlett's father-in-law as well as the grandfather to David and Jane's son, Sebastian "Baz" Flynn Loughman Hewlett. Don Loughman later passed away in 2012 at the age of 92.

Goofs Edit

Sheppard was able to convince Baden that he was their Oracle very quickly despite the fact that, unlike Dr. Rodney McKay, he wasn't so egotistical that he incorporated pictures of his face into his countries iconography.

In other languages Edit