Learning Curve

Stargate SG-1 Season 3 Episode 5 - Plot: A knowledge exchange between the SG-C and the planet Orban leads to a disturbing discovery of the way that the Orbanians learn.

The Exchange

It's made clear that the Orbanians have rapidly advanced technologically during the past few decades. They have a Naqahdah Generator that they are willing to loan to the SG-C for study. Major Carter works with a young girl named Merrin to figure out how the device works and apply the knowledge using Earth technology.
In exchange, Teal'c teaches a young boy named Tomin about the threat posed by the Goa'uld.

Machine Learning

Merrin undergoes a medical upon arriving at the SG-C. From this, Dr. Frasier learns that Merrin's brain is full of nanites. It transpires that the Orbanians acquire knowledge by putting millions of nanites in to the brains of selected children. The nanites create synapses that facilitate rapid and advanced learning. Atfer ten years of learning, the child reaches the age of twelve. At this point they go through a ceremony to remove the nanites, which are then distributed throughout the population. The method allows the knowledge gained by the individual child to be delivered to all of the people of Orban.

Taking Merrin as an example, she has worked for ten years to study and advance the people of Orban's use of Naqahdah. When she goes through the ceremony, the knowledge will be given to the rest of the population, allowing someone else to further her work for another ten years.

There's a catch though, the process of removing the nanites renders the child a vegetable. They are then unable to be re-implanted with nanites or to learn in the normal way. The Orbanians do not seem too concerned by this, but as you can imagine, SG-1 and General Hammond are somewhat apalled.

Fun

Never when to balk at the idea of kidnapping an 11 year old girl, Colonel O'Neill takes Merrin off the base. It seems that he's becoming quite friendly with the staff and students of the elementary school where Cassandra attended. Jack introduces Merrin to the students, who teach her to play and have fun. She's a little apprehensive at first, but learns all about fun and using imagination when she takes an art class with the children.

When she returns to Orban, her knowledge is taken and spread throughout the population. Not just the knowledge of Naqahdah though, also how to have fun. SG-1 returns to see a very different people.

The Review

It's quite a lovely episode. You know from the start that there's something fishy about the way that the children are doing all of the learning from the start of the episode. It was fun to try and figure out exactly what was going on, before it was eventually revealed about 2/3rds of the way through.

Jack's always good with the kids and it was interesting to get an idea of a way that he spends his time off base. Certainly his fondness of Cassandra had made him rather popular amongst the other students.

Seeing it all wrap up nicely in the end put a bit of a smile on my face, even if it was a little hammy. Jack could face a court martial for kidnapping Merrin, but he says it was worth it to teach a little girl to have fun.

I'm pretty sure that the Naqahdah generator that Sam develops with Merrin's help ends up playing a rather large part in coming seasons. It seems to be a rather powerful device, a decent stop gap before the ZPMs are discovered at least.

8 out of 10