"Fallout" is the 14th episode from the seventh season of military science fiction adventure television show Stargate SG-1 and is the 146th overall. It was first broadcast on January 13, 2004, on Sky One in the United Kingdom. The story was created by Corin Nemec, with Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie writing the teleplay. It was directed by Martin Wood.
In the episode, Jonas Quinn (Corin Nemec) arrives at Stargate Command seeking the help of SG-1 to prevent the destruction of his home planet of Langara. Quinn explains that Kelownan scientists believe an underground vein of the mineral Naquadah is transforming into the much more powerful and unstable Naquadria.
The episode marks the final onscreen appearance of Jonas Quinn who was first introduced in the season five episode "Meridian", before being made a series regular during the shows sixth season.
Plot
Jonas Quinn (Corin Nemec) arrives at Stargate Command seeking the help of his former SG-1 teammates in saving his home planet of Langara. He tells SG-1 and General Hammond (Don S. Davis) that scientists on his world discovered that naquadria, the super-powerful alien mineral found on Langara, is not in fact native to the planet. The mineral was in fact created by a Goa'uld, who found a way to slowly transform the planets naquadah into the much more powerful naquadria, in a process Jonas' people have now discovered is still ongoing and threatens to bring the destruction of the planet should the transformation continue.
Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapping) goes to Kelowna on Langara where she's presented with Jonas' research. Jonas also introduces her to his assistant Kianna Cyr (Emily Holmes). In the meantime the representatives of the three major powers of Langara arrive on Earth, where they are presented with the fact that although the centre of the catastrophe will lie in Kelowna, the whole planet will then be uninhabitable. They are then presented with the fact that it was an earlier test of a naqahdriah bomb by the Kelownans which caused the chain reaction that is in fact causing the reaction within the planet. This causes much outrage from the representatives until Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) loses his patience.
In Kelowna, Sam finds a way to solve the problem by causing a much greater explosion near the naqahdriah and Jonas shows her a vehicle which can dig into earth. By using the vehicle and Tok'ra tunnel crystals, Jonas believes they would be able to go deep enough into the planet, so Teal'c (Christopher Judge) goes to the Tok'ra to bring some of them back. While Sam is checking the digger she talks with Jonas about Kianna, who, unknown to them, injects herself with something in the laboratory. Later Sam finds out that the machine uses Goa'uld technology and they find out that Kianna is a Goa'uld. When they confront her she reveals that she works for Ba'al but that she also wants to save the planet.
Because all of their simulations with the digger fail, they decide to take the Goa'uld on board to help make modifications during the digger's operation. In the meantime, the delegates on Earth face the problem that Ba'al may come to the planet because the Goa'uld in Kianna hasn't made contact with him. However, they decide to ignore this problem and instead concentrate on the possible evacuation, however, due to their continued bickering Jack tells them that Earth won't help them.
In the digger the Goa'uld and Sam are able to solve problems as they occur whilst boring down into the planet. However, they finally get stuck and the only way to come close enough to the naqahdriah vein is by using the tunnel crystals to create a tunnel large enough for a single person to get down. Because the tunnel would be filled with toxic gas and heat the Goa'uld decides to go, as her symbiote will sustain her. The Goa'uld is able to plant the bomb, but is seriously weakened and struggles in returning to the vehicle. Back on board, the vehicle races against its fast depleting power reserves, but is just about able to successfully return to the surface. At Stargate Command the parties are informed that the mission was a success. Kianna's Goa'uld dies, but saves the host.
Production Development and writing
The episode's story was thought up by actor Corin Nemec who portrays the character Jonas Quinn on the show, with co-producers Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie writing the teleplay. Nemec had been a main cast member for the previous season and was encouraged by the shows executive producers Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper that should he have any story ideas he should pitch them. Nemec exited the show in the episode "Homecoming", which was the second episode of season seven, however had a three-episode contract. Having not previously written for television, the shows writing team provided Nemec with "their beat sheets" and assistance with how best to pitch for the series. According to Nemec, he pitched 3-5 different ideas to Cooper, one of which had the working title of "Deep Core". Nemec originally envisioned this story as taking place on Earth, however Cooper felt that it was too similar to another story that was being developed at the time and suggested that Nemec rework his story to take place on Jonas Quinn's homeworld.
Nemec then worked with Cooper to further refine the story. This involved removing a subplot that would have taken place alongside the main story involving Daniel Jackson "getting caught up in" a coup d'état, as it had become "too big of an episode". According to Nemec, he put together the "basics of a story" in the form of "beats and moments" with "no dialogue written" which Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie then "made an episode out of".
Writer Paul Mullie felt that the Kelownan's having constructed digger that was able to tunnel into the planets core was "a big buy" given the Kelownan's level of technology. Mullie described that there were "sort of steps" which "all came very quickly" during writing and that these helped make the story unfold and make the drill more plausible. According to Mullie "one of the major changes" made to Nemec's story was that the drill would not be journeying to the core of the planet and instead would only tunnel a small number of miles. Introducing the Goa'uld character who inhabits a Kelownan called Kianna Cyr, the writers imagined that "she improved the digger" for the Kelownan's, but felt "it still wasn't good enough to do this quite frankly really incredible thing" so the writers added "an extra alien technology element, which was to use Tok'ra tunnel crystals" to augment the tunnelling process.
Originally titled "Turn of Events", the episode also had the working title "Deep Core" at one point during its development.Mallozzi (2023): "Actor Corin Nemec pitched this story and wrote the original outline for an episode that brings back Jonas Quinn and explores his new life on Langara. The original title of the episode was “Turn of Events,” which we couldn’t help but note was a title applicable to every episode we’d ever done. It would have been akin to titling an episode “Off-World Adventure” or “Fourth Act Twist!” It was a lot of fun, although one element in the story didn’t quite pan out – specifically, Jonas Quinn’s love interest, a fellow Langaran named Kianna. On the day the first dailies came in, we were horrified to discover that both actors had unnervingly similar hairstyles that, as a result, made them look like they were related. Which, in turn, made some of the romantic scenes a little … weird?" p. 440 Nemec later retitled it to be "Pressure Point", a reference to "unstable nature of the planet" both politically and geological, before finally settling on the name "Fallout".Nemec (2005): "It was going to be called 'Pressure Point', because of various reasons, like the unstable nature of the planet, and the fact that the naquadriah was causing a pressure point that was likely going to blow at any moment. Then there was the relationship between the warring factions, a pressure point in itself and of course, there was the mount pressure from the bad guys. However, by the time it came to screen, we'd decided the stories would speak for themselves and went for the name change." p. 41 Mullie named the planet Langara, after the Vancouver golf course of the same name.
Cast and characters
Corin Nemec makes his final appearance on Stargate as Jonas Quinn. Nemec, who hadn't filmed for the series in a number of months asked Joseph Mallozzi if he could keep his haircut at the time, which unbeknownst to Mallozzi was remarkably similar to the haircut of Jonas' love interest for the episode, played by Emily Holmes. According to Mullie it wasn't until reviewing the first days footage that they realised. Emily Holmes was cast as Kianna Cyr, a Kelownan research assistant to Jonas Quinn, who is secretly a Goa'uld working for Ba'al. When writing Kianna, Mullie considered how the Goa'uld characters could sometimes be two dimensional and therefore wanted to create a more layered character "who wasn't a System Lord, wasn't a big villain" and "who wasn't clear cut evil". It was written that Kianna would have "loyalties to a System Lord but wasn't necessarily going to follow through on them" as they "may or may not have developed a relationship". Gillian Barber returns as First Minister Dreylock, making her final appearance on the show, whilst Bill Nikolai's character Vern Alberts makes his final appearance, although Nikolai continued working on the show as Richard Dean Anderson's photo double. Patricia Drake and Julian Christopher play the characters of Lucia Tarthus and Vin Eremal, whilst director Martin Wood and Dan Shea make uncredited cameos as technician and Siler.
Design
In the episode, the Kelownan's have constructed a boring machine in order to tunnel into the planet and reach a vein of naquadah. As a cost saving measure, the shows production originally planned for the interior set of the drill to be a redress of the Sebrus space ship set from the episode "Space Race", however production designer Bridget McGuire ultimately opted to rebuild the set almost entirely. The Sebrus set had originally been built on a gimble, but due to the issues this caused during filming it was decided the new set should constructed on the studio floor. McGuire designed the drill to be a "relatively small set" with a "low ceiling" and lots of "pipes and gadgets". Like the Sebrus set, only one room was built, which would be dressed as the main control bridge, then would be converted become the engine room set. Writer Paul Mullie wanted the drill to look like "what the future would look like as pictured by someone in the 30's". As the show had previously established the technology level and aesthetics of Jonas' people in previous episodes, McQuire's team sought to continue these design ques in creating the drill set. Art director Peter Bodarus described the look as "1940's industrial" and took design ques from World War II submarines with Bodarus imagining "the ship would be driven much like an old-fashioned tank with two brake levers". As a cost saving measure, chairs from the Prometheus set were repainted and used on the drill set.