- Atlantis offers help to the Hoffans, who are working on a defense against the Wraith.
- The Atlantis team is sightseeing on Hoffa, a planet with an advanced civilization. After a few days chancellor Druhin tells them they've been working for decades on a cure that will prevent the Wraith from feeding on them. In fact, the entire society is focused on this one goal. It is nearing completion, but they expect the Wraith aren't coming for at least fifty years. Major Sheppard hesitates to tell them they've awoken them early. Atlantis offers help to speed things up and Dr. Beckett starts helping Hoffan scientist Perna. With Beckett's help, both soon find a substance that might have success. Dr. Weir gives permission to test it on 'Steve', the very hungry captured Wraith prisoner.—Arnoud Tiele (imdb@tiele.nl)
- When Sheppard's party visits the Hoffan planet, Dr. Carson Beckett is charmed by their chief scientist Perna and sufficiently impressed with the race's top-secret project to stop wraith harvesting by developing a serum that should make them unsuitable as human food. While Carson's technological input gets the vaccine test-ready, Sheppard convinces Weir to allow the Hoffan chancellor's urgent plan to test it on their only wraith prisoner 'Steve', who is bribed to give information for a feed: terminally-ill Hoffan volunteer Merell. As Carson feared, the serum not only kill the wraith but also Merell, but the Hoffans already started inoculating their whole people, which approves this in a landslide referendum, despite a 50% mortality. Sheppard leaves, morally disgusted and fearing the wraith may not just be scared off but hell-bent to exterminate such a threat to their food.—KGF Vissers
- The team spend a few days on a planet where they find the Hoffans, an intelligent and advanced civilization that has had many encounters with the Wraith over a great many years. While their society has been nearly wiped out by the attacks, they have always managed to rebuild themselves and to their credit, they have always managed to salvage the previous society's knowledge and build upon it. They now think they are on the cusp of finding a vaccine that they will make them unwanted by their enemy. They are unaware however that the Stargate team has awakened the Wraith early. Sheppard thinks he has the perfect way to test the vaccine when it's ready - by using "Steve", the Wraith they recently captured. With the assistance of Dr. Beckett, the vaccine is developed far more quickly than had originally been anticipated but he is uncomfortable with Sheppard's proposal. He's also not convinced that the vaccine is free of harmful effects.—garykmcd
- Sheppard's team meets with the locals on the planet Hoff and their leader, Druhin, reveals they have a defense against the Wraith despite their relatively primitive early 20th century technology. The planet was attacked by the Wraith long ago and has vast stores of information on them as well as an abiding hatred of the race. Druhin reveals they have a biological weapon that will taint the world against the Wraith. Sheppard volunteers their help when the Hoffans reveal that they think they have 50 years but the Atlantis group's efforts have expedited the Wraith reawakening.
Weir sends in Dr. Beckett to help them and eventually they reveal their role in awakening the Wraith. Working from the protein samples, Beckett tests the serum on the Wraith arm they have, and then on a sample from their captive Wraith.
The initial tests prove promising, but the Hoffans want to immediately inject the serum into a human host and then see what the Wraith does. The Hoffans provide a terminally-ill volunteer, Merrel, against Beckett's objections. The Wraith (nicknamed "Steve") is repelled by him despite being on the verge of complete starvation. Druhin orders immediate mass production but Beckett is concerned that they may be moving prematurely. His predictions prove out when the Wraith dies the serum combined with the chemicals the aliens secrete to create a toxic poison. Teyla and Sheppard are concerned that the fact that the serum is now an offensive weapon will simply antagonize the Wraith and draw their ire. The Hoffan Council ignores their advice and begins inoculating the entire population.
Tragedy results when among the first batch of those inoculated, half of them die, including Merrel and Perna, the scientist that Beckett has been working with. But the majority of the Hoffans vote to continue the inoculations anyway despite the 50% fatality rate. Druhin wants to export the treatment but the SG team, disgusted, leaves with the realization that some things aren't worth "victory at any cost."
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