Carter decides to inspire a brilliant but difficult Air Force cadet by introducing her to the SGC program.

Former Colonel Harry Maybourne comes to Jack with a proposition: Jack gets him a presidential pardon and Harry shows them the advanced weapons cache that Simmons was trying to get to. They go through with the deal, but Harry attempts to double cross SG-1. He manages to get through the portal leading to the cache, but with one unexpected item, Jack. They find themselves in a field and Harry's zat is missing. Jack, however, still has his P-90. Harry reveals that they are not at a weapons cache, but rather a utopia. He meant to live out the rest of his life there and believes that there is no way back.

Bra'tac and Teal'c encounter a heavily armed enemy with shielding protecting him from Goa'uld weaponry who took out two Goa'uld personal guards. They barely manage to defeat him and bring him back to SGC for study, but this new threat poses a greater problem for the Tau'ri.

The Tau'ri and Tok'ra have used their captured super-soldier to determine his planet of origin. With Daniel, Dr. Lee, and the Ancient device they found in the hands of Honduran kidnappers, SGC must find a way to retrieve them if they are to have any chance of defeating the newly encountered super-soldiers.

The president has asked that a documentarian go to SGC to create a film about its operations. His arrival is unwelcome to most and he begins to clash with the base personnel. Nevertheless, he conducts his interviews with SG-1 and the scientists in the employ of SGC. Meanwhile, an off-world SG team finds the remains of an Ancient city.

Agent Barrett of the NID calls SG-1 to Los Angeles for a consult on a mass murdering of a rogue sleeper cell by a young woman. There they find many Goa'uld artifacts relating to Sekhmet, a subordinate of Ra. But how this operation is related to the Goa'uld eludes SG-1.

The newly inaugurated President of the United States is briefed by the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the Stargate program. Former Senator, now Vice President, Kinsey attempts to get his running mate to back his policies for the program, but the president decides to look into the situation himself. Kinsey gets Richard Woolsey to convince the president of his agenda.

As the new head of the SGC, General O'Neill is beginning to feel the weight of his load, and he starts to have second thoughts about the whole idea, questioning his own competency.

Dr. Lee is adapting a virtual reality chair for use as a training device. Teal'c thinks its current scenario is all too easy and agrees to work with them to make it more realistic. He enters the game scenario and is quickly "killed" at which point the chair shocks him. Lee says it must be part of its basic construct. As the scenario resets - it's an invasion of SGC by Goa'uld - Teal'c is repeatedly killed and shocked putting him in danger. The computer program is set up to learn after each scenario and the challenge for Teal'c increases at every turn. Daniel volunteers to enter the game as well to see if together they can find a way out.

With a new commander of the SGC comes a new leader of SG-1, Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, a former fighter pilot who flew an F-302 in the battle over Antarctica. However, he is deterred by the fact that all the other members of SG-1 are leaving for other ventures: Teal'c to manage the Jaffa Nation, Carter to Area 51 for alien R&D, and Dr. Jackson to Atlantis as an Ancient expert. Mitchell endeavors to keep the members of SG-1 for himself, but they are increasingly tough to convince.

Upon finding Merlin's testing grounds, Dr. Jackson, Teal'c, Col. Mitchell, and Vala uncover the hidden treasure including a book that tells the story of the Ancients coming to Earth from another galaxy and a strange alien device.

Daniel and Vala have used the Ancient device to inhabit the bodies of people in the Alterans' home galaxy. They have been taken by a Prior of the Ori to meet the Doci, one who speaks with the Ori, their gods. Daniel surmises that the Ori are what the Alterans who became the Ancients left behind and have ascended in a similar fashion, but without the restrictions.

Vala returns to the SGC upon having been separated from Daniel for a little under an hour. The effects of the bracelets have not diminished even though they have been removed. In order to get the effects reversed, Mitchell, Jackson, and Vala must deal with many people that Vala has used over the years to gain favors.

The Ori unleash a deadly plague on Earth, prompting a powerful ally from SG-1's past to come to their aid.

SG-1 returns early from a mission only to realize that they and Gen. Landry aren't on the same page as far as the the mission they've just completed is concerned. The confusion is quickly resolved when the "real" SG-1 returns at the correct time. Dr. Lam examines them all and concludes that they are identical and thinks they might be clones. Sam however thinks they may have come from a parallel universe as the result of the black hole they created when they destroyed the Ori beachhead. As more SG-1 teams arrive from other alternate universes, one of them includes Dr. Fraiser and another includes the Tok'ra Martouf. It's left to Sam and Martouf to find a way to send them all home.

SG-1 is tasked to accompany members of the International Oversight Advisory, including Richard Woolsey, on a tour of the Gamma site. The visitors are suitably impressed but everyone is put in danger when a carnivorous insect escapes from the lab. The base is locked down and no one is allowed to travel through the gate. The bug is linked to the Ori - it's appeared on several planets that they've visited - and Daniel thinks it may be their follow-up to the virus. SG-1 and the IOA visitors take refuge in a cave, but Gen. Landrey is left with little choice but to flood the planet with a deadly neurotoxin to destroy the bugs. SG-1 looks for away out before that happens.

Sam manages to activate an Ancient device they found at the Glastonbury site and she and Mitchell are shifted into a phase that makes them invisible to everyone. Daniel soon figures out just what is going on but Dr. Lee's proposed solution sends Daniel to the same plane as Sam and Mitchell. There he is able to translate information explaining that Merlin had created a weapon against the Ori - and provides a gate address where it can be found. Meanwhile, Teal'c travels to a Jaffa planet that has sent out a distress call. The two events are related.

The SGC is approached by an Al'kesh bomber which lets itself be taken down, so they can capture Ba'al, who offers to exchange the necessary information to find Merlin's weapon for human help to eliminate his clones, which want to kill him. They mistrust his story, as does NID Agent Malcolm Barrett, who, however, fails to take over the investigation. Since the captive might actually be a clone, several missions to different planets retrieve and capture all clones, but which is the real Ba'al, and what are his true intentions?

During a failed experiment, Samantha is transported into a parallel universe where she cloaks Earth to save it from an Ori attack. Getting back to her own universe is not met with sympathy.

SG-1 blows up three transport ships in a row; Netan puts a price on their heads. General Landry grants the team members spare time on Earth. Daniel spends it researching in a library, where he meets a bounty hunter who tries to seduce him, then switches to her handgun... but is taken out by a bus. Sam gives a lecture on Air Force technological progress together with Dr. Bill Lee; a sniper nearly misses, but is taken out with an experimental weapon they'd brought along to demonstrate. Teal'c is injured by surprise at a Jaffa camp and successfully traps the killer to try again. Cam goes to his Kansas high school reunion and Vala succeeds in making him bring her along, pretending to be his accountant and partner. His still sexy former flame he'd believed out of his reach, Amy Vandenberg, is initially scared off by Vala, but, divorced and interested, explains she still has a secret crush on him. Alien bounty hunter Odai Ventrell assumes numerous classmates' appearances to kill him. Vala's failed rescue gets them both captured publicly, so he threatens to kill off reunion guests unless the other SG-1 members take their place, but they trick him using Chimera technology; they hope Netan's failure to eliminate them will rekindle the power struggle and Odai reacts surprisingly.

Stargate Command gets a video message from Vala's extremely unreliable father, Jacek, on the planet Robak; he claims to know about the late Arkad's plans to attack and blow up Earth, even about the several cloaked, Naquadah-laden cargo ships in orbit, and offers details in exchange for sanctuary. General Landry asks Dr. Lam to help him resume contact with her mother, Kim, his ex-wife. Even after the cargoes are found and blown up, Vala abhors her dad's entry. The general asks her to go easy on him, realizing that he, too, neglected his daughter because of his career, even if Jacek's neglect was just criminal. When Cam and Daniel go tell Jacek he shouldn't scam people, he tricks them into talking to Vala for him. Vala goes over just for catharsis, telling him she's through picking up the pieces of his tricks, and he certainly keeps scamming - as Daniel also finds - even with Terak, a Jaffa from an escaped cargo ship, who hopes to sell the Naquadah. When they are apprehended, Jacek promises to help track it and override the rigging of the cargo ship. The Jaffa wait for Jacek and Vala, intending to eliminate them now that Terak is gone, but SG-1 saves them. Since there never was an override, Jacek cheerfully flies away alone in the cargo ship, ignoring that his treachery was anticipated: it's a decoy.