Absolute Power is episode 17 of season 4 of Stargate SG-1, first aired in 2000.
The Harcesis child resurfaces: Shifu, now raised by Oma Desala, pays Daniel a visit. Rather than hand over the knowledge of the Goa'uld, the child offers a dream: in it, Daniel receives all the genetic memory and, to protect Earth, builds an empire of satellites and secrets that turns him into a paranoid tyrant. Absolute knowledge corrupts absolutely, and that lesson is worth more than any database.
Why it matters to the mythology
The Harcesis file is closed for good, and the series sets its thesis in stone: the power of the Goa'uld is inseparable from their madness.
The review
The dream gives Michael Shanks his most deliciously unsettling role: a Daniel in a three-piece suit, gentle, rational and absolutely terrifying, silencing his friends one by one in the name of the greater good. The ending, Kansas wiped off the map before Jack's eyes, is unapologetically brutal. You could regret that it's all a dream, but that's the price of Shifu's lesson: some knowledge can only be given as a nightmare. Fascinating.
Written by Sebastian
Founder and editor-in-chief of Stargate Initiative
Gallery · 3
Stills from the episode, via TMDb.
The community watches the episode
Creators watch it, react to it, break it down. We're just the bridge: the views stay on their channels.
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