Major Carter prepares to join Dr. Jackson on an offworld project on P4X-347, where Jackson and the members of SG-5 have discovered a Goa'uld palace deserted hundreds of years ago. The center of attention in the building -- probably once used as a sort of opium den-like pleasure palace -- is a pedestal that generates a huge, glowing, cascading light show.Carter prepares to disembark the SGC with Lieutenant Barber of SG-5. But as the Stargate wormhole engages, Barber rushes into the unstable vortex in a hypnotic trance. He is disintegrated, and Carter and O'Neill are stunned.
Daniel and SG-5 are recalled from the planet, and are stunned to learn of Barber's suicide. He showed no signs of depression -- quite the opposite, in fact. But Daniel himself is more concerned with a magnificent holographic light displayed on the walls of a room on the planet, and with a small device he brought back but cannot get to work.
Growing more frustrated as the day wears on, Jackson decides he has to return to the planetto work with the device. O'Neill tells him that they will return the next morning, but that's not soon enough for Daniel. He rushes to General Hammond's office and demands to gonow. Hammond refuses.
The next morning, Dr. Jackson fails to report in. O'Neill finds Daniel outside his apartment, moments away from jumping off his balcony to his death on the street far below.He is depressed and a little out of it, but O'Neill finally pulls him back from the edge.
Back at the SGC infirmiry, Dr. Fraiser reports that Jackson's neural activity is significantly diminished. There are no signs of a contagion, and no traces of foreign substances in his body -- though Jackson's symptoms look like drug withdrawl. And the members of SG-5 are showing the same symptoms.
O'Neill, Carter and Teal'c visit the planet where Daniel and SG-5 were working, and discover the magnificent light of which had Daniel spoken. It is beautiful, and the three find themselves momentarily hypnotized by it. But Carter detects no other forms of radiation being emitted.
The team soon discovers that a young boy is living in the abandoned Goa'uld palace. The boy,Loran, claims that his parents are gone but will return soon. They were explorers, and brought him here. SG-1 retrieves various environmental samples (including a blood sample from Loran), and O'Neill delivers them to Earth.
It isn't long, though, before Jack himself begins to show symptoms of neural failure. Helearns that the members SG-5 are all dead, and that Daniel is growing worse. And in thehours since he left the planet, Hammond has not been able to make contact with Carter andTeal'c.
When Daniel's neural activity begins to fail, signaling that his death is near, Fraiser hasno option but to send him back to the planet. Hopefully, it won't be too late for him to still be saved by whatever it is that he's addicted to. As Daniel's heart stops beating, Jack picks him up and rushes through the Stargate. On the other side, Jackson slowly begins to recover.
Carter and Teal'c stand hypnotized in the light room, and Jack is betting that the lightitself is the cause of their problems -- and the death of all of SG-5. Jack, Sam and Teal'cattempt to shut down the device, but again become transfixed by its beauty. When Danielrecovers, he learns that the small device he'd recovered from the temple was a remotecontrol for the platform that generates the light. He turns it off.
With a few hours to take advantage of before the withdrawl symptoms begin to affect them,Teal'c, O'Neill and Carter leave the palace to explore the surrounding countryside. Theyfind themselves on a beach, and a short ways down the shore find the skeletal remains oftwo humans -- surely, Loran's parents.
The symptoms overtake them quickly, and the three return to the palace. They are weakened, but begin to feel better almost immediately upon their arrival.
Jackson, who stayed behind with Loran, has been fine the whole time. Something in the palace itself is causing the addiction -- something other than the light. When the teamfinds that the platform emits radiation without the light being on (the light itself doesnot cause the altered brain chemistry, but simply takes advantage of the change), O'Neillconfronts Loran.
The boy does, in fact, know how to turn it off. He opens the control panel and runs away,after learning that Jack had found the bodies of his parents.
O'Neill goes to talk with Loran, who confesses to killing his parents. They were addictedto the light. They went days without eating, and did nothing but stare at the light -- though Loran himself was too young to be affected. Loran turned off the device, and hisparents went crazy and drowned themselves in the ocean outside the palace. Loran found their bodies washed up on the shore the next morning, and buried them there.
O'Neill tells him that it wasn't his fault. The two return to the light room, where Carter,Jackson and Teal'c have discovered that the device can be turned off incrementally. Theyneed only remain there two or three weeks in order to properly rid themselves of theaddiction.
When they leave, they tell Loran, he can come with them.
