Recap / Stargate SG 1 S 7 E 3 Fragile Balance

"He can't be more than fifteen years old. Are you saying that Colonel O'Neill has somehow regressed more than thirty years overnight?"

— Gen. George Hammond

The team believes that a rogue Asgard may be responsible when O'Neill is seemingly turned into a teenager overnight.

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"Fragile Balance" provides examples of the following tropes:

• Age-Down Romance: Implied Trope. Jack O'Neill is apparently de-aged into a teenager overnight, but it turns out to actually be a cloning mishap caused by a rogue alien who kidnapped Jack. The clone is allowed to start a new life on Earth, with the real Jack dropping his doppelganger off in front of his old high school and him getting some interested glances from a group of girls.
• Alien Abduction: Loki's kidnapping of O'Neill plays out like a stereotypical alien abduction, complete with levitation and floating lights. There's a montage of Daniel and Teal'c interviewing other "abductees" whose stories match O'Neill's, and Daniel acknowledges that their claims sound cliché if you've seen enough TV but insists the details are too specific to be ignored.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Daniel is the only member of the team willing to accept right off the bat that O'Neill has suddenly regressed to a teenager, because it's hardly the weirdest thing that's happened, both to O'Neill specifically and them in general.
• The Bait: Young O'Neill acts as this in the plan to capture Loki, allowing himself to be re-abducted so that he can take out Loki with a zat gun and beam the rest of the team up to the ship.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: This exchange when young!O'Neill runs into one of his old war buddies outside a liquor store and claims he's O'Neill's nephew:
  Beck: So how's old Jack doing, anyway?
  Young O'Neill: Uh, he's fine. He's not that old, either.
• Call-Back:
  Young O'Neill: Hey. I realize that it doesn't actually say "Colonel" anywhere on my uniform. But it should.
• Capture and Replicate: This turns out to be what has really happened in the episode, where a teenage O'Neill shows up at the base and claims to have been de-aged overnight. The Asgard Loki actually captured the real O'Neill to experiment on him and created a clone to replace him, but thanks to a safeguard placed in O'Neill's DNA by the other Asgard, the clone winds up as a child and the ruse becomes obvious.
• Clone Degeneration: It's revealed that the clone is dying as a result of his genetic structure breaking down, a result of Loki not caring about the longevity of his replacements, although Thor is able to fix him by the end of the episode.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Daniel rattles off a list of weird things that have happened to O'Neill and the team as a whole as proof that him being de-aged isn't that weird by comparison.
  • When Carter attempts to give a briefing on the X-302 to a group of pilots in place of O'Neill, one of them points out that she flew second seat on the last flight.
  • Young O'Neill rejects Jacob's offer to place him in stasis while they attempt to find a cure for his situation, as the last time the Tok'ra helped him out, he ended up "rescuing an old girlfriend he'd never met before".
  • Loki claims that O'Neill is more advanced than most humans because he was able to use the Ancient repository of knowledge.
• Deadpan Snarker: Young O'Neill delivers exactly as much snark as you'd expect from a teenage O'Neill.
• Expendable Clone:
  • Young O'Neill calls the rest of the team out on this, accusing them of not caring what happens to him after they find out that he's a clone, so long as they get the original back. Somewhat downplayed as the team do care about what is happening to Young O'Neill, but neither they nor the Tok'ra can do anything about the genetic issues and they still need to get the real O'Neill back.
  • Played straight with Loki, who creates temporary clones of those he abducts so their absence goes unnoticed, experiments on the genuine article in the mean time, then swaps them back once he's done. The clones aren't meant to live very long in the first place, as he never anticipated someone would catch on (or that the Asgard would safeguard O'Neill's DNA, hence his clone winding up as a child).
  • Even the normally benevolent Thor doesn't quite get why O'Neill asks him to fix his clone's DNA so that he'll survive.
• Foreshadowing: Loki's the first Asgard we meet who's gone rogue and is willing to cross any and all lines to solve their ongoing genetic degradation. He won't be the last.
• Fountain of Youth: Subverted; the characters initially assume that O'Neill has been de-aged, but it turns out that he's a clone and the original has been abducted by the Asgard.
• Got Volunteered: When the rest of the team track down young O'Neill to break the news to him that he's a clone:
  Daniel: There's no easy way to tell you this, so... Sam's just gonna come right out and say it.
  (Carter glares at him)
• Human Popsicle: Discussed; Jacob offers to put young!O'Neill in stasis in order to buy them more time to come up with a fix for his genetic instability.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Young O'Neill's first destination after fleeing from the base is a liquor store. Unfortunately he doesn't get very far, given that he's a fifteen-year-old.
• I'm Thinking It Over!: After O'Neill asks Thor to try and save the life of his clone:
  Thor: Are you certain, O'Neill?
  (O'Neill hesitates; young O'Neill smacks his arm)
  O'Neill: I'm thinking!
• It Came from the Fridge:
  Teal'c: Are you conducting some kind of scientific experiment, O'Neill?
  Young O'Neill: Hey, come on! That salsa's still good.
• Malicious Misnaming: Daniel refers to Loki as "that Ass-gard".
• Publicly Discussing the Secret: After he does a runner, the rest of the team find young!O'Neill fishing in a nearby stream. When he warns them not to come any closer, they end up yelling to be heard over the rushing water while talking about cloning and alien abductions.
• The Reveal: O'Neill hasn't been de-aged; he's a clone that had the metaphorical tamper-evident cap pierced, and the original is still missing.
• Seen It All: Humorously lampshaded by Daniel when the others express some skepticism that the random teenager who wandered onto the base is O'Neill.
  Hammond: Are you saying Colonel O'Neill has somehow regressed more than thirty years overnight?
  Daniel: Stranger things have happened.
  Teal'c: Name but one.
  Daniel: Well, there was the time he got really old, the time he became a caveman, the time we all swapped bodies...
• Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: In his first scene, the teen O'Neill is wearing Jack's now-oversized and baggy clothes (although given the context, he likely just woke up in oversized pajamas and had to raid the wardrobe for whatever he could find to get to the SGC and report the situation).
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: The rest of the cast tower over the fifteen-year-old O'Neill, despite the fact that adult O'Neill is taller than both Carter and Daniel. Lampshaded when the clone comes face to face with the original and remarks that he's taller than he thinks he is.
• Something Only They Would Say:
  • Daniel is persuaded that young O'Neill really is who he claims to be at the beginning of the episode simply by the exasperated way he yells Daniel's name.
    Daniel: Sounds like him - at least the loud, grating parts.
  • During the briefing of the X-302, young O'Neill starts to discuss things. The airmen in the room just think of it as a joke, but when he asserts "Hey. I realize that it doesn't actually say "Colonel" anywhere on my uniform. But it should." everyone suddenly sits up at attention.
• Speak in Unison: O'Neill and his clone end up doing this when they finally meet, to the annoyance of both of them.
• Stealth Insult: Teal'c and Carter attempt to persuade O'Neill that he should embrace being young again, leading to this gem from Teal'c:
  Teal'c: Do you not experience increased health and vitality?
  Young O'Neill: My vitality was just fine, thank you.
• Tested on Humans: Loki was apparently banned from the Asgard genetics council for conducting "unsanctioned experiments" on humans. O'Neill demands to know if that means there are sanctioned ones.
• Trust Password: Young O'Neill uses sensitive information regarding the rest of the team to try and convince them that he is who he says he is at the start of the episode. They're still not totally convinced until they get the results of the DNA test back.
  Young O'Neill: Okay, you want proof? Carter, you once carried a Tok'ra named Jolinar who gave her life to save you. Daniel, until recently, you were an ascended being. You broke the rules, you got yourself kicked out of the Oma Desala fanclub, and had your memory erased. (To Teal'c) And you and Bra'tac both just lost your snakes in a Goa'uld ambush. Had your tretonin yet this morning?
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Loki is trying to solve the Asgard cloning problem to save their race, and because humans are similar to the beings the Asgard used to be, has no problem experimenting on them to find solutions.