"Through all these eons, only one thing has stayed the same: there is never enough time."
— Merlin
After defeating the dragon, SG-1 plus Ba'al are transported to a cave where they find the frozen body of the Merlin, who has been kept in stasis for some thousand years. Merlin attempts to build the Sangraal in order to help them defeat the Ori, but is too weak to finish the job and passes his knowledge on to Daniel via an Ancient repository of knowledge. Meanwhile, Adria and her soldiers are hot on the team's trail, relentlessly tracking them down to prevent them from completing the weapon in time.
"The Quest, Part 2" provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: Merlin and Daniel reminiscence and bond over their respective clashes with the Ascended Ancients' longstanding rules about non-interference in the lower planes.
- All Myths Are True: Morgan putting Merlin into an Ancient Stasis Pod in his cave workshop. Daniel observes that this is amazingly similar to the actual Arthurian myths and how Morgan imprisoned Merlin in a cave for all eternity. The implication is that Morgan likely spread that tale with the rest of the Arthurian myths as part of the trail of breadcrumbs she left for anyone seeking the Sangraal.
- Asshole Victim: Ba'al is gunned down by Ori soldiers, not that anyone would mourn him.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Mitchell confidently declares that they need to attack the exposed underbelly of the dragon, as "that's where dragons are weakest".
- Badass in Distress: The episode ends with Daniel a captive of Adria on board an Ori ship.
- Beam-O-War: Between Adria and Daniel with the near-Ascended powers he received from the ancient knowledge device.
- Blatant Lies: Unsurprisingly, Ba'al's claims in the previous episode that he knew the Dragon's true name (leverage he used to prevent SG-1 from just shooting him) turns out to have been a tissue of lies.
- Call-Back: Daniel summoning lightning with his new powers to kill Adria's soldiers is similar to Oma Desala frying Apophis's mooks in "Maternal Instinct".
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Adria extends her personal shield to protect the team from the dragon's fire at the beginning of the episode, commenting to Daniel that he's lucky she still needs him.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The Ancient repository of knowledge makes another reappearance, though this version is slightly different to the ones encountered previously.
- The Chew Toy: Between Merlin stealing his voice, Carter punching him in the face and ultimately getting shot in the back by an Ori soldier, Ba'al is having a very bad day. Since it's Ba'al, however, the rest of the cast are mostly just amused by his plight.
- Continuity Nod:
- Teal'c notes that the stasis chamber containing Merlin is similar to the one O'Neill was frozen in in Antarctica. From the same episode, Daniel comments on the fact that O'Neill got healing powers from using the repository, while he gets telekinesis.
- Ba'al claims that reprogramming dialing devices is his specialty.
- Daniel tells Merlin about his ascension and return to human form.
- Upon learning of Oma Desala's role in Daniel's Ascension and his ouster, an exasperated Merlin can't believe that even a millennia later, Oma still hasn't learned her lesson.
- Mitchell compares Daniel using knowledge from the repository to built the Sangraal with O'Neill building the replicator disruptor.
- Mitchell reminds Vala that she didn't think twice about pulling a Heroic Sacrifice when it was her life on the line.
- Deadpan Snarker: Teal'c gets quite a bit of snark in at Ba'al's expense.Ba'al: Merlin's little trick with my vocal cords expired at the same moment he did.Teal'c: Yet another reason to mourn his passing.
- Downer Ending: Daniel scarifies himself to allow SG-1 to escape Adria and is taken prisoner. Adria also takes possession of the Sangraal, giving the Ori an Ancient WMD that can destroy their ancestral enemies and avoid a long, bloody war in the higher planes of existence. The only silver lining for SG-1 is that the Sangraal is still incomplete and Daniel's lost Merlin's imprinted knowledge (not that Adria beleives him). But even if she did, the Ori's collective knowledge means they will probably be able to figure out how to complete the Sangraal on their own.
- Feed It a Bomb: Teal'c tries to take out the dragon by throwing C4 down its gullet, which Carter then detonates. It doesn't really do anything except piss the dragon off.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Merlin more or less due to having been frozen in stasis for the last 1,000 years. Daniel (off-screen) brings him up to speed on the Broad Strokes of the last millennia (at least relating to Earth, the Others, and the Ori).
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: This turns out to be a key part of what drove Merlin to break from the other Ascended Ancients and to develop the Sangraal. Given how much of an existential threat the Ori pose (and with their endgame being the complete annihilation of their wayward cousins), Merlin understandably felt maintaining a strict policy of non-interference was absolutely insane.
- Given his experiences with Oma Desala, Daniel feels she probably would've agreed with Merlin's stance.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Daniel insists on using the repository at the expense of his sanity in order to finish building the Sangraal. Vala protests, but Mitchell grudgingly allows him to continue, recognizing that for now it's the only chance they have of defeating the Ori.
- Heroic Second Wind: Daniel gets one when Adria threatens to attack the rest of the team, moments after she hurls him several feet from the mouth of the cave.
- Hypocrite: When Merlin complains about Oma still interfering in the lower planes and not learning her lessons, a snarky Vala rightly points out she's not the only one who's broken the Ascended Rulebook. Merlin counters by arguing Oma focuses on the individual while he was focused on the larger picture and existential threat the Ori pose to Lowers and the Others alike.
- Human Popsicle: When the team find Merlin, he's apparently been frozen in ice for over a thousand years.
- I Know Your True Name: Daniel states that the only way to defeat the dragon is to say its true name, prompting some Wild Mass Guessing from the rest of the team. In a twist, it turns out the be not the dragon's name that's needed at all, but rather the name of the Ancient who left the safeguards behind in the first place.Vala: Darryl... the dragon.Mitchell: How 'bout Smokey?Teal'c: Perhaps Puff?Daniel: Would you just give me a minute?!
- I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: Merlin realizes that he's too weak to finish building the Sangraal by himself and transfers his memories into the repository for Daniel to use.
- Implacable Woman: After they're transported to Merlin's cave without her, Adria calmly and methodically tracks the team down across several different planets until she's caught up with them again.
- In the Back: Ba'al is unceremoniously shot in the back by one of Adria's soldiers.
- Kick the Morality Pet: Adria is finally pushed to a point where she's willing to hurt Vala, though she is somewhat apologetic about it.
- Leave No Survivors: Adria coldly instructs her soldiers to burn the village to the ground as its residents refuse to accept Origin.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Vala has a moment of this after realizing that the name of the guardian is Morgan Le Fay, charging out of the wooded area where the group have take cover to confront the dragon with it. This very nearly gets her killed, since disabling the dragon requires Morgan's actual, Ancient name: "Ganos Lal".
- Locked Out of the Loop: While Vala is becoming familiar with SG-1's past exploits, she still doesn't know about or recognize an Ancient Repository. So, she doesn't understand the danger of approaching it — until Daniel (who recognizes it all too well) freaks the hell out (a reaction which saves Vala in the nick of time).
- Loophole Abuse: After discovering Merlin in stasis, Daniel realizes this is what Morgan was trying to tell them back in "The Pegasus Project" right before the Others intervened. While she'd come to believe that Merlin was right about the Ori, Morgan had to destroy the Sangraal. If she hadn't, the Others would've stepped in themselves (and likely punished her for defying them). However, her exact orders were to observe Merlin and to stop him if necessary — they never explicitly told her to kill him. So, Morgan exploited that loophole by destroying the Sangraal and putting Merlin into stasis. Thus, she fulfilled the terms of her assignment while also ensuring Merlin could be put back into play to rebuild the weapon if ever needed.
- More Hero than Thou: Mitchell and Teal'c briefly struggle over who gets to feed the bomb to the dragon. Teal'c wins.
- My Skull Runneth Over: Daniel struggles to cope with having two sets of memories in his head after using the repository several times, starting to talk like Merlin and unable to recognize who Vala is right away.
- No-Sell: Bullets and C4 have no effect on the dragon.
- Only the Pure of Heart: After the dragon is defeated, Daniel tries to take the Sangraal again, and this time it transports everyone but Adria to a cave on another planet. This is still a slight subversion, as it doesn't have anything to do with Daniel specifically being "true of spirit", as Adria had been counting on; even Ba'al passes the test, as Morgan was only concerned with keeping the Ori out.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Teal'c gets the most hilarious "oh crap" expression when feeding the dragon C4 fails to kill it, complete with bulging eyes and visible gulping before hightailing it back to the treeline.
- Daniel also freaks out when Vala gets too close to the Ancient Repository in Merlin's Cave and nearly gets grabbed like O'Neill did twice previously.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Ba'al spends most of the time they're working together to fix the DHD making sexist jibes at Carter. She eventually gets fed up with this and punches him in the face, after which point he's slightly more civil.Ba'al: It wouldn't be much of a security measure if it could be discovered by the first Tau'ri female who comes along, would it now?Carter: I'm sorry, are you dismissing my idea out of hand because I'm human, or because I'm a woman?Ba'al: A little of both, I suppose.
- Ship Tease: A bit for Daniel/Vala; Vala cradles Daniel's head in her lap when he passes out after using the repository for the first time, and Daniel strokes her face while he's unable to recognize her due to the mental overload. Vala is also completely distraught at leaving him behind and has to be dragged through the gate by Mitchell.
- Shock and Awe: After gaining near-ascended powers from Merlin, Daniel calls down lightning to strike all of the Ori soldiers around the gate to clear the path for SG-1.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Carter gives one to Ba'al after finally having had enough of his constant snide remarks, pointing out that if he doesn't make himself useful, they have no reason to keep him alive.
- The Speechless: Ba'al briefly becomes this after Merlin does something to his vocal cords to prevent him from speaking. It wears off when Merlin dies, however.
- Touched by Vorlons: Daniel gains telekinetic powers as a result of interfacing with the repository. He also displays some degree of Weather Manipulation and is briefly able to summon a protective shield to hold off Adria's attack when she catches up to the team at the end of the episode.
- True Companions: Mitchell gives Vala a speech to this effect when she calls him out about letting Daniel continue to use the repository despite the obvious toll it's taking on his health.Mitchell: When you flew that cargo ship into the gap of the supergate, you knew damn well that you might not come out the other side alive.Vala: No, that was different...Mitchell: Yeah, different because you were the one taking the risk. Well, now you know: the hard part about being part of this team is not risking your own life; it's watching your friends take chances with theirs. Congratulations, now you really are one of us.
- You Remind Me of X: When Merlin first wakes up from stasis, he insists on calling the other characters by names from Arthurian mythology; specifically, Carter is Guinevere, Mitchell is Percival, Daniel is Galahad and Ba'al is Mordred. Amusingly, when Daniel gets Merlin's memories he states that Mitchell does look like Percival.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Daniel pulls this on Adria at the end of the episode, using his new powers to hold her off just long enough for the rest of the team to escape through the gate.
