Learning Curve

Plot:

The planet Orban, with Precolumbian Teotihuacan-culture antecedents and Aztec type pyramids, has made impressive scientific progress, and brings Sam a naquadah reactor to study; when she demands an instructor, Orban official Kalan surprises SG-1 by saying that he does not know what an instructor is, but 11 year-old Merrin stays on base to teach Carter. On Orban, Kalan's son Tomin, another 'urrone' (apprentice) is assigned to exchange knowledge about the Goa'uld with Teal'c and Daniel. SG-1 and Dr. Fraiser are astonished to discover the Orban urrones know neither fun nor school: a mass of useful new information is acquired while they are young and stored in the easily reproducible form of nanites, which are implanted in every Orbanian's brain after the urrone's 'averium', a coming of age ceremony at age 12, which extracts the knowledge from the individual and ends their ability to function mentally, so those children are 'retired' for life and from the active society. The Orbanians are furiously insulted by any suggestion to avoid an averium for the child's sake, yet Jack retains Merrin to let her experience how earth children spend their youth in schooling and play, offering it to her as an alternative to the averium, with a remarkable result...