Handlung

The Atlantis team finds a program in the Atlantis database which throws Mckay and Sheppard into a Simsesque game that could destroy two civilizations in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Since soon after their arrival in Atlantis some 2 years ago, McKay and Sheppard have been playing a computer game. The game has two civilizations, separated by a river, with McKay and Sheppard tasked to see who can build the better society. McKay's approach is give his society more and better technology while Sheppard's solution is to increase the size of his society's army. They soon learn however that what they have been playing is not a game, but real societies who, until their intervention, lived in a state of peaceful co-existence. After nearly two years of meddling however, they are now on the verge of war.—garykmcd

Visiting two civilizations on the same Pegasus planet, Sheppard and McKay are stunned each to be welcomed as their divine oracles, because those received for real the instructions they believed to give in an Ancient 'video game' they played in Atlantis, unaware it all happened for real. In those two years, the leaders Baden in John's and Nola in Rodney's nation switched from good neighbors to bitter rivals. Hvaing revealed the truth, the ex-gods try to reconcile their peoples, but loose control and find it hard to agree as the game positions are addictive, as with Zelenka and Lorne who play the game on Atrantis, having discovered the AZncients practiced it on many other planets. Nola trusts the technological superiority McKay's input provided enables seizing peace by total victory, Baden mounts an armed defense. Diplomacy failing totally, disproving Weir's US reputation, a virtual alternative saves the day.—KGF Vissers