
He looks in the mirror, and sees how he was before meeting Daniel Jackson, before the grey hair, before he changed his surname (slightly) to get away somewhat from the bad memories... (Hence why he was always insistent, about his 2 L's, the other 'O'neil' was him before he found his sense of humour.)
He decides that since Carter was, indeed correct that she should have been on the first mission, he gets her flown from the pentagon. He's oddly fine with seeing and recognising for what it is, the love-at-first-sight look on Carters' face. And amused as hell about Daniel. remembering what Daniel used for his allergies, he also sees that side sorted, and remembers another point from Daniel about digs in places like , say, honduras, where they'll need to defend themselves on occasion, and so insists on that if Daniel does go through with the team, that he will be assessed on his fitness and defensive skills. He's a bit blunt about the possibility of hostiles on the other side, pointing out that the device, which is a device, was not created by human hands, therefore aliens.
Thanks to Skaara in ascended form having visited him before, he's also versant in the abydonian's language, although he skillfully plays dumb, and hints to Jackson out of impatience about, "sounds like blablabla, I know that language from, well I've been to egypt before yadda yadda yadda."
Jack becomes a big Sam/Daniel Shipper into and after. He plays the role of 'Look, just because I dont know Jack about science or history, doesn't mean I'm not capable of having a good idea or three. mostly I'm about common sense.' (including the point like 'well, all those other symbols not used for dialing this planet, maybe they are used to dial elsewhere?' and 'if he was the last of his race, that means there were at least others like him that had been as intelligent, so theres the chance that lot survived or something?' .... meh I'm just hankering after Redo fics today.