Category: Season 2

A visit with a seemingly primitive culture is going uneventfully for Sheppard and his team when the locals mention that half of their crop harvest is surrendered to the Tower as a tribute in exchange for protection from the Wraith. When Sheppard asks about the Tower, the leader of the village they’ve been visiting shows them: covered in vegetation, it’s a structure almost identical to the central control tower of Atlantis itself. Rodney’s scans reveal a vast underground structure – not only is the tower identical, but so is everything else, an Ancient city-ship like Atlantis buried underground. When soldiers from the Tower show up and begin roughing up the villagers, Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon draw their weapons and stop them. A man named Otho, claiming to be a representative of the Tower’s royalty, warns Sheppard that further resistance will only result in a demonstration of power that will cost the village dearly. Sheppard stands his ground until an Ancient drone from the Tower lays waste to part of the village. Otho scans the new arrivals from Atlantis and then has Sheppard disarmed and taken to the Tower, where he is greeted by the ailing Lord Protector, who apparently has the gene needed to power the city’s systems and its drones. Sheppard grows impatient with the court intrigue, however, until Otho confides the truth to him: Sheppard has a higher concentration of the Ancient gene than any surviving member of the royal family, though among the scheming members of that family this makes him either a valuable asset or a liability to be done away with. Sheppard tries to bargain with Otho, offering medical help from Atlantis – including the Ancient gene therapy developed by Dr. Beckett – in exchange for the drones and puddle jumpers berthed in the Ancient city. But Ronon’s distaste for the villagers’ virtual enslavement may kick-start a revolution at the foot of the Tower before Sheppard can seal the deal.

written by Joseph Mallozzi & Paul Mullie
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Peter Woodward (Otho), Jay Brazeau (Lord Protector), David Bloom (Eldred), Richard Kahan (Baldric), Brendan Beiser (Tavius), Chelan Simmons (Mara), Anna Cummer (Petra), Mark Gibbon (Constable)

Notes: Guest star Peter Woodward starred as the Technomage Galen in the short-lived Babylon 5 spin-off series Crusade.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

A single-person escape pod recovered in deep space contains an elderly woman barely hanging on to life, and Dr. Weir is enthusiastic about the possibility that she may be an Ancient. Something from the pod has a drastic effect on Weir, however – when she comes to, she seems to be carrying the personality of the woman in the pod, and she seeks a volunteer to be the recipient of a second personality housed within the pod, claiming it is her husband. Sheppard offers to help the woman say a final farewell to her spouse…but when he accepts the new personality, everyone quickly discovers that the two personalities aren’t husband and wife, but blood enemies who have each pledged to destroy the other. The problem is that they quickly arm their new bodies and attempt to resolve the war of which they are the last two fighters – regardless of whether Atlantis or any of its crew get in the way.

written by Damian Kindler
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Gerry Durand (Sergeant)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Ladon, a Genii scientist who served under Kolya during his attempt to invade Atlantis, contacts the city asking for help in curing a disease that some of the Genii have contracted. In exchange, he offers them a much-needed ZPM. Despite reservations about dealing with the Genii again, Weir cautiously offers to do the deal after Sheppard does an investigation. The story Sheppard finds, however, is different from the one that Ladon has told – he discovers that Ladon has apparently started a rebellion within the ranks of the Genii, taking an even more ruthless stance than Cowen. Based on this information, which a conversation with Cowen himself seems to confirm, Weir decides that Ladon’s offer is a con. Sheppard hatches a new plan: he should lead a special ops team to take the ZPM from Ladon by force. But when the plan is put into action, it seems that the rumors of Ladon’s resistance have been exaggerated…though the rumors of his ruthlessness are right on the money.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Ryan Robbins (Ladon), Kavan Smith (Major Lorne), Sonja Bennett (Dahlia), Colm Meaney (Cowen), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Penelope Corrin (Dr. Lindsay), David Joffre (Barkeep), Meg Roe (Young Barkeep), Jon Johnson (Security Team Member)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Lt. Michael Kenmore awakens in Atlantis, surrounded by Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett and Colonel Sheppard. They inform him that he’s suffering from a traumatic memory blackout after being attacked by the Wraith, but that he’ll recover. When he meets more of the crew, Michael feels safe, and yet he’s troubled by dreams, visions, and impulses. He tries to pry into his own past to jog his memory, but Beckett urges him not to try to take in too much information at once. Everyone seems overprectective of Michael, except for Ronon, who attacks him without provocation. When Michael finally does dig deep enough to find out how he came to be at Atlantis, however, he learns that he’s not the man everyone has told him he is, he’s not a member of the Atlantis crew, and he’s not even human – and never has been.

written by Carl Binder
directed by Martin Wood
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Connor Trinneer (Michael), Claire Rankin (Dr. Heightmeyer), Doug Chapman (Cole), James Lafaznos (Wraith Michael)

Note: Connor Trinneer co-starred on all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise as Chief Engineer “Trip” Tucker.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Responding to a distress call from an base built by the Ancients on the planet Taranis, Sheppard and his team find a civilization facing extinction. Rodney discovers that the Ancients’ base is built in the caldera of a dormant supervolcano, but when the locals occupied the empty facility and turned its shields on full-time, the resulting increase in geothermal energy brought the volcano back to an active state. Now, Rodney faces a conundrum – if he turns off the base’s shields, the volcanic activity will destroy it, but leaving the shields on will almost certainly trigger a major eruption that could render Taranis uninhabitable. The locals also have another treasure worth preserving – a ship almost identical to the destroyed Aurora is berthed in the base’s hangar. Sheppard and Weir’s interest in the ship arouses suspicions though, enough that the Atlantis team may not be trusted to evacuate the base. Unsure that the Aurora’s sister ship can be readied in time for a full-scale evacuation, Weir orders Colonel Caldwell to divert the Daedalus to Taranus – even though it can’t evacuate everyone. And on Atlantis, sensors warn of a lone approaching Wraith hive ship…

written by Carl Binder
directed by Peter DeLuise
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Kevin McNulty (Chancellor Lycus), Brandy Ledford (Dr. Norina Pero), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Patrich Gallagher (Vonos), Trevor Devall (voice of Hermiod)

Notes: Brandy Ledford was a member of the regular cast of Andromeda during its fifth and final season as Doyle. The Aurora was introduced – and destroyed – in this season’s episode Aurora.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Atlantis cloaks before the arrival of the hive ship, which is still en route, unaccompanied by any other Wraith ships. Daedalus and the newly-christened Ancient ship Orion lay in wait just beyond the Wraith’s sensor range. Despite the measures taken to hide Atlantis, the Wraith ship hails the city anyway, asking for Dr. Weir by name and proposing an alliance. It seems that the revival of Atlantis awakened too many Wraith, too early – and even in Atlantis there aren’t enough humans to sustain the entire species. The proposal is simple: in return for continuing to conceal Atlantis’ continued existence, Michael’s Wraith faction wants the retrovirus created by Dr. Beckett to revert Wraiths into humans – humans which the Wraith who possess the virus will then feed upon, leaving Dr. Weir and her crew alone. Weir and Beckett wrestle with the ethical implications of creating a new races of humans in the Pegasus Galaxy, only to sacrifice them to the Wraith, but as the uneasy alliance progresses, it seems that the Wraith do indeed have a larger source of food in mind…but not in Atlantis’ galaxy.

written by Martin Gero
directed by Andy Mikita
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Brent Stait (Wraith Michael), Connor Trinneer (Michael), David Nykl (Dr. Zelenka), Mitch Pileggi (Colonel Caldwell), James Lafaznos (Male Wraith), Andee Frizzell (Hive Queen), Sherry Noel (Lab Assistant), Chuck Campbell (Technician), Kirby Morrow (Daedalus Technician), Trevor Devall (voice of Hermiod)

Notes: Despite receiving a guest starring credit, Connor Trinneer only appeared in “flashback” footage from Michael; Trinneer was unavailable to reprise his role for this episode. Taking over for him was Brent Stait, who played Rev Bem during the early seasons of Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda.

LogBook entry by Earl Green