During a survey of a planet in the Pegasus Galaxy, a jumper carrying Sheppard, Teyla, McKay and Ford crashes when its systems all simultaneously fail. Even portable equipment is rendered useless by an electromagnetic field. When they set out to disable the field so they can repair the jumper and leave, a group of camouflaged, armed children take them prisoner and bring them to their village. There, Sheppard meets the oldest of this curious society’s “elders” – a young man named Keras who is only hours away from his 25th birthday, which is marked by a ritual suicide. Keras and his people believe that this sacrifice is what keeps the Wraith from attacking them. But when Rodney finds a ZPM powering the field that caused the jumper to crash, a different picture emerges. Rodney is eager to bring the ZPM back to Atlantis for study, to see if it can help in the city’s defense, not even considering the possibility that the field he has just disabled is the real source of the village’s invincibility. And once the field is down, a Wraith homing device begins transmitting…
written by Martin Gero
directed by David Winning
music by Joel GoldsmithGuest Cast: Courtenay J. Stevens (Keras), Dominic Zamprogna (Aries), Jessica Amlee (Cleo), Sam Charles (Casta), Alana Husband (Ennea), Shane Meier (Neleus), Julie Patzwald (Pelias), Craig Veroni (Dr. Grodin), Calum Worthy (Hunter Kid)
Notes: Dr. Zelenka pays his first visit to this planet in the second season episode Critical Mass, with even more colorful results than Sheppard’s team. Dominic Zamprogna has appeared in the new Battlestar Galactica as well, playing a reporter in Litmus and Viper pilot Jammer during the second season.
LogBook entry by Earl Green