- Allina: It's a layout of the Sudarian villages. The walls of this monastery have protected it for ten thousand years.McKay: It's beautiful.Allina: It is. (looks at McKay) And yet my eye is drawn elsewhere.— McKay fails to take a hint.
Pursuing one of the ZPMs hinted at in the last episode, the team is on a Renaissance-era planet, working with a local scholar named Allina to locate it. The monks who concealed the ZPM hid it behind a fairly obtuse chain of hints and clues, which McKay and Allina are working to untangle. They're making good progress, much to McKay's excitement, while Allina seems to be developing an interest in him that's quite obvious to everyone except him. She's also interested in the team's experiences growing up on Atlantis, which McKay corrects her on.
Nothing ever goes smoothly for long, though: Kolya and the Genii have learned of the team's presence, and decide to take the ZPM for themselves. Kolya catches Sheppard and the team while they investigate an underground chamber; he takes McKay and Allina with him to find the last part of the chain of clues set up to hide the ZPM, and leaves the others trapped.
Meanwhile, there's trouble on Atlantis as well: a new system has just gone active, and it's a deep space sensor suite. Which would be fine, if it weren't picking up a Wraith dart only a half hour out from the city and closing quickly. Weir orders Puddle Jumpers to intercept it, but it self-destructs after scanning the city.
Back offworld, McKay and Allina find the piece they need, and Kolya takes them back to the chamber to put all the pieces together. His impatience gets one of his team killed though, as it turns out the mechanism that reveals the ZPM is a lethal booby trap. Not to be deterred, Kolya informs him that Sheppard will be the next one to attempt to unlock the mechanism.
On Atlantis, Zelenka informs Weir that the Wraith dart accomplished its mission: it broadcast the data from its scan into deep space. He tasks the city's sensors to scan along the direction the data was broadcast in.
In the underground chamber, Sheppard and McKay manage to figure out the correct combination, saving Sheppard's life and revealing the ZPM. With Kolya's men distracted by the ZPM, Sheppard and the team spring the trap they'd prepared: a hidden flash-bang that catches the Genii off guard long enough for Teyla to stab two of them with a hidden knife and Sheppard to overpower Kolya. Taking the ZPM, the team rides off into the sunset...
...for a few dozen steps, before a large crowd of armed locals ambushes them and takes the ZPM. It was hidden for the Ancients, and the Atlantis expedition isn't them, so the locals take the power device and hide it somewhere else.
A shame, because the crew needed it more than ever: as they return, Zelenka informs them that the city's sensors have picked up three Wraith hive ships en route to Atlantis. They'll arrive within a couple of weeks.
Tropes
- Ancient Tradition: The titular Brotherhood, set up to guard the ZPM until the return of the Ancients.
- Archaeological Arms Race: Both the Atlantis team and Kolya's Genii are racing to track down the ZPM.
- Badass Longcoat: Kolya has picked one up.
- Beard of Evil: Kolya has grown a dashing goatee since his last episode.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Zelenka, albeit in Czech.Zelenka: Jesus, I can´t do anything with those actors, dude!'//
- Continuity Nod: The planet the team is searching on is one of the ones listed in Old!Weir's note.
- Distant Prologue: The opening scene depicts Porta and Astrum, the last surviving members of the Quindosim, being culled by the Wraith ten generations earlier.
- Everyone Can See It: Teyla points out to McKay that Allina's feelings for him are obvious to everyone else in the group.
- Failure Is the Only Option: both with respect to the ZPM and McKay's love life.
- Hidden Depths: It turns out Sheppard passed a Mensa IQ test.
- Honor Before Reason: The Brotherhood refuses to allow the Atlantis Team to have the ZPM because they're not the Ancients...despite the Ancients being extinct and the Experdition are in more dire need of it against the Wraith.
- I Warned You: This was McKay's basic reply after the Genii soldier is killed after trying to operate the final puzzle. McKay had warned them not to do anything as he wasn't sure they got it right. After the soldier dies, Koyla blamed McKay for knowing something like that could happen and McKay agreed, which is why he wanted to wait.
- Im A Doctor Not A Place Holder: Beckett, again.Dr. Beckett: For the last time - I'm a doctor, not a bloody fighter pilot!
- Magic Square Puzzle: First version, the eight pieces of movable numbers are arranged in a grid square over a wide area of land. In the final puzzle, nine pieces with the numbers 1-9 were placed. One piece fits into a certain slot in the middle of the grid, and the eight others were placed around it. After witnessing one Mook get killed by an incorrect arrangement, Sheppard solves the puzzle by realizing that the numbers 1-9 can be placed in a grid to add up to 15 in all directions. Of course, there's a certain element of
Fridge Logic to the fact that quite a few different such arrangements are possible, but one can Hand Wave this by claiming that any of them would have worked. - Meaningful Name: The two brothers from the prologue. Their names are Star (Astrum) and Gate (Porta) in Latin.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: McKay innocently mentions early on that the team did not grow up in Atlantis, but only moved there a few months ago. This costs the team the ZPM, since the locals are only willing to give it to the original Ancients.
- No MacGuffin, No Winner: Allina and the Brotherhood decide to keep the ZPM hidden, refusing to hand it over to either Sheppard's team or the Genii.
- No Water Proofing In The Future: This is what Zelenka fears, at least, although it would technically be the past.Zelenka: Yes well, it may if people stop insisting on having food and liquid in such close proximity to the ten thousand year old equipment!
- Oblivious to Love: McKay - see page quote.
- Only Smart People May Pass: However, the specific intent is "only members of the Brotherhood may pass."
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The entire quest for the ZPM, as neither Atlantis nor the Genii get it. Instead, it just winds up moved to another hiding spot.
- Temporary Blindness: The effect of Ford's flash-bangs.McKay: My eyes! I need my eyes for seeing!
