- You see, the thing is, Colonel Sheppard and I have sort of got into this habit of saving each other’s lives and it’s my turn. (to Ronon) It can be your turn next.— McKay
The Atlantis long-range sensors pick up a ship coming slowly towards them: an Ancient warship called the Aurora, reactivated when the city came online. Since it's still about 42 million years away at its current speeds, they take the Daedalus to go check it out.
They discover that the entire Ancient crew—more than 400 strong—are still alive in the same sort of stasis pods that Weir used to return to Atlantis. After ten thousand years, the people are too old to be revived without killing them, but they are nevertheless showing considerable mental activity in some kind of massive network. While Ronon and Teyla explore the ship, McKay plugs Sheppard into a spare pod to interface with the network and see what he can learn.
He finds himself in a virtual reality world, where the captain and crew of the Aurora are trying desperately to repair their hyperdrive, in order to return to Atlantis with all possible haste. They have discovered the Wraith's secret weakness, recorded in a communiqué, which they hope will alter the course of the war. Sheppard tells them that the war has been over for ten thousand years and that nothing around them is real, but the information in the communiqué would still be absurdly useful to their distant descendants. Naturally, they respond by throwing him in the Brig.
Meanwhile, the Daedalus's sensors have detected two incoming Wraith cruisers. Caldwell radios in and tells the team they have 20 minutes to get out before he has to a) destroy the ship to prevent the Wraith from getting their hands on it and b) disappear into hyperspace to prevent the Wraith from learning that Atlantis wasn't destroyed. They pointedly refuse to tell him that Sheppard has entered the statis pod. What's worse, they discover that one of the people in the virtual network, the attractive but obstructive first officer has been replaced by a Wraith infiltrator. McKay decides it is his duty to go in and rescue Sheppard, or at least see what's taking him so long.
Whereupon he, too, gets immediately captured and thrown in the brig. By comparing notes with Sheppard, they surmise that the Wraith is keeping the captain focused on the hyperdrive rather than the communiqué in order to gain access to the Ancients' intergalactic (rather than interstellar) drive technology, and thus reach the Milky Way Galaxy and Earth. McKay pops back out of the system and uses some complex jiggery pokery to turn off the guards and the door, and the two of them go to take down the Wraith and convince the captain of their case. The amazing disappearing reappearing Sheppard trick does wonders on the Captain's credulity, and McKay is able to throw the Wraith out of the system. Unfortunately, the Wraith has long since erased the communiqué (and by now nobody remembers what was actually in it), and McKay now has a conscious and very angry Wraith on his hands.
Sheppard pops back out of the system after a serious talk with the captain, shoots the Wraith, and radios a justifiably irate Caldwell to beam them all out of there. Caldwell is annoyed because the two Wraith cruisers have arrived, and he's unsure how he's going to both destroy the Aurora and prevent the Wraith from telling anybody about them. Sheppard explains that the captain gave him the Aurora's self-destruct codes. As the Wraith cruisers converge on the Aurora, the Daedalus hurries to a safe distance and the Ancient ship explodes, taking the Wraith with it.
Back at Atlantis, the debriefing is concluded with the assurance that the Wraith were destroyed before they could board ship or upload any information. With that, Col. Sheppard leads a toast to the crew of the Aurora.
Tropes
- Costume Evolution: Caldwell and the Daedelus personnel get minor updates to their uniforms. From this point forward, they lose the familiar Stargate Program patch (Earth with the iconic pyramidal glyph) and replace with a new mission patch for Pegasus Galaxy operations (Earth with the Pegasus glyph).
- Ancient Popsicles
- Distracted by the Sexy: McKay's reaction to the female First Officer, currently being impersonated by a male Wraith.McKay: That's the Wraith?!Sheppard: Yeah.McKay: Wow! She's hot! I mean, seriously hot!Sheppard: Rodney, you're drooling over a Wraith!McKay: I know… I disgust myself sometimes.
- Ghost Ship: The Aurora is heavily battled-scarred and been drifting in interstellar space for over 10,000 years.
- Inside a Computer System: The crew rigged their stasis pods to function as a Lotus-Eater Machine while they waited for rescue. Unfortunately, it never came.
- Insufferable Genius: Teyla Exploits McKay's ego when she asks which of them—McKay or Sheppard—"would be the greater loss".
- It Has Been an Honor: The Captain's final speech to his crew before blowing up the Aurora.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: After being told the communiqué was deleted, the captain regretfully informs Sheppard that he was never made privy to its contents, and so the information that could have helped defeat the Wraith has been lost forever.
- Oh, Crap!: Rodney's reaction when he brings the Wraith out of the machine, only to realize he now has to deal with it on his own.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The captain of the Aurora.
- Smart People Play Chess: In the beginning of the episode, Ronon and Weir watch two scientists play chess. Or rather, they watch them think about chess, since they are both so deep into planning the move after the next move, and the move after that, and that move after that, and the move after... that neither one has moved since they sat down and began "playing". Ronon is not impressed.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never do find out just what that Wraith weakness was.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Sheppard (and later McKay) spend most of the episode uttering this, as the Aurora's crew don't remember putting themselves into stasis and reside within a virtual world.
