Category: Book Review

Here we are. The last post for the Stargate Atlantis watch and read along reviews. It has been wild and I have enjoyed every moment of it.

Hopefully, ya’ll will stick around because of course, though the TV series ended at five seasons, the Legacy series continues the story and I am completely excited for it. Also dreading that it will be way different than what I want to happen, but that’s not stopping me at all.

Enjoy this last, for next week things change!

Episode 10: First Contact. This episode is pretty cool because Todd gains control of the Daedalus, yet doesn’t hurt anyone (that’s mentioned anyways, but I feel like they’d mention it as it would cause friction in the alliance with Todd).

Which just shows how devious he is. With the option of never having to rely on humans for food, it wouldn’t be advantageous to alienate his allies.

Now, another thing revolves around the destruction of his two Hive ships. As Commander, he would have to be in contact (mentally of course) or at least aware of the other Wraith at all times up until the moment they all die.

I can’t imagine that would be anything less than devastating. To have so many lives simply disappear. Blink out of existence.

The fact that he remained in control despite his hatred of the Attero Device (a monstrous creation of the Alteran Janus), and the hundreds if not thousands of Wraith who were just slaughtered, says a lot about him.

Also, this episode literally tells us that he was alive during the war with the Alteran’s which would make him older than ten thousand years old.

Season 5, Episode 15, Remnants

In the midst of a review by the IOA on how Mr. Woolsey is doing, a device is activated and the artificial intelligence begins to manipulate key members of Atlantis.

Including Mr. Woolsey.

While Sheppard is seeing Kolya and under the impression he’s being attacked and tortured by his hated enemy, Woolsey is seeing a beautiful woman who seems to just want to get to know him.

Between the two, the day is a not so good one.

The decision to be made is whether to divest the mysterious device of its information, or to send it on to its target so it can seed the world it was intended for all along.

On the one hand, the knowledge it possesses is immense and extremely valuable.

On the other, what’s contained inside is the last of a race. There is no other chance for the race to survive.

In the end, despite great pressure from the IOA representative, Woolsey does the right thing and gets Daedalus to drop the device off where it belongs.

The funniest, and best part, of this episode is at the end when we find out that Rodney was being manipulated as well. The AI was making him see Zelenka and using their natural banter and competitive attitudes to get Rodney to search for and work on the device.

If you’re squeamish you might want to be careful of this episode. At one-point Sheppard thinks his hand is cut off. There’s nothing graphic, but it is an ick thing.

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And now, the last book review for Stargate Atlantis before the Legacy series (again, I threw this one in here at this point because it didn’t have a specific place to read it. It’s up to you where you read it, but this place works quite well because we are close to the season finale and things will heat up soon).

Stargate Atlantis: Brimstone
SGA #15
ISBN: 9781905586202

When a moon suddenly changes course towards the systems sun, the team go to investigate what’s happening when records show it used to be an Alteran city.

Sure enough, it’s the exact opposite of Atlantis in the sense that the people there decided not to pursue ascension, but to live as decadently as possible. With gladiator type battles, music, dancing, and other pursuits being found on Admah, who would want to leave?

Not that you have a choice.

Anyone who comes through the Stargate is trapped as the gate will no longer allow that address to be dialed again. Thanks to a change in the system itself done by the leader of Admah. The only choices are to join as a citizen or fight as ‘entertainment’.

Sheppard and the gang are not happy about this, especially since the people have been alive for so long that dying is the only thing they believe will alleviate their ennui.

The moon is heading straight for the sun by choice, not accident, and our team is stuck.

Rodney is able to get a message back through to Atlantis telling them to be ready to pick them up from one of very few addresses that isn’t locked out. Now all they have to do is survive and escape.

With a little help from a native, they manage, but not until both Teyla and Rodney are put in the ring and the others are led to believe they’d died.

(I mean, after defeating a dragon and being thrown through a wall I can understand why they’d think Rodney was dead)

Rodney manages to get Teyla free from where she was trapped under the corpse of the monster she defeated and gets her to the Gate in time for Sheppard to see them and keep it open.

They’re not out of the woods yet though because the planet they end up on is a Wraith controlled one and they have to get the Gate dialed while being shot at.

It’s a good thing they have so much practice at it ya know?

This was an interesting book. Plenty of action and moments of, ‘cool’, but there was a random character with our group that I honestly don’t understand why. He supposedly was a new technician with a photographic memory that used it to help, but in all honestly they would have been fine without him.

Not to be mean here, I enjoyed the book, but considering who is on the team and what they’ve been through up to this point, the dude was just awkwardly there. Not really doing anything and not important enough, I think, to have been on the mission in the first place. But that’s just my opinion.

Well, that’s it ya’ll. Next week will be the first of the StALeR (Stargate Atlantis Legacy Reviews. Pronounced more like ‘stellar’) posts and I can’t wait!!

See you there!

Alrighty peeps, we are almost to the Legacy series which means we have 20 episodes and two books until then.

What I’ve decided to do since both ‘Hunt and Run’ and ‘Brimstone’ can be read anytime between Season 5 Episode 4 and Season 5 episode 16, is to randomly insert them into the middle of the last season as equally distanced as possible (this will also make it easier to catch ya’ll up without separate posts for it).

Both books are good reads and I wish I could be more specific in placement, but you’ll understand why that’s not possible once you’ve read my posts and the books.

The best information I can give for when to read them is based on the fact that Woolsey is in charge and Teyla has had the baby in the books. Also, considering what happens closer to the end of Season 5, there’s a point where I don’t believe they’d still be going on such missions which is how I chose the last episode to read them by.

I’ll be highlighting my favorite episodes between the books so the post won’t get out of control.

And now, the second to last post before the Legacy series!

Continue reading “StARe 19 – Hunt and Run” →

Almost halfway through season 4 and we get to see Todd again!

To catch everyone up on a few key details you’ll need to know.

The war between the Asurans and Wraith isn’t going as well is it had to begin with. The Wraith have started to help each other and slowly, the tide is changing once again.

There’s a group of space faring people called the Travelers who have hyperdrive capable ships who have managed to evade the Wraith this long, but population control is becoming an issue. Sheppard is most gracious and lets them keep an Alteran Aurora class ship.

New Athos was found completely emptied out and at first Teyla and Dr. Keller think it’s the Wraith. A fact that a man claiming to be a Genii spy seems to confirm for them. Problem is, that’s not what happened and so for several weeks Teyla has had no idea what’s happened to her people.

Which brings us to this episode and Todd!

Season 4, Episode 8- The Seer

There are people whose leader is said to have the ability to see things, including the future, and Teyla and the gang go to see him in the hopes he’ll have an idea about what happened to the Athosians.

Since Rodney is, understandably, skeptic, the man shows him a vision of the team being taken captive by the Wraith.

Back on Atlantis, Carter gets word from another team that after a culling, a second Wraith Hive showed up asking the humans to relay a message to their Atlantian friends.

The Wraith has valuable information and wants to meet.

It is, of course, our lovely Todd! (looking quite healthy I might add)

However, the team isn’t so trusting and takes him captive.

According to Todd, the replicators have started to target human worlds in an attempt (successful too) to diminish the Wraith’s food source. After verifying he’s telling the truth they decide to ‘trust’ him.

I say that with an incredible amount of sarcasm.

He’s kept in a cell and only let out to help with getting the replicator coding changed back so that the attack code can be shut off. Presumably this would stop the Asurans from their current course and send them back to their home world.

Obviously, ya’ll know I’m a Todd fan and so even though I can see where the expedition is coming from in terms of safety, it’s pretty hypocritical (especially of Carter who’s had firsthand experience) for them to treat Todd like a prisoner when the SGC has allowed Gould and other enemies onto Earth.

On several occasions.

They’ve worked with several former and current enemies for various reasons, though most revolve around destroying a common threat. So the situation is nothing new.

Todd was banking on the fact that the expedition wouldn’t want to leave the humans of Pegasus at the mercy of the replicators. Since the Wraith are the lesser of two evils, working with them makes sense on a temporary bases.

Now, I think I’ll keep a tally of both sides and what each loses from this point on in relation to when they work together. I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but it’d be cool to see if I’m right and that Todd did his best to stay away from the expedition members in case he needed/wanted to work with them in the future.

No sense in eating potential allies.

(also, I feel that their treatment of him ends up being like the Genii. Not sure if Sheppard see’s the parallels, but something to keep an eye on too)

And now onto another book!

Stargate Atlantis: Nightfall
SGA #10
ISBN: 9781905586141

A mysterious sickness is plaguing a planet and Dr. Keller would like to help them even though the reason the team is on the planet to begin with is because of Wraith activity.

The Wraith have sent multiple scout ships to the planet and each has ended up being destroyed. Atlantis would like to know why the Wraith are so interested in the planet and how they’re being destroyed.

Unfortunately, the people are having something of a problem with their leaders’ opposing viewpoints. One leader believes the Aegis will continue to protect them as it has for so long. Another believes they should be questioning the Aegis’s purpose as it takes people and returns them sick.

When Teyla and Ronon are taken by the Aegis, Sheppard is not pleased when the leaders refuse to help him.

Leaving Rodney and Keller in the village he gets reinforcements to search.

Then loses Rodney and Keller when one of the leaders abducts them.

Put in the middle of what could end up being a civil war, Sheppard has enough when he’s lied to and raids a hospital instead of the bunker he’d been told it was. He leaves the people to their own devices and goes back to Atlantis for a Jumper.

While Sheppard and Rodney go about the search, Keller tries to find an answer for the sickness, but is only able to determine what it is.

It’s inert nanites and for a bit it’s considered if the Asurans are behind the sickness, but the technology is too different.

Finally finding the Aegis ship after a firefight (and losing their Jumper), Sheppard and Rodney enter only to find something incredibly familiar about the inside of the ship.

Meanwhile, Teyla and Ronon have already tried to escape, finding starving Wraith in a cell along the way then almost getting themselves blasted into space.

Ronon is infected with the nanites and starts to fall ill.

When Sheppard and Rodney find them, they confront the beings and things change immediately.

The Aegis is the name of the ship, and it’s Asgard.

The Asgard Fenrir was banished for five hundred years after an experiment went wrong and destroyed six inhabited planets. A hyperspace pause to recalibrate landed him in the middle of Wraith ships which he destroyed but not before massive damage was done that left him stranded.

Unable to survive outside of the stasis pod, Fenrir simply wants to go home so his people can help him.

Except that they’re all dead.

To keep the Milky Way replicators from gaining access to their technology, they committed mass suicide.

It isn’t something they want to tell him, fearing how he’ll take it.

While aiding in repairs, a Wraith Hive appears with a Queen and they take the planet. Unable to fight back or mount any kind of defense leaves Fenrir with little option but to send the ship into hyperspace and get to safety.

The Queen, so she says, isn’t interested in the planet. She only wants the Aegis and the weapon onboard that can harness a star and create a blackhole (this would be what got Fenrir in trouble in the first place).

When the Queen calls a truce with Fenrir she tells him about his people being gone and about the Pegasus replicators. Since Fenrir wanted revenge for what the Milky Way replicators had done to his people (why he created the weapon to begin with), that the expedition had kept the existence secret was not good.

In the end, Fenrir decides that he is simply too tired of war and tells the Queen this.

In response, she blows herself up and does too much damage to the stasis pod for Fenrir to survive.

A few things ma peeps.

The Asgard are really cool. If you haven’t watched the original Stargate series, than you should because the Asgard are awesome if only because they don’t treat humans like complete morons (looking at you Alteran’s).

As opposed to just about every other advanced race SGC has encountered, the Asgard not only share their technology (they are selective which is totally understandable and have left massive loopholes open for our peeps to exploit when the need was great) but are the reason Earth has spaceships. The fact that we can adapt just about any race’ technology to suit our needs and to interface with our level of technology impresses them.

I loved this book even though it was a little hard to get through. Not because of the writing style itself or the plot, but because I could see what was going to happen and was excited and didn’t want to wait.

Definitely worth the read, (when have they ever not been?) and I can’t wait to see ya’ll next week!

This is a cool episode because we don’t really know that much about Sateeda in the sense that Ronon’s memories of the place aren’t so good considering what happened. Also, any interactions with other Sateedan’s to this point have been…not so friendly, if you recall.

Stargate Atlantis Season 4, Episode 3: Reunion

Teyla and Ronon head to a planet where rumors abound about a small group of people calling themselves Sateedan’s and bragging about their many, many Wraith kills.

Arriving, they do in fact find two men and a woman in a bar who are Sateedan. In fact, small galaxy that it apparently is, they were part of Ronon’s squad before Sateeda was destroyed.

They were some of his closest friends and he thought they’d all died.

Ronon wants to bring them back to Atlantis because they say they have a plan to destroy a Wraith lab where the Wraith are trying to find a way to turn the attack code off in the Asurans.

Samantha Carter, now the leader of Atlantis since Weir’s ‘death’, says no. It doesn’t have anything to do with Ronon in particular as Atlantis is on a new planet and no one knows its location. It’s a safety thing but he takes it the wrong way when the veiled threat arises that if he wants to leave, he may be considered a threat to Atlantis’ safety and have to be taken care of.

It cannot be easy for him, but he decides to return to his old friends and help them fight the Wraith.

Sheppard and the rest of the team go along to help with the destruction of the Wraith lab and to make sure their friend is okay one last time.

Unfortunately, things are so not what they look like.

Ronon’s Sateedan friends are Wraith worshippers and take Sheppard, Teyla and Rodney hostage to force Rodney to shut the attack code off.

When Ronon finds out about the betrayal, he pretty much loses it.

In Sateedan fashion, they fight each other with Ronon against the three others. The woman is killed by one of the other men before Ronon kills him soon after, but he never wanted to hurt them in the first place so let’s the third one go.

He returns to Atlantis, heartbroken at what’s happened but glad to be back with his friends and new family.

I wonder if he questions Sheppard, Teyla and Rodney’s friendship after this though. Wondering for a time if they’ll betray him too.

Stargate Atlantis: Angelus
SGA #11
ISBN: 9781905586189

Ew.

Okay, this book was really, really, good, but also really, really, gross with the visuals.

Consider, if you will, an Asuran replicator that’s part human.

Not particularly gross on the surface but think about how they got that way. It ain’t pretty ya’ll.

Essentially what happens is that the Apollo rescues what they think is an Alteran fleeing the Asurans and brings the guy back to Atlantis.

He seems nice, if a little strange compared to the other Alteran’s they’ve met before, but he knows how to make a weapon that will destroy both the Wraith and the Asuran’s which means his value is immense.

The IOA (hate them) decides that Angelus is to be given anything and everything he could possibly desire to make the weapon, and make it clear that if Atlantis has to be sacrificed to either enemy faction to achieve this goal, than so be it.

Carter and a few others have a bad feeling but can’t place it. Trying to stall only works so long before they run out of excuses and Angelus is allowed to work unhindered.

Which is a big problem.

The Asuran’s wanted a way to quickly replicate more of themselves in battle situations. So if one got aboard a Wraith vessel it would be able to ‘eat’ certain materials and make more of itself in the absence of its usual non-organic building blocks.

Theoretically a genius idea, except for the fact that they ‘eat’ living things to accomplish this goal.

Several people are devoured by an abomination that needs their tissues and flesh and organs to make more of itself. The descriptions are very well done and even though you can see where it’s going you can’t look away from the horror.

Presumably, the people eaten don’t suffer long, but there’s no way to really know. Just like there’s no way to know if they keep some semblance of awareness during that time.

Both Atlantis and Apollo have to fight their own versions of the creature and do so successfully, but not until they’ve hit and gone over their limits. It’s hard on everyone and some expedition members decide to leave for good because of the trauma (don’t worry, none of our peeps leave).

I adored this book because it was very well written, suspenseful and the twist at the end was fabulous!

I appreciated how the author chose to make Angelus a tragic character and not just a villain. The authors are all doing a really great job with that aspect where you think you know who the villain is, but a lot of times things aren’t that clear cut.

This book, though disgustingly creepy in description (I loved it!), was a fabulous read and I can’t wait for the next book which should be ‘Nightfall’.

See ya’ll next week!

Allo.

We are gathered here today to find out what’s happened in the latest book.

But first, the ‘episode before’ recap!

Stargate Atlantis Season 3, Episode 19, Vengeance.

Michael is back again!

But we don’t actually know that until halfway through so don’t tell.

The team sets out to check on the Taranin’s (the people whose city was blown up by a super volcano and who gave Atlantis the Alteran ship they’d had) who they haven’t heard form in a while.

The village is completely deserted, but tunnels below suggest they may have gone underground to keep from being detected by the Wraith.

Of course they have to investigate!

Below they find the Taranin’s. Or at least, their bodies.

With suspiciously familiar looking marks on their necks, the Taranin people have been killed by Iratus bugs.

Or have they?

Further investigations show that there is something else down there with them and when they’re attacked and Teyla goes missing, things seem pretty grim.

With the former Wraith, Michael, around, you know things are going to be interesting and he doesn’t disappoint.

Using some of Atlantis’ ideas and information, he’s been working on creating new creatures to do his bidding. And obviously succeeded to a point.

Teyla is rescued, some of the creatures are killed, and they go home to fight another day.

But it doesn’t end there because there’s such a fantastic book after this episode it’s amazing!

Stargate Atlantis: Blood Ties
SGA #8
ISBN: 9781905586080

Oh, my word!

Wraith on Earth!!

This book was fantastic (I know I say that about all of them, but when it’s true, it’s true!) and I adored the entire idea of it because it makes so much sense.

Okay, Blood Ties mostly takes place on Earth though we do follow a team to another planet in Pegasus a couple of times to find more answers. Why are we doing this? And why has Sheppard been ordered to stay on Earth instead of going home?

Turns out there was an Alteran scientist (yeah, things always go back to them don’t they?) named Lilith who was experimenting with Wraith and dinosaur DNA (don’t get ahead of me here). The assumption is that she was trying to find a way to make the Wraith ‘feel’ the terror and pain they inflicted when feeding.

So dinosaurs in the Pegasus galaxy were being experimented on (though an Atlantis peep is pretty adamant they evolved naturally, but with what we know of the Alteran’s that’s a pretty hard ‘no’) to give the prey ones the ability to send out empathetic psychic blasts. This would make the predator dinosaurs feel too bad to eat them, at least that was the idea, but that would have created severe issues for the predator type as they would starve to death.

Thankfully for the dinosaurs (who are much bigger than ours because of the planets gravity) they each adapted to the changes and both prey and predator types have their own empathetic psychic abilities.

Rodney, Ronon and Teyla get a close look at some raptors that are far more advanced in some ways than they are. Teyla is able to communicate with them the same way she can with the Wraith, so they don’t get eaten, but they are told to leave the planet and not to come back.

Good thing Rodney was able to download what he needed before they showed up.

Lilith continued her work on Earth, but with Wraith DNA instead and the results are pretty cool!

Two different Wraith groups live on Earth and have for thousands of years. One group believes they have a divine duty (given to them by Lilith of course because the Alteran’s can never just leave the whole god complex behind) to protect all of humanity from the Ori.

The other group believes their duty is to bring the Wraith to the Milky Way so they can combat the Ori and erase them from existence and the humans are merely food for them.

Thing is, Lilith pretty much lost her mind after awhile so both thoughts are probably true depending on how her mind was at the time.

Fast forward to our time and we have the Awakening, where all of the Wraith variants on Earth are being woken up because of ‘signs’ they’ve seen in the last years that foretold when they were to move.

Now, turns out there are a ton of humans who have the Wraith DNA in them, and a solution made from a ginkgo plant can activate the DNA. Good thing there isn’t much on Earth, but there is a ton on the dinosaur planet (we’ll get to that problem in a second).

Interestingly, after so long and after so much careful breeding, there is a third Earth Wraith type that’s appeared. One that can feed off animals and survive just fine.

There is only one such person and both groups want her.

Either dead, or to help them.

The day is saved as it almost always is, but we’re left with some interesting questions, not the least one being where the Earth Wraith disappeared too.

I loved this book because the entire idea of it is fantastic!

There is no way, even after most ascended to escape the Ori, that the Alteran’s would stop their experiments and the fact that one of them thought to use the Wraith to defeat the Ori makes me wonder if that was why they created the Wraith to begin with.

My creationist beliefs aside, the entire idea that the Wraith evolved over millennia because humans were infected with Iratus bug DNA seems just a little too sketchy once you consider what the Alteran’s were like.

They have such a deep disregard for human life that I can completely believe that they are the ones who introduced the Iratus DNA into humans and it didn’t take millennia at all for the Wraith to come into being as a force to be reckoned with.

Now, this book suggests that the Alteran’s have been to Pegasus long before they settled there after the plague that the Ori infected them with on Earth forced them out of the Milky Way.

It would stand to reason that after the first time they left Pegasus (thus leaving their initial experiments to do whatever) that the Wraith become what they are now and that when the Alteran’s returned they went about doing what they do before ever stumbling onto the Wraith and starting the war.

This would explain the hologram in the first episode that tells the expedition about coming to Pegasus, seeding new life (yeah right), and accidentally finding a dark part of the galaxy where the Wraith lived.

I’m curious to know if this will be visited in later books. I certainly would love to know more about the history of the Wraith and not just the Alteran rhetoric.

Guess I’ll just have to keep reading, now won’t I?

With that in mind, next week we shall see how Colonel Carter fairs in our lovely Atlantis and what happens in book 11, ‘Angelus’.

See you then!

This is going to be an emotional one.

Literally.

In the episode ‘The Real World’ (Season 3, Episode 6), we find Dr. Weir back on Earth and in a psych ward. She’s being treated after having a psychological breakdown at a peace talk at the U.N.

Of course, if we hadn’t followed her with our lovely Atlantis peeps to this point, we might believe the lies she’s being told too. However, we are not so blind to the truth and immediately realize that something is wrong.

To her credit, Dr. Weir realizes this too but allows herself to be convinced to take medication to keep disturbing hallucinations away after General O’Neill makes it seem that he has no idea about the Stargate program, let alone about Atlantis.

She is being told from all sides that Atlantis isn’t real and was all made up by her subconscious to keep her from the reality that Simon (her lover/boyfriend) died in a car crash.

She is eventually released from the ward and returns home, and then goes back to teaching and prepping to conclude the peace talks.

After a supposed relapse, she follows a shadowy figure through the psych ward and it turns out to be Sheppard.

Now, back home on Atlantis we have Dr. Beckett doing his best to find a solution to destroying the nanites that have taken over Dr. Weir’s body and that are trying to destroy her mind so they have control of her body.

Easier said than done.

They try an E.M. pulse and it works but only partially, and the little buggers start multiplying once more.

This is where the ‘hallucinations’ Dr. Weir has been having come into play.

It’s Sheppard talking to her and trying to get her to fight the nanites while she still has a fighting chance.

He breaks the containment barrier (Beckett is NOT happy) and goes in to hold her hand and tell her they’re waiting and know she can do it.

It does the trick and soon she’s able to break from the nanites’ control and regain herself.

All is well!

This episode is fantastic because it messes with your mind. Until almost the very end we are only seeing and experiencing what Weir is and so we don’t actually know what has taken her over this time. Of course, it’s all a ruse and we know that much but is it some entity from Earth? Is it the Wraith? Another enemy entirely?

It’s a lot of fun because she emotionally goes through so much and then when she makes it and wakes, she still doubts reality (which I think would be completely normal).

To say this episode did a number on the feels would be accurate, but it pales in comparison to the book that follows.

Stargate Atlantis: Casualties of War
SGA #7
ISBN: 9781905586066

Here we have yet another great example of ‘oh, wow!’.

With the Asurans around every turn and on every planet attempting to gain information from various Atlantis Teams, things are far more dangerous than even the Wraith have ever been.

At least the Wraith can be recognized immediately, but the Asurans human looks let them blend in too well.

Sheppard is tired of sending coffins back to Earth so he suggests his team take another look at a planet previously considered not worth the risk. Weir isn’t happy about it, but when Rodney and the others chime in that things have changed and whatever research the Alterans had been conducting there had to be worth the risk now, she caves and lets them go.

There is, in fact, a research facility on the planet, but than there are also people there who are on the brink of war.

Sheppard suggests Weir come along and mediate. Possibly helping them to see they have more in common and their differences can be overcome will help Atlantis get their hands on an ore with fantastic potential.

Unfortunately, it’s never that easy for our team.

The ore has a massive drawback to it. Anyone without the ATA Gene very quickly falls to its influence and begin to forget things. Short term memory loss is one of the first things to go shortly after feelings of disorientation hit people exposed.

That is only part of the problem as tensions between the two groups of people have run too high over supposed raids by the other. In reality, the raids are being conducted by an outside force. A group called the Cadre are into black market workings and have been stealing things from the research facility for several years now.

The first encounter does not go well. Both Ronon and Teyla are considered to be dead when an interruption of the Stargate leaves readings that say the wormhole was diverted to a Gate in geosynchronous orbit.

It is the last thing Sheppard needs on top of the recent deaths of several Marines.

He hands in his resignation.

When new information comes to light about where, exactly, the second Gate is located, a new search is about to be launched when the Atlantis Stargate activates, and a dummy IDC comes through.

Followed closely by Ronon, Teyla and several of their captors.

The second Stargate had fallen thousands of years ago to the planet, somewhere in the mountains. When the wormhole had been disrupted, the safety features had kicked in and simply spat the two back out on the same planet.

Weir is able, with help from Sheppard and his team, to convince the two leaders to give diplomacy one more chance and success comes at last.

One of the best things about this book is the ending when Ronon, Teyla and Rodney get Sheppard out of his head and back with them on Atlantis.

I absolutely loved the fact that so much of this book dealt with Sheppard and how he was doing both emotionally and psychologically as military commander of Atlantis.

He never asked for the position, but took it as the highest ranking member at the time and even after contact with Earth was reestablished kept the position because no one else was as knowledgeable about the dangers of the Pegasus Galaxy.

In this book we see the toll that it takes on him. He questions his decisions all the time when people are hurt or killed (who doesn’t? there’s always the ‘what if’ hanging around) but this time is different.

Sheppard feels that his desire to gain a new weapon to defeat the Asurans is the reason his teammates are killed. His blind pursuit for it cost him two of the only family he calls his own. Even when they come back through the Stargate a little worse for wear but alive, he can’t get over how screwed up some of his decisions had been.

In the end, it’s his adopted family, his friends, that tell him how it is.

It doesn’t bring the dead back or make him question less, but it does help him cope knowing that others have his back so completely.

Read this one with a box of tissue handy ya’ll, cause it’ll make you cry.

See you in a bit to catch up on episodes again because there are thirteen before the next book!

Hi!

I must apologize because I have realized how much of a disservice I have done to you all.

The episode preceding this book is called ‘Misbegotten’ and it’s the second episode in Season 3. It has to do with the Wraith-turned-humans and (even though I’m sure you’ve caught up by now) I never mentioned Michael before this!

Michael Kenmore is one of the best bad guys ever. The reason is that the Expedition literally turns him into this thing and then he gets loose and causes SO many problems for them and the galaxy.

It is a perfect reflection of the Alteran’s and the Wraith.

Now, a little info about this situation we find Atlantis suddenly in.

Continue reading “StARe 10 – Dead End” →

This is going to be a good one so buckle up buttercups!

In Season 2, Episode 16 ‘The Long Goodbye’, we find Sheppard and Weir having a ‘Duet’ moment.

After finding two life pods in orbit around a planet, they bring them back to see if they can help. Unfortunately, the occupants have been in the pods for too long and die almost immediately after the pods are opened.

Not to fear though because the pods are equipped with devices that can download the occupants consciousness into another person.

Which is how Weir is taken at first and Sheppard agrees too because the woman who’s taken over Weir’s body claims the man in the other pod is her husband and she’d desperately like to say goodbye to him one last time.

She lied.

They are, in fact, enemy soldiers whose planets had been at war for generations and they were the last of their kind. Instead of calling a halt to the whole thing, this news just makes the two want to be the last one standing even more.

They go after each other in Weir and Sheppard’s bodies and are a serious problem because they have all the memories available to them about how Atlantis works and uses it ruthlessly. Thankfully, however, they don’t take it out on personnel and the one controlling Sheppard actually calls a medical team after Ronon is shot during a firefight instead of letting him die.

At least they have some kind of honor.

In the end the imprinting wears off before either kills the other and Weir and Sheppard are left with the uncomfortable fact that they had kissed and almost killed each other.

Fun times!

As for the book…

Exogenesis
SGA #5
ISBN: 9781905586028

What’s not to love?

‘The Long Goodbye’ sets this book up perfectly and we first find ourselves in a scene from ten thousand years ago as a Jumper with an Alteran couple try to get back to Atlantis to evacuate to Earth.

Unfortunately, the shield frequency has been changed and they are stuck on the wrong side. With stasis pods inside, they sleep at the base of an anchor (obviously that’s keeping Atlantis from just floating around the ocean) until discovered by the Expedition.

It never fails to make me sigh in frustration and annoyance at how eager Weir is to believe that the Alterans are somehow perfect beings to be held above all others. Seriously, it’s not even funny considering all of the things discovered concerning what they did. The sheer magnitude of their screwups should have made Weir cautious when it came to meeting them, but she’s always gung-ho.

In this book it almost leads to their deaths.

Again.

Two Alterans are still alive, but not for much longer. While trying to bring one up to the surface to be treated, he dies and the woman probably won’t fair any better, but dang if they aren’t going to try.

When the pod slips and opens, Dr. Beckett is caught in the same type of imprinting Weir and Sheppard just went through and is taken over by the Alteran woman who’s husband just died in their care (doesn’t matter that there was literally nothing they could have done).

She decides that, since the Expedition people aren’t Alteran, they aren’t worthy to have possession of Atlantis and sets off to keep them from keeping it.

Leaving several people to die in the cold water.

Thankfully, Sheppard is awesome and gets to them in time, but that meant letting the Alteran go.

She heads for the mainland and launches a terraforming device that has nanites in it. Because the planet is already livable, the device will change it into something else that’s still livable, just different.

In the process everything will be destroyed.

The Athosians on the mainland need to be rescued before it’s too late (hellish storms are cropping up in the first wave of the devices programming), but in an uncharacteristic moment, Weir decides that it isn’t safe and says no to Jumper’s going. Since the Daedalus is grounded due to repairs, Teyla is heartbroken.

While this is happening more information is being found about the Alteran’s in the pods and Dr. Beckett is recovering from the woman ‘dying’ and leaving him healed but feeling guilty because he almost killed some people and is about to kill more.

Turns out the Alteran couple was working on making the terraforming process faster, but they didn’t have permission from the council because the technology was too experimental and they had the Wraith to deal with so resources were needed elsewhere.

Not liking that their work was being set aside they did it anyways which is why they were on the last transport ship that was destroyed by the Wraith before full evacuation of Atlantis happened.

The planet they messed with however is in a precarious state because it was already being terraformed and the new device messed something up.

Rodney, Ronon and Sheppard go to the planet and find a civilization there that’s quite knowledgeable about their history (which is rare because of the Wraith culling’s). The people are happy to answer questions especially when Rodney says he can fix the original program to finish the terraforming.

Rodney is (as the people claim) caught in a deadly sandstorm, that has an acid like granule in it that can strip the flesh from humans, and dies from his injuries. All they can find is a disc he was carrying. Neither Sheppard, Ronon or Zelenka (who joined them on their return trip) believe it because the disc survived but not a shred of evidence that Rodney had been there.

They are finally convinced to spill when Sheppard pulls the plug on getting the machine to work and heads back to Atlantis. Apparently, there is a Wraith Hive on the planet and occasionally the Wraith come and steal children and defile women before hiding again.

A villager saw Rodney being taken by a Dart.

Rodney, waking up blind, spends several days being taken care of by a woman, Turpi (Rodney gets very emotionally attached to her), who says her father, Nabu, went out and saved him. Apparently, it was something her father did often because the people of the planet tended to throw children away when they were born with defects.

While the others continue trying to get the machine to work (which requires unplugging 12 ZPM’s spaced around the planet that shield massive amounts of water being stored for the terraforming) Rodney finds out a little bit more about the people who saved and healed him.

Including the fact that they are telepathic.

Piecing things together, Rodney suspects they are, in fact, Wraith, and has a bad reaction. Nabu is able to talk him around and explains how the terraforming caused changes in the humans of the planet as well which left many hideously deformed and/or with extraordinary abilities. This is why the people leave deformed children to the mercy of the deadly sandstorms and why Nabu (and many others now) can take Dart’s out to save the kids.

The day, Atlantis, Nabu’s people and his planet are saved in the end!

To say that this book was one of my favorites would be understating by a ton.

Nabu actually looks more Wraith than human which is where the Wraith stealing kids rumors come from. Turpi’s ability to heal is the strongest ever and they’ve seen a remarkable stabilization in the latest generations that bodes well for them as a people. The deformities are becoming rarer and the abilities greater.

It’s interesting that the Alteran’s intentionally meant for a Human Wraith to come from the experiment. Their reasoning being that the mental capacities could be used to fight the Wraith and eventually kill them off. That they continue to not see they’re the orchestrators of their own demise is cringe worthy, but completely on par with who they were as a people.

Okay, this post has gone on long enough and might be the longest yet.

Sorry again, but I’ll pull the plug here because I could go on for quite some time on this book, but you probably want to get to the next episode then the next review with me.

I too want to get to the next episodes because we are up to Season 3 now, and Todd makes his debut in this season! (feel free to scream with me when he shows up!)

Till next week.