Stargate Atlantis/Recap/S04 E05 Travelers

"All that I know is that every time I get taken captive, it's the Wraith. Just once, I would like to be taken prisoner by the sexy alien."

- McKay is a little bit jealous.

Sheppard is captured by a fleet of Space People when returning from a supply run to tropical beach planet. His captors call themselves the Travelers and they are more technologically advanced than any other human civilization yet encountered in the Pegasus Galaxy. Their leader, a woman named Larrin, beats Sheppard up at length to establish dominance, then explains that they have salvaged an Ancient Aurora-class Battle Cruiser, but lack the ATA gene necessary to operate the thing. They need Sheppard to initialize the systems so they can perfect their interface device to get around the problem.

Sheppard agrees - since the alternative is vacuum - but uses the earliest opportunity to steal the ship and drop them out of hyperspace. Larrin responds by flooding the control room with deadly radiation. Sheppard surrenders - but not before sending out an SOS via subspace static. Larrin in turn locks him up again and proceeds to brow beat him - literally and figuratively. His distress signal has attracted the Wraith, and the hyperdrive is down. Their only hope is to let Sheppard operate the drone chair to take out the Wraith ship - which means letting him out again, while Larrin shuts down the SOS and tries to repair the hyperdrive. They succeed in destroying the Wraith, but Sheppard escapes to the Auxilliary Control room before Larrin can retrieve him, and locks her in the chair room. Which she promptly blasts her way out of.

The two of them cat and mouse their way around the ship, each hoping on their own people turning up first. The fun is cut short when they discover that four Wraith are also running around the ship. Once more, Sheppard and Larrin have to team up, and they manage to take out all the Wraith pretty handily. Sheppard even bluffs the last one with an empty gun. Having triumphed over adversity, the hero and heroine kiss - aaand Larrin zaps Sheppard with his own stun gun and locks him up once again.

The rest of the Travelers arrive, beating out Lorne and McKay by a matter of minutes. While the cloaked jumpers are still deciding whether to shoot, all of the ships, including Sheppard's, jump into hyperspace. Fortunately, though, Sheppard has since managed to talk Larrin into letting him go, and possibly forming an alliance later. After the ships jump away, Sheppard's jumper decloaks and Lorne and the others take him home.

Tropes:

 * Action Girl: Larrin.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension: Sheppard and Larrin
 * Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Larrin
 * Everyone Knows Morse: Justified. Sheppard's SOS immediately identifies the sender as someone from Earth. It still attracts the Wraith, though, because even though they don't know Morse, they can still recognize a repeating signal.
 * Generation Ships
 * Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress
 * Space People
 * Thrown Out the Airlock: Larrin threatens to drop Sheppard out of Hangar Bay, going as far as opening the doors, leaving him standing on a force shield. Though she doesn't actually voice the threat beyond saying "Don't worry. You're safe as long as the force shield doesn't malfunction, and that almost never happens." Her crew previously state they assume she blew the last man who disappointed her out into space, though this could simply be posturing.
 * Xanatos Speed Chess: Sheppard plays a nice game of it in this episode.