The Siege (Stargate Atlantis)

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“The Siege”
Stargate Atlantis episode

Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 19 and 20
Guest stars	Paul McGillion as Dr. Beckett Dean Marshall as Sgt. Bates David Nykl as Dr. Zelenka Craig Veroni as Peter Grodin Clayton Landey as Colonel Dillon Everett Chris Britton as Prenum James Lafazanos as Bob the Wraith
Written by	Martin Gero Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
Directed by	Martin Wood
Production no.	119 and 120
Original airdate	March 18, 2005 and March 25, 2005
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"The Gift"	"The Siege, Part 3"
Episode chronology

"The Siege" (Parts 1 to 2 of 3) are the Season 1 finale episodes of the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis.

1 Plot
- 1.1 Part 1
- 1.2 Part 2
2 Notes
3 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details for Season 1 follow.

[edit] Part 1

While the Wraith come closer to Atlantis, the leading group of the expedition is informed by Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka that the Wraith will pass the last Lagrangian defence satellite; they are very confident can bring it back online and obliterate all three Hive Ships before they even reach Atlantis. McKay volunteers for the mission, and while he packs up he talks with Dr. Zelenka, who tells McKay that he should go and they even start to quarrel about it. Meanwhile Weir, Sheppard and Bates search for a new Alpha site; afterwards Bates tells Sheppard that he doesn't trust Teyla but Sheppard defends his team member.

Weir is informed by Dr. Zelenka about the self-destruct of the city (mentioned in Hide and Seek as overloading the naqahdah generators) and that it wouldn't destroy enough of the city. He shows Weir a simulation which predicts that the Wraith will be able to recover some of the City's technology, and some of the database. Weir realises they have to find a way to delete the Ancients database so that the Wraith cannot recover it. Suddenly the Stargate is activated and Sheppard's team comes back. Bates assumes they were attacked by the Wraith and immediately accuses Teyla, but Sheppard then says they were attacked by some kind of T-Rex. Later Teyla confronts Bates and they start to fight until Sheppard and Lt. Ford intervene.

Meanwhile in space, the Puddle Jumper approaches the satellite and McKay enters it, wearing a spacesuit, to reactivate it. He is successful in using a naqahdah generator to power up the maintenance systems, creating an atmosphere that allows Dr. Peter Grodin and the Jumper's pilot to enter and assist with repairing the weapon, although Grodin inadvertently activates the gravity system while McKay is several feet in the air. After frustrated diagnostics, they discover that power connectors linking the weapon's energy storage buffer to the main firing system have been damaged, but to solve it someone must go outside the satellite. After drawing the short straw and much protest, McKay goes EVA. He discovers that meteor strikes have severed the connections, determines that he can reroute the power and finally is able to repair it. However, McKay has inadvertently rerouted power away from the Jumper dock, meaning they cannot dock with the satellite nor take Grodin back on board. Grodin realises there is no time to repair the fault, and he decides to stay on the satellite. This proves useful, as he will be able to keep the power levels as low as possible, ensuring the Wraith cannot detect the active system before it is ready to fire, and also to repair it if there is a problem.

At Atlantis Halling visits Weir and tells her that he doesn't want Atlantis to be destroyed. However, she tells him that she has to protect Earth. Later Weir is informed by Zelenka that he invented a virus to delete the database and Weir wants him to make a backup of it in the hard-drive they brought from Earth but he tells her that they only can save about 8%. Meanwhile Sheppard and Ford search for more potential Alpha sites until they are called because Bates was attacked and badly wounded. They ask Teyla about it but she tells them that it wasn't her.

They discuss with Weir who it could be but then Dr. Beckett finds out that there is a Wraith in the city. With a biometric sensor they are able to find out where the Wraith is and they try to capture him. However, the Wraith is able to take out Sheppard's team until he is stunned by Ford. The Wraith is imprisoned and Sheppard starts to interrogate him after he named him Bob but he keeps silent. Teyla decides to start communicate telepathically with him but he overwhelms her. Sheppard fires with his gun at him several times, wounding him badly.

Meanwhile the Wraith Hive-Ships drop out of hyperspace as predicted, and Grodin powers up the satellite. McKay watches from the cloaked Jumper as the energy beam from the weapon successfully slices through and destroys one Hive-ship. Amid the celebration, Grodin radioes that he is having trouble - McKay's rerouting has overloaded and the weapon can't be fired again. Grodin cannot bring it back online, and as McKay orders the pilot to rescue him, the remaining Hive Ships destroy the satellite, killing Grodin. McKay can't do anything, thus he informs Weir and is ordered to return to Atlantis. Weir informs the base about what has happened and afterwards starts the self-destruct countdown. Having heard the evacuation order, Bob tells them no matter where they go, no matter where they hide, the Wraith will find them, as well as Earth. A frustrated Sheppard finally kills him.

[edit] Part 2

Rodney has returned to Atlantis and Weir orders the self-destruct activation. As they attempt to dial the Alpha site, the gate is suddenly activated; the wormhole was established from Earth. Much to everyone's amazement, a company of marines come through and Weir and the others are greeted by Col. Everett who instantly takes over command. He informs them that they are here to defend Atlantis at all cost, and that they have brought weapons and equipment with which to do so. Rodney concludes that Stargate Command found a ZPM and Everett informs him that the Daedalus will arrive in four days with it.

In the conference room Everett informs the others about their plan, but Weir is only allowed to join after Sheppard insists. They are informed that they will use advanced railgun weapons originally intended for use on Prometheus, and eight Naqahdah-enhanced 1200-megatonne nuclear weapons as stealth space mines. Along with these, they have brought a Mark II Naqahdah generator, which is capable of a 600% power increase over Atlantis' Mark I reactors, and was designed to power the City's Weapons Chair. After the meeting, the railguns are deployed and the mines are laid in space by cloaked Puddle Jumpers. Meanwhile Everett visits Teyla in the training room and orders her to stay out of the way, cementing the distrust surrounding her.

After considerable tinkering, McKay is able to link the new reactor to the weapons chair, and the platform is activated by Beckett. McKay subsequently discovers that there are only a few dozen Drone Weapons left. The remaining multi-thousand were used during the original siege 10,000 years previously. Without warning, there is an alarm; the deep-space sensors have detected hundreds of asteroids heading straight towards the proximity-activated nuclear bombs. McKay assesses that the rocks were launched by the Wraith, who have somehow discovered the mines. With no way to deactivate the warheads, the locator signals of all eight warheads vanish on the display as the mines detonate, with the Wraith at a safe distance. The radiation causes interference that disables the sensors.

Later Col. Everett meets with Sheppard in the holographic archive and Sheppard grimly plays the history of the galaxy. Everett then informs him that he read the report Sheppard submitted surrounding the events in Rising. He explains that Col. Marshall Sumner was a personal friend of his and that he is outraged with Sheppard for killing Sumner. Suddenly they are informed that there are approaching Wraith darts and the battle for the city starts. Marines man the railguns and Sheppard takes the Chair; thanks to the Drone weapons and the railguns the first wave of Darts are destroyed but some parts of the city are hit.

Contemplating strategies, Sheppard suggests that they remotely control the Puddle Jumpers using the Chair and fly them, cloaked, into the hive ships armed with an explosive; he believes they should ask the Genii to use their nuclear weapons. Suddenly Teyla enters and informs them that there are Wraith in the city, who had invaded during the first wave. Together with a group of Athosians, the military starts to search for them. Meanwhile Weir gates to the Genii world, but is captured by them and held hostage. They want to exchange her for the C-4 they have been cheated out of, however Weir is able to convince them that they will use the C-4 only to test the devices, while they could be used for their true purpose of destroying the Wraith. The Genii finally agree and supply the Atlanis team with two nuclear devices. The hunt for the Wraith is going badly, as the Wraith have begun damaging and destroying the naqahdah generators powering the City. To make matters worse, McKay soon discovers that the Genii nukes are incomplete; he and Zelenka are soon in a lab completing the weapons against their fatigue, much to Beckett's disagreement.

At Atlantis the test-run of Sheppard's plan is a success, so McKay and Zelenka start to install the completed weapons into the Jumpers. Meanwhile several men are taken out by the Wraith and the wounded are taken to the Alpha site. A second wave of Darts appears without warning; Sheppard mans the control chair to take control of the Jumpers. After several attempts at initialising the Chair, McKay realises the reactor has depleted its supply of naqahdah. Desperate, Sheppard decides to fly the Jumper himself in a hive-ship, much to the shock of Weir.

As Weir cannot stop him, Sheppard rushes to the Jumper Bay and takes it up. Outside, as Ford's team attempt to repel the Darts, a group of Wraith materialises in front of them. Someone lets off a grenade, and Ford and a Wraith are catapulted into the ocean. Inside, Everett's team is overrun and he is cornered by a Wraith. Out of ammo, the alien begins to feed off him. The final scene of series one sees Sheppard heading undetected into the Hive's Dart Bay, the nuke armed, while back in the control room, Rodney counts down until detonation.

[edit] Notes

In former times there existed a whole network of defence satellites, but all of them except one were destroyed by the Wraith.
Part 2 marks the first appearance of the new Mark II Naqahdah generator, whose output is enhanced by 600%, allowing it to power the chair platform, which previously needed a ZPM. McKay comments that the enormous power output is achieved in a typically human way; the reactor operates at a state of barely-controlled overload, and only in short bursts. The Mark II reactor looks identical to the Orbanan technology that Colonel Carter originally reverse engineered, except for an LCD control/display panel on the top of the unit that monitors the power levels. It becomes clear that, despite its size, the Mark II uses its naqahdah supply much faster than the Mark I; when Sheppard tries to execute his plan, shots of McKay's computer and the reactor's display suggest that the machine is completely out of naqahdah.
It is shown that the Wraith also use the culling beams of their Darts to transport soldiers on a planet. This suggests that the soldiers are already 'stored' in the buffer of the Dart, the reverse of the Culling process.
Weir is informed by the Genii that the Wraith attacked them and that hundreds were killed on the surface, but thousands survived in the underground complex.
The ZPM mentioned in Part 2 is the one found in "Moebius" by SG-1. In the same episode the Daedalus was first mentioned.
A deleted scene from The Siege Part 2 showed Sora being returned to the Genii as part of their deal for the nuclear weapons, but this was cut due to time constraints. Being cut, it is unclear if the event occurred or if Sora may still be being held.
Dr. Zelenka's first name, Radek, is revealed in Part 1.
This episode shares its title with a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode.