* In "Rising", the [[TheReveal revelation]] that the Athosians are ''not'' the primitive society they initially appeared to be, but actually TheRemnant of an [[LowCultureHighTech advanced society]] that has been repeatedly bombed back into the stone-age by the Wraith.
* The Genii invasion of Atlantis in "The Storm" and "The Eye", in which Sheppard goes [[Film/DieHard John McClane]] and [[TeleFrag TeleFrags]] most of the invasion force with a press of a button, and then hunts down the rest one by one.
-->'''Dr. Beckett''': ''(looking at a life-signs detector)'' These dots don't tell us much about who's who. How do we tell which one's the Major?\\
'''Lt. Ford''': He'll be the dot making the other dots go away.
** In "The Storm", when Sheppard goes to activate the final relay, senses a Genii ambush, then promptly massacres the ambushers. Bonus points for calmly picking up a communicator and telling Kolya how what he just did was bad on so many levels.
-->'''Sheppard''': Let me tell you what you did wrong, Kolya. A) You lost two more men. B) Your men damaged the switch before I could separate the grounding rods, for which I'm sure you're gonna get an earful from [=McKay=]. and C), you just lost whatever credibility you had with me!
* "The Siege, Part 2".
** The Wraith hit Atlantis with a massive formation of darts, and we reply with a massive amount of [[MoreDakka dakka]].
** Weir is held hostage by the Genii, and manages to negotiate not only her own freedom, but two nuclear bombs as well. While she's blindfolded & bound to a chair.
* The ''Daedalus'''s entrance during the Wraith Siege of Atlantis. It's made aware early on that it's on its way to the Pegasus Galaxy and will be there in a while. Come next episode, it blows its way onto the scene by destroying at least three hive ships and managing to make it down to the planet through an entire fleet of more.
* Weir vs. Landry & Caldwell in "The Intruder." Weir wins.
* The scene in "Critical Mass" where it's just been revealed that Col. Caldwell has been taken over by a Goa'uld. He's beamed into a conference room with Dr. Weir, Sheppard and Ronon. The following exchange occurs:
-->'''Caldwell (controlled by a Goa'uld)''': I should warn you, as a Goa'uld, I now possess the strength of many men. [Caldwell's eyes glow]
-->'''Ronon''': It won't be a fair fight then... [proceeds to take down Caldwell very quickly, then tosses his ass ''across the table'', where he gets tasered by Sheppard]
* For a RedShirt who doesn't last five minutes, Griffin from "Grace Under Pressure" gets an incredible DyingMomentOfAwesome. When the window of the sinking Jumper starts to crack from the pressure, without even thinking about it, he pushes Rodney into the rear compartment and seals the hatch, seconds before the cockpit floods.
** Suprisingly the Whale in the episode essenitally saw the puddle jumper sink, follows it and tries to alert the rescue puddle jumper to it, which happens.
** While it's never made clear if the hallucination of Carter was [=McKay's=] imagination or the nearby whale's telepathic abilities or partly both, the hallucination of Carter get's [=McKay=] to increase the time he will survive on his own for, points our issues with his plans and possibly distracts him from enacting a flawed plan, which ultimatly keeps him alive long enough for the rescue team to reach him. If it was [=McKay=], then he does know and admits Carter is smarter than him and is able to conjure up a haluncination that saves him in the form of someone he knows he would listen to. If it's the Whale then it pretty much saved a human being acting as his guardian angel.
* Teyla uses her Wraith-psychic ability to pilot a hiveship. Considering that her abilities prior to that were mostly limited to being Wraith-radar, this is pretty badass.
* If there was ever any doubt as to why Ronon was made a Runner, we see why in "Sateda" as he makes the Wraith Hunters pay in blood for every step they take.
* The [=McKay=]/Carter Intergalactic Gate Bridge is all kinds of awesome in and of itself when one thinks about it.
* "The Return, Part 2": Sheppard takes the puddle jumper through the Stargate of the Replicator-controlled Atlantis... and while the Replicators are firing at the ship's shields, he escapes by piloting the ship backwards and ''smashing the wall behind the Stargate''. Also, [=McKay's=] master plan that took down the Replicators when all seemed lost, even if it was presented via an UnspokenPlanGuarantee.
* "Echoes:" With a coronal mass ejections ready to toast the planet and with no other options left, Sheppard comes up with the insane plan to hook up their remaining ZPM to the ''Daedalus'' and use it's boosted shields to deflect the stream away from the planet. And it ''works.'' To put it another way, Sheppard played chicken with a star, ''and won.''
* Who can forget Sheppard's final takedown of Kolya? Kolya goes through all this trouble to capture the team, using them to blackmail Sheppard into an [[ShowdownAtHighNoon old-west-style showdown]], and after a tense staring contest between the two (implying the [[FinalBattle epic battle to come]]), Sheppard gets the drop on him hands down, blowing him away in less time than it takes to type this.
* In the episode "First Strike", the SGC discovers that the Asuran Replicators are building a fleet of warships with which to attack Earth. Rather than mess around with covert sabotage ops or negotiations or quests for ancient alien superweapons, an Earth-built starship is sent out to use an Earth-built weapon system (codenamed "Horizon", basically a MIRV carrying six 230 ''gigaton'' bombs and a bunch of decoys) to blow an entire continent off of the Asuran homeworld. See it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFlSIhyPb1k here]]. This is particularly impressive considering that a decade earlier Earth had basically the same capabilities as current-day real life and now they're laying the smackdown against extragalactic targets that have (literally) near-godlike technology.
* Season 4, episode 1. Twenty-or-so Jumpers clearing a path for a city-ship in an asteroid belt, most of the pilots rookies. They even succeed (mostly).
** This starts with an epic shot of the Jumpers screaming up out of the launch bay.
* In the early fourth season, Dr. Weir invades the Replicator HiveMind, only she had been the one to initiate the MindProbe (she was part Replicator at this point) and tricked the Replicators into thinking that they had won over her while she was, in fact, still in control.
* "First I need something I can heal." Dr. Keller, moments before she shoots a guy in the leg just to get some measure of revenge without violating her oath.
* "Be All My Sins Remember'd" is more like a Crowning ''Episode'' Of Awesome, as it revolves around the ridiculously powerful Asgard beam weapons, capable of destroying '''Ancient''' warships in a matter of '''seconds''', the biggest spacefight ever in the entire Stargate Verse, and the elimination of the Asurans. Prior to that, the private confrontation Carter has with Colonel Ellis after the mission briefing over his blatantly disrespectful attitude toward [=McKay=]. Carter may have made her place in the universe through a combination of scientific ass-pullery and sheer asskicking, but with mere words she managed to put an ass in his place.
** Also, as part of the above, [=McKay=] built a replicator that destroyed all the replicators on Asuras and in orbit. Then detonated the planet.
* The fourth season episode "Midway", wherein two [[OneManArmy one man armies]], namely Teal'c and Ronon, get together, beat each other up, and then turn around and start mopping floors with a Wraith strike force. Keep in mind, Col. Sheppard and his team had a tough time taking on the Wraith who were guarding Midway. Teal'c and Ronon cleaned out the SGC '''by themselves'''. Made. Of. WIN!
** From the same episode: Teal'c sees Ronon's blaster in action. After the firefight, he stares at it in awe, and says "I greatly desire a weapon such as this." Ronon's only response: "Get in line." As plothole ridden as the episode may be, it's full of Crowning Moments for ''Stargate'''s two resident warriors.
* In "The Kindred Part 1", Teyla is interrogating a guy about the whereabouts of her people, including the father of her unborn child, who had been kidnapped by Michael. The guy thinks it's hilarious that he's being threatened by this heavily pregnant woman. She proceeds to kick him across the room and into the wall.
* Various examples in the erased future depicted in "The Last Man";
** Rodney [=McKay=], the man who spent two decades inventing a new kind of math and creating a AI hologram of himself in Atlantis all so he could send Sheppard back to change the past. In the same episode, his montage about how everyone died at least gave some of the characters epic sendouts.
** Ronan forms a peasant army a la ''Film/{{Dragonheart}}'' and starts kicking Wraith ass. During one mission, he unexpectedly teams up with Todd to blow things up. Cue BackToBackBadasses as they kill everything in sight, then draw their knives on each other at the climax ("force of habit"). Bonus points for Todd having managed to go for a kill-stab on Ronon just as quickly. Then they're pinned down again, so they blow themselves up with the building.
** Sam getting her own ship and blowing up hive after hive. When she's lured into an inescapable ambush, she takes the three hives doing the ambush down with her.
* In the episode "Search and Rescue," Shepherd's team has infiltrated one of Michael's ships in order to rescue Teyla. During the action, the ''Daedalus'' shows up, and the two ships start exchanging fire. Once Col. Caldwell gets word that the rescue was a success, he turns to his gunner and, in a very weary, bored tone, says, "Major Marks, please make that ship go away." About three seconds later, it's space dust.
** Earlier in that episode, Teyla gives birth on a Hive Ship and [=McKay=] helps her. Definitely awesome.
* Have we forgotten our good friend, Todd the Wraith? His first fight scenes with the Genii troopers was distilled awesome, to say nothing of the subversion of his AlwaysChaoticEvil designation that followed.
** Oh, and this:
--->'''Sheppard:''' [About the Wraith Conference chamber's amenities] Fruit bowl - nice touch.
--->'''Todd:''' Well, we picked them up on our travels; I thought it would make our discussions more comfortable. I hope they prove as delicious as the farmers who grew them.
--->[A faint pause as everyone does their best to look away from the fruit bowl.]
** And in the same episode, when Todd is about to help transform Teyla into a Wraith Queen:
--->'''Todd:''' Can I help you?
--->'''Ronon:''' If '''anything''' happens to her... there won't be anywhere in the galaxy you can hide.
--->'''Todd:''' [Without dropping his smile] Is that all?
--->[He marches past Ronon and into the infirmary where Teyla is being prepared for surgery.]
--->'''Todd:''' [Cheerily] How's my patient?
** Let's face it, Todd is a walking Crowning Moment in his own right.
* Surprisingly, Richard Woolsey was given one, calmly telling disembodied Replicators to go ahead and destroy Atlantis because they'll doom themselves if they do.
* In the fifth-season episode "Outsiders", normally unassuming (but well-loved) Dr. Carson Beckett gets one. Having been captured along with Dr. [=McKay=] by the Wraith, told to find an antidote for a drug that makes humans immune to Wraith feeding in order for the population of the planet he got snatched off of to be spared, and discovering that he himself is infected with it, he ''provokes the boss Wraith into feeding off him'', which kills it dead. BAD. FREAKING. ASS.
* "Vegas." From beginning to end, this episode was a parody of awesome.
* In the finale "Enemy At The Gate", we have the City Ship of Atlantis over Earth firing off drones, though you could say this was a Carson Beckett [=CMoA=] as he was in the control chair.
** Woolsey gets one, too. Atlantis only has enough power to do one of two things: fly or shoot. It's being pushed into the atmosphere by the force of the Wraith weapons, and is going to fall to the planet without moving. Which of these two things does Woolsey want done? The shooting.
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