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Recap / Stargate Atlantis S01 E08 "Underground"

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Allies? You just said these people were ready to string you up. How can you trust them?
Dr. Weir

Teyla introduces the team to the Genii, a group of peaceful but iconoclastic Space Amish, with whom they hope to be able to trade for needed food supplies. And then promptly discover they aren't actually Space Amish at all, but a desperate, technologically advanced society that seems to have read 1940s Russia's playbook. This causes some problems.

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  • Actor Allusion: Cowen, played by Colm Meaney, tells the team that the Genii once led "a great confederation of planets." If you watch closely, you can see Meaney give a barely-perceptible Aside Glance before continuing.
  • Broken Masquerade: The ease in which this happened is lampshaded.
    McKay: You know, if people could just learn to keep their secret underground hatches locked...
  • Elaborate Underground Base: The Genii use surface farming operations as a cover for their massive underground cities where their army prepares in secret.
  • Mundane Utility: Sheppard initially plans to trade C4 and medicine for a share of the Genii crop, marketing the former as an efficient way to clear farmland.
  • Must Have Caffeine: McKay, apparently.
    McKay: It's getting desperate. I'm almost out of coffee.
    Sheppard: Well, maybe you should stop drinking eleven cups a day.
  • Never My Fault: The Genii screw the pooch during their mission, so naturally, all of the deaths that result are somehow the Atlantis team's fault.
  • No OSHA Compliance: As McKay points out, the Genii radiation shielding is woefully inadequate and the Genii that live in the bunker are most likely suffering various degrees of radiation poisoning. When their leader tells him that his scientists told him otherwise and that many people spend their entire lives in the bunker:
    McKay: Their entire short lives.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • A mutual example. Mistrust on both sides makes enemies of the Genii for the better part of two seasons. All because they were trying to trade C4 as "farming tools"...
    • The Genii invoke this towards Atlantis, when they discover they woke the Wraith early, causing them to not have the 50 year they thought they'd have to finish their atomic bomb project, allowing them to blow the Wraith up while they sleep.
    • When Teyla tries to rescue the cocooned humans on board the hive ship, the Genii she's with objects that this is an overly emotional response and could endanger the mission. To prove his point, he shoots the captive with an unsilenced firearm - alerting the Wraith and compromising the mission.
  • Properly Paranoid: Sheppard downplays the military strength and resources of the expedition when they go on a joint mission with the Genii, pretending to only have one Jumper available. When Cowen turns on them, and likely always would have, he has two cloaked Jumpers reveal themselves to turn the tables.
  • Science Fair: McKay boasts that he built a replica of an atomic bomb for a science fair, which got him interviewed by the CIA and led to his first job. What really annoys him is that he went through all that and didn't even win.
  • Space Amish: Invoked by McKay, who frequently refers to their planet as "Amish World". Subverted with The Reveal that they're simply masquerading as a low-tech society.
  • Spanner in the Works: The Expedition's arrival in Pegasus and Sheppard accidentally awaking all the Wrath cripples the Genii plan to nuke the Wraith Hives during their hibernation cycle. They thought they had at least another half a century to get the program operational and deploy their nukes.
  • Spotting the Thread: McKay deduces based on the scanner readings and Cowen's flowery language that the Genii are building atomic weapon, which genuinely shocks Cowen since he never suspected anyone to be more advanced than they are.
  • Technology Levels: McKay pegs the Genii as being roughly 60 years behind Earth in terms of nuclear development (Earth's technology uplift thanks to the Stargate notwithstanding).

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