History Recap / StargateAtlantisS02E06Trinity

* RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun: The destruction of Doranda becomes this for Rodney for the remainder of the spinoff's run -- and ''unlike'' Samantha Carter over in ''SG-1'', it's ''not'' a Moment of Awesome for Rodney. It becomes his most shameful, humiliating moment as a member of the Expedition (and gets brought up for comedy or if Rodney's getting too haughty again).

* BreakTheHaughty: Rodney's arrogance is on full display, he believes that he alone can perfect the Ancient reactor technology when even it's own designers couldn't make it work. It's only when the experiment is about to blow up in his face (literally) that the realizes how wrong he was.

* ValuesDissonance: invoked. Teyla warns Ronon not to tell the Atlantis mission about Kell's murder, basically for this reason.

* ItWontTurnOff: The Arcturus reactor and the linked weapon. They barely manage to get it under control the first time, but McKay can't stop it from overloading the second time.

Meanwhile, Teyla takes Ronon along on a trading mission to the planet Belkan. Ronon is no better at negotiating than Sheppard is, but they discover quite by accident that there are other Satedan survivors scattered across the galaxy—Ronon is not actually the LastOfHisKind. Ronon is understandably overjoyed to learn that 300 of his people have survived, and immediately starts looking for his former commanding officer, a man named Kell. Using Teyla's contacts and general negotiating skills, they are able to get an audience to see him, and Ronon unceremoniously shoots him in the face. He later explains to an enraged Teyla that during the invasion Kell deliberately sacrificed Satedan lives in order to ensure his own escape, and the man had it coming. Teyla reluctanly agrees, but warns him that the rest of the Atlantis expedition will not.

* EarthShatteringKABOOM: that takes out ''three quarters of the solar system.''
** Possibly even five sixths. It's not an exact science.

* GoingCritical

* ScienceIsBad

* WithinParameters

* RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun: The destruction of Doranda becomes this for Rodney for the remainder of the spinoff. ''Unlike'' Samanath Carter over in ''SG-1'', it's ''not'' Moment of Awesome for Rodney and it remains his most shameful, humiliating experience (and brought up for comedy or if Rodney's getting too haughty again).

* OutrunTheFireball: averted. [=McKay=] states outright that it would be impossible.

While [=McKay=] is setting up for the test, Zelenka calls in. He has just finished analyzing the data from the first test and discovered that the project cannot in principle succeed. Because the UsefulNotes/LawsOfPhysics break down and create unpredictable exotic particles that are impossible to block, and turn into deadly radiation once outside the chamber.

While [=McKay=] is setting up for the test, Zelenka calls in. He has just finished analyzing the data from the first test and discovered that the project cannot in principle succeed. Because of <insert complicated physics explanation>, the device will always overload unpredictably at ''any'' power level. This is what killed the planet after the Wraith had been defeated—the Ancients operating it had only been able to shut it down at the cost of their own lives. [=McKay=] brushes him off, insisting that he has solved the problem, and proceeds with the test. The gun successfully targets and destroys the Wraith debris in orbit—and then begins to overload as Zelenka predicted. [=McKay=] continues to work, convinced he can correct the problem, until Sheppard manages to finally talk him down. By that point, however, it's been going too long and nothing can prevent catastrophic overload—which is to say, the whole planet going up.

-->''Harry K. Daghlian. He was a scientist -- worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. He was only twenty-six years old. Accidentally irradiated himself while performing a critical mass experiment on two half-spheres of plutonium. Took him a month to die. While his body was slowly shutting down from radiation poisoning, you know what he did with his last thirty days, hmm? He worked. He tried until his last breath to understand what had happened to him so that others could learn from the tragedy, so that his work, his death, wouldn't be rendered meaningless.''

Exploring the dead world of the Dorandans, the team finds a surprisingly intact Ancient outpost, housing a superweapon responsible for the destruction of an entire fleet of Wraith hiveships. [=McKay=] and Zelenka get the lights on and are delighted to discover that the outpost was in the process of developing an energy source that would make [=ZPMs=] obsolete. They used it to destroy the Wraith, but sadly all died somehow before it could be perfected.

* BreakTheHaughty: Rodney's arrogance is on full display, he believes that he alone can perfect the Ancient reactor technology. It's only when the experiment is about to blow up in his face (literally) that the realizes how wrong he was.

* ApocalypseHow: Initially somewhere beween a class 3A and a class 5; [=McKay=] manages to upgrade it to a class X-2.

* EarthShatteringKABOOM: that takes out ''two thirds of the solar system.''

Meanwhile, Teyla takes Ronon along on a trading mission to the planet Belkan. Ronon is no better at negotiating than Sheppard is, but they discover quite by accident that there are other Satedan survivors scattered across the galaxy—Ronon is not actually the LastOfHisKind. Ronon is understandably overjoyed to learn that 300 of his people have survived, and immediately starts looking for his former commanding officer, a man named Kell. Using Teyla's contacts and general negotiating skills, they are able to get an audience to see him, and Ronon unceremoniously shoots him in the face. He later explains to an enraged Teyla that Kell's shoddy leadership was responsible for thousands of Satedan deaths, and the man had it coming. Teyla reluctanly agrees, but warns him that the rest of the Atlantis expedition will not.

-->''Harry K Daghlian. He was a scientist -- worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. He was only twenty-six years old. Accidentally irradiated himself while performing a critical mass experiment on two half-spheres of plutonium. Took him a month to die. While his body was slowly shutting down from radiation poisoning, you know what he did with his last thirty days, hmm? He worked. He tried until his last breath to understand what had happened to him so that others could learn from the tragedy, so that his work, his death, wouldn't be rendered meaningless.''

Exploring the dead world of the Durandanes, the team finds a surprisingly intact Ancient outpost, housing a superweapon responsible for the desrtuction of an entire fleet of Wraith Hive Ships. [=McKay=] and Zelenka get the lights on and are delighted to discover that the outpost was in the process of developing an energy source that would make [=ZPMs=] obsolete. They used it to destroy the Wraith, but sadly all died somehow before it could be perfected.

Meanwhile, Teyla takes Ronon along on a trading mission to the planet Belkan. Ronon is no better at negotiating than Sheppard is, but they discover quite by accident that there are other Satedan survivors scattered across the galaxy - Ronon is not actually the LastOfHisKind. Ronon is understandably overjoyed to learn that 300 of his people have survived, and immediately starts looking for his former commanding officer, a man named Kell. Using Teyla's contacts and general negotiating skills, they are able to get an audience to see him, and Ronon unceremoniously shoots him in the face. He later explains to an enraged Teyla that Kell's shoddy leadership was responsible for thousands of Satedan deaths, and the man had it coming. Teyla reluctanly agrees, but warns him that the rest of the Atlantis expedition will not.

While [=McKay=] is setting up for the test, Zelenka calls in. He has just finished analyzing the data from the first test and discovered that the project cannot in principle succeed. Because of <insert complicated physics explanation>, the device will always overload unpredictably at ''any'' power level. This is what killed the planet after the Wraith had been defeated - the Ancients operating it had only been able to shut it down at the cost of their own lives. [=McKay=] brushes him off, insisting that he has solved the problem, and proceeds with the test. The gun successfully targets and destroys the Wraith debris in orbit - and then begins to overload as Zelenka predicted. [=McKay=] continues to work, convinced he can correct the problem, until Sheppard manages to finally talk him down. By that point, however, it's been going too long and nothing can prevent catastrophic overload - which is to say, the whole planet going up.

Sheppard and [=McKay=] flee in the jumper, but the gun is still targetting debris around the planet, preventing them from reaching the gate. They are rescued at the last moment by Caldwell and the Daedalus, which then retreats into hyperspace as the planet explodes, taking most of the solar system with it.

* ApocalypseHow: Initially somewhere beween a class 3a and a class 5; [=McKay=] manages to upgrade it to a class X-2.

* ShoutOut: The episode title invokes parallels between the research at the Ancient outpost and the Manhattan Project.

* ValuesDissonance: invoked. Teyla warns Ronon not to tell the Atlantis mission about Kell's murder, basically for this reason.