- We will eliminate the Wraith at a time of our choosing.— Oberoth, leader of the Asurans
The Atlantis expedition's latest probe arrives on a planet of apparently advanced people who are willing to receive visitors. On stepping through, the team (and Weir) find themselves in an oddly familiar gate room- their hosts, the Asurans, live in a city-ship identical to Atlantis. What's more, they claim to actually be Ancients, a splinter group who broke off from the others before the Wraith besieged Atlantis.
Relations are a bit difficult for Weir to work out, though. The team points out that they and the rest of the galaxy could really use some help against the Wraith, even if it's just a ZPM. The Asurans' leader, Oberoth, refuses to help, but insists that they're aware of the Wraith and will handle them. Eventually. The Atlantis crew is less than impressed by this.
Then McKay makes a horrible discovery: the Asurans aren't Ancients at all, but advanced human-form Replicators. The team's hosts confirm this; they were an experimental weapon designed by the Ancients to fight the Wraith, but grew too aggressive and were ruthlessly wiped out by their creators. This left them with a bit of a grudge- and now that they know Atlantis still exists, they plan to fly over and destroy it out of spite, even though there haven't been any Ancients on it in millennia.
Tropes
- Arc Welding: Technically averted. While Rodney notes the Asurans are very similar to the Human Form Replicators that SG-1 encountered and may be related, the Asurans and the Ancients are never explicitly connected to the original Replicator storyline.
- Anal Probing: McKay likens the Asurans' Mind-probing to this, and implies this is what he experienced with "torture too hideous and...intimate... to mention".Niam: Your minds are no longer being probed.
Sheppard: It's good to know it was just our minds.
McKay: Oh, please don't make me sick. - Buffy Speak: Sheppard's "ancienty" and "unancienty".
- Continuity Nod: Rodney and Sheppard both cite SG-1's previous encounters with the Human Form Replicators and how the SGC was barely able to defeat them.
- Deal with the Devil: Niam's deal with the Atlantis team has a pretty strong flavor of this...only with Weir in the role of the Devil.
- Don't Ask: Rodney, regarding whatever happened during his Virtual-Reality Interrogation.Rodney: Torture too hideous and... intimate... to mention.
Ronan: What'd they do to you?
Rodney: [Louder] TORTURE TOO HIDEOUS AND INTIMATE TO MENTION! - Exact Time to Failure: Lampshaded. After telling Sheppard repeatedly that he has no idea how long something will work for, McKay eventually just spits out the number 7 minutes and 31 seconds to get him to stop asking. Naturally, Sheppard gets mad at him when it stops in less than that time.
- Foreshadowing: Oberon states that they will deal with the Wraith at a time and place of their choosing. Season Four will reveal he's lying and that the Asurans can't attack the Wraith due to Wraith-engineered corruption of their programming.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: A bit of a variation; although created as a weapon, the Asurans wanted to be a Nobody. Then the Atlantis team showed up, and they turned into a Nightmare - though, granted, they kind of chose that, on account of their grudge against Atlantis.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: The Asuran Replicators were originally built as a mindless swarm of nanites that would destroy the Wraith on a microscopic level. Instead they assembled themselves into humanoid form and refused their role as weapons.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: Even if Niam's plan had worked, the Asurans onboard the City-Ship would have still been destroyed since the Atlantis team had already rigged the ZPMs to explode.
- Misplaced Retribution: The Asurans want to destroy Atlantis. Even though the Ancients haven't been around for 10,000 years, and the current inhabitants are, technically, not even the same species, much less the same society that once tried to wipe the Asurans out.
- Neglectful Precursors: The Ancient treatment of the Asurans. And the Asurans to the Ancients, their creators. After all, they intended to wipe out the Atlantis expedition, which had absolutely no relation to the Ancients they so hated, simply because they lived in Atlantis, they treated the captured members of the Expedition with the same kind of disregard (once they were mined for all useful information, most Asurans were happy to kill them), and when Niam acted against their wishes, they attempted to rewrite him. Also, they had the signature arrogance down pat.
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Recycled Set: Asuras looks a lot like Atlantis... for good reason. - Restraining Bolt: It is written into their code that the Asurans are incapable of acting against the Ancients. Humans, on the other hand...
- Sequel Episode: Niam reveals that the Asurans are the end result of the experiments that produced the nanites released in "Hot Zone".
- Tempting Fate: McKay to the temporarily frozen Oberoth.McKay: Not so arrogant now, are you?*Oberoth grabs him by the throat*
- Three Laws-Compliant: The Asurans, with respect to the Ancients. Given how the Ancients treated them and wanted to wipe out them entirely, they're not happy that they weren't able to fight back at all.
- Unwinnable Training Simulation: The Asurans put Sheppard and Ronon in these when they mind probe them. In Sheppard's case, it's an attack on Atlantis by dozens of Wraith hive ships. Ronon describes being locked in a dark room fighting an endless stream of opponents for hours on end.
- Vagueness Is Coming: The Asuran council insist they will deal with the Wraith 'at a time of our choosing'. The Atlantis team calls bullshit on it.
