History Recap / StargateAtlantisS01E01E02Rising

-->''All that lives must eat.''
---> -- '''Female Wraith Caretaker'''

* AliensSpeakingEnglish

* {{Atlantis}}: Well, yeah.

* DistantPrologue

* GhostShip
* GunsAreWorthless

* HiveQueen

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice

* LivingShip: The Wraith ships.
* LoyalPhlebotinum: The ancient chair in Antartica and much of the technology in Atlantis.

* NamesTheSame: Don't confuse our Major John Sheppard with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiRDJLcYua0 Commander John Shepard]]

* WasItReallyWorthIt

* NobleSpaceSavage: The Athosians.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero

-->'''Operator:'''The cellular customer you are trying to reach is currently outside the coverage area.
-->'''Simon:'''No kidding.

* ApocalypticLog

-->'''O'Neill (sympathetically to [=McKAY=]):''' I'm sorry.
* ChekhovsGunman: O'Neill's pilot (pun not intended) initially seems like a throwaway character… until he waltzes into the Antarctic outpost and it turns out that he possesses the Ancient gene, and is immediately recruited into the Atlantis Expedition. Turns out the pilot, Major Sheppard, is TheHero of the new series.

* LivingShip: Wraith ship.

* RubberForeheadAliens: The wraith, perhaps justified after their origin is revealed.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: The expidition is trapped on Atlantis until they can find enough energy to power a way home.

* MercyKill

[[caption-width-right:320:"I just sat down." - Major John Sheppard]]

At the SGC's Antarctic research site, where most people seem to be concerned with getting the furniture to glow, Daniel Jackson has just found the fabled Lost City of the Ancients. It's in another galaxy! (Which is why they haven't been able to find it before). While Daniel persuades O'Neill to authorize the use of Earth's ZPM to power the gate to make the journey, the rest of the cast discovers that O'Neill's pilot, Major John Sheppard, can make the furniture glow - that is, use Ancient Technology - better than anybody else. This makes him a must-have for the mission, even though he only heard about the Stargate this morning.

Heading the one-way suicide mission into the unknown is civilian Dr. Elizabeth Weir, who had replaced General Hammond at the SGC, and was given Antarctica as a concession prize when she stepped down in favor of General O'Neill. Under her are Colonel Marshall Sumner and Dr. Rodney [=McKay=]. And a lot of other people who may become relevant. When the MALP reports breathable air, and after being repeatedly warned that this is a one-way trip, they all step through the gate into darkness.

As it turns out, the Lost City of Atlantis is surprisingly well preserved. And it seems to like them, since it starts turning on lights everywhere. And it's conveniently under water! These last two turn out to be a major problem, as [=McKay=] soon discovers that the city is almost out of power, and the effort of keeping them alive is weakening the forcefields holding back the sea. [[FromBadtoWorse Even worse]], an ancient recording reveals that the city was ultimately abandoned by the Ancients and sunk for safekeeping after they had their butts handed to them by a sinister alien race just as powerful as they were. [[OhCrap Well, crap.]]

The power issues, however, are the more immediate concern. Colonel Sumner leads a team through the Stargate looking for any help that might be found locally - that is, in this galaxy. True to their Stargate heritage, they find themselves on a world that looks suspiciously like British Columbia. Sheppard befriends the local people, [[BoldlyComing especially]] a woman named Teyla, who tells him about a sinister alien race called the Wraith, who have periodically abducted and/or massacred people throughout their history. In the morning, they discover a nearby Ancient city, where they hope they might find a replacement ZPM. Teyla warns Sumner that if anyone enters the city, the Wraith will come. Naturally, they explore the city anyway. And the Wraith come.

The Wraith zoom around and vacuum up a bunch of people, including Teyla and Sumner, before retreating through the gate. Luckily, another member of the team, Lieutenant Ford, manages to catch six out of the seven symbols in the gate address. Ford and Sheppard evacuate the remaining natives, whose village has been utterly destroyed, through the gate to Atlantis. This is the last straw for the failing ZPM, and the forcefields collapse, drowning the city forever.

Haha, no. When the forcefields no longer have the power to hold back the sea, instead of everybody dying, the city suddenly returns to the surface, where the inhabitants encounter sunlight and breathable air. Even better, with the forcefields gone, the Naquaddah generators the humans brought with them are sufficient to power the entire rest of the city. They no longer have any cover or defense, of course, but [[SarcasmMode it's not as if there's a sinister alien race]] waiting to suck out their very life.

With the power back on, Weir reluctantly authorizes a rescue mission for the people taken by the Wraith. Unfortunately, the Wraith gate seems to be floating in space. Fortunately, Atlantis just so happens to have a handy supply of [[strike:Gate Ships]] Puddlejumpers capable, like all Ancient technology, of responding to Sheppard's mental commands. And they can cloak! With success therefore assured, Sheppard, Ford, and their team head off to assault the Wraith homeworld.

Meanwhile, the Wraith have been treating their captives [[strike:to]] like dinner. Colonel Sumner is taken to a female Wraith, who offers him lunch...at a table whose other diner is a withered horror-struck corpse. She is bemused by his lack of willingness to give into his hunger - and also by his lack of familiarity with the Wraith. She manages to drag the name "Earth" out of him, but is unable to discover the location of this "rich new feeding ground" even with torture. So she settles for sucking the life energy out of him with [[NightmareFuel a tiny mouth on the palm of her hand.]]

Sheppard and Ford flee back to the Puddlejumper as all around them the sleeping Wraith begin to stir. They blast through the Wraith ships defending the gate, and make it triumphantly back to Atlantis, where Sheppard is now the ranking military officer, having [[KlingonPromotion just shot his immediate superior.]] There is general rejoicing, despite worries that the Wraith problem has just been made much ''much'' worse, and [=McKay=] discovers, to his horror, that his dinner contained lemons.

* AcePilot: Sheppard

* AdvancedAncientAcropolis: The ruins on the Athosian planet and Atlantis itself

-->'''[=McKAY=]:''' We need the Zed P.M. to power the Gate.
-->'''O'NEILL:''' What?
-->'''JACKSON:''' Zee P.M. He's, uh, he's Canadian.
-->'''O'NEILL (sympathetically to [=McKAY=]):''' I'm sorry.
* ChekhovsGunman: O'Neill's pilot (pun not intended) initially seems like a throwaway character... until he waltzes into the Antarctic outpost and it turns out that he possesses the Ancient gene, and is immediately recruited into the Atlantis Expedition. Turns out the pilot, Major Sheppard, is TheHero of the new series.

* EnforcedTechnologyLevels: The wraith cull the humans of the Pegasus galaxy before they can advance.

** [[spoiler: The address connects to a remarkably well preserved Atlantis.]]

** [[spoiler: There are many worlds in the Pegasus gallery settled by humans who were seeded by the Ancients.]]

* HealingFactor: The Wraith
* HellBentForLeather: The Wraith
* HelpingHands: Wraith Arm

* HorrorHunger: the Wraith

* {{Invisibility}}: A feature of the puddle jumpers that allows tactical adavantage.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Jack O'Neill, he may not initially want the team to go to Atlantis, but the last thing he sends through the gate after them is ''a bottle of champagne with his congratulations.''

* KneelBeforeZod: The female Wraith, to Sumner
* LawOfAlienNames: Teyla; Toran; Jinto; Halling

* TheLittleDetecto: Life signs detector

* LoyalPhlebotinum: The ancient chair in Antartica and much of the technology in Atlantis

* NobleSpaceSavage: The Athosians
* NotUsingTheZWord: No one ever comments on the similarity of the Wraith and Vampires

* PlotAllergy: Rodney's citrus allergy will be a RunningGag in this series
* {{Precursors}}: The Ancients

* {{Technopath}}: Those with the ancient gene.

* TrackingDevice: [[spoiler:The necklace Sheppard finds and gives to Teyla]]

* {{Transplant}}: Elizabeth Weir and Rodney [=McKay=] from ''Series/StargateSG1''
* TransplantedHumans: The Athosians are the only ones we meet in this episode, but we are told there were once thousands of human worlds in the Pegasus galaxy

* UnreliableNarrator: The Ancient Hologram claims that they discovered the Wraith when they first came to Pegasus... we later find out, the Ancients accidentally ''created'' them.
* CaliforniaDoubling: The Pemberton Glacier in British Columbia doubles for Antarctica

* WestCoastTeam: In this case, the team was relocated to a different Galaxy

* DeggansRule: Passed, Teyla and Ford.

* TheBechdelTest: Failed. We have the Wraith Queen, Dr. Weir, and Teyla, but none of them talk to each other.

* [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's Gunman]]: O'Neill's pilot (pun not intended) initially seems like a throwaway character... until he waltzes into the Antarctic outpost and it turns out that he possesses the Ancient gene, and is immediately recruited into the Atlantis Expedition. Turns out the pilot, Major Sheppard, is TheHero of the new series.

* [[DontTouchItYouIdiot Don't Touch It You Idiot]]: O'Neill's only instruction to Sheppard, which he fails to obey.

* [[CaliforniaDoubling Vancouver Doubling]]: The Pemberton Glacier in British Columbia doubles for Antarctica

* [[YouCantGoHomeAgain You Can't Go Home Again]]

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Jack O'Neill, he may not initially want the team to go to Atlantis, but the last thing he sends through the gate after them is ''a bottle of wine with his congratulations.''

* {{Crossover}}: [[Characters/StargateSG1 Daniel Jackson]],[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siler_%28Stargate%29#Siler Siler]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayiana#Ayiana Ayiana]] and [[Characters/StargateSG1 Jack O'Neil]] from StargateSG1 are there to get the SpinOff started on the right foot.

* {{Transplant}}: Elizabeth Weir and Rodney [=McKay=] from StargateSG1

* [[ScrewTheWarWerePartying Screw The War, We're Partying]]: The heroes have just pissed off the Wraith, a race who defeated the freakin' Ancients, while they themselves are cut off from Earth and any sort of reinforcements. What do they do? Party with the Athosians, of course.

* YouLookFamiliar: Weir's boyfriend Simon is inexplicably that Tolan guy who was in love with Carter.

As it turns out, the Lost City of Atlantis is surprisingly well preserved. And it seems to like them, since it starts turning on lights everywhere. And it's conveniently under water! These last two turn out to be a major problem, as [=McKay=] soon discovers that the city is almost out of power, and the effort of keeping them alive is weakening the forcefields holding back the sea. [[ItGotWorse Even worse]], an ancient recording reveals that the city was ultimately abandoned by the Ancients and sunk for safekeeping after they had their butts handed to them by a sinister alien race just as powerful as they were. [[OhCrap Well, crap.]]

** [spoiler: The address connects to a remarkably well preserved Atlantis.]
** [spoiler: The Ancients left Atlantis because they were under siege by a powerful enemy.]
** [spoiler: Atlantis is almost out of power, so the expedition is unable to establish a wormhole to return to their galaxy and the city's force fields are on the verge of collapse.]
** [spoiler: There are many worlds in the Pegasus gallery settled by humans who were seeded by the Ancients.]
** [spoiler: Atlantis rises to the surface of the ocean when the power is depleted to a critical level.]
** [spoiler: The expedition awakens the Wraith, the powerful enemies who defeated the Ancients.]

[[caption-width-right:320:I just sat down.]]

* TheBechdelTest: Failed. We have the Wraith Queen, Dr. Weir, and Teyla, but none of them talk to each other.
* TheCynic: Rodney's role pointing out all the things that could go wrong.
* TheLittleDetecto: Life signs detector

* WestCoastTeam: In this case the team was relocated to a different Galaxy

* BareYourMidriff: Teyla at the party at the end.
* CanadaEh: MCKAY: We need the Zed P.M. to power the Gate. O'NEILL: What? JACKSON: Zee P.M. He's, uh, he's Canadian. O'NEILL (sympathetically to MCKAY): I'm sorry.

* RubberForeheadAliens: The warith, perhaps justified after their origin is revealed.

* VoiceOfTheLegion

* OutOfCharacterMoment: Rodney [=McKay=] seems less emotional, which may be because this character was initially written as Dr. Benjamin Ingram, who was described as a cold fish.