Season 2, Episode 9 - Aurora
Air Dates - US: September 23 2005, Canada: September 19 2005

The Atlantis team discovers an ancient ship.

Episode Guide | Spoilers | 209/210 Teaser

(This topic is for people who have seen the episode to discuss it. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read this topic.)

What there are no other Canadians who saw this last night?

Ok I like this episode. It was good and much to my pleasure the ship did NOT look like it came off a Star Trek ship.

How was the Aurora found? The Altantis crew are using the new ZPM when the D is in orbit to power up different parts of Atlantis systems to see what they have and it activated a system wide fleet recall system. The Aurora suddenly popped up on its long range sensors. It was 1 million mile or something like that away. So they used the D. I thought this was a pretty solid premises and didn't see anything wrong with it.

They get to the ship and a wrath ship was there. The Aurora is one bigass mother of a ship but it surprised me in that it was not really a pretty ship. I was expecting more. At least the inside was cool looking.

I like the pods they found. At least it was not a alternate reality but only a virtual reality. It rang of loudly I might add of "Gamekeeper". It was the same premise. Yet again they did not touch on that by saying. "Hey I think SG1 encountered something like this once". It just was swept under the table and forgotten. I think Rodney is getting a backbone. When he volunteered to be the one to enter an empty pod it shows he has guts and later when the wraith woke up I loved Rodneys face. "OH sh*t!" He is so cute even as he runs with his tail bewteen his legs as he blindly fires at the wraith. At least he didn't release the clip this time.

I liked the twist with the Wraith actually doing something smart and not just thinking of their stomachs for once. To bad Shep fell for it and spilled the beans about Atlantis still being active but hidden. Shep, Shep do you always fall for the blond bomb shells or what? Get you head out of your penis will ya. You better hope that the Wraith did not send his message before he died. I suspect the message did get out.

Teyla looked good and was actually smart! I love how she handled Cadwell or what ever the D captains name is. He is a pain in the ass but you got to love him.

When I saw the blonde body whose life was sucked out of it I knew it was the 1st officer. It kinda gave it away before I even saw the evil smile on the officers face.

Over all I liked it. Things are getting better on Atlantis. It sure has been a slow year so far.

EDIT: I forgot to add. How weird was that that the people of the Aurora were no longer aware they were only in a Virtual Reality. But I guess after 10,000 years they could have forgotten.

This post has been edited by Auntie Em!: Sep 20th 2005, 8:00 AM

I really liked this episode, was hoping for a bit more Atlantian knowledge then they got (destruct codes ) But it reminded me of a Star Trek: Voyager episode. http://www.tv.com/star-trek-voyager/the-th...78/summary.html

All in all, it was entertaining, but alas, doesn't seem to progress the storyline at all.

Yeah. But that is what all of season 2 is like. It is just kinda floating around with no aim. No goal to be obtained. No direct enemy to fight.

Hmm, you make a good point there auntie em...since when are the episodes going to progress the storyline?
In the last episodes nothing much really helped into giving us more of an idea on what goes on at Atlantis.
But i guess in this episode we saw a bit more of the Ancient belongings, for example their ship.

What did you think about the exterior of the ship it was very strange and not worthy of a race that could build a ship like Atlantis. The inside did not fit the outside.

Well, they mentioned that the Wraith telepathic abilities were short-ranged. But just how short-ranged are they? I feel that it is too early in the season however for the Wraith to re-learn about Atlantis. Besides, the 2 cruisers were destryoed so I do not feel that the entire message got out, but perhaps only part?


I think the exterior of the ship definately looked like the outside of an early model-Atlantian battleship which later got retired and became a scientific purpose vessel which survived an onslaught from a wraith attack.

Overall, a fun episode however but I saw the wraith twist coming for quite some time, even before we saw the First-officer's body on the Aurora.

Two things.....

One: How did the wraith ships die....Daedalus or Aurora...if Aurora...what kind of weapons it have...and if Daedalus did they use the beeming tech with nukes?

Two: Are there any screenshots the of Daedalus next to Aurora....size compariosn would be good.

Thanks guys!

Rodney said it's more likely the interface was recently reactived. (I'd say probably by the Wraith who realized they couldn't wake up the crew and interrogate them because they were too old)

What is it with the blue light in the VR? Is it supposed to add another layer of coolness to the series? (Pardon the pun - blue is a cool color, isn't it.) Well it worked much better than with the stupid new (full) opening credits.

Death by Aurora, via big-ass explosion caused by self-destruct.


It was probably put there to remind us that the ancients are "pure" and the blue on white sort of goes with the whole "pure, sterile" kind-of dreamy thing I guess they wanted in the VR.

can someone put a picture of this new ship on here i wud love 2 c it

You didn't miss much.

Ah that is right the *cough* copy you would have gotten Ted would be a Canadian copy. So was that the first time you saw the new credits?

I missed the part where Rodney says they were reciently reconnected. Now that makes a lot more sense.

Yes, I have seen the opening credits for the first time. They remember me of those silly hospital dramas openings in which all the doctors and nurses watch into the camera with a severe look on. Oh and the clinical blue just confirms that impression. I think they did the same kind of opening with close shots of everyone on Babylon 5. Never liked how they did it. Besides the blue coloring just confirms that all of season 2 is only a virtual reality.

I'll have my way with this season... you will see me opening a thread. I didn't want to judge prematurely and sat all through the episodes, but I didn't like many.

"McKay, you're drooling over a Wraith!!"

Yup. Extremely odd credits. Actually saw them before, but it still strikes me as, well, odd.

As for the episode... Actually I didn't think of Gamekeeper. T'was more like... The Matrix!! T'was pretty entertaining, despite being very Matrix-ish (and this I'm saying without having watched parts 2 & 3).

Very blue.

Enjoyed Teyla grasping for tech-babble-talk. Wow, that's the first time I'm saying that. "Enjoyed Teyla"... t'was a hilarious moment. Liked the chess opening, giving us a bit to work with between Weir and Ronon, not everything is sunshine in the New Guy Team thingie, er.

This one, unfortunately, also files under "decent". It wasn't bad. I can't say it was a bad episode. I also can't say it was a brilliant episode, like Trinity or Conversion. The story was straightforward and predictable, contributed nothing to the overall effort, once again we meet the Wraith in their fiendish schemes to over-take Earth and once again we stop them knowing about Atlantis still being out there and executing their evil schemes. Actually, exactly like Em said - "Yeah. But that is what all of season 2 is like. It is just kinda floating around with no aim. No goal to be obtained. No direct enemy to fight. ". The most it made me feel was liek Star Trek. Flying in our cool super spaceship, meeting an enemy, triumphing over the enemy, back to save the day yet another time with a cheesy ending. Meh. Well, at least unlike Star Trek, Atlantis has McKay and McKay-Sheppard banter.

"We take turns in saving each others' lives. This time it's my turn. You'll get to go next."

This post has been edited by Pitry: Sep 22nd 2005, 9:57 AM

i was hopping for more from the atlantians this ship looks like a hunk of junk theres no shape 2 it at all im very dissapointed

Atlantians\ Ancients tend to disappoint me in general. I mean, they've been building up to them being this compeltely utterly cool genius race for 7 years and then we get to meet more nad more of them and... how on Earth did they get to be as developed as they are? They're generally somewhat simplistic, dumb, and, well, cowards.

So... like... their ship colided with that hunk of junk, and is now lodged inside... right?

Because an ancient ship should never look that crappy.

I'd like to see you build something that lasts millions of years in space, colliding with who knows what as it drifts about and have it not turn out "that crappy". Not to mention it left Atlantis during the wraith Seige and therefore would have sustained heavy damage BEFORE it drifted about for millions of years.

It looks like I'm one of the only people on here that actually likes how it looks. It was realistic IMO. I would never have expected it to be in pristine condition after this long.

This is a race that was ten times more advanced 10,000 years ago than the Asgard are now, so the styling of that ship just looks like crap. I prefer an O'neill class ship.

The episode it self was kind of cool, I hope they figure out that weakness eventually and not just forget this episode ever happened like they did for some of the SG-1 episodes.

I was also thinking that maybe like a bunch of sections of the ship were blown off from a battle or something, so that is not the actual shape of the ship just a small section of it.

If anyone had the eyes to see the ship then they would have noticed that it had been blown to pieces and was only barely intact. I did see the design (or what was left that you could interpret from the original) and I thought it very Ancient-like. Its rear where the engines would have been seemed to look like a triangle shape from what I could deduce. I think it was mentioned earlier that it was quite possible that this ship could have been an Ancient scientific ship, or one that was never originally intended for battle. Yet, it was probably transformed into one due to the need for battle-worthy ships...and even then it could hold its own...

Very sad. I really wish they could have at least gotten the information they needed before it went up in flames. Figures the producers would ruin such an awesome opportunity for the team.

Oh, and that poor Ancient first mate that was killed off by the Wraith... She was probably a very enchanting lady at one time...I can see why McKay was enthralled.

Aquila The Ancient

Great episode, wish they had more in it, like more interactions with the Ancients. Mckay: "To talk to a real live ancient of a life-time." Looks like we get to wait some more, I mean Sheppard did talk to them, but he got nothing useful. Also looks like they are trying to make Wizard of Oz jokes in this show like Sg-1. Sheppard: "There's no place like home." that was funny

Woo-hoo! I finally got to see it!

Loved it despite the obvious Matrix and Gamekeeper similarities. McKay is hilarious. I must have told him (if only he could hear me) to get his gun out at least three times from the time the Wraith's pod opened 'til the commercial break. And the running away while ducking/cowering and shooting is, or at least it will become, a classic McKay moment. All that aside, I agree that no story line was moved forward, except for the fact that we now know the Wraith have a weakness. But it's still a good stand-alone episode, and there is character development.

Ok, someone asked about a pic with the Aurora and Daedalus together...

I have no idea how far apart they are, but I assume the Daedalus is in the foreground, and the Aurora is still a whole lot bigger.


And here's the Aurora self-destructing, taking the two Wraith cruisers with it... I believe I saw a question about this as well.

It's beautiful!

I mean if you actually look at it and try to deduce what it may have looked like...reminds me a little bit about the ships from the Alien series...mostly the second one...Nostromo was it? or was that the first one? anyway way more realistic than a lot of other aerodynamic forms you see in other sci fi series...come on there is no matter in space no need for aerodynamics...form meets function...which reminds me...why do they always let the ships give off sound...last time I checked...in space no one can hear you scream Yes it does sound cool...but realistic...not really...

And btw "for the crew of the Aurora" -lifts glass and sniffs-