The Ark
Summary
The team boards a crippled space station to discover people have been preserved there with the hope to outlive their enemy, the Wraith.
Details
The team encounters two people who had been preserved in a technology designed to hold their patterns in an energy buffer. Stored like this, they hoped to outlive the Wraith. Over a thousand people have been preserved in this fashion.
Herick is the engineer behind the space station’s technology. He is released from his storage upon the team’s arrival. He restores Jamus, a leader of his people. Herick discovers that Jamus didn’t preserve his wife and son, while Herick claims that there wasn’t enough time. According to Jamus, the program was a secret and not all of the people could be preserved. When they launched their first shuttle of those to be preserved, the word got out and the people rioted. The second shuttle, the one on which Herick’s wife and son were most likely on, was delayed. They waited a day for the shuttle, but the Wraith came in the meantime. Fearing that the second shuttle’s navigational systems would lead the Wraith to their position, Jamus ordered that the second shuttle be destroyed. Afterwards, the entire planet was wiped out with nuclear weapons, making it uninhabitable for a very long time, ensuring that the Wraith would never return.
Herick is devastated, all hope has left him. No longer able to endure his grief and anger at Jamus, he commits suicide. His manner of suicide, however, leaves the rest of the people on the moon in danger as it begins to approach the planet’s atmosphere where it will burn up.
Because the entire population of the planet was killed, the people preserved in the storage device are the only survivors. Jamus takes Teyla hostage to guarantee that these last remaining people survive.
Guest Characters
- Major Lorne
- Herick
- Jamus
Production
- Story by: Don Whitehead and Holly Henderson
- Teleplay by: Carl Binder
- Directed by: Martin Wood
- Before cameras: August 25-September 5
Spoilers are subject to change as the episode remains in production.