stargate atlantis travellers

The Travelers are a technologically advanced race of Humans in the Pegasus galaxy who have escaped being culled by the Wraith by hiding aboard generational ships which travel throughout the Pegasus galaxy .

• 3 Technology
• 5 Known Travelers
• 6 Site Navigation

Overview [ ]

The Travelers are a spacefaring race of humans who decided to escape the Wraith by launching themselves into space, thereby making it impossible for them to be pinned down in one place. Over the ten-thousand years following the defeat of the Lanteans , they remained aboard their ships, landing as needed for supplies but otherwise keeping on the move. However, without a home base and with virtually no other advanced civilizations in the galaxy, they have been forced to improvise to maintain their fleet. As such, they cannot build new ships, and those that remain are often repaired using mismatched components and haphazard reconstruction.

Culture [ ]

Traveler food.

The Travelers are led by a Governing Council which makes all major decisions pertaining to the race as a whole such as alliances and decisions of war. Individual ship captains, however, make most decisions that apply to their ships individually, such as whether or not to enter a battle. Traveler "law" does not prohibit torture on supposed friendly races. ( SGA : " Travelers ", " Be All My Sins Remember'd ")

Technology [ ]

Traveler technology is relatively advanced compared to that of most other Pegasus civilizations. They have hyperspace -capable starships , hand-held and ship-mounted energy weapons, and shielding technology. Curiously, Traveler technology is different from most FTL-capable races as it is not based on Control crystals , but on more primitive wires and chips. They are currently the only known civilization that has mastered interstellar travel before mastering crystal or other forms of more "exotic" technologies.

Due to their lack of supplies, Traveler ships are very old and held together with a large amount of jerryrigging; most of their scientific resources and efforts are spent maintaining their old and relatively large fleet. Loose wires can seen hanging in most corridors, and Dr. Radek Zelenka has described their hyperdrives as having been assembled from mismatched components (no doubt due the scarcity of necessary replacement parts). They possess a limited understanding of Lantean technology , enough to operate Lantean ships and conduct basic repairs, but lack the Ancient Technology Activation gene .

Travelers wear armbands which serve as a communication device and a radiation sensor. They also have hand-held computers which can be interfaced with other technologies. They make use of spy-satellites with subspace communication abilities to monitor activity in other solar systems. ( SGA : " Travelers ")

History [ ]

Although once able to build new ships as needed, long term space travel has deprived them of the resources necessary to construct new vessels. Overpopulation and heavy amounts of juryrigging are prevalent. A solution to this problem came when the Travelers discovered an abandoned Lantean Aurora -class battleship . Unable to fly it themselves, they mounted a trap to capture Lt. Colonel John Sheppard , who they knew possessed the Ancient Technology Activation gene necessary to make the technology work. Though Sheppard wasn't cooperative, they eventually engineered an interface using blood samples from him. Sheppard convinced Larrin to let him go, and told her that a spacefaring race such as theirs could one day turn the tide in the battle against the Wraith . ( SGA : " Travelers ")

When the Asurans began to annihilate human worlds to deprive the Wraith of their food source, Sheppard approached Larrin to enlist her aid in battling their fleet. She presented their plan to the Traveler Governing Council , and several ships were committed to the battle, including their Lantean battleship. The Atlantis expedition made further repairs to the vessel prior to the battle, making it combat-worthy. Though the attack on the Asurans succeeded, one of their generational ships was lost in the battle . ( SGA : " Be All My Sins Remember'd ")

In 2008 , the Travelers decided to establish a permanent settlement on a planet for the first time in generations. Disaster struck when the Attero device was activated, causing the Stargate on that planet to explode when it was activated. Three ships were lost, including their Lantean battleship, and more than 3000 people were killed. Katana Labrea 's ship was dispatched to Atlantis to ascertain the cause of the explosion, then aided the Atlantis expedition in the destruction of the device. Her ship defeated two Vanir spaceships in the battle that followed and saved the Daedalus . ( SGA : " The Lost Tribe ")

It's later revealed that Lieutenant Aiden Ford , believed lost in the Battle of Edowin , was in fact alive and among the Travelers. After Ford had escaped the hive ship he was on during the battle, the Travelers found him on Edowin and took him in. One of their doctors was a former Wraith worshipper and thus knew how to treat Ford's Wraith enzyme withdrawal . With the Travelers help, Ford eventually recovered and took the fight to the Wraith a bit with their help until he was found again by the Atlantis expedition. Afterwards, Ford left the Travelers and returned to Earth with his wife and son. ( SGA : " The Third Path ")

Known Travelers [ ]

• Katana Labrea
• Traveler (Travelers)
• Traveler (Be All My Sins Remember'd)
• Aiden Ford (formerly)

Site Navigation [ ]

• 1 Goa'uld
• 2 Stargate SG-1

Travelers is the fourth episode of Season 4 of Stargate Atlantis .

• 3.1 Characters
• 3.3 Planets
• 4.1 Casting

Returning from a mission, Sheppard is captured by a space-faring civilization. He makes a deal with them to help them create a way to fly an Aurora-class warship they found but instead commandeers it and sends a distress signal. The signal is picked up by the Wraith.

MacKenzie (Travelers)

Asuran , Athosian , People of Planet 1 (Travelers) , Satedan , Tau'ri , Traveler , Wraith

M35-117 , Planet 1 (Travelers) , Planet 2 (Travelers)

Ancient Technology Activation gene , Atlantis Control room , Atlantis Mess hall , Blood , Control chair , Cruiser , Dart , Drone , Dwarf star , F-16 , Fantastic Four , Force field , G-force , Hive ship , Hyperdrive , Inertial dampener , Life signs detector , Morse code , Pegasus , Puddle Jumper , Radiation , Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence , Shield , Spacegate , Star (Travelers) , Star system (Travelers) , Stargate , Steak , Sublight engine , Subspace , Traveler Aurora-class warship , Traveler Communicator , Traveler Radiation detector , Traveler Spaceship , Traveler Spy satellite , Traveler Weapon , Wraith Stun pistol

• Samantha Carter ( Amanda Tapping ) does not appear in this episode.
• Stargate Atlantis Season 4

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Cast & Crew

Jill Wagner

Kavan Smith

Major Evan Lorne

Sean Rogerson

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SGA 4.05 "Travelers" Episode Guide

• 1 Précis
• 2 MGM/SciFi.com Official Summary
• 4 Guest Stars
• 5 Production
• 6.1 Keywords
• 7.1 Official
• 8 Production Notes
• 9 Further Reading

Précis

Sheppard becomes the prisoner of a group of ship-faring people known as the Travelers who wish to use his Ancient gene to reactivate long-dormant Ancient technology — specifically, an Ancient Aurora-class battle ship. Guide  |  Transcript

MGM/SciFi.com Official Summary

While flying a Jumper home from a research outpost, John Sheppard is abducted by a group of wandering space-travelers. Aboard one of their huge but dilapidated vessels, the ship's second-in-command, a man named Silas, beats up Sheppard, hoping to discover where he's from.

When that doesn't work, the ship's commander, a hard-edged woman named Larrin, tells Sheppard that her people became perpetual space-dwellers long ago to avoid the Wraith. Now, with their fleet growing too decrepit to support them, they need Sheppard's help. They've discovered a derelict Ancient warship, and because Sheppard possesses the Ancient Technology Activation gene, he's the only man who can get it running for them. By way of incentive, Larrin adds that if Sheppard won't cooperate, she'll jettison him into space.

Sheppard, Larrin, Silas and a scientist named Nevik board the Ancient warship. It suffers from a massive radiation leak, but Larrin has put up shields to protect key areas of the ship from the deadly emissions. On the bridge, Silas and Nevik order Sheppard to activate the ship. Sheppard complies, flying it forward with a jerk that sends his guards careening into walls. He ties them up and jumps the ship into hyperspace. Soon, however, Larrin exposes the bridge to the lethal radiation, forcing Sheppard to drop out of hyperspace and surrender to her if he wants to live.

Left behind by the hyperspace jump, the rest of Larrin's fleet starts tracking her down. Similarly, in Atlantis, McKay discovers an S.O.S. signal that Sheppard has rigged the Ancient ship to broadcast, so a rescue party departs immediately to its coordinates.

Unfortunately, a Wraith ship spots the signal, too, and attacks. Larrin reluctantly frees Sheppard so that he can fight back using the Ancient ship's weapons. He destroys the Wraith ship, but not before it knocks out the Ancient ship's hyperdrive and kills Silas and Nevik.

Now stranded and alone, Sheppard and Larrin are stuck in a tense stalemate, both hoping that their own rescuers arrive first. Sheppard takes over the ship's control room, but Larrin flees into the bowels of the ship. There, she comes face-to-face with a Wraith intruder, part of a boarding party that escaped the Wraith ship before its destruction. Sheppard saves her, but a life-signs detector reveals that more Wraith are also onboard. Outnumbered by their mutual enemies, Larrin and Sheppard must now work together even if it kills them — and it might.

• Joe Flanigan as Lt. Col. John Sheppard
• Amanda Tapping as Col. Samantha Carter
• Rachel Luttrell as Teyla Emmagan
• Jason Momoa as Ronon Dex
• and David Hewlett as Dr. Rodney McKay

Guest Stars

• Jill Wagner as Larrin
• Kavan Smith as Maj. Lorne
• Sean Rogerson as Nevik
• Michael Cram as Silas
• Scott Heindl as Wraith
• Chris Kalhoon as Crewman
• Written by Joseph Mallozzi and Paul Mullie
• Directed by William Waring

Related Articles

• Ancient Gene
• Puddle Jumper
• Season Four Episode Guides
• Episode Guides
• Season Four Transcripts
• Transcripts
• Previous: SGA 4.04 "Doppelganger" Episode Guide
• Next: SGA 4.06 "Tabula Rasa" Episode Guide

Related Links

• Official MGM Stargate Atlantis Website
• SciFi Channel 4.05 "Travelers" Episode Guide
• Solutions On-Site Forum: Season Four Discussion Board
• Solutions News and Spoiler Blog
• Stargate Screencaps: Season Four

Production Notes

• "a gift for all those of the Shep-whumping persuasion" (Joseph Mallozzi's blog)
• Joseph Mallozzi's one-word description of this episode is "rivalry". (Joseph Mallozzi's March 5 blog)
• "Joe Flanigan swung by the offices today to give us his thoughts on a couple of scripts. He LOVED Travelers. No surprise there." (Joseph Mallozzi's March 5 blog)
• "Thor94 writes: “Will we find real ally with advanced technology (…) beause there are ever 3 season and all people with advanced science was enemy(assurans,wraith,olesian) or destructed(ancient,people of "the ark")?” - Answers: Yup. Check out Travelers." (Joseph Mallozzi's March 19 blog)
• "Wil and I do a casting session for Travelers. This Larrin casting will be the death of me. [...] We talk to Paul Weber, our L.A. casting agent, regarding the Larrin part. Lots of interesting potential candidates." (Joseph Mallozzi's March 22 blog)
• "The lovely and talented Jill Wagner, formerly of Blade" has been cast as Larrin. (Joseph Mallozzi's March 27 blog)
• "As for which episodes fans should be looking forward to most for each member of the team - it‘s tough to say only because my opinion could be very different from fan opinion especially when you start factoring in the different fan factions. But, in my opinnion, I’d say: Travelers for Sheppard [...]" (Joseph Mallozzi's April 15 blog)
• "Jill is great as Larrin. Her group will put in at least one reappearance in the back of season four [see "Be All My Sins Remember'd"]." (Joseph Mallozzi's April 18 blog)
• "Yes, Travelers was a good size action episode for us. Jill is a friend of Jason's so I have met her last year and worked on Blade as well....the pilot of Blade that is....Blade 3 also but she was not in that. Jill is a fantastic sweetie and our cast loved having her around. Ashley [Earl, stunt double] was only one of her doubles for Blade.....Ashley is a friend of mine but she did not work on Travelers.....her other double Kylie Furneaux worked on the episode. We shot the episode "Missing" at the same time as Travelers so alot of my attention was over there, but you will love what gets on the screen all the same." (James "BamBam" Bamford's Gateworld Q&A, May 30)
• Carter will not be in this episode. (Joseph Mallozzi's June 2 blog)
• SCI FI WIRE's " Atlantis Adds New Race" features the Travelers. (July 12, 2007)
• "Watched the Day 2 Mix of Travelers yesterday. Great episode (Hey, Sheppard bruised and bloodied - what’s not to like?), and tremendous work on the part of Joel Goldsmith who produced a terrific score." (Joseph Mallozzi's August 2 blog)
• "I wanted to have a strong female character that was difficult for us to get a handle on, but who Sheppard had to rely on for his own strategic ends. So Joe Mallozzi and Paul Mullie wrote Travelers , which introduces a character who I think is going to become incredibly popular on the show. Her name is Larrin and she's this very sexy woman who kidnaps my character, beats the c**p out of him, then he beats the c**p out of her. They need each other and have to learn how to deal with one another." — Joe Flanigan, Starburst interview, published August 2007.
• "We introduced a new race called the Travelers just because we wanted to introduce a technologically advanced [race] to the Pegasus galaxy. It was something that was a little difficult to do because the Wraith tend to destroy technologically advanced races. So we created this race that are nomadic and live on ships, so they're never in one place long enough for the Wraith to catch up with them. What they essentially do is they travel from planet to planet that has been recently culled and they scavenge the technology that has been left behind and they use it to upgrade their ships. That was kind of an interesting facet to introduce this year as well. And we have an interesting character in the character of Larrin, who's their leader, played by Jill Wagner, who was on Blade: The Series . She's terrific." — Joseph Mallozzi in MSN TV Blog interview, September 27, 2007.
• About Larrin and the Travelers: "As I mentioned, they're kind of nomadic. They live on ships. They have an armada of ships and they go from planet to planet to scavenge technology. This race is a loose cannon. On the one hand, they're on the run from the Wraith. So obviously they're no friend to the Wraith. But on the other hand, they are on the lookout for new technology. So they take a particular interest in Atlantis and Sheppard in particular in an episode called "Travelers." He's on his way back to Atlantis in a puddle jumper and his puddle jumper gets ambushed. The fact that he has the Ancient gene is of particular interest to them because there's plenty of Ancient technology in the Pegasus galaxy and he could prove useful. Basically he and Larrin go head to head. [..] How can I describe her? A lot of the fans who have heard about her have compared her to Vala. I guess in some respects she is Vala-esque in that she's a loose cannon and independent. But she's a lot more grounded, a lot more no-nonsense, not as flighty as Vala. She's not a thief. She's the leader of her people. "A tough cookie" would be a good way to describe her." — Joseph Mallozzi in MSN TV Blog interview, September 27, 2007.

Further Reading

• Joseph Mallozzi's Blog
• James Bamford's GateWorld Q&A
• Solutions Spoiler Blog: "Travelers"
• Solutions Spoiler Blog: Casting for "Travelers"
• Sci Fi Wire: Atlantis Adds New Race
• Starbust #354, Interview with Joe Flanigan, August 2007
• MSN TV Blog: All About 'Stargate Atlantis' Season Four, interview with Joseph Mallozzi, September 27, 2007.
• Solutions: SGA "Travelers": Friend or Foe?

-- DeeKayP 07:13, 1 June 2007 (PDT)

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StargateAtlantisS04E05Travelers

Stargate Atlantis S04 E05 "Travelers" » Recap

All that I know is that every time I get taken captive, it's the Wraith. Just once, I would like to be taken prisoner by the sexy alien . — McKay is a little bit jealous.

Sheppard is captured by a fleet of Space People while returning from a supply run to a tropical beach planet. His captors call themselves the Travelers and they are more technologically advanced than any other human civilization yet encountered in the Pegasus Galaxy. Their leader, a woman named Larrin, beats Sheppard up at length to establish dominance, then explains that they have salvaged an Ancient Aurora -class Battle Cruiser, but lack the ATA gene necessary to operate the thing. They need Sheppard to initialize the systems so they can perfect their interface device to get around the problem.

Sheppard agrees - since the alternative is vacuum - but uses the earliest opportunity to steal the ship and drop them out of hyperspace. Larrin responds by flooding the control room with deadly radiation. Sheppard surrenders, but not before sending out an SOS via subspace static. Larrin in turn locks him up again and proceeds to browbeat him, literally and figuratively. His distress signal has attracted the Wraith, and the hyperdrive is down. Their only hope is to let Sheppard operate the drone chair to take out the Wraith ship, which means letting him out again, while Larrin shuts down the SOS and tries to repair the hyperdrive. They succeed in destroying the Wraith, but Sheppard escapes to the Auxiliary Control room before Larrin can retrieve him, and locks her in the chair room. Which she promptly blasts her way out of.

The two of them cat and mouse their way around the ship, each hoping that their own people will turn up first. The fun is cut short when they discover that four Wraith are also running around the ship. Once more, Sheppard and Larrin have to team up, and they manage to take out all the Wraith pretty handily. Sheppard even bluffs the last one with an empty gun. Having triumphed over adversity, the hero and heroine kiss... aaand Larrin zaps Sheppard with his own stun gun and locks him up once again.

The rest of the Travelers arrive, beating out Lorne and McKay by a matter of minutes. While the cloaked jumpers are still deciding whether to shoot, all of the ships, including Sheppard's, jump into hyperspace. Fortunately, though, Sheppard has since managed to talk Larrin into letting him go, and possibly forming an alliance later. After the ships jump away, Sheppard's jumper decloaks, and Lorne and the others take him home.

• Being Good Sucks : Sheppard has multiple opportunities to take the Aurora -class for himself, but his own moral code and Larrin's ruthlessness by comparison end up sabotaging all his efforts.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension : Sheppard and Larrin. Though Sheppard plays up the violence after he is rescued, Rodney is able to deduce from his evasiveness that Sheppard certainly thought she was hot, and complains that he never gets kidnapped by "the sexy alien".
• The Cavalry Arrives Late : By the time Atlantis wrangles together a rescue party, the Travelers make off with the Aurora -class and Sheppard only escapes because he talked Larrin into doing the right thing.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder : Larrin is saved by Sheppard multiple times and still insists on betraying him at the first opportunity. She's only barely convinced not to permanently kidnap him because it wouldn't be very smart to make even more enemies than she already has.
• Exploited Immunity : Sheppard, being a former mundane fighter pilot, has trained to withstand g-forces that a more advanced civilization like the Travelers never have to deal with thanks to inertial dampening, so he's fairly confident that he can tolerate a short burst from the engines without the dampeners as long as he's seated while Larrin and her crew get thrown into the walls because they're not ready.
• Everyone Knows Morse : Justified. Sheppard's SOS immediately identifies the sender as someone from Earth, and he knows his team will recognize it if they detect it. It still attracts the Wraith, though, because even though they don't know Morse, they can still recognize a repeating pattern.
• Generation Ships : Aside from resupply and trading, the Travelers live their whole lives on their ships. This is problematic because their ships are degrading and they don't have the resources or facilities to construct new ones, while their population continues to grow even with strict controls on reproduction.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress : When the Travelers order Sheppard to start moving the ship, he points out they really should have ordered him to engage the inertial dampeners first . Larrin considers it borderline psychotic that Sheppard would willingly accelerate a ship that, at full thrust, would render them stains on the rear wall.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero : Sheppard rigs an SOS using the damaged comm, expecting Atlantis to detect and track it. They do, but the Wraith also pick it up and they have ships in the area, so they arrive first.
• Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain : Threatened when Sheppard notes that, having just fed on Larrin, the Wraith's Healing Factor is at its peak, but he very much doubts the Wraith can grow a new head.
• Rewatch Bonus : McKay finds Sheppard's SOS with a program that the Ancients used to find artificial patterns in subspace, the first hint of the cosmic microwave background signal that Destiny was sent to investigate.
• Space People : Larrin admits that their ancestors may have originally taken to living in space to avoid the Wraith, but after so many generations it's simply become part of their culture.
• Spotting the Thread : Larrin accurately deduces that Sheppard did more than just take the ship into hyperspace when he is seemingly unconcerned by being recaptured. From that, she realizes that he's probably found a way to contact his people, despite the damaged subspace comm array.
• Thrown Out the Airlock : Larrin threatens to drop Sheppard out of her ship's hangar, going as far as opening the bay doors, leaving him standing on a force shield. Though she doesn't actually voice the threat beyond saying "Don't worry. You're safe as long as the force shield doesn't malfunction, and that almost never happens." Her crew previously state they assume she blew the last man who disappointed her out into space, though this could simply be posturing.
• Weapon for Intimidation : The Wraith commander has nearly drained Larrin dry and Sheppard only has a Traveler gun with a depleted power cell. The Wraith doesn't know that, however, so Sheppard is able to bluff him into restoring Larrin and retreating in a Dart lest Sheppard shoot his head off.
• We ARE Struggling Together : Larrin insists on kidnapping Sheppard so her people can use him to engineer a bypass for the ATA gene lock on their Aurora -class ship, when she could have just asked nicely and maybe made herself some allies. This naturally doesn't make Sheppard very willing to help her. Their competing agendas ultimately end up summoning the Wraith, and it's only because Sheppard is too decent a person to just let her die that Larrin comes out on top.
• Stargate Atlantis S04 E04 "Doppelgänger"
• Recap/Stargate Atlantis
• Stargate Atlantis S04 E06 "Tabula Rasa"

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On his way back to Atlantis, Lt. Col. Sheppard and his jumper are taken prisoner by a rogue ship helmed by a beautiful but ruthless human commander with a secret agenda.

Kavan Smith

Scott Heindl

Jill Wagner

Michael Cram

Sean Rogerson

Chris Kalhoon

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Joe Flanigan

David Hewlett

Rachel Luttrell

Jason Momoa

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