Contact Part 2

Advanced and Uncooperative
Full episode can be found here

With Aquilina being questioned carefully by Daniel, Reyna and Radek have spent their time examining the armor she was wearing. It becomes quickly aparant that Aquilina is more than she's letting on, the armor will only activate for those with the gene naturally. Because of this, Carson Beckett agrees to try it seeing as Sheppard and Vega are busy preparing for contact with the Olim. Chuck witnesses the almost symbiotic relationship of the armor and its wearer, and he sums it up quite simply.

With the armor being studied, John, Samantha and Daniel work with Aquilina to contact her people. The tension on Atlantis is at high levels, with the marines having nicknamed Aquilina "The Bitch" since few can even pronounce Aquilina. Her condescending nature and outright racism towards their genetic advancement only exacerbates the sitaution, and soon only Danial is trying to advocate for peace.

Official Contact
Eventually, Aquilina contacts her people through the Stargate, Daniel recognizes her language as something akin to Ancient Greek and Roman, He's quite curious how such a thing could happen. Aquilina passes them over to her leader, Aulus Centaurus. Aulus is much more civilized and is quick to invite Atlantis's command staff to his colony of "Magna Secundus" Despite some reservations, the crew agree to go. John and Sam have come to a silent agreement to simply ignore their personal problems in the face of professional problems,

In contrasts, Ronon has broken up with Dusty for an unspoken reason.

Magna Secundus
Taking a Jumper along with a fire-team, John and Sam lead a diplomatic party to the Olim planet via Stargate. To their surprise, the Olim are quite advanced technologically, approximately five hundred years ahead of Earth's standard technology without any external assistance. They have hyperdrives, Naquadah power generation, high yield gauss technology, and ships that can double as buildings on the ground. Larrin herself is very impressed as she sees the allusion to her own people. Aquilina simply treats their questions with derision.

Aulus is completely unsurprised by the Jumper or any of the passengers, but when he greets Daniel, he's more than mildly disturbed by the gene therapy which he can sense through his advanced brain chemistry. To the group's surprise. Aquilina turns out to be Aulus's daughter and he chides her in front of them and forces an apology. Things seem to be on the up and up.

Bigots
Or so it seems. Quickly it's understood that the Olim value their genetic superiority and treat those whom they can sense as less advanced like second class citizens. From the Atlantis team, they only give Sheppard and Vega proper respect. They're condescending to everyone else, but especially Samantha and Larrin. They're unsure of Daniel but a little hostility is easily sensed.

As they sit to talk and share a meal, the conversation goes from Atlantis's beginnings, to Earth, to how Atlantis ended up in Hoag's Object. The Olim explain that they are the descendants of the original Alterran expedition to this galaxy and as such, are "first generation" unlike the humans of Earth and Pegasus. On more than one occasion, they act condescendingly and even outright insult the expedtion.

When Aulus's second and military head calls Samantha a "Monkey" in a derisive way to insult her intelligence about Alterran technology, John reactsa and moves to strike out. Samantha stops him with a simple hand on his arm and defends herself admirably. Samantha gives John a look of startled curiosity, to which John simply brushes it off. The meal passes without further incident, and Aulus excuses himself to prepare his control room for their tour.

Daniel Jackson has gotten much information on the Olim, but there's still much more they need to know. Larrin is pissed at them for "eyeing" her, while Samantha is determined to get on friendly terms despite their dislike of her. She subtly chides John over his reaction, and it's clear that the tension between them hasn't died down.

Repressed and Unleashed
Now following a tour guide, it's clear that the Olim have been here for awhile. The odd thing is there are very few noticable families or children around. It almost feels like a military base. As they descend into the Olim HQ though, the man oeprating the elevator silently calls Samantha a monkey again. John is about to turn to defend Samantha when she takes his arm and drags him forward.

They have a quick intense argument, which ends with them both still tense over the lack of any resolution one way or the other between them. Daniel quickly notices that despite their differences, they still care deeply about one another given their argument. He wishes they could just end it one way or another. His thoughts are quickly ended when they arrive deep inside a control room which rivals that of NORAD. Samantha and Larrin are quickly impresssed while John is reservedly quiet. Daniel continues his diplomacy.

Aulus mentions the Shade, and how he's amazed that Atlantis hasn't run into them yet. He quickly explains who and what teh Shade are, but he's suspiciously vague. It becomes almost like a game of verbal chess, each trying to get information on the other while giving up as little as possible, and remaining intimidating.

Samantha then calls the meeting off, having decided to regroup and approach this from a different angle. She's seen enough to prove their level of technology and even the Travelers are more technically advanced.

Outisde, Alicia, Dan and Dusty are joking about the Olim and their treatment of them. It's quickly interrupted when an alarm goes off, and looking up into the sky they can see dark splotches coming down towards the planet.

The Shade have arrived.

Fight in the Shade
Hearing the alarm and being briefed by Alicia, John and Samantha quickly come to blows again. John wants them to stay together, while Samantha wants to go back and assist Aulus. John finally tells Samantha that he doesn't have to follow her orders anymore and Samantha finally tells him to leave their personal problems out of this. In the end, they both seperate, John to defend the Jumper and the evacuating Olim, and Samanthat to coordinate the defense with Aulus in an attempt to show them why John and the others aquiece to her command.

Larrin is obviously very bothered by the incoming Shade, slowly descending towards the planet. Daniel makes it worse when he mentions that he thinks the name "Shade" comes from the old Spartan legend of Thermopylae, with the Persians firing so many arrows it would blot out the sun. John is quite disturbed, and Larrin stunned beyond belief.

Samantha offers her teams assistance, and between the two forces, a bloody and intense ground battle commences between the Olim, Atlantis, and the Shade. Aulus explains that the Shade intend to literally shatter the planet by boring into the core, then detonating a naquadah explosive inside. Samantha is amazed that creatures such as these could organically create such technology. ===Shade === See Full Article

A silicon based lifeform. The Shade come in many different sizes and shapes, but on Magna Secundus three are predominant. A small almost bipedal creature that resembles a dog in pack mentality and aggressiveness, a larger Jumper sized creature that can tear into the ground and metal like a hot blade into butter, as well as a capital ship sized Shade in orbit.. Several dozen of the smaller creatures are killed with bullet fire and the gauss weaponry of the Olim, but with hundreds raining down on the planet, it'sa futile holding action.

The Olim evacuate using theis ship buildings, but several have to escape using the Stargate. John is unwilling to leave Samantha behind and after a few of the larger Shade are destroyed using missiles (AT-4 and Stinger) The Atlanteans retreat to the Jumper and take several Olim with them. The DHD on the gate has been destroyed and now there's no escape without the Jumper.

The Shade seem intelligent enough to disable the gate, as well as swarming their targets from multiple angles. John watches as the Shade spread out, now swarming across the planet digging into it. Alicia tries to get John to think of something else besides Samantha, but it doesn't take well.

Samantha and Aulus quickly fall out of teh Olim HQ now that the Jumper has dialed Atlantis and more Olim are evacuating, John lands the Jumper outside the HQ and catches Samantha and Aulus as they exit the building. Samantha is adamant that John take the Olim leadership instead, and she then emphasizes her point by joining the battle along with several Alcaeus Armor wielders. John doesn't want to do it, but he has not choice now with teh Jumper full.

Samantha engages in a tough battle with the Shade alongside several Olim, a running firefight all the way to the gate. Several Olim fall beside her, and up above, the large Shade creature in orbit begins to emit a beam from orbit which creates weather partterns and even more, seems to be sucking the heat from the area. A large burst of the energy comes down just as Samantha reaches teh gate, and she's swallowed by a great rip in the Earth.

Falling down the loose dirt and rock, she loses he weapon and ends up inside an Olim Sub-Basement. She breaks her right leg in the fall and loses consciousness when the comet like energy hits the ground, freezing everything in the area.

Atlantis
Atlantis is pandemonium, almost a hundred Olim have come through and the Travelers are having trouble corralling them all. John quickly rushes to the control room from the Jumper bay, desperate to see if Samantha made it through. when the gate deactivates and she hasn't made it through, he realizes that without a DHD, nobody is leaving that planet via Stargate. He calmly asks Chuck to dial the planet, and miraculously, the gate is still functioning.

John feels the pain of leaving her behind. and quickly be goes over his head how he might be able to try and get her back. After discarding several ideas because the Shade would merely kill him, he realizes that with Aquilina's armor, he stands a chance of searching for Samantha. He quickly cedes command to Larrin and Alicia, and goes off to put the Armor on. Aulus asks John to forgive him for the incident, and given their tension, mistakenly comments that he too has lost a mate and knows what it feels like. John screams at him and tells him that Samantha isn't "his mate" and that if he doesn't come back with her alive, Aulus had better pray that whatever god he believes him is willing to protect him.

Redemption or Death
Alcaeus Armor

Quickly donning the armor, John ignores Reyna's pleas for him to stop as they have no idea what the armor will do to John. He quickly becomes used to it, and despite people screaming at him to stop. John steps through the stargate back to Magna Secundus to search for Samantha, and to redeem himself for all those he left behind before.